Longleaf. Roger Reid

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      Longleaf

      Roger Reid

      NewSouth Books

      Montgomery

      Also by Roger Reid

       Space

       Time

      NewSouth Books

      105 S. Court Street

      Montgomery, AL 36104

      Copyright 2013 by Roger Reid. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by NewSouth Books, a division of NewSouth, Inc., Montgomery, Alabama.

      ISBN: 978-1-58838-194-1

      eBook ISBN: 978-1-60306-098-1

      Library of Congress Control Number: 2006025704

      Visit www.newsouthbooks.com

      For Ben

Contents

       Chapter 1

       Chapter 2

       Chapter 3

       Chapter 4

       Chapter 5

       Chapter 6

       Chapter 7

       Chapter 8

       Chapter 9

       Chapter 10

       Chapter 11

       Chapter 12

       Chapter 13

       Chapter 14

       Chapter 15

       Chapter 16

       Chapter 17

       Chapter 18

       Chapter 19

       Chapter 20

       Chapter 21

       Chapter 22

       Chapter 23

       Chapter 24

       Chapter 25

       Chapter 26

       Chapter 27

       Chapter 28

       Chapter 29

       Chapter 30

       Chapter 31

       Chapter 32

       Chapter 33

       Chapter 34

       Chapter 35

       Chapter 36

       Chapter 37

       About the Author

       Jason's Adventures Continue. . .

1

       Forever Fourteen

      My name is Jason, and I am fourteen years old. I have always been fourteen years old. I will always be fourteen years old. Or so it seems. That’s the way my parents will think of me. Even strangers will think of me as forever fourteen when they see the dates chiseled into the tombstone. My full name will be engraved there: William Jason Caldwell. And carved under my name will be the dates: the year of my birth and this year—the year they found my dead body out here among the longleaf pines.

      Okay, so I’m not dead yet. Who knows, maybe I will live to see fifteen. It’s not looking good, though. Leah and I have been wandering around in this forest for hours now. Leah is a year older than me. I’m sorry I got her into this mess, and I don’t dare let on how scared I am. She’s sleeping right now or at least pretending to. I’m supposed to wake her in a couple of hours so that she can stand watch while I get some sleep. We don’t know where we are. Somewhere in a longleaf pine forest. We ran deeper and deeper into the forest until we could run no more and had to get some rest. I hope Carl Morris and his brothers are resting, too.

      There are several things that can kill you in the longleaf pine forest: eastern diamondback rattlesnakes, timber rattlers, cottonmouths and the occasional alligator, just to name of few of the reptiles. Bobcats are known to be in these woods, and there are rumors of black bears. I’m not saying they would kill you, I’m just saying they could if they wanted to. Then there are the fire ants, mosquitoes and ticks. So even if we somehow escape from the big critters like Carl Morris and his brothers, the West Nile virus and Lyme disease are bound to get us. Fourteen forever. Forever fourteen.

2

       A Window Seat

      It started last Sunday because I had to have a window seat. We were flying into Pensacola, Florida so that we could drive up into the Conecuh National Forest where my mom hoped to photograph and record a dusky gopher frog and a Pine