Better off Dead A Lucy Hart, Deathdealer - By Eva Sloan Page 0,6

on (amazingly Gram always seemed to be able to get the grease stains, and most importantly, the smell of McDonalds out of her uniform), her heart sank and shrank in her chest.

Today was her eighteenth birthday.

Happy Birthday!!!

As she pulled her still long, yet not nearly radiant, hair back in a tight ponytail, she considered for the hundredth time just calling off. But truthfully she had nothing else to do, and no one to do it with. She had no friends to go out with. She’d gone from teen queen to a complete nobody in her new high school—the new girl with a mean chip on her shoulder and discount clothes on her back. Her mother was working her usual Saturday night shift, and her grandmother was busy at a church bake sale. So calling off would mean being completely alone on her birthday.

And anyway, she had already seen the ugly truth: her life was pretty much over, and working on her birthday was just one more thing she’d have to get used to.

She trudged downstairs and poured herself a cup of coffee from the pot her grandmother had made fresh before she’d gone out. She was tempted to just drink it black. There would be no more apropos symbolic gesture for the turn her life had taken. But the mere thought of coffee without cream and sugar made her want to gag. So she made her coffee just as she always did—some milk and three sugars—and stood leaning against the worn metal and Formica kitchen counter, taking in the tattered yet spotless old kitchen, and the lonely silence of the house. Even her loser brother had friends in Four Corners, and he was staying the night with one of them as she sipped her coffee.

Another thing she’d lost that he hadn’t.

~*~

The bus ride from San Bernardino to Four Corners had only been the first of many trips she had taken on a bus. Though all buses looked alike, they certainly didn’t smell alike. Some smelled of feet and body odor. Some smelled of industrial strength air freshener (the driver’s halfhearted attempt at masking the stench. But that usually just made the bus smell like lilac scented gym socks).

But there was one driver—her name was Shirley—who actually kept her bus spotless, and Lucy always took a seat close to the front on the days she’d catch her bus.

Shirley talked to anyone and everyone, her curiosity seemingly boundless. The best part for Lucy, though, was that Shirley would just let you sit there in silence as she happily drove and chatted up others. Yet somehow she made you feel as if you were in on the conversation.

Today Lucy caught Shirley’s bus and she happily took her usual seat, fading into the scenery as Shirley told a rather old man with a wrinkled radish for a nose that her petunias were shriveling on the vine. “It’s just not natural,” she continued, pushing a large frizzy strand of her red hair out of her eyes. “I water them three times a week. I even have one of those Miracle Grow attachment doohickeys.”

Mr. Radish Nose scratched his ginormous red nose and then asked, “Are they in direct sunlight?”

“Well, of course they are!” Shirley smiled. “I read the packet the seeds came in.”

“Well, that’s true for out east. But for the climate out here the sun’s just too harsh. And though pretty and hearty, those things fare better in the shade in these parts.”

Shirley made a little humph noise, and then straightened her shoulders. “Makes sense.” She smiled into her rearview mirror at Mr. Radish Nose. “I’m off in two days, so I’ll go ahead and transplant them to the other side of the house. There’s a good shady spot right beneath my kitchen window.”

Mr. Radish Nose nodded his head in agreement.

Lucy smiled and caught Shirley’s bright green eyes looking at her. “Gotta work on your birthday, huh?”

Lucy’s jaw dropped and she shook her head. “How did you...?”

Shirley smiled knowingly as she smoothed her dark red hair back again into the little flip she’d styled it into. “When you’ve been doing this as long as I have, you can just tell. And the look on your face invariably means it’s your birthday, and you have to work.”

“You’re amazing. You should be on TV.”

Shirley gave a honking laugh. “I’d sure as blazes be better at it than that god awful Dr Phil.” She shook her shoulders with a chill. Lucy knew what would come next. “And that