Here Lies Linc Read Online Free PDF Page A

said, almost to herself. Actually, she said “say-ad,” drawing out the word into two syllables. It was a surprise to hear her voice at all. Just like me, she was new that year and kept quiet most of the time. All I knew about her was that her name was Delaney Baldwin, and with her accent and the way she said “Yes, ma’am” and “No, ma’am” to the cafeteria ladies in the lunch line, I figured she had come from down south somewhere.
    I was still sneaking looks at Delaney, who seemed hypnotized by whatever my mother was saying about Babyland, when I noticed Mellecker standing right in front of me. He was bent over his notebook and scribbling so hard, you wouldhave thought Lottie was feeding him plays for the football game on Thursday. I rocked up on my toes so I could get a look over his shoulder and see what he was writing.
    He was drawing, actually … a picture of my mother.

A LTHOUGH M ELLECKER WASN’T MUCH of an artist, there was no mistaking his subject matter. He had drawn a stick figure, then added a triangle skirt, combat boots, and wild curlicues for hair. For my mother’s eyes Mellecker had drawn
X
marks, making her look like somebody had just punched her lights out. Then, at the top of the page, he sketched a big headstone and labeled it with the words “Professor” and “R.I.P.” in big block letters. Rest in Peace.
    For a few seconds my ears filled up with a rush of white noise like TV static. I wanted to flatten him. I wanted to grab the back of his head and shove that handsome, magazine-ad face of his into the nearest grave plot. But I couldn’t seem to move. All I could do was watch while Mellecker sketched more and more details on his dead-Lottie cartoon.
    Now he was adding doodles to her headstone—first a batwith stretched-out wings and then something that looked like a big peanut.
    He held out his notebook so that one of his sidekicks from the football team—Jake Beasley—could see. I didn’t like what I had seen of Beez so far. He was big and loud, always swaggering around trying to be funny. But I figured he had to be one of Mellecker’s best friends, since all the guys in that circle went by their last names. Apparently Mellecker had started a trend.
    “What do you think, Beez?” I heard him whisper. “Like my symbols for the professor’s grave?”
    Beez stared blankly down at Mellecker’s bat and peanut doodles. “I don’t get it.”
    Mellecker rolled his eyes at him. “She’s bats!” he hissed. “Nuts!”
    “Oh,
yeah
,” Beez said, not even trying to muffle his guffaw. “Now I get it.” I glared at the back of his meaty head.
    Mellecker must have felt me breathing down his neck. All of a sudden he glanced at me over his shoulder and then turned with his notebook to give me a better view.
    “Pretty good, huh, Linc?” he said softly.
    So he knew my name after all. I felt my mouth stretch into a sickly Halloween-pumpkin smile as I searched his face for some sort of clue. Did he know it was
me
—his old Ho-Ho playmate? Or did he only remember my name from Mr. Oliver’s annoying roll call every afternoon? Whatever it was, Mellecker didn’t let on. He just stood there, grinning at me, waiting for me to laugh at his nasty cartoon.
    I could feel my pumpkin smile caving in. But before I could decide whether to force out a fake laugh or walk away in a huff, we were interrupted by the sound of Lottie’s voice rising in frustration. Someone must have asked her about the Black Angel again. “Look,” she was saying. “The only reason that angel is black is because the statue is made of bronze, not marble, and when bronze is exposed to the elements, oxidation occurs and the metal turns dark.”
    She paused.
    “BUT!” she almost shouted, making everybody, even Mellecker, jump. “If you don’t believe me, you should come out here at midnight tonight and see for yourself. Climb up on the pedestal and give that angel a
big—fat—wet
kiss right on her lips. If