Quote:Making sure I had a good hold on Duke’s reins, I dropped to my knees.
I sure didn’t like it, though.
But when you’re wounded, you have to fall. Once on the ground, I checked around for sand-burs or goatheads. Sandburs grew on stalks and were sticky, but they really didn’t hurt. Goatheads were the hard, brown stickers that grew on flat vines. They were thicker than sandburs and could jab right through a thick pair of jeans. Sure it was safe, I lay down on my right side.
“It’s not fair.”
“You’re dead. You can’t talk.” Daniel Shift stood over me, smiling. I glared up at him.
“I’m not dead. I’m just stuck in the . . . well, I’m just wounded. It’s not fair to ambush us on Mrs. Baum’s place. It’s, like, off limits or something. We weren’t expecting it and—”
“That’s why it’s called an ambush.” Daniel kind of stuck his nose in the air, sneered, and wobbled his head back and forth. “An ambush comes when and where the enemy’s not expecting it.”
“It’s still not fair.”
“If you don’t shut up, I’ll finish you off.” He raised his spear.
“Not fair,” I mumbled under my breath.
Guess I didn’t mumble it soft enough. Daniel scratched his chin. Only he didn’t have much of a chin. Instead of sticking out like everyone else’s chin, his kind of sloped from his bottom lip back toward his neck. Anyway, he scratched where his chin should have been. Smiled and jabbed me in the chest with his spear. I felt my lip curl when I looked up at him. Then I closed my eyes and fell limp on the ground.
“This one’s dead,” he boasted. There was a moment of silence, then: “This one’s dead, too,” Zane Parker’s voice called back.
“Thousand one, thousand two, thousand three. . . .” Chet Bently began. I felt my eyes roll inside my closed eyelids. Chet Bently could count slower than anybody. It was going to take him forever to get to sixty.
I scrunched my eyes and gritted my teeth, tight as I could.
I hate being dead.