Breaking Point Read Online Free PDF

better.
    Washington, D.C.
    "We're going to Oregon," Tyrone Howard said. He grinned.
    Nadine Harris, who at thirteen was the same age as Tyrone, returned his smile in a larger, white-against-chocolate version. "Exemplary, Tyrone. Congratulations!"
    They were at the soccer field at their school, where they had gone to practice throwing boomerangs.
    "No," he said, "we are going to Oregon. My dad, my mom, me, and you."
    She blinked at him. "What?"
    "I asked if you could go. My parents said it was okay. We can both enter the tourney. I might even let you win."
    She laughed. "Let me win? In your dreams, funny boy. Last I looked, my best hang time was seventeen seconds better than your best. Your 'rang comes down, you're packed up and halfway home before mine even apexes."
    "That was then, honey chile, this is now." He waved his backpack.
    "It came?" She knew right away what he was talking about. That was one of the things he liked about her. She wasn't the most beautiful girl in the world, but she was athletic, and she was very quick.
    He nodded. "Yep. In this morning's mail."
    "Lemme see, lemme see!" She reached for his backpack, and he quickly jerked it back.
    "Hey, easy! I don't want you to damage it."
    "I'll damage your head if you don't give it up right now!"
    He laughed. From inside the backpack, he produced the object in question--a new boomerang.
    And not just any boomerang, but a Larry Takahashi KinuHa --a Silk Leaf--a paxolin MTA L-Hook identical to the one that Jerry Prince had used to win maximum time aloft at the Internationals last year. It had cost him sixty-five dollars, plus insured shipping, and it came pre-tuned and ready to throw. Prince had spiraled his up at the Internationals in Sydney last summer and hung it for five minutes and sixteen seconds--with a thirty-klick-per-hour wind blowing. On a calm day, word was he could keep it in the air a whole lot longer, in practice anyway.
    The boomerang was lightweight, thin, and flexible, made from layers of linen and glue, and colored a psychedelic electric blue with a black leaf stenciled on the long arm. The blue made it easier to spot if you missed a catch and it augered into the grass.
    "Wow," Nadine said.
    "So, are you going to come with us?"
    She looked up from the 'rang. "I dunno. My mom planned to have me doing yard work this summer. Mowing the lawn, helping the old lady across the street with her garden, like that."
    "It's not the whole summer, it's only three weeks. My mom said she'd talk to yours. C'mon, Nadine, how often are you going to get a chance to enter the Junior Nationals, if they aren't here in town?"
    "Oh, I'll ask, 'cause I'd love to go. Oregon." She pronounced it "Ory-gone."
    "My dad is borrowing an RV from somebody he knows," he said. "It'll be cheaper than staying in motels and eating out. It'll sleep like eight, and there's only four of us. Dad says we'll take five or six days to drive out, spend a week there, then a leisurely drive home. We'll get there like two days before the JN, have time to practice."
    "It sounds great. Doesn't it rain all the time out there, though?"
    "Nope. My dad goes out there in the winter sometimes for survival training. It's desert and snow and all on the eastern side of the state in the winter, but pretty green and sunny in Portland in the summer."
    "They still have Indians out there, don't they?"
    "Yeah, they own casinos. And the cowboys herd cattle in helicopters or riding on ATVs. It's the northwest, dummy, not Bali."
    "You talk too much. Show me what you got." She waved at the new 'rang.
    "No, you get to throw it first," he said.
    "Really? No, I couldn't."
    "Yeah, you can. Then I can beat you and make you feel bad."
    "Hah. Gimme it."
    He smiled as she took the new boomerang and headed out to where they had chalked a throwing circle. He sure did like her. She wasn't gorgeous like Belladonna Wright, and Nadine didn't make his heart race as Bella had done with a touch or a look, but he enjoyed being around her.