Donut Days Read Online Free PDF Page A

managers—to the camps, and the donagers were in charge of awarding free donuts and T-shirts to people like Lloyd who came from far away. Then Crispy Dream started awarding bigger prizes, like bicycles and gift certificates, to folks who camped out for a certain number of days. Eventually, Crispy Dream decided to give away the biggest prize of all—a huge $150,000 RV—to the person who, at any given opening, broke the existing thirteen-day camping record. The Crispy Dream website had already predicted that someone at the Birch Lake opening would do it.
    The prizes were cool, but I had my own reason for heading to the Crispy Dream donut camp. Not that I was going to get into it with Lizzie, but suffice it to say, the Paul Bunyan Press was offering a college scholarship to the high school student who could write the best feature story about the camp, and I was determined to win. I needed that money—big-time.
    “Will you bring me back a donut?” Lizzie asked, fiddling with the button on the glove box.
    If I win the scholarship, I’ll bring you a truckful of donuts , I thought. But instead I just said, “Yeah, sure. I’ll bring you a donut. What kind?”
    “Pink,” she said. “With pink sprinkles.”
    Well, that figured.

Chapter Five
    B y the time Mrs. Stein finally dropped me off at the new Loon Willow outdoor shopping complex, where the Crispy Dream store would open, it had been dark for about an hour, though you’d never know it from the glow of the streetlights, car lights, and RV lights that blazed around me. I didn’t even need my flashlight as I crossed the freshly tarred parking lot toward the Crispy Dream donut camp.
    An RV rolled by me, country music blaring out its windows. As it pulled past, I read the bumper stickers:
    So many cats, so few recipes.
Real men weld.
Horn broken, watch for finger.
    Even at 9:00 P.M., hordes of cars were still rolling through the parking lot. Two days until the opening and already the football-field-sized lawn behind the donut store—the one that used to be farmland, but where the Fox Run McMansions would soon go—was packed. The Press had reported that people would be camping out for days—and in some cases maybe even weeks—in advance of the opening, but I wouldn’t have believed it unless I’d seen it for myself.
    There were a few kids my age milling nearby, and although I didn’t recognize them, I wondered if they were there for the Press’ s scholarship too. It was a huge prize, and I could imagine parents and guidance counselors from all over Minnesota shooing kids out the door and making them try for it. Ironically enough, I already had a college fund—my parents had been saving for it since I was born—but, as I found out after the baptism, they’d put restrictions on it.
    I certainly didn’t think that’s what we’d be talking about on the Sunday evening after the baptism, after our phones had been blasting nonstop from people dissecting what Mr. O’Connor had said. By dinnertime, my parents had turned off the ringers and insisted we have a family meal together. The silence from the muted phones was so complete, I pictured the bottom of the ocean, where the aching pressure wipes out sound and light.
    At dinner my parents seemed shell-shocked, like they were still replaying the day’s events in their heads, and consequently they hardly said a word to me. After it was over, I was glad to leave the table to stand at the counter by myself, waiting for my mom to finish washing a few plates so I could dry. To pass the time, I absentmindedly leafed through the messy pile of college brochures that had accumulated on the counter.
    My dad, who had his Bible spread open at the kitchen table and was studying the book of Acts, surprised me by asking, “Any thoughts on where you might want to go to school?” They were practically the first words he’d spoken all night. My mom stopped scrubbing, I guessed so she could hear my reply.
    “Uh, I don’t know,”