Here Lies Linc Read Free

sound too testy as I turned in my chair to look at C.B. He was sprawled on his hairy dog bed by the back door. As usual there was mud caked on the top of his big nose and dirt clods trapped in his mustache. “He’s been busy,” I told Lottie, “working on a new hole by the front porch.”
    She groaned. “Not the front yard too? Pretty soon we’re going to look like we’re living on top of an archaeological dig.”
    I plunked my bowl of soggy cereal on the floor for C.B. Even with the cranky mood I was in, I couldn’t help smiling as I watched him roust himself from his bed and wander over to investigate. C.B. caused the same reaction in most people. I could never get very far in the park without someone stopping to ask me, “What kind of breed
is
that?” C.B. looked like some sort of canine mutant with his sheepdog head, basset-hound body, and long rat tail. And just to make his pedigree even more of a mystery, he was the color of a chocolate lab, all except for the blond eyebrows that sprang from his head like furry antennae.
    I slid down to the floor so I could sit next to C.B. while he licked out my cereal bowl. He smelled like a swamp, but I hugged him anyway.
    “Well, how was school today?”
    I sat up, dodging C.B.’s tongue.
Finally
. Time to let the logjam loose. “Pretty good until fifth period,” I said. “Why didn’t you tell me that Mr. Oliver asked you to give our class a tour of the cemetery?”
    “Mr. Oliver?” Lottie repeated in bewilderment. Then she gasped. “Oh, shoot! I almost forgot. Did I miss it? Wait a minute, that’s
your
class going to Oakland?”
    “Mom!” I barked into the phone. We both knew I only called her Mom when I was mad. And we both knew that she had a habit of forgetting things, but this was bordering on amnesia territory. “No, you didn’t miss it. The field trip’s not till
next
Tuesday … and yes, it’s
my
American Studies class that you’re supposed to lead on the tour.” C.B. scooted out of the way as I grabbed the bowl he had licked clean and clambered to my feet in frustration.
    “I’m sorry, Linc,” Lottie said helplessly. “Before, there was just Dr. Lindstrom to keep track of, but now you have … is it six? Seven different teachers? And you know I get called to do lots of tours and special lectures. It’s hard to keep everything straight.”
    I had started toward the sink with the bowl, but the phone cord was too short and tangled for me to get very far. I gave it a hard yank. Maybe if I broke it, Lottie would join the rest of the modern world and buy us a portable phone.
    “Well, you can’t do it anyway, can you?” I asked, standing motionless for a hopeful second at the end of my phone-cord tether. “You’re not even getting home till the day of the field trip.”
    “What time does your class go to Oakland?”
    “Around one o’clock.”
    “Piece of cake,” she said. “I think my plane gets in around noon. See there? Everything’s going to work out fine.”
    I didn’t answer. It was so quiet in the house, I could hear C.B.’s long toenails clicking on the linoleum as he headed back to his bed.
    “Linc?”
    “I’m here,” I said, taking a deep breath as I set the cereal bowl on top of the scattered mail on the table. “Listen, Lottie, do you think we could pretend … for this field trip that … you know … that we’re not related?”
    There was another pause. “Why?” she asked, the cheeriness suddenly draining out of her voice. “Why would we do that?”
    I breezed ahead, trying to sound casual. “Well, you have to admit that you’ve got a pretty weird job, you know, spending your whole life studying dead people and symbols on headstones and why graves face east to west instead of north to south … and it’s just that I’m … I’m new at Plainview and …” My words started to lose some of their steam.
    “Ohhhhh. So
that’s
what this is about,” she said shrewdly. “Now that you’re