The observant amongst you will notice that this is once again the first part of a multipart chapter. To be exact it's part one of a story arc that will last four chapters. (Probably) Four chapters of chronological order! Won't that make sense for once.
I obviously don't own 'Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' of which an abridged version is quoted in this chapter. Do own the rabbit book though, cos I made it up.
Also this was improved incredibly by being read and con critted by the fantastically brilliant InSilva, without whom I'd probably have stopped long ago. Thank you.
1. 'In the beginning' (Chapter 13) Rusty is seven, Danny is nine.
2. 'Something more than it should be' (Chapter 10) Rusty is ten, Danny is twelve
3. 'Four Day Interlude' (Chapter 5) Rusty is ten, Danny is thirteen
4. 'Remember the first time' (Chapter 4) Rusty is ten, Danny is thirteen
5. 'View from the outside' (Chapter 12) Rusty is eleven, Danny is fourteen
6. 'Walk before you can crawl' (Chapter 2) Rusty is twelve, Danny is fifteen
7. 'Other Nightmares Parts 1 and 2 (Chapters 8 and 9) Rusty is twelve, Danny is fifteen
8. 'The more things change' (Chapter 1) Rusty is thirteen, Danny is fifteen
9. 'Life Lessons' (Chapter 7) Rusty is fourteen, Danny is sixteen
10. 'The lies we live' (Chapter 3) Rusty is fourteen, Danny is sixteen
11. 'This is our decision (to live fast and die young)' (Chapter 6) Rusty is fourteen, Danny is seventeen
12. 'Such a perfect day' (Chapter 11) Rusty is fourteen, Danny is seventeen.
Danny walked out of the principal's office. Well, that had wasted five minutes of morning recess. Wasn't his fault that Mrs O'Donnell hadn't seen the funny side. She reminded him of his first second grade teacher and he'd worked a little pre-emptive revenge. So he'd super-glued her mug to her desk. It wasn't like she was supposed to be drinking coffee during class anyway. Actually, he'd bet it wasn't coffee in there at all. And whatever Principal Mallie said he wasn't in the habit of calling his teachers moronic harlots. He wasn't even sure what it meant, it was just something he'd heard on a late night movie.
He stepped out onto the playground and Freddy, Doug and Buzz crowded round him. He'd been hanging out with them for the last three days. They seemed nice enough, just like three kids he'd known back in his old school, but there was no point in him getting too close. His parents would undoubtedly move him to a new school as soon as they got tired of the string of failing grades, calls to the principal's office and whatever else he decided to get into. The school was always to blame. It had happened five times in the last three years and Danny was past the point of even trying to make real friends. But these guys would do nicely to kill time with.
"What did Mallie say?" Doug demanded. It sounded like he was scared of Mallie and Danny couldn't imagine why. He was pretty sure that she was all bark and no bite, just like the principal at his last school but one.
"She said she was going to call my parents." The other boys' eyes widened. He shrugged. He didn't care that much; he doubted they'd be anymore interested than they were last week. They'd yell at him for a bit, if they happened to think of it, and then he'd be grounded until they forgot. Two days, on average.
"You're pretty cool, Danny," Freddy said admiringly. "Wanna join my gang?"
He'd been given that offer a few times before. At no time had the gang ever been more than a small group of boys who wanted to be rebels and who wrote swearwords on the walls. "Sure. Why not?"
They grinned and exchanged glances. "You want in you need to get through our initiation."
He'd heard that before too. But why not? It wasn't like he had anything better planned. "Sure. What is it?"
They looked around them and then leaned in close to him. "You need to go and bring us back someone's lunch."
"You mean steal it?" Danny asked. Sounded pretty stupid to him.
"Yeah!" Buzz nodded enthusiastically. "We've all done it."
"Right." He sighed and walked away from them. If this was what he had to do in order to hang out with them then he might as well get it over with. This was no worse than anything else he'd done. So he'd take some whinging brat's sandwich. He definitely wasn't going to hurt anyone; he'd just scare them into giving it up.
He looked round the playground thoughtfully. Had to be a younger kid, obviously. He doubted he'd look intimidating to anyone his own age. Had to be a boy – he wasn't about to try and strong-arm a girl – someone on his own, shy, small and easily frightened. He caught sight of the little blond kid standing on the edge of the playground leaning against the wall. He'd do. Looked like he'd fit the bill perfectly.
Well, he might as well get on with it. He marched up to the kid who, surprisingly, turned his head and watched Danny walk up to him. Well, not really walk. March. Swagger. Like Clint Eastwood. And he towered over the kid, stared down at him for a long moment. The kid didn't look away. Didn't blink. He just looked at Danny, thoughtful and amused, in a way that was completely outside Danny's experience.
"Give me your lunch," Danny said, and in his own ears his voice sounded quietly menacing.
But the kid grinned. He actually grinned, like it was the funniest thing he'd ever heard. "Don't have any," he said, simply.
Danny blinked and the grin and the look in the kid's eyes seemed to encompass the world. There was something . . . He'd never met any kid like this before. No adult either, come to that. And even though he'd never regret it – not for a second, not for the rest of his life – he'd also never be able to explain why the next thing he said was, "Oh. Want some of mine?"
The kid frowned at him and Danny could see the surprise on his face. There was a small part of him that enjoyed seeing the slight dent in the boy's cool exterior. "Why?"
Good question. Danny concentrated on looking charming. Because this was important to him even if he didn't understand why. He smiled, that smile that almost always got him out of trouble and into whatever he wanted. "I've forgotten my lunch before. Everyone has. You can pay me back sometime, if you want." He paused and the kid regarded him steadily. "I'd do this for anyone; no big deal."
The kid smiled slightly. "Liar."
Danny nodded. "Fair enough." He looked the kid straight in the eye. "I don't know why. Be here at lunchtime and we'll share."
The kid looked at him for a long moment and then grinned again, seeming to like whatever he saw. "Okay then."
The bell rang and they both headed off to class. Danny noticed that the kid was limping painfully and wondered why.
Robert walked slowly round to where the boy had said to meet him and tried not to wince with every time he put weight on his bad ankle. He'd blown off Brady and Cameron to come round here. Not that he exactly regretted that. He couldn't play tag with them today and he hated having to watch them eat. Wasn't the first time that he'd had to duck out of the house without his lunch. That had happened before, and if he added the number of times that he'd slept in too late to make up a lunch in the first place, well, it was a few times a month, he'd guess. And Brady especially didn't seem to understand. Brady placed almost as much importance on food as he himself did, and he'd told Miss Harris that Robert didn't have any lunch one time, and she'd never looked at him the same after that. The same look that he saw on his neighbour's faces sometimes and he'd never understood it. What's more she must have called his parents and told them she knew how bad he was and it had been three days before he'd been able to go back to school.
He was hungry and he tried to tell himself that the boy wasn't going to be there, and even if he was it'd probably just be so he could beat him up and take what he did have. Trouble was, he didn't believe himself. Because that's what he'd been expecting as soon as he'd said he didn't have anything for the boy, and it hadn't happened. There was something about the boy that was different from everything Robert had ever known. Though he was still a little puzzled why the boy would be trying to steal food if he had some of his own, but, well, he supposed he could understand about wanting to store stuff for later.
The boy was standing there, holding a shiny metal lunchbox. He looked up and smiled at Robert, and he found himself smiling back immediately.
"So what do you want?" the boy asked, sitting down on the step and opening the box happily. Robert, gingerly sitting on the step below, caught sight of the sandwich and the chips and the crackers and the candy bar and he felt his mouth watering.
"Whatever you don't, I guess." He didn't especially mind. He just wanted something.
The boy nodded. "We'll split it all then," he said, and passed Robert half the sandwich. He also politely pretended that he didn't notice Robert staring.
Once he'd satisfied himself that the boy was for real he tore hungrily into the sandwich, watching the boy all the time, because sometimes good things happened just so they could be stolen away, and the boy would be perfectly within his rights to take the sandwich back. Still. Fresh bread. Real butter. Thick pieces of chicken – actual chicken, not just fat or gristle. And layers of mayonnaise and vegetables that were crunchy and green instead of soggy and brown. He finished his half before the boy had even managed two bites and closed his eyes; this was as good as it got. Until the boy, with an unidentifiable look of pain in his eyes, passed over half the bag of chips and half the crackers.
It wasn't that he ever went hungry. Not exactly. Well, apart from those few days in the summer, after his mom had . . . but he didn't much like thinking about that. But his mom made sure that there was almost always food in the cupboards, and the few times that there weren't, well, he had ways of getting money now. He ate okay. He did okay.
Once the chips and the crackers were gone, the boy picked up the apple and regarded it for a second before he did some strange twisty thing with his hands that had Robert 'Oooh' in amazement, and split the apple right in two.
"I don't think I like apples," he said apologetically as the half fruit was thrust silently at him.
The boy frowned first at them and then at the fruit in his hand. "Neither do I," he said thoughtfully, and he put both halves together and threw them at the garbage can with a mischievous smile. Robert grinned back.
They split the carton of juice between them. (Orange and mango, and he'd never tasted anything like it before. He actually had to check the label to see what it was.) And the silence between them was like nothing Robert had ever known before. It felt like it did sometimes late at night, when he knew his parents were asleep and wouldn't be getting up again and he could sit on the window ledge, look up at the sky, his legs dangling out of the window, and breathe freely. He didn't know if there were words for this but he thought that 'happy' might come kind of close.
When the juice was finished the boy pushed the candy bar towards him. "Take it. All of it."
He shook his head. "Nah." Splitting was one thing. This was different.
"I don't want it," the boy insisted and again he could hear the lie. Besides, it was a Snickers bar. Nuts and chocolate and caramel and nougat. Who wouldn't want it?
"We can split it if you want," he offered. "But – "
" – It's yours," the boy interrupted stubbornly.
Robert sighed and picked up the chocolate. Then he broke it in two and passed half back to the boy. "If it's mine then I want to share it."
The boy looked startled and then smiled slowly at him. "Okay then."
It was the best chocolate Robert ever tasted.
The fact that he hadn't handed any homework in for a few days was maybe his fault. He just hadn't felt like it. Wasn't as though he didn't understand it. They repeated all the same things over and over again and Danny just found it so boring. So he didn't do it. No big deal. Except Mallie hadn't seen it that way and he'd had to sit through a lecture on not squandering his talents – and he wasn't exactly sure what that meant – and personal responsibility – and he wasn't exactly sure that meant anything at all. But somehow they'd got from him not doing his homework to him spending an hour a week helping less able kids with reading. He'd agreed. It was an hour out of class after all, and his parents had seemed enthusiastic in a distracted sort of way. Maybe if he did this they'd be proud of him.
He looked round the room with a frown. He was probably the only one of the student volunteers who wasn't a complete geek. He was also the only one sitting on his own. The rest of them were sitting with their assigned partners, trying to explain the mysteries of 'Jack and Jill' to the disinterested kids. Danny had the feeling that this was going to be a very long hour.
Mrs. Richards walked up to him, beaming. "Daniel. I'm so happy to see you volunteering your time like this."
He smiled at her. No point in being difficult. Not right now. "That's quite all right."
She stepped aside and for the first time he noticed that someone was standing behind her. The little blond kid he'd shared his lunch with the other day.
"Daniel Ocean, this is Robert Ryan." Danny winced at the use of his full name and was surprised to notice that the kid – Robert – frowned at his own name. Interesting. Mrs. Richards went on, seemingly not even noticing the way they were staring at each other. "I'll leave you to get acquainted, shall I? Oh, and Daniel? This is Robert's reading book." Danny was handed a battered copy of 'The Adventures of Terry the Rabbit'. Ouch.
"Thanks." He waited until Robert had sat down and Mrs. Richards had walked away. "So."
"Yeah," Robert agreed.
"It's Danny, by the way. Not Daniel." He waited expectantly but Robert just nodded and didn't offer any nickname of his own.
There was a brief silence. Robert was staring at him. "How come you're here?"
Danny grinned slightly. "Apparently spending time with people 'less intellectually able' will keep me on the straight and narrow."
"Oh." Robert looked down.
"And that's not you," Danny continued, frowning slightly. "That's really not you. So what are you doing here?" He'd seen Robert reading the ingredients on the juice. This didn't make sense.
"They don't know if I can read," Robert said simply.
Danny blinked. "They don't know . . . ?" he echoed.
Robert shrugged and looked away.
Danny stared at him. "Can you or can't you?"
Robert's lips twitched slightly but he still wouldn't look at Danny.
"I saw you reading the juice box from lunch," Danny told him, doubting himself even as he spoke. He supposed it was possible that he'd been mistaken. That Robert had just been looking at the pictures or something.
Danny was looking carefully and even then he nearly missed the slight movement of shoulders, the tiny jump of surprise. Not mistaken then. He pursed his lips and pushed the book across the table.
Robert made no attempt to open it. He simply leaned back in his chair and recited. "Terry was a very little rabbit. He wanted a carrot. Farmer Tim had carrots. Terry went to Farmer Tim. He said 'I want a carrot'. Farmer Tim said 'No.' Terry went home. Terry – "
" – That's enough," Danny interrupted, amused. He pulled the book towards him and flicked through the pages. Word perfect. "And that's what you do when they ask you to read?"
Robert nodded and watched him.
Danny bit his lip and didn't ask. Instead he reached into his bag and pulled out his own reading book. "Try this."
Unsurprisingly Robert made no attempt to take it.
"Reading is important," Danny said gently.
They stared at each other for a long, long moment. Danny wouldn't let Robert look away. Because there were lots of things that were important and Danny didn't understand a fraction of them.
Robert suddenly smiled at him. "Okay." He opened the book. "You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer' Now the way that book winds up is this: Tom and me found the money that the robbers hid in the cave and it made us rich. We got six thousand dollars ape . . . appy . . apeak . . . "
"Apiece," Danny offered. "It means 'each'." He looked at Robert thoughtfully. "You can read."
"Uh huh." Robert stared down at the book.
"Better than a lot of the kids in my class," Danny went on. He noticed the quick flash of smile but said nothing. "Now," he leaned forwards. "Why?" he asked, very quietly.
Robert rubbed at the side of his mouth awkwardly. "I like reading," he said softly.
"So?" Danny didn't especially care for books himself, but he didn't see anything wrong with reading.
"Only sissies like to read. And sissies deserve what they get." Robert wouldn't look at him and Danny didn't understand what he meant.
"If you carry on like this they'll keep sending letters home," he warned. "They'll want to talk to your parents all the time. They'll hold you back a grade."
Robert looked at him. "You think so?" he asked seriously.
Danny resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "Yeah."
"Dad didn't like it when Mrs. Richards called round to say I needed help." As Danny watched Robert's eyes got cloudy and for the first time in a while Danny remembered that the other boy was younger than him. "He got angry." He shook himself. "How do you know how smart to be?" he asked, and Danny could hear the bewilderment in his voice.
"What do you mean?" Danny asked carefully.
"Being dumb is bad. Being too clever is very bad. How do you know what's right?"
Danny looked at him, so young and confused, and had to resist the inexplicable urge to reach out and clasp his hand. And he wanted to say that Robert should be what he really was but his eyes were far away again and Danny knew it would somehow be wrong. "I don't know," he said instead. "I'm sorry."
Robert smiled. "Don't be sorry."
"We don't need to tell them you can read," Danny proposed. "Not right away. You get an hour out of class and I get an hour out of class. It's all good." And spending time with Robert was somehow comfortable.
Robert nodded. "You tried to steal my lunch," he remarked, out of nowhere.
Well, that was awkward. "I'm sorry . . ." he began.
"Don't be sorry." Robert shook his head. "It's just that . . . can you keep a secret?" Before he even had a chance to say anything Robert was smiling. "You can keep a secret. It's just that it's better to steal from adults. If you need to."
Danny blinked. "What do you mean?"
"Well, if you steal someone's cupcake you have a cupcake. And the person you took it from can come along and say 'That's my cupcake.' Unless you've eaten it. But they can recognise it. But adults have money and if you steal that they can't recognise it again and you can buy lots of cupcakes."
"You steal money from adults?" Danny hissed.
Robert nodded slowly.
He couldn't help it. Because this wasn't anything normal, this was out of everything he'd ever known and he had to know more. "Show me," he said, very, very quietly. "Please."
He smiled and explained again, in a whisper. "Don't look them in the face. Don't tiptoe or crouch or anything. Just kind of walk past and move quick, like you're going somewhere." He'd already demonstrated the technique, on a woman whose purse had been hanging open. It had been easy pickings but Danny had still looked at him like he was something special. Now they were looking at another possibility; a man with his coat hanging over his arm, the bulge in the pocket showing where his wallet was and Danny wanted a shot.
"Okay." Danny nodded seriously and licked his lips.
"You'll be fine," he said. Because he was sure of it. Danny grinned at him and walked off, doing exactly like he'd said. And Robert was watching and no-one else noticed when Danny's hand slipped inside the man's coat but he did see a few heads turn when Danny ran instead of walked back to their hiding spot. Not that it mattered; no-one moved to stop him, and Robert had used to make that mistake all the time.
"Got it," Danny panted, his eyes wide.
"What did you get?" he asked and Danny opened up the wallet filled with green notes. "Nice."
Danny looked excited and at the same time slightly disturbed. "That's more than was in yours."
He shrugged. "Different people carry different money."
"We should split it even," Danny said firmly.
It was on the tip of his tongue to ask why, but he stopped himself because Danny was right. He wasn't exactly sure why, but Danny was right. "Okay. Throw the wallet away over there."
Danny fingered the red leather. "It's nice though."
"Yeah but wallets are the same as cupcakes. Just keep the cash," Robert advised and Danny nodded slowly and stuck the wallet on the same ledge on which he'd left the one from earlier.
It took them a while to count out the money. First couple of times they got different totals and had to start again. They got the hang of it eventually and Robert had rarely felt so rich.
"That was fun!" Danny exclaimed and he had to stop and consider, because yes it was. Before it had just been something he did, for when he was hungry but Danny had turned it into something more. "Can we do it again?"
He frowned. "It's getting dark," he pointed out. It would be more difficult when they couldn't see.
But Danny was already grinning and shaking his head. "I didn't mean now. I meant can we do this another day as well?"
"Sure." He didn't even hesitate.
"Like Saturday?" Danny suggested eagerly.
"Saturday," he agreed.
Danny carried on chattering and Robert remembered that he hadn't been nearly so excited the first time he'd stolen a wallet. Mind you at that time it had seemed a straightforward choice between stealing and starving to death. "What are we going to do now? Do you need to get home? My parents would never let me stay out this late when I was your age."
"They don't really care," he said and was surprised to hear his voice sound so sad.
"I know the feeling," Danny said after a moment and he could hear the truth in that.
He traced a pattern in the dirt with his toe and surprised himself again by admitting "I don't want to go home."
Danny watched him. " . . . I know that feeling too. Do they yell?"
"Sometimes." The yelling was scary. And when his dad was listing all the ways he was bad, screaming at the top of his voice and his mom was just watching, sometimes Robert just wished that he'd get on with the punishment so that it would all be over.
"Mine yell," Danny said quietly and Robert nodded unsurprised, because there was something in Danny that was the same as him, and maybe that meant that Danny was bad too. "Promise not to laugh?"
"Cross my heart and hope to die," Robert said seriously.
Danny looked down at the scuffed earth. "Sometimes, late at night, when they're yelling I take my blankets and my pillows and I go and sleep in my bathroom. In the tub."
That sounded like a good hiding place. Sometimes Robert hid under the bed, but they always found him. "Does it help?"
"I don't hear so much," Danny shrugged and then abruptly looked up at him and grinned. "Do you want to go to the arcade?"
"Okay," he agreed immediately. Because he'd always had lots of friends but this was different somehow, and he didn't want it to end too soon. Actually, he didn't want it to end at all, but Danny would get bored of him hanging around soon enough.
They spent nearly three hours in the arcade. He'd done his best to show Robert how to beat the high score on 'Asteroids', but Robert had found it funny when the little ship blew up and tried to come up with as many creative ways of losing as possible. Danny hadn't objected too much. It was fun, they had the money and he liked hearing Robert laugh.
They only left because the arcade was closing. Danny was in no particular hurry to get back home. Okay, so his parents would be worried by now, but one or other of them was always staying out till all hours of the night, and he wasn't supposed to worry then. And maybe they hadn't even noticed he was gone. They'd been fighting more than usual lately. And Robert didn't seem to want to go home either, which Danny could completely understand. He could vaguely remember how scary his parents' constant arguing had been when he was that age. He hadn't been able to understand that it wasn't always his fault.
"I'm hungry," Robert commented, as they stepped out of the arcade.
"Me too," Danny agreed. It had been a long time since lunch, and normally he'd have a snack or something when he came in from school.
"Do you want to pick up some chips or something?" Robert suggested.
Danny shook his head. "Nah. Let's go get some proper food." They'd passed a diner a little way down the street. Seemed like a good idea to him.
Robert nodded and followed him contentedly.
The diner – which went by the imaginative name of 'Mabel's Diner' – was empty when they went in except for the woman serving behind the counter who regarded them in surprise.
They smiled nervously at her and took a seat at one of the booths. She was over immediately.
"Are you meeting your parents here?" she asked.
Danny shook his head. "No, ma'am. It's just us," he told her politely.
She frowned.
"We have money," Robert offered, and produced a handful.
"Oh, honey, that's far from being the problem here." She smiled gently.
"We're just looking to get something to eat, ma'am," Danny said with his most charming smile.
She sighed and looked from one to the other. Her gaze lingered on Robert and Danny wondered just what she was seeing. "What'll it be?"
"Can we have pie? And chocolate cake? And ice-cream? And banana milkshake?" Robert asked eagerly.
Danny smiled; so much for proper food.
The woman looked thoughtful. "Did I tell you about our special deals? If you order a main course you get as much dessert as you can eat free."
Robert's eyes widened. "Really?" he breathed.
"Sure you do," she nodded firmly. "Long as you eat it all up, even the vegetables."
Robert pulled a face. Danny bit his lip. "I'll have a burger then," he decided.
"Two please," Robert nodded happily.
She smiled at both of them. "Coming right up."
The burgers, when they arrived, were delicious and juicy, and came with a mountain of salad. Robert tore into his right away and Danny was reminded of how he'd eaten the lunch they'd shared. As though he was expecting Danny to take it away at any moment. Made him wonder how often bigger kids had stolen Robert's lunch, and that thought didn't exactly help the guilt that he still felt whenever he thought about how this thing had started. Robert didn't really seem like the type to be bullied, but then he remembered the limp and vowed to keep an eye open and watch for any signs. Then he could figure out the appropriate steps to take. Somehow he thought he might enjoy doing that.
"Can I ask you something?" he began, casually, once the lady had cleared away the empty plates with a smile, and Robert was demolishing a large slab of chocolate cake.
"Uh huh." He didn't look up.
"How come you don't like your name?" Because he just preferred being Danny, but there'd seemed to be something more to Robert's reaction.
Robert still didn't look up but he tensed slightly. "It's not my name."
Danny frowned "What do – "
" – My dad's name." He did look up then, and there was something in his eyes that scared Danny a little. "I hear it and I think of him. Not me."
He smiled as reassuringly as he could. "You don't look like a Robert anyway."
"Promise?" he stared straight at him desperately.
"Definitely," Danny nodded. "We should find you a new name. One that ends in 'Y'."
"Why?"
"Yes," Danny agreed.
He frowned. "No, I mean – "
"- Oh!" Danny got it. "Oh, sorry. Because all cool names end in 'Y'"
The frown deepened. "You think I'm – "
" – Definitely." Danny grinned. That much was obvious.
They yelled at him; he wasn't surprised. Words like 'disappointment' and 'irresponsible' and 'stupid' flew freely. And of course, the old favourite, 'and what would the neighbours think?' And then his mom had said he was 'just like his father' and Dad had turned on her and they'd been screaming at each other, Danny's sins long forgotten and he managed to sneak up the stairs without being noticed.
He spent some time reading comics by flashlight, ignoring the raging storm below him with an effort. And when he turned it off and lay in the dark, trying uselessly to sleep, he found himself wondering how Robert was. Hopefully his parents hadn't been so angry. And he wondered if Robert would like to play together at lunch tomorrow. Because Danny hadn't been looking to make any close friends. But somehow he had and he didn't regret it in the slightest.
He heard the crash of glass against the wall and he pulled his blankets and pillows off the bed and padded through to the bathroom. Lying curled in the bathtub there was blessed silence and he managed to drift off to sleep.
When he got home his dad was nowhere to be seen. His mom was slumped on the sofa, the radio blaring out static beside her, her vacant stare tracking a cockroach's progress up the wall.
"Hi, Mom." he began cheerfully. "I was out at the arcade with Danny. I told you about Danny, remember? He shared his lunch with me the other day when . . . when I left mine at home. We had fun."
It was a game that he often played. He would talk, the way he'd heard Brady and Cameron and Johnny and others talking to their moms and he'd pretend that maybe this time she'd respond the same way. Of course, he always made sure that he was standing well out of her reach. And he never, ever even thought of playing it with his dad.
She threw a bottle at him and he didn't flinch; she was a terrible shot. "You talk too much," she slurred. "Giving me a headache."
He nodded. Not a night for games then. He glanced over at the pile of glass and the pool of liquid. Nearly a full bottle. He'd be made to explain that to his dad when he came in. Because it was bad to waste things, just as it was bad to be noisy and upset Mom.
He hoped that Danny's night was going better. And he hoped that Danny had really meant what he'd said about them playing together again. Because it had been a very good day.
Next part in the next few days, hopefully. Oh, by the way, 'Terry the Rabbit'? So not my fault. Asked my fiancee what a good name for a rabbit was, completely without context, and she came up with Terry. He's a rabbit with hotels. Probably wearing a waistcoat.