Luther Mishmash stood numbly in the yard, dumbly staring at the soiled pair of underpants flapping lazily in the breeze on the wash line. Grandpa had wet himself again. Tomorrow, at school, he knew he'd hear about it. Luther wasn't sure which was more humiliating; to let the other kids go on thinking that at 13 he still wet his pants, or to tell them that inside his house, half-blind, eating Oreos and watching cartoons all day, sat his incontinent grandfather.
As much as Luther hated school, he loathed the hours between its dismissal and dinner even more. From 3 o'clock until his mother's voice announced meatloaf and salvation, he haunted Lilac Lane like an acne-ridden Phantom of the Opera. To just sit inside the house was out of the question. His mother's pitying glances as she busied herself with housework. Her probing questions about whether he wouldn't rather be outside on such a nice afternoon. How he longed to be part of the neighborhood pick-up football game, but how he feared the ridicule that his athletic ineptitude would foster if he was.
Such was life, when you were the ugliest guy in the seventh grade.
Lucy Montalongo stared down into the deep-fat fryer, rivulets of sweat beading on her nose, hanging for a moment, then falling into the bubbling grease. Sometimes, she fantasized about plunging her head in the scalding liquid. She wondered if it'd hurt, or if death would be quick, painless and forever. With her luck, she thought, she wouldn't die. She'd just have to go to school the next day and endure the taunts of her classmates, not to mention the fact that her dad would be mad because she had ruined a batch of chicken.
Lucy didn't mind working after school.
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