Free Taming the Star Runner by S. E. Hinton Page A

like it was going to pulsate wide open, like a special effect in a horror movie. It was the price you had to pay for the party, he told himself, as he had many times before. You don’t get something for nothing. But since the “something” seemed to be a swollen jaw, sore ribs, and a vague memory of talking to some girls, the price seemed a little steep.
    Especially since Ken was still on his back. Travis sipped his orange juice and chewed his toast in silence, listening to Ken, thinking: Just as long as he doesn’t kick me out…
    â€œI’ve got enough worries without chasing around after some drunk kid in the middle of the night.”
    â€œLook, man, I’m sorry they woke you up, I just couldn’t think of who else to call.”
    â€œThey didn’t wake me up. I was already awake—wondering where the hell you were, what the hell you were doing, and asking myself why the hell had I let myself in for this.”
    â€œWhy did you?” Travis asked. He’d started out with good intentions, but he was ready to chuck them. “And no more of this irony bullshit.”
    Ken looked slightly surprised that he knew the word
irony
. Then he sat down on the bar-stool across the island table…
    Finally he said, “The last time I saw Tim, we had a big fight. I guess you’ve figured out we didn’t see eye to eye on the war. And the last thing I said to him was ‘I hope you get blown right out of the sky, you fascist baby killer.’
    â€œI wake up sometimes hearing those words. That’s why you’re here. And that’s probably why you can still stay.”
    He picked up his coffee cup and left for the den.
    Travis sat there. It was really weird, how he’d think he knew how he felt about things, then suddenly there’d be a sharp turn, and he’d end up in a place he wasn’t expecting. Like his feelings were a bumper car, he’d have a grip on the steering wheel, and it still didn’t go in the direction he’d thought it would.
    It was raining. Casey wouldn’t be giving lessons today. Maybe he’d go down to the barn later.
    He poured himself another cup of coffee and went to the den.
    Ken had Christopher on his lap, watching He-Man cartoons.
    â€œHey, I know what,” Travis said. “You can ground me.”
    Ken smiled in spite of himself. Christopher wiggled off his lap to act out the cartoon, waving an imaginary sword at the villains.
    â€œYou know,” Ken said, “one of the reasons I’m glad I waited so long to have a kid is, by the time he’s a teenager, hopefully, I’ll be too senile to care what he’s doing. And, hopefully, I’ll have forgotten what it’s like to be one. Its been spooky enough, hearing myself say things to Chris that my parents said to me. Now I’m hearing things from you I remember saying. ‘It’s my life’—God, I remember that. And it doesn’t seem so long ago either.”
    He absentmindedly switched channels. Bugs Bunny was blowing up Daffy Duck. Chris screamed in protest. “No more He-Man,” Ken said. “Too violent.”
    The commercial seemed to appease Christopher immediately. “I want one of those,” he said.
    â€œIn fact,” Ken said to Travis, “I remember what it was like so vividly I feel like Achilles, in the
Iliad
, coming back from the land of the dead, like I’ve come back to tell you what it’s like in the land of grown-ups.”
    â€œNot the
Iliad
,” Travis said absently. The coffee was chewing a hole in his stomach. “The next one, where what’s-his-name is trying to get home.”
    â€œMy God,” Ken said, slightly thunderstruck, “you’re literate!”
    â€œYeah, yeah, I’m real literate.” Travis finally remembered what it was that had caused this whole thing. “That’s why I had to celebrate last night. I sold my