Free Sagaria by John Dahlgren

a big black bear would come through, moving astonishingly gracefully despite its bulk. Posses of wild turkeys flew in sometimes too, and there were always woodpeckers, cardinals, crows, ducks and geese. The wild creatures seemed to regard Grandpa’s house and its yard as part of the natural landscape, as their own shared territory.
    It was strange to think of his mom as a little girl, growing up here. Since then, she’d lost all connection she might have once had with the wilds; she was a townie through and through.
    Brewster lurched to a stop in front of the cottage’s sagging door. The sign over it said “The Eagle’s Nest.” Sagandran had once asked Grandpa about the sign, and for once the old man had become somber and uncommunicative. Dad had later explained that Grandma put it up many years ago, before Sagandran was born and not long before she succumbed to the cancer that had stolen her life. Even though the name of the house was a bit fanciful for a woodsman like Grandpa Melwin, he’d left it that way for the sake of Grandma, whom he’d loved very dearly.
    Once they’d taken Sagandran’s bags up to his room – which looked the same mess as it always did, like boys’ rooms should – Grandpa got the barbecue going and hot dogs were soon sizzling. Sagandran’s leftover peanut butter sandwiches from the bus, Grandpa declared solemnly, would be their dessert. Mugs of cold lemonade from the fridge completed the planned repast.
    Sagandran sat on one of the big sawn-off tree trunks Grandpa used for chairs out here and watched the smoke from the barbecue spiraling up among the branches of the old pine trees. The sun seemed to be not so much shining down on the glade as gently washing it. The sky was the kind of blue no painter could ever capture. Everything seemed perfect in the world.
    Then there was the sound of a car engine coming along the lane.
    Unless Grandpa was expecting visitors, and a glance at the old man was enough to tell Sagandran that he wasn’t, there was only one other group of people it could be.
    Suddenly, the sunshine wasn’t so friendly.
    Webster O’Malley .
    Of all the other kids at the school whose parents could have bought the summer house, it had to be Webster, didn’t it? Just another of those dirty tricks life seemed so fond of playing on Sagandran.
    “Something the matter, hero?” growled Grandpa, looking up from burning his fingers as he turned over a hot dog.
    “It’s okay,” said Sagandran wearily.
    The noise was coming much closer. When it emerged from the tunnel – no,the lane, it was just a lane now – Sagandran could see the vehicle was a jeep, done in supposedly military-style camouflage green. The type of paint job that made bankers and lawyers think they looked pretty manly and grand, but made real soldiers – Dad had once told him – laugh out loud or wince. Why was Sagandran not surprised that the O’Malleys had a car like this for their holidays in the country?
    It wasn’t just the jeep’s engine that he and Grandpa could hear now. Webster’s dad was shouting.
    “… like driving along the sleepers of a railway track! We’ve got to get this road asphalted. Shut up your squalling, Webster, you horrible little brat. Hey, these trees are a road hazard. We have to get them chopped down. Mabel, can you phone someone in the morning? And what’s this dump? Oh, yes, that daft old coot Melwin. Smells like a cesspit. Tomorrow we’ve got to …”
    The voice and engine noise receded as the jeep vanished round another bend, leaving only the smell of exhaust fumes behind – that and a fat cigar butt that Webster’s dad had tossed out of his window onto the edge of Grandpa’s yard.
    “Friends of yours?” said Grandpa mildly as he went across to pick up the cigar butt.
    “Nope,” Sagandran replied firmly, “not friends of mine.”
    What stood out most clearly in his mind from Mr. O’Malley’s diatribe was the “horrible little brat” bit. That hadn’t been