The Body

31

The story never did get out.

Oh, I don’t mean that Ray Brower’s body was never found; it was. But neither our gang nor their gang got the credit. In the end, Ace must have decided that an anonymous phone call was the safest course, because that’s how the location of the corpse was reported. What I meant was that none of our parents ever found out what we’d been up to that Labor Day weekend.

Chris’s dad was still drinking, just as Chris had said he would be. His mom had gone off to Lewiston to stay with her sister, the way she almost always did when Mr. Chambers was on a bender. She went and left Eyeball in charge of the younger kids. Eyeball had fulfilled his responsibility by going off with Ace and his j.d. buddies, leaving nine-year-old Sheldon, five-year-old Emery, and two-year-old Deborah to sink or swim on their own.

Teddy’s mom got worried the second night and called Vern’s mom. Vern’s mom, who was also never going to do the game-show circuit, said we were still out in Vern’s tent. She knew because she had seen a light on in there the night before. Teddy’s mom said she sure hoped no one was smoking cigarettes in there and Vern’s mom said it looked like a flashlight to her, and besides, she was sure that none of Vern’s or Billy’s friends smoked.

My dad asked me some vague questions, looking mildly troubled at my evasive answers, said we’d go fishing together sometime, and that was the end of it. If the parents had gotten together in the week or two afterward, everything would have fallen down… but they never did.

Milo Pressman never spoke up, either. My guess is that he thought twice about it being our word against his, and how we would all swear that he sicced Chopper on me.

So the story never came out—but that wasn’t the end of it.