General
It is amazing, Ben thought, how much good stuff people throw out. He knew something most grown-ups didn't know: Junk plus Imagination equaled Great Inventions. The Great Invention he and Jack were working on at the moment was a catapult. Ben dragged an old shovel and a flat piece of wood out of the shed.
"Yeah!" Jack said. He grabbed a piece of wire. "Let's use this."
That's when he saw it. A shadow behind a car parked on the other side of the street. It disappeared, only to reappear through the window of the car ahead. The sight of it made him whimper, the sound catching in his throat as he took off again, running.
This time he didn't stop until he reached the walkway to his house. Home, he thought. Home safe. But with his next step his foot landed on an icy patch. His arms rose instinctively, whirling, struggling for balance. It did no good. The ground below him vanished, and he fell. Pain, red as a fireball, exploded behind his eyes. He yelped.
Behind him, the voice said, "Gotcha now."
The long ship turned with a sweep of the oars and drifted toward them.
Out of the breeze, the sail flapped like an old shawl. The red stripes were clear against the silt brown of the river. Sunlight glinted off the knobs of metal pounded into each black shield, piled in the bottom of the ship. Leather helmets and leather straps covered the invaders' faces, shading their eyes.
One sweep of the oars brought the ship to the beach.
Others in the class might listen, but every word that Ms. Samson said about butterflies, Chance heard. Every picture that she showed, he pored over. The written words worked themselves into tangles and defeated him, but everything that he could learn about butterflies, he took right in deep. Not only was he going to be here until the butterflies were flying around in the classroom, he was going to be an expert.
Ashley pushed her on the next large rock and almost knocked her over. As her cousin leaped from rock to rock, Tabitha tried to follow but wasn't as sure of herself, especially on the slippery surfaces of the boulders.
"It's not a race," she said.
Ashley spun around on one foot and said in a sing-song voice, "Is the wittle baby getting tired?"
Before Tabitha could respond, Ashley spun back and jumped for the next rock. As she did, her back foot slipped out from under her. Her body landed flat across two rocks, and her cheek whacked the stone.
Tabitha winced.
Ashley lay still.
