Ivyland Read Online Free PDF Page A

Mom. This is me, me, me.
    â€œLet’s,” I say.
    We leave the leader unconscious on the table and move into the living room, where his cronies are rung out and drooling—light poppers. We roll them over and take their guns and money and any Belltruvin they couldn’t cram in. Before I can stop myself I punch the lavender one in the face, to see how it feels, and he smiles back with a wet split lip.
    Lev’s car won’t start.
    â€œI feel tight,” I say, muscles locking.
    We walk towards the Parkway to hitchhike, back past the duck pond, eventually passing the pink slab of a middle school.
    An ice cream truck appears on the road. After feeling for the Collars’ money in my pocket I try to flag it down as Lev kicks at the curb, only when it won’t slow up a change crashes over him like a wave: he spins into the road, pulls his gun and starts firing wildly as the truck skids, chuckling that we’re going to get some ice cream satisfaction dammit, specifically a chocolate éclair bar he’s craved since the end of last summer when the trucks stopped running, and he’s so committed that I start shooting, which I maybe hoped would validate his gut reaction. Which I hoped said, “Hey, your emotions can’t be wrong, and I’m also feeling that heady mix of frustration and adrenaline that makes shooting guns an attractive option.” But only Lev hits the thing, a big white snaking crack on glass that goes red. Jesus do I swear that.
    The truck finishes its swerve to miss us, coasting to a crunching stop in thick hedges alongside the school, and when we get to it we see it’s crowded full of scared-looking people (for some reason most with briefcases), and the driver is hit—well, is probably dead.
    â€œYou killed him!” this woman with a goiter screams. “You gas-heads killed him!”
    â€œWhat are you doing back here?” Lev asks, rubbing his temple with the grip of the gun, “This isn’t a bus, people.” Turning to me: “Don’t think they’re selling ice cream.”
    â€œThe song wasn’t on,” I say.
    â€œOkay, out out out,” Lev says, and everyone bolts except the driver and one other dead person. As we reverse and get back on the road I turn the song on. It makes me ache just right. I drag the pair of bodies towards the back and go through every pocket. Lev finds an empty parking lot, grabs a wrench from the glovebox, jumps out, comes back in a minute with the truck’s license plate in hand. He starts the truck again.
    â€œLev,” I say, “it was a cop driving.”
    Lev takes us to the soccer fields at the foot of Floods Hill, where they’re having a huge tournament. He pulls right in front of this other ice cream truck playing the same song as us, sweaty uniformed kids with fistfuls of money lined up. I remember the song out of nowhere, this ragtime number now weirdly overlapping itself, repeating on different cycles from two sets of speakers. The Johnstons’ real kid practiced it all the time that year.
    The other truck driver is leaning out of his window to yell, but we can’t hear him over the songs grinding against each other in bad harmonies, and besides, he has a confusing accent. Lev tells me to sell ice cream while he handles things, so I shout to the kids that I’m giving away my stuff for free. They ditch the original line and mob my truck, shrieking, and as I go back and forth between the freezer and window I keep tripping over the bodies.
    All this hoopla about the giveaway operation is pissing off the real ice cream guy even more; he jacks up the volume of his song, so I crank mine, and the kids in their muddy jerseys are so disbelieving it hurts. I shower them with popsicles and chocolate tacos and ice cream sandwiches. I need to be rid of it all.
    Finally the real ice cream vendor steps out to get physical, but Lev appears between the two trucks, cocks his gun