Cold Fury Read Online Free PDF Page B

language, because Harry has hated my guts since I looked at him and said, “You’re not bringing that horrible thing home, are you, Lou?”
    My little brother ignored me, smiling at Harry and offering a hand. “And how are you today, my fine fellow?”
    Harry responded by biting him.
    Lou didn’t wince, just smiled again, but sadly, and said, “Life can be tough and weird, huh, pal? But then things change. Things always change.”
    There was something so true in the statement that Harry’s growl lowered to a rumble, then a whimper, then his ears folded back and he looked like he was going to weep. Lou patted his pate. Love was in the air.
    At least, love between the two of them.
    For me it was a daily snarlfest, Harry at me and me right back at him.
    I once asked Lou why he didn’t just train the dog to like me.
    My brother shrugged. “He is who he is. I can teach behavior but I can’t change how he’s made. It’s the same reason you box well, but I never will.”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “According to my studies, all the best boxers have something burning at their essential core. They use it to dominate their opponent in the ring. You have that thing and I don’t.”
    “Wait . . . are you saying I have, like, hidden anger or something?”
    “I didn’t say it was hidden and I didn’t say anger. I said core, and it could be anything strong enough to fuel a boxer in the ring. Yeah, maybe anger, but also maybe fear, or insecurity, or a need for revenge. Whatever it is, it burns like a nuclear reactor deep down in a fighter’s gut.”
    I looked at Lou, thinking about his theory. “Are you saying I’m insecure?”
    “I’m not going there,” he sighed, doing that Italian “discussion over” thing, patting his hands together just like my grandpa.
    We never discussed my “essential core” again, but Lou and I talked about everything else. My little brother has an informed opinion on a multitude of subjects, combined with an uncanny ability to figure out what a person is thinking just by studying her expression. That’s why I tried to hurry past him into the kitchen that afternoon. I knew that if I paused, Lou would see Walter J. Thurber and Mandi Fishbaum all over my face. I was almost through the swinging door when my grandma said, “Sara Jane! Non bacio per tua nonna e tuo fratello? ”
    My Italian was, and is, pretty mediocre, but any kid who’s even slightly Italian knows the word for kiss— bacio . The irony that I’d just run ten blocks because of an ill-placed bacio was not lost on me, and I struggled to hold back tears. When I was sure I wouldn’t weep, I leaned over and kissed my grandma’s soft cheek, and Lou’s too, who smelled like molasses. He stared at me with bits of cookie on his lips and frowned. “You look weird,” he said, pointing the cookie at me. “Weirder than usual, I mean.”
    “Thanks a lot,” I said, thumbing crumbs from his mouth.
    “Sara Jane,” he said as I moved toward the kitchen. I turned, and Lou extended a pinkie toward me. “All or nothing. Right?”
    I’d taught Lou that move on his first day of pre-K, when he seemed a little iffy about venturing into a classroom full of hyperactive hurricane kids. I took him aside, lifted my pinkie, and said, “Remember, Lou, you and I are Rispolis. We stick together even when we’re not together. All or nothing.” He’d smiled then, hooked his little finger through mine, and it had been our thing ever since; whenever one of us needs a boost, the other reminds us that we always have each other’s backs. I hooked his pinkie, then turned and pushed through a set of double doors.
    My dad, uncle, and grandpa spent every day working together in the kitchen of Rispoli & Sons making the fancy pastries the neon sign advertised. They seemed to live with flour and frosting all over their aprons, all over their hands and shoes. It was clear that they had been boxers (Grandpa Enzo too, in the 1950s) by watching