Authors: Judy Young
Promise
PROMISE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2015 Judy Young
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Young, Judy, 1956-
Promise / written by Judy Young.
pages cm
Summary: Eleven-year-old Kaden, a boy who lives with his grandmother outside the small town of Promise, learns, just when he is starting middle school, that the father he has never known was released from prison.
ISBN 978-1-58536-914-0 (hard cover : alk. paper) -- ISBN
978-1-58536-915-7 (paper back : alk. paper)
[1. Conduct of life--Fiction. 2. Fathers and sons--Fiction. 3. Ex-convicts--Fiction. 4. Middle schools--Fiction. 5. Schools--Fiction. 6. Grandmothers--Fiction. 7. Crows as pets--Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.Y8664Pro 2015
[Fic]--dc23
2015003515
ISBN 978-1-58536-914-0 (case)
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
ISBN 978-1-58536-915-7
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States.
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Contents
Chapter Two: Four Days Earlier
Chapter Eleven: All Figured Out
Chapter Nineteen: Friendship Rock
Chapter Twenty: Unexpected Visit
Chapter Twenty-Two: The Meeting
Chapter Twenty-Three: Like A Normal Family
Chapter Twenty-Four: Town Crier
Chapter Twenty-Five: School Beautification
Chapter Twenty-Six: Sharing Music
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Paying the Price
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Still Strangers
Chapter Thirty: Under A Yellow Moon
Chapter Thirty-Three: A Little Stirring Up
Chapter Thirty-Four: Not Amused
Chapter Thirty-Five: In Trouble
Chapter Thirty-Six: Confrontation
Chapter Thirty-Seven: Forgiving
Chapter Thirty-Eight: A New Day
For Ross
and his brethren, the crow.
Love, Judy
Any day with a crow in it is full of promise.
â
Crows
, Candace Savage
If Kaden had gotten the dog he wanted for his eleventh birthday, it would have barked when the man walked up the narrow path from the road. The man would have wondered how a dog got trapped in the top of an abandoned fire tower. He would have tried to rescue it, and Kaden's secret hiding spot would have been discovered instantly. But the man took no notice of a crow cawing incessantly from the window of the fire tower. Kubla was much better than a watchdog if you really wanted no one to notice you. And that was exactly what Kaden wanted. No one to notice.
Kaden should have easily gone through life unnoticed. He was very average. Average height and weight. Unnoticeable
brown hair and eyes. Made average grades. But in the small town of Promise, Kaden felt he stood out like a crow against snow. He was the kid whose father was in prison.
When Kaden first heard the vehicle, he picked up the binoculars. Not many cars turned onto the rutted, nearly undriveable dirt road leading up to the fire tower. On the first warm days of spring or when the color changed in the fall, a few hikers might come from Chapston City, forty miles to the north. They would park at the log barricade and wander up the weedy path to the tower. There, they'd be disappointed to discover the bottom set of stairs was gone.
But this was a scorching August Friday. Hikers rarely came in the summer, discouraged not only by the heat but also by ticks and jungles of poison ivy. Kaden put the binoculars to his eyes. He focused on the spot where a small piece of road showed through the trees. Kubla sat on his shoulder. The vehicle soon passed through the open spot: an old white pickup with a big plastic cargo carrier taking up most of the bed.
When the truck disappeared under layers of leaves, Kaden sat down out of sight from anyone below and waited. Kubla waited, too, chattering in Kaden's ear and pulling at strands of
his hair. He pestered Kaden whenever he wanted to play, but now Kaden gently pushed the bird off his shoulder. It wasn't long before the truck pulled up at the log barricade. Music drifted from its open windows. Then the engine turned off and the music quit. A door squeaked open and slammed shut. There was no talking.
Just one hiker,
Kaden thought. He was tempted to take a quick peek but was afraid he'd be seen. People always looked up when they first approached the fire tower.
Kubla darted out one of the paneless windows, making a racket of harsh warning caws. Kaden knew the hiker was making the usual inspection of the tower and surrounding area. When Kubla perched on his favorite limb near the edge of the clearing and quieted to just a few grunts, Kaden knew the hiker was heading back toward the truck.
Kaden quietly peeked out. A man in blue jeans, a T-shirt, and a cowboy hat was stepping over the log barricade, his back to the tower. He didn't look like the typical hiker. No daypack. No canteen hanging from his belt.