First Thrills - Lee Child [4]
And I didn’t say anything. I just hugged my knees and squeezed my eyes shut but then I heard some rustling and opened my eyes and Momma was standing right there.
I said, “I’m sorry.”
She said, “Remember the guest rule when I’m in the living room?”
And I said, “Oh yeah,” like I’d just remembered it, but I don’t think she believed me.
As I went down the hall, I heard Ms. P say, “You’re too buttoned up in all this. You deserve something for you. A warm little something on the side.”
But Momma just gave a giggle and said, “I can barely remember.”
I went into my room and closed the door, which made me sad because I couldn’t have their voices keep me company, but a closed door was part of the guest rule. So I played for a while and then read Batman until I got to the Joker, who always scares me too much because he smiles all the time but he’s not happy. And someone like that you can’t trust. And that’s an awful thing.
After a while, I heard the front door close and then I heard Ms. P’s car drive off and then Momma came in my room and stared at me and said, “You look ridiculous. Where’d you get that lipstick?”
The next night I walked home after school alone. The fourth graders followed a few blocks like they sometimes do and threw rocks, but they didn’t mean anything because they threw little pebbles not like the real bullies. The fourth graders were just jealous because they weren’t in the special class. At least that’s what Mrs. Connelly says. And they never throw real rocks because they know if they do I’ll sit on them and they don’t like that very much at all.
I got home and ran into the kitchen and checked the micro wave, like I always do first thing. But it was bad news. There were numbers punched in already, which meant that Momma was working a night shift and she wouldn’t be home until after dinner. That made my stomach go all achy, but not big achy like when I ate all those hot dogs and threw up in the back of Ms. P’s Mustang named Coop.
The doorbell rang and I ran over, excited, and opened the front door even though Momma always tells me not to. A guy stood there. He wore overalls with stains on them and he had big shiny arms and black tangly hair down over his eyes. A silver pen stuck up out of the bibby part of his overalls. In front of our house was a beat-up brown truck.
He said, “Is your dad home?”
And I said, “I don’t have a dad. I live with Momma.”
And he smiled a real toothy smile like in the soap operas and said, “I fix driveway cracks. I finished the house up the street a bit early today and I noticed you had some in your driveway. Cracks.”
I said, “I didn’t do it.”
He stared at me sort of funny, then said, “Is your mom home?”
I said, “No.”
He ducked his head a little to look past me into the house and said, “It’s just you and your mom living here?”
I said, “Can I have your pen?”
He pulled the shiny silver pen from his overalls and turned it so it caught the light. It sparkled a bit. He said, “This pen?”
I said, “Yeah.”
He said, “This one right here?”
I said, “Yeah.”
He said, “You won’t tell your momma I gave you this pen?”
“Oh, no,” I said. “No sir.”
He handed me the pen and walked back to his truck. After a few tries, his truck started and he drove off.
I went into Momma’s room and played in her closet. She’s got this one shirt that I like to pet that’s all shimmery like snakeskin. I took it a few times but she always notices right away so I don’t take it anymore. I wasn’t supposed to touch it neither but Momma wasn’t home and what was I supposed to do? Next I took the lid off the shoebox and looked at the rows of green bills. Momma gets paid a lot in cash—her tips, she calls it, but the tips of what?—and if she keeps it in the shoebox instead of a bank then she gets to keep more of it instead of the damn government stealing it, which is weird because I thought it was harder to steal from a bank. It’s the only time Momma says “damn” except when she’s talking about her damn life insurance which she has so she’ll know I’ll be taken care of if something ever happens to her. The damn