Page 34 of The Intruder

The little boy looks at me, then back at his brother, pouting. “But you said we could!”

“Yeah, later.” Anton shoves his little brother out of the way, but he’s gentle about it—almost playful. He’s careful not to hurt the younger boy. “Quit bothering me, and we’ll play after dinner.”

Brad follows us down the hallway, but when we disappear inside Anton’s room, he doesn’t bother us anymore. “Sorry,” Anton tells me.

“It’s okay,” I tell him, not bothering to say that I wish I had a little brother or sister.

Anton’s room is really small, and I wouldn’t say it’s neat, but it’s better than mine anyway. There aren’t any fish tanks, that’s for sure. He’s got some dirty clothes on the floor, but they are pushed to the side of the room, and you can easily walk through it without relying on trails. He’s even got a desk that is mostly cleared to work on. I was worried the room might smell like cigarettes because he smokes, but it doesn’t smell like that at all.

“So tell me how you want to do this.” Anton sits on the edge of his bed, letting me have the desk. “Like, tell me how we’re supposed to divide up the work.”

I take my binder out of my backpack and lay it out on his desk. It’s so nice to have the space to work on rather than trying to get everything done on my bed. I take the cap off my pen and lay it down next to the notebook without having to worry it will get lost in the sheets.

“Well,” I say, “I guess it makes the most sense for each of us to take one type of rock and research it; then we can compare them together.”

“Yeah, makes sense.” He looks down at his watch. “All right, so we’ve got an hour to do this before my dad gets home. Well, he might be home later if he stops at the bar. And if that happens, you really don’t want to be here.”

He flinches when he says it, then looks a little embarrassed, like he said too much. Except I don’t know how he could be embarrassed about anything after seeing my house.

“Sorry,” he says. “My dad is a huge asshole, that’s all.”

I tap my pen on my notebook. “You know, I got my mom to stop drinking.”

His eyebrows shoot up. “Really? How?”

“Well…” This is something I have never told anyone, and I can’t believe I’m about to tell Anton, my sworn enemy. “I used to do chores for my neighbor, and while I was at her house, I found this bottle of something called ipecac. I looked it up, and it makes you throw up. So I put a few drops of it in all my mother’s liquor bottles.”

Anton’s mouth falls open. “Seriously?”

I nod. “Yeah, it totally made her throw up, and then she stopped drinking altogether. I guess she got sick of being sick.”

“Wow…”

“I could bring it for you,” I say. “I still have most of the bottle left.”

“Yeah, I’ll take it.” He grins at me but then winces and touches his split lower lip. “You’re actually pretty cool, Ella.”

I sniff. “Glad you noticed.”

“I always noticed.”

Yeah, right. “Really? Then how come you called me names all the time?”

“Well, because Smella rhymes with Ella, obviously.” He looks down, picking at a hole in his bedspread. “I don’t know. Nothing ever seems to get to you, but when I called you that, your face would get all red. Same color as your hair.”

I don’t know what to say to that. He’s right. Usually I let insults roll off me, but somehow when Anton called me out, it got to me.

“Anyway, I’m sorry.” He lifts his eyes, the right one tinged with purple bruising from yesterday. “I swear I won’t call you that again.”

I don’t know if I believe him, but I’ll still bring him the bottle of ipecac. If his dad is half as bad as my mom, he could use it. Anyway, Mrs. Fleming doesn’t have any use for it anymore. She still hasn’t been back home since her little accident. I’m guessing she hasn’t woken up, or else the police might have shown up at my door.

I start to make an outline, dividing up how we’re going to do the work on the project. I didn’t notice it, but the sleeve of my sweatshirt rode up as I was writing, and the angry red blister from the cigarette burn last night is now visible. Anton has been leaning over my shoulder, and his eyes widen when he sees it.

“What happened to your arm?” he asks me.

“Nothing,” I mumble.

“It looks like a burn or something.”