Nobody Else Has to Know (Laurel-Leaf Books) - Softcover

Ingrid Tomey is the author of five novels for young adults.

Webber sprinted down the sidewalk, in no hurry to get home but too full of energy to slow down. He loved the feel of the sidewalk unrolling beneath his feet, of everything pumping inside him. Autumn leaves lifted and spun in his wake as he dodged around clumps of other kids making their way home from Spratling High.

"Hey, Webb!"

He glanced over his shoulder and flipped a hand at a bunch of kids from Heffner's class.

"How'd you do on the algebra test?" Jeff Scott yelled after him.

"Aced it!" he yelled back.

Snorts of laughter followed him down the sidewalk. "Sure you did, Freegy. We all know what an Einstein you are!"

Webb just grinned and kept going, feeling the sweat break under his shirt. The day was warm, but he couldn't stop long enough to put his books down and take off his jacket. He shot around a bunch of girls waiting for the walk signal at Washington. In front of the bakery he passed Dylis Clark handing out blue flyers. She knew better than to offer him one of her "Global Alerts"--harangues on rain forests or dolphin populations.

One of the bakery's big garbage cans had rolled across the sidewalk. Webb cleared it, barely breaking his stride. Behind him he heard Dylis say something, but he didn't look back. In the next block, on his right, an orange sawhorse stretched across someone's driveway. Webb veered into the street and charged the sawhorse full tilt. Right leg forward, left knee tucked, he sailed over the top and landed in the driveway, sinking slightly into asphalt. That was when he realized the sawhorse was there to keep people off the freshly surfaced drive.

"Ooops!" He looked down at his black footprints and then up at the windows of the house. Nobody had seen him. He darted onto the next lawn. An old black Lincoln pulled up next to him.

"Boomer!"

Webb stopped. "Grampa!" He jogged over to the car and smiled at the white-bearded face leaning out the passenger-side window. Tossing his books on the grass, he flopped down beside the Lincoln and pulled off his canvas jacket. "Hey, guess what?"

"What?" His grandfather looked down at him. "What is it, Boomer? Did you get kicked out of school for breaking too many hearts?"

Webb laughed and picked up a wooden button that had come off his jacket. He tossed it up in the air with one hand and caught it with the other. Then he slid it back into his pocket for his mother to sew on.

Grampa stuck his arm out the window and rapped the side of the car impatiently. "What?" he said. "Stop horsing around and tell me."

"I ran the sixteen hundred in four-thirty."

His grandfather sank back in the seat and smacked himself on the cheek in amazement. "Say "Honest to God.'"

Webb nodded. "Honest to God, I did, Grampa. Coach timed me himself. He said he knows I can best that in the spring and . . ." A slow smile spread over his face. "I'm leading everyone, even the seniors."

"Ha-haaa!" Grampa reached over to the wheel and honked. Passing kids stopped talking to stare at the thin, white-haired man. "I knew this was our lucky day, Boomer." He closed his eyes. "Yesterday," he said, opening them again, "yesterday, I could hardly raise these bones from my bed. Barely had the pep to even lift a coffee cup to my mouth. I'm telling you . . ." He pointed a knobby finger down at Webb. "After your mother left I just closed the blinds and lay there, wondering if I'd make the obituaries by--"

Webb groaned. "Grampa."

Grampa held up his hand. "But today I could feel the difference. The instant I woke up I felt the blood coursing through these veins like a young man's. Like a soldier's when he's going into battle." He sat up straighter in the passenger's seat and began reciting his favorite poem. "'Forward, the Light Brigade!/Charge for the guns!'" he said. Grampa was bellowing, waving his arm out the car window at startled passersby. He looked back at Webb and shook his fist in the air. "'I got plenty to live for,' I says to myself. And was I right? Look--my grandson, famous, an overnight sensation."

Webb grinned and shook his head. Grampa was acting like Webb had won an Olympic gold medal. But Webb didn't really mind.

"Mark this day, Boomer. You're gearing up for the four-minute mile. I'll see you run it before you're twenty, believe me. Did I tell you?"

"Yeah--one or two thousand times." Webb stood and held up his hand to high-five Grampa, but Grampa grabbed his hand between both of his own and kissed it. Webb quickly blocked the scene from kids strolling by. His grandfather still kissed him like he was a four-year-old kid. He opened the car door. "Might as well give me a ride home."

Grampa slid back to the driver's seat. "We're going to celebrate." He started the car and made a U-turn, heading back down Market Street the way Webb had come. "From the time you were a little baby I knew you were going to be a runner," Grampa said, pointing a finger at Webb. "I took a look at your legs, even when you were in the cradle. I saw those wiry little legs."

Webb nodded, only half-listening. He waved out the window at a cluster of girls, the ones he had passed at the curb. Maxie Gallagher waved back. She had been over the other night to drop off some drapery measurements for Webb's mother, who did sewing from her shop, Chessie's Needles. Too bad they didn't have cheerleaders for cross-country and track, he mused, imagining coming out of the four-forty to a cheering Maxie Gallagher in a red Spratling sweater.

"By the time you were ten," Grampa was saying, "you could already run faster than Peter Pockets over there across the street."

"Peter Pocknis," Webb said. "No, I couldn't. He could always run faster than me. Except today. I beat him by a whole second. First time."

"Phhh." Grampa took both hands off the wheel and waved Peter Pocknis away like a bad smell. "Remember that time you were four and we were waiting for your father at the airport and you spotted him and broke away from us before anyone could stop you? Nobody ever saw a four-year-old run like that. Your father . . ." He shook his head. "He should be here to see you."

Webb nodded, feeling his mood slip a notch. Then he leaned forward and switched on the radio. "Where we going, by the way?"

Grampa's face brightened. "Out to Pembrook Mall--Darvey's."

Webb stared at him. "What?"

"Don't tell your mother. But I'll be damned if you have to wait till Christmas for some decent running shoes."

"Man oh man, Grampa, those shoes cost over a hundred dollars."

"Hundred and thirty," Grampa said. "So what? You're gonna be famous. And they'll look at me and say, "There's the grandfather of Webber Freegy, walking down the street. You know Webber Freegy, the kid on the Wheaties box? Well, that good-looking gentleman, except for the eye . . .'" He put his fingers over his left eyelid regretfully. In contrast to the deep brown of his right eye, this eye was covered with the thick, milky film of blindness--a result of a childhood accident. "'. . . he's the one who bought Webber his first pair of decent shoes.'"