Frost Hollow Publishers | Books for Boys

Click the cover to
view a larger image

Hobson's Choice

I would recommend this story to anyone who enjoys a story with suspense, action, and mystery. I enjoyed reading about all the different sports including baseball, fishing, football, and my favorite, alpine ski racing. I like how Robert Holland’s main character, Tommy Hobson, had a lot of self-confidence. Hobson’s Choice is one of the best stories by Robert Holland but I can’t wait to see what he comes up with next!

-- C. J. Mauro, age 14

This is a great book. It keep me reading right through to the end. Like all of Mr. Holland’s books this is a book a guy can get into, unlike the books I have to read for school which are boring and dumb. It also made me think about things I never thought of before.

I’ve read all of Robert Holland’s books, and I’ve liked every single one of them. I just wish he would write them faster.

-- H. Caulfield, age 12

Chapter One

Gunfire

I heard the shots .. you can bet I heard the shots — WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! Ten or eleven of them or maybe more and so close that I dropped to the ground, trying to thin myself out to the thickness of a dime.

Scared? Naw — not me, not Terrible Tommy Hobson, not a chance — a little nervous maybe, or at least I assumed that’s why I was shaking, earthquakes being pretty much uncommon in New Hampshire. But hey, I’m sixteen, and I’m pretty tough. I lift a lot of weights and I cut a mountain of firewood every year. A guy my size, five-ten, who plays running back, has got to be tough. It’s just that lying on the ground shaking seemed like a better idea than standing up where someone could get a clear shot at me.

I waited, spread-eagled on the grass. Then I waited a little longer and then — just to be on the safe side, I waited a little longer, thinking that if I stood, I’d make a pretty good target, especially since the lawn, where I lay, slopes sharply down to the road, about fifty feet away.

No sound except the summer birds, the moan of the wind in the pines, the bark of a dog in the distance — Bucket? Where was Bucket? That got me up and moving, my stomach in a knot. Had somebody shot my dog?

"Bucket!" I shouted. I whirled back toward the house, remembering that fireworks and the neighbors’ ten-gauge cannon usually drove him to seek shelter under the front porch, even though when he hunted he never seemed to hear the gun go off.

Too late. He came across the lawn like a yellow rocket and hurled himself up and into my chest. Ninety pounds of yellow lab on the run. Down we went, me over backwards down the hill, rolling tail over tea kettle, butt over bandbox, until I ended up lying on my stomach in the gravel road, looking up into the grille of a Mercedes fifteen feet away.

I froze.

Bucket did not freeze, but then neither had he gone head over heels down the hill. He’d run the whole way, thoroughly enjoying this new game, and when he spotted the car he started barking, the hackles high all the way down his back.

There was no response from the car and I climbed up onto my hands and knees and craned my neck but I couldn’t see anyone in the car. Bucket came back to me and ran his tongue up the side of my face. Bucket’s a great hunter and retriever. He’s also still as playful as a puppy and his tongue is as wide as a big paintbrush.

"Bucket! Stop," I shouted, and of course he licked me again. But then, his nose in the air, he turned toward the car and growled.

We live well out in the woods on over a hundred acres and the nearest neighbor, the guy with the ten-gauge, is a half-mile away. What’s more, the road deadends about two hundred feet past the house.

Bucket began stalking the car, his hackles up, a deep growl rumbling up out of his chest. I just stood there, not knowing what to do. I could see where the windows on the driver’s side had been smashed and as I stepped out into the road I saw at least two bullet holes through the driver’s door.

What it looked like was that somebody had either been shot or shot at. Bucket closed on the car, his nose up now, and though he was aimed at the car, he was back on his haunches ready to run, his hackles up all the way to his tail. Not a good sign.

I thought I should probably just go up to the house and call the cops, but instead I walked slowly up to the car, knowing I had to look, and knowing I wasn’t gonna like what I saw. In the back of my mind I had this sort of nagging feeling that it was gonna be pretty ugly.

Not likely I’ll ever forget what I saw. There were four men in the car, all dead, and there was blood everywhere. It looked like our slaughter house when we do in the pigs each year, except that the slaughter house doesn’t come with leather upholstery and a wood paneled dash, and we’re a lot more careful about the blood.

I turned away and out of the corner of my eye I saw a set of tire tracks in the gravel road and that’s when I knew what I’d missed seeing. Tire tracks, fresh tire tracks. And they were headed off to the right and I couldn’t see any coming back. I knew that whoever had shot those guys had to come back past me to get out to the main road.

A short way from where I stood the road made a sharp curve to the right and I looked that way, listening for the sound of an engine. I was almost too late.

The car sideslipped coming around the bend in the road and I dove up onto the hood of the Mercedes and the car came past as I pulled my feet up out of the way and slid off the hood into the ditch and then I was up and running through the woods. Bucket? Where was Bucket? I knew he hadn’t been hit because I’d have heard the sound. Halfway up the hill I stopped and looked back and there he sat, on the grass, his nose up in the air.

The car had gone past and I could hear it roaring over the gravel road, the sound growing fainter by the second.

"Bucket! Come!"

He’s a well-trained dog and he came running and we walked up to the house. It was a rare day that I was alone at home. Dad is an electrician and he works a lot of hours but Mom stays home, raising me, the only kid left at home, and painting some really fine watercolors. But she had gone into town to do the shopping and get her hair cut.

I called Dad first, on his cell phone, and told him what had happened and he said he’d talk to Mom while I called the cops.

I got Arnold Crab at the police station and groaned inwardly. Arnold is a perfectly nice guy but he’s so dumb he can’t even be used for traffic control because he gets confused about which is left and which is right.

"You’re telling me that four guys has been shot?"

"That’s right. Four of ’em — in a Mercedes."

"In a Mercedes? Why would someone shoot four people in a Mercedes? Now, if it was a Ford or something like that, maybe I’d believe you here, Tommy, but I’m thinking this has got to be one of those hoaxes you guys dream up to get me in trouble with the chief."

Well, it was true, we hadn’t been terribly kind to Arnold. I could have hung up and called the state police, but that would’ve got Arnold in worse trouble and the truth was, I didn’t want to do that. He was dumb, but he wasn’t mean and suddenly I began to feel really sorry about the pranks we’d pulled.

"I’m sorry about that stuff, Arnold. We were just being kids, I guess. But this is the truth and maybe you better put me through to the chief."

"You’re sure about this, Tommy."

"It’s not a joke, Arnold. I’m telling the absolute truth."

"Okay then. Hold on."

The chief, Ben Jensen, knew about the pranks and he didn’t sound particularly friendly.

"It’s true, Chief," I said. "Four of ’em."

"And they’re all dead."

"I think so. I didn’t touch ’em. There’s blood everywhere."

"This isn’t another hoax is it?"

"No, sir. Dad told me I’d be grounded through the football season if I did anything like that again."

He sighed. "All right. Don’t touch anything. In fact, maybe you’d just better stay in the house ’til I get there."

"I will." What I wanted to do was go back down and have a better look. It’s what they call morbid curiosity. It’s the same thing that happens to people when there’s an accident. They try not to look but they can’t keep from looking.

But this time I was determined to do as I’d been told. Not because I wanted to get in good with the chief, but because I was worried about those guys coming back. After all, what I’d seen was real and I gotta tell you, it’s a whole lot different than anything you see in a movie.

Well, it didn’t work. I had to look, if only because I knew that once the cops got there they wouldn’t let anyone near the car and I wanted to be sure about what I’d seen.

To read more of this book, go to the Order Forms.

Return to top of page
Return to Home Page
Return to previous page