Last Chance by Norah McClintock Read Free Book Online

outside. I had planned to sit at the picnic table and read while I ate. Nick was right behind me. About three feet from the table, we both realized that we were headed for the same place, and we stopped. He looked at me and then stepped back a pace.
    â€œIt’s okay,” he said. “You can have it.”
    â€œNo, you go ahead,” I said. “You and your friends have been here longer than I have.”
    â€œThey’re not here today,” he said.
    â€œOh.”
    We stared at each other. I knew who he was, but he obviously hadn’t recognized me. I wanted to keep it that way.
    He looked from me to the picnic table and back again. “It’s a big table,” he said. “You’ve got a book. I’ve got a book.” He nodded at the backpack slung over one shoulder. “I’m quiet when I read. I don’t even move my lips,” he said.
    He seemed nice. I think that’s what threw me. I knew what he had done a few years back. I also knew from what Mr. Schuster had told me, that he hadn’t changed much. But he seemed nice, and his purple-blue eyes sparkled the way my father’s gray eyes did when he was in a particularly good mood.
    â€œOkay,” I said.
    We sat down. I unwrapped my sandwich, took the lid off my juice, and opened my book. He tipped out his lunch bag—a sandwich, an orange, some cookies and . . . dog biscuits. Two big ones wrapped in plastic. He grabbed them, shoved them into his backpack, and looked across the table at me with a guilty expression on his face.
    â€œThey’re homemade,” he said.
    â€œYou make
dog
biscuits?” I couldn’t picture it.
    He shook his head.“Not me.There’s this bakery that I know that does. The biscuits are kind of expensive, but they’re all natural and Orion likes them.” He glanced back at the office building. “Don’t tell, okay?”
    I didn’t say anything. He pulled a book from his backpack—a thick, hard-covered book about dogs. I peeked at the cover as he opened it. He had printed his name on the inside front cover in big black letters. Something else was written under that, but I couldn’t make out what it was. He also took out a yellow highlighter. Before he started reading, he looked at me again.
    â€œI know I already asked you this,” he said, “but are you sure we haven’t met before? You look kind of familiar.”
    I didn’t hesitate. “No,” I said. “I would have remembered.”
    He grinned in surprise.
    â€œReally?” he said.
    I felt my cheeks burn.
    â€œWhat I mean is—” I began.
    â€œThat’s okay,” he said, amused at my discomfort. “I know what you mean. I think I would have remembered too.”
    For a while, we read and ate in silence. Then—I’m not sure how—we started talking. Nick was telling me what he had learned about dogs and especially what he had learned about Orion.
    â€œDogs are really smart,” he said. “People didn’t used to think so, but they’ve done all kinds of studies. This one guy, he wanted to see if dogs could count. So he took five meatballs and put them in one spot on the ground, and then he put just one meatball in another spot. Then he studied which meatballs the dogs would go to first. Guess what they picked, every time.”
    I had no idea.
    â€œThe closest ones,” Nick said. “They went for whatever was closest, whether it was five meatballs or just one.
Except,”
he said, “when the five meatballs and the one meatball were the same distance from the dogs. Then they went for the five meatballs. Proving—”
    â€œThat to dogs, good food means whatever food they can get to quickest,” I said. “Kind of a whole new definition of fast food.”
    Nick laughed. If I hadn’t known him from before and didn’t know why he was here now, my overall impression would have been that