The Girl Next Door (13 page)

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Authors: Jack Ketchum

Tags: #Horror, #Fiction

BOOK: The Girl Next Door

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I showed her the money.

“Would you loan it to me?”

“All
of it?”

“I’m hungry,” she said.

“Yeah?”

“I want to go over to Cozy Snacks for a sandwich.”

“For a
sandwich?”

I laughed. “Why doncha just steal a couple of candy bars? The counter’s easy there.”

I’d done it myself on plenty of occasions. Most of us did. The best was just to walk up to whatever you wanted and take it and then walk right out again. Nothing furtive and no hesitations. The place was always busy. There was nothing to it. And nobody had any use for Mr. Holly, the old guy who ran the place, so there wasn’t any guilt involved.

But Meg just frowned. “I don’t steal,” she said.

Well jeez, I thought, meet Miss Priss.

I felt a little contempt for her.
Everybody
stole. It was part of being a kid.

“Just loan me the money, will you?” she said. “I’ll pay you back. I promise.”

I couldn’t stay mad at her.

“Okay. Sure,” I said. I dumped it into her hand. “But what do you want a sandwich for? Make one at Ruth’s.”

“I can’t.”

“How come?”

“I’m not supposed to.”

“Why?”

“I’m not supposed to eat yet.”

We crossed the street. I looked left and right and then I looked at her. She had that masked look. Like there was something she wasn’t telling. Plus she was blushing.

“I don’t get it.”

Kenny and Eddie and Lou Marino were already on the diamond tossing a ball around. Denise was standing behind the backstop watching them. But nobody saw us yet. I could tell Meg wanted to go but I just stared at her.

“Ruth says I’m fat,” she said finally.

I laughed.

“Well?” she said.

“Well what?”

“Am I?”

“What? Fat?” I knew she was serious but I still had to laugh. “’Course not. She’s kidding you.”

She turned abruptly. “Some joke,” she said. “You just try going without dinner
and
breakfast
and
lunch for a day.”

Then she stopped and turned back to me. “Thanks,” she said.

And then she walked away.

Chapter Nineteen

The ball game dissolved about an hour after it started. By that time most of the kids on the block were there, not just Kenny and Eddie and Denise and Lou Morino but Willie, Donny, Tony Morino and even Glen Knott and Harry Gray, who showed up because Lou was playing. With the older kids there it was a good fast game—until Eddie hit his hard line drive down the third-base line and started running.

Everybody but Eddie knew it was foul. But there was no telling Eddie that. He rounded the bases while Kenny went to chase the ball. And then there was the usual argument. Fuck you and fuck you and no, fuck
you.

The only difference was that this time Eddie picked up his bat and went after Lou Morino.

Lou was bigger and older than Eddie but Eddie had the bat, and the upshot was that rather than risk a broken nose or a concussion, he stalked off the field in one direction taking Harry and Glen along with him while Eddie stalked off the other way.

The rest of us played catch.

That was what we were doing when Meg came by again.

She dropped some change into my hand and I put it in my pocket.

“I owe you eighty-five cents,” she said.

“Okay.”

I noticed that her hair was just a little oily, like she hadn’t washed it that morning. She still looked nice though.

“Want to do something?” she said.

“What?”

I looked around. I guess I was afraid the others would hear.

“I don’t know. Go down by the brook?”

Donny threw me the ball. I pegged it at Willie. As usual he slumped after it too slowly and missed.

“Never mind,” said Meg. “You’re too busy.”

She was irritated or hurt or something. She started to walk away.

“No. Hey. Wait.”

I couldn’t ask her to play. It was hardball and she had no glove.

“Okay, sure. We’ll go down to the brook. Hang on a minute.”

There was only one way to do this gracefully. I had to ask the others.

“Hey guys! Want to go down to the brook? Catch some crayfish or something? It’s hot here.”

Actually the brook didn’t sound bad to me. It was hot.

“Sure. I’ll go,” said Donny. Willie shrugged and nodded.

“Me too,” said Denise.

Great, I thought. Denise. Now all we need is Woofer.

“I’m gonna go get some lunch,” said Kenny. “Maybe I’ll meet you down there.”

“Okay.”

Tony vacillated and then decided he was hungry too. So that left just us five.

“Let’s stop at the house,” said Donny. “Get some jars for the crayfish and a Thermos of Kool-Aid.”

We went in through the back door and you could hear the washing machine going in the basement.

“Donny? That you?”

“Yeah, Ma.”

He turned to Meg. “Get the Kool-Aid, will ya? I’ll go down after the jars and see what she wants.”

I sat with Willie and Denise at the kitchen table. There were toast crumbs on it and I brushed them onto the floor. There was also an ashtray crammed with cigarette butts. I looked through the butts but there was nothing big enough to crib for later.

Meg had the Thermos out and was carefully pouring lime Kool-Aid into it from Ruth’s big pitcher when they came upstairs.

Willie had two peanut butter jars and a stack of tin cans with him. Ruth was wiping her hands on her faded apron. She smiled at us and then looked over at Meg in the kitchen.

“What are you doing?” she said.

“Just pouring out some Kool-Aid.”

She dug into the pocket of her apron and took out a pack of Tareytons and lit one.

“Thought I said stay out of the kitchen.”

“Donny wanted some Kool-Aid. It was Donny’s idea.”

“I don’t care whose idea it was.”

She blew out some smoke and started coughing. It was a bad cough, right up from the lungs, and she couldn’t even talk for a moment.

“It’s only Kool-Aid,” said Meg. “I’m not eating.” Ruth nodded. “Question is,” she said, taking another drag of the cigarette, “question is, what did you sneak before I got here?”

Meg finished pouring and put down the pitcher. “Nothing,” she sighed. “I didn’t sneak anything.”

Ruth nodded again. “Come here,” she said.

Meg just stood there.

“I said come over here.”

She walked over.

“Open your mouth and let me smell your breath.”

“What?”

Beside me Denise began to giggle.

“Don’t sass me. Open your mouth.”

“Ruth...”

“Open it.”

“No!”

“What’s that? What’d you say?”

“You don’t have any right to ...”

“I got all the right in the world. Open it.”

“No!”

“I said open it, liar.”

“I’m not a liar.”

“Well I know you’re a slut so I guess you’re a liar too. Open it!”

“No.”

“Open your mouth!”

“No!”

“I’m telling you to.”

“I won’t.”

“Oh yes you will. If I have to get these boys to pry it open you will.”

Willie snorted, laughing. Donny was still standing in the doorway holding the cans and jars. He looked embarrassed.

“Open your
mouth,
slut.”

That made Denise giggle again.

Meg looked Ruth straight in the eye. She took a breath.

And for a moment she suddenly managed an adult, almost stunning dignity.

“I told you, Ruth,” she said. “I said no.”

Even Denise shut up then.

We were astonished.

We’d never seen anything like it before.

Kids were powerless. Almost by definition. Kids were supposed to
endure
humiliation, or run away from it. If you protested, it had to be oblique. You ran into your room and slammed the door. You screamed and yelled. You brooded through dinner. You acted out—or broke things accidentally on purpose. You were sullen, silent. You screwed up in school. And that was about it. All the guns in your arsenal. But what you did
not
do was you did not stand up to an adult and say go fuck yourself in so many words. You did not simply stand there and calmly say no. We were still too young for that. So that now it was pretty amazing.

Ruth smiled and stubbed out her cigarette in the cluttered ashtray.

“I guess I’ll go get Susan,” she said. “I expect she’s in her room.”

And then it was her turn to stare Meg down.

It lasted a moment, the two of them facing off like gunfighters.

Then Meg’s composure shattered.

“You leave my sister
out
of this! You leave her alone!”

Her hands were balled up into fists, white at the knuckles. And I knew that she knew, then, about the beating the other day.

I wondered if there had been other times, other beatings.

But in a way we were relieved. This was more like it. More like what we were used to.

Ruth just shrugged. “No need for you to get all upset about it, Meggy. I just want to ask her what she knows about you raiding the icebox in between meals. If you won’t do what I ask, then I guess she’d be the one to know.”

“She wasn’t even
with
us!”

“I’m sure she’s heard you, honey. I’m sure the neighbors have heard you. Anyhow, sisters know, don’t they? Sorta instinctive, really.”

She turned toward the bedroom. “Susan?”

Meg reached out and grabbed her arm. And it was like she was a whole other girl now, scared, helpless, desperate.

“God
damn
you!” she said.

You knew right away it was a mistake.

Ruth whirled and smacked her.

“You touch me? You
touch
me, dammit? You
bold
with me?”

She slapped her again as Meg backed away, and again as she stumbled against the refrigerator, off balance, and fell to her knees. Ruth leaned over and gripped her jaw, pulling on it hard.

“Now you open your goddamn mouth, you hear me? Or I’ll kick the living shit out of you and your precious little sister! You hear me? Willie? Donny?”

Willie got up and went to her. Donny looked confused.

“Hold her.”

I felt frozen. Everything was happening so fast. I was aware of Denise sitting next to me, goggle-eyed.

“I said hold her.”

Willie got out of his seat and took her right arm and I guess Ruth was hurting her where she held tight to her jaw because she didn’t resist. Donny put his jars and cans on the table and took hold of her left. Two of the cans rolled off the table and clattered to the floor.

“Now
open
, tramp.”

And then Meg did fight, trying to get to her feet, bucking and rolling against them, but they had her tight. Willie was enjoying himself, that was obvious. But Donny looked grim. Ruth had both hands on her now, trying to pry her jaws apart.

Meg bit her.

Ruth yelled and stumbled back. Meg squirmed to her feet. Willie twisted her arm behind her back and yanked it up. She yelled and doubled over and tried to pull away, shaking her left arm hard to get it away from Donny in a kind of simultaneous panic and she almost made it, Donny’s grip was uncertain enough, she almost got it free.

Then Ruth stepped forward again.

For an instant she just stood there, studying her, looking I guess for an opening. Then she balled up a fist and hit her in the stomach exactly the way a man would hit a man, and nearly as hard. What you heard was like somebody punching a basketball.

Meg fell, choking, and gasped for breath.

Donny let her go.

“Jesus!” whispered Denise beside me.

Ruth stepped back.

“You want to fight?” she said. “Okay. Fight.”

Meg shook her head.