Read The Little Woods for Free Online Page B

when there wassomething wrong with you—when there was something wrong with your family—and it was like you were an injured member of the herd. They shunned you, because when the lions came, you’d be the first to have her leg torn from her body, and no one wanted to be standing next to you when that happened.
    But Danny was in my grade, and he was a loner too, because of his weight and his love of explosive devices, so we always had each other’s backs. Only Danny was hundreds of miles away now, and when I tried to call him, his cell phone always went to voice mail. I left messages on the home phone, but no one ever called me back. Kim worked nights and slept days, so we were never on the same schedule, and she tended to switch off the ringer. Still, it wasn’t like her not to return my calls.
    To occupy myself, I focused on stalking Alex Reese, which I thought could be a pleasant semester-long pastime. I set about trying to engineer our independent walking route so that our path might cross his as much as possible.
    Saturday morning I stood in the dining hall dribbling honey over my Cheerios and humming to myself.
    “You should put some more honey on that, Wood.”
    I looked up to find Alex Reese, and down to find my Cheerios absolutely smothered in honey.
    My cheeks burned. He knew my name? I had to think of something to say.
    “Sometimes you gotta carbo-load, you know? Big game coming up.”
    “A big walking game, Wood?”
    I was pretty excited that he knew what sport I did—or ratherthat I’d weaseled my way out of proper sports—but I tried to play it cool.
    “I’m just doing walking because I’m so good at sports that I didn’t want you to feel, like, threatened.”
    “Oh really?”
    “Yeah. New girl comes to St. Bede’s, schools your ass in soccer, it would be embarrassing, so I thought I’d just forgo the whole sports thing this year. And to be honest”—I lowered my voice—“I put someone in the hospital last year because they were looking at me funny on the field.”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “When I get pissed, I’m like an animal, man.”
    He laughed and took the honey from me, his fingers brushing lightly against my wrist as he did.
    I tried not to watch as he spread the honey on his toast, but then I tried not to seem like I was trying not to watch, because that was for sure weirder than just watching.
    “You’re kind of odd, aren’t you, Wood?” he asked.
    “Yeah.” I smiled. “Kind of, yeah.”
    “Okay, well …,” he said. He made a strange face, as if trying to take in the full scope of my weirdness. Then he smiled at me, and my stomach surged.
Please, God, don’t let me puke on his shoes
.
    “See you around,” he said, and winking, he strode out of the room, leaving me alone with my viscous Cheerios. I shrugged and then tossed some Cocoa Puffs in for good measure.

    I was all set to go as soon as possible that afternoon, but we had to wait for Noel. She did a work-study as Ms. Snow’s lab assistant and, according to Helen, was not very skilled at her job.
    “Noel’s a mess,” she said. “I don’t know how you could ever want her to help you organize anything. The other day, Asta had her help her with something at the house, and somehow Noel nearly set the place on fire making them tea. My sister is hopeless.”
    When Noel finally arrived, she looked harried and confused, but was quick to declare herself the driver. In their parents’ much-too-nice car, we headed out to their lake house, which, they explained, was no more than a short hike through the woods behind school but could be reached by car only on a steep and narrow road that curved around the lake. The twins seemed to think this added a good thirty minutes to the journey, but we were there in less than fifteen.
    Noel drove wildly, and she smoked while she did. Every once in a while, Helen would gently snatch the little white cylinder from her sister’s mouth and take a slow, whimpering drag, then gently replace