Those Who Favor Fire by Lauren Wolk (easy readers .TXT) 📕

worth his trouble. But everyone deserves a place to sleep, water for his thirst, warmth when it’s cold, fire, food, safety. So he’d allotted the little prick a campsite, helped him sort things out, and felt it only right to look in on him before bed. Now, despite the lure of the stars, he continued on through the trees—and broke into a run when he heard a muffled scream up ahead.

Something white was thrashing around in the bushes near Joe’s campsite, but without his glasses Ian couldn’t make out what it was exactly. He paused at the edge of the woods to arm himself with a long and spiky branch, then went on more slowly. Skunks were fairly common around these parts. Rabid ones less so, but not entirely out of the question and dangerous as all hell. He warily crept toward the thing, sniffing the air, wondering where Joe was. Whether he’d heard the scream. Whether he’d done the screaming. Maybe the boy was lying there in the bushes while this possibly rabid skunk gnawed his head off.

Closer now, Ian admitted to himself that whatever it was, it appeared to be much larger than any skunk he’d ever seen, rabid or not … about two, maybe three feet long, with a big, moon-shaped head on it, bucking and doubling up on itself like it was in pain, which made Ian think again about the scream he’d heard. What in the hell is it, Ian wondered, taking another step closer and belatedly unclipping his flashlight from his belt. As he fumbled with the switch, the thing in the bushes begin to wheeze and splutter … and to roll slowly toward him. His adrenaline pumping, Ian lifted his club high over his head and shined the light directly at the creature’s round, white head.

Even without his glasses, Ian knew a rump when he saw one. He quickly lowered his flashlight. “That you, Joe?” he said. His heart was still beating like a jackrabbit. Okay, so it wasn’t a three-foot-long rabid skunk, but it still looked to be some pretty weird stuff. “That you, Joe?” he repeated, club in hand, wondering if maybe he shouldn’t just scamper on back home and let the boy get on with whatever it was he was doing out here in the bushes with his ass hanging out.

“Oh, God,” the thing whimpered, and Ian knew.

“Tell you what, son,” he stammered. “I’ll just wait on your doorstep. I’ll be right there if you need me.” And he hurried away.

As Spalding rounded the end of the Schooner, Joe struggled to his feet. It took a moment for him to realize that his pants were still down around his ankles. The feeling of illness that engulfed him then made his lips tremble. He wanted so badly to be away from this place that he turned to look into the woods and to consider quite seriously whether he could walk through them and so, eventually, back where he belonged. But the thought of his father—like his sister’s stories and the useless credit card—made him feel a much worse sort of fool than a narrow bridge, an elusive gas tank, or, now, an unflattering posture ever could. With a sigh, he wiped the dirt from his face and hands, returned to the privy, and sat squarely on the cold seat of the toilet he’d so disdained.

Spalding was still waiting for him when he returned to the Schooner, so Joe asked him if he’d like to come inside for a beer. “All right,” his landlord said a shade too loudly. After a pause, he left his club outside and followed Joe in.

For an hour or so, Ian and Joe explored the Schooner, learning its secrets and applauding past owners who had added the sorts of things that make even small homes comfortable: an extra-high table in the kitchen booth granted more room for long legs and crossed knees; strips of padding tacked to the sharp edges of counters and cupboards testified to the amount of head-banging that can go on in tight places; buckled straps looped along the edge of the ceiling suggested fishing poles, paddles, and other gear awkward to store. Joe had noticed none of these things until Ian pointed them out.

Ian then helped Joe unpack the assortment of goods he’d selected from the tiny Sears in town: sheets and towels, a can opener, laundry line and clothespins, a lawn chair, a washtub, matches, a coffeepot, Scotch tape, pencils, a pad of paper, dishes, a pot with a lid, a skillet, hangers, a broom and dustpan, and various and sundry other things no young man on his own should be without.

All of this had taken a good deal of time and more energy than Joe had thought he had left. It seemed beyond possibility that he had first laid eyes on his Schooner only a dozen hours before: that in those few hours he had learned to drive a motor home, nearly wrecked it several times, partially wrecked it once, shopped in stores he’d never before in his life contemplated entering, talked to people who said things like “yup,” eaten cold beans from a can (and been pleased with the function of his new can opener), fallen headfirst from a rotting outhouse, inadvertently exposed himself to another man, and then astonished himself by offering this same man a drink.

By the time he said good night to Ian and crawled into his store-scented bunk, Joe was so exhausted that he began to understand the habitual haggardness of young mothers. But there was a certain gladness, too, that came from his management of things he’d always before left to others both more menial and more capable than he. Gladness, too, from the way Ian had laughed when he had learned the reason for Joe’s unusual behavior at the privy’s door. Laughter so innocent and so consuming that it had made Joe laugh, too, for the first time in days.

He lay in his bunk and thought about the