Lost Boys Read Online Free

them go away."
    "I don't think that'll work, Stevie. The more you try to make them leave, the more they'll stick around."
    "No, I don't mean make them go away. I mean make them go away. "
    "Do you want to hand me that roll of paper towels?"
    He did.
    "I'm not sure I'm clear on the difference between making them go away and making them go away."
    "You know. Like when Dad's programming. He makes everything go away."
    So he understood that about his father, and tho ught it might be useful. "You'll just concentrate on your schoolwork?"
    "Or whatever," said Stevie. "It's hard to concentrate on schoolwork because it's so dumb."
    "Maybe it won't be so dumb at this school."
    "Maybe."
    "I wish I could promise you that everything will be perfect, but I really don't think they'll treat you the way that Barry Wimmer got treated." DeAnne thought back to the couple of times she'd seen the boy when she brought treats or some project or a forgotten lunch to school. "Barry's the kind of kid who ... how can I put it?
    He's a walking victim."
    "Am 1 a victim?" asked Stevie.
    "Not a chance," said DeAnne. "You're too strong."
    "Not really" he said, looked at his hands.
    "I don't mean your body, Stevie. I mean your spirit is too strong. You kno w what you're doing. You know what you're about. You aren't looking to these kids to tell you who you are. You know who you are."
    "I guess."
    "Come on, who are you?" It was an old game, but he still enjoyed playing along, even though the original purpose of it -- preparing him to identify himself in case he got lost-was long since accomplished.
    "Stephen Bolivar Fletcher."
    "And who is that?"
    "Firstborn child and first son of the Junk Man and the Fish Lady."
    Of all his regular answers, that was her favorite, partly because the first time he ever said that, he had this sly little smile as if he knew he was intruding into grownup territory, as if he knew that his parents' pet names for each other were older than he was and in some sense had caused him to exist. As if he had some unconscious awareness that those names, even spoken in jest, had sexual undertones that he couldn't possibly understand but nevertheless knew all about.
    "And don't you forget it," she said cheerfully.
    "I won't," he said.
    "Mom," he said.
    "Yes?"
    "Please can't I stay home just a couple more days?"
    She sighed. "I really don't think so, Stevie. But I'll talk to your dad."
    "He'll just say the same thing."
    "Probably. We parents are like that."
    The worst moment was at breakfast on Monday. The kids were eating their hot cereal while Step was downing his Rice Krispies, looking over the newspaper as he ate. "This is almost as bad a newspaper as the one in Vigor," he said.
    "You aren't going to get the Washington Post unless you live in Washington," said DeAnne.
    "I don't want the Washington Post. I'd settle for the Salt Lake Tribune. Salt Lake is still a two-newspaper town, and here Steuben can't even support a paper that puts the international news on the front page."
    "Does it have Cathy? Does it have Miss Manners? Does it have Ann Landers?"
    "OK, so it has everything we need to make us happy."
    There was a honk outside.
    "They're early," said Step. "Do you think I have time to brush my teeth?"
    "Do you think you could stand to get through the day if you didn't?"
    He rushed from the table.
    "Who's early?" asked Stevie.
    "Your dad's car pool. For the first week or so one of the men from work is picking him up in the morning and bringing him home at night so we'll have the car to run errands and stuff."
    Stevie looked horrified. "Mom," he said. "What about school?"
    "That's the point. You'll be riding the bus after today, but your dad's carpooling so I'll have the car to take you to school."
    "Isn't Dad taking me for my first day?"
    Too late she remembered that when Stevie started kindergarten, she had still been recovering from Elizabeth's birth, and it was Step who took Stevie to his first day of school.
    "Does it really matter