Free Homecoming by Scott Tracey Page A

mailboxes for batting practice. There must have been another spree this week. No one had been caught yet, but everyone had a theory, or a hunch about which meddling kids to blame. Garroway was a town of six hundred and change: there weren’t a lot of suspects to suspect.
    I squinted up at him. “Too hot for mailbox vandalism. I’m waiting for someone to organize some good old-fashioned sprinkler larceny. Or maybe grand theft kiddie pool.”
    Mr. Collins grunted in that “I don’t understand you young people and your sarcastic tones” way that adults used regularly around me.
    He dropped the mail into the box—I’d offered to just take it from him before, but he’s insistent on the ritual of it—and shuffled back to the stairs. “See you at the game on Friday?” he asked.
    I shrugged. “Maybe.”
    â€œHomecoming’s always a good game,” he said, swiveling away, a compelling note to his voice. Garroway was also one of those towns that shut down on football nights. And the Homecoming game was the biggest of them all.
    â€œHave to see what my uncle says. You know how he is.” It wasn’t just this game in particular—anytime something was going on in town, I would ask, and he would say no. I was pretty sure his first word was “no.” He didn’t really snore in his sleep so much as he “no’d” a lot. It was like he had a quota that he had to meet every day.
    It couldn’t hurt to ask, though. Right?
    Â¤ ¤ ¤
    I waited until the next morning at breakfast before bringing it up.
    â€œNo.”
    â€œI haven’t even asked you yet.”
    â€œStill no.”
    â€œCome on, Uncle John!”
    â€œNo to the power of twelve,” was his dry response.
    â€œYou’re supposed to be the adult here,” I said, crossing my arms in front of me. But John seemed to think that having a sixteen-year-old nephew meant he could still act like he was a teenager, too. Which was just weird, because he was forty.
    It was his turn to make breakfast, which he accomplished by pointedly taking the box of frozen waffles out of the freezer and slapping them down on the table in front of me. Twenty minutes later, once he had coffee and the paper and was as close to human as he was going to get, I’d made my pitch.
    He put down the front section of the paper. Garroway only printed up their newspaper once a week, and it came in two sections. The front, where all the news ended up, and the back, which was just an excuse for all the local businesses to badmouth one another. Come eat at Hoggie’s. The health department’s never shut US down.
    â€œDid you finish the reading?”
    I glanced guiltily toward the front door, and the abandoned texts still on the porch. “I’m almost—”
    â€œThat’s a no.” A faint smile quirked his lips. “And so is this. No.”
    â€œUncle John! Come on! It’s just one football game.”
    â€œOh, it’s just a football game?” One eyebrow raised in speculation. “A football game that draws out everyone in a thirty mile radius? I don’t see how you could possibly get into trouble.”
    â€œIf you keep me locked up here, people are going to talk.”
    â€œPeople always talk,” he grunted. “Let me know when they start saying something interesting.”
    â€œKeeping me locked up is like … child abuse or something.”
    If I thought the threat was going to get me any ground, Uncle John’s nonchalance quashed that notion quickly. He just didn’t get it, what it was like to be on the outside all the time.
    John held up one hand and started ticking off the fingers. “The last time you went to the hospital, you blew up an X-ray machine; last week, instead of practicing wards like I told you, you were summoning fire elementals that definitely do not prevent forest fires; and let’s not even talk