Close to the Heel Read Online Free PDF Page A

usually pretty slick about hiding his feelings, stood in the doorway to the kitchen, briefcase in hand and stared at me in astonishment.
    â€œSupper will be ready in five minutes,” I said without turning around.
    He disappeared and was back again exactly five minutes later. I’m not kidding. The kitchen timer went off just as he pulled out his chair at the table. He’d showered and changed out of his uniform and into jeans—the only jeans on the planet with a knife-edged pleat down the front of each leg—and a blindingly white T-shirt.
    I served him some casserole and passed the salad. We ate in silence for a few minutes. Then he put down his fork and leaned back in his chair.
    â€œI still don’t like the idea, Rennie.”
    The Major isn’t precise just with his time and his appearance. Or just with rules and the law. Or tidiness and orderliness. He’s also precise—extremely precise—with his choice of words. So my ears pricked up. He hadn’t said, “No, and that’s that.” He had said, “I still don’t like the idea.”
    I knew better than to interrupt. I forked a slice of tomato into my mouth and chewed slowly.
    â€œWhat kind of man sends teenaged boys all over the world?” the Major said.
    â€œHe was like that,” I said. “He had this idea that if you get out of your comfort zone and take on something, especially if it’s for someone else, you can learn more about yourself in a few days or a few weeks than you ever could in a whole lifetime of just doing the same old cautious thing day in and day out.”
    â€œSince when did you ever do the cautious thing?” the Major asked.
    â€œOkay, so maybe he meant that a person has to get out of his rut from time to time. Try something different.”
    â€œHe told you that?”
    I nodded.
    â€œIt makes a lot of sense,” the Major said.
    â€œYou would have liked him. He was a good guy.”
    â€œI know.”
    â€œWhat?” I stared at the Major. Like I said, he was precise in his choice of words. He hadn’t said, “Maybe,” or “I doubt it,” or even, “I guess we’ll never know.” He’d said, “I know.”
    â€œI did like him. I liked him a lot. But—”
    â€œYou met him?”
    â€œI talked to him.”
    I remembered. But that conversation had lasted ten minutes, tops. When I said that, the Major fixed me with one of his patented you’ve-got-to-be-kidding looks.
    â€œMy delinquent son disappears, calls me from Toronto after a couple of weeks and tells me he’s staying with his grandfather, and I’m not going to check out what he’s doing there?”
    Well, when he put it like that…
    â€œWe talked for a couple of hours.”
    â€œA couple of hours ?” That didn’t sound like the Major.
    â€œWell, he did most of the talking.”
    Now that sounded right.
    â€œA lot of it was about your grandmother. The rest was about you. He saw a lot in you.”
    He saw a lot? What did that mean?
    â€œWhat about school?” the Major asked.
    â€œHuh?”
    â€œYou said you enrolled in school. That was true, wasn’t it?”
    I nodded. “It’s semestered. I start in January. I was going to see if I could pick up a few credits in night school in the meantime.”
    The Major pondered this.
    â€œIf you were to do this,” he said finally, “if you were to go to Iceland…”
    I caught my breath and held it.
    â€œâ€¦you’d be careful, right?”
    â€œYeah. Sure.”
    â€œBy which I mean, you wouldn’t do anything there that you’re not allowed to do here—”
    â€œI don’t do that stuff anymore.” I really didn’t. “That’s what that whole camp thing was about, right?” Well, okay, so maybe it had started out as an alternative to a juvenile detention center. But they knew what they were