Read Seeds of Deception: A Kate Burkholder Short Story for Free Online

you’re any kind of friend, Katie Burkholder, you’ll let sleeping dogs lie.”
    *   *   *
    It was the first real argument Katie had had with her best friend, and it hurt a lot more than she thought it would. As she pedaled the bike down the gravel lane, Mattie’s words echoed in her head.
    If you’re any kind of friend, Katie Burkholder, you’ll let sleeping dogs lie.
    Those were the words that hurt the most. The ones that had sunk into her heart like a knife.
    Katie understood Mattie’s reasons for not wanting anyone to know she’d been in the barn with Billy Marquart. But wouldn’t it be worse for her to be accused of setting the fire? Katie didn’t know what to do. She had no idea how to fix things between them. The only things she knew for certain was that she wouldn’t let her friend be blamed for something she hadn’t done and she had to make things right between them.
    Katie was so embroiled in her thoughts that she didn’t notice the ATV parked on the pullover outside the mouth of the covered bridge until she was already inside the structure. In the back of her mind she figured someone was down at the creek fishing or picking blackberries. The bicycle tires hummed over the wood surface as she flew through the bridge.
    She’d just emerged on the other side when the figure came out of nowhere. One instant Katie was pedaling as fast as she could, determined to make it home before she was missed. The next she was being shoved violently sideways. The bicycle twisted beneath her, the front wheel jackknifing. Her body kept going. Vaguely, she was aware that someone had pushed her. That the impending landing was going to hurt.
    She hit the asphalt hard on her hands and knees, scraping both palms, both knees, and then rolling, striking her right shoulder. Then everything went still. She was lying in the middle of the road, just a few feet from the mouth of the covered bridge. Her dress had ridden up to mid-thigh. The fabric was torn where her knees had ground into the asphalt. Already she could feel the burn of the abrasions, the ache of the bruises that would bloom later.
    Jacob’s bicycle lay on the asphalt a few feet away, bent at an unnatural angle. Standing over it, Billy Marquart and another boy Katie had never seen before smiled at her.
    “Dang, didn’t know Amish girls could fly.” Billy smirked. “You okay?”
    Katie got to her feet and brushed specks of gravel from her dress. Her heart pounded hard in her chest. Not because she was afraid Billy was going to do something else to her, but because she was angry he’d damaged Jacob’s bike.
    “I’m fine,” she muttered, even though she was pretty sure he didn’t care one way or another.
    “Looks like she’s got cut knees,” his friend said.
    “I reckon the Amish don’t ride bikes any better than they drive cars,” Billy drawled and both boys broke into laughter.
    “I hear they lie, too,” said the friend.
    “Not to mention start barn fires,” Billy added. “You know your friend Mattie’s a fire bug, right?”
    Two of the most important Amish tenets Katie’s parents had instilled in her young mind were forgiveness and nonviolence. Important as they were, they were the two things she had the most difficult time adhering to.
    Katie stared at the two boys, her temper pumping as hard as her heart. In the back of her mind, it registered that she was outnumbered. That they were bigger and probably stronger than her, not to mention meaner. She didn’t like the way Billy was looking at her, with cruelty glinting in his eyes. But she refused to be cowed or bullied. At the very least she refused to let them see that she was afraid.
    “If that bike is damaged, you’ll be paying for it,” she heard herself say.
    Billy blinked, looking pleased and amused. Too late Katie realized she was giving him exactly what he wanted. He was looking for a fight. It didn’t matter to him that she was an Amish girl. That she was fourteen years old and