Jody was lying on the middle of three sofas that formed a

horseshoe in the front room. He was waiting for Mama to

come take him to breakfast. He felt the warm flow of pee-pee

in his diaper and the even more satisfactory belching of soft,

squishy poop that encircled his bottom. He grinned, his tongue

lolling sideways, and pushed his stiff, hard arms upward to

bounce and shove the noisy poop farther up his diaper.

         He gave one happy squeal, his eyes sparkling with pleasure.

Soon Mama would come. She would sniff the air and say,

“Whew-ee” and carefully lift his long, boardlike ten-year-old

body to carry him back to his bedroom for clean-up.

          He heard a small sound. Mama? No, the smell was wrong.

And the noises were too loud and clunky. A ball bounced. It was

Ricky. Jody’s eyebrows drew down and his mouth pulled

together. Sometimes Ricky would pinch him if no one was

looking or burp in his face or bounce a ball hard so it hit him on

his chest or stomach to make his arms jerk.

         He turned his head and his eyes rolled upward, searching

for a shadow of movement above him. Usually Ricky wouldn’t be

up at this hour. In the summer his parents let him sleep until

lunchtime. But today Uncle Carlton was coming to take Ricky

fishing. He would be gone all day. Jody wished Uncle Carlton

would hurry. He could hear the slap of Ricky’s bare feet on the

wooden floor, the slam of tennis shoes in a pile. The noise was

not yet close. Maybe he wouldn’t notice Jody. Maybe the smelly

diaper would keep him away.

              Jody heard a different sound. Another person. Bigger but

still not Mama. Bigger than Mama with a sharp, fearsome smell.

When the person spoke, Jody would know who it was.

But the person didn’t speak. The person slammed into

Ricky and lifted him. Ricky kicked and coughed.

            Jody pushed his head over the edge of the sofa. His neck

bent until his breath came out in harsh, grating squeals that

always sent grown-ups into a panic even when they knew he did

it on purpose. This time he wasn’t doing it on purpose. He was

trying to see who held Ricky, making him buck and kick.

Through the gap between the couches, Jody could see long

hairy legs. Brown shorts with metal loops on them. A red and

white shirt and big, big hands that were squeezing…squeezing

Ricky’s throat. Ricky was pushing at the face above him, pulling

at his hair. The look on his face was fear and wild surprise.

One of Ricky’s hands caught on a string around the

person’s neck. The string broke and something flew across the

room to thump against Jody’s hand. Jody turned his hand. With

great effort he curled one finger around the thing and brought it

near his side.

            A gray curtain with bright sparkles began boiling up on the

sides of Jody’s vision. Sometimes he would watch the gray until it

almost covered everything before he moved his head. Not this

time. This time he pulled his head back onto the sofa, blinking

his wide blue eyes, fringed with long silky lashes that a model

would envy.

   Excerpt from

Chapter One