Free The Rag and Bone Shop by Robert Cormier Page B

alibi, although he knew that alibis could be manufactured. Was it worth looking into?
Should
it be looked into? If it was, the present situation could be disrupted. And it mustn’t be.
Jason Dorrant is my subject, not the girl’s brother.
    “What do you think, Mr. Trent?” Waiting for a reply.
    “I think you did the right thing, Jason, by not saying anything,” Trent said.
I can’t let this thing get away from me.
“The kind of information you’re talking about is too vague and can only confuse an already complicated case. The police made a thorough investigation of everyone involved in the case, including members of the family. I understand Alicia’s brother accounted for his movements that afternoon. He spent the entire time with his friends.”
    “Okay,” the boy said, accepting Trent’s judgment, settling back in the chair as if relieved that a decision about something that had been bothering him had been made to his satisfaction.
    Trent paused, wondering if this was the moment for the preliminaries to be over, when he should launch the strategy that would lead to the inevitable climax. Noting the gathering heat in the room, the moistness of the boy’s flesh, particularly the beads of perspiration on his forehead, Trent decided to go ahead. Take the risk.
    “Tell me, Jason, about Alicia Bartlett and how you felt about her.”
    Amazingly enough, the boy didn’t seem upset or perturbed by the sudden change of topic.
    “She was a nice little girl and I liked hanging out with her sometimes. She was smart as anything but she was what my mother calls a fusser. I mean, she was great at making those jigsaw puzzles but she’d moan and groan trying to pick the right pieces and then she’d place five or six in a row and look at me with a big smile on her face.”
    “A bright little girl,” Trent said.
    “She was way smarter than me,” the boy said. “One day she tried to give me lessons on how to be better at making the puzzles. Showed me how to choose the different pieces, how to start at the borders. She had a good time acting like she was the teacher and I was, like, her student.”
    “Did you think she was putting you on?” Trent asked.
    “Putting me on?”
    “Yes. That actually she was somehow making fun of you?”
    “Why would she do that?”
    “Maybe she liked to tease you, to make herself seem superior. Maybe she was insecure, and had to do things to make her seem more than she was.”
    “It was just the opposite,” Jason said. “She wasn’t bragging or anything. She was just showing me how to make the puzzle.”
    “Or did she want to make you feel inferior?”
    “No,” Jason said, frowning, thinking again of the lesson. Had Alicia actually been making fun of him? “Why would she do that?” he asked.
    “Maybe she wasn’t your friend after all. Maybe she only pretended to be.”
    Perplexed, Jason scrunched up his face. The room was hotter than before, the heat seeming to grow with every second. He squirmed in his chair, felt the sweat gathering in his armpits. Even his feet were sweating inside his socks.
    Jason didn’t know what to say, could only come back to his original question. “Why would she do that?”
    “Who can explain the actions of other people?” Trent said. “Even little girls. Little girls are not always as naive as we think. That old cliché—you can’t judge a book by its cover? It’s a cliché because it’s so true, Jason. It was hard for you to judge Alicia. And it must be hard for you to realize what she was doing . . .”
    “But she wasn’t doing anything,” Jason protested. “She was my friend.”
    “Was she? You’re twelve years old, Jason, and a seven-year-old girl was your friend?”
    Jason realized how strange that sounded, how it made him seem like he was some kind of freak.
    “Well, maybe not a real friend,” he amended. “I really didn’t know her that well. I mean, I’d watch her make the jigsaw puzzles when I dropped by her house.