On the Day I Died by Candace Fleming
Author:Candace Fleming [Fleming, Candace]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780375898631
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2012-07-10T07:00:00+00:00
After that day, Collin and I were always together—in the school cafeteria, in the hallway between classes, at the movies, the mall, each other’s houses. We carried each other’s pictures in our wallets; spent Sunday afternoons bicycling together through Busse Woods; read to each other from our favorite books—mine The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Collin’s The Complete Calvin and Hobbes. We discovered that it drove Collin nuts when I clicked my pen against my teeth while studying. We agreed that it was okay for me to listen to Sarah McLachlan and for him to listen to Jay-Z just as long as the other person wasn’t around. And we figured out that Collin should always stop for our soy sugar-free cinnamon dolce lattes before picking me up for school because I wasn’t a morning person, and that I should bake snicker doodles for him at least once a month because they were his absolute favorite—another of true love’s sacrifices because I was, like I said, dieting.
And then?
Life shattered.
We were coming home from the library that Saturday—Collin and me and his younger brother, Drew, when we saw a clutch of leftover birthday balloons waving from a mailbox. A handmade sign propped against a harvest-gold recliner read GARAGE SALE. Beyond it, a ton of junk stretched from the depths of a double garage, out onto the driveway and across the expanse of lawn.
All that glisters is not gold.
Drew leaned over the front seat, a lock of his dark hair falling over the sprinkling of acne that had just recently cropped up on his forehead. “Hey, c’mon, you guys, let’s stop,” he begged.
Drew had a real thing for garage sales, especially the half-built car model kits you could sometimes find at them. Afterward, he would spend hours putting all those tiny plastic pieces together, the nostril-searing stink of model glue oozing out from under his bedroom door.
“Do you think my brother’s a nerd?” Collin had once asked me.
“Yes,” I had replied, “but a sweet nerd.”
Now Collin pulled over to the curb. He had barely stopped before Drew had the door open and was loping away in hot pursuit of treasure. We followed along behind, hand in hand, happy just to be together.
A dozen or so people milled around. Some poked through the racks of out-of-style dresses and jackets; others riffled through laundry baskets of used kitchen utensils or pawed over piles of stained baby clothes. I looked around for the stack of paperback books. Every garage sale has them, and sometimes I could actually find a dog-eared copy of Macbeth, or the Cliffs Notes version of All’s Well That Ends Well. That’s when I caught a glimpse of myself in a dresser mirror.
“Tell me the truth,” I said to Collin, “do I look fat to you?”
“You’re kidding, right?” he said, kissing my forehead.
“No, seriously.”
Collin’s eyes sparkled. “If you’re fat, you’re fat in all the right places.”
I poked him in the stomach just as Drew hollered, “Hey, guys, check this out.” Stumbling around the
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