The Key That Swallowed Joey Pigza by Jack Gantos

Author:Jack Gantos
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780374301774
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)

The next morning I was heating up Dad’s uneaten slice of pizza in the microwave for Carter Junior’s breakfast. I had strapped the baby in his high chair and kept him quiet with a cup of juice. He had woken me up early from his padded playpen next to my bed. Olivia had moved into Mom’s room upstairs.

“How’s my special gift today?” I said to him and smiled my big carved-pumpkin smile. He smiled right back, and I felt that smile fill me up with orange jack-o’-lantern happiness. I knew it was going to be a great day when I could feel what Carter Junior was feeling because he was pure goodness.

Then I looked out the back window and spotted Olivia standing perfectly still in a small circle of freshly kicked up dirt in our messy backyard. She must have gotten up before sunrise when it was pitch-black, but darkness didn’t mean any particular time of day for her. And she must also have been very quiet because the dogs hadn’t barked when she opened the rear door.

One thing about being with Olivia is that I could stare intently at her from a distance and she would never know it. What is she up to? I wondered. Her feet were sprinkled with loose dirt and dead grass, so she had probably knelt down and covered them before jabbing her stick into the ground and standing to strike a mystifying pose. Her body was kind of a tree trunk in a dress with her two arms spread out like branches bent upward at the elbows. Her fingers were stretched wide apart like naked twigs reaching for leaves that had just blown away. Her long braids of hair were roped and pinned into circles on top of her head and formed a little basket, or a donut-thing.

I wasn’t exactly sure what she was doing, but guessing what people are up to is a game that’s usually a lot more fun than actually knowing what they are up to. Maybe Olivia was Artemis, the Greek goddess of hunting, I thought. Mrs. Fabian had showed us pictures of her in the forest with a bow and arrow. Or better yet, maybe Olivia was someone who had just looked into the deadly eyes of Medusa and was doomed by her freezing gaze.

Before I could think of more good Greek ideas Carter Junior started rocking his high chair back and forth like a kidnapped person trying to escape. The buzzer had gone off on the microwave and I was slow to give him his slice of pizza. In less than a minute he had walked his chair halfway across the kitchen floor as he headed for a face-first smash into the counter. I grabbed the chair, unclipped his seat belt, and hauled him outside along with his blanket and warm slice.

“Hey, Olivia. Do you want me to tell you what I think you are doing?” I asked.

“Nope,” she shot back as if she’d been expecting me, and held her pose.

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