9

Ten Weeks Later

"Yer strong, Flower. I wish I could dig like you,"

She was staring at me again.

I continued digging, ignoring the long, shiny drool trailing from the side of her mouth to her bib.

Okay, it wasn't a drool, but she did have a bib—

…

Okay she didn't have a bib.

Jesus, you don't have to drag it out of me.

"Hey, Flower, I think someone gots a girlfriend."

Lou giggled and blushed.

I looked down at my shovel and realized it was in perfect trajectory if I decided to swing it up, and it happened to decapitate a red-headed lice-infested—

Oh Lord of feces.

I'M GOING TO HELL!

My mother told me before he died, my dad was a minister.

He travelled all over the world before I was born and the first five years of my life.

"Mommy I don't remember any of that."

"It's because you were too young to remember."

"I was five. I would rem—"

"Eat your cabbage, boy or you'll get a beating of yer life."

She adjusted her wig that she had bought since she was taking this new type of treatment.

Chemotherapy, they called it.

"One time, when yer daddy was takin' a trip to Canada to bring salvation to them savage Eskimo people, they invited him in for fish, fish blubber, and fish soup.

He says to them, 'all you have to do is believe. The rest is up to God'."

I rolled my eyes. Even at the age of nine I was a doomed atheist.

Mother continued.

"One cheeky Eskimo savage said, 'what happens if we don't'."

"What did papa say?" I asked, wide-eyed.

"Papa said, 'well, if someone rejects the gospel, they would have an unfortunate eternity in hell, tormented by burning flames all around them."

The thought scared me. I looked at my cabbage soup.

"How's it taste, baby?" she asked me, nodding at the bowl.

"It tastes like dung…"

All of a sudden her eyes bulged so huge I thought they were about to plop on her lap.

"Beetle," I finished.

"Dung beetle. A delicacy in Africa."

She didn't stop staring. For fear of her losing her eyeballs, I said,

"What did the people say to Papa after that?"

"The savage people then started whispering to each other, like they weren't sure of something. Then finally, an older guy said to Papa, 'Is it hot there?'

Daddy said, 'of course it's hot. It's fire.'

The shivering Eskimos nodded their heads in approval under the parkas that his their faces.

Then one of them said to Papa

'We'd rather be there than here.' "

My diaphragm attempted to make what I would call a laugh. The cabbage soup was still in my mouth and it was as if my face didn't know what to do with it.

It ended up squirting out of my nose.

"Jesus, Marion," my mother exhaled noisily, "Why you gotta waste food like that?"

Through my choking and sputtering, I managed to utter the word, "Joseph."

Blinking and confused, my mother hissed, "what?"

I wiped the corners of my mouth. "You said 'Jesus, Marion'. You forgot to add Joseph at the end."

My mother didn't understand what I meant until she said the words aloud; "Jesus Marion Joseph."

Jesus, Mary and Joseph.

I laughed at my own blasphemous cleverness but the wideness of my mother's blue eyes caused me to stop abruptly.

"Boy, that joke was funny but if I hear you say it again I'll beat you silly."

Now as I glanced up into the hot sun, I'd switch places with an Inuit any day.

I looked beside me. Thomas was almost done with his hole.

It was unbelievable! This asshole was always the last one to finish digging when he came, and now he was the fastest digger in the history of Camp Greenlake.

He grew Rambo muscles in eleven months and shot up six inches in nine months.

He'd grown taller than Nick.

I, on the very fortunate hand, was still driving down heart-attack highway. Yay.

I couldn't even grow a single chest hair.

"Mother fu—"

There was a loud slump. Like a body bag being dropped off a two-story building.

Lou had fainted.

Again.

Thomas walked over to her and picked her up as if she were a potato sack.

He dropped her casually in his already-finished hole.

Lou was now the only person within half a mile that had shade.

We were one member short.

Numba One wasn't here.

That's because Numba-One's little sister had died.

The foster parents claimed she had fallen down the stairs.

"She didn't have all of her marbles, after all," said his foster father on the phone. "And she was always falling, tripping on things…"

Numba-One put all his effort in keeping his breathing under control.

Walker had let Numba-One use his phone for this specific situation only.

Maybe the old man did have a heart after all.

Or just Alzheimer's.

"I was the one who put you in a coma. And you had to punish my sister for that. You're disgusting, you know that? You're a fucking cold, heartless antichrist."

Thomas, Marcus, Nick and I were outside of the house. We weren't allowed in, but we could see and slightly hear through the small window of the Warden's cabin.

There was an attempt by the other person to speak, but our friend had lost it.

"FUCK YOU! WHY DID YOU KILL MY LITTLE SISTER? GOD, WHY DID YOU ALWAYS HAVE TO HIT HER? WHY DID YOU DO THIS TO ME?"

His freckles meshed with the redness of his face and red hair.

It was scary.

Seriously.

Another attempt was made by the person on the other line.

"Freddy…" said the distant, authoritative voice.

But 'Freddy' had hung up.

Until that moment, none of us really knew what Numba-One's real name had been.

I mean… Freddy was just the whitest name ever.

Lou walked in the room, hovering at the doorway.

Freddy broke down crying.

It was hard to watch a person who never took life seriously turn into a pile of discarded panda bear manure.

Lou did a strange thing and picked up the phone receiver that Numba-One had slammed down.

She dialed.

It seemed someone had answered.

"Hello?" she said in a strange voice that I had never heard from her.

God, it was so different.

It wasn't the low, slurring, disabled voice that I always knew her to have.

This one was polite, steady… and

…not stupid…

"Hi," she said. "I'm from Camp Greenlake… Yes… That's the one. Anyway, I think I have enough money to change your entire life,"

It seemed the person on the other side sounded pleased.

"How?" he asked.

"We are going to press charges. I'm sure the money you'll owe Freddy then would be enough to change your entire life."

Damn. I did not expect that.

" Yes…" Lou nodded politely and cheerfully while Numba-One just stared.

"I'm sure there is quite a difference between a girl who fell down the stairs and a girl who was pushed down the stairs. I'm sure an autopsy would reveal that. I'm also sure that they would find signs of all the sick shit you did to her before as well. Have a nice day."

Lou hung up the phone and kissed Numba-One's tear-crusted cheek.

Then she left the room.

Numba-One stared open-mouthed at the phone, and then into space.

Then he took a crystal perfume bottle from the mantle, looked around and stuffed it in his pocket.

He also left the room.