Criss Cross Read Free Page A

upside the head.”
    “Wow,” said Hector. “That seems harsh.”
    “It’s just an expression,” said Rowanne. “I wouldn’t really slap him. I don’t think.”
    “What kind of eyes should he look at you with?” asked Hector.
    “I think just human eyes would be all right,” said Rowanne.
    The next day was a Saturday. The air was soft and sun warmed and called out for some reckless act of liberation. Hector hacked the legs off a pair of jeans and put them on.
    He had to help his dad take down the storm windows and put up the screens. All the while Hector was thinking about the guitar idea. He wasn’t thinking about the practical part, of how he could actually do it. He was just thinking of how it had made him feel.
    After dinner he headed out to walk to his friend Phil’s house. He saw tiny pink buds and blossoms erupting from sodden black limbs. A winter’s worth of trash unfolding from shrunken icy lumps of charcoal-colored snow. Voices floated toward the sidewalk from the open windows of houses and from the windows of cars rolling by on the gritty street, real voices and radio voices, from windows that only yesterday had been shut tight. The balmy, sunny day had coaxed them open.
    The warmth was slipping into coolness as Hector stepped off the curb to cross Pittsfield Street, and as he headed up Prospect Hill Road he heard a few windows thud shut. But he still felt as if the world was opening, like the roof of the Civic Arena when the sky was clear.

     
    Life was rearranging itself; bulging in places, fraying in spots. Sometimes leaving holes big enough to see through, or even step through, to somewhere else.
    He waved to a couple of girls he knew, across the street. Their lips were shiny, their arms were folded in front of them, sheets of hair swayed gently behind like a hypnotist’s pocket watch, in a way that was related to how they moved as they walked. They were changing from caterpillars into butterflies. Hector felt himself changing, too, but into what? Not a butterfly.
    All he could think of was a dog. Friendly, loyal, with shiny eyes. They’re changing into butterflies, he thought, and I’m changing from a puppy into a young dog. Could that go anywhere?
    Two more butterflies materialized on the sidewalk a few houses ahead. Hector trailed behind them for a while at a respectful distance, lost in his thoughts. Until he realized that he had missed his turnoff and was going the wrong way.

 

CHAPTER 3

Boys, Dogs,

Science Fiction
     
    D ebbie and Chrisanne and their neighbor Tesey lay prostrate on their chaise lounges. It was the first really good laying-out day of the season. They had a radio and wet glasses with drinks full of melting ice. Every half hour or so they turned ninety degrees, like chickens roasting on invisible rotisseries. They also adjusted their orientation to the sun as it moved across the sky to allow its ultraviolet rays to be inflicted most directly and effectively.
    After the third turn Debbie raised the back of her lounge chair so she could sit up, and opened a book she had brought out with her. She was immediately absorbed in reading, and sat motionless while Tesey and Chrisanne continued their quarter-turn rotations for a few more spins, then folded up their chairs to go inside.
    One of them must have said something to her. The remnant of a question hung in the air, and she noticed they had paused, as if waiting.
    “I’ll be in in a minute,” she said. But then she forgot about going in. She forgot about the sun and how it was scorching the front of her winter-pale thighs and shins, the tops of her shoulders and her nose and the skin where her hair was parted.
    She stayed there all afternoon and came out again after dinner, this time in shorts and a sweatshirt, to finish the book. The backyard was now in the long evening shadow of the house. As the air cooled, she drew her legs up inside the sweatshirt. After she read the last page, she looked at the picture on the