The Domino Effect Read Online Free PDF Page A

your mother’s idea and I fought her on it, I’m telling you I did, but she got her way, and that’s how it goes sometimes, but I’m telling you this, I want to see some maturity coming out of you this year. I want to see that kid your mother and I spent a lot of time raising. I want to see that kid become the young man we know you can be. I know you’ve had some hard times. I know it and you know it, but you gotta get over those things or they’ll eat you up. Capisci?”
    “OK, Pop,” I said in a way that made it clear I wasn’t taking him all that seriously.
    We drove along in silence for a minute, and I could feel his eyes on me.
    “So?” he asked.
    “So, what?”
    “You going to tell me what’s wrong or what?”
    I actually thought about it for a second. I swear. Growing up, he’d helped me, plenty of times, sort things out in the neighborhood with my friends and whatnot. So I knew, way down, if I told him the whole story about Todd Brooks and Brenda Divine, he would have some solid advice or something for me, some way for me to deal with the problem waiting in my room. But I didn’t know where to start. Talking about what happened last year, and talking about it with Pop, of all people, seemed too hard. So I didn’t say anything. But I didn’t say anything rude, at least, either. I just sat there with my eyes out the window, watching the tree line whiz past and worrying about what was going to happen when I got to Hamden Academy.

     
    We arrived as the campus was coming alive. Students and their parents lugged suitcases and trunks and whatnot in and out of the dorms. We drove through the area with the main buildings, under the Arch and around a field where the girls played hockey, to a parking lot between the two dorms where the fourth year men lived.
    I knew my dorm and room number already from a letter I got over the summer, so Pop and I started to carry in my stuff and stack it on the landing, next to my door, on the second floor. No sign of Todd Brooks yet, and I thought, for some reason, it meant something good that I got there first.
    With only a few trips to the car left, Pop disappeared. No sight of him until I brought everything else inside. He came out of the stairwell, wrapped an arm around my shoulder, and nearly cracked my collar bone with a short, hard squeeze.
    “Take care of yourself, Pal.”
    “You going already?”
    “Yeah,” he said, nodding and looking around. “Seems like you got things under control here.”
    “Where you been?”
    “Me?” he asked. “Nowhere, really. Just taking a look around.”
    “How’d that go?”
    “Not bad,” he said. “Place seems safe.”
    “Good to know.”
    “Yeah,” he said. “Well, OK, Pal. Take care of yourself. You’ll call home every Sunday, right? And you’ll behave yourself, right? And you’ll look out for other kids and do what’s right, right?”
    I nodded to all his demands, not really paying much attention until he walked through the doors. And when he was gone, I went upstairs to check in and get the key to my room.

     
    “Say that again?” I begged the guy who ran the dorm.
    He’d just told me something that nearly knocked me over. This guy was turning into my favorite guy, fast. When I’d gotten there, just a minute before, he’d called me by my name, Daniel, even though I’d never met him. I figured he maybe knew who I was because we’d had a big baseball season last year, and I’d been the best guy on the team, and they gave me an award at dinner one night, so maybe he remembered me from that or something, though he didn’t look too into sports, being middle-aged and kind of dorky. He wore glasses. I think he coached the drama team or something. Either way, I was pretty flattered and everything that he knew my name, but more happy about something else he’d said to me, so I asked him to tell me again what he’d told me before.
    “Pardon?” he asked, having a hard time keeping up with all that I was