Grave Apparel by Ellen Byerrum Read Free Book Online Page A

bad attitude. He had squintchy eyes.” The shepherd boy made an angry face and squinted. He opened his mouth in a fierce gri mace. “Like that.”
    “What happened?”
    “I just saw the lady and the Santa Dude yelling. She was on that bike.” He gestured to Cassandra’s bent mountain bike. “So he grabs her off the bike and she hits him with her bike helmet.” “She was going home. Was he waiting in the alley for her?” The child shrugged. “The Santa Dude hit her with this thing, this giant candy cane.”
    “A what?” Lacey had the feeling she was being had. “Like a redandwhite striped candy cane?” Oh, please, a candy cane! “Like I told you!” The shepherd glared at her, offended. “The biggest one I ever saw. I swear. This big!” The shepherd gestured with both hands spread wide, indicating the size of the
     
    alleged giant candy cane weapon. Then he acted out the drama in the alley. “And the Santa Dude holds it up way high over her head. This candy cane? She gets really quiet, and she’s kind of little. He’s bigger. And I think maybe she tells the Santa Dude to stop or go away or something? Whack! The dude cracks her in the head with it.” The boy gestured the blows. “She just stands there for a second and there’s lots of blood. And he does it again and again and again, and she falls down. And he puts the sweater on her.”
    “That sounds pretty scary.” And pretty strange. Lacey had seen the shards of red and white and wondered what they were, but she wasn’t about to touch them. Fragments of the weapon? Lacey bent down again to check Cassandra’s pulse. She was still breathing, but her skin was cold. “Hold on, Wentworth. You’re tough. You’ll make it.”
    “She looks bad,” the shepherd said. He squatted again to get a better look. “You think she’s gonna die?”
    “Where did he have the sweater?”
    “I don’t know. I was hiding. They were screaming.” “What did they say? And where were you?”
    He looked up at Lacey. “I didn’t hear all the words. I was hiding behind the Dumpster.” He showed her the narrow gap behind the large trash container. It would just hold a child. “And then I peeked out. Like this.” Lacey saw just a flash of blue andwhite stripes and a pair of dark eyes peering out. “Because you got to know your circumstances in this town, you know,” he counseled wisely. “I could have been whacked too, you know. Like the lady.”
    “That’s true. You’re pretty smart.” Lacey checked to make sure Cassandra’s chest was still moving. “She’ll be okay.” Lacey hoped her words weren’t just bravado.
    “That’s good,” the shepherd agreed. “We’re really saving her, huh?”
    “Yes, we’re saving her. What else did the man do?’
    The shepherd thought about it for a moment. “He looked up and saw me. He points his finger like a gun. He starts coming after me. But I squeeze behind that old Dumpster again. He’s like way too big to get me in there.” The shepherd’s eyes were very large.
    “And he didn’t catch you,” Lacey said. “What made him leave?”
     
    “A car came down the alley. The other end. So the Santa Dude, he ran away. But the car turned off, like to park in the garage or something.”
    “You’re all right, then?”
    “Sure.” The shepherd looked around as if to make sure there was no Santa Dude in the alley. “Sure I am. I’m always all right.”
    “That’s a nice costume.” It looked homemade to Lacey, per haps sewn out of a wool blanket. “Are you late for a school pag eant tonight or something? Should I call your parents?”
    He ignored the question. “Do you think the lady’s going to die?”
    “I don’t know.” Lacey wondered if she should say some thing more hopeful for the shepherd’s sake.
    “Yeah, me neither. But she could die, right? People die every day in D.C.” The child was silent for a moment. “What’s her name?”
    “Cassandra. Cassandra Wentworth.” Lacey looked at her