Agnes Mallory by Andrew Klavan Read Free Book Online Page B

other words. She hadn’t been watching me.
    I returned to the sewer for a few practice swings, while Rick and Freddy relayed the ball back to the mound.
    The next day, Saturday, was a warm, pleasant day in May, but I awoke somehow in the tar pits of meditation. I didn’t know why I was in such a funk. I even watched the cartoons scowling. In pajamas till ten, my hair uncombed. Nothing satisfactory. Finally, somewhere between ‘How come we never have any good cereal?’ and ‘This is a stupid house, there’s nothing to do here,’ my mother got sick of me. ‘It’s a lovely day,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you go outside and play?’ And I was banished to the suburban streets.
    Like a lonesome cowpoke, I wandered aimlessly. What was life? What good was anything? Why did I have to be stuck in Miss Truxell’s class? It had ruined my existence. Nothing was ever any fun anymore. And where was my dog – why had my parents killed my poor dog two years ago without telling me? Oh, Clancy, Clancy, if only you were here. Eyes on the macadam, sneakers kicking stones, I shuffled east to Plymouth and then Piccadilly Road. I was going to think this world out, I decided. I was going to know what I believed and stand for it and never complain and watch everything with an air of dangerous quiet and make terse, profound statements through tight lips. And hey, what if the women were not quite naked but were in their underwear and leaned forward and said, ‘Please, please, King Harry, you can do anything you want to me?’ The sun was at my back, the lawns were dewy, birds sang, and the air was like sponge cake, soft, warm and sweet.
    A screen door banged. I raised my eyes and up ahead was Agnes.
    This time, she was not only flouncing smugly from one lawn to the next, but was decked out in green beret and brown smock – a Girl Scout uniform. Now she was selling Girl Scout cookies, for Cripes’ sake. She headed up the path to the next door, primly toting her sample boxes, clipboard and order form. Disgusting. I shook my head, determined to mope right past her.
    So, of course, there was no one home at her next stop and I came abreast of her just as she laid off the chimes and came prancing down the front walk toward me.
    â€˜Hi,’ she said.
    I stopped. Lifted my world-weary visage, as if surprised to see her there. She was standing flat-footed on the sidewalk, facing me straight on in that unnerving way girls have. I tipped her the lorn, lonesome wave of the ambling saddle tramp.
    â€˜Taking a walk?’
    â€˜Yeah,’ I sighed, grimly remembering how I’d killed a man in a gunfight in Abilene.
    â€˜I’m selling Girl Scout cookies. I’ve done twenty boxes so far just this morning, although my mother took five. Jessica and I are going to share our sales so neither of us has more than the other. And that way we’ll both have more than Michelle. She’s our friend too but she’s kind of annoying.’
    I nodded with a sad, kind of faraway look in my eye.
    â€˜Well … I have to go home for lunch now,’ she said. ‘You could come if you wanted to. We’re having wagon wheel noodles and Girl Scout cookies for dessert.’
    Normally, I’d have refused out of simple shyness – and, too, it was just about time for me to be movin’ on to another town. On the other hand: wagon wheels and Girl Scout cookies – those vanilla creme sandwiches especially … And it’d teach my mother something if I just didn’t turn up for her lunch.
    I shrugged. ‘Okay.’
    And we walked off together to the top of the hill.
    And so, The Queer Lunch. There’s no doubt it was the beginning of something. And it sure was queer, too, right from the start, right from the minute I walked in the door. There was the smell of the place, first of all. Not your usual kid’s house smell, open to the air, the screen door