Free It's Up to Charlie Hardin – eARC by Dean Ing Page B

glancing again at the drainpipe. “Ours is okay, but when we put those pennies in rolls we can find a better bank. I might have found one already.” He walked a few paces, then faced the pipe where it emerged from the embankment.
    “But all the big pieces are down here along—” Aaron began, not seeing Charlie’s focus. But when he did, “Naw, drop it, forget it,” he said swiftly. “Nuthin’s in there that I want, Charlie Hardin, or you either.”
    Charlie’s eyebrows asked the question without words.
    “It’s haunted, is what, and you know it,” said Aaron. He saw Charlie’s pitying look, as he had expected, but he was ready for it. Alone on the creek, in moments of utter quiet, the boys had heard sounds from the old drain that would begin with a hiss, rise quickly to a faint moan, then fade into silence again, like the breathing of some unearthly thing asleep deep in the earth. Or—though neither boy had ever considered the possibility—like the sound of automobile tires several blocks away, passing very near one of the storm drain inlets installed along the streets.
    “I don’t believe in ghosts anymore,” said Charlie, rubbing away the subtle prickling of hair on his forearms.
    “Not much you don’t.” Aaron’s tone said, durn right you do .
    “Well, there’s bad ghosts and good ghosts. You don’t know, maybe it’s the ghost of some poor old cat that crawled up there a hundred years ago and wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
    “Maybe. Go keep him company, why don’t you?”
    It wasn’t quite a dare, but Uncle Wes would not have backed down. “Maybe I will,” Charlie muttered. “But cats don’t need flashlights.”
    “You’re rich. Buy one,” Aaron said, and this came closer to an outright dare.
    On such a bright Sunday afternoon, the whole notion of weird hisses and cat spooks carried less weight in Charlie’s mind than the chance for him to make a show of bravery. “You’re rich too. You buy one, and I’ll take it in there clean to the end of your kite line.”
    With that, Charlie pointed dramatically into the drain. Three blocks away, a bald-tired taxi passed within inches of a gutter grating. The big concrete pipe heard it. A second later the boys heard it. Charlie, wishing his finger didn’t shake, locked eyes with Aaron and held his stance.
    “My kite line reaches to the moon,” Aaron said. “First thing after school tomorrow, we can go to the store together.”

    Charlie found an exact match for the clippers immediately on Monday, a day of damp breezes that brought towering masses of cloud by late afternoon. The boys visited several stores to find the least expensive flashlight. Aaron found a bargain at Kress’s, where they managed to resist the candy counter (candy corn 19 cents a pound) but not the new shipment of glass marbles, featuring the 100 Giant Pak, 100 for only 29 cents, that matched the gleams in their eyes with its own glimmers through a cheap net bag. Neither boy had ever owned so many marbles but neither had ever been wealthy until now. “We can split fifty-fifty. Jackie’s got most of mine,” Aaron said.
    “Never play keepsies with that guy,” Charlie replied, having made the same mistake with the same result. “We can keep most of them with you know what.”
    They dug into their pockets, feverish with desire. As the saleslady watched her hand fill with pennies and the occasional nickel, Aaron fed Charlie a warning squint. “If you can’t get everything back from your hifalutin old hideyhole, remember this was your idea,” he said.
    “Scaredy-cat,” Charlie said, hefting the marbles.
    “If it is just a cat,” Aaron retorted, which made Charlie shudder. For the joy of it as they left the store, Aaron followed his remark with, “’Course, it could be a real cat. A reeeal big one,” he added ominously, making claws of his fingers.
    Charlie refused to rise to this bait, but his silence prodded Aaron to continue his teasing expedition. Aaron had wrung