Free Requiem by Lauren Oliver Page B

raising a hand in a gesture of quick salute, although I doubt Saul recognizes me.
    Outside WoodCove Farms, the neighborhood quickly changes. Government-owned plots run up against seedy lots, and I pass three mobile home parks in a row, which are crowded with outdoor charcoal grills and fire pits and shrouded over by a film of smoke and ash, since the people who live here use electricity only sparingly.
    Brighton Avenue carries me on-peninsula, and technically across the border and into downtown Portland. But city hall, and the cluster of municipal buildings and laboratories where people have gathered to protest, is still several miles away. The buildings this far from the Old Port are no more than a few stories high, and interspersed with corner delis, cheap Laundromats, run-down churches, and long-disused gas stations.
    I try to remember the last time I went to Lena’s house, instead of she to mine, but all I get is a mash-up of years and images, the smell of tinned ravioli and powdered milk. Lena was embarrassed by her cramped home, and by her family. She knew what people said. But I always liked going to her house. I’m not sure why. I think at the time it was the mess that appealed to me—the beds crammed closely together in the upstairs room, the appliances that never worked correctly, fuses that were always powering down, a washing machine that sat rusting, used only as a place for storing winter clothes.
    Even though it has been eight months, I navigate the way to Lena’s old house easily, even remembering to shortcut through the parking lot that backs up onto Cumberland.
    By this point, I’m sweating, and I stop my bike a few doors down from the Tiddles’ house, wrestling off my hat and running a hand through my hair so I at least look semi-presentable. A door bangs down the street, and a woman emerges onto her porch, which is cluttered with broken furniture and even, mysteriously, a rust-spotted toilet seat. She is carrying a broom, and she begins sweeping back and forth, back and forth, over the same six inches of porch, her eyes locked on me.
    The neighborhood is worse, much worse, than it used to be. Half the buildings are boarded up. I feel like a diver on a new submarine, coasting past the wreck of a tanked ship. Curtains stir in the windows, and I have a sense of unseen eyes following my progress down the street—and anger, too, simmering inside all the sad, sagging homes.
    I start to feel incredibly stupid for coming. What will I say? What can I say?
    But now that I’m so close, I can’t turn around until I’ve seen it: number 237, Lena’s old house. As soon as I wheel my bike up to the gate, I can tell that the house has been abandoned for some time. Several shingles are missing from the roof, and the windows have been boarded up with fungus-colored wood. Someone has painted a large red X over the front door, a symbol that the house was harboring disease.
    â€œWhat do you want?”
    I spin around. The woman on the porch has stopped sweeping; she holds the broom in one hand and shields her eyes with the other.
    â€œI was looking for the Tiddles,” I say. My voice rings out too loudly on the open street. The woman keeps staring at me. I force myself to move closer to her, wheeling my bike across the street and up to her front gate, even though something inside me is revolting, telling me to go. I do not belong here.
    â€œTiddles moved off last fall,” she says, and begins sweeping again. “They weren’t welcome around here no more. Not after—” She breaks off suddenly. “Well. Anyways. Don’t know what happened to them, and don’t care, either. They can rot away in the Highlands as far as I’m concerned. Spoiling the neighborhood, making it hard for everybody else—”
    â€œIs that where they went?” I seize on the small bit of information. “To Deering Highlands?”
    Instantly, I can tell I’ve