Don't Scream (9780307823526) Read Free Page A

Eric’s father tried all year to get him to go out for basketball,but his grandmother gave him his first computer. No one saw much of Eric after that. From my point of view, it’s terrible to see a really tall guy go to waste.
    â€œHow about a Meal-in-One?” I suggested. “Double meat patty, two kinds of cheese, lots of tomatoes, lettuce, pickles, and onion. Fries on the side, along with a milk shake. It covers most of your basic food groups.”
    â€œOkay,” Eric said, and grinned. “What you said was pure advertising hype, but at least I can report back to my mom that I had the basic food groups.”
    â€œAnything to make your mom happy,” I said. I took his money, wrote down his order, and clipped it to the trolley.
    Eric rolled his eyes. “Happy? It’s very hard to make her happy.” No one was at the counter, so he leaned toward me. “My mom gets uptight about things, like my showing up tonight for dinner. She kept yelling upstairs for me to come down, and I kept telling her I couldn’t come right then. I was in a chat group with some very interesting Latin professors, who were discussing the demise of classical languages, and I felt I should explain to them that Latin wasn’t totally dead in high-school curricula. Well, anyway, when the discussion was over, I came down to the kitchen to see if anything was left or get a couple of Pop-Tarts to take back upstairs, and that made her even more upset. That’s why I’m here.”
    â€œWelcome to Bingo’s Burgers,” I said, and handed him his order.
    â€œThe older generation just can’t seem to adapt to modern technology,” Eric said.
    I just smiled and realized I wasn’t going to worry about tall, dateless Eric. I had my mind on Mark Malik.
    O N S UNDAY , AFTER services at Oakberry Baptist Church, Lori came over. She and I—“the long and the short of it,” as Dad liked to tease—decided to hang out on the front porch, hoping that Mark would emerge from his house and come over. But there was no sign of any of the Maliks.
    â€œTheir car’s on the driveway, so they must be home,” Lori said.
    I picked up sleepy old Pepper and draped him over my shoulder, snuggling my chin against his soft, warm back. A bee burrowed into a golden, out-of-season blossom on the Confederate jasmine, and a half-dozen grackles swooped down on the front yard, searching the grass for bugs. “It’s probably the September heat,” I told Lori. “It takes people from the East a while to get used to Texas weather. They don’t want to go outside and leave their air-conditioning.”
    Lori nodded and stretched. “Well, if you think Wonder Boy isn’t coming out so I can get a good look at him, why don’t we walk through the woods over to the bay? And don’t tell me it’s too far out of the way to go through the woods, because it’s a lot cooler.”
    I stood up. “No argument,” I said. “I don’t have to go to work until four.”
    The woods—which had never been given a proper name—was a scraggly patch of pine, tallow, and oak—an unlovely offshoot trailing down from the thick swath of forest that spread northward and outward from Houston, through the northeastern counties of Texas, into Arkansas and Louisiana. But the outskirts of the woods—the only part I was allowed in—were one of my favorite places. Cool and quiet, with a thick padding of damp, spongy mulch underfoot, it was a solitary place in which to think and dream.
    When I was little, I’d often heard the rumor that deep inside the woods were the remains of an ancient cemetery.
    â€œEarly settlers,” Mrs. Snyder had explained. “I doubt if folks even remember where the cemetery is now. Long ago the trees grew up and hid the graves. Something nasty is attached to that place. It’s best left forgotten.”
    Mrs. Hickey’s