Page 122 - Ext. Listening Reading_Neat

to the garbled voice from the car radio, to stay safe.” The kid turned to stare out
“They’ve got him. Just stay where you are the car window toward the church. “We
until you see the deputies coming up the should’ve told what we knew. Maybe
river. They’ll bring you in.” Bryan still be alive.” He glanced back at
*** Emmitt as if for confirmation. “Any idea
The three of them sat in Emmitt’s car, why Michaels did it?” Emmitt spoke softly,
Emmitt and the kid in back and Phoebe holding the kid’s gaze. “He say the Lord
up front in the passenger seat. The kid pulls out bad weeds so good crops can
was wrapped in a gray thermal blanket grow.” For the first time, Emmitt could see
one of the deputies provided and was a glint of tears in the boy’s eyes. “I guess
sipping on a cup of hot chocolate Phoebe he figured some of us just too bad to
scrounged from the church kitchen. The grow.”
boy refused to set foot in the building. “I Taken from: Suspense Magazine 2012
wanted to tell you when you were here the
other day, but Lamont wouldn’t let me.”
Emmitt’s suspicion that the lanky kid was Reading Time:_______minutes________seconds
the group’s leader was confirmed. “He said
we’d all be okay if we just kept our heads
down and our mouths shut.”
“Juan, Deshawn, and Bryan were still part Glossary
Word
of the group when they died?” Emmitt homicide Definition
asked. a killing of one human being
by another
The kid stared into the cup clinched in his juvenile relating to young people
hands, “At first we just thought it was evidence
some kind of strange happening. Reverend the available body of facts
or information indicating
Michaels said Juan been backsliding, whether a belief or
doing drugs on the sly, dissing the Lord. proposition is true or valid
But Juan hadn’t let on to any of us, and disgust a feeling of revulsion or
we was pretty close, you know.” He looked profound disapproval
up to meet Emmitt’s gaze. “When aroused by something
Deshawn died, Reverend Michaels said unpleasant or offensive
the police was coming out to talk to us. suspicion a feeling or thought that
We should tell them we hadn’t seen something is possible, likely,
Deshawn in over a month. That he or true
dropped out of the program. He said if we convince cause (someone) to believe
didn’t, they’d shut the program down and firmly in the truth of
we’d all be going to Youth Development on admit something
account of how the program was part of confess to be true or to be
our probation. We was scared. None of us glint the case
give out or reflect small
wanted to go away again. We did what he flashes of light.
said.” “And after Bryan was killed?”
Emmitt prompted.
“Reverend Michaels said the police told
him Bryan was into bad stuff that got him
killed. Staying in the program and keeping
to the ways of the Lord was the best way

118 | Extensive Listening & Reading