Instead of Three Wishes Read Free

an up-and-coming young artist named Roger Otterly.

Leroy Roachbane
    I t was still dark outside when the buzzer next to Leroy’s bed went off. Without a sound, he slipped out from underneath the covers and hunted for his bathrobe somewhere at the end of the bed. The cold air crinkled his skin with goose bumps before he found it. His shoes, near the bedroom door, were easier to find. They lay in the path of the hallway night-light. Once he had them on, he walked as quietly as he could down the hall to the kitchen. He could hear the building’s hot water, heated by the furnace, banging its way up the radiator pipes to his apartment. Soon the pantry off the kitchen would be the warmest room in the building. It would stay warm all day. That’s why the roaches liked living there so much. Warmth all winter with water just a quick scrabble away in the unheated kitchen. Food wasn’t plentiful, but there was enough nearby to keep a colony going. Life there would be paradise if not for the early-morning arrival of the great and evil destroyer of roaches.
    â€œWaaaaah!” Leroy turned on the light in the pantry and leapt in between the shelves. Stampinghis feet and yelling, he thumped and splatted every roach he could see. With a paintbrush (reserved for this purpose) he swept two or three stragglers off the shelves and stamped on those, too. When he was done, and the ground was littered with squashed corpses, he pulled the broom and dustpan from behind the refrigerator and swept up the mess.
    â€œAre you about done in there?” his mama asked from around the corners. She wouldn’t come in until all the roaches were gone.
    â€œJust about. Wait one more minute,” said Leroy, and dumped the last of the remains into the garbage can.
    â€œHow many did you get today?” his mama asked.
    â€œSeventeen,” said Leroy proudly.
    â€œIck. That’s an awful lot. Is it a record?”
    â€œNo, there used to be lots more when the college students lived next door. There aren’t so many now that Mrs. Hansen is there. You can come in now.”
    Leroy’s mama came around the corner. She didn’t wear curlers at night, and her hair wasn’t in braids, so it floated on top of her head like a lumpy black cloud. She stood yawning in her bathrobe and bare feet. Even in the coldest weather she didn’t like to wear slippers, so Leroy got up every morning to remove any roaches she might step on. Leroy’s mother said that she could stand a lot of things, but roaches in the morning were more than she could bear.
    â€œYou go get dressed and get ready for school,now. I’ll get breakfast started. Your clean pants are in the laundry basket in my room. Don’t wake your dad.” Leroy knew that nothing short of an earthquake would wake his father after an all-night shift. Otherwise he would have been more quiet killing the roaches.
    â€œAnd hurry, please,” Leroy’s mother went on. “I’d like you to leave early for school so that you can buy some more boric acid on the way.” Boric acid was the white powder that she sprinkled around the base of all the cabinets and underneath the fridge. It didn’t hurt people but was deadly to roaches and cheaper than Roach Motels or any of the insecticide sprays.
    Leroy liked going to the hardware store, but thinking of school brought a tight, cold feeling to his stomach. His mother must have known what an unhappy stomach looked like from the outside because she asked, “What’s the matter, Leroy? Are the older boys bothering you again?”
    â€œNo,” said Leroy. “I got something from school I have to show you.” He walked up the hall to his room and came back with a piece of paper he had pulled from his schoolbag. It was a note from his teacher. At the bottom of the page there was a space for his mother to sign.
    Leroy and his mother sat at the kitchen table while she read the paper. He was still