The 10 P.M. Question Read Online Free PDF

from his face, and the Seamus Kearney character had a head shaped like a pumpkin.
    There was a new character in this cartoon. A stick figure with preposterously pointy breasts and a head of writhing snake hair. A torrent of letters was tumbling from her large, open mouth, and helmeted exclamation marks were dragging her away to a police van. The Frankie stick figure was wiping sweat from his brow and muttering, “Lucky escape, lucky escape.”
    “Um,” said Frankie, quickly crumpling the paper. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Gigs smiling.
    “Um . . .” He was finding it hard to think straight.
    “Spit it out,” whispered Sydney loudly. “You want to or not? Be good.”
    What
was
good, Frankie thought, suddenly clear about something, was the way she said exactly what she wanted. It was unusual. It was refreshing. She wasn’t like any girl he’d ever met before. Or any boy, come to that. She didn’t seem to care what people would think. She spoke her mind, as they said in books.
    “Um,” he said for the fourth time.
    She bulged her eyes at him as she had on the bus.
    “Okay,” he said, putting the balled paper in his pocket and not looking at Gigs. “Okay, but can it be about birds? I’m best at them.”
    “No problem,” said Sydney, opening her dictionary and getting down to work.
    Very busily not looking at Gigs, Frankie opened his
Concise Oxford
and stabbed the open page with his finger.
    Perplexed:
per·plekst,
ppl,
involved in doubt and anxiety about a matter on account of its intricate character; bewildered, puzzled
.
    It really was
uncanny,
Frankie thought, keeping his eyes resolutely on the tip of his pen as he copied the definition. It was downright odd how often the Word of the Day seemed to actually be about his life. He speculated about a sentence.
    He was extremely perplexed by the unusual behavior of his best friend.
    He tried another stab just to see what would happen.
    Vexed:
vekst,
ppl, distressed, grieved, annoyed, irritated . . .
    Frankie banged the dictionary shut. It was too weird.
    He knew his friend was very vexed because his normally cheerful face was creased and cross-looking.
    He opened the dictionary and tried a third time.
    Portal
: por·tal,
n, an entrance to a place, or any means of access to something
.
    That was better, Frankie thought. He glanced across the table. Gigs, with head down, was scribbling.
    The portal to the Tower was as high as a house and decorated with ferocious gargoyles. Ravens circled overhead. . . .
    Frankie sighed. But why was life always so complicated?
    “So,” said Frankie, “how was
your day?” He lay down beside Ma, on top of her duvet.
    Ma put down her book. She was reading
Crime and Punishment
by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, which Frankie happened to know was her second favorite Russian novel. Her absolute favorite was
Anna Karenina
by Leo Tolstoy. Ma had wanted to call Frankie Leo, but there was already an L in the family.
    “Pretty good,” said Ma. “Eight cakes, three slices, and a new
biscuit
.
Albanesi. White wine, olive oil, flour, and castor sugar. Strange but nice.”
    Frankie stared as usual at the painting hanging beside Ma’s bed. It was dark and a little menacing and not at all the kind of picture Frankie would want to look at as he went to sleep, but Ma was devoted to it. A ghostly woman with long yellow hair stood, waiting, beside a four-poster bed hung with transparent draperies. The brushwork was so fine you could make out each strand of the woman’s hair and the strain in her whitened knuckles.
    “So,” said Frankie, still looking at the painting. “We got this bird flu handout at school.”
    “That’s good,” said Ma. “Good they’re distributing information in schools.”
    “And this house hasn’t got any of the stuff we need,” said Frankie. “Except what’s in the earthquake kit.”
    “What do we need?” said Ma.
    “Heaps,” said Frankie. “Practically everything. Flour, tea, tinned fruit. Surgical