Little Children by Tom Perrotta Read Free Book Online Page B

almost). But sometimes it was nice to kiss someone else for a change, for the hell of it, just to prove it could still be done. It didn’t seem to matter that Sarah wasn’t his type, wasn’t even that pretty, at least not compared to Kathy, who had long legs and lustrous hair, and knew how to make herself as glamorous as a model when you gave her a reason to. Sarah was short and boyish, slightly pop-eyed, and a little angry-looking when you got right down to it. She had coarse unruly hair and eyebrows that were thicker than Todd thought necessary. But so what? She’d read his mind and walked into his arms, as if she’d memorized a script he hadn’t even remembered writing until he found himself standing in the middle of it, breathing hard and barely able to let go.
     
    “Hey, pervert!”
    Todd cringed at the word, flinging up his arms as if to deflect a blow. The minivan had crept up so slowly—or he had retreated so deeply into himself—that he didn’t even notice it until it was idling right in front of him, blocking his view of the skateboarders.
    “Like the little boys, do you?”
    The teasing note was clearer now. Todd dropped his guard and squinted into the van in an effort to identify the driver, who was craning across the front seat to assist him in this task. It took a few seconds to pin a name on the broad, fleshy face grinning at him through the open passenger window.
    “Jesus, Larry. Don’t even joke about that.”
    Larry Moon was a father Todd had hung out with a couple of times at the Stuart Street sprinkler park during last summer’s heat wave, and hadn’t seen since. He was a stocky, thick-necked guy in his midthirties, an ex-cop who had recently retired on full disability, though there didn’t appear to be anything physically wrong with him.
    “You busy?” he asked.
    “Actually, I’m, uh, supposed to be studying.” Todd lifted his bookbag off the ground to bolster what sounded—even to himself—like an unlikely claim. “I’m taking the bar exam next month.”
    “Didn’t you do that last year?”
    “Yeah,” said Todd. “See how good I did?”
    Larry laughed, as if Todd had meant it as a joke. He popped the lock and the passenger door swung open.
    “Get in,” he said. “I got a better idea.”
    Larry cleared off the passenger seat, tossing a football and a pair of binoculars into the back of the van, and snatching up a fat stack of blue paper, which he dropped into Todd’s lap a moment later.
    “You mind?” he said. “I’m trying to keep ’em nice.”
    Todd recognized the pervert warning right away. He had received three of them in the past week alone—one in his mailbox, one folded into the Sunday paper, another slipped through his car window when he’d left it open a crack at the supermarket. A small footnote at the bottom of the flyer said, Paid for by the Committee of Concerned Parents .
    “You part of the committee?” Todd asked.
    “I am the committee. It just sounds better than Paid for by Larry from Hazel Avenue . A little more official.”
    “How’d you find out about this creep?”
    “There’s a web site. The state’s required to disclose the whereabouts of convicted sex offenders.” Larry shot him an inquiring glance. “Don’t you check it?”
    “Not on a regular basis,” Todd confessed.
    “I think decent people have a right to know if Chester the Molester’s moving in next door, don’t you?”
    “McGorvey’s not living next door to you, is he?”
    “Not next door. But close enough.” Larry’s expression darkened. “They should just castrate the bastard and be done with it.”
    Todd nodded as noncommitally as he could, trying to acknowledge Larry’s strong opinion on the subject without having to express his own more measured one. In the interval of silence that followed, Todd’s attention latched on to the familiar music playing softly on the car stereo.
    “You a Raffi fan?”
    “What?” Larry seemed startled by the