Ascending the Boneyard Read Online Free PDF Page A

glimpse of Devin’s skateboard in the entryway and stop short. Take a sharp turn, pick it up, run my fingers across the sandpaper finish, over the Mexican Virgin Mary painted on the bottom. I never asked him why he picked a deck that had a religious symbol on it; I mean, we’re not even Mexican, let alone Catholic. Now, thanks to that bird, I’ll never know.
    The low sound of the news broadcast drifts through the trailer like dust particles, and I angle my face toward the TV.
    They’re still sucking every ounce of lifeblood out of the dead-bird story.
    For the umpteenth time, they replay the clip with the green drink cup and the barely alive bird next to it, and it hits me.
    I bet that’s where the old man went.
    I bet in his twisted logic, he figured he’d take my brother down there to see the birds, not thinking that the last time any of us went to Goofy Golf was the day I practically killed Devin. Besides, the old man has no idea that me and Haze committed birdicide that day, but I do. And somewhere, buried deep in his mostly abandoned head, Devin knows it too.
    Save it.
    The bird. I wonder if I’d get Ascent Credits for saving that bird, for getting that one thing right this time.
    Adrenaline speeds through me as I toggle my gaze between the TV and the skateboard, and before I can give it a rational dose of thought, I throw the front door open, deck in hand. I’ll bring it right back, I silently promise Devin.
    But as my foot hits the top step, the echo of Stan’s work boot ripples the thick air around me. I glance up, half expecting his Termi-Pest truck to be backed into the driveway, even though I know it’s impossible. That truck, Stan, my mom, they’re long gone.
    I palm the side of my head to knock the thought out of it, to kill the noise. I pop in an earbud, quick scroll through my music files, fire up a little Bunny Puke, and bump up the volume as high as I can stand it.
    Halfway down the block, I toss the skateboard onto the ground and hop on. It isn’t long before I remember what an incompetent skater I am and what a gigantic dickweed I must look like, thrash-spasming just to stay upright. But I elbow my deflating ego to the side just for the moment because I need to find that bird. Somehow I’m supposed to save it—the message said so.
    Not that it matters about my lack of boarding skills since there’s no one out here to impress. Not a soul on the streets. No cars, no pedestrians. I might as well be skating down an abandoned highway in the Boneyard.
    My heart is moshing against my ribs as I whiffle into the parking lot of Goofy Golf and stumble off the skateboard.
    A mind-boggling number of news vans have lined up end-to-end along the frontage to the park. Some of the vans are from Ohio stations, but most of them sport out-of-state call letters painted on the sides, and all of them have satellite erections springing out of some unseen orifice in the vehicles’ roofs. The parking lot is littered with talking heads and cameras and microphones, and in the middle of it all, one lone, bright yellow truck that looks suspiciously like Stan’s bug-mobile, right down to the oversized cockroach on top. The sight of it trips a hate-wire inside me, but I can’t let myself stumble over that—not now.
    I hop off Devin’s deck, pocket my earbuds and phone, and take a view of my surroundings. I’m grateful to be on solid ground, but I can’t deny the severe muscle throb from the shock of physical activity as I make my way unnoticed through the maze of cars and cables and journalists.
    I struggle to orient myself in the midst of all the chaos. The spin in my head, the ring in my ears . . . the overwhelming sense of being knocked off-balance. I force myself to focus, to remember that the reporter had been standing down in the go-kart pit. So I need to shake it off, because my first order of business is to find that discarded drink cup