All Good Children by Catherine Austen

Author:Catherine Austen
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: JUV037000
ISBN: 9781554698257
Publisher: Orca Book Publishers
Published: 2011-10-01T10:00:00+00:00

Dallas comes over on Saturday for Halloween fun at the Spartan. “I can stay till eleven! I told Dad we’re working on science.” He smiles with all his heart and dances with his arms above his head.

“How was the dance last night?” I ask.

“The dance? Oh my god, the dance. How was the dance?” He laughs, sighs, collapses on the couch.

“Yeah. How was it? Did you dance with anyone?”

“Think about it, Max. It was a dance full of zombies dressed in costumes. What do you think it was like?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking.”

He leans forward and clasps his hands together. “How can I describe it? It was like wading through a river of shit, Max. No, actually, it was like standing in a gymnasium of shit for three hours while people flicked elastics at my head and stuck thermometers up my ass and I asked for more. That’s exactly what it was like. That’s what you missed.” He leans back, smiles. “It was glorious. I can’t wait till the Christmas ball.”

“Whoa. Are you okay?”

He laughs. “Am I okay? Am I okay?”

“Seriously, Dallas. Take it easy.”

He spreads his legs and slouches into the couch cushions, lays his head back and stares at the ceiling. He mutters a string of senseless curses, laughs hysterically, then closes his eyes in a state of bliss. “Man, it’s so good to be here. You don’t know what it’s like.” He turns his head toward me, cracks an eye open. “For you it’s a job. You go to school, put in your time, come home and relax. For me…” He closes his eyes, shakes his head, breathes deeply. “It never ends, man. It’s every fucking second.”

Ally hops into the room. She’s been dressed like a rabbit since ten in the morning. Celeste painted her face and gave her whiskers. “Hi, Dallas! You said a bad word. Where’s your costume?”

He sits up and smiles, tweaks her bunny ears. “We’re going to make our costumes.” He turns to me excitedly. “Unless Celeste would do us. I’m not above begging.”

“I already asked. She’s at a party with some guy.”

“What are you going to make a costume with?” Ally asks.

Dallas smiles. “With my imagination!”

Ally takes a step back. “My teacher says imaginations get us into trouble.”

Dallas laughs so long that I just leave him there and make some lunch.

Twenty minutes later we’re eating fries at the kitchen table, swallowing the fact that we have no imaginations. “What should we make?” I ask for the tenth time.

He shrugs. I shrug. I look around the kitchen. He looks around the kitchen. I hum. He whistles. I pick up the salt and pepper shakers—boring silver and glass cylinders—and shake them to my tune. He snaps his fingers and says, “Excellent. But I’ll have to borrow something gray.”

We wear gray T-shirts, gray pants and gray ski caps with holes cut out of the crowns. “This is a waste of two good caps,” Dallas says. “No one is going to see the tops of our heads.

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