David said nothing.
—Charter Observation Team – 309
1
“Read.”
“Oh, come on.”
Auntie Jo’s gaze fixed on me, her lips pursed tight over the nub of a cigarette dangling from her mouth. “Read.”
I rolled my eyes. “Kaitlyn Gargery Thatch. February 16, 1958 to August 8, 1980. Loving wife, mother, and sister. Can I go now?”
Auntie Jo narrowed her eyes and lit another cigarette. “Where exactly do you run off to?”
I snatched my comic book off the blanket. “Just over the hill, there’s a bench up there where I can read.”
“You can read here. Why not read aloud to your mother and me. I’m sure she’d like that.”
“I don’t think she’d give two shits aboutTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”
She smacked the side of my head. “Language! Don’t think you’re getting so big I won’t put you over my knee.”
“Yes, ma’am. Sorry.”
Auntie Jo grunted and puffed at the new cigarette. She dropped the butt of the old one in the vase attached to Daddy’s gravestone. I made a mental note to fish it out later.
Two shits was my favorite new word—well, two new words. A kid transferred to Lincoln about a month before the school year let out, Duncan Bellino. His dad was a plant manager, and they moved here from Chicago. We called him Dunk. He smoked and said things liketwo shits. Dunk had the largest comic collection I had ever seen outside of a store, boxes of them. I had spent most of the summer digging through those boxes.
When word got around school about what happened at the grocery store, my popularity factor went through the roof and held steady for about two weeks before kids realized I was still the same kid they ignored before. After that, things returned pretty much to normal. Dunk stuck around, though. When he heard what happened, he shrugged it off, said stores in Chicago got robbed two, sometimes three times a day. You’d be lucky to get in and out without tripping over a robber, no big deal.
His dad had a gun on account of him being a former Army ranger. He kept it hidden in a shoe box on the top shelf of their closet. We had to drag a chair in from the kitchen just to get to it. The ammo was there, too. Dunk let me keep one of the bullets. He said if the robber ever came back for me, he’d let me borrow the gun so I could blast him in the face. With the gun in a shoe box at the top of his dad’s closet, I was fairly certain I wouldn’t be able to reach it in time. We had yet to work out the logistics.Logisticswas my second favorite word.
“Have you seen my Walkman?”
Auntie Jo fished it out of her bag and handed it to me. I had used a good part of my savings buying the Walkman, but it was worth it. The device not only had a built-in radio, it also played cassettes. No antenna, either. It was much better than our old transistor radio.
I started up the hill.
“One hour!” she called out from behind me. “I start at four today, and Krendal said you can bus until eight when Carter gets in—we need the money!”
I waved over my shoulder.
She started coughing then, and I could still hear her as I reached the mausoleums. She had been coughing a lot lately.
The bench was empty. I figured it would be. I was a little early. Last time she didn’t get here until after four. I sat, put on my headphones, and turned on the Walkman.
Static.
I expected that, too. I lowered the volume.
Last year, I let Stella keep myTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtlesnumber one. This year, not only did I bring her volume two but threeWonder Womancomics I borrowed from Dunk’s personal stash. At first, I thought it was weird that he owned everyWonder Woman, but he was quick to point out they were filled with half-naked women. I had since become a fan.
If Dunk knew I was about to share part of his prized comic collection with a girl, he’d kill me.
Twenty minutes passed.
Thirty.
