The Prophet of Yonwood Read Online Free PDF Page A

fast, he might not be late after all. He took off.

    When he got to school, he told the first person he saw about the break-in, and then he told the next person, and pretty soon kids were crowding up around him. His friend Martin handed him a piece of paper and told him to draw the blood blot on it, exactly the way it was.
    I cant remember itexactly, he said. But it was more or less like this. He drew a gloppy string of blotches.
    Thats supposed to look like a letter? Martin frowned, peering at Grovers drawing through his thick-framed glasses.
    Well, Im not drawing it perfect. Maybe it was more like this. He drew a different blob. Thats not it, either. He laughed.
    But Martin frowned again. Do it right, he said. I dont appreciate the way youre clowning around.
    Grover drew it again, as well as he could remember.
    And she said it was anS or anR ? Martin wanted to know.
    She wasnt sure which, said Grover.
    And what did she say it stood for? someone asked.
    He told them, and he answered a lot of other questions, too, showing how Officer Gurney had strung the yellow tape, and repeating what Mrs. Beeson had said, and imitating, with a few high-pitched screams thrown in, the sobs of the woman whod been so frightened. He imitated Hoyt McCoy, too, copying his gloomy look so well that everyone laughed. Hoyt McCoy said it looked like a soupspoon, he said.
    Yeah, said Martin, but Hoyt McCoy is a weirdo.
    Maybe so, said Grover, but Mrs. Beeson doesnt know everything.
    Grover! said Martin. His voice rose, and his face turned almost the same red as his hair. Shetook the Prophets vision seriously, even ifyou didnt.
    The bell rang. Grover was late after all, and so was everyone whod been listening to him. Gotta go, he said.
    Martin scowled at him. This will be my first late mark of the whole year, he said.
    Its notmy fault, said Grover. You didnt have to stand around talking to me.
    But Martin just turned away. Hed changed, thought Grover as he hurried toward his classroom. He used to be nicer than he was now.

    CHAPTER 5 ______________
    The Fiery Vision
    That morning, Crystal poked around in the kitchen cupboards and found just about nothing fit to eat. Would you feel like walking downtown and getting us a few groceries? she asked Nickie. Ill start cleaning up this foul kitchen.
    So Nickie put on her jacket and went downhill two blocks to Main Street, thinking how nice it was to be out by herself, as she couldnt safely be in the city. The stores were just opening. It was cold, but the sun came out sometimes from between the clouds, and the town looked washed clean. Quite a few people were already out. She noticed that nearly all of them held cell phones to their ears as they walked. Of course she was used to seeing cell phones in the city; there, half the people you passed were jabbering away. But here people werenttalking into their phones; they were just listening. It was odd.
    She passed a small restaurant called the Cozy Corner Cafwhere several people were standing outside, talking in excited voices, and a police car was just pulling away. Something must have happened theremaybe a customer had taken sick.
    She passed a drugstore, a bakery, and a shoe store. She passed a closed-up movie theater, where a sign stuck over the ticket window said, Pray instead! In the window of a clothing store, she saw a display of white T-shirts that said, Dont Do It! in big red letters on the front, and after that she kept noticing people on the street wearing these T-shirts. Dont do what? she wondered.
    As she passed an alley between a hardware store and a computer repair shop, she heard a strange sound. It was a kind of hum with a rhythm to itMMMM-mmmm-MMMM-mmmma sound that a machine might make. She stopped and looked around, but she couldnt see where it was coming from. She could tell that other people on the sidewalk noticed the sound, too. They frowned, but they didnt seem puzzled by it, just annoyed, or maybe a little frighteneda few of them started