Bone Gap Read Online Free PDF Page B

the live tents said, “Hey! What are you two doing with my goat?”
    Miguel said, “What’s your goat doing with us?”
    A dry coughing noise made them all turn. A rusty moped put-putted past them, a red wagon bouncing behind it, streaming smoke. The driver was dressed in white coveralls and a mesh face mask. Like a fencer. Or a villain in a slasher movie. There was only one person in Bone Gap who drove a moped while dressed like a serial killer.
    â€œCome on,” Finn said, pointing in the direction of the moped.
    â€œThere are all these hot girls here, and you want to follow her ?” said Miguel. “Don’t you know when to give up?”
    Finn was an expert at giving up—wasn’t that why Sean was barely talking to him? But by now there were a few other people chasing after the sputtering, smoking machine. The group followed the moped and its rider all the way past the fairgrounds and down the main street.
    A huge mass of bees dangled like a living piñata from the weathered CHAT ’N’ CHEW DINER sign. The loud buzz drilled into Finn’s skull and made his teeth ache. Finn couldn’t imagine how many bees there were. Hundreds? Thousands? Millions? Once, at recess, one of Finn’s teachers—Miguel’s dad, José—had stepped into the nest of some ground bees. By the time Sean arrived in the ambulance, José Cordero had already been stung thirty-six times.
    Now Priscilla Willis hopped off her moped and leaned it against the window of Hank’s Hardware. She plucked a smoker from the wagon. She reached up and gave the bees a few puffsbefore setting the smoker on the ground. Then she grabbed a white box from the wagon bed and placed it on the curb, a couple of feet beyond the piñata of bees. She got a sheet and tucked one end underneath the box. The other end she tied around the door handle of the diner, the sheet slung between box and door like a hammock. She crouched next to the sheet, waiting.
    The people of Bone Gap crowded behind Finn and Miguel, also waiting. It didn’t take long for their low mutterings to give way to louder commentary. Their voices washed over Finn the way they always did. Like a strange sort of choir music, one voice blending into the next, the refrains so familiar that he could have mouthed the words along with them.
    â€œYour mom should keep a better eye on her bugs,” said one.
    â€œWho says they’re my mom’s bugs?” said Priscilla, not bothering to turn toward the voice.
    â€œDon’t you keep track?” said another.
    â€œSure,” said Priscilla. “We beekeepers tag every bee. See that one?” she said, pointing. “She’s number five thousand six hundred sixty-two.”
    â€œReally?”
    â€œEach bee also gets a tiny T-shirt with our logo.”
    â€œNo need to get sarcastic.”
    â€œWe own all the bees in Illinois,” Priscilla continued. “Billions and billions. That’s a lot of T-shirts.” A bee alighted on the girl’s hand. She didn’t brush it away.
    â€œWhat’s that box, Priscilla?”
    â€œDon’t call me Priscilla.”
    â€œIt’s the name your mother gave you.”
    Priscilla didn’t answer.
    â€œFine, fine. What’s in the box, Petey?”
    â€œIt’s a hive body with a few frames of comb in it,” Priscilla said, in a tone that said it was the dumbest question in the history of questions.
    â€œHer mom isn’t as cranky,” a woman informed the crowd. “She probably gets that from her daddy’s side.”
    â€œOh, that one! He was a good-for-nothing, and that’s the truth. Ran off with one of those jugglers from the state fair. I remember because she had that red hair.”
    â€œStop telling tales. He didn’t run off with anybody. He started walking one day and kept right on going.”
    â€œShe’s better off without him, aren’t you