She Has A Broken Thing Where Her Heart Should Be - J.D. Barker Page 0,4

to work, that stopped last year when I turned seven. She couldn’t afford it. She said it would be cheaper if she skipped work than going in and hiring someone to watch me. I didn’t need a sitter, anyway. Most of them sat around and talked to their boyfriends on the phone (a few in person), and they all completely ignored me.

We came to an arrangement. No more sitter, and she would give me one dollar to stay out of trouble and the dinner of my choosing. I always picked pizza. There was nothing better than pizza. I used some of my newfound wealth to purchase comic books. The rest went into a mason jar hidden under my bed. At last count, I had thirty-two dollars saved.

Standing, I stretched and went to the window.

Auntie Jo was about a block down the road, across the street. I waited for her to duck through the door of Krendal’s Diner, where she worked, counted to ten, then put on my shoes and slipped out of the apartment.

I crossed the hall and knocked on the door to apartment 304. When nobody answered, I knocked again, louder this time. I was about to knock a third time, when the door opened about three inches, held in place by the metal security chain.

A pair of beady eyes came around the side of the door. Those eyes were behind a thick pair of glasses taped at the center on a wrinkled old face topped with an unruly mop of gray hair. Ms. Leech. “What?”

“You’ve got books, right?”

“You’ve got books? Is that really a proper greeting for one of your elders?”

I knew Ms. Leech had books because she used to watch me for the brief period that fell between the babysitters and Auntie Jo letting me stay home alone last year. She had shelves of books, newspapers, too. Auntie Jo said she was a hoarder.

“I need to find a copy of Great Expectations by Charles Dickers.”

“Charles Dickens?”

“Yeah, him. Do you have it?”

Ms. Leech looked past me to the open door of my apartment. “Where is your aunt?”

“Working.”

“You’re not supposed to leave your apartment when she’s working.”

“I didn’t leave it. It’s right there,” I gestured toward the open door. “If you let me borrow the book, you can have some of my pizza.”

Her eyes brightened at this. “You have pizza?”

“Not yet, but he’ll be here soon.”

Ms. Leech had a weak spot for pizza, particularly pepperoni. Sometimes she even put pineapple on her pizza. Auntie Jo said she might be going senile; I think I agreed. Pineapple had no business on pizza.

She closed the door, removed the chain, and ushered me inside. “Yes, I have books. I have lots of books. I think I have that one somewhere.”

When she went to close the door, I reminded her we’d have to listen for the pizza guy. She left it open about an inch. She didn’t want to. I caught her looking back at it twice. Ms. Leech had been robbed once, about ten years ago, from what Auntie Jo told me. They busted right through her door, came into the apartment, and did bad things. Nobody told me exactly what those bad things might have been, but she didn’t go out much. She said they followed her home, and as long as she didn’t go out anymore, nobody could follow her back again. Auntie Jo bought her groceries when she got ours. I don’t think I ever saw Ms. Leech outside the building.

“I’ll watch the door,” I told her. “You go find the book.”

This seemed to calm her.

She nodded and began her trek through the living room, careful not to knock any of the newspaper stacks over. “It’s nice to see you take an interest in the classics, but don’t you think you should start out with something like Hucleberry Finn? Mark Twain is so much better than that Brit ever was. Dickens gets all flowery and wordy. I sometimes think he checked the cover to remind himself what book he was writing, he gets so wrapped up in his own words. Twain is nice and direct, to the point, much more concise.”

“This is for school,” I lied.

“Has school started already?” her voice was muffled. I couldn’t see her anymore, somewhere on the other side of the room.

“Not for two more weeks, but Mrs. Thomas told us to read it over the summer.”

“Seems like advanced reading for third grade.”

“I’m going into the fourth grade.”

“Oh, well then…”

I had no idea what grade