The Surf Guru by Doug Dorst Read Free Book Online Page A

that grew in the yard. With a short length of rope, he hung the piñata from the tree’s lowest limb.
    Kacy seated herself at one of the picnic tables and surveyed the scene. She’d leave soon. Right after the piñata. “I think that’s going to be too high for them,” she called out.
    â€œNo, it’s not,” Roger said in a sugary, carefree tone that she knew was meant to rankle her. He looked up at the baseball, and then down at the little people jostling around him. “They can ride on my shoulders.”
    â€œWhatever you say,” she said. She flicked a glob of brown icing off the table and sucked her nail clean.
    Roger told Kenny to be polite and let his friends go first, so Kenny just danced in place and sized up the ball with eager eyes. April tied a blindfold on the first boy in line and then handed him a broomstick after Roger hoisted him up on his shoulders. Roger bobbed gently through an orbit around the ball, letting the kid get a few licks in, but never allowing him enough leverage to do more than rock the ball harmlessly. After a few more boys had their turns, Skillet took over piggyback duty, and Kacy was pleased to see that he was following Roger’s lead, rigging the game so the birthday boy could strike the killing blow. When it was Kenny’s turn, April lifted him onto her shoulders. She brought him close to the piñata and stood still, but Kenny missed the ball entirely, slashing wild verticals through the air.
    Kacy looked at her watch. It was 4:52. Hit it, Kenny. Why can’t you hit it?
    â€œLevel swing, Kenny,” Roger coached. “Focus.”
    Kenny hit the ball dead-on. Nothing happened. Twice more, and still nothing happened.
    â€œHold on,” Roger said. “I have an idea.” He jogged over to Kenny’s pile of presents and picked up the baseball bat he’d given to his son, a gleaming piece of lacquered ash. When he’d brought it home the week before, Kacy had tried to convince him that the bat was too big for Kenny, but he’d waved her off, tied a blue bow around it, and hidden it in their closet. Every time she’d looked at the bat since then she’d been more and more certain that it would break something of hers. It was just a question of when and what and how badly.
    Roger slid off the bow and handed the bat to Kenny, who squealed when he felt the heft in his hands.
    â€œI don’t think that’s smart, Roger,” Kacy called, but at the same time she felt herself drifting, disconnecting, her attention captured by the faint but steady chik chik chik of the sprinklers next door watering Mr. Weeks’s garden.
    Roger turned to her with his hands on his hips. “It’s fine,” he said. “It’s a baseball bat, for Christ’s sake.”
    â€œMy mother says you shouldn’t take the Lord’s name in vain,” a redheaded boy said.
    Roger turned to him. “Thank you, Peter,” he said.
    At that moment, Kenny swung so hard he lost his balance, and April lurched sideways to keep him from falling off her shoulders. Someone shouted, and Kenny swung again just as Roger turned back to look. The bat caught him squarely in the face. Kacy heard bone crunch. She guessed it was his nose. She’d watched it happen without really seeing it; she’d thought vaguely of shouting a warning, but her mouth felt heavy and slow and it had stayed closed.
    April screamed, and Roger fell, his hands clutched to his face. Kenny lifted his blindfold, saw his father bleeding, and burst into tears. Kacy ran to them and took charge. She ordered the boys—including the bawling Kenny—up to the house, where Marisol could watch them. She lifted Roger by the elbow, silently cursing him for getting hurt when the danger was so obvious, and now she’d have to waste hours waiting in a hard plastic chair outside the emergency room and she’d miss Dinaburg and the cake entirely. She