The Acolytes of Crane (Theodore Crane, #1)(41)

Lincoln and I exchanged bewildered glances.

She didn’t seem to notice our reactions. Both hands clasped against her chest just above her left breast, she acted as if she were auditioning for a role. ‘I am but a weary soul, and my heart is shackled by your love.’ Feigning distress, she brought the back of her hand to her forehead. With a theatrical gasp of air and a scoff, she continued, ‘Now deliver me from this pain. Go, you insufferable beast. Cure the ache in your soul! Begone!’ She slowly fell to her knees and faked some tears, rubbing her eyes with bent index fingers.

As she kneeled, her gaze reverted to normal, as if she had snapped out of a trance. Quick like a rabbit at dawn, she hopped to her feet. She looked directly at us, just like any responsible adult addressing two kids. ‘Can I help you boys?’

Lincoln and I looked at each other. Simultaneously, we asked, ‘Is Liam home?’

‘No, I do apologize. I so love the theater and that was one of Margaret’s defining moments. I have been working on a play.’ She placed her hands on her hips and sighed, looking off into the distance. ‘Liam is at camp with his father. They will be coming back later tonight. Would you like for me to tell Liam you stopped by, wait, aren’t you boys young to be hanging out with Liam?’

‘Yes. Please ma’am, we don’t really want to play with him. We just want to ask him some questions for a project we are working on. We’ll get out of your hair,’ I said, and I grabbed Lincoln to follow me down the driveway.

‘I will tell him you stopped by—your names?’ she asked.

‘Lincoln Royce and Theodore Crane,’ I said.

Mrs. McCaffrey’s eyes grew sad. Again folding her hands over her heart, she emoted sincere warmth and sympathy, as if it were her own son that died. ‘You are the boy who lost his friend. I hope all is going well for you. I was deeply saddened by your loss. Jason has most definitely found a place in heaven among angels, and I know he is up there watching you now, as does God. God bless you boys, I will tell Liam you stopped by.’

She walked away and started-up with another dramatic monologue. Lincoln and I looked at each other again and took off down the gravel driveway. With Liam’s house to our backs, I asked Lincoln, ‘If her husband was at camp, who was the man upstairs?’

‘I don’t know, and I don’t want to know. It couldn’t have been good. He was calling her honey,’ Lincoln said as he shook his head.

So, now we knew Liam and his dad were at camp. Lincoln and I sized up our progress to date. To recap, we needed three people who were of impeccable character, and had specific skills.

First, Liam was not available right now, and we were running out of time. Second, we knew that whatever Liam’s mom did, it shouldn’t reflect upon Liam’s character. But—if Liam’s mom was doing what we thought she was, then we need to ensure that Liam didn’t inherit her questionable moral values. We were definitely off to a sluggish start.

The next boy on our list was someone who had a reputation as a “bad boy.” We knew him better than most people, and we knew he wasn’t actually a troublemaker. He wore this toughness as a fa?ade in order to appear “cool,” designed to hide the true nature of his kindness. He viewed his innate generosity as a weakness, but we viewed it easily as strength.


He always skated behind a local bread factory by the freeway. This factory, named County Hearth, was probably the hottest spot to skateboard because of its industrial layout, and because it shut down every day at six—allowing skateboarding enthusiasts to congregate there as if it was a shrine. The location, just off the frontage road by highway six-ninety-four, was known for a concrete embankment near the loading dock—perfect for skateboard tricks and stunts.

People played games of SKATE there. It was a match no different from HORSE or PIG in basketball. The object of the game was to match or better the trick that the previous skater had cleanly landed. If a player bailed or blanked on the board, they would find themselves with the next letter in sequence of the word, as if each letter was a dreaded penalty to be imposed. The first person to unwillingly complete the word, SKATE, would be eliminated from the competition.

We arrived at the Hearth to shred the concrete embankment with our decks, but all the regular skateboarders were missing. We figured we would get some practicing in.

I had a banana board, and I was oddly good with it. As if it were second nature, I easily executed the slick motions that awed my friends. A sign of my skill was that grip tape was sparingly added to my board’s front and back ends, both of which curved upwards. Most boards—for amateurs—had the entire upper surface covered with grip tape.

To do an “ollie,” I would pound the tail of my board down to the ground with my back foot and simultaneously jam my front foot against the roughness of the grip tape. This action would cause the board to rise up, and soar into the air along with me.

If I whipped my front foot outwards, directing my slide sideways away from the board, I could flip it. It would rotate like a slick bullet shooting through the air, and finish a complete revolution so that I could once more regain the skateboard on the ground. It was a trick known as the “kick-flip.”

The ollie and the kick-flip were just a couple of “mother” tricks, which would give birth to wide range of more difficult tricks such as backside-kick-flips and others.

I could not do many tricks, but one of the few I did with superb proficiency was the kick-flip. I would execute my kick flips so beautifully that the board would clap against my tail foot as if wanting to connect to me. I knew it was well received, because people tried to model their flips after mine.