Leftovers Read Free

less you can see the better.
    At the moment of impact, all I heard was an ear-splitting
CRACK,
which I assumed was my head going through the windshield. It turned out to be the front bumper against the cenotaph, and Harold’s head flying through the Neon’s front window into the passenger seat.
    Then the
WHOOSH
of the airbag.
    Then the sirens.
    Obviously I survived (so did Fluffbucket) despite what I’ve heard about the left-hander’s tendency toward poor hand-foot-eye coordination and the increased probability of dying in a motor-vehicle accident. Harold was rescued and sent to the city cement works to have his head reattached. He was back at his post a week later. Tanner’s car was a write-off.
    That I could have killed old Fluffbucket, who has been in the world longer than I have, makes me cringe, and thank God, or Matthew McConaughey, that he had at least one of his nine lives left. That I could have killed a child or someone’s grandma out for her nightly stroll was something new to lose sleep about. That I had defaced—accidentally, but
literally
—the only real monument in town, made me feel as shamed as if I’d shot down Harold’s plane in France almost a century ago. That I could have killed myself was beside the point; I had no breaks, no bumps, no scratches even. Then again, I’ve never bruised or scarred easily.
    At least not on the outside.

SIX
    At Camp Dog Gone Fun, everyone is too tired and rushed at breakfast to notice or care what Dr. Fred sets out on the table. Which is good, because if you really think about it, facing cold cereal, hard-boiled eggs, canned fruit cocktail and terrible coffee every morning might be the most punishing aspect of life here.
    Camp tradition dictates that dinner is prepared by lottery. It’s hit or miss depending on who draws the short straw at flagpole and what’s on the unimaginative menu sent to Dr. Fred by a dietitian hired by the courts to make sure the “volunteers” aren’t fed kibble. Some nights it’s spaghetti or hamburgers, which are awfully hard to screw up, even for the kitchen-challenged. But some nights it’s tuna casserole or chicken stew, which at best (I don’t mean to brag, but when
I
cook) is edible, but at worst (when anyone else cooks) tastes like glue and smells like something the dogs horked up.
    But everyone loves lunch. Lunch is always a buffet. A smorgasbord of fruits and veggies and ham and cheese and pickles and nuts.
    Not unlike those of us who gather at the big round table to eat it.
    At one o’clock sits Dr. Fred, forty-eight, bald as a bowling ball, veterinarian and all-around Mr. Nice Guy.
    Two o’clock, Victoria, forty-five, wife of Dr. Fred. A fiery-haired social worker with so much energy she should come with a warning label.
    Three o’clock, me. Sarah. Just turned sixteen. As you know, the crash-test dummy of the group.
    Four o’clock, Johanna. Also sixteen. A wild-eyed party girl. Last fall, one of her self-described “beer bashes” spilled over to her neighbor’s yard. In the morning, a bed of prize-winning Brussels sprouts was dead and an entire family of ceramic lawn gnomes was decapitated. “Oops” was all she had to say about it, punctuated by a toss of her waist-length blond hair.
    Five o’clock, Taylor, seventeen. A green-haired artist/poet with enough metal in her face and spikes around her throat to build a motorcycle, and a penchant for spraying pro-choice graffiti on the sides of Catholic churches.
    Six, seven, eight
and
nine o’clock, Nicholas, thirteen. Three hundred and sixty-two pounds. Guilty as charged, he admits, of chronic shoplifting to feed his appetite for... well...just about anything.
    Ten and eleven o’clock, Brant, seventeen. Mr. Muscles. Star athlete, at least in his own mind. Unlike the rest ofus “volunteers,” who are from various towns within an hour’s drive of the St. Lawrence