Killing Time in Crystal City by Chris Lynch

Author:Chris Lynch
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

WHERE THEY DON’T HAVE TO TAKE YOU IN, BUT THEY DO

Maybe there was a reasonable explanation,” Jasper said as he led me down the abandoned train tracks again. We were not walking back to school, just walking to walk, leaving Michelle the Renter on the steps waiting for the Homeowner. And walk we did. The six miles almost to the school, and then turning, without break, in the direction of home again.

His home, that was. Because he had one.

“The explanation is, he’s a selfish, cowardly bastard,” I said. We had just made the pivot point onto the return leg. My phone rang, again. There were only two people who would be likely to call me, and one of them was right beside me, urging me to answer.

“Perhaps, if you hear what he has to say, the answer might have a little more complexity to it than that.”

“Whose side are you on here, Jasper?”

“Side? Jesus, Kiki, does everything have to be like that? You have a gift for seeing these imaginary forces always aligned against you. Of course I am on your side. But can’t I be for you without being against your father?”

I was walking at a good clip now, breaking a sweat. He was keeping up but hanging a couple of steps behind as we talked. Probably trying to unsettle me.

“No!” I said, with the ringtone as accompaniment. “And don’t call me Kiki.”

“Grrr,” he said. “Grr. Right, right, you know what you are? I just realized, you know what you are?”

“I’m pretty sure nothing that started with that question has ever ended well, so I’m just going to not answer.”

It was a pretty flawed blocking strategy.

“You are like an opposite Walter Mitty character. You’re an inverse Walter Mitty, is what you are. You know the character, Walter Mitty, who fantasizes his way into all kinds of fantastic situations where life is exciting and he is the star?”

I did not have to entertain him if I chose not to.

“Never met the man,” I said, walking just a bit faster.

“Doesn’t matter. You are the inverse, because you spend your time constantly imagining that everything is terrible and everyone is conspiring wickedness and you are the victim. You are the Walter Mitty of self-pity.”

Sometimes you hear something and immediately recognize it as something evil that needs instant extinguishing.

“Hey,” he said, all chipper all of a sudden. “Did you hear that? The Walter Mitty of self-pity. Oh, that has wheels, that one. Don’t you—”

“No!” I snapped because I very well heard it and did not love the thought of hearing it for the rest of my life. “Just go back to calling me Kiki, that’ll be fine.”

He was laughing robustly when my phone rang again. He didn’t tell me to answer it this time. Instead, he scooted right up behind me and snagged the thing right out of my pants pocket.

“Hey!” I shouted as he raced past me and up the tracks.

“Hello,” he said, running hard to stay just out of my reach. “Yes, sir.

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