Dispatch by Bentley Little Read Free Book Online Page A

Robert. "Think we should follow her? See where she lives?"
    In answer, Robert put a finger to his lips and scurried down the sidewalk, keeping to the shadows as much as possible, avoiding the circles of light created by the streetlamps every three houses or so.
    We followed her down the street. I thought the sound of our movement would be covered by the loud tapping of her cane, but she heard us, and at the end of the block she stopped next to the mailbox and suddenly whirled around, pointing her walking stick in our direction. The cane made a sweep in the air from left to right, and she said something that sounded like "Don't try." As if on cue, a pigeon dropped from the sky and landed dead on the sidewalk halfway between us. The witch smiled, then turned away and headed down the cross street.
    "Let's get out of here!" Robert said, and the three of us ran like hell back up the block and around the corner, not stopping until we were once again safely ensconced in our tent in Robert's backyard.
    I couldn't wait to write to Kyoko and tell her about this. As soon as I got home, I would lock myself in the bathroom and write her a long letter about staying overnight at my friend's house and our adventure with the witch.
    We got into our sleeping bags, compared notes on what had just happened, made plans for tomorrow arid bullshitted for a while until gradually the conversation faded away, overtaken by the night. Robert nodded off, then Edson, but I remained awake and alert, so excited thinking about what I would write that I could not sleep. I suddenly realized that, to me, real life was important only as fodder for my letters. Odd as it was, I cared less about experiencing events than writing about them. I didn't write letters to describe my life—I lived my life to have something to write in my letters.
    Or to have a springboard from which to launch my lies.
    I stared up at the peaked nylon roof of the tent. To give myself credit, I didn't always lie. If something interesting happened, like our experience with the witch, I would incorporate it into the tapestry of fiction I was creating. It was just that, usually, not enough interesting things occurred to justify the frequency of my correspondence—so I simply pretended they did and made things up.
    And Kyoko believed it all.
    Was she doing the same? I didn't think so. Her stories were too mundane, the things she wrote about too ordinary. She had no secret-scientist father, she was not related to anyone famous or important, she was not a popular surfing champion, she encountered no witches. But that only made me like her all the more. She was enamored with my fictional self, she genuinely cared about her American pen pal, and that made me care about her.
    In the morning, the three of us awoke with the dawn. Robert's mom was already making pancakes in the house. I had a quick breakfast, then asked to be taken home. Robert and Edson begged me to stay, reminding me of all the fun things we had planned for this morning, but all I could think of was that I needed to write to Kyoko, needed to put everything down in letter form before I forgot it and the feeling was lost. I said I was sorry but I had to go somewhere with my family this morning. It was not a lie I could have sold to Paul—he knew me too well—but Robert and Edson were school friends, not neighborhood friends, and I could make them believe that I had the type of family that did things together.
    Robert's dad drove me back to my house. I thanked him, said good-bye to Robert and Edson, who'd come along for the ride, grabbed my little suitcase, ran up the driveway to the kitchen door and, with a last wave, went inside.
    Where my mom was screaming at Tom in the living room, and my dad sat at the kitchen table staring blearily into a cup of coffee, muttering, "Bastards ... bastards ... bastards..."
    "What are you doing home?" my mom shrieked at me as I tried to sneak past her. "I thought we wouldn't have to put up with you