Far Far Away Read Free

deed
with a guy who talks … you know,
Martian
.” Again he paused. “But maybe that don’t matter so much to you.”
    The boys drove away amidst heavy, derisive laughter.
    “Idiots,” Ginger muttered.
    One of the girlfriends was called Maddy Saxon. She had a dark allure that seemed deeply seated within her and surfaced only in the thin pink scar that ran the length of her cheek. This gave her a daunting stare, which she directed now toward the receding red truck. “Conk’s tempting, though,” she said in a low voice, watching the truck turn the corner, “in an odious kind of way.”
    But Ginger had turned her gaze to Jeremy. In the soft sunlight, her coppery hair shimmered prettily.
    “So?” she said. “What did you say to shut those goons up?”
    Jeremy shrugged and looked off. “I don’t know for sure. It just came to me.”
    Ginger’s eyes shone. “C’mon,” she said. “Tell.”
    “No, really,” Jeremy said, lightly rubbing his temple. “Sometimes when something like that comes out of my mouth—it’s not very often, but when it does—I just have to ask myself, ‘What in the world did I just say?’ ”
    I knew that he meant this question for me. It was part of a pact we had made. If he spoke words I delivered him, I must divulge their meaning.
    It was a low curse
, I said to him.
One that should remain unexplained
.
    But ever so discreetly he shook his head.
    So I told him.
    A smile spread across Jeremy’s face. I will admit it. That he was pleased was pleasing to me.
    “What?” Ginger said, her eyes full of mischief. “You know, don’t you?”
    Jeremy did not deny it—he was a poor liar—but still he said nothing.
    “C’mon, tell,” Ginger said, then softened her voice. “If you tell, I promise we won’t ask for any more of your homework the rest of the year.”
    Jeremy laughed. “There’s only a week of school left.”
    “Yeah,” Ginger said, her smile demure as you please. “That’s why I can do the deal.”
    Well, it is true. Honesty is often disarming.
    Jeremy looked at Ginger and said, “Promise you won’t tell Conk?”
    “I do,” Ginger said, then glanced at the two girlfriends. “And they do, too, or else some of their juicy little secrets will go pin-balling around this little burg.”
    Jeremy took a deep breath. “Okay … what I said was, ‘May you cross an endless desert on the back of a flatulent camel.’ ”
    A merry laugh burst from Ginger. “Where do you get that stuff?” she asked. “I mean, how’d you ever learn a foreign language?”
    Jeremy shrugged. “It’s beyond me.”
    “Beyond you,” Ginger repeated, and this time when she stared at him, her gaze seemed not to pass through him so much as to burrow into him, as if to find clues to a puzzle she was intent onsolving. “So,” she said finally (and do not be mistaken, her voice was shaded with flirtation), “what’s life like there in Johnson-Johnsonville?”
    Jeremy shrugged at this question, and Ginger smiled, as if to say,
Okay, okay—the puzzle can wait
, and soon the group of four was again moving along the street, through the shadows, and deeper into their tale.

    Since I had come to this town, the green smoke (which was, in fact, a greenish gray) had appeared every four or five months or so, infrequently enough to make it seem special. The smoke would begin rising from the circular brick chimney during the night, and the next morning the bakery’s gleaming display cases would be lined with exquisite pale green marzipan cakes, each layered and filled with strawberry paste and topped by a frosted pink rosette.
    These were properly called
Prinsesstårta
, or Princess Cakes. But the baker, an immigrant from Sweden, soon observed that only the women were purchasing his Princess Cakes, so he changed the name to Prince Cakes in hopes that the men might consume them, too. The strategy succeeded—you will always witness a great rush to buy the cakes by men and women alike.
    There