Read The Fort (Aric Davis) for Free Online Page A

most local wildlife in search of a quieter locale—but there was still a lot to take in. Even the trees looked cooler the higher up Tim got, and no matter how many times he did it, the trip to the top never seemed to get boring.
    Tim arose from the hole in the floor, then transitioned from the last rungs of the ladder to the waiting safety of the fort. Luke grabbed his forearm as he came over the gap in the wood, and then Tim felt the faint sense of vertigo fade. Feet planted on semisolid ground, Tim thanked Luke for the hand and asked the other boys what they were doing.
    “Nothing,” said Luke. “Just trying to hit that target again, or at least we were.”
    “Yeah,” said Scott dejectedly. “Either our guns suck, or we suck. Probably both.”
    “Well, we’re not going to get better guns,” said Tim. “I had to bug my mom forever just to let me get this one. There’s no way she’s going to let me get a better one, not even if I got a paper route and saved my own money.”
    “Good luck getting a paper route around here,” said Luke. “The Bennetts have that locked up until they die.” This was an endlessly sore point for any cash-strapped neighborhood child old enough to have a bicycle. The Bennett brothers, a pair of alcoholics who lived in Luke’s trailer park, had miles’ and miles’ worth of paper routes, and had used them as a sole source of income for as long as anyone could remember. The worst part was that the Bennett brothers, drunks or not, did a great job with their thousands of deliveries and there was no way they were going to get fired anytime soon.
    “Yeah,” said Tim. “I know. It just sucks, is all. I know my dad would let me get a better gun, maybe even a .22 like I fired one time up north, but my mom won’t have a real gun in the house.”
    “Hey, did you guys hear about Molly Peterson?” Scott said, changing the subject. “Her mom and my mom are friends at work, and I guess Molly never came home last night. My mom said that, knowing Molly, she wouldn’t be surprised if she was shacked up with a sailor or something for a few days, but I guess her mom is totally freaking out.”
    “I heard about that,” said Tim. “Her mom called my mom this morning. Molly was out to the movies last night with my sister and…” Tim trailed off.
    “And what?” Luke asked him. “What happened at the movies?”
    “Well,” said Tim, “the thing is, I don’t know exactly. Also, my mom told me not to tell anyone about it. She said it was private family stuff, and that it was supposed to stay that way.”
    “Hey,” said Scott, “we’re not just friends, we’re blood brothers, remember?”
    Tim did. The three had sealed a pact in blood coaxed from their pinkies three years prior. Scott had a point, but Tim’s mother’s words still rang in his head. “Yeah, I know,” he said. “But my mom was super serious about not telling anyone about what happened to Becca. She said it could be bad for her reputation, which made no sense. Like, how is some girl going missing bad for my sister’s reputation?”
    “You just don’t understand how reputations work for girls,” said Luke. “My sister Ashley has all kinds of rumors going around about her at school. You guys know exactly what I’m talking about.” They did. Rumor had it that Luke’s fifth-grade sister Ashley had been caught giving a classmate a hand job in the boys’ bathroom right before spring break earlier in the year. No one could confirm it, but the fact that both she and Todd had been suspended at the same time was fairly telling that something, even if no one knew exactly what, had happened. “Still,” Luke continued, “you can tell us. Besides, it’s summer. Even if we wanted to be jerks and blab to the whole school about what happened, there’s no one to tell.”
    “Not to mention,” said Scott, “if Molly really is gone, everyone is going to know exactly what happened anyways. If she’s really gone for more