Simon and Robert were walking along the side of the road heading home. The road was quiet because it ran no where but up past a few old houses and then some farms.

Simon lived next door to Robert, their houses backed onto a forest and the boys spent a lot of time walking through the trees, swimming and playing.

A truck had been down the road recently, they could tell because it had run off the road and left huge tire tracks on the dirt.

“I wish the school bus’d come down here and drop us off, instead a makin’ us walk all the way from the highway,” Simon said throwing a rock at a fence post and hearing the satisfying clang when it hit.

“Yeah but I spose for just us two there ain’t much point. I like the walk anyway, it’s a good half hour I don’t have to spend at home.”

They walked on looking at a dead snake that lay rotting in the long grass. It was flaky skin and bone now. They had been watching it since it was newly dead, run over. First the ants had eaten it now it was baking away in the hot sun.
“When school ends next week we’ll have to get busy on that tree house by the lake.”
“I reckon.”
“What’s this we have here?”
The boys walked up to some things lying in the grass. It was a box, busted open. Inside were books and magazines. It was a treasure chest and the boys flung their bags down and gathered around it.

They began to pull the items out.

“Look at this here,” Robert said pulling out a pornographic magazine. He pulled it open and held it up. “Look at this Simon.” He turned the magazine around to show a blonde woman completely naked laying on a red background. Her blonde hair fell down around her face and she had a large smile. Her huge breasts pointed up at the camera and she had hard pink nipples.

“I would say…” Simon responded but didn’t finish.
“My brother showed me a few of these type magazines he has. He says he likes the snatch shots best.”
“Yeah I reckon the snatch shots work out the best.”
“You know what a snatch is?”
“Shure do.”
“What is it?”
“It’s when the photographer gets the lady when she ain’t looking and it looks natural.”

Robert laughed but he didn’t say anything. “You mind if I keep this one?”
“No you have it, My mother would kill me if she found it.”
“You have what ever is left, it’s just books and shit. I don’t want it.” Robert pulled open his bag and pushed the magazine into his science book and closed it. “Ain’t no one looking in there.”
Simon went through the box and pulled out a few things. They were all bad books mostly. Girl’s books about high school, dating and horses. He found a manual for an old mack truck and a Ford Motor Company brochure from nineteen-eighty. He had given up of getting anything when he found a book. It was D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterly’s Lover. He was about to throw it to the side of the road as if it were another piece of pulp fiction when he remembered the name. His mother had spoken of the author and said he was the best there was and the local library didn’t know what he was like or they wouldn’t have had his books there. He remembered his mother saying Lawrence understood how to write about life and love better than most others. He pushed the book into his bag.

“What cho get?” Robert asked.

“Just a book.”
“You like to read don’t you?”
“Yeah,”
Robert said nothing and the boys walked on.

“If you come round this afternoon I’ll let you shoot my air rifle.” Robert said looking at the crows gathering in a field beside them, “If you ain’t too busy reading,” he laughed.