Innocent Blood Read Free

the part of John Wilkes Booth, since John Wilkes Booth got to fire a gun and jump off the stage.
    â€˜That’s tomorrow,’ Danny replied.
    Frank parked the car outside the school and Danny scrambled out. ‘See you later then, champ. Have a good day.’
    Danny ran toward the school gates, swinging his X-Men satchel like a propeller. Frank turned around to check the back seat and saw that, in his hurry, Danny had left his sandwiches behind. Danny suffered from a nut allergy, so he always had to take a home-prepared lunch.
    Frank climbed out of the car and shouted, ‘Danny! Hey, Danny! You forgot your . . .’ He held up his Tupperware box.
    Danny skidded to a stop, hesitated, and then began to run back. As he did so, Frank saw a white van drive through the school gates and stop by Mr Lomax’s little glass booth.
    Wednesday, September 22, 9:32 A.M .
    Kathy had changed into her field hockey kit and joined the shuffling, giggling line at the changing-room door. Eventually Ms Bushmeyer appeared, wearing her cerise and white tracksuit, with her whistle around her neck on a lanyard.
    â€˜All right, girls, an orderly line, please! No pushing and shoving!’
    â€˜Amanda pulled my braids.’
    â€˜I did not! I was nowhere near you!’
    They left the church building by the side entrance, still arguing. Kathy and Terra walked on either side of Lilian Bushmeyer. They liked talking to Ms Bushmeyer because she was always telling them that she dreamed about a handsome man with thick black hair and shining white teeth, who would come striding through the school gates one morning, walk straight into assembly, and lift her clean off her feet in front of everybody. Then he would fly her off to a Caribbean island where they would lie on the dazzling white sands all day and drink cocktails out of half coconuts.
    â€˜Did you ever have a boyfriend, Ms Bushmeyer?’
    â€˜Of course I did. His name was Clark.’
    â€˜You mean like Superman?’
    Lilian Bushmeyer pushed her frizzy hair into her sweatband. ‘Not exactly, Kathy. He sold carpets.’
    They were nearly halfway across the parking lot on their way to the playing fields when they saw the white van, too.
    Wednesday, September 22, 9:34 A.M .
    It was an ordinary white panel van. It had to stop because the school gates were always locked after nine A.M ., for the sake of security. There were too many students at The Cedars whose parents may not have been Hollywood A-list, but who were certainly wealthy and well known and who could have been potential targets for kidnap.
    The van driver tooted his horn and Mr Lomax came out of his booth. Mr Lomax was very tall and loopy, like a basketball player, and he wore a beige uniform with a peaked cap. Lilian Bushmeyer couldn’t stop herself from thinking about the ‘Mr Lomax’ prediction in Jade Peller’s fortune-teller, and – to her own embarrassment – found herself blushing. She turned to the chattering crocodile behind her and called out, ‘Come along, girls, we don’t have all day!’
    Mr Lomax opened the gates and the van drove into the parking lot toward them. Lilian Bushmeyer noticed how slowly it was being driven, as if she were watching it in a dream.
    â€˜Keep well out of the way, girls!’
    The van was almost alongside them now. Lilian Bushmeyer looked at the driver and for some reason he was smiling at her, really smiling, as if today was the happiest day of his whole life. He was unshaven and he was wearing a black woolly hat. There was a woman sitting next to him, wearing dark glasses, but she wasn’t smiling at all.
    Wednesday, September 22, 9:35 A.M .
    Lilian Bushmeyer felt a strange compression in her ears, but she didn’t hear anything. The van exploded only ten feet away, blowing off her legs and arms and sending her torso flying through the high stained-glass window of the Zeigler Memorial Library, where nine students