On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer Read Free Book Online Page A

always did.
    For one thing, they had been pooling their allowances to buy a worm farm. Their plan was to get rich selling bait. Tony had even had the idea of using his mother's meat grinder to grind whatever worms were left at the end of the summer and sell them as goldfish food. (That was because Joel's father had pointed out that neither family would want worms multiplying in the basement over the winter.) For his part, Joel was skeptical about whether there were very many people anxious to buy worm mash for goldfish food, but he hadn't said that to Tony.
    Last summer they had concocted a wonderful scheme for getting rich selling decorative pennies. They flattened fifty pennies by leaving them on the tracks to be run over by the 3:45 train, turning them into thin, coppery disks. Their plan hadn't been exactly what anybody could call successful, though. They sold only one penny, because every other kid in town knew how to flatten pennies, too. The one they sold (for a nickel) was to a prissy girl whose mother wouldn't allow her to go near the tracks. They had been left with forty-nine pennies they couldn't spend, not even in a gum-ball machine.
    Joel tossed the last paper and turned his bike toward home. Bobby had finally fallen silent, and Joel was grateful for that. He could feel his brother's small, hot hands gripping his shirt and the puffs of breath on the back of his neck, so close, so alive.
    A surge of protectiveness passed through Joel. He would have to teach Bobby how to swim. Bobby was afraid even to get his face in the water. Joel would start working with him right away. Every kid needed to know how to swim. Sometimes parents didn't seem to realize what a dangerous place the world is.
    When Joel turned the corner by his house, he could see his mother and father in the front yard, talking to Mr. and Mrs. Zabrinsky. Seeing the four of them standing there, their faces solemn and intent, sent a chill through Joel's bones. What were they talking about? What did they know? By now, someone must have seen through his lie.
    Or maybe the teenage boy had come back and turned Joel in.
    Joel coasted up the driveway and stepped off his bike, pushing it into the garage before Bobby had a chance to climb down. Inside the garage, he scooped Bobby off the seat and set him on the floor.
    "Thanks, buddy," he said. "I appreciate your help." He propped his bike along the wall, out of the way of the cars.
    "I'll help you again tomorrow, Joel," Bobby said, his face glowing in the semidarkness of the garage.
    "We'll see," Joel said, patting Bobby's shoulder. He began tinkering with his bicycle, shifting the gears back and forth uselessly, pretending to be engrossed.
    Bobby watched him for a moment, then turned and headed outside with a one-legged skip. "Mommy, Daddy," he called before he was even beyond the front of the garage. "Joel's gonna let me help him with his paper route tomorrow, too."
    Joel stood where he was, trying to control the way his hands trembled, the way the muscles in his face seemed to jerk. They were talking about him out there. He was certain of it. But there was no way past them without being seen, and if he stayed in the garage any longer, they would probably notice that, too. He shifted the gears one last time, slumped his shoulders, and pulled his head in, like a turtle retreating into its shell. Then he stepped out into the staring light of the driveway.

Chapter Ten
     
    "J OEL, WOULD YOU COME HERE FOR A MOMENT , please?" Joel's father called.
    Joel hesitated, wondering if he dared pretend he hadn't heard, but then he turned slowly and, keeping his head down, moved in the direction of his father's voice.
    "The Zabrinskys want to know where you saw Tony last," his father said when he had arrived at his side.
    Joel had a sudden image of Tony laughing, the river water streaming from his dark hair. "On the road," he said. "On the road to Starved Rock."
    "But where on the road?" Mr. Zabrinsky asked. "How far had you