The Activist (Theodore Boone 4)

“What about the graves, Theo?”

“I’ll have to ask my dad.”

Hardie sat still for a long time and gazed at the table, his thoughts far away. Finally, he said, “The house goes back a hundred and fifty years. My father has two sisters and two brothers, and since he’s the oldest he gets the house when my grandparents are gone. Since I’m also the oldest, I’m supposed to get the house one day. It’s the family tradition and it’s worked well for a long time. It’s a great old house and getting to live there is an honor, but you also have to take care of the farm. And that’s a lot of work. What happens to the house, Theo?”

Theo was getting tired of tough questions he couldn’t really answer. “I guess I’ll have to check with my dad,” he said, though he suspected he knew the truth. But Hardie was upset and Theo did not want to make things worse. After the state takes the land, the state can do whatever it pleases.

Hardie continued: “My parents were discussing this bypass last night over dinner.”

“Mine too.”

“It’s being pushed by some trucking companies north and south of Strattenburg. They hate coming through town on Battle Street because they get clogged up in traffic. They think a bypass around town will make it easier to haul freight and do all sorts of wonderful things for their business. They give money to the politicians, including the governor, and so the politicians pull the right strings, and here we are with the state taking away our farm.”

“I think my mother would agree with that. Not so sure about my dad.”

“And there are also these local business guys who think they can make a buck off the bypass. Think about it. Two hundred million dollars is about to be spent right here in Strattenburg, and so a lot of folks are jumping on board.”

“Like who?”

“Like construction companies, bridge builders, equipment salesmen, companies that sell materials. My dad says these guys will go nuts in support of the project. The economy is down, business is slow, and now suddenly there is this huge project. My dad says it’s just a typical government pork scam. The politicians go for the votes while the businessmen scramble to make a buck. Meanwhile the taxpayers get stuck with the bill for another bad project.”

“What’s pork?” Theo asked.

“According to my dad, pork is when government money is given to politicians who use it to build projects in order to get votes in order to stay in office. Sometimes the projects are good, but often they aren’t really needed. Pork is a bad word now in politics, but the politicians are still chasing the pork, according to my dad.”

“I think my mom would agree with your dad.”

“What should we do, Theo?”

“Hire a real lawyer. Eminent domain cases are tried in court before a judge who makes the decision as to how much money the property is worth. You gotta have a lawyer.”

“Do you think your mother would take the case?”

“No. She just does divorces.”

“What about your father?”

“He doesn’t go to court.”

“Can you talk to your parents and get the name of a good lawyer?”

“Sure. I’m happy to do that.”

Hardie slowly got to his feet, and said, “Thanks, Theo.”

“I really didn’t do anything.”

“You listened, and that’s worth a lot.”

As they left the conference room, Theo turned off the lights. Judge followed them back to Theo’s office, then outside.

Chapter 6

For the second morning in a row, the Friday edition of the Strattenburg Gazette ran a front-page story about the Red Creek Bypass. Theo read it with great interest at the kitchen table as he and Judge ate Cheerios and prepared for another day, although it was far from just another day because he was going camping. The only bad thing about a camping trip was that dogs were not allowed. Theo and a few

of the other Scouts had once asked the Major if they could bring their dogs, and they got a flat “No.” The Major said his job was difficult enough keeping up with fifty city kids off in the woods. The last thing he needed was a pack of dogs running wild.

Though he didn’t argue, Theo thought this was a bit unfair. Judge was a very disciplined dog who came when he was told to come, sat when he was told to sit, rolled over when he was told to roll over, and never ran off. He stayed close to Theo at all times when they were away from home. Judge would love to camp out with the boys, and sit around a campfire, and sleep with Theo in a pup tent, and hike and swim. But when the Major said no, he meant it.

Mr. Boone was already gone; he enjoyed an early piece of wheat toast with his coffee club at a downtown diner. Mrs. Boone did not eat breakfast. Instead she usually sat in the den in her bathrobe and read the newspaper in silence. For a woman who talked all day long, she enjoyed the quietness of the early morning. Occasionally, though, like today, she sat at the kitchen table with Theo and they read the newspaper together. He was leaving for the weekend, and she wanted to be close.

According to the Gazette, the announcement by the governor had set off a storm of bickering by various groups in town. The tree huggers, led by the Sierra Club, the Stratten Environmental Council, and a bunch of other groups, were screaming noisy objections and threatening lawsuits. The pro-business crowd was praising the governor and the bypass and howling about how bad traffic was on Battle Street and how much this was hurting the city. A good-government group chimed in with a protest that the project was too wasteful and unnecessary. Several landowners were angry that the state planned to take their property. Hardie Quinn’s family was not mentioned.

In other parts of the state, the governor was being congratulated for pushing the project. In Lowensburg, an hour south, the mayor said the absence of a bypass around Strattenburg had choked off important “avenues of commerce” and harmed the economy of his city. In Carlsburg, an hour to the north, a state senator said two factories had closed in recent years because truck traffic was so slow around Strattenburg.

The war of words raged on. As he read, Theo learned that the final decision on whether or not to build the bypass would be made by the County Commission, a board with five elected members from the five districts in the county. Two commissioners were on record favoring the bypass. Two were undecided. The fifth one could not be found at the moment.

On page two, there was a large map of Stratten County, with the city square in the middle of it. Highway 75 was a major four-lane road that ran the entire length of the state and was heavily traveled. When it got to the northern part of Strattenburg it became known as Battle Street, and that’s where the problems started. To keep the old section of town from becoming too congested, city and county planners had shoved virtually all development out of the city limits and into the county. For almost thirty years, shopping centers, fast-food joints, car washes, motels, bank branches, big grocery stores, service stations, and the like had been crammed together along both sides of Battle Street, which had gone from two lanes to four to six and now to eight. There was a lot of traffic, but it moved reasonably well. The strategy had worked because the charm and character of the old sections of Strattenburg had been preserved. It was not unusual to hear people complain about the mess out on Battle Street, but in all fairness, that five-mile section of Highway 75 kept the traffic off Main Street.

The bypass would begin just north of the city limits and make a wide semicircle away from the congestion and into the rural areas. It would pass very close to Jackson Elementary School, and it would plow through a brand-new soccer complex adjacent to the school. It would destroy St. Andrew’s Lutheran, a small church that dated back over two hundred years. It would require the taking, by eminent domain, of fifty homes and a dozen farms (including the Quinns’). It would reduce the values of another four hundred homes. It would wipe out the Red Creek Trail, a popular fifteen-mile hike-and-bike pathway through the hills around Strattenburg. And it would cross Red Creek in two places.

According to those in favor of the bypass, it would relieve the congestion on Battle Street by taking between twenty and twenty-five thousand vehicles a day off that street.

What a mess, thought Theo as he finished his Cheerios. However, on this Friday the arguments over the bypass belonged to someone else. Theo was going camping and little else mattered.

“What’s the plan?” his mother asked as he rinsed both bowls and placed them in the sink.

“School’s out at three thirty, and I’ll hustle home to get my stuff. Everything’s packed—clothes, sleeping bag, toothbrush, etcetera. I’ll meet you here at four and you take me to the VFW.”

“Sounds like a plan. Go brush your teeth.” She said this every morning.

Theo ran upstairs to his bathroom, ran water in the sink, but did not brush his teeth, grabbed his backpack and returned to the kitchen.

“Do you have lunch money?” she asked, the same question five mornings a week.

“Always.”

“And your homework is complete?”

“It’s perfect, Mom.” Theo was halfway out the door.

“Be careful, Theo, and remember to smile.”

“I’m smiling, Mom.”

“Love you, Teddy.”

“Love you back,” he said, and closed the door behind him. Judge followed him to the edge of the garage, where Theo scratched the dog’s head, said good-bye, hopped on his bike, and took off. He, Theo, was not actually smiling. He had the thickest braces in the eighth grade and was dying to get rid of them. Maybe next month, his orthodontist kept saying. He mumbled the word, “Teddy,” and was thankful none of his friends ever heard it. It was a baby name only his mother kept using. Even Mr. Boone had moved on to “Theo,” or, occasionally when he was lecturing, “Theodore.” As Theo sped away on his bike, he almost shuddered thinking about the abuse he would take if his friends every caught on to the “Teddy” business. Thirteen-year-old boys were pretty brutal when it came to nicknames, and so far Theo had avoided getting tagged with a bad one. Fred Jasper was fair-skinned with freckles and had been called Freck for so long the name was now permanent. Freck’s best friend, Brandon Taylor, had dissected a bullfrog with a steak knife when he was only ten years old, and had since been known simply as Frog. Freck and Frog; you saw them together everywhere. Poor Scott Butts had an unfortunate last name that gave rise to an amazing variety of colorful, and often tasteless, nicknames and jokes. Indeed, almost every boy in the eighth grade was known by something other than his real name.

Theo had asked his mother to stop calling him Teddy, partly out of fear that someone else might hear it. She always just smiled, as if it was their private