The Safety of Objects: Stories Read Online Free PDF Page B

them on the end of the bed doesn’t seem like the kind of person who would mess with a kid. I reached down, grabbed my clothes, and put them on under the covers.
    “Hey, Johnny,” Randy said when he came back into the room. He was carrying a tray made out of cardboard. On the tray was a plate of eggs and toast and a glass of juice.
    “I’m sick, I can’t eat.”
    “Oh, but you have to eat, you’re a growing boy.”
    “I want to go home.”
    “Your mother won’t want you back if you’re sick.”
    “She’ll take care of me.”
    “Don’t be a baby, Johnny.”
    “Today’s my day to collect lunch money,” I said.
    You said you were sick. Do you go to school when you’re sick? Don’t play games with me. Eat your breakfast.”
    I shook my head.
    “What did I tell you to do?” he yelled. The veins in his neck popped out and he went white like sugar. “You do what I tell you and never say no to me, you hear. Never say no to me.”
    I looked at Randy and thought about how some people were jerks. I thought about how I couldn’t wait to be grown up, to have my own private TV, to be alone always. “Now, what did I tell you?”
    “Eat the breakfast,” I said.
    “So do it.”
    “I’m allergic to eggs.” I took small bites of the toast.
    “Are you really allergic?” he asked. “Do you want cereal? There are some Rice Krispies in the kitchen. Do you want Krispies?”
    “No.” I paused. “I want to call my mother and tell her I’m sick. She’ll come get me.”
    “I don’t have a phone, Johnny. There isn’t a phone.”
    Randy stood there watching me. He watched everything I did like I was something under a microscope. “Do you like to read?” I shrugged. He pulled a stack of old magazines out from under the bed. “I saved these for you. I have to do some work outside. Is there anything you need?”
    “Where’s the TV?”
    “Don’t say television to me. It’ll kill you. It makes you so you can’t think. Can you think, Johnny?”
    I shrugged and he walked out. Randy’s magazines were the slippery kind that parents read. They were the kind that Rayanne would spread out all over the floor of the dentist’s office and then go skiing on until my mother stopped her. I got out of bed and walked down the hall. The first room was Randy’s. It was small and filled with light. There were two windows and a breeze was leaking in from somewhere. The air seemed to spin around, picking up dirt from the floor, making it dance and glow like gold. There was a mattress with green striped sheets, and rows of empty soda bottles, alternating Yoohoo, RC, and Mountain Dew, were lined up around the edges of the room, across the windowsill, everywhere. I was in the room, looking, and Randy’s hands sank down on my shoulders as if they were taking a bite out of me. He gripped me by the muscle across the top of my back, across my shoulders.
    “I was just looking,” I said.
    “Whose room is this?” he said.
    I shrugged.
    “Whose?” he asked.
    “Yours.”
    “Did I say you could look? Did I say you could come in here? Did you ask? No!” he yelled into my face. “Some things belong to a person himself. They’re private and you can’t take them away.”
    I could smell his breath. It was hot like a dog’s. I tried to turn my head away, but he held it straight. He held it with his thumb pressed under my chin.
    “You can’t have everything. I don’t go into your room, looking at your things, do I?”
    I wanted to tell him that my room was at home and the room down the hall didn’t have anything in it except a bed with blue flowered sheets and a Pepto Bismol–colored blanket. I wanted to tell him that he was starting to remind me of Rayanne because she always asked me to tell her things and then would explain them back to me all wrong.
    “You really are a case,” he said and then walked out of the room. I followed him down the hall. “Are you a lost dog?” he asked.
    “No,” I said.
    He put his hand on my