Chapters 9-10 Summary

In chapter 9, Roy is nervous at school because he learns Dana plans to grab him on his way to the bus and beat him up. Roy tries to avoid Dana by walking with a teacher and then taking a short cut. However, Dana grabs him anyway and drags him into a janitor's closet. Dana and Roy struggle for a time. At one point it looks like Roy will get away, but Dana drags him back. Just as Dana is about to kill Roy, someone pulls him off of Roy.

That morning at the construction site, Branitt arrives to find the dog trainer wrangling his dogs with an umbrella in his hand. Branitt learns that there are nine cottonmouth snakes on the property and the trainer is angry because one bite can kill his dogs. The trainer also twists his ankle in an burrowing owl hole...