Читать книгу The Lost Celt - A. E. Conran - Страница 12

CHAPTER SEVEN

Ryan launches forward as if he’s going to attack the guy. I can’t believe it. What’s he thinking? Fighting a Celt? He’ll be torn apart!

“Stop!” I thrust my whole body sideways into Ryan, pushing him out of the way, so I can put myself in front of the Celt. I hold both my hands out as if I’m stopping traffic. “I was at the VA. I’m a friend.” Crud, I hope he remembers or he’s going to cream me.

The Celt staggers back as if he’s more surprised than I am. Then Ryan’s stumbling over to the wall of the laundromat, sobbing, “No! Just go!” His nose is running snot. I don’t know whether he’s talking to us or to the Celt, but I don’t get the chance to find out because Kyler’s dragging me along the sidewalk, yelling, “Come on!”

“Wait!” I try to shake Kyler’s grip, all the while twisting to keep the Celt in sight. “It’s OK, he’s a friend,” I cry, but Kyler’s got momentum and, although he’s small, he’s impossible to fight off.

“Geez,” he keeps saying, over and over, “geez.” He’s already pulled me past the laundromat when I finally decide to sit down in the gutter. That stops him. Kyler loses his balance and falls back into me.

“Quit pulling me. That’s him!” I say.

“What?”

“We found him, on the very first day!” I slap the sidewalk with my hand.

“Oh man! I was so freaked, and now we’re gonna lose him again—where did he go?”

“Down the—”

I don’t have time to finish my sentence. Kyler’s on his feet and we’re both running toward the laundromat and its clouds of steam. Ryan’s collapsed against the wall by the front door, one shoulder leaning against it, his legs spaghetti twisted, as he stares down the alley. He’s weirded out, I guess, because he’s as pale as noodles and shaking. As I run past, he turns his face into the bricks.

“Sorry, Ryan,” I mutter. Ryan doesn’t say a thing.

Because of the dryer exhausts, the alley feels twenty degrees warmer than the street, even though the sun hasn’t risen high enough to peek down here yet. It’s all fog, trash, and grafitti. There are detergent boxes spilling out of trash bags next to the back door of the laundromat, and a bunch of grocery cartons from the store with chip and beef jerky logos on them.

“Can you see him?” Kyler whispers.

“No.” I creep along, weaving between the dumpsters. Kyler follows.

“We really shouldn’t be doing this,” he whispers, and he’s right. Mom will kill me if she finds out. Big time screen ban. No TV, minimum. But this is a Celt we’re talking about.

Behind the dumpsters, people have laid sheets of cardboard to sleep on. There are blankets too, dirty coats and plastic bags piled high against the grimy black walls. Torn strips of paper and cardboard stick to the ground in dirty brown wads, reminding me of the collages Kyler’s little brother makes. They always end up brown. There are puddles of dark water in every dip in the bricks, and the alley smells of pee.

Kyler overtakes me, hurrying to look behind the final cluster of garbage cans, about three quarters of the way down. My heart slams a few extra beats when he sticks his head up.

“Found him?” I call.

Kyler shakes his head. “He’s gone!”

I catch up with him. He’s right. The Celt is nowhere to be seen.

“It’s all my fault,” Kyler groans. “That was insane. Never saw anyone so scary in my life. But he was just like you said, Mikey. A Celt! Awesome!”

“Awesome,” I agree. “But where did he go?”

“I don’t know.”

We high five in the dark stink of the alley because even though we’ve lost him this time, we have a real live Celtic warrior in our town. A shiver runs down my back. It’s only when we walk a few extra feet and we’re out on the other side of the alley that we start to laugh.

“You should have seen your face,” I say. The smell of fresh hot doughnuts drifts across the street. My mouth waters, and I feel good again right away. I push Kyler, and he pushes me back.

“Did you see Ryan’s face? He looked like he’d seen a ghost,” Kyler says.

“He saw our Celt. A real time-traveled Celt! That’s better than a ghost.”

Then Kyler throws himself against the door of a store and blubs, “No, just go!” It’s a pretty bad imitation of Ryan, but I know what he means, and we double over laughing. When I look up trying to catch my breath, I catch sight of the clock in the doughnut shop.

“We are so late!” I adjust my backpack.

“Oh no, just go!” Kyler flings his arms in the air and fake sobs again. He wants us to keep laughing, but we’ve got to hurry. I start back down the alley, but it feels too creepy, so we end up running down the street we’re already on. At the intersection, we join up with the red route we planned this morning.

“He just appeared…” Kyler shouts as he runs beside me, “in all that fog and steam, and then disappeared again. Like magic.”

“Not science?” I ask, thinking how much Kyler loves his physics.

“Maybe science and magic are the same thing…if you’re a Celt.”

I hadn’t thought of it like that, but now that Kyler says it I can’t help wondering if it’s true. This is the greatest thing ever. First day, and we found him. No. Even more spooky, he found us. “He remembered me. He protected us from Ryan.” I’m gasping for breath now as we get near school. “How did he even know where we were?”

“Maybe he’s following us?”

“You think?”

“You said it yourself, Mikey, you’re his only friend. Maybe he needs help? We’ve got to be open to all possibilities,” Kyler says. “We have to be governed by the evidence.” Kyler can run and say “governed by the evidence,” without panting. That’s a brown belt for you.

The school bell goes off. The last three tetherball guys slide into their classrooms. We’re still way over on the other side of the blacktop, officially late, but I don’t care.

“We’ve found a Celtic warrior!” I yell to Kyler.

“This is the best day ever!” Kyler shouts back.

“Epic!” And it doesn’t even occur to me to worry about leaving Ryan behind.