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By Root 1206 0

time to use that hook. He gave me a slow grin of satisfaction and promised to meet me “anytime, anywhere.” The look in his eyes was a match for the one I’d seen in Earle’s, the one I imagined in my own. A small drum of excitement began to beat inside me, and the beat only sped up when I got the hook down. I gave it to Grey when he came over that night, even though it hurt me to let it go. It would be easier for him to get it down to Woolworth’s without calling attention to himself. A boy with a sack could look perfectly innocent, while I would be asked what it was I was carrying. I ground my teeth in irritation but held on to the idea that I’d get it back soon enough. We would meet at Woolworth’s Friday night, when Mama would be visiting Aunt Ruth and I was supposed to sleep over at Alma’s.

Grey and Garvey seemed to fight all the time these days, boxing and wrestling as easily as some people spit, and it was clear to me that part of Grey’s excitement about our plan was because his brother was not part of it. They were not identical twins—none of the twins in the family were identical—but Alma’s boys looked more alike than either set of Aunt Carr’s girls. They were both tall and rangy, with skin that tanned dark, and hair that went red-brown in the sun. Garvey was better-looking, with crystalline blue eyes and a sharp little cleft in his chin that was strangely endearing. Grey had a half-mean look about him. His eyes narrowed too easily, and he frowned all the time, even after Aunt Alma got him a pair of metal-frame glasses. Grey hated those lenses and wore them only when one of the uncles was around to slap him for wasting his mama’s money.

“That Grey’s getting bad habits,” Uncle Beau said to Reese and me once. We said nothing, since of the two brothers, both of us liked Grey best. He might have looked meaner, but he had a sweetness about him that Garvey didn’t. He’d always given us stolen candy and never pushed us around like Garvey did. But unlike his brother, Grey just didn’t have any luck. When he turned thirteen, he suddenly began to grow thick red-brown hair on his chest and arms. He tried to shave it off with his daddy’s straight razor, but that only made it grow back thicker. Garvey made fun of him for it, and in defense, Grey pretended stubbornly that he was proud of his “manly growth,” of how he was “turning into a bear.” It did make him look more different from Garvey—a lifelong ambition anyway. The only problem was that the hair didn’t grow back thicker, just patchy, and it itched him. It ruined his tough-guy image, the way he was always standing around scratching at the reddish-brown hair on his forearms and the backs of his hands. Sometimes he’d seem to fall into a kind of trance, looking off into the distance, frowning and scratching.

I found him standing like that back of Woolworth’s Friday night. It was late—well past midnight—and I’d had trouble sneaking out of Alma’s house quietly enough not to wake Reese, so I was nervous and itchy myself. Grey scared me, standing out in the parking lot with the light pouring down from the Texaco sign across the street lighting up everything. A shadow hid the potato sack between his legs, and for a minute I thought he’d forgotten my hook.

“Don’t sweat it,” he laughed when I demanded the hook. “I got it right here.” He squatted down and opened the sack, pulling out a four-pronged blackened object trailing a chain.

“You ruined it!” I hissed.

“I fixed it!” he almost yelled, and then looked over his shoulder and around the lot. “The paint will make it invisible when we throw it up the wall.”

I grimaced and reached out to trace one paint-spattered point. It was still sharp, but the scary razor-and-steel feeling was gone. I swallowed hard. I had really loved the shine of it.

“Those suckers had too much gleam on them for safety.” He sounded proud of himself for thinking of it. “Specially after I sharpened the points a little.” He dropped one shoulder and leaned close to me. “I just toned down the light-catching side of the thing. Still kept it sharp. The hard part