City of the Beasts Read Free Page A

own school to find some scary types. But no, he wasn't like them. Truth was, the only thing he wanted was to go back to the kind of life he'd had a few months before, when his mother was well. He didn't want to go to the Amazon with Kate. He was a little afraid of his grandmother.
    Two days later, Alex said good-bye to the place where he had spent the fifteen years of his life. He carried with him the image of his mother in the doorway of their home, a cap covering her shaved head, smiling and waving good-bye as tears ran down her cheeks. She looked small, vulnerable, and beautiful despite everything. He boarded the plane thinking about her and about the terrifying possibility of losing her. No! I won't think about that, I have to have positive thoughts. My mother will get well, he murmured over and over during the long flight.
     
CHAPTER TWO
The Eccentric Grandmother
     
    ALEXANDER FOUND HIMSELF in a New York airport in the midst of a crowd with suitcases and bundles, pushing by him, shoving and stepping on his heels. They looked like robots, half of them with a cell phone clamped to one ear and talking into the air like crazy people. He was alone, his backpack slung over his shoulder and a wrinkled twenty-dollar bill in his hand. He had another three folded and stuck down in his boots. His father had cautioned him to be careful; in that huge city, things were not the way they were in the small town on the California coast where they lived, where nothing ever happened. The three Cold children had grown up playing outside with the other kids; they knew everyone, and went in and out of their neighbors' homes as if they were their own.
    Alex had traveled six hours, crossing the continent from one end to the other, seated beside a large, sweaty man whose girth spilled outside his seat, cutting Alex's space in half. Every other minute, the man reached down, with difficulty, fished something out of a bag of treats, and proceeded to chomp away, ending any chance for Alex to sleep or watch the movie in peace. Alex was very tired, and he kept counting how many hours were left of that torture, until finally they landed and he could stretch his legs. He got off the plane with relief, looking for his grandmother, but he didn't find her at the gate as he had expected.
    One hour later, Kate still hadn't arrived, and Alex was beginning to worry for real. He had his grandmother paged twice, with no response, and now he was forced to get change in order to make a telephone call. He was grateful for his good memory; he remembered the number, just as he remembered her address. He had never been to Kate's house, but he had written her postcards from time to time. His grandmother's telephone rang and rang as he sent a mental plea for someone to answer. What do I do now? he wondered with confusion. It occurred to him to call his father long distance and get instructions about what to do, but that could be expensive. Besides, he didn't want to act like a big baby. What could his father do from so far away? No, Alex decided, he couldn't lose his head just because his grandmother was a little late; maybe she was tied up in traffic, or was wandering around the airport looking for him and they had passed each other without noticing.
    Another thirty minutes passed, and by then Alex was so angry with Kate that if she had been standing in front of him, he would surely have said something rude. He remembered all the heavy-handed jokes she had played on him over the years, like the box of chocolates filled with hot-pepper sauce she had sent him one birthday. No normal grandmother would have taken the trouble to remove the fillings of each piece of candy with a syringe and replace it with Tabasco, wrap the chocolates back in silver paper, and arrange them in the box—just to play a joke on her grandchildren.
    He also remembered the scary stories she had terrified them with when she came to visit, and how she insisted on telling them with the lights off.