Free Ghost Boy by Iain Lawrence Page A

with crayons at a coloring book.
    When the bell rang over the door, she looked up. Her eyes, full of wonder, flickered over Harold and Tina and the Gypsy Magda to settle, finally, on Samuel. “You’re very big,” she said. “You’re more hairy than my grampa, even.”
    Samuel covered his mouth with his hand. He was smiling behind it, Harold could see, and hiding his teeth from the girl.
    â€œWhat’s your name?” asked Tina. “You’re a sweetheart, kid.”
    â€œDoris,” she said.
    â€œWhat a pretty name.” Tina waddled toward her. “We’re just traveling through and we wanted something to eat. Is that okay?”
    Doris frowned. “Well, I’m kind of busy.”
    â€œWe can see that,” said Tina. “You’ve got your coloring there and all. Say, why don’t we just sit at a booth, and you can tell your mama we’re here?”
    Doris nodded.
    â€œThat’s swell,” said Tina. “Say, where should we sit anyway?”
    The little girl sighed and tilted her head. “It really doesn’t matter,” she said so seriously. “We’re not very full right now.”
    She turned the stool to watch the four go by. It squealed and tilted, and she looked down at Tina. “You’re mighty small,” she said.
    â€œGee, thanks, kid,” said Tina brightly.
    â€œAnd you.” She pointed at the Gypsy Magda. “You make music when you walk.”
    Harold blushed. He felt a hotness rushing through his chest. He dreaded what the girl would say to him. And he turned away when she pointed at him with a crayon.
    â€œYou’re an albino.” She said it slowly, making three words out of one.
An al-bye-no
.
    Harold felt sick, as though she’d called him a gargoyle. He hurried past and slipped into the booth. He saw his fingers clasping the table like white sausages and shoved them underneath. The Gypsy Magda sat beside him, her old face lined with worries. Tina scooted up the other bench, and Samuel squeezed in by the aisle.
    Doris climbed down from her stool, sliding on her stomach. Her little crimson skirt rode up around her legs. She stood at the side of the booth. “He’s a nice al-bye-no,” she said. “And that other one was a big fat liar.”
    â€œWhat other one?” asked Samuel.
    â€œI dunno.” She shrugged. “He came in a big old car. As big as a boat almost, pulling an island behind him. And he didn’t even pay for his gas.”
    â€œHe didn’t?” asked Samuel.
    â€œNo!” She shook her head solemnly. “He got really mad. Really, really mad.”
    â€œHe did?”
    â€œYes! He got mad like this.” She put her legs wide apart, her arms straight out from her shoulders, bent down at the elbows. She stomped up and down the narrow floor. “I’m not taking this,” she said, her voice mockingly deep but childish in its shrill. “I’m the Cannibal King! I’m the Cannibal King!”
    Tina shrieked with laughter. “That’s him,” she said. “That’s him all right.”
    Harold only gawked. He saw the child somehow magnified, eight feet tall, bellowing in an awful rage. She
became
, for a moment, the Cannibal King, with a necklace of bones and the fierceness of a savage.
    The little girl stomped and swayed, and behind her came a woman. She flew around the end of the counter on clattering heels. “Doris!” she said. “You get away from there!”
    â€œSay, it’s all right,” said Tina. “She’s not bothering us. She’s a swell little kid.”
    The woman grabbed the child. She pulled her backward across the floor and whirled her around, holding the little face against her dress. The child burst into tears, and her mother was red with rage. “You bunch of freaks. You goddamn monsters,” she said. “You stay away from her. Don’t you touch my