Everything All at Once by Katrina Leno

Author:Katrina Leno
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2017-06-02T04:00:00+00:00

Alvin knew that his sister did not like to cry, that she viewed that particular bodily function as betraying too much weakness. Instead, Margo Hatter got angry. Her face turned as red as a tomato; her arms crossed over her stomach and held themselves there so tightly that her breath caught in her chest.

Alvin himself, like his father, was much more prone to tears. This had bothered him once upon a time, but his father had told him that first of all, he would probably grow out of it, and second of all, who gave a flying rat’s whiskers what other people might think of him if he cried?

“My father never cried a day in his life and look at him!” Mr. Hatter had said. “He’s wrinkled up like a raisin! No, I think a little bit of salt water is good for the skin. Everyone’s face needs a little watering now and then.”

Alvin knew that if his father had been here to see this, he would have cried.

Alvin was crying—big, gushing tears that he couldn’t begin to control.

But there was Margo: a statue, unmoving, her face blank and carved out of stone. He could see the flames reflected in her eyes.

The flames of Grandpa Hatter’s house.

There was no way the old man could have made it out alive. It was an absolute inferno.

“Margo,” Alvin called, his voice choking, catching.

Margo turned to him. Her eyes were very red, but they were also dry. He imagined flames coming out of her own ears, her mouth, swallowing her up. When she spoke, black smoke billowed out of the house behind her, and Alvin imagined that it billowed also out of her nose, her fingertips, the very pores of her skin.

“We’ll make him pay,” she said.

And the way she said it, Alvin could almost believe her.

—from Alvin Hatter and the Return of the Overcoat Man

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