Whitechurch Read Online Free PDF Page A

neighborhood? You got no business in this neighborhood. You got no friends in this neighborhood—”
    “Ya, but I got money to pay for my ice cream now,” he said, slapping two dollars on the counter. I noticed all the other kids had scrammed. “And I got myself awful thirsty in the process. Howsabout a Coke?”
    “My cigarette’s nearly out,” Stan called, and the truck growled into action. As he looked back our way, Stan fixed Pauly with a stare and, with crack marksmanship, flicked the last of his cigarette at his head.
    “Take me with you,” Pauly said.
    “No,” Stan said, putting the truck in gear.
    “Then come hang out with me,” Paul called, trotting alongside us. “This looks boring as hell anyway.”
    “Can’t,” I said.
    “Didn’t mean you, numbnuts. I meant her.”
    Lilly marveled at us. “Between the two of you … you guys must laugh all day long.”
    “All day long,” I said, and went to sit up with Stan. Lilly hung back to wave to Pauly, as he ran along with the truck.
    I watched out of the corner of my unconcerned, unjealous, unboyfriendy eye. Watched Lilly watching Pauly. She liked him, no question, in a way … well, in another way. The rat.
    Then I looked at the rat himself, chugging along after us like a nutter.
    She had every reason in the world to like him. I knew that. Most people didn’t. Now Lilly did.
    “He says he wrote me a poem,” Lilly called to us.
    Lilly smiled. Stan did not. Not even a half of a half of a smile. He gunned the engine. Gunning the engine of the Good Humor wagon was not exactly heading into hyperspace, but it was jarring enough, looking at Stan’s pale face go pink, listening to the motor strain and groan and slowly overtake the tinkling ice-cream-man music, then the blast of the radio. The whole machine rumbled and shook, made worse by Stan’s jagged little jerks of the wheel and inexplicable pattern of gear shifting. I looked back to see black smoke billowing in Pauly’s face.
    “Can you stop, Stan?” I asked.
    “No, I just got it into third—”
    “Please,” I said, and though he remained in his fringes of society-slanted, hard-guy glower, he worked us back down into second … first … park.
    Pauly was winded but couldn’t wait.
    Whatsername #1
    All day I follow
    Bad Humor Man
    Freak Albino Burnout
    Stan
    Just so I can meet
    The Girl
    Let’s just say her name is
    Pearl
    The one who’s gonna change
    My Luck
    Get close to me
    and lose the Duck
    It must have been some serious effort to pull that off smoothly, because as soon as Pauly finished reciting, he went into spasms of wheezing and coughing like he would die.
    “Come here, come here, come here,” Lilly said, cracking open a Coke and nearly pouring it into him. Pauly slurped at it like a baby being bottle-fed. Lilly shook her head as she watched and, no doubt, replayed the words in her head.
    “What is it about this town?” she said. “All these, like, good-sir-knight kind of guys. I never met anybody like you people. It’s like Camelot around here.”
    “Hey,” Stan yelled. “Bad Humor Man Freak Albino?” He tried to sound mad, but he came off more like, proud. “I have a very good humor.”
    “So who’s the duck?” I blurted. “Huh, Pauly? Is that me? I’m the duck then, is that it?”
    Pauly started laughing, then wheezing.
    “Pearl,” Lilly said. “Pearl. That’s lovely, isn’t it? You’re really good at that … poetry. Turning ordinary things into special things. That’s how it works, isn’t it? You are really good….”
    “I can’t carry you all,” Stan said. “If that’s where we’re headed with this. That’s too much.”
    Paul was catching his breath, and backing away from the truck now.
    “No,” I said, and got down. “I really don’t want to ride anymore.” And it was true, I didn’t. And besides …
    “Get up there,” I said hard into Pauly’s ear.
    “I’m coming with you, Oakley,” Lilly said.
    “No, you have to work. And also …