Island Boyz Read Online Free PDF Page B

total blank. The thoughts and words he needed to tell the truth were just not there. Part of him wanted to get it out, get the whole thing over. But a stronger part of him was terrified.
    “I don’t know anyone named Julie,” he mumbled.
    Mr. Bentley sat back in his chair.
    Mr. Noonan’s silence was almost too much for Keiffer to bear.
    “I’m going to ask you one more time, son,” Mr. Toms said. “Is that letter yours? This is very important. Expelling a boy from this school is no small thing. Now I want you to tell me—did Mr. Nitt take that letter from your room like he said he did?”
    Keiffer’s thoughts raced.
    He saw, in his mind, the hot cigarette nearly burning his armpit, and he saw himself stripped naked in the pasture. He saw Nitt kicking him in the hallway, and the hate and rage in his eyes. He saw him shoving Casey and calling him a homo. And the cookie box with the missing cookies, and the centipedes in his bed, and the stolen letter, his letter, his, the private one he wrote that was meant for no one else to see but himself, no one, ever.
    “Son?”
    Keiffer could not speak. He was gone. He knew it. Gone, gone, gone. He’d pack tonight probably. Call his mom.
    There was a long silence.
    He’d tell them the truth.
    Keiffer felt himself swaying, just slightly. He could hardly keep from passing out.
    Tell them.
    Keiffer shook his head. “No sir. I did not write that letter.”
    Mr. Toms studied him. A long, thoughtful look.
    Finally he said, “I’m inclined to believe you.”
    Keiffer looked up, then down. Then up.
    Mr. Toms breathed deeply, thinking. He rubbed a hand over his face. A truck shifted gears out on the road, the sound of the engine falling, then rising again.
    Mr. Toms stood. “You can go, Mr. Keiffer.”
    Keiffer stayed where he was.
    Tell him, he thought. Tell him now.
    Keiffer stood and left the room.
     
    In less than twenty-four hours Nitt was history.
    Put on a plane to Honolulu.
    Expelled.
     
    For days Keiffer felt awful. He didn’t know what he’d meant to do, but getting Nitt kicked out of school wasn’t part of it. He’d just wanted to . . . to get him. That’s all. Just get him.
    And he did, better than he’d ever even imagined, and that felt good.
    Yes.
    No, it didn’t.
    He would tell. To lie was wrong.
    But what did it matter anymore? He was going crazy anyway. He was already a whack. Mrs. Noonan had made him that way.
    All right, he decided. I’ll do it. I’ll tell. Just not right now. But soon.
     
    Keiffer kept more to himself than ever after that, going a little crazier every day, he thought. His life was one big mess. He waffled back and forth many times a day: Tell, now. No, it’s done, let it be.
    But above all else he had to get Mrs. Noonan out of his mind. If it hadn’t been for her, none of this would have happened.
    He stopped eating for a while. Then started again, nibbling. Never laughed or smiled. Never tried to talk to anyone. Just sank down into himself.
    And, eventually, he even began to stop dreaming about Mrs. Noonan.
    But then . . .
    He was outside in the quad one sunny afternoon when he saw Mr. and Mrs. Noonan walking toward him. They were holding hands.
    Maybe his mind was playing tricks on him, but Keiffer thought Mr. Noonan seemed to have taken on a new way of looking at him since that meeting in Mr. Toms’s office. It was really weird, because Keiffer thought it was a look of admiration, almost as if Mr. Noonan respected him for having had the guts to talk with Mr. Toms the way he had. Stand up to Nitt’s lie like he did.
    Even so, Keiffer found it almost impossible to look Mr. Noonan in the eye. He’d glance at him and turn away quickly. That’s how it usually went.
    Mr. Noonan smiled as he and Mrs. Noonan approached.
    They stopped.
    “How’s it going, Keiffer?” Mr. Noonan said.
    “All right.”
    “Staying out of trouble?”
    “Yes sir.”
    Mr. Noonan grinned and tapped Keiffer’s shoulder. “Good man. Say, have you ever