We Cast a Shadow by Maurice Carlos Ruffin

Author:Maurice Carlos Ruffin
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2019-01-28T16:00:00+00:00

21

We agreed not to tell Penny. What I mean to say is that when we got back to the Bug, I made Nigel and Araminta raise their hands and swear to keep their mouths shut. There were a billion police cars at the mall by the time we rolled out. Several more helicopters had arrived. Even the police department dirigible. This would be a thing. It would be on TV and the Internet. People at work would bring it up at the water cooler.

I didn’t want to get into all that. We were fine. But if Penny knew we had been so close to danger, she’d be terrified. This was no way to celebrate One Cent Day.

In the driveway at home, I went over our cover story.

“But—” Nigel said.

I raised my palm to stop him. “No ‘but,’ ” I said. “Now, tell me.”

“We left the mall before it happened,” Nigel said. The sun was setting. A streetlight popped on.

“And?” I asked.

“We heard about it on the radio driving home,” Araminta said.

Penny opened the side door of the house, the one that overlooked the driveway. She held herself. Mama and her childhood friend, Aunt Shirls (no relation) in her horn-rimmed glasses, looked on from behind.

“Break,” I said. We got out of the car. I collected the cake box from the hood trunk.

“Happy One Cent—” I said. Penny motioned for us to hurry.

“They’re back.” Nigel pointed.

Termites, like tiny, possessed snowflakes, swarmed around the streetlight.

“Quick,” I said. “Don’t let those bugs in the house.”

The kids ran up the steps to the door. Penny clutched them to her body. She said she was happy we were safe.

I opened the cake box. “We were long gone,” I said. Without letting go of Nigel and Araminta, she popped the back of my head. I hardly felt it. But the concept hurt. She knew.

“Don’t protect me.” She pressed the children close to her body, covering their ears with her hands. Nigel was so tall now that this technique wasn’t as effective as it used to be. His body-side ear was almost over Penny’s shoulder.

“Look,” I whispered. My head buzzed. My teeth—all of them—were on fire. “They’re not that fragile. Everything is fine. Nobody got hurt.”

“Three died,” Mama said.

“Kids,” Aunt Shirls grabbed Nigel’s arm. “Little ones.” Aunt Shirls had a way of making the most awful facts sound mundane, so it was no surprise that she made awful facts sound like personal condemnations. Or maybe I was just being paranoid. I’d just taken my second Blue Geisha of the day, inadvisably, probably.

“Oh,” I said. “How?”

The women eyed me. They knew. I felt as if my feet had sunk a quarter inch into the hardwood. Like I might continue sinking until I suffocated in clay.

“Don’t tell tales,” Penny said. “You were there when it happened. I saw you on national TV for a moment—”

I leaned against the doorjamb, suddenly too exhausted to argue. “You’re right.”

“You were standing on a message written in—” Penny whispered.

I raised my shoe, the bottom of which was covered in someone’s blood.

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