Big Trouble Read Online Free PDF

ducked from his hand and stepped backward, toward the bathroom.
    â€œMr. Herk,” she said, “I don’t think Mrs. Anna will like to know you are here.”
    His face turned hard. “She’s asleep,” he said. “And I’m not gonna tell her I was here. You’re not gonna tell her, either, are you, Nina?”
    No, she was not. He was the boss of the house, and she was the maid, and she wasn’t in this country legally, and she had nowhere else to go.
    â€œExcuse me,” said Nina, and she turned and stepped into the bathroom, quickly closing the door and pressing the lock button.
    The doorknob rattled as Mr. Herk tried it.
    â€œNina,” he said, “come out.”
    Nina stared at the doorknob, not breathing. She could feel his sweat on her, where he had touched her.
    â€œNina,” he said, louder, “this is my house, and you work for me , and I want you to come out now .”
    Nina stared at the doorknob.
    â€œBitch,” he said.
    Nina heard glass breaking, then the hallway door banging open. She waited some more, then opened the bathroom door. There was a dark red stain in the middle of her white bedspread, where he had poured out the wine. He had smashed the glass on her floor. She cut her foot cleaning up.
    The next day, when she served him his coffee, with Mrs. Anna there, he acted as though nothing had happened. But she still saw him looking at her. And she kept her door locked. She did not like Mr. Herk, but she needed to keep this job. She needed to make enough money to pay a lawyer so she could become legal, and then to bring her mother and her brother to the United States.
    And there were things she liked about working here. The house was like a castle, and Mrs. Anna was very nice, very pretty. Nina could not understand why Mr. Herk could be so mean to such a woman. Nina had heard him yell at her, calling her bad names, making her cry. Nina thought that sometimes he hit her.
    Mrs. Anna was nice to Nina. So was her daughter, Jenny, although she mostly stayed in her room, always on the phone, always listening to her music, which sounded to Nina like angry people shouting. She couldn’t imagine why anybody would want to listen to shouting.
    Nina listened to flute music from her country, on cassette tapes that she played on a Fisher-Price tape player that had been Jenny’s when she was a little girl. At night, Nina would open her window (she didn’t like air-conditioning) and lie on her bed with the lights off, letting her mind float on the music. It made her feel less lonely.
    Across the yard, in his tree, listening to Nina’s music, Puggy felt less lonely, too.

    MATT picked up Andrew at 8:40.
    â€œWhere’s the gun?” asked Andrew.
    â€œIn the trunk,” said Matt. “I love this song.” He cranked the volume all the way up on the stereo, which was playing “Sex Pootie,” by a band called the Seminal Fluids. The lyrics were:
    I want your sex pootie!
I want your sex pootie!
I want your sex pootie!
I want your sex pootie!
I want your sex pootie!
I want your sex pootie!
I want your sex pootie!
I want your sex pootie!
    And so on.
    â€œWhat’s a sex pootie?” asked Andrew.
    â€œWhat do you think it is?” asked Matt, scornfully, although in truth he wasn’t sure what a sex pootie was, either. To change the subject, he said: “This sound system sucks .” Matt had great contempt for any sound system that was not loud enough to stun cattle.
    â€œWhy’d your dad buy a Kia?” asked Andrew.
    â€œ ’Cause he’s a dork,” explained Matt.
    Andrew nodded understandingly. His dad was a dork, too. It seemed like everybody’s dad was a dork. It amazed Matt and Andrew that their generation had turned out so cool.
    â€œI just hope Jenny doesn’t see this car,” said Matt.
    Jenny was the girl they were going to kill. Matt thought she was hot. She was in his biology