The Sound of Life and Everything by Krista Van Dolzer Read Free Book Online Page B

turned her back, but I pried off my cupule—that’s the little cap thing on top—without damaging the inside.”
    I tightened my grip on my lunch pail. “It figures.” I’d asked for a lunch box the same as Theo’s, but Mama had decided the lunch pail still worked fine.
    â€œYou can’t let her bait you,” he said as he pulled open the door. “If you just kept your mouth shut, she wouldn’t know you exist.”
    â€œIs that your goal in life, to fade into the background?”
    â€œYes,” Theo said. “At least as far as Miss Fightmaster’s concerned.”
    I couldn’t argue with that logic. I raised a hand to shield my eyes as I led the way across the blacktop. For once, the sun had burned off the clouds that drifted ashore every night, so the playground almost sparkled. It was a sight to see.
    We didn’t waste any words as we unpacked our lunches and made our usual trades: one of Mama’s snickerdoodles for Auntie Mildred’s store-bought pudding and a handful of green grapes for one or two Keebler crackers. Other folks might have liked having scores of fair-weather friends, but I just needed Theo, and he just needed me.
    We were halfway through our lunches when a scuffle caught my eye (or, more precisely, the wall of shoulders that had formed around the scuffle).
    â€œYou see that?” I asked Theo, scrambling onto a tree stump.
    â€œOf course I see it,” Theo said. “It’s twenty feet away.”
    I chucked a grape at his forehead. “That wasn’t what I meant.”
    Theo polished off the last of his bologna sandwich. “If you were askin’ if I wanted to leave the shelter of this shade tree and stick my nose in where it doesn’t belong, then the answer is—”
    I didn’t wait for him to finish, just launched myself off the tree stump. I was still a few feet away when I heard Walter shout, “I said, get off!”
    While the object of Walter’s bullying fumbled for a reply, I pushed through the wall of shoulders. Walter had a fistful of the Dent boy’s collar and was trying to drag him off the seesaw, but the boy refused to budge. He couldn’t have been more than six, but he’d wrapped his arms around the handle and his legs around the seat.
    â€œWhat’s the matter, Walter?” I asked. “Can’t handle that little kid?”
    Walter didn’t let go of the boy, but he did set him down as he scanned the nervous crowd. When his eyes settled on me, I stuck out my chin.
    Walter instantly brightened. “Oh, look, it’s the escapee from the funny farm!” He flung the boy to the side.
    The boy hit the ground hard, though he managed to hang on to the seesaw. Once he dusted himself off, he stuck out his tongue, then carefully fixed his collar. I grinned despite myself. Walter might have had his back turned, but the boy was a warrior, no doubt about it.
    â€œWhat’s the food like?” Walter asked. “I hope they at least had Jell-O. You must have been in there for weeks!”
    â€œWe were only there for an hour. And it wasn’t a funny farm, it was a lab.”
    â€œOoh, a lab!” Walter said as he slithered closer. “Did they treat you like a rat, make you run through the mazes?”
    â€œNo,” I replied without giving up ground. “They brought a man back to life.”
    â€œThey brought a man back to
life
? Was it a zombie or something?”
    While the crowd giggled like lamebrains, my hands clenched into fists. “I’m not makin’ this up. I saw him with my own two eyes.”
    â€œQuiet, Ella Mae!” a familiar voice growled, though I was surprised to hear it here. I hadn’t thought that Theo would leave the shelter of our shade tree. “He’s just tryin’ to get you to say things you’ll regret.”
    It was awfully sporting of Theo to stick his nose in where it didn’t