Me & Death Read Online Free PDF Page B

dominoes. My school was coming up on the north side – an old brick two-story. This was an early fall afternoon, the leaves just starting to turn color. Smelled like September. Fresh, you know? Even the dust smelled fresh.
    I could see the back of another Moto-X cycle on my half of the screen. Wolfgang was ahead of me. Without thinking, I pushed the little joystick forward to accelerate. This was my past here – with my future on the line – but it was also a race. The bike skidded, so I pushed B to correct.
    “Faster!”
    I looked over. Wolfgang leaned forward, gripping his controller.
    Fine. I’d show him. I pushed the joystick all the way forward and started to catch up. He swung left. I stayed straight, then saw I was about to hit a pothole. I pressed A, and the machine jumped in the air … and in a bump and a flash I was through the TV screen, careering down Wright on an
actual
Harley-Davidson Ironhead Chopper, neck and neck with Wolfgang.
    I experienced a moment – a second really – of complete, total all-over awesomeness. Wow! Oh, wow! Then I saw the pothole coming up faster than I could steer. There was no A button on my motorcycle. I hit the middle of the pothole, lost control, and crashed the bike, flipping over the handlebars to land on the sidewalk in front of the school. Wolfgang stopped next to me and got off his bike, laughing at my spill. The moment he let go of his bike, it disappeared. Mine was gone too. Pretty cool, I thought. I got to my feet, unharmed. This was the past, after all. I wasn’t really there.
    We bounced toward the school like astronauts in zero g. Passing through the main floor window was as easy as pushing aside a curtain. We were in a classroom. “Grade one,” said Wolfgang.
    “I know.”
    We stayed at the back. It was the end of the day, and the kids were clustered on the carpet for story-time. I could smell the white glue, chalk, Magic Marker, and then, faint as hope, a whisper of perfumed soap. Miss Macrow’s smell.
    My first-grade teacher sat tall and straight in her story-time chair, holding the book so that the kids could see the pictures. She had long black hair and eyes like wet stones. Her dress went past her knees. Her hands were clean. Her voice had steel in it.
    “What a bunch of losers!” sneered Wolfgang. Funny, coming from him. He was about the same age as the kids in this class.
    I noticed a boy quietly picking his nose in the backof the crowd. A big kid, with brown hair cut close and sloppy clothes. My grade-one self. He stared vacantly, not very interested in the story about the soldier who helped a witch find a tinderbox. He slid himself forward, rubbing his sock feet on the carpet to pick up static electricity. When he touched the bare neck of the little kid in front of him, there was a spark. The little kid started to cry. Jim smiled broadly.
    Wolfgang nodded approvingly. “Nice going.” A lot of whispering and squirming on the story-time carpet now. A concerted movement, a general drawing away from the crying kid.
    Is there someone in your life you hate for no reason? Their voice makes you want to throw up, their smile makes you want to punch it? Everything they do drives you crazy? You know someone like that? Me too. Lloyd. I hated his high pants and double-knotted running shoes. I hated his limp ginger hair and his long eyelashes. I hated the way he moved and talked. I hated the way he breathed.
    He was the kid in front of Jim. His pale, round, firstgrade face was squinched up, and his legs were twisted under him like a couple of pretzels. A stain darkened and spread across the story-time carpet underneath him.
    Hey, Lloyd peed his pants!
yelled Jim.
    Lloyd closed his eyes.
    Peed his pants, peed his pants
. The class laughed.
    “Is this why we’re here?” I asked Wolfgang. “Is it Lloyd?”
    “Huh?”
    “Is
he
the one I’m supposed to remember?”
    I was thinking back to what Tadeusz had said about these memories showing me who I should treat