Free Hidden Places by Lynn Austin Page B

not quite true. Three of us brothers grew up together on the farm. Johnny was the youngest, I was the oldest, and Simon was in the middle. For reasons I’ve never understood, Johnny was my father’s favorite. Johnny knew it, too, and he lorded it over us.
‘‘I’ll tell Pa!’’ he would threaten when things didn’t go his way. It wasn’t an idle threat, either. If Johnny complained to my father, Simon and I would pay the consequences with our own hides.
While Johnny was his favorite, my father could barely stand to look at me. I never understood why. Hard as I tried, I could never please him. My youngest brother won his love by doing nothing at all, while I seemed to earn his wrath by simply existing.
The Bible says Joseph was his father’s favorite and his brothers hated him so much they couldn’t speak a kind word to him. I felt the same way toward Johnny. When the opportunity arose, Joseph’s brothers got rid of him for good. I did the same thing. Johnny is dead. And I’m the one who killed him.
It happened on a cold December day just after Thanksgiving. Snow had fallen the night before—about six or seven inches worth—so Simon and I decided to go sledding down the hill near the pond. Of course, Johnny tagged along after us like he always did, spoiling our fun and making us pull him up the hill again each time. After a while Simon got tired of listening to Johnny wheedle and whine, and he headed home. I wanted to go with him, but I knew Johnny would follow me, so I grabbed his sled and gave it a hard shove, sliding it out into the middle of the pond. I figured I could make my getaway while he went after it.
Johnny started bawling. ‘‘Go get it for me or I’ll tell Pa what you did!’’
‘‘Get it yourself.’’
I knew Johnny was terrified of falling through the ice. He wouldn’t even lace up his skates until Simon and I had skated around the whole pond a couple of times to make sure it was safe. He was afraid of the pond in the summertime, too, because he couldn’t swim very well. He never could get up the nerve to jump off the rope swing. Now I saw him looking back and forth from me to his sled and I knew he was scared spitless. ‘‘You’re a scaredy-cat!’’ I taunted. ‘‘A lily-livered baby!’’
‘‘I am not!’’ His voice grated on me the way fingernails on a blackboard grate on other people.
‘‘Are too! You’ve got a yellow stripe down your back a mile wide! You’re scared stiff to step one foot out onto that ice and fetch your stupid sled.’’
‘‘I am not!’’
‘‘Then prove it! I dare you!’’ I crossed my arms and glared at him. ‘‘I double dare you!’’ I loved to make Johnny squirm. I watched him walk a few steps out past the shoreline and stop.
‘‘Is it safe?’’
The truth was, I didn’t know. The weather hadn’t turned really cold yet. But hatred makes you say all kinds of things that aren’t true. ‘‘What do you think, dummy? Your sled didn’t sink, did it?’’
He took a few more tentative steps. The snow made an odd crunching sound beneath his feet. I laughed cruelly.
‘‘You’re such a chicken!’’
‘‘I am not!’’ His voice sounded shaky, like he was riding in the back of a wagon down a bumpy road.
‘‘Then why don’t you walk out there and get your sled?’’ I turned my back and strode away. He would dither around for who knows how long before making up his mind. Meanwhile, I could disappear and be rid of him.
I heard that strange snow-crunching sound behind me as I started up the hill. I didn’t know if Johnny was walking farther out onto the pond or retracing his steps. I didn’t care.
Suddenly the sound changed. I heard an eerie creaking noise, like an old wooden floor in a haunted house. It was the most horrifying sound I’ve ever heard. The creaking grew louder and faster, like kindling catching fire. Johnny screamed.
I whirled in time to see the ice give way. Johnny went under, his arms flailing uselessly.