First Boy - Softcover

Schmidt, Gary D.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0805078592 ISBN 13: 9780805078596

Verlag: Henry Holt & Co, 2005

Inhaltsangabe

A fast-paced political thriller
 
      “You’re my first boy, Cooper, my first boy,” grandfather says just before he dies. All alone in the world, without even a dog, the only thing that keeps Cooper going is running the dairy farm.
Suddenly, black sedans are swarming all around Cooper’s small New Hampshire town, driven by mysterious men in dark suits. Cooper’s barn is burned to the ground, and his house is broken into and searched during the night. The President of the United States calls on Cooper for a visit, and her opponent wants Cooper to join him on the campaign trail.
This fast-paced political thriller will have the reader turning the pages in anticipation of the next clue.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Gary Schmidt is a professor at Calvin College, in addition to being a writer. He lives with his wife and children on a farm in Alto, Michigan.

Gary Schmidt is a professor at Calvin College, in addition to being a writer. He lives with his wife and children on a farm in Alto, Michigan.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

First Boy

CHAPTER ONE

PETER HURD saw the black sedan first--dark and slow, prowling Main Street like a panther. It stopped beside the granite steps of New Lincoln Public Library as if to look for prey. Then it came on again, still slow, low to the ground. It paused by the Miracle Theatre, and by the New Lincoln Diner, and then right beside New Lincoln Market--right beside Peter--where it crouched and waited. Its windows were tinted so deeply that Peter couldn't see inside at all.

"Jewett," Peter called back into the market.

Cooper Jewett wasn't in any hurry to come outside. They had just finished freshman cross practice, and Cooper was savoring the last few swallows of his forbidden root beer. Coach would take him apart if he knew that Cooper was drinking anything but water. "Soda willkill you. It'll send little carbonated bubbles right through your bloodstream and up into your heart. Then they'll all come together and bust." Coach would throw his arms up in an explosion. "Soda will kill you, just like that."

But after a run on a September afternoon that could still hold an August heat, Cooper and Peter generally decided that an icy Admiral Ames Root Beer was worth the risk.

"Jewett," Peter called again.

Cooper took another cold swallow.

The black sedan moved on. Peter watched it stalk off Main Street and down onto Whittier Road. He realized that he had been holding his breath.

Cooper came out, Admiral Ames Root Beer still sweet on his lips. "I've got the flour and sugar," he said. "You get the milk."

Peter took the milk Cooper handed to him, his eyes still watching the corner.

Cooper got on his bike and hunched his loaded backpack up around his shoulders. "If Old Ford was here, I could drive us home," he said.

"Could you drive a sedan?"

"I guess. If it had a stick."

"Maybe you'll get your chance."

Cooper looked at him. Sometimes Hurd could say crazy things like that, out of the blue. "You think a sedan is going to stop and ask us in so we can drive home?"

"Why not?"

"Because this is New Lincoln, New Hampshire, and the only strange thing around here is you."

"Witty," said Peter. "Very witty." He hauled the milk on top of his handlebars and pushed off. Cooper pushed off too, the flour and sugar heavy in his backpack, and side by side they rode down Main Street, past Whittier, and so out of town.

The last strong heat of the day laid its hand on Cooper as he pedaled, but it felt good to him. Cross practice had been a nine-mile run--four of them at race pace--and for all but the last two miles he had kept up with Peter. He felt his muscles tighten and relax, tighten and relax with the pedals, with no sign of little carbonated bubbles rushing toward a bust in his heart. He shifted his pack as his front wheel left the pavement at the end of Main Street and looked for a smooth run on the dirt road that led to Hurd's house. His drive waited at the bottom of a long hill, and they could coast all the way, fast enough to hear the spokes whistle, and then cut in at the last second where Hurd's brothers had built up the bank.

But at the bottom, Peter didn't cut in at the last second. He braked and slid his back tire out to the front, looking up at the top of the next hill ahead. Cooper braked right behind him.

A black sedan crouched, its brake lights bright.

"Jewett, I saw a sedan in town."

The brake lights dimmed, and the sedan moved smoothly over the arch of the hill.

"Now you saw one out of town," said Cooper.

Peter stared at him. "Don't you want to know what two cars like that are doing in New Lincoln?"

Cooper shrugged. "If they were Fords, maybe. If they were Ford pickups, say, 1958 or '59, then I'd care."

"Jewett, you should wonder if there's something wrong with you. No one else in the state wants to drive a fifty-year-old pickup."

"I think of myself as unique, individual, independent, one of a kind, a freethinker," said Cooper.

"There's something wrong with you," said Peter, and they biked up to the Hurd house.

It was a long drive to a small farmhouse, and Cooper sometimes wondered how it was that all the Hurds could fit inside at once. Maybe they couldn't. There was a Hurd in every single grade from New Lincoln Elementary to New Lincoln High, and two in eighth grade, and three in first, and one off to college. Between them all, they could almost field both sides of a baseball game, except the roster would be dang hard to keep straight, and who could call the game with all those Hurds?

Hurd up, with two outs. Hurd with two strikes and a ball. Hurd winds up. Hurd on first leads, held on by Hurd. Hurd pitches, and Hurd swings, and Hurd takes off for second. Hurd tracks it down in center ...

 

 

Mrs. Hurd, surrounded by a good part of her roster, was waiting for them on the front steps. She took the flour and sugar from Cooper and handed them to a young Hurd, took the milk from Peter and handed it to another young Hurd, gave Cooper a brownie--her hands moved as quickly as a bird's wing--and gave another to Peter. "Eat them now," she said, and fluttered inside.

Cooper ate his now, but he wasn't finished before Mrs. Hurd was back out and handing him a basket--with a pie! An apple pie! One of Mrs. Hurd's apple pies!

"It has too much cinnamon in it," she said, "and I'm worried that the apples might be too tart--" one of Mrs. Hurd's prizewinning, blue-ribbon, best-in-the-state apple pies! "--and it's probably not baked enough. But it's about milking time, so you'd best get on home with it."

"See you, Jewett," said Peter, and Cooper watched him get swallowed up and become part of the Hurd nest of bustle and business. "There was this black sedan in town," Cooper heard him say, and then Peter was gone inside.

Cooper swung his bike out and headed home, balancing the pie in one hand, his mouth still full of brownie. He pumped hard down the drive and up the hill, his legs burning from cross practice--but still no little carbonated bubbles right through his bloodstream--reached the top, and coasted down toward the Jewett farm. Thebreeze chilled him, the wind sang again in his spokes, and the farm spread out below him, the cows already heading toward the barn. The cinnamon smell of the apple pie came up out of the basket.

And for a moment, it was all so right. For a moment.

Then the stillness clutched him.

He wished he had a dog waiting for him--a retriever named Barkus. If there was a dog, they'd go on Saturdays to show off on New Lincoln Common, and together he and Barkus would be Frisbee champions of all New Hampshire.

He wished he had a brother or sister waiting. A brother to mess around with. Someone to do chores with. Someone on a lower bunk to talk to before he fell asleep at night.

He wished he had a mother and a father, waiting with brownies when he came home from cross practice. On weekends they would climb into a car that had a muffler and a back seat even, instead of Old Ford, and drive to his meets. They would keep his times, and cheer him through the sweat of the last quarter mile.

He wished--he could hardly let the thought come--he wished he had a grandmother. He did have one until a year ago. She'd cook one thing he really, really liked each night, so he could choke down the lima beans that were good for him because there were sweet potatoes crisped with brown sugar right beside them.And he would tend her garden for her so that it would take more blue ribbons than a Fourth of July parade.

He still tended it. One more way to remember her.

But with the apple pie...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Henry Holt & Co
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2005
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0805078592
• ISBN 13: 9780805078596
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 197
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar