Free The Hop by Sharelle Byars Moranville Page A

hopped through the night, trying to keep his bearings. Did he have the courage to go on alone? Mother Earth was so much bigger than he’d ever imagined.
    Tad almost crashed into the second mantis. Its bridgework body dripped. It gazed at Tad and pointed. Tad veered off that way, but his heart wasn’t in it. Alone, he would never find the queen. Next spring, the toads wouldn’t come back.
    Tad came to another covering, which was streaming with roaring stinky things. But there was a third mantis. And he was pointing at something.
    It was a roaring stinky thing only a few hops away across the grass. It was very big and, like a turtle, it carried its shell on its back. It was sleeping. Humans were carrying things into its shell.

    The mantis moved its arm around in a circle and, once again, pointed to the home on the thing’s back as if to say, How many times do I have to show you?
    Tad was supposed to get in it.

Chapter 16

    TAYLOR HEARD RAIN running in the downspout outside her bedroom windows as she packed. Her wish for rain had come true, but it wouldn’t last forever. And she wouldn’t get to march with the protesters. When she got home, the pond would probably be gone.
    How would she be able to look at the space where everything had once been?
    Her mother stepped in and dropped some clean laundry on her bed. “Did I see your bike outside in the drive?” she asked.
    â€œSorry.” Taylor rain downstairs and out the back door, through the open garage.
    The wet concrete felt cool beneath her bare feet. She hoped she didn’t step on any night crawlers. She righted her bike and rolled it into the garage, and then she went back out. Taylor liked standing in the rain. It was salamander weather.
    A van with Ryan and the Rompers painted on the side stopped in front, reversed, and backed into their drive.
    â€œHi,” a man said, getting out of the van and smiling at her. Raindrops blossomed on the bill of his baseball cap. “You the lead singer?”
    What was he talking about?
    Her dad came out the back door carrying parts of his drum set. “Hey, Ron. You know Peggy Sue?”
    â€œDon’t believe so,” the man said, sticking out his hand. “Ron Waters. Guitar.”
    Taylor wondered if she should tell him her name wasn’t Peggy Sue, but she didn’t want to embarrass her dad. “Hello,” she said, shaking the man’s hand.
    The men opened the van and Taylor saw sound equipment, boxes, tripods, and all kinds of musical stuff. Her dad wrapped his drum set in blankets and wedged it into place.
    â€œSee you in Reno,” he said, sliding the door shut and clapping Ron on the back.
    As the van pulled away, her dad’s cell phone chimed, and to Taylor’s surprise he didn’t answer or even look to see who was calling. He just pushed a button and it went quiet. She’d never seen him do that.
    â€œYou ready to rock and roll?” he asked Taylor.
    She stared at him. He looked different. Fluffier. His face wasn’t scrunched up.
    And he was gazing at her as if he were counting the petals on a flower. “So how come you’ve never come with us before?” he asked.
    Didn’t he know the first thing about her?
    â€œI like to stay here.”
    He nodded. “Right.” He put his arm around her shoulders. “But here will still be here when we get back.”
    Not all of it. That’s what was so terrible.
    Maybe it was just the misty clouds making the light weird, but Taylor felt something scary brush her heart.
    She’d begged to stay home. Just this year, she’d promised her parents. She’d go next year and every year for the rest of her life if she could just stay home this year. But her grandmother was in the hospital for a few days. “To get built back up a little,” she’d told Taylor. Nothing to worry about. And Kia was at camp. So there was nobody for Taylor to stay with.
    She followed