Little Red Lies by Julie Johnston Read Free Book Online Page B

grins stupidly. “And here’s the little sister. All grown up, eh? You turned out pretty good. Who’da thought.”
    “Hi,” I say. “I better go help Jamie.”
    Jamie’s elbowing his way through a cluster of boys and young men in the kitchen by the time I catch up. I know many of them by sight. I think they were in lower school when Jamie left, and now they’re swaggering upper school boys, not quite comfortable with cigarettes but working on it. Will’s there, too.
    I’m the only girl. I sidle in next to the fridge, where I won’t be too obvious.
    A guy named Eddy puts a bottle behind his back, but not quickly enough. “Give us a shot of rum for my friend Tom Klosky,” Jamie says.
    “For Tom? Oh, sure, poor sucker.” He finds a used glass among the plates of cold cuts and pickles and bread and cheese that litter the kitchen table, flings the contents into the sink behind him, and almost fills it with rum, adding a splash of Coke. Nobody takes any notice of me, or else they don’t care that I’ve invaded their inner sanctum.
    “I had no idea he’d lost an arm,” Jamie says.
    “That’s not all he lost,” Eddy says.
    “Oh?”
    “Let’s just say he’ll never be a family man. Here,” he says, scrounging up another glass, filling it with rum and Coke, and handing it to Jamie. “Cheers! Came out of the conflict pretty good yourself, eh?”
    “I was one of the lucky ones.”
    “I’d have gone over if it had lasted longer.”
    “It lasted plenty long enough,” Jamie says. He raises one of the glasses in salute and leaves.
    I’m about to follow him, when Will Cooper notices me. “I’d be happy to walk you home, now, Rachel. I’m thinking of going.”
    “But, why? The party’s not over.”
    “It could get a little rough. Just thought I’d ask.” He sounds hurt, which makes me feel a bit, I don’t know … hard-hearted?
    “Um, I better wait for my brother. I promised I would.”
    “Sure.”
    When I catch up to Jamie, he’s with Mary in front of Tom’s now-empty chair. “Where’s Tom Klosky?” I ask. “Has he left already?”
    Mary says, “His brother took him home. All he does anymore is get stinking drunk and try to pick fights. Poor guy.”
    “Poor guy,” Jamie echoes and downs Klosky’s drink. It must have burned all the way down because it makes his eyes water, and he chokes a little. He starts working on his own. I’ve never seen him take a drink before.
    “Come on,” Mary says to him. “Stop moping around, and let’s at least dance. Everyone says you’re a wet blanket.” She tries to soften the accusation by looking up through her lashes, her head tilted, a playful smile on her lips.
    Dance music blares from a record player, and Mary drags the two of us toward it. Behind us, we hear the tail end of a crude joke. Jamie says, “Rachel shouldn’t have come. I think we should head home.”
    Too late. Roy Armstrong grabs me by the waist and pulls me in among the dancers. He spins me around and moves me from one hand to the other, like a rag doll. I didn’t even think I knew how to dance. A friend of Roy’s grabs Mary, and soon she’s dancing as wildly as I am.
    When the music stops, Vera gets everyone’s attention by shouting, “Game time!” She holds up two oranges and orders people to form two lines—boy, girl, boy, girl.
    Amazingly, we follow her orders without an argument, and soon, while Jamie watches, we play a silly game that involves a guy tucking an orange under his chin and passing it to the girl behind him in line, who must receive it under her chin, no hands allowed. It looks like everyone’s necking.
    Before it’s my turn, a girl screams, and the game abruptly stops. All eyes are on Jamie, blood spurting from his nose. He dashes from the room with his handkerchief to his face and bounds up the stairs. Mary and I follow, but he barricades himself in the bathroom. “Are you all right?” I call lamely, pounding on the door.
    “Do you need an ice