With his new prize shoved down on his head, he went walking. He needed a weapon. He wished he could get a gun, but nobody was going to sell a gun to a twelve-year-old boy, even if he had killed somebody.

Knives were better anyway. He had really liked the way it felt when he had stuck his pocketknife into Cody’s guts. He had relived that moment over and over in the year since. It made him get excited thinking about it, and thinking about how it would feel when he stuck it in Miss Navarre.

It was kind of like fucking, he thought. If he was fucking her, he would stick his thing in her over and over and make her scream. When he stabbed her, he would stick his knife in her over and over, and she would scream.

Cool.

He cut through the alleys in the neighborhood near his old school. The houses here were old and most of them had garages that weren’t attached, which was good because no one inside the house would hear him looking around. And a garage would be a good place to find a weapon. People left all kinds of shit in their garages.

He picked a garage that had a small side door that wasn’t locked, and let himself in. There was all kinds of cool stuff hanging on the walls and piled on a workbench. Power tools, garden tools, regular tools.

A screwdriver might be good, he thought. He picked one up and felt the weight of it in his hand, and practiced stabbing with it. Not bad.

Among the garden tools was a machete, which was the coolest thing, but it was too big. He couldn’t go around town carrying a machete and not have people notice.

Then he found it. Hanging on a pegboard at the back of the workbench were some woodworking tools—chisels and gouges and stuff. Most of them were four to six inches of blade with a curvy wooden handle that would feel really good in the hand.

Dennis stood on a cooler to reach them and selected two—one for each hand. One was thin and sharp and had a groove running down the center of the blade. The other one was straight and pointed.

They fit perfectly in the pouch of his sweatshirt.

Happy, he let himself out the side door and continued on his way. Miss Navarre’s house was only a couple of blocks away.

Dennis had been to her house before. Not because she had ever invited him, but because he had come in the night to try to look in her windows. It was a really nice house with a big porch on the front and roses in the yard.