The Liberation of Gabriel King Read Online Free PDF Page B

was afraid of.
    We walked a little farther, but I stuck close to Frita. The old dirt road was worse than ever on gloomy days like this, and I was jumpy as a flea. The roots of my hair were still standing on end.
    “Maybe we should go back to my place…,” I said, but Frita gave me that look again.
    “Gabriel King,” she told me, “this is good practice. I bet a million dollars the old dirt road is on your list too, isn’t it?”
    “So?” I said.
    Frita got that look in her eye.
    She thought for a minute, then, before I knew it, she took off running. Just like that. I tried to catch up, but Frita was way faster than me and pretty soon I was all by myself.
    “Frita?” I hollered.
    There was no answer, so I stopped and stood in the middle of the road. It was silent and shadowy and the rain was making a mist, thick as pea soup.
    “Frita?” I said again, only this time it came out as a croak.
    Only there was no Frita.
    I looked back over my shoulder, thinking I might head home again, but the way back looked just as creepy as the way forward. Shadows danced in both directions.
Truck shadows, cow shadows, and huge looming Terrance shadows.
    My muscles froze so I could barely move. I thought about calling for Pop, but I knew he would never hear me. Instead I took one step, then two steps…Then I heard it. Sounded like a freight train coming straight at me. First the deep roar of the engine, then the bellow of the horn. I turned and sure enough, there were two headlights coming closer and closer…
    My eyes opened wide, but still I couldn’t move an inch.
    There was an eighteen-wheeler headed straight toward me. The horn sounded again, louder this time, and I tried to make my legs go, but I was stuck in place. One more minute and I’d be buzzard food for sure.
    That’s when something snapped. I sprung like a rubber band stretched too tight and dove into the ditch. The horn bellowed one more time, so loud I had to cover my ears with both hands. I lay flat and shut my eyes, but still I felt it in mystomach as the eighteen-wheeler roared by with a gust of wind and water.
    After that, everything was silent. Everything except Frita, whooping in the distance.
    “
Woo-hooo!
Wasn’t that great?” she hollered from somewhere far away. “Did you hear that? You hear how he laid on that horn for us?”
    Her voice was getting louder and louder as she ran toward me. I stood up and brushed myself off, but my legs were Jell-O and my heart was going really fast. I felt around in the grass until I found my jar and flashlight.
    Frita caught up to me and skidded to a stop.
    “Did you see the truck driver wave, Gabe?” she asked, dancing around in her yellow slicker. “That was the best.”
    Best wasn’t exactly the word I’d have used to describe it, but Frita didn’t care. She was all excited.
    “Come on,” she said. “Let’s run super fast.”
    I wasn’t sure my legs would move at all, let alone
super fast
, but Frita took off and I wasn’t about to get left behind twice. I followed like a calf at her heels. She ran past the catfish pond and kept running until we’d reached the swampy area deep in the woods.
    “You sure we should be back here?” I asked.
    Frita waded into the muck. “Yup,” she said. She pulled her flashlight out of her pocket. “It’s perfect.”
    I didn’t see what was so perfect about it. There’s nothingin a swamp but creepy old cypress trees with roots that stick up out of the ground, and Spanish moss that hangs down. There are slick snakes that slither by and spiderwebs with giant yellow-and-black spiders hanging in the middle. Plus, Terrance said there are corpses in the swamps. Corpses of kids half eaten by alligators.
    Corpses and alligators were
both
on my list.
    I tiptoed in, barely getting my feet wet, still thinking about the way that truck had barreled by.
    “Frita?” I hollered. “Let’s go home.”
    She was way ahead of me, shining her flashlight into the gray gloomy trees. I