The Tracks by Sally Royer-Derr (little readers TXT) 📕

I didn’t have much choice but to follow him due to the strong grip he had on my hand. He moved quickly down the wide, semi-grassy path next to the train tracks. The flashlight in my other hand bobbed up and down, creating an odd light show in the darkness surrounding us.

“Where are we going?”

“I found something,” he said, moving stealthily in the overgrown grass.

“What is it?”

“You’ll see.”

An ominous hoot of an owl filled the humid night air. We glided along the shiny tracks with the help of my trusty flashlight and the glow of the moon. Tommy traveled swiftly, and I kept pace, anxious to see where he was leading me. We were far down the line at this point. In the darkness it may have seemed farther than the true reality. But when I glanced behind me, I couldn’t see any lights. Not even from the Millers’ farm. Only the moon cast silvery brightness around us.

A sting of fear rippled through me. Fear of the dark. Fear of the widening distance between the safety of home and the unknown destination Tommy seemed intent on showing me. Perhaps even fear of Tommy.

I didn’t like or understand this feeling. I trusted this boy who glided like a gazelle, skimming over the ground effortlessly, his sun-streaked hair still golden, even in the dark night. Why, I had no idea. If I needed to write an essay on why I trusted Tommy Tucker, it’d be a short piece of writing. I possessed no concrete reasons, only feelings and knowledge that I had nothing to fear from him.

Nevertheless, while my heart knew this, my mind still raced with possibilities. Possibilities I’d rather not entertain on a hot summer night at midnight while I ran in the complete darkness. Fear of the unknown.

He led me off to the right into an alfalfa field. The growing hay scratched my bare legs as we snaked through the grasses. He stopped abruptly, taking my hand with the flashlight; he shined the light to the left of us.

“Over here,” Tommy said. His sweaty palm still grasped mine.

I breathed a silent sigh of relief that we would soon reach our destination.

A circle of large rocks stood ahead of us in the middle of the field. The rocks formed a short wall, rising to my kneecaps, with an opening in the center, allowing us to enter the circle. For a moment, I wondered if Tommy had constructed the rock circle for one reason or another.

Tommy let go of my hand. Even the humid night air felt cool on my moist hand. I wiped it on my shorts and looked around the circular shape I now inhabited. Old, thin stones stood upright in a haphazard fashion around us. Tommy walked to the back of the circle and knelt. I stared at the thin stones, and a realization washed over me. I was standing in a graveyard.

***

My pulse quickened as my flashlight illuminated the names of the deceased around me. A freaking graveyard! I needed to calm down. Fact was, these people were dead. They couldn’t hurt me. And I didn’t believe in ghosts. My panic merged into anger.

“Tommy Tucker,” I yelled. “Why would you bring me to a graveyard? At night? Why didn’t you tell me where we were going?” I blinded him with my flashlight set straight at his eyes.

“Why are you pissed?” He pointed to a particularly worn-down headstone. “I thought you weren’t afraid of the dark anymore.”

“I’m not. But that doesn’t mean I want to come to a graveyard in the middle of the night.”

“Hey, it’s not a big deal,” he said. “Come over here. This is what I wanted to show you.”

I rolled my eyes, which I doubted he could see in the dark. Reluctantly, I walked through the overgrown grass. My legs were really itching now. If I got poison ivy somehow on this little adventure, Tommy would never hear the end of it. When I got poison, everything itched, not just the affected parts. I thought it was a mental thing with me. I could have poison on my leg, but my arms, back, and head itched, too. Maybe I was a hypochondriac.

“Okay, I’m here,” I said. “What’s so special about this gravestone?”

“Shine the light on the name and dates.”

“Jacob Myer, born August twenty-two, nineteen-oh-one,” I read from the crumbling stone. “Died May thirteenth, nineteen-fifteen.” He was only fourteen years old.

“He was our age,” Tommy said. “Imagine what it would be like to die now.”

“Death at any age is shocking.” I looked at the dates. “You know it’s coming, but you still don’t expect it.”

“You don’t expect it at fourteen,” Tommy said. An edge entered his voice. “You haven’t even started living at fourteen.”

“Aren’t we living right now?” I looked at him. “The way my heart is racing, I’m pretty sure I’m living.”

“You know what I mean. A life. A career. Falling in love. Having kids. Experiences that change you.” Tommy paused. “Sure, I mean, we have experiences now that change us, but it’s only the beginning.”

“The beginning to the end.” I no longer felt scared. But kind of depressed.

We stood in silence staring at Jacob Myer’s headstone. Another owl, or maybe the same one, hooted from above us, likely perched in the scattering of trees surrounding the graveyard. His hoots echoed in the darkness, but I didn’t feel scared. I wanted to leave this place. Not chat about Jacob Myer and his half-lived life. Nor did I want to talk to Tommy tonight. Half the time I wondered why I talked to him so much anyway. Death was the last topic I wanted to discuss. I didn’t want to be standing in an ancient graveyard in the middle of the night. I wanted to be snuggled safely in my bed by