Читать книгу One Frosty Night - Janice Johnson Kay - Страница 13

CHAPTER FIVE

AS YET UNNOTICED, Ben leaned one shoulder against the end of the bleachers and watched the boys’ basketball practice.

Even though the weekend had been unexpectedly relaxed where Carson was concerned, he still felt the prickly grab of the burr that was his worry about him.

During the Friday night game, Carson had mostly sat on the bench with his elbows braced on his knees and his head hanging, his eyes downcast. His body language shouted, I don’t want to be here. When he went in, he was a step too slow. Ben could see why McGarvie had benched him. The coach had probably had no choice. Ben had also seen the distance Carson was keeping from the stars of the team. Even when McGarvie called the team into a huddle to talk about strategy, Carson stayed on the outskirts, a careful arm’s length from anyone else.

Something was wrong, above and beyond a rapidly growing boy’s clumsiness.

He packed his observations at the game on top of Olivia’s worries and his own, increasing that sense of foreboding. It might be an overreaction, but he couldn’t shake the feeling. As a result, Ben had spent more time than usual today wandering the halls between classes, listening to snippets of conversation, talking to teachers and asking them to keep an ear to the ground for new rumors, and the only result by the time the last bell rang was that his uneasiness had grown, and he had not a grain of fact to base it on.