Walking Backward Read Online Free

sheets. I don’t understand why they make pajamas from cloth that shrinks. When a kid pees the bed every night after his mom dies, it makes sense to wash all the dirty stuff together in hot water. Now Sammy’s running around in pajamas that are too small, and it’ll be years before Dad gets off his butt to go buy new ones.
    Aunt Laura came over yesterday to return a pie plate Mom brought to her house at Easter. She said she’d come back soon and take us pajama shopping. Maybe by then I’ll have some strong feelings to write about.

Saturday, August 4 th
    I ’m starting to think maybe Dad put the snake in Mom’s car. On purpose. Maybe not to kill her, but to stop her from going out. He was ticked off that she was going to work on a Saturday, because it meant he had to stay home and babysit. That’s what he called it when he looked after us—babysitting. Like he was getting paid for it.
    The police suspected Dad at first, but they couldn’t prove anything. Babysitting isn’t much of a motive. And a snake isn’t much of a weapon. It’s not something you’d see on America’s Most Wanted . But I think the police didn’t dig deep enough. Parents always have secrets they throw at their kids when it’s least expected. Like, “Hey, kids, I’m building a time machine to disappear in. Have a nice life.” I just know in my gut that he’s to blame.
    Maybe he thought Mom was going to leave us to be with some other guy. That happened to my friend, Ameer. His father kicked his mother out of the house because she was dating some other guy. He didn’t try to kill her, but he yells at her in the mall whenever they cross paths. I saw it once, when Ameer and I were buying soccer shoes. His mom came out of the jewelry store and stopped dead in her tracks. She smiled at Ameer, but then his dad started freaking out so she ran away, clutching her purse and looking terrified. Ameer’s dad kept yelling at her even after she’d turned the corner. I didn’t understand a word he screamed, because he wasn’t speaking English, but everybody in the mall could guess what he meant. Ameer never said a word. He just stared at the wall of sports socks. He hasn’t mentioned his mother once since she moved out. I think he’s still in shock over the whole thing.
    My friend Simpson was totally surprised when his parents divorced. His dad came home from work on a Friday three months ago and said he had big news. Simpson said his mom was excited, like she thought his dad was going to tell them he’d booked a family trip to France. Then his dad announced that he had a girlfriend who was pregnant and he was going to marry her. And that was it. He left. The next day a moving truck showed up. That’s the thing that bothered Simpson the most—the truck showing up on Saturday morning. It meant his dad had planned to leave long before he told Simpson and his mom. You just don’t know what parents are up to.
    Maybe Dad thought Mom was going to leave us to be with some other guy, so he wanted to kill her. A lot of men kill their wives, and I bet it comes as a total surprise to their kids. Some Darwin Award winners are men who tried to kill their wives, but ended up killing themselves because they were too stupid to think of a plan that would work. One guy threw his wife out the window, but she grabbed the power lines and saved herself. Then the guy jumped out the window to try to knock her off. How stupid is that? He crashed into the street, dead. And really, he deserved to die. It’s wrong to kill someone, especially your wife. Then you wouldn’t have anyone who loves you.
    I’m pretty sure Mom loved Dad, because she used to dance with him in the kitchen while she was making soup. That was the only thing she ever cooked: a hundred kinds of soup with cheese biscuits. They were all weird soups, like carrot and orange, or mushroom and black bean, or garlic and squash— nothing Sammy and I would ever eat, though the biscuits were good. If Dad