The Monster Variations Read Online Free Page A

“Look,” he’d say, “I have a scar there, just like my mom.” It was unclear to Willie why James would want such a thing, or why he’d go through so much pain to keep it for only a few seconds.
    At the top of the Ferris wheel they sat together and rocked as someone, miles below, got off. Reggie pointed to the lights at the edge of town and with a whoosh of breath tried to blow them out like candles. James announced that he wanted to be a baseball player when he grew up, but that it would never happen because he was too skinny. Willie asked James what kind of car his parents drove, because his mom wanted one just like it but said it was too expensive. One day, predicted Reggie, he would be a famous criminal or famous cop, either one was okay with him. James said he’d be the cop who caught Reggie the robber, or the robber who evaded his cop, and their gunfights would go down in history. Willie asked if either of them knew of any good jobs for his dad, because he’d just been fired—he was good at selling things, maybe he could sell toys or sports equipment? Reggie tapped a finger on the car’s railing and said
this
, this very moment, was perfect because they were so highup that no one below could see them, and as far as anyone knew there could be anyone in this car: men, legends, ghosts, monsters.
    When the sun dipped just below the trees, Reggie and James turned bright orange and their eyes flashed like those of African tigers. Willie wondered if he looked that way, too, and now wished he had the sexy-lady mirror so he could see. The boys smiled, but with closed lips. They measured each other’s reactions, then tested them by saying things that were mean and confusing. They spit and squatted in the dust like carnival men and acted as if they knew all about life and death—and maybe Willie knew about death, just a little.
    It had been at a golden hour just like this one, three weeks ago, with Willie recently freed from the hospital and his mother’s side and reintroduced to the land of the living, that Reggie had made the three of them join as blood brothers, cutting their palms with an old buck knife and holding them together while they all looked at their feet, suddenly shy.
    “I’d give anything to be old,” Reggie had said that day, his voice hoarse, watching the dark red liquid roll down the last middle finger Willie had.
    Against all odds, night came. There was a man picking up trash with a poker. The rides lost their blinking lights. Reggie kicked the dirt, unhappy. James mumbled about his parents and how they’d warned him to be home hours ago, how they were probably already on thephone trying to find him. Willie, meanwhile, sat and watched his two friends, taller and bolder and better-looking than he, and with two arms each. But instead of being jealous Willie was only glad. It was summer, he had made it after all, and any new pain he felt certain he could swallow whole.

Where All Jokers
Must Make a Jump
    A kid was dead. It was a kid James and Reggie and Willie knew from school, a pudgy sixth grader with a florid complexion named Greg Johnson. Greg had been run over by a truck around eight-thirty a few nights ago, right after buying a soda at a corner store. None of the witnesses recalled the make, model, or color of the vehicle, but nevertheless swore that the truck never slowed down. It ran over Greg Johnson like he was made of paper. Grown-ups were calling the event a “ hit-and-run.” What worried everyone was that it had only been nine weeks since Willie Van Allen had lost his arm.
    Last night there had been a big meeting. It was a small town and when two kids got hit by trucks, this apparently was what grown-ups did. Naturally the Van Allen parents had attended and so had James Wahl’s folks. Reggie Fielder’s mom, a waitress, was working that night, so Reggie relied on James and Willie to relay the details.
    But there was only one detail that mattered, according to James. There was going