The Terrorist by Caroline B. Cooney Read Free Book Online Page A

desperate need for cash, to buy something that couldn’t wait another half hour.
    Nicole had never quite believed, however, that she was Laura’s mother. Back when Laura was short and scrawny with braces on her teeth and hair falling out of a ponytail, yes. But this tall, slender young woman with the romantic eyes and the sense of fashion from Paris? Nicole could never believe it was school Laura had been attending. Laura must have been at Cinderella’s ball.
    Nicole finished her coffee. She stared into the open kitchen cabinet where the coffee can belonged. Next to it sat cans of SpaghettiOs. Nicole made a superior tomato sauce; it took four hours and would make an Italian weep. Billy preferred SpaghettiOs.
    In England, they stuck their spaghetti on toast, cut it into chunks, and ate it upside down off the backs of their forks. It was enough to make you throw up.
    Billy thought it was awesome. Billy wanted to eat just like the English, and sometimes entire dinners were spent yelling at Billy to hold his fork right side up.
    “But why?” Billy would ask. “Do you think you’re being rational?” (“Rational” was on his sixth-grade vocabulary list. Billy took his vocabulary lists seriously.)
    “Billy,” Thomas would say, “if you argue with your mother once more, you’re in deep—”
    Nicole would frown.
    “Trouble,” Thomas would finish reluctantly.
    “Daddy,” Billy would say happily, “you almost used a swear. That would be contravening Mom’s bye laws.”
    In the kitchen, alone with her empty coffee mug, Nicole wept into her hands. Billy, you contravened my bye laws. You were supposed to stay alive.
    She picked up a can of SpaghettiOs and threw it across the room. “This is what I have left of you, Billy!” she shouted. “Why did you take that package? Why didn’t you throw it into the crowd? I don’t care about that woman or that baby! I care about you! ”
    She folded down on the counter, sobbing.
    She tried to tell herself that it was a good thing Billy had used his own body to shelter the innocent, but Nicole had given birth to Billy’s body, and the end of that body was not a good thing.
    Oh! How she wished she could have gone with him. Wherever Billy was now, eleven was too young to be there.
    Blessed school.
    It swung you along in its particular rhythm, and you had no choices. You sat at your desk in one class, and then you got up and walked to your desk in the next. Teachers talked and blackboards were written upon and papers were passed out and bells rang.
    Laura did not focus on anything that was said, but time passed, and that alone was a blessing.
    Everybody talked to her—everybody who had not fled because of the bombing. Julie was gone. Kathleen Marie was gone. Michael the Ten was gone, leaving Kyrene, who had adored him.
    The remaining students were awkward around Laura. Americans could hug, but they could think of no words. Middle Easterners were more graceful in their speech and often spoke decoratively, with long, ornate sentences. But kids from anywhere had trouble figuring out what to say to the sister of dead Billy Williams.
    Laura loved them for struggling.
    At lunch, however, everybody stuck like traffic on Billy’s death. And like a traffic jam, they just wished the mess of his death would go away. Now Laura hated them.
    She hated the good manners on which she had been brought up (and which had escaped Billy). Her mother would have commanded Laura to comfort her friends and assure them that she was okay.
    Laura was having tuna fish on American white bread, the kind Billy approved of. She was afraid to pick up the sandwich. She would crush it. Tuna and mayo would spurt between her fingers.
    Kyrene brought up the Thanksgiving dance. She said how awful it was that Michael had left L.I.A. and could not take her; how heartbroken she was.
    Laura had to concentrate on opening her paper napkin and smoothing the folds, or she would have screamed at Kyrene: You fool! Michael’s