Free Kill Me Once by Jon Osborne

extremely thin girl with very bad teeth, and her sundress was dirty and tattered. As usual, no shoes covered her filthy feet. ‘The good guys always catch the bad guys,’ she giggled. ‘We’re taking you to jail, mister!’
    The patrol car was catching up to the Chevy fast, so Nathan wheeled it around the toolbox twice more before blasting into overdrive and rising to his feet. His right foot slipped on something hidden beneath the hay.
    ‘Caught you!’ Jamie squealed, slamming the police cruiser hard into the Chevrolet in Nathan’s hand to underscore her point. ‘Now it’s time for you go to jail, buddy!’
    Nathan ignored her and swept his foot over the hay.
    A book of matches.
    ‘What is it?’ Jamie asked, following his gaze down to the floor of the barn.
    Nathan gritted his teeth. Why in the hell did girls always have to be so goddamn stupid? ‘What do you think it is, dummy?’ he snapped.
    Jamie frowned. After a moment, her lower lip began to tremble and tears filled her eyes. ‘Don’t call me a dummy, Nathan. Don’t call me a dummy or I’m telling on you.’
    Nathan felt his stomach lurch. Jesus Christ, girls were so goddamn sensitive too. But when it came to his parents, getting told on was a fate worse than death, so he quickly switched gears.
    ‘No, don’t tell on me, Jamie,’ he said. ‘I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean it. You’re not a dummy. But seriously, don’t you know what this is?’
    The little girl rolled her enormous blue eyes at him. ‘Of course I know what it is, dummy. It’s a book of matches. And we better go tell that we found them or we’ll be in big trouble for sure.’
    Nathan sighed. Leave it to a girl to ruin what was obviously going to be a very good time. Stupid, sensitive and then stupid again – that was what girls were. No matter how long he lived, he knew he would never understand them. It was almost like they were from a different planet or something.
    ‘We can’t tell them about the matches because we didn’t tell them about the cars,’ he explained patiently. ‘If we tell them about the matches they’ll just know we have the cars and we’ll get a whipping twice as bad.’
    Jamie didn’t look so sure. ‘We’ll get it three times as bad if they catch us,’ she countered.
    Nathan forced a smile and reached out a hand, placing it on her bare shoulder. ‘They’re not going to catch us, Jamie. I promise.’
    He paused while the plan formed in his brain. ‘I’ll tell you what: let’s see if the matches work first. If they work then we’ll go tell that we found them. But if they don’t they’ll just be mad we bothered them in the first place.’
    Jamie chewed on her lower lip while she thought it over. It did seem to make sense. ‘OK,’ she agreed finally. ‘But how do we do know if they work or not?’
    Nathan leaned down and plucked the matchbook off the floor. ‘I’ve seen the preacher lighting the candles in church before. I’ll try and do it the same way.’
    He pulled out a match and scratched it against the rough strip on the back cover. The head of the match disintegrated in little bits of red.
    The second match didn’t work either, but produced a sulphur smell that tickled Nathan’s nostrils in a pleasant way.
    ‘P.U.,’ Jamie said, holding her nose.
    The third match flared up briefly before burning out. Tendrils of smoke drifted up from the burned paper.
    ‘Well?’ Jamie asked impatiently. ‘Do they work or not?’
    Nathan tried to keep the irritation out of his voice. As much as she annoyed him, though, he couldn’t risk getting told on. He hadn’t had a whipping in a week now, and he wanted to keep it that way. ‘I think they work,’ he said, ‘but I’m not sure yet. We’ll have to light them all at the same time to find out for sure.’
    Jamie nodded. Again, it seemed to make sense. ‘What will we do when they’re all lit up?’
    ‘We’ll jump our cars over them just like the motorcycle daredevils at the state