Page 114 of Releasing 10
“Ahhhh!” Gibsie’s high-pitched scream would have been comical if he wasn’t being mauled. “He’s killing me, Mam!” Dropping to the carpet, Gibs rolled around on the living room floor, desperately trying to wrestle the feral beast off him.
“No, no, no, Brian!” Sadhbh half scolded, half cooed as she hurried to intervene. “Gerard is your brother, my little puss-puss. You can’t bite your brother.”
Yeah, fuckthat.
Turning on my heels, I booked it out of their house as fast as my legs could carry me, all the while shouting, “Not today, Satan, not today!”
THE BIG, BAD WOLF
Lizzie
OCTOBER 31, 1997
“THANKS FOR HAVING ME OVER, LIZ,” CLAIRE SAID ONFRIDAY MORNING, DURING ANepic coloring session in my living room. “I had the bestest sleepover ever with you.”
Last night, Claire slept over at my house for the very first time. I invited Shannon too, but she didn’t come. I wasn’t surprised about that. She never came to Claire’s sleepovers either. Her parents were strict about that sort of thing.
“Me, too,” I replied, although I didn’t do too much sleeping. Claire made the strangest snoring noises in her sleep, which usually kept me awake, but I never cared about that. I was just happy to be with her. Claire was always happy and when I spent time with her, I felt happy, too. Like right now, for instance. We were coloring in my front room, while we waited to be picked up for Hugh’s party, and I felthappy. I wasn’t scared or sad or angry. All I felt was peace and contentment. Claire gave that to me without even realizing.
“You make the best duck ever,” I added, eyeing her Halloween costume. She was wearing a fluffy, yellow duck costume, with yellow tights and gigantic, webbed feet.
“I’m a chicken,” she corrected, tongue poking out, as she concentrated on her coloring. “Gerard’s an egg.”
“Oh.” Covering my mouth to stifle my laughter, I retrained my attention on the picture I was working on. I liked to design covers for all my stories, and this was going to be the cover formy latest one. It made me so proud when my dad printed them out on his computer and stapled them together.
Today’s story was titledThe Adventures of Dorothy Tickle and Samson Strong.
With the contents of my pencil case strewn on top the coffee table, I worked hard on staying between the lines like Hugh had shown me. I knew what to do, of course, but I didn’t seem to have handwriting as neat as his. My coloring wasn’t as tidy, either.
“How are my favorite girls?” a familiar voice said from the doorway, causing me to tense and Claire to groan. “Ugh.” Scrunching her nose up in disapproval, she narrowed her eyes at Mark. “You are so annoying.”
Chuckling, Mark strode into the room and settled on the couch behind us. “You make a cute chick, Baby Biggs,” he mused, flicking through channels on our television.
“And you make a bad smell, Stinky Mark,” Claire replied, coloring extra hard on her page.
“What about you, munchkin?” He nudged my hip with his sock-clad foot. “What’s with the black wig and creepy dress. You going as a witch or something?”
“Lizzie isnota witch,” Claire corrected, sounding outraged. “She is Morticia Addams.”
“And let me guess; your brother is Gomez.”
“That’s right, and we already have a friend going as Lurch, so you should stop making your face look so stupid.”
“You’re a cheeky, little witch, aren’t you?”
“I’m a chicken, not a witch, dummy.”
They continued to argue, while I tried to make myself as small as possible, wishing I could snap my fingers and gopooflike the scary lady.
Feeling sick, I retrained my attention to my picture of Dorothy and Samson. Dorothy looked just like me, and I wasgoing to give Samson a beautiful golden cape, I decided. Golden to match his skin. And he was going to have pretty, whiskey-colored eyes and wavy, blond hair.
“Turn that off,” Claire ordered loudly, dragging my attention to where she was pointing at the television. “That’s not ’propriate for my eyes.”
“It’sBaywatch.”
“So? It’s still not ’propriate for my eyes.”
“Says who?”
