The Weirdo by Theodore Taylor Read Free Book Online Page A

Ditch, Chip steered across the canal, driving the bow of the boat on shore down the bank from Dunnegan's.
    "I can walk up," Sam said.
    "You can also walk on broken glass," he said, getting out of the boat and putting his back to her. "Climb aboard."
    He struggled up the bank and then crossed the highway, sitting her down on the green bench outside Dunnegan's.
    Delilah hadn't arrived yet, and Sam said, "I'd like you to meet my mother. She's as grateful as I am."
    Chip said, "Some other time; I have to get back."
    "Well, I can't thank you enough for all you've done. I'll return your slippers soon."
    "No problem. Glad to do it. Sometimes it's lonely back in there. See you."
    With that, he recrossed the highway, and soon she heard the outboard fire up and knew he was headed back up the Feeder Ditch.

BOOK 2
Spring, in the temperate Powhatan begins in early March, erupting out of the muck, the first green shoots spearing up overnight. And older males, like Henry, come out of their slumbers in whatever dens they chose in January, having not defecated for almost sixty days. They stretch luxuriously and go on the prowl for grass and tender stems. The males' winter houses are usually flimsy, sometimes only a few branches over an earthen shallow. Some even sleep comfortably beneath a tree for two months, exposed to wind, rain, and snow.
Some of the younger males den for less than two weeks; some not at all, their bodies needing fat. After sleeping nights, they forage during the day for what food is available.
Not until mid- or late April do the mothers emerge with their cubs, having given birth while sleeping.
Meanwhile, dwarf trilliums have burst into bloom. Bell-like honeycups carpet the swamp floor, and the fragrance of early wild magnolias fills the air. Beads of moisture glisten on leaves turning golden in the filtered sunlight. There is a
drip-drip-drip
sound, a tinkling that speaks of the wet winter just past. Waterways overflow their banks.
Migrating songbirds make their own announcements of the new season. River otters stir in the streams, and fawns, usually twins, greet an often dangerous world. The great blue heron and the smaller green one scud around Lake Nansemond. Now and then a screeching osprey splashes down.
Orchids, yellow jessamine, and silky camellias quiver with morning dew, along with ferns so green they shock the eye. Solomon's plume and Queen Anne's lace and marsh marigolds explode.
So spring, my favorite time, arrives.
Powhatan Swamp

English I

Charles Clewt

Ohio State University
    ***
    MAY: A YEAR and a half
before
Field Champion Baron von Buckner bounded into the swamp after Henry. A year and a half
before
Sam Sanders thought she saw the swamp-walker and Chip Clewt retrieved her off his
roof, Thomas Telford came up the Feeder Ditch in the beat-up boat he'd borrowed from Dunnegan. He was twenty-eight years old, a graduate student in biology at North Carolina State University, Raleigh.
    The two mongrels sounded off from the backyard when khaki-clad Telford approached the house. Always a menace when the Clewts were away, the dogs were mostly docile when they were home. Father and son, home this day, came out on the porch to greet their visitor.
    "Hi," Telford said. Smiling, he extended a hand.
    Dunnegan had told Telford that Chip Clewt was a burn victim, had suggested he prepare himself for a jolt at seeing the boy. It
was
a jolt. Worse than Dunnegan had described. Much worse.
    Telford handed over a business card, saying he had a grant from the Fish and Wildlife Service to study the black bears and just wanted them to know he'd be around for a year or so.
    "I'll try to track as many as possible from now to early December, put radio-collars on them, and build up as much data as possible. Try to get an accurate population count...."
    He noticed Chip's sudden interest, the way the boy shifted his head.
    "Well, there seem to be quite a few out here," said John Clewt. "I've seen them now and then, but they stay