Read Online Barkerville Gold by Dayle Gaetz - Free Book Online Page A

deep woof , woof , woof of a black bear’s breathing. Instead he heard footsteps. They came closer and closer up the trail until they were opposite his hiding place. They stopped. Rusty squeezed his eyes shut. He would have held his breath, but his lungs cried so desperately for oxygen that he concentrated instead on breathing as softly as possible. Any second now the powerful animal would charge into the bushes, growling, swiping those giant paws, those long, sharp claws at anything that breathed. “Oh please, oh please, oh please!” he whispered. “Please don’t let me get eaten!”
    The bushes behind him rustled. A heavy paw landed on his shoulder. “WHA.” Rusty leaped to his feet, ready to run screaming through the bushes, to climb the nearest tree, to…
    â€œIt’s okay now,” Katie said. “He’s gone.”
    â€œThe bear?”
    Katie’s forehead crinkled, her left eyebrow rose. “What bear? I’m talking about the man who walked past us. Come on, we need to follow him before he gets away!”
    Rusty followed his cousin through the bushes back to the trail. Sheila was already there, pacing back and forth, fists clenched, bristling with anger. “You knew about this, didn’t you? Both of you!” Beneath her freckles, Sheila’s face flushed pink. Her bright blue eyes flashed from Rusty to Katie. “I knew I couldn’t trust you two! Why else would we go traipsing through the woods? Oh, sure, Rusty! We know how much you like nature hikes! Right, Katie!”
    Sheila raised her fists, pressed them against her cheeks. “I don’t know how, but you two knew that man was coming up here and you wanted to follow him!” She dropped her hands. “So you pretended to be nice! You pretended to do something I like for a change! How could I be so stupid?”
    Rusty studied the toes of his sneakers. Did they really do that? Did they pretend to be nice? And what did she mean, something I like for a change ? He was the one who felt left out, not Sheila.
    â€œYou’re wrong, Sheila,” Katie told her. “We wanted to explore the trail. We had no idea about that man coming up here—we don’t even know who he is, do we, Rusty?”
    Rusty shook his head. Sheila glared straight through him. He looked down at his sneakers again and thought about the maps stashed in his backpack along with the chocolate bars. “Okay, I admit, maybe we wanted to check out other stuff besides wildlife, but we didn’t know anyone else would be up here. How could we?”
    â€œExcept for that man we saw at the start of the trail,” Katie added.
    There was a long silence while everyone glared at everyone else. Finally Sheila’s shoulders slumped and she said, “Sorry, guys. It’s just…” She drew a deep breath. “Sometimes I feel, you know, kind of left out? Because you guys are all family and I’m, well, I’m not. And…” she bit her lip, “the worst thing is, my own mother doesn’t even want me around!”
    â€œIt’s for your own good,” Rusty reminded her and suddenly felt like his father. “Because she’s busy working all summer.”
    â€œAnd because she thought you’d have fun with us,” Katie said. “I thought you were having fun.”
    â€œI am.” Sheila sighed. “But don’t you ever get homesick?”
    Katie and Rusty shook their heads. “We go on vacation with Gram and GJ every summer,” Katie explained. “Usually it’s just for a couple of weeks though.”
    â€œOkay. Maybe that’s why I feel left out. I keep thinking Rusty doesn’t want me here.”
    â€œMe? Ha!” Rusty said. “Are you kidding? You think I want to be left alone with Katie? Can you imagine what sort of trouble she’d get me into?”
    For a moment Katie looked angry, but when Sheila burst out laughing, they