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PART I
THE FIRST TRAGEDY
1
FIRST BLOOD
BRANT, AGE 6
“You’re such a fartknocker, Brant!”
Wendy and Wyatt speed away on their bicycles, the tires spitting up mud and grass blades as they cut through the neighbor’s lawn.
A fartknocker.
What does that mean?
I watch them go from the edge of my driveway, while Theo kicks up one of the loose stones that rim our mailbox. Dad is going to blow a gasket if he sees a rock out of place. He loves weird stuff like mailbox rocks, perfectly edged sidewalks, and grass that looks greener than my babysitter’s new hairdo.
I don’t really get it.
I don’t get fartknocker either.
“Wendy is a dweeb,” Theo mutters under his breath.
“Sounds better than a fartknocker.”
“It is.”
The sun sets behind an extra fluffy cloud, making it look like a giant piece of cotton candy floating in the Midwestern sky. My stomach grumbles. “Want to stay for dinner?”
Theo tries to fix the stone with the toe of his sneaker, but it doesn’t look the same. Dad will notice. Theo sighs, popping his chin up and gazing down at the end of the cul-de-sac where the dreadful Nippersink twins disappeared. “Is your mom making that chili?”
“No, it’s fish.” My mom loves to cook. Aside from giving me cheek kisses and tummy tickles, I think it’s her favorite thing to do. I love the food she makes, even brussels sprouts.
Even fish.
“Yuck,” Theo says. He glances at his property, the ranch-style house made of bricks, two down from mine, and shrugs. “Besides, I think my mom might have a baby tonight.”
“Really?”
“Maybe. She said her belly felt like a hyena was chomping through her loo-der-us.”
“That means the baby is coming?” I shove my hands into the pockets of my shorts, frowning at the image that pops into my head. That sounds really bad. It sounds worse than when I got bit by Aunt Kelly’s cat because it looked sad and I wanted to feed it one of my apple slices. I caught a fever the next day. “I thought babies were a happy thing. What’s a loo-der-us, anyway?”
“I dunno. I think it’s the thing in my mom’s belly that the baby lives in. Sounds gross to me.”
A shudder ripples through me. That does sound pretty gross. I always wanted a brother or a sister to grow up with, but Dad works too much at the office or in the yard, and Mom says it’s hard to take care of little babies that poop and cry all the time, so I guess it’s just me.
At least I have Theo.
He’s my neighbor and best friend, and maybe his new baby brother or sister will feel like mine, too. Maybe we can share.
“What do you think you’ll name the baby, Theo?”
My eyes follow Theo as he hops onto the ring of stones around the mailbox, trying to balance himself. He slips and lands on his butt, right in the wet grass, and when he stands up, blotches of brown mud stain the back of his jeans. He rubs at his bottom, making a groaning sound. “How about Mudpie?”
We both laugh, picturing a cute little baby named Mudpie. I skate my gaze around the cul-de-sac, a new name flashing to mind when I fix on a fluttering insect with sunshine wings. “I like Butterfly.”
