Four Miles to Pinecone

by Jon Hassler

Genres: YA Coming of Age

Synopsis

He was an eyewitness to a crime that his best friend committed. . . . 

“It all started the day school ended”

That was when my English teacher decided not to flunk me—if I wrote a long story during my summer vacation. My name’s Tom Barry. I’m sixteen, and I really do want to be a junior next year at the high school in St. Paul where I live. But with my full-time job at Mr. Kerr’s grocery store, I didn’t think I’d have enough time to do it.

But by the end of the week, the paper seemed small potatoes. You see, Mr. Kerr’s store was broken into—and my best friend Mouse was involved. I saw him, but I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to be a fink.

I kept mum because it was right about then that I was invited to stay at my uncle’s resort near Pinecone. It’s a real neat place in the Minnesota woods, and I figured I would cool out there. And then I found that they have crime just like in St. Paul—but this time the stakes were much higher. Suddenly, my life was on the line. . . .

Release date: July 20, 2011

Publisher: Fawcett

Print pages: 128

Sample

Chapter 1
 
 
 
Summer is over.
 
I hope I never have to live through another one like it.
 
First, I flunked English. Then there was the break-in at the grocery store that put Mr. Kerr in the hospital and me out of work. And finally, a three-hundred-pound goon tried to run me over with a truck.
 
I’m not the scholarly type, so you may be wondering why I’m sitting here in the public library with a ballpoint pen and a notebook.
 
It all started back in June, on the last day of school. Mouse Brown and I stood by our lockers comparing report cards. I had an F in sophomore English and so did Mouse. I knew my parents would have a fit, and I asked Mouse to go with me to see Mr. Singleton. I thought we might talk him into changing our grades.
 
But Mouse said no. He said flunking English didn’t make any difference to him. He said he was thinking about quitting school now that he had turned sixteen. He said he’d had a fantastic job offer, and if he liked the work his school days would be over for good. I tried to picture Mouse working, but I couldn’t do it. He’s like his dad. I’ve never known him to shovel snow or mow a lawn or set out the garbage. His mother does it all.
 
So I went alone to see Mr. Singleton. I found him sitting in his classroom, cleaning his glasses with his tie, and squinting at thirty empty desks. Without his glasses he looked ten years older, and very tired. The sound of city traffic drifted up through the open windows. The room was hot.
 
“Thomas,” he said, “I know why you’re here. You are less than satisfied with your grade.”
 
“I’m in a state of shock,” I said.
 
“All is not lost, Thomas. Pull up a desk and be seated. We shall talk. Nothing is hopeless.”
 
“That’s what I came to hear,” I said. I sat down.
 
“Hope is a thing with feathers that perches in the soul.” Mr. Singleton is forever quoting dead poets. He put on his glasses and gave me the same repulsive smile he always gives students who talk out of turn or carve on desks. It’s the only smile he’s got, and he shows a lot of crooked gray teeth. He’s the only teacher I know who can discipline a student simply by smiling at him. You’d rather behave yourself than look at those teeth a second time.
 
“Mr. Singleton,” I said, “I deserve better than an F in English. I did great on all your tests. I know everything you teach, and here you flunk me. How can you get away with that?”
 
I was coming on strong. His smile faded.
 
“Please do not question my judgment,” he said. “Now it’s true that you know a great deal about what I teach, but you have one great weakness—one vast flaw—in an otherwise adequate mentality.”
 
“What’s that?”
 
“You lack perseverence, my good young man.”
 
“What’s that?”
 
“Perseverence is another word for handing in assignments. Would you care to estimate the number of written assignments you failed to hand in during the year?”
 
“I know I skipped a few. Ten or twelve.”
 
“Guess again.”
 
“Maybe more. Maybe twenty. But I had a job, Mr. Singleton. I couldn’t always find time to do the assignments.”
 
“Guess again.”
 
“Twenty-five?”
 
He opened his grade book and said, “Look at this,” and pushed it across his desk. “Forty-seven,” he said.
 
“Forty-seven?” I said. I pretended to be surprised, but I knew he was right. I had decided early in the year that I wouldn’t trouble myself with English assignments, because English always came pretty easy for me, and I figured I could get by with at least a C by simply showing up for class and taking the tests. English assignments, if you take them seriously, can really cut into your free time.
 
He insisted I look at his grade book. With a dirty fingernail, he was pointing to my name. Sure enough, except for the A’s and B’s I got on tests, every little square after my name was blank. Forty-seven of them.
 
“Those A’s and B’s don’t average out to F,” I said. I wasn’t about to give up.
 
“Those forty-seven empty squares stand for forty-seven F’s. A very low average, indeed. Perhaps the lowest average in the history of Donnelly High School. Perhaps the lowest in the city of St. Paul. For all I know, it may be the lowest of any sophomore in the western hemisphere.”
 
He was getting nasty now, so I decided to quit reasoning and play on his sympathy—even tell a lie or two if I had to. I told him my father would come after me with a leather strap. I told him I might lose my job at the grocery store. My mother might die of grief. I told him I might have to drop out of high school because I couldn’t afford the extra time it would take to make up his course.
 
When I got to the part about my mother, he realized I was spreading it pretty thick. That’s when he gave me a big horrible smile.
 
“Thomas,” he said, “I have a plan. That F can be changed to the B you’re capable of earning—if you will write one long story in a mature style and free of mechanical errors. I will give you the whole summer to finish it. If you bring it to me on the first day of school next fall I will change your grade.”
 
“But in the summer I work full time in the grocery store. I’m not sure I’d have the time to work on English.”
 
“If you wish to pass the course you will find the time. It will be up to you. It is your one chance.”
 
“Well, maybe I can work it out. Just tell a story in writing—is that it?”
 
“Yes. A story of some length.”
 
“What length?”
 
“Forty-seven pages,” he said. And smiled.