Black Evening

Black and White and Red All Over

You probably read about me in the paper this morning. Fact is, if you live near the corner of Benton and Sunset, I'm the kid who normally delivers it to you. 'Course I couldn't bring it to you today, being in the hospital and all with my arm busted and my skull what the doctor says is fractured. My Dad took over for me. To tell the truth, I kinda miss doing the route. I've been delivering three years now, since I was nine, and it gets to be a habit, even if I do have to wake up at five-thirty, Christmas and New Year's and every day. But if you think I slept in this morning, you're wrong. The nurses wake you up early here just the same as if my Mom was nudging me to crawl out of bed and make sure I put on my longjohns before I take the papers 'cause it's awful cold these snowy mornings. You have to walk the route instead of riding your bike, and that takes a half hour longer, especially with the sky staying dark so long, and sometimes you can't see the numbers on the houses when you're looking for where a new customer lives.

The way this works, the Gazette has this guy in a truck come along and drop a bundle in front of my house, and my Dad goes out to get the bundle and fold the papers in my sack while I get dressed. A lot of times, there'll be this card with the name of a new customer or else the name of a customer who doesn't want the paper anymore, and then my Mom and I'll have to add or subtract the name from my list and figure out how much the customer owes me, especially if he's starting or stopping in the middle of a week. It's pretty complicated, but my Dad says it teaches me how to run a business, and the extra money comes in handy for buying CDs or playing video games, even if I do have to put a third of what I earn away in my bank account.

But I was telling you about my customers. You'd be surprised how close a kid can feel to the people he delivers the paper to. They wake up early and rush to get ready for work or whatever, and I figure the only fun they have is when they sit down at breakfast to read what happened while they were sleeping. It's sorta like catching up on gossip, I guess. They depend on me, and I've never been late delivering the papers, and the only times I've missed are when I was sick or like now from what happened yesterday morning. The bandages around my head feel itchy, and the cast on my arm's awful heavy. The nurses have written lots of jokes on it, though, so I'm looking forward to going back to school in two or three weeks, the doctor says, and showing it to all the kids.

You get to notice things about your customers, stuff a guy wouldn't think of unless he delivers papers. Like after a big football game you can't believe how many people are awake with all the lights on before I even get there, waiting for the paper so they can find out something new about the game they already heard or went to or watched on TV. Or like this house on Gilby Street where for a week or so I had to hold my breath when I came up the sidewalk past the shrubs because of the worst scuzzy smell like something really rotten. Even when I held my breath, it almost made me sick. Like the bad potatoes Mom found in the cellar last month. Nobody was picking up the papers I left. They just kept piling up beside the door, and after I told my Dad, he looked at my Mom kinda strange and said he'd better go over to see what was wrong. I could tell he figured maybe somebody was dead, and I guess I wondered that myself, but the way things turned out, those people were just on vacation which is why the papers kept piling up, and the smell was only from these plastic bags of garbage they'd forgotten to put out and some dogs had torn open at the side of the house. That smell really made me nervous for a while, though.

And then there's the Carrigans. He lost his job at the mill last summer, and his wife likes fancy clothes, and they're always yelling about money when I'm next door playing with Ralph or when I come around to collect or even at six in the morning when I bring them the paper. Imagine that, getting up way before dawn to argue. Or what about old Mr. Blanchard? His wife's old, too, and she's sick with what my Mom says is cancer, and I haven't seen Mrs. Blanchard in a couple months, but old Mr. Blanchard, he's up when I put the paper under the mat. I can see through his living room window where the light's on in the kitchen, and he's sitting at the table, hunched over, holding his head, and his shoulders are shaking. Even out front, I can hear him sobbing. It makes my throat tight. He always wears this gray old lumpy sweater. I'd feel sorry for him no matter what, but he cries like it's tearing his chest apart.

And then there's Mr. Lang. He's got this puffy face and a red-veined nose and squinty angry eyes. He's always complaining about how much the paper costs and claims I'm cheating him by coming around more often than I should to collect, which of course I've never done. Two months ago, he started swearing at me so I'm afraid to go over there. My Dad says it's the whiskey makes him act like that, and now my Dad collects from him. The last time my Dad came back from there, he said Mr. Lang's not bad if you get to know him and realize he doesn't like his life, but I don't care. I want my Dad to keep collecting from him.

I guess I was spooked by what you read about that happened in Granite Falls two months ago when Mr. Lang swore at me. That paper boy who disappeared. His parents waited for him to come home from his Sunday morning route, and after they got calls from customers wanting to know where the paper was, his Dad went out looking and found his sack full of papers a block away in an empty lot behind some bushes. You remember how the police and the neighbors went out searching, and the paper he worked for put his picture on the front page and offered a reward if anybody knew where he was, but they didn't find him. The police said he might've run away, but that didn't make any sense to me. It was too darn cold to run away, and where would he go? My Dad says he read how the police even seemed to think the parents might have done something to him themselves and how the parents got so mad they wanted to sue the police for saying that. One man was cruel enough to phone the parents and pretend he had the boy and ask for money, but the police traced the calls, and the man didn't have him. Now the man says it was just a joke, but I read where he's in lots of trouble.

Granite Falls. That's not too far from here. My Dad said some nut from there could easily drive to other towns like ours. I wasn't going to give up my route, though, just because of what happened there. Like I said, I'm used to the money I make and going downtown on Saturdays to buy a new CD. But I felt kinda fluttery in my stomach. I sure didn't want to disappear myself. I'm old enough to know about the creepy things perverts do to kids. So my Dad went with me the next few mornings on my route, and I took a flashlight when I started going alone again, and I delivered the papers fast, believe me. You can't guess what the wind scraping through bushes behind you in the dark can make you feel when it's early and there's nobody around to shout to for help. But after a month when nothing happened, I started feeling easier, ashamed of myself for getting scared like I was a little kid. I slipped back into my old routine, delivering the papers half-asleep, looking forward to the homemade Orange Julius my Mom always has waiting for me when I get back from the route. I read the comics in the Gazette before I catch an extra hour of sleep till it's time for school. After being out in the snow, those blankets feel great.

Three weeks ago, another paper boy disappeared, this time right here in Crowell, and you remember how the neighbors searched the same as in Granite Falls, and his picture was in the Gazette, and the parents offered a reward, but they didn't find him, only his sack of papers stuffed behind some bushes like the last time. The police said it looked like the same M.O. That's fancy police talk for "pattern." But heck, you don't have to go to police school to figure out that both kids disappeared the same way. And one kid might have run away, but not two of them, leastways not in the snow.

Oh, yeah, that's something I forgot to mention. Both mornings when the kids disappeared, it was snowing real hard, so there weren't any tracks except for the neighbors searching. No kid runs away in a blizzard, I'll tell you. The rest of us paper boys nearly went on what my Dad calls a strike. Actually it was our parents wanted us to quit delivering. They demanded police protection for us, but the police said we were overreacting, we shouldn't panic, and anyway there weren't enough police to protect us all. The Gazette said if we stopped delivering, the paper would go out of business. They asked our parents to keep a close watch on us, and they made us sign a contract agreeing to give up seventy-five cents a month, so the paper could insure us in case something happened to us on the route.

Well, that made my Dad twice as mad. He told me to quit, and I almost did, but I couldn't stop thinking of all the money I like to spend on Saturdays. My Dad says I was born a capitalist and I'll probably grow up to vote Republican, whatever that means, but I told him I won a ribbon last year on the sixth-grade track team, and I could run faster than any pervert, I bet. Well, he just laughed and shook his head and told me he'd go out with me every morning, but my Mom looked like she was going to cry. I guess Moms are like that, always worrying. Besides, I said, I only have to worry if it's snowing. That's the only time the kids disappeared. My Dad said that made sense, but all my Mom said was "We'll see" which is always bad news, like if you ask for a friend to stay overnight and your Mom says "We'll see," you figure she means "no".

But she didn't. The next morning, my Dad went with me on the route, and it was one of those sharp cold times when your boots squeak on the snow and the air's so clean you can hear a car start up three blocks away. I knew for sure I'd hear any pervert if he tried sneaking up on me, and anyway my Dad was with me, and all the other carriers had it as easy as I did. Still, every morning I got up praying it wasn't snowing, and lots of times it had snowed in the night but stopped, and when I saw the house across from ours clear in the streetlight, I felt like somebody had taken a rope from around my chest.

So we went on like that, getting up at five-thirty and doing the papers, and once my Dad got the flu, so my Mom went with me. You can believe it, she was nervous, more than me I guess. You should have seen us rushing to finish the route all the time we were looking over our shoulders. Mr. Carrigan was yelling at his wife like always, and Mr. Blanchard was crying for his own wife, and Mr. Lang was drinking beer when he opened his door and scared me, getting his paper. I almost wet my pants, no fooling. He asked if I wanted to step in and get warm, but I backed off, saying, "No, Mr. Lang, no, thank you," holding up my hands and shaking my head. I forgot about his stairs behind me. I bet I'd have broken my arm even sooner than now if he'd shoveled them. But the snow made them soft, and when I tumbled to the bottom, I landed in a drift. He tried to help me, but I jumped up and ran away.

Then last Sunday I woke up, and even before I looked out, I knew from the shriek of the wind that it was snowing. My heart felt hard and small. I almost couldn't move. I tasted this sour stuff from my stomach. I couldn't see the house across the street. The snow was flying so thick and strong I couldn't even see the maple tree in our front yard. As warm as I'd been in bed, I shivered like I was outside and the wind was stinging through my pajamas. I didn't want to go, but I knew that'd be all the excuse my Mom'd need to make me quit, so I forced myself. I dressed real quick, long under-wear and the rest, and put on my down-filled coat that almost doesn't fit me anymore and my mitts and ski mask, and it wasn't just my Mom or Dad who went with me that time, but both of them, and I could tell they felt as scared as I was.

Nothing happened, as far as we knew. We finished the route and came home and made hot chocolate. All our cheeks were red, and we went back to sleep, and when we woke up, my Dad turned on the radio. I guess you know what we heard. Another paper boy had disappeared, right here in Crowell. That's an M.O. if I ever heard of one. Three carriers gone, and two of them from town, and all three when it was snowing.

The storm kept on, so this time there weren't even any tracks from the police and the neighbors searching. They couldn't find his sack of papers. A couple of people helping out had to go to the hospital because of frost bite. The missing boys didn't live on our side of town, but even so, my Dad went over to help. With the streets so drifted, he couldn't drive – he had to walk. When he came back after dark with his parka all covered with snow, he said it was horrible out there. He couldn't get warm. He just kept sitting hunched in front of the fireplace, throwing logs on, rubbing his raw-looking hands and shivering. My Mom kept bringing him steaming drinks that she called hot toddies, and after an hour, he slumped back snoring. Mom and me had to help him up to bed. Then Mom took me back downstairs and sat with me in the living room and told me I had to quit.

I didn't argue. Crowell's got forty thousand people. If you figure three-quarters of them get the paper and most of the carriers have forty customers, that's seven hundred and fifty paper boys. I worked that out on my Dad's pocket calculator. Kinda surprising – that many paper boys – if you're not a carrier yourself. But if you're on the streets at five-thirty every morning like I am, then you see a lot of us. There's a kid on almost every corner, walking up somebody's driveway, leaving a paper in front of a door. Not counting the kid in Granite Falls, that's two missing carriers out of seven hundred and fifty. That might make the odds seem in my favor, but the way I figured it, and my Mom said it too, that many paper boys only gave the nut a lot of choice. I like to play video games and all, but the money I earned wasn't worth disappearing the way those other boys did with my sack of papers stuffed behind some bushes, which by the way is where they found the third kid's sack like the others, when the snow stopped. After we put my Dad to bed and my Mom looked out the living room window, she made a funny noise in her throat. I walked to her and saw the house across the street, all shimmery, covered with snow and glinting from the streetlight. Any other time, it would've looked peaceful, like a Christmas card. But I felt sick, like all that white had something ugly underneath. I was standing on a vent for the furnace, and I heard the gas burner turn on. Warm air rushed up my pajama leg. All the same, I shivered.

I've told you I quit. But my Dad says we've got something called a body clock inside us. It comes from being used to a regular routine, like when you know even if you don't have your watch on that it's time for your favorite TV program or you know you'd better get home 'cause your Mom'll have supper ready. I wasn't going to deliver papers, but I woke up at five-thirty the same as usual, even if Mom didn't wake me. For just a second, I told myself I'd better hurry. Then I remembered I wasn't going to deliver the papers anymore. I slumped back in bed and tried to go back to sleep, but I kept squinting at the digital clock Mom and Dad gave me last Christmas, and the red numbers kept changing, getting later. 5:40. Then 5:45. At last I couldn't bear feeling guilty, like I'd done something wrong even though I hadn't. I crawled from bed and opened my curtains and peered at the dark snow in our driveway. I could see the tire tracks on the street where the guy from the Gazette had pulled up and thrown my bundle. It was all by itself in the driveway, sunk in the snow. It was wrapped in a garbage bag to keep it dry, this big black shape with all this white around it.

I kept staring at it, and the Gazette office hadn't been open the day before, on Sunday. Even on Monday, they're not open till eight, so there wasn't any way for the paper to know I'd quit. I kept thinking of my customers getting up, looking forward to reading the paper at breakfast, going to the door, not finding it. Then I thought of all the calls we'd soon be getting, forty of them, wanting to know where their paper was. The more I thought about it, the more I felt worse, till I reminded myself of what my Dad always says: "There's only one way to do a job, and that's the right way." I put on my longjohns, my jeans and sweater and parka. I woke up my Dad, whose face looked old all of a sudden, I guess from being out in the storm searching the day before. I told him I had to deliver the papers, and he just blinked at me, then nodded with his lips pursed like he didn't agree but he understood.

My Mom made a fuss as you'd expect, but my Dad got dressed and went with me. I wasn't sure if I was shaking from the cold or from being scared. It wasn't snowing, though, and even shivering I knew I'd be all right. We hurried. We'd started a half hour late, but we got the papers to every customer without seeing any tire tracks in their driveway to tell us they'd left for work already. A couple places, we met a customer shoveling drifts, puffing frost from his mouth from the work, and every one of them looked glad to see me, like they'd been sure they weren't going to get a paper and here I'd been as dependable as ever. They grinned and promised me a tip when I came around next time to collect, and I guess I grinned as well. It made me feel warm all of a sudden. Even Mr. Lang, who's normally so hard to get along with, came out and patted me on the back the way the track coach sometimes does. My Dad and I did the route the fastest we ever had, and when we got home, my Mom had pancakes ready and syrup hot from the Radarange. I guess I'd never been so hungry. My Dad even gave me a little coffee in a glass. I sipped it, feeling its steam on my nose, actually liking the bitter taste. Then my Dad clicked his cup against my glass, and I felt like I'd grown in the night. My chest never felt so big, and even my Mom had to admit it, we'd done the right thing.

But that didn't change what had happened. At eight, just before I left for school, my Mom phoned the paper and told them I was quitting. When I went outside, I felt relieved, like something heavy had been taken off my back, but that didn't last long. A block from school, my stomach started getting hard, and I couldn't stop thinking I'd lost something or like the track season was over or I'd missed a movie I was looking forward to. It's funny how you get used to things, even a job which I know isn't supposed to be fun, that's why it's called a job, but I liked being a paper boy, earning money and all, and I could tell I was going to feel empty now from not doing it.

All morning, I couldn't concentrate on what the teacher said. She asked if I was sick, but I told her I was only tired, I was sorry, I'd be okay. I tried my best to act interested, and when I got home for lunch, my Mom said the paper had called to ask if they could send somebody over to talk to us around suppertime. She'd done her hardest to tell them no, but I guess they insisted, 'cause someone was coming anyhow, and I ate my hamburger fast from being curious and I'll admit excited from getting attention.

The afternoon was the longest I ever remember. After school, I didn't care about hanging around with the guys. I just stayed at home and played video games and watched the clock on the TV recorder. My Dad came home from work a little after five. He was just opening a can of beer when the doorbell rang. I don't know why but my arm muscles hurt when he went to the door, and it was Sharon from the paper. She's the one who came to the house and explained how to do my route when I first got started. Lots of times, she stopped at the house to give me extra cards for figuring out how much my customers owed me. Once she brought me the fifty dollars worth of movie passes that I won from going around the neighborhood and convincing the most new customers than any other carrier in town to take the Gazette in the morning instead of the Chronicle from Granite Falls, which is the evening paper, but you know that, I guess.

Sharon 's younger than my Mom. She's got a pony tail and rosy cheeks, and she reminds me of the student teacher from the college here in town that's helping my regular teacher. Sharon always shows more interest in talking to me instead of to my parents. She makes me feel special and grown up, and she always smiles and tells me I'm the best carrier she's got. But last Monday she wasn't smiling. She looked like she hadn't slept all night, and her cheeks were pale. She said so many carriers had quit and no new carriers wanted to take their place that the paper was worried, like it might go out of business. She said her boss had told her to go around to all the carriers that had quit and tell them the paper would pay them three dollars extra a week if they stayed, but my Mom wouldn't let me answer for myself. My Mom said no. But it was like Sharon hadn't heard. She said the Gazette would promise that any morning it snowed the papers didn't have to be delivered, and I could see my Dad agreed it was a good idea, but my Mom kept shaking her head from side to side. Then Sharon rushed on and said at least let her have a few days to find a replacement for me, which was going to be hard because I was so dependable, and that made my heart beat funny. Please give her a week, she said. If she couldn't find somebody else by next Monday, then I could go ahead and quit and she wouldn't bother us again. But at least let her have the chance – her voice sounded thick and chokey – because her boss said if she couldn't find kids to do the routes he'd get somebody else to do her job.

Her eyes looked moist, like she'd been out in the wind. All of a sudden I felt crummy, like I'd let her down. I wanted to make myself small. I couldn't face her. For the first time, she paid more attention to my parents than to me, blinking at my Mom, then my Dad, sorta pleading, and my Mom didn't seem to breathe. Then she did, long and deep like she felt real tired. She said my Dad and her would have to talk about it, so they went to the kitchen, and I tried not to look at Sharon while I heard them whispering, and when they came back, my Mom said okay, for a week, till Sharon could find a replacement but no longer. In the meantime, if it was snowing, I wasn't going out to deliver the papers. Sharon almost cried then. She kept saying thanks, and after she left, my Mom said she hoped we weren't making a mistake, but I knew I wasn't. I figured out what had been bothering me – not quitting, but doing it so fast, without making sure my customers got their paper and explaining to them and saying good-bye. I was going to miss them. Funny how you get used to things.

The next morning, I didn't feel nervous as much as glad to have the route back, at least for a few more days. It was one of the last times I'd see my customers' houses that early, and I tried to memorize what it was like, taking the paper to the Carrigans who still kept arguing, and Mr. Blanchard crying for his wife, and Mr. Lang still drinking beer for breakfast. My Dad went with me that Tuesday, and you could see other parents helping their kids do the routes. I'd never seen so many people out so early, and in the cold, their whispers and their boots squeaking were as clear as the sharp reflection of the streetlights off the drifts. Nothing happened, though the police kept looking for the boys who'd disappeared. And Wednesday, nothing happened either. The fact is, by Saturday, everything had gone pretty much back to normal. It was never snowing in the morning, and my Dad says people have awful short memories, 'cause we heard how a lot of paper boys who'd quit had asked for their routes back and a lot of other kids had asked for the routes that needed a carrier. I know in my own case I'd stopped feeling scared. Pretty much the opposite. I kept thinking about Monday and how it was closer all the time and maybe I could convince my Mom to let me go on delivering.

Saturday was clear. When my Dad came in from the driveway, carrying the bundle of papers, he said it wasn't hardly cold at all out there. I looked through the kitchen window toward the thermometer on the side of the house, and the light from the kitchen reached it in the dark. The red line was almost at thirty-two. I wouldn't need my ski mask, though I made sure to take my mitts, and we packed the papers in my sack, and we went out. That early, the air smelled almost sweet from being warmer than usual, and under my longjohns, I started to sweat. We went down Benton, then over to Sunset, and started up Gilby. That's the hardest street 'cause it's got this steep long hill. In summer, I'm always puffing when I ride my bike to the top, and in winter, I have to stop a minute going up with my heavy boots and coat on. How we did it was my Dad took one side of the street and I took the other. We could see each other because of the streetlights, and by splitting the work, we'd do the route twice as fast. But we'd got a note about a new customer that morning, and my Dad couldn't find the house number. I kept delivering papers, going up the hill, and the next thing I knew, I'd reached the top. I looked back down, and my Dad was a shadow near the bottom.

It wasn't snowing, so I figured I'd do a few more papers. My next customer was over on Crossridge. If you went by car, you had to drive back down Gilby hill, then go a block over to Crossridge, then drive all the way up to the top of the other hill. But if you went on foot or bike, you could cut through a sidewalk that one of my customers has in his yard, connecting Gilby and Crossridge, so I went through there and left the paper.

And I suddenly felt frozen-scared 'cause flurries began to fall. I'd been looking at the dark sky from time to time. There wasn't a moon, but the stars had been bright, twinkling real pretty. I looked up fast now, and I couldn't see the stars. All I saw were these thick black clouds. I swear even in the dark I could see 'em. They were twisting and heaving like something was inside rolling and straining to bust loose. The flurries got bigger. I should've remembered from school. Thirty-two: that's the perfect temperature for getting snow. My legs felt limp. I wasn't walking right from being scared. I tried to run, but I lost my balance and almost fell. The snow came fast now. I couldn't see the clouds because of it. It was falling so thick I couldn't even see the houses across the street. A wind started, and then it got worse and screechy. My cheeks hurt like something was burning them, but it wasn't heat. It was cold. The air had been sweet and warm, but now it was freezing, and the wind stung, and the snow felt like tiny bits of ice-cold broken glass.

I swung around looking for Dad, but I couldn't see the houses next to me. The snow kept pelting my face, and the wind bit so I kept blinking and tears filled my eyes. I wiped them with my mitts. That only made them blurry. Snow froze to my cheeks and hair. I moaned, wishing I'd worn my ski mask. The shriek of the wind was worse. I tried to yell for my Dad, but the gusting snow pushed the words back into my mouth. Then I couldn't see the sidewalk. I couldn't see my mitts in front of my face. All I saw was a wall of moving white. As cold as I felt, deep in my bones, my stomach burned. The more it felt hot, the more I shook. I yelled once more for my Dad and in a panic stumbled to find him.

I didn't know I was off the sidewalk till I hit Mr. Carrington's fence. It's sharp and pointy, like metal spears. When I banged against it, one of the points jabbed my chest. I felt it gouge me even through the padding of my coat. It pushed all the air out of me. I fell back into a drift where I felt like I was in quicksand, going deeper, scrambling to stand, but my heavy sack of papers held me down, and the snow kept piling on me. It went down my neck, like a cold hand on my back. It stung so hard I jumped up screaming, but the wind shrieked louder, and all I saw was the swirling snow around me in the dark.

I ran, but I must've got turned around 'cause nothing was where it should've been. Invisible bushes slashed my face. I smacked against a tree, and I guess that's how my nose got broken, but I didn't feel it, I was too scared. I just kept running, yelling for my Dad, and when I didn't bump into anything, I guessed I was in the street, but I know now it was the vacant lot next to Mr. Carrington. Somebody's digging a foundation for a new house, and it was like the ground disappeared. I was suddenly falling, it seemed like forever, and I landed so hard I bit my lip right through. You ought to see the stitches. My Dad says sometimes when something terrible happens to you, you don't feel it on account of what he calls shock. He says your body has a limit to what it can stand, and then it shuts out the pain. That must've been what happened 'cause my chest and my nose and my lip got numb, and all I wanted was to find my Dad and get back home. I wanted my Mom.

I crawled from the hole, and somehow I knew there was someone close. With my eyes full of tears, I could barely see the snow, but then this dark shape rushed at me, and I knew it was my Dad, except it wasn't. In the comics, when someone gets hit on the head, they always show stars. And that's what I saw, stars, bright in the snow, and I knew I'd been hit, but I didn't feel it. My Dad says shock can do that, too. Something can happen to you that would normally slam you flat, but if you're scared, you somehow get the strength not to fall.

I almost did, though. Everything got blurry and began to spin, and this is the strange part. I got hit so hard I dropped my sack of papers. The sack fell open, and as clear as day I saw my papers in a drift, the black ink with white all around it. Then the papers were splattered with red. You know that old joke? What's black and white and read all over? A newspaper. Only this is spelled different. The red was the blood from my head. I turned to run, and that's when the shadow grabbed my arm.

I kept turning, and even in the shriek of the wind, I heard the crack as clear as if my Dad had taken a piece of kindling and snapped it across his knee for the fireplace, but the snap was from my arm, and I felt it twist at the elbow, pointing toward my shoulder. The next thing I was on my back, and the snow stopped gusting long enough for me to gape up at old Mr. Blanchard kneeling beside me, raising the claw end of a hammer.

I moved my head as he brought it down, so the claws glanced past my scalp, tearing away some hair. I kicked, and this time the hammer whacked my collar bone. I screamed. The claws of the hammer plunged toward the spot between my eyes.

And another hand shot from the storm, grabbing Mr. Blanchard's arm. Before I passed out, I saw my Dad yank the hammer away from him and jerk him to his feet. My Dad shouted stuff at him I'd never heard before. I mean terrible words I don't want to remember and I won't repeat. Then my Dad was shaking Mr. Blanchard, and Mr. Blanchard's head was flopping back and forth, and the next thing I knew, I was here in the hospital with the bandages around my head and my nose and mouth swollen and my arm in this cast.

My Dad tried to explain it to me. I think I understand, but I'm not sure. Mr. Blanchard's wife died three months ago. I thought she was still alive, but I was wrong. He and his wife, they never had any children, and my Dad says he felt so alone without her he wanted somebody around the house to take care of, like a son, so the first boy he took home was from Granite Falls that time two months ago when he went to visit his wife's sister. Then he wanted another son and another, so he took home those two boys from here, making sure it was snowing so he could hide his tracks, but then he wanted all the sons he could get. It makes me sick to think about it, how after he realized the boys were dead he took them out to his garage and stacked them under a sheet of canvas in the corner, "like cord wood" a reporter said. It's been cold enough that the bodies got hard and frozen. Otherwise they would've smelled like that other house I told you about. I wonder now if all the times I saw Mr. Blanchard crying it was because of his wife being dead or because he realized he was doing wrong but he couldn't stop himself. A part of me feels sorry for him, but another part keeps thinking about those missing boys and how scared they must've been when Mr. Blanchard came at them in the storm, and what he looked like when he knelt beside me, raising that hammer. I have a feeling I'll remember that till I grow up. Earlier I said the nurses wake me early here the same as if my Mom was getting me up to do my route. I guess I lied. The nurses didn't wake me. I woke myself, screaming, remembering the claws of the hammer and the blood on my papers. The nurses ran in, and someone's been sitting with me ever since. My Mom or my Dad is always here, and they say my collar bone is broken too, but what hurts worst is my arm.

The Gazette sent Sharon over, though I know she'd have come on her own. She's writing down what I say, but I'm not sure why 'cause she's also got a tape recorder turned on. You ought to see her smiling when I talk about her. She says she's going to put my story in the paper, and her boss is going to pay me for it. I can sure use the money 'cause the doctor says I won't be delivering papers for quite a while. I guess even after everything that's happened I'll go back to my route. After all, we know why those boys disappeared, and there can't be that many crazy people like Mr. Blanchard, though my Dad says he's beginning to wonder. He just read about a girl carrier in Ashville that had somebody try to pull her into a car. What's going on that even kids who deliver papers can't feel safe? My Dad says pretty soon nobody'll want to leave their houses.

Well, never mind. I told Sharon I've been talking for quite a while. I'm getting sleepy, and I don't believe the paper will print all this, but she says my story's what they call an exclusive, and maybe some other papers will pick it up. My Mom says she hopes I won't start acting temperamental, whatever that means, now that I'm famous, but I don't feel famous. I feel sore. I hope my customers enjoy reading what I said, though, 'cause I like them, and I hope they remember what they promised about giving me a tip on account of there's a new video game I want to buy. My Dad came in and heard this last part. He said it again. I must've been born a businessman and I'll probably grow up to vote Republican. I still don't know what a Republican is, but I've been thinking. Maybe if I go around to a few houses and show them the bandages around my head and the cast on my arm, they'll subscribe to the paper. There's a new contest on. The kid who finds the most new customers gets a year's free pass to the movies. Now if only they'll throw in the popcorn.

This middle story about the dark side of success gives us a different occupation: sports, specifically playing football. The main character of the previous story was a boy. Here, we have a teenager. The third story will be told by an adult. The plot was inspired by a newspaper account of an Iowa high-school football team that had a controversial ritual before each game. Odd how the stars of high school seldom remain stars in later life. Do they peak too early? Or is something extra needed to go all the way?