The Pricker Boy Read online

  “And you, Ronnie,” Vivek says. “You always knew that the story was … shall we say ‘invented’? You could have been hiding in the bushes”—I start to laugh at the image, and Ronnie does too—“just waiting for the widow’s walk to end so you could scramble out there and grab every little treat.”

  “And me?” Emily asks.

  “Oh, that’s easy,” Robin says. “You’re a girl. I can’t believe that you’d give up that locket for good.”

  “And you’re fearless,” Ronnie says. I detect a note of envy in his voice.

  “I suppose,” I say, “that even Pete could have done it. He could have gone out there before he … before he …”

  “Before he left,” Robin says.

  We sit staring from one to the other without anybody saying another word. I can hear Nana and the Cricket splashing to the edge of the water, and then Nana’s voice as she talks to the Cricket and dries him off.

  “So no one’s going to admit to it?” Vivek begs. “This is damned disappointing.”

  “I’d rather not know.” Ronnie smiles. “More of a mystery that way.”

  “Not me,” Vivek whines. “I want to know. This sucks.”

  We all laugh at that. Then Vivek leans over and hands me a piece of folded paper. I open it. On the inside are four phone numbers, each one written by a different hand. Below them Vivek has written, YOU NEED US, YOU CALL.

  I swallow and nod, not looking up at any of them. I stuff the piece of paper into my pocket. I stare at my ring for a moment, and then I look away, down at the water. Nana is using a cane to steady herself as she navigates the roots. It’s the cane that Mr. Milkes gave me so that I could get around better with my leg in the cast. She stole it from me earlier in the day.

  “Nana, Mr. Milkes is going to want that cane back,” I say.

  “Let him come and get it,” she says, and shakes the cane in the air toward the Milkeses’ house. “That old man is a pain in the …”

  She stops. Slowly she turns back toward me. She walks over quickly and leans over me. Water from her bathing cap drips onto my head. “Where did you get that?” she asks, her voice almost a whisper.

  “What?” I reply, more than a little alarmed at the fear in her eyes.

  She reaches down and clutches my hand, closing my fingers and hers around the gold ring. “Put it back!” she cries. “Stucks! Please put it back!”

  “Nana, what’s the matter?” I ask her. I take my foot down from the lawn chair and she sits in it, but she doesn’t let go of my hand.

  “Your grandfather’s wedding ring! You have to put it back, Stucks! You have to!”

  I don’t know what to say. No one does. My mouth falls open. All this time I’ve had my grandfather’s wedding ring in my pocket. The Cricket was only an infant when he died. I barely remember him myself, but all summer long I’ve been holding the ring that he wore for four decades while he was married to Nana.

  The Cricket sits on the ground next to me, watching us all intently. He rubs Boris’s belly and the old dog groans.

  “Promise me you’ll put it back!” Nana cries.

  “This is Grandpa’s ring?” I croak.

  “Of course it is,” Nana says. “I don’t know how you got hold of it, Stucks. I took it to the woods years ago. It has to go back!” Desperate tears begin to swell in her eyes.

  “I’ll take it back. But why did you leave it out there?”

  She draws a breath, relieved by my promise. “Because just before Grandpa died, he said, ‘You watch after those boys for me.’ After he was cremated, they gave me his ring. So I took it up to the Hawthorn Trees and left it on the stone there. To protect you boys. To protect all of you. From the things in the woods.”

  “What things, Nana?” Robin asks.

  “Just things, woodland things!” Nana says. “I knew that when you got older, you’d be off playing in those woods. If I left it there, right in the middle of those three thorny witches, they’d have to protect you. I knew you’d always come home safe from the woods. No matter what happened out there, you’d always come home safe. And you always have. All of you. Even poor Peter was safe when he was in the woods.” She squeezes my hand even tighter, and I’m amazed at how strong an elderly woman’s grip can be, especially a woman who is missing a finger. “You promise you’ll take it back?” she asks me again.

  “We’ll all take it up there. We’ll take it back there right now if you want.” I don’t know if she understands that the woods have burned, but I suppose it doesn’t matter all that much.

  She releases my hand, patting the back of it. “You’re a good boy, Stucks.”

  The Cricket helps Nana into the house and then returns. He grabs my hand and pulls.

  “Now?” I say.

  He continues to pull.

  Vivek and Robin have to help me—in fact, they almost have to carry me—up through the woods to the offering stone.

  The ground is black for hundreds of yards around the Hawthorns. Beyond that the brush has been gnarled by the heat. The thorns are gone, burned back into the blistered ground.

  Though their thorns have been burned away, the trunks of the Hawthorns are still there, reaching like skeletons toward the sky. But they’re odd, stubborn old women. I believe next year they’ll sprout again.

  I lay the ring on the offering stone. It’ll sit there all day and through the night, and maybe in the morning it’ll still be there. Maybe it won’t.

  Everyone is staring at me, even the Cricket. He is absolutely calm, as if all of this is perfectly natural, as if placing Grandpa’s ring in the middle of the Hawthorns is the most logical thing in the world for us to do. “Wanna know something?” he asks us.

  Vivek’s eyes shoot open wide. Robin, of course, is immediately ready to cry, and why shouldn’t she? Even Emily is stunned. Ronnie leans in as if he needs to hear the Cricket speak again before he’ll believe that it actually happened.

  I just smile.

  “Wanna know?” the Cricket repeats.

  “What’s that?” I ask him.

  The Cricket beams. “Sometimes … I can fly.”

  “Now that’s something that I’d like to see,” I say.

  The Cricket jumps up, throws his arms out in front of him like Superman, and makes a buzzing motor sound out of the side of his cheek. He runs around us and the offering stone in a huge circle, around and around and around and around. I reach out and tap his hand every time he passes by me, and with each tap I feel another old ghost flit away.

  And for the moment anyway, as long as he continues circling us, this summer of loss will be suspended, and our friends will stay with us, safe from both the fire and the ice.

  I began working on this book seven years ago, and it would be impossible to acknowledge all of the people who have contributed along the way. I apologize in advance for any names that should be, but are not, listed here.

  First and foremost, I would like to thank my wife, Beth, who was silly enough to marry me, and who read this manuscript more times than I can count. Thanks also to Derek May for his research and boundless enthusiasm, and to Jack Harrison, the best critic that the early manuscript saw.

  The following people have offered their assistance, friendship, and encouragement for many years: Julia Johnson; my fellow writers at the Buzzards Bay Writing Project, especially Kit Dunlap and Heidi Lane; Carol Malaquias; my brother, Ryan; my sister-in-law, Sandra; Ken Jenks; Terry Holman; and Pat Adler.

  Cunningham’s Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs by Scott Cunningham was an invaluable resource.

  This book would not have been published without the support of my agent, Kirsten Wolf, who not only chose to represent me but also pushed me to improve the manuscript when I felt I had given it all I could. And to Nick Eliopulos I offer my apologies about those nightmares.

  And last but not least, thanks to Rachel, who is not only a great sister but, it appears, a fairy godmother as well. I love you, you little JT. Say hi to the koalas and kangaroos.
r />   As a child, READE SCOTT WHINNEM spent his summers in the earthquake-ridden, ghost-infested woods of East Haddam, Connecticut. From an early age his father instilled in him a love of Star Trek, comic books, and monster movies, thereby condemning him to a life of incurable geekiness. In addition to being a writer, he is an avid gardener, cook, and photographer. Both he and his wife are proud public school teachers. They live on Cape Cod, where they dig clams, correct essays, and, when necessary, reassure their overweight cat that she is a devastatingly attractive feline.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2009 by Reade Scott Whinnem

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Whinnem, Reade Scott.

  The pricker boy / Reade Scott Whinnem. — 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: After finding a mysterious package in the spooky woods where they

  have grown up, fourteen-year-old Stucks Cumberland and his friends are forced

  to consider that their childhood bogeyman might be all too real.

  eISBN: 978-0-375-89299-8

  [1. Emotional problems—Fiction. 2. Guilt—Fiction. 3. Interpersonal relations—

  Fiction. 4. Forests and forestry—Fiction. 5. Horror stories.] I. Title.

  PZ7.W57655Pr 2009

  [Fic]—dc22

  2008049340

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