Run, Billy, Run Read online

  Books by Matt Christopher

  Sports Stories

  THE LUCKY BASEBALL BAT

  BASEBALL PALS

  BASKETBALL SPARKPLUG

  LITTLE LEFTY

  TOUCHDOWN FOR TOMMY

  BREAK FOR THE BASKET

  BASEBALL FLYHAWK

  CATCHER WITH A GLASS ARM

  THE COUNTERFEIT TACKLE

  MIRACLE AT THE PLATE

  THE YEAR MOM WON THE PENNANT

  THE BASKET COUNTS

  CATCH THAT PASS!

  SHORTSTOP FROM TOKYO

  JACKRABBIT GOALIE

  THE FOX STEALS HOME

  JOHNNY LONG LEGS

  LOOK WHO’S PLAYING FIRST BASE

  TOUGH TO TACKLE

  THE KID WHO ONLY HIT HOMERS

  FACE-OFF

  MYSTERY COACH

  ICE MAGIC

  NO ARM IN LEFT FIELD

  JINX GLOVE

  FRONT COURT HEX

  THE TEAM THAT STOPPED MOVING

  GLUE FINGERS

  THE PIGEON WITH THE TENNIS ELBOW

  THE SUBMARINE PITCH

  POWER PLAY

  FOOTBALL FUGITIVE

  JOHNNY NO HIT

  SOCCER HALFBACK

  DIAMOND CHAMPS

  DIRT BIKE RACER

  THE DOG THAT CALLED THE SIGNALS

  THE DOG THAT STOLE FOOTBALL PLAYS

  DRAG-STRIP RACER

  RUN, BILLY, RUN

  TIGHT END

  THE TWENTY-ONE-MILE SWIM

  WILD PITCH

  DIRT BIKE RUNAWAY

  THE GREAT QUARTERBACK SWITCH

  SUPERCHARGED INFIELD

  THE HOCKEY MACHINE

  RED-HOT HIGHTOPS

  THE HIT-AWAY KID

  THE DOG THAT PITCHED A NO-HITTER

  Animal Stories

  DESPERATE SEARCH

  STRANDED

  EARTHQUAKE

  DEVIL PONY

  Copyright

  COPYRIGHT © 1980 BY MATTHEW F. CHRISTOPHER

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NO PART OF THIS BOOK MAY BE REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM OR BY ANY ELECTRONIC OR MECHANICAL MEANS INCLUDING INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL SYSTEMS WITHOUT PERMISSION IN WRITING FROM THE PUBLISHER, EXCEPT BY A REVIEWER WHO MAY QUOTE BRIEF PASSAGES IN A REVIEW.

  Hachette Book Group

  237 Park Avenue

  New York, NY 10017

  Visit our website at www.HachetteBookGroup.com

  First eBook Edition: December 2009

  ISBN: 978-0-316-09582-2

  Contents

  Books by Matt Christopher

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  to Al and Alice

  Chapter 1

  “CAN I HELP YOU?” asked the druggist.

  “Yes. I need some medicine for my sister.” Billy took a deep breath and tried to stop panting. “She’s got a sore throat.”

  The druggist’s shaggy white eyebrows arched. “Coughing, too?”

  Billy nodded. “Yes.”

  The thin-faced man behind the counter looked up over his glasses at Billy, blinked, and went after the medicine. Over his shoulder he tossed another question. “You look beat. Walk all the way from home?”

  “No. I ran,” answered Billy.

  The druggist paused and shot the six-foot-one boy a long, perceptive look. “Ran? That’s about two, three miles, isn’t it?”

  Billy shrugged. “I guess so.”

  He didn’t know how far it was. There was a path workmen had made from the homes beyond the stone quarry all the way to the cement plant across the railroad tracks from the drugstore. It could be two miles or three. But it was an easy run, for part of it was flat, only a little bit of it was up and down because of the quarry, and the remaining part was downhill.

  No, running from his house to the little one-horse town called New Court wasn’t bad. It was the long haul back that bit like teeth into his calves and thighs. Billy’s father had walked it five days a week for three months, and Billy remembered how he had complained about it until he found a fellow workman with a car who would give him a ride. The guy wanted three dollars a week for the accommodation, and his father gave it to him. It was better than walking, he said, especially when it rained. And snowed.

  The druggist got the medicine, wrapped it up in white paper, and secured it with tape. “That’ll be one sixty-nine, son,” he said. He smiled at the boy. “The directions are on the bottle. I’m sure it’ll fix your sister up so’s she’ll be up and around again in a short time.”

  Billy handed the druggist two one-dollar bills, stuck the bottle into his coat and the change into his coin purse, said good-bye, and started for the door.

  “It’s raining, son,” the druggist reminded him. “Didn’t you bring an umbrella?”

  “No. I just have this raincoat. I’ll be all right.”

  “Hang around for a while. Maybe it’ll clear up soon.”

  “Can’t,” said Billy. “My sister’s pretty sick.”

  “If she’s too sick, maybe she should see a doctor.”

  The last words reached Billy just before the heavy glass door closed with a clang behind him. Sure, a doctor, Billy thought. We have to be pretty sick in our house to go to a doctor. He started running immediately, one hand inside a pocket of his raincoat, gripping the bottle, the other held at his side. The rain was coming down hard and steadily, assaulting his head and face, his raincoat, pants, and shoes. The raincoat came only to the middle of his thighs, leaving most of his long legs exposed to the downpour. In just a few minutes his brown hair, which he kept just short enough to leave his ears exposed, was drenched and pasted to his head.

  When he had left for the drugstore no one at home could know for sure that it was going to rain. The southwestern sky was darkening up, but in the north and east the shining sun had left the impression that it was going to keep on shining for another three or four hours. It hadn’t worked out that way. Now black clouds rolled and swirled. Lightning streaked the sky, pierced the earth like jagged spears. Then came the cannon shots of thunder, and it seemed that with each one another vent burst open and more rain poured.

  It was April, usually the rainy month, although it wasn’t always so. Because of their location among the many lakes of central New York State local weather prophets said that April was as likely to bring snow as rain. But then again, when they thought back two or three years they remembered an April that had more sunshine than rain or snow. How can you explain that? Billy smothered a rain-smeared smile as the amusing memories of conversations with local characters tumbled through his mind. Nobody could outguess the weather, that’s all there was to it. But, as Billy had learned in one of his textbooks, New York’s topography and location had a lot to do with its wide variety of climate. Heavy snowfall and extreme changes in the temperature were characteristics of the mountain and plateau regions.

  He reached the end of the block, crossed the short bridge that straddled Sawmill Creek, and in another hundred feet arrived at the beginning of the path that snaked up the steep hill that would eventually lead him home.

  New Court’s population hovered about the six hundred and fifty mark. Most of its homes were built on the hill on the other side of the creek he had just crossed. Its commercial establishments were limited to a post office, a grocery store, a garage-and-gas-station combination, and the drugstore. For anything else that a person needed
he would have to drive eight miles to the city of Lonsdale. And if sickness or accident demanded the confines of a hospital, Lonsdale Memorial was four miles farther on.

  At this point of his life Billy Chekko hadn’t quite decided on where he would like to spend the rest of his life. He just knew that it wasn’t going to be in that small, stucco home stuck among the dozen or so similar homes just beyond the stone quarry. But, until that day when his mother and father decided to make a move to someplace else, that’s where he, brother Dan, twelve, eleven-year-old Christina, and six-year-old Sheri would stay.

  The side of the hill was almost all rock, but a series of odd-shaped, flat-topped shales all the way up made a natural, if uneven, staircase. Billy climbed the steps rapidly, and finally reached the top where the ground leveled off considerably and made running much easier. On both sides of the path weeds grew to shoulder height, and scattered among them were chokecherry trees that hadn’t yet started to blossom, skeleton growths of sumac, and an occasional elm, pine, or oak, all bending under the lash of the storm.

  He began to breathe harder and faster, and felt his heart pumping rapidly, so for a while he walked. He kept his strides long, but not fast. Sometimes the path was so narrow that he brushed against the wet, bending weeds. His pantlegs were soaked and clinging to his legs, and with every step he took he could hear the squish of water inside his shoes.

  Billy changed his walk to a run again when he realized he wasn’t far from the stone quarry. The quarry was about half a mile wide where he had to cross it, and the stucco houses were about a quarter of a mile beyond it.

  It wasn’t long before he reached the quarry. It wasn’t too deep where the path led across it to the other side, and perhaps only about forty feet deep at its lowest point. But it was broad, covering many acres. Millions of tons of stone had been dynamited and carried out of it to the plant down by the lake to be mixed with other ingredients and processed into warm, soft, powdery cement.

  Billy raced over the solid rock floor, running with his knees high, each long stride taking him closer and closer to the other side. Suddenly irritation welled up in him as he saw, not far ahead of him, a small lake.

  It was new. It wasn’t there when he left home. The rain had done it, formed a lake in just those few minutes that it poured.

  “Damn!” he said.

  He paused near its edge and looked to his left and right. He was practically in the middle, so neither way would get him to the opposite side quicker.

  He remembered a path far to his left that led up to the road going past his home, so he turned and headed for it. He had to skirt potholes, but eventually he found the path, took it, and in a few minutes was up on the hill. He was dead tired now, breathing so hard he had chest pains. His calves felt as if knives were stuck into them. He told himself that the first thing he was going to do when he got home was to rip off his drenched clothes and soak himself in the tub.

  He reached the road. It was a macadam, but cracked and seamed from age and the elements.

  He figured it was now about a half to three quarters of a mile to his home. The rain had let up a bit. The dark clouds were moving northward, and the booms of thunder were coming from farther away.

  He heard a car come up behind him, and got off the road to let it pass.

  “Hey, Billy!” a voice yelled as the car pulled up beside him. “What are you doing out in this rain? Training?”

  He grinned, noticing that it was Seattle Williams riding with Cody Jones, who lived in one of the stucco houses. The two guys were pretty good friends, even though Cody was seventeen — just old enough to hold a driver’s license because he had completed a high school driver education course — and Seattle was fifteen. Bill couldn’t understand why anyone would hang around with Cody. He seemed such a conceited jerk.

  “Hop in!” Seattle invited.

  Billy, too tired even to talk, headed for the right rear door. But, before he got to it, Cody sped off.

  Angered, Billy stared at the car, a green, five-year-old Ford that looked twenty, and muttered, “I love you, too, Cody, you punk.”

  He started to run again, and saw the car stop about twenty feet ahead, wheels skidding. Billy saw Cody looking back at him through the rear window. He was smiling.

  Okay, Cody, Billy thought. I’m in no mood for games. Not in this rain. Not the way I feel. Are you going to give me a ride, or are you going to play around?

  Billy almost reached the rear door again when Cody repeated the dirty trick: stepped on the gas and shot the car forward. About twenty feet ahead the car slithered to a stop. This was the third time, and Billy’s anger had mounted so that it showed in his narrowed blue eyes.

  I’ll get you for this, he thought.

  But he knew he wouldn’t. Cody was shorter, and Billy probably could beat him. But Billy would never fight Cody. He would just be angry about it for a while, then forget it, because the truth was that he had never been in a fist fight with anybody in his whole fourteen years.

  Now, when he reached the car, both Cody and Seattle were looking back and laughing at him, as if it were all a big joke.

  Sure it is, thought Billy.

  He opened the back door, said, “Thanks, buddies. But, no, thanks,” and ran on, leaving the door wide open.

  He heard the car door slam shut, then the gears grate as Cody shifted it into first, then the loud roar of the motor as Cody stepped hard on the gas and sent the car blasting past him. Water from a puddle in the road splashed up against him, but his pants were so wet anyway that a bit more made no difference.

  Billy smiled as the car zipped on ahead. In the few seconds that the back door had been open some rain must have poured into it, wetting the seat. Well, it probably needed a good washing, anyway, he thought with satisfaction.

  His home was the fourth one from the end. All the houses on his block looked alike, as if formed out of one mold. Patches in the roofs and gouges on the east sides were grim evidence of falling rocks from the blasting that took place in the quarry once or twice a month.

  Billy leaped up on the porch, dropped off his raincoat, barged into the house, and handed his mother the bottle of medicine for Christina. Then he did what he had promised himself to do — get out of his clothes and get into the tub.

  It was while he was soaking that he thought of what Seattle Williams had said from the car: “What are you doing out in this rain? Training?”

  Seattle and Cody were runners on Cove Hill Central School’s track team.

  Beginning today, Billy Chekko promised himself, he was going to be one, too.

  Chapter 2

  THE HOT BATH made Billy feel a hundred percent better. It made him feel clean and even relieved his aches and pains.

  After he dried himself with a towel and dressed in dry clothes, he went into Christina’s bedroom to see how she felt. With her lovely blond hair cascading over the pillow, and her eyes closed in sleep, she looked more like a china doll than she did a real live girl.

  Not wanting to awaken her, he tiptoed out of the room, closed the door, and went to join the rest of the family in the living room. His father was reading the morning paper; Billy’s mother was snipping out coupons from the paper’s grocery section; and the kids, Dan and Sheri, were sprawled out on the floor, playing Chinese checkers.

  “Christina’s asleep,” Billy said to his mother. “Did you give her any of that medicine?”

  “Yes. And I hope it makes her feel better, poor kid. You look much better, too, Billy.” His mother’s blue eyes looked sadly at him. “I shouldn’t have sent you. After that storm hit I worried about you every minute.”

  “I was okay,” said Billy. “Just got wet, that’s all.”

  Dan and Sheri glanced briefly up at him as he found a seat next to his mother on the sofa, then turned their attention back to the game. Billy was surprised to see that Dan was home and so obviously contented with what he was doing. Dan was like a restless colt, always on the go. He was seldom home, even in
bad weather. Had the rain really kept him in the house?

  When Billy asked Dan, Sheri answered. “He was at Joey’s. But when it started to rain Joey’s mother told him he’d better go home.”

  “Shut up and play,” Dan said.

  Billy smiled.

  “Shall I fix you a hot chocolate?” his mother asked him.

  “Okay. A hot chocolate will hit the spot, Mom, and let’s make a cup for your wandering son and his sister over there on the floor.”

  The bus stopped in front of the house at seven-twenty the next morning. The children were all ready, lunches and books in their hands, waiting for it.

  Billy and Sheri sat together. Dan went all the way to the back to sit with his friends. Christina had a good night’s sleep, but wasn’t well enough to go to school yet. She probably would make it tomorrow. The medicine had been a definite help.

  The bus stopped in front of the Jones’s house and both Cody and his younger brother, Al, got on it. As Cody came down the aisle he looked at Billy. His lips parted, and a cold glint came into his eyes.

  “See you made it all right, beanpole.”

  “No problem,” said Billy.

  He hadn’t thought much about Cody because he seldom saw the guy. Being a senior, Cody wasn’t in any classes with Billy. They were practically neighbors and Billy had always been prepared to like Cody. It might have been the difference in their ages, but Cody always ignored Billy when he wasn’t being mean to him. Why then did Cody let Seattle hang around with him? Maybe it was because they were both on the track team.

  Twice during the morning Billy had a glimpse of Seattle Williams strutting down the hall with two girls. Seattle was good looking, handsome. His dark, wavy hair was always in place. High tight-fitting pants and his loud shirts that showed off his muscles were his trademark in school. He probably could pick out any girl he wanted and go out with her. Billy wished he had half of whatever it was that attracted the girls to Seattle. He didn’t know what it was even to hold a girl’s hand.

  He had about ten minutes left during lunch period when a hand thumped him on the back and a familiar voice startled him out of his reverie. “Hi, Billy. What’s the matter? Doesn’t anybody want to sit with you?”