The Kindest Lie(57)

The first candy bar sailed past him and slid across the floor.

With one bum arm, Midnight’s reflexes had slowed. All the video games he played helped, but he knew he’d always be one step behind his friends.

Focusing intently, he managed to catch the other candy bars and clutched them against his jacket.

A delivery guy wheeled in a stack of cases of Diet Coke on a panel truck. Midnight grinned at his buddies before he jumped on and pushed off on it like a skateboard. The other boys’ eyes widened in amazement.

Even if they had been on the witness stand with their right hands raised to God, they couldn’t pinpoint for sure which of them had knocked over the tiered display of Funyuns. When the yellow bags of onion rings tumbled, one after another, to the floor, a large, red-faced man appeared in front of them. The name stitched on his striped gas station shirt was Dale.

“What the hell is going on here?” he said, breathing hard. Sebastian and Pancho started backing up slowly. “Don’t you dare try to run away.”

When Corey stooped to pick up as many of the fallen bags of Funyuns as he could, the wet soles of his boots squeaked on the floor. Dale snatched the onion rings from his hands. “Were you trying to steal from my store, kid?”

“No, sir,” Corey said.

“Open up your jacket.”

That request from Dale must have confused Corey as it did Midnight and the other boys. All of them stayed silent, glancing at each other, unsure of what was going on, only understanding it wasn’t good.

“Did you hear me? Either you open your jacket, so I can see what you stole, or I’m calling the cops.”

Other customers in the store had stopped their shopping to stare. Without thinking, Midnight said, “He didn’t steal anything.”

He couldn’t help but remember the day those older boys set him on fire, yet Daddy and other people accused Corey of doing something he didn’t do. Some people in this town would never give Corey a break.

“Will you just be quiet?” Corey said under his breath, the fright on his face surprisingly more intense as Midnight defended him.

Dale kept his angry eyes on Corey, who pulled loose the snaps on his jacket. The zipper got stuck and Corey pulled hard until his coat opened. When Dale was satisfied there were no hidden bags of Funyuns, he said with a growl, “Get out of here. All of you.”

Sebastian and Pancho ran to the door, but Corey walked slowly as if he knew Dale was still watching him. Midnight, who followed behind, turned back to the gas station owner and said, “Told you so.”

Corey turned around. “Will you shut up?”

Once they were back outside, Izzy stood on the curb with her hand outstretched, her toothless grin spreading. Corey dug into his jacket pocket and pulled out a ten-dollar bill. When he held it out to her, she glanced from his face to his hand and back again to his face.

“Here,” Corey said, almost shoving the bill into her hands as if he were anxious to get rid of it.

“Oh, thank you. What’s your name?” Izzy said, her eyes following Corey, but he’d already turned away from the store.

Midnight grabbed Corey’s jacket sleeve. “How come you let that guy in the store talk to you like that?”

“Yeah, you just let him get away with it,” Pancho said.

When they reached the street corner, Sebastian put his fists up to his face. “I would’ve kicked his ass. You know that.”

“Me, too,” Midnight chimed in.

Spinning around to face Midnight, Corey pushed his chest. Lightly at first. Then harder. “You are so dumb sometimes.”

“What did I do?”

“You kept pissing him off. You play too much.”

None of this made sense to Midnight. Corey overreacted whenever he thought he might get in trouble at home or school or anywhere. “So what? You didn’t steal anything, so who cares if he gets mad?”

“Just shut up. You don’t get it.”

A strange quiet followed them like a shadow. Midnight thought about what Corey said, but he still didn’t understand.



The cold blistered Midnight’s fingers. It bit his face and snatched his breath. But it also brought him closer to Daddy, and that made freezing his butt off worthwhile. While he was out of school for Christmas break, he tried to spend as much time with his father as he could. Besides, Indiana cold beat Louisiana, where you sweated all the time in the heat.

“How much you paying for the day?” Daddy said to a large man in a navy down jacket and a Colts hat. He grabbed one of the shovels and handed Midnight a metal dustpan that was easier to manage with one hand.

“Depends on how much work you do, Boyd. Twelve fifty an hour. Got all of Pratt to cover. Street team can’t get it all,” the man said. He carried a clipboard in one hand and a hot drink in the other. A trickle of steam rose from his cup.

Snow had been falling all week, the heavy kind that stuck. Granny hadn’t even opened the store one day this week after seven inches covered their street, making it impossible to even get her car out of the driveway. The plow truck hadn’t shown up until the next day.

“Bet I can outlast you, Boyd.” That dwarf-looking guy, Loomis, with the limp, was always talking tough, even though his right leg was shorter than his left.

“Keep it up and I’ll dunk your pointy head in the toilet next time.” Daddy punched him playfully and then put an arm around his shoulders, and they stumbled in the uneven snow.