Calamity Read Free Page A

very descriptive.”
    “Thanks.”
    “Gory.”
    “Thanks.”
    “That’s not always a good thing.”
    “It’s not?”
    “Next time, why don’t you try writing about something more pleasant?”
    “Okay.” Brendan stared at his sneakers.
    “What book do you have today?” she asked.
    Brendan held up the large, hard-bound book. It was titled Finding God: A History of Appeasing Higher Powers and Fulfilling Man’s Destiny . It was over three hundred pages with very few pictures and more than twenty chapters. Dad would have called it “heavy reading,” but Brendan never showed his dad, keeping the book hidden under his bed. Dr. Carroll had given it to him, said the book was just for Brendan, something to help him focus better and tap into his natural talents, whatever they might be. Brendan didn’t understand what Dr. Carroll meant, but he didn’t ask questions either. The doc wanted to help, he gave Brendan a book, so Brendan took it, read some of it, and kept it a secret. He was very good at keeping secrets. He had it with him today, however, because he had big plans for tomorrow.
    “That looks interesting,” Miss Tuyol said as if he were showing her that dead goldfish.
    “It’s just some boring history stuff,” he said with a shrug.
    Miss Tuyol smiled. “Okay. Get your coat and I’ll bring you outside.”
    On the playground, Brendan sat in a swing and opened the book. He turned to Chapter Two. It was entitled “Animal and Human: Sacrifices to Win Divine Favor.”
    While kids ran screaming all around him, Brendan read very carefully, as if trying to memorize every word.

     
     
    PART ONE
    “It is difficult to accept death in this society because it is unfamiliar. In spite of the fact that it happens all the time, we never see it.”
    Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
    1
    When Sasha returned from the bathroom, Tyler wondered for the hundredth time what her breasts would look like once he got her shirt off. Her T-shirt hugged her breasts--young, healthy, and firm--just enough, yet the shirt was not so tight as to remove all mystery. Tyler had spent enough time admiring those breasts in quick glances at school and more than enough time tonight peeking glances at them while he ate his cheeseburger and she picked at a salad. He had spent even more than enough time in bed at night thinking of those breasts— these breasts right in front of him across the table—and how they would feel in his hands or taste in his mouth. Imagining was one thing, but to actually touch them skin-to-skin would be like opening a Christmas present and discovering it was exactly what he wanted.
    And only one thing could be better, but he knew not to let his fantasies get out of reach. There was little chance he’d get past the threshold of her jeans and into her panties where the real thing that girls had and boys wanted dwelled like a treasure waiting to be excavated. The thing he had been waiting all of his seventeen years to unearth.
    “Well?”
    She had asked him something and he couldn’t think of what it was. Shit. She was assessing him, evaluating if he was good make-out material and missing her questions would not bode well for him when she made the final determination. He had been admiring those breasts again, of course. He knew only the vaguest details of the private lives of girls, but he had Googled bra sizes and determined that Sasha was in the C-range. Each breast was probably a handful once unleashed from the confines of the shirt and bra. But, of course, that brought up the tricky situation of bra straps and undoing them. He had Googled that, too, and found a site that instructed in step-by-step format how to unhook a bra strap—and with only one hand.
    “You seem weird,” she said. Her half-eaten chicken Caesar salad sat before her, oh, so ever close to those breasts.
    He fumbled a response that could have passed for the mumblings of a retarded person. She smiled at him, one jagged tooth protruding over the others in the