The Lit Report Read Online Free

supposed to be scared straight by bad food, worse music and mandatory participation in team sports. It won’t work. Jonah knows how to wait it out too. And besides, he’s already straight.
    When I got to Ruth’s house on Friday afternoon, Pete was putting up Christmas decorations on the front lawn. Even though it was pretty cold out, he was wearing a tight, white, short-sleeved, V-neck T-shirt and no jacket. I could see the spider web tattoo on his left elbow and the skull on his right forearm and a thorn or two of Christ’s crown peeking out of his chest hair. I was glad it wasn’t July. July means tank tops.
    â€œHey, Julia,” he said, gesturing toward the grotesque inflatable nativity scene he was assembling. “Whaddaya think? She’s a beauty, eh?”
    â€œSure, Mr. Walters,” I said. “It’s a marvel of ingenuity.” I knew he wouldn’t want to hear that the wise men, especially Balthazar, looked like sand-weighted drag queens, or that the Baby Jesus could use a little more air.
    â€œYou should see it lit up, baby. Once I get the star on the roof—Praise Jesus! People will drive by and stop their cars and get out and fall on their knees!”
    â€œSure, Mr. Walters,” I said again. Fall on their knees laughing, I thought.
    â€œBe sure and come by some night,” he said, turning back to pumping up the Virgin Mary. “Bring your mom. I miss her pretty face at the church.”
    â€œSure, Mr. Walters,” I said for the third time as I went up the front stairs and rang the doorbell. It played the first few notes of “Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus.” I shivered, but not from the cold.
    Peggy opened the door and greeted me with her usual warmth and charm. Peggy always smells as if she’s bathed in Mr. Clean.
    â€œOh, it’s you, Julia. Go on up.”
    â€œThanks, Mrs. Walters. That’s a lovely apron.” I know better than to call her Peggy to her face.
    But she had already turned and was halfway to the kitchen before I started up the stairs to Ruth’s room. I’ve been in Ruth’s house so many times that I don’t even notice anymore how weird it is that the downstairs is immaculate and the upstairs looks as if the Hell’s Angels are having a sleepover. I guess the fact that Two-Percent was living in Jonah’s room didn’t help. Pete and Peggy’s spotless bedroom and gleaming en suite bathroom was downstairs in the clean zone. Ruth’s room was okay, though. Kind of dark, due to scab-colored curtains, and a bit smelly, due to the incense Ruth burns to cover up other smells, but still strangely cozy.
    Ruth had been decorating her room ever since she could hold a crayon, use a pair of scissors and jab a pushpin into drywall. She never takes anything off the walls, so her room is a giant collage. She calls it Installation One: Childhood, and she says that when she leaves home she’s going to rip everything down and burn it in the backyard incinerator. I hope she doesn’t. There are pictures of us at Bible camp underneath our grade five report about tree frogs; there’s Jonah’s recipe for key lime pie, a ticket stub from the firstmovie we ever went to (
Babe
) and a signed photograph of Billy Bob Thornton. Every time I go to Ruth’s there’s something new on the walls. Today it was a lacy Day-Glo orange thong, splayed on the wall like a giant butterfly.
    Ruth was lying in bed reading
People
magazine. On her night table was a yellow plate with toast crusts on it; beside the plate was a can of ginger ale. Beside the bed was an empty plastic ice-cream bucket. Ruth’s hair, which she had recently dyed blue, was pulled back in a ponytail, and she was wearing red- and white-flowered pajamas. Her face was very pale.
    I giggled and Ruth frowned. “Don’t laugh at me. I puked on my T-shirt,” she said, pointing at the pajamas. “Peggy made me put these on.