FRITA WAS REAL SORE AT ME AFTER THAT—DESPITE THE REAL NICE funeral we held in her backyard. She didn’t call me on the phone or ask me to come over for two whole days, and when we finally did get together, it was another day and a half before things were back to normal. Only they weren’t exactly back to normal. Frita didn’t mention our lists again once. Not even when I told her I’d crossed off number twenty-three since she’d forgiven me.
Life was strained. Summer was at its peak—you couldn’t move an inch without breaking a sweat—and there’s nothing worse than suffering in the heat while your best friend is sore at you. The only saving grace was the Bicentennial. It was on its way and we were real excited.
The last week of June, me and Frita met up in Hollowell to get ice cream cones. I’d saved up my allowance every day since I’d squished the centipede, so it was my treat. Frita got a strawberry cone and I got a vanilla one and we sat on the lawn in front of the town hall to eat them. That was a good spot because you could listen in on everyone’s conversations.
“You got those fireworks set for the Fourth, Joe?”
“How about those sparklers for the kids?”
“Who’s in charge of the parade floats this year?”
Everyone had something to say, and it was fun listening to them with ice cream dripping down your chin. At least, it was fun until Duke and his pop pulled up in their old monster truck. I’d been trying not to think about Duke all summer, but now I remembered him right quick.
“Let’s go,” I said to Frita, but she stayed put.
“They’re not gonna chase me away,” she said. She was pretending to be brave, but I noticed how she watched real careful while Mr. Evans climbed out of the truck. Duke climbed out after him and said something to his pop. Then he glared at me and Frita, but she glared straight back. Mr. Evans glanced over at us but he didn’t say anything. He just kept walking to the general store.
“See?” said Frita. “That wasn’t so bad.” But I wondered who she was trying to convince—me or herself. I was glad Mr. Evans hadn’t called Frita any names again, but I didn’t want to stick around until they came back.
“C’mon,” I said. “Let’s go back to my house and make another obstacle course.”
I tried to pull Frita up with me, but she didn’t budge. Her eyes narrowed into slits like she was getting an idea. Then they started to sparkle again. I couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Only thing I knew for certain was it meant trouble.
“I got a better idea,” Frita said.
“What?” I asked, real suspicious. I sure hoped it didn’t involve bugs.
Frita’s chin jutted out like it did when she got something in her head she was going to be stubborn about. “Gabe,” she said, “it’s time to do some liberatin’.”
* * *
The thing about trouble is, if you think you’re going to land in it, you can be pretty certain you’re right. One minute I was sitting outside the town hall with an ice cream cone, and the next minute I was crouched in a pricker bush outside Duke Evans’s trailer.
Looked like our fear-busting was back in business.
“You sure we should do this?” I asked, peering between the branches.
“Yup,” said Frita. “Duke’s trailer is on your list, right? Well, it’s on mine too, so now’s our chance.”
We were just a few feet away from the edge of Duke’s yard.
“What if someone’s home?”
“We know they’re not,” Frita said, “that’s why we’ve got to do it now.”
I sniffed the air, remembering what Duane Patterson said about Mrs. Evans’s corpse. I didn’t smell anything, but there wasn’t any wind today.
“Duane said they’ve got Dobermans in there,” I whispered.
Frita wiped her brow.
“I don’t hear any barking,” she said, but we both stayed real silent just in case. I hadn’t put Dobermans on my list, but that was only ’cause I hadn’t thought of them at the time. Truth was, I’d rank them right close to spiders.
“Didn’t your momma and daddy say not to come around here?” I said.
I could hear Mrs. Wilson’s voice in my head. “Don’t you go near that place. You hear me, Frita Wilson?” She’d said it a hundred times. Then I thought about what Pop had said about me and Frita needing to watch ourselves. Maybe this was what he’d meant.
“Pop said we ought to be careful—” I started, but Frita interrupted me.
“Hush up,” she said. “Didn’t I tell you that liberatin’ is serious business?”
I nodded.
“Well, there’s no kind of serious business that isn’t risky. Besides, we’re watching out, aren’t we? Why else do you think we’re in the bushes?”
I had to admit Frita had a point.
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s check things out. I bet you two dollars it’s not so scary once we get up close.”
Frita darted out of the bushes, but I grabbed her back again and held on tight.
“Don’t be a scaredy-cat,” Frita told me, real stern. “It’s broad daylight.”
Frita pulled loose of my grip. She dodged an old tire and a car fender, then she hesitated. We’d never been this close before. I closed my eyes and held my breath. Then I opened one eye and watched as Frita darted the rest of the way to the door. She touched it with her palm, then looked back over her shoulder and grinned.
“See?” she said. “Not so scary. I told you.”
Far as I was concerned, Frita could have all the glory. I stayed planted in my spot, but Frita didn’t put up with that.
“Get over here, Gabriel King,” she hollered. “You can’t cross this off your list unless you get out of that pricker bush.”
I crawled out and scooted around to the back of the trailer where Frita was trying to see in the back window. There were a thousand voices screaming inside my head and every one of them was telling me to run, but Frita couldn’t hear them.
“Let’s see if Mrs. Evans’s corpse is really in there,” she said. “I’ll give you a boost.”
I shook my head. “No way.”
“You have to,” Frita told me. “I’m too big for you to boost up, and we can’t see in even on tiptoes. All you got to do is look.”
“What if I see her?”
Frita was making her hands into a cup shape so I could step into them.
“Well, then you can cross corpses off your list too.”
Huh. I hadn’t thought of that. I guessed the quickest way out of there was to take a peek, so I put one foot in Frita’s palms and rested the other one on the side of the trailer to balance. Then I put my hands on the window and pulled myself up. The old wood was scratchy beneath my palms.
“What do you see?” Frita asked. “Do you see Mrs. Evans? Is she dead?”
Frita was pouring out questions, but truth was I couldn’t be sure exactly what I saw. The old curtain hanging over the window made everything look ghostly white.
“I see some furniture,” I said, “and there’s a pile of clothes in one corner. There’re some shoes in the pile and…” Wait! Were those shoes, or were they feet? Sure did look like feet. Maybe underneath that pile of rags was Duke’s dead momma. Maybe that’s why our parents didn’t want us near here. I turned to look at Frita, but all I saw was Mrs. Evans coming at me with a broom.
“You kids get away from here!”
Frita let loose such a high-pitched scream, a dog started yelping from across the street. She pulled her hands out from under my feet so fast, I didn’t know what had happened. One minute I was peeking in the window trying to trace the outline of a corpse, and the next minute I was lying on my back in a cloud of dust and Mrs. Evans was raising her broom high above my head.
For a minute I was frozen stiff, but then that broom was coming down quick. I rolled onto my side and clambered to my feet. I felt like I’d been hit by an eighteen-wheeler, but I got up and ran like the dickens.
“Don’t you kids be coming around here! I don’t want to catch you near this place ever again. If I do, I’ll…”
I could hear her yelling after us halfway back to my place. On every other occasion Frita could run way faster than me, but I was so scared I clear out beat her to my trailer. I got there a full minute before she did.
Frita could barely catch her breath.
“What did you…Can you believe…Did you see…”
She lay down on the ground, sprawled out like a limp rag doll, and I sat down beside her, my heart still thumping.
“Gabe,” she said at last, breathing hard, “I think we nearly got ourselves killed.”
That was the God’s honest truth. We’d gone in worrying about one corpse and come out worrying about two.