Target by Kathleen Jeffrie Johnson

Author:Kathleen Jeffrie Johnson
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: doncarlos
ISBN: 9780440239109
Publisher: Laurel Leaf
Published: 2005-05-14T20:00:00+00:00

He peered again at the red numbers on his clock: 1:37. At 11:58 he’d seen the hall light go out, heard his parents go into their bedroom and shut the door—then heard their muffled voices eat up the usual late-night silence. Now the voices were quiet.

Grady listened to his own silence.

That afternoon he’d had to sit patiently as his mother, sporting her new ultrashort, bleached-blonde punk hairdo, told the school nurse, Mrs. Somebody-or-other, that she was afraid Grady had an eating disorder, that he was anorexic or something, that he’d have to go into the hospital. He had to listen to Mrs. Nurse tell his mother to take Grady to a certain Dr. Hawthorne right away, he’d worked with a lot of eating-disordered kids, she’d give her his phone number.

She also said Grady had eaten a candy bar and Coke right in front of her, so maybe with this doctor’s help, Grady would be able to pull out of it without anything so drastic as hospitalization; she’d seen other kids do it. She’d start weighing him twice a week in her office before school started, then coordinate things with the doctor. Oh, she said, is he also bulimic?

Bulimic? Anorexic? Jesus.

Lying in bed, Grady tried to absorb the darkness that filled his eyes. He didn’t have an eating disorder. He wasn’t deliberately trying to rearrange himself, like some dumb girl trying to turn herself from a Pearl into a pretzel stick. He’d known girls like that, everybody did, their bodies going from bones with flesh, to bones with a little flesh, to bones. Ugly. No, what he had was—an eating situation. Grady almost laughed out loud. His throat jammed up when he tried to eat, that’s all. Call a plumber!

Still, he’d managed to get his entire dinner down, astonishing and pleasing his mother.

He felt the smooth, warm touch of the sheet that covered his body, felt the weight of the blankets above it. Then he reached and felt his stomach. Bloated. After leaving the nurse’s office with his mother, he’d stepped into a bathroom, entered a stall, and tossed the whole chocolate-soda mess. It had been ready to exit. He’d just given it the chance it needed.

Now he wondered about the dinner working its way through his digestive system. It had to stay there; he needed to keep his weight stable, distract both his mother and Mrs. Nurse.

He wondered about Jess, about what particular kind of jail he was in: lecture jail, suspension jail, expelled jail. For sure he’d get tagged for his words as much as for his fists—probably more so. Why did he have to go and fight a homo? Didn’t he know the kind of trouble he’d get himself in? Didn’t he, of all people, know what he’d be accused of?

Grady—at least he kept his words to himself.

Who was he kidding? Since the Night Of, his head had been nothing but a talking garbage can. He should be in jail with Jess.

And what about Fred? Grady’s stomach, still struggling with his dinner, twisted itself into a painful knot.

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