The sign was red with white capital-letter words that were stacked on top of one another, a pattern he had later described to Miss Garland as easier for him to read, and she had told him that is not how you write words, unless you are in China writing Chinese words. If you want to be an American, she said, always put words left to right and always read them left to right, even if your brain and eyes are trying to tell you something different.

KICK

HER

OUT

It had taken him a few moments. Then as the bus pulled away fierce tears had filled his eyes. Chad Mooney had goofed his way down the aisle like always, but when he had tried to sit in his usual spot, next to his classmate Taylor Kick, Taylor had nearly put a boot up his wormy little butt.

Soon after that, school ended, the heat wave began, Opie left for camp, the caterpillars came to strangle the trees, and a different mean sign began to appear everywhere.

BARRY HER

Taylor had been in a secret bad mood about many things for a long time. When he saw that sign, suggesting his mommy would be dead—because dead is when people got barried—his bad mood became so bad that eventually he had put a hoe-point into Dylan’s arm when Dylan said, Just ignore the signs. After he hurt Dylan, he was alone.

Then what happened at the pool. Turd-mouth Riley Rilke-Rickreiner had said to him, “Don’t you know your mom likes Mexican weiner? She’s going to have a Mexican baby. My dad told me, and my dad is going to be the sheriff. He’s going to barry her.”

He had shoved Riley into the pool. When Riley’s mother had started screaming, he had taken a good run and shoved her in too. But it didn’t change the problem. My dad is going to barry her. He had already been thinking of a ski mask and a hammer. He didn’t know where the Rickreiners lived—it was on a different bus route—but last night his mom had taken him there.

The man who pulled up beside him wore weird glasses that pinched his bald head and sucked his buried eyes forward and made them look like giant frog eggs. He had no hair. Gray lumps hung on his dripping face.

“Where you headed, hot dog?”

He had practiced his answer.

“Home. I live at four-thirty-eight Sunset Ridge Road. The white house with the triple garage past the Town of Blooming Hill water tower. If you don’t know where that is, I can show you where to go.”

The man began to hum, not saying if he knew or not. Then he smiled, showing chalky purplish teeth.

“All aboard for Sunset Ridge Road.”

CHAPTER 40