The Grown Ups Read Free Page A

He rolled over on his side and hoisted himself up on his elbow and looked down at Suzie Epstein’s white bra. Her stomach quivered as Sam lowered a hand slowly onto the fabric covering her breast. Sam was grateful for the little bit of distance between their bodies, because the zipper of his jeans was strained tightly and he didn’t know what to do about it. Suzie sighed as he tentatively moved his fingers over the top of her bra and touched her breast, drawing out the small, hard nipple.
    All of a sudden there came a thump from above followed by a scuffle, what sounded like possibly a piece of furniture being knocked over, and then Suzie’s brothers loudly shouting her name. Sam stopped moving.
    Suzie’s eyelids fluttered open. “No,” she groaned. “Damnit.” She sat up and looked for her shirt. Sam rolled onto his back and swept the floor with his hand, hitting the box before finding the shirt. He handed it to her and watched as she jumped off the endof the bed and pulled it over her head. “Don’t move,” she commanded. “I’ll be right back.”
    â€œBut . . .”
    â€œSeriously, stay.” She turned and ran out of the room. Sam stayed on his back for a moment, remembering the feel of Suzie Epstein’s hard nipple in his fingers, before he slowly rolled off the bed.
    Whatever was happening upstairs wasn’t getting any better. Sam heard several more thumps followed by screaming. He shook his head to clear the images of Suzie on the bed. Sam was standing there so long dreaming of Suzie that he didn’t realize someone had turned into the Epsteins’ driveway. He heard the car door close, keys hit the pavement, mumbling, cursing, and then the retrieval of keys as they jangled together.
    His only choices were to leave through the Epsteins’ driveway and reveal himself or go deeper into the woods to the fort. Without thinking, he put the box away and straightened the bedspread where wet marks crept across the folds of the cloth. He took the pillows and rearranged them so they covered the darker areas before he ran up the cellar stairs and out of the Epsteins’ house.
    Sam’s bike was where he left it and his house was dark. He thought of going back to Peter Chang’s to spend the night, as he had planned, but he didn’t move. He imagined what Suzie would look like when she came back downstairs and saw that Sam was gone. But he didn’t know what else to do.
    When Sam arrived home the next day his father was sitting at the kitchen table staring at the rooster clock on the wall. Sam knew his father hated the rooster clock. “It isn’t even ironic,Elizabeth,” he had said after Sam’s mother insisted on hanging it above the table.
    Sam was sore from sleeping on the floor of the fort and hungry. He stood at the open refrigerator forever, but when his father didn’t even reprimand him he finally said, “What’s up, Dad?”
    â€œYour mother is out.”
    â€œOkay,” Sam said, slowly grabbing a piece of cheese and shutting the door. “Is she shopping? ’Cause there isn’t any food.”
    â€œHuh?”
    Sam rubbed his stomach. “No food.” He pointed at the refrigerator.
    His dad blinked at him and then looked back at the rooster. Sam’s older brother, Michael, was at a science camp at Johns Hopkins for brilliant kids who would one day save the world. Michael had been gone since the beginning of the summer and sometimes Sam felt like their father was just waiting for him to get home.
    Sam went to his room and fell back against the bed. He couldn’t stop thinking about how mad Suzie Epstein probably was about finding him gone. He curled up on his side, his mouth tasting like crud from the cheese. He thought about getting up and taking a shower and brushing his teeth and going to the pool. Then he heard a car door slam. His mother, he hoped, back from the store. Sam