Free Sons of Liberty by Adele Griffin

arms. He lifted her right up so that her face was level with his face and her eyes had to look into his eyes, and her legs in their gray sweatpants twisted and kicked at the air like an upside-down beetle.
    And then he tossed her, just like that, straight across the room.
    It almost looked graceful, the way it happened, a gasp of movement shared between two dancers. Liza’s whalebone body sprang up so high, vaulted so weightlessly across the space; if the door had been open, she might have sailed right out and flown into the sky like Peter Pan. But the door was closed and it stopped her. She hit the wood and dropped like a sack and made a funny noise as the breath popped out of her.
    Cliff jumped up, banging the table. A glass of iced tea fell over with a bump and splash, its loose, liquid tentacles spreading wide. The tea made islands of the Play-Doh lumps, dribbling over the edge of the table and dripping onto the carpet.
    “Hey Timmy, hey Timmy,” Cliff kept repeating. His voice was loud, confident like when he practiced reciting his Boy Scout vows. And Liza had been sort of laughing, Rock remembered. The stupid, insane cheeriness of the two of them.
    “Aw, I’m not hurt.” Liza was laughing, but her laugh was stuck inside her; it was just a smile and a choking in her shoulders. Arlene kept perfectly silent. She’d dashed off to the closet when Cliff knocked the tea, bringing back a pile of dish towels, which she began stuffing everywhere, patting them over the rug, over the Play-Doh—suddenly rags were everywhere to catch the drips.
    “Hey Timmy, it was my fault. We were both making that go-cart and then this song came on Casey Kasem.” Cliff spoke with smiling intensity. He reminded Rock of a game-show player trying his jaunty best to guess the right answer for ten thousand dollars. “It came on and we forgot and we went inside, we forgot. I forgot.”
    “What are you there, Cliffy, her boyfriend?”
    “Don’t hurt.” Liza was still laughing, staggering to her feet. “No, suh.” Rock twisted a rag in his hands, trying to soak up the iced tea that streaked the edge of the table.
    “Glad it don’t, seeing as I’m not through,” said Timmy.
    “You boys get along home,” Arlene whispered.
    “I’m not leaving,” Cliff shouted cheerfully.
    “Yeah, you are. Get going.” Timmy clapped his hand around the back of Cliff’s neck. “And put my tools away, boyfriend, ’fore you leave.” With his free hand he opened the door, the one that had stopped Liza. Rock leaped out of his chair and dashed through it.
    “Come on, Cliff,” he called from the lawn. “It’s late.” Cliff stumbled out a few moments later, as if he’d been pushed. He looked at Rock and then back over his shoulder.
    “Come on,” Rock hissed.
    “We can’t.” Cliff shook his head.
    “We gotta.” And Rock said something he’d meant to be a comfort but had only seemed to tear Cliff up worse inside. “It isn’t our business anyway,” Rock said. “I mean, it’s not like those people are in our family.” Cliff turned on him.
    “Liza,” he said. His eyes were wild with anger. “Liza’s not those people. ” Then he’d pushed Rock hard, two-fisted, square in the small of his back, so that Rock didn’t have a choice except to sidestep him, taking a heated joy in watching Cliff stumble and fall on the damp grass.
    “I know who Liza is,” Rock muttered, dropping to his knees beside his brother.
    “Help me clean up the tools,” Cliff said.
    They had gathered up the tools, carefully drying and replacing them in Timmy’s toolbox. Then Cliff had whispered that the toolbox was looking pretty junky, so they’d dumped everything out and replaced the screws and washers and bolts all in their correct compartments. Rock remembered how they’d lingered, casting sidelong glances at the windows, straining for a hint of sound or movement. But the house kept its secrets from them.
    Except that the next day, Liza hadn’t been in