Slashback by Rob Thurman

Author:Rob Thurman
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Penguin Group, USA
Published: 2013-02-02T22:00:00+00:00

8

Niko

Twelve Years Ago

“I’ve got an idea,” Cal announced.

“No. We are not searching that man’s basement for dead bodies. No. Now do your homework.”

“You don’t know I was going to say that.” He carefully folded one page of his English textbook into half of a paper airplane. “But if I was going to say that, it’s totally genius.” He then folded the opposite page the same way for one complete bound and grounded paper aircraft. Where were Orville and Wilbur Wright when you needed them?

There was no doubt he was a genius.

Genius at avoiding homework. Genius at taking a bite of an idea, clamping down his jaws, and never letting go. Genius at making me want to bang my forehead repeatedly against the kitchen table where we sat.

I glared at him. It wasn’t a painless or guilt-free effort, not after checking the bottle-inflicted bruise on his chest fifteen minutes ago, but I did it. “I do know that’s what you were going to say. I know how your ball bounces. I also know that is not how we treat books. Are you trying to be difficult?”

He shook his head, shaggy hair flying, the grin shameless. “Nope. Not trying. Don’t have to. It’s really pretty easy.”

I pushed the sandwich on the plate toward him. Two pieces of bologna, three of cheese, sweet-and-sour pickles, mayonnaise, ketchup, and mustard, it was his current favorite. Mystery meat and lard, but we’d gone to the grocery to spend some of the money the rich guy had given me for changing his tire. That deserved a celebration, for at least a few days, of whatever we wanted. We’d already had two pizzas instead of the usual one and now Cal was making his way through whatever the janitors swept off the slaughterhouse floor.

It was a good day—when I managed not to see bruises blotting the pages of my own textbooks when my attention wandered. Closing my eyes momentarily, then watching Cal work his way through his first sandwich with the manners of a starving pig tended to make the black-and-purple blotches disappear. Lack of table manners and Cal were linked to reassuring and normal in my brain. That let me say, yes, today was mostly a good day. Sunday, our last day before we had to be back at school, and I would’ve liked it serial killer free. But with Cal and his bulldog teeth firmly embedded in his theory, that wasn’t going to happen.

I did trust Cal’s instincts on the majority of things, but he was eleven. He’d seen monsters, the genuine horror movie article. He’d seen people behave in ways most average adults couldn’t comprehend, knew things most adults saw only on the news or on after-school specials. That was our life. We were a walking, talking PSA filmed by Wes Craven. Through it all, though, he’d stayed a triumph of sanity over endless shit.

Sometimes life did deserve a curse word or two.

But . . . the bottom line remained, he was eleven. Paranoid and cynical and with every right to be, yet still eleven.

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