The Pigman by Paul Zindel Read Free Book Online Page B

lucky. As a matter of fact, the way the Pigman was treating Lorraine and me you’d have thought he liked us as much as Bobo. He bought me two cotton-candies-on-a-stick, one bag of peanuts, and a banana split at this homemade ice-cream palace. Lorraine got at least four bags of peanuts, one cherry ice-cream cone, and a black-and-white soda. If you let her, Lorraine would eat until she dropped, and if she keeps going at that rate, I’m afraid she’s going to be somewhat more than voluptuous. She could end up just plain fat.
    We finally told him to call us Lorraine and John because every time he’d say Mr. Wandermeyer I’d forget that was supposed to be me. Besides, he was harmless—a little crazy—but really harmless.
    Lorraine and I went to school the following day, and we didn’t get over to the Pigman’s until that night around seven o’clock. That was because when we were heading over there at three thirty, we ran into Dennis and Norton who wanted to know where we were going. We made believe we weren’t going anywhere, so we had to go to the cemetery to have a beer with them. We drink at a special part of the cemetery called Masterson’s Tomb. That’s where all the famous Mastersons are buried, you know. It’s a fantastic place because they have acres and acres all for their own tomb, and it’s fenced in with a private road which they only open up when one of the Mastersons dies. But there is a hole in the fence at one place in the woods, and that’s where all the kids go through.
    The tomb is a great big marble building that’s set in the side of a hill so only the fancy front sticks out. The columns and everything are nice, but it’s all chained up, so we climb up the side of the hill and get on top by these two glass domes that let you peek down inside. You can’t actually see anything, but it sure makes you wonder.
    I think cemeteries are one of the loveliest places to be—if you’re not dead, of course. The hills and green grass and flowers are much nicer than what you get when you’re alive. Sometimes we go there at midnight and hide behind stones to scare the @#$% out of each other.
    Once I ran away from Lorraine and the others and hid in a part of the cemetery that didn’t have perpetual care. That’s the part where no one pays to keep the grass cut. I was just lying on my back, looking up at the stars, and I was so loaded I thought I could feel the spin of the earth. All those stars millions of light years away shining down on me—me glued to a minor planet spinning around its own gigantic sun.
    I stretched out and touched stone. I remember pulling my hands back to my sides, just keeping my eyes on the stars, concentrating on bringing them in and out of focus. “Is there anyone up there trying to talk to me? Anybody up there?”
    “Anybody
down
there?” If I was lying on somebody’s grave, whoever it was would be six feet away. Maybe there had been a lot of erosion, and whoever it was was only five feet away… or four. Maybe the tombstone had sunk at the same rate as the erosion, and the body was only a foot away below me—or an inch. Maybe if I put my hand through the grass, I would feel a finger sticking out of the dirt—or a hand. Perhaps both arms of a corpse were on either side of me right at that moment. What could be left? A few bones. The skull. The worms and bacteria had eaten the rest. Water in the earth had dissolved parts, and the plants had sucked them up. Maybe one of the molecules of iron from the corpse’s hemoglobin is in the strand of grass next to my ear. But the embalmers drain all the blood—well, probably not
every
drop. Nobody does anything perfectly.
    Then I got very sad because I knew I wasn’t really wondering about the guy underneath me, whoever he was. I was just interested in what was going to happen to me. I think that’s probably the real reason I go to the graveyard. I’m not afraid of seeing ghosts. I think I’m really
looking
for ghosts.