Free Wicked Cruel by Rich Wallace

would know what happened to Bainer, it’d be the principal.
    All of the students are gone and the janitor is pushing a wide mop along the hallway. I stick my head into the principal’s office. “Mrs. Graham?”
    “Yes?” I can tell that she recognizes me but is searching her brain for my name. “Jordan … How are you?” She steps out from behind her desk.
    “I was wondering if you knew anything about Lorne Bainer.”
    She touches her lips with two fingers. “You mean, since he moved away?”
    “Yeah. Since then.”
    She shakes her head slowly. “No, I haven’t heard a thing. Were you hoping to contact him?”
    No. He’s taken care of that. “I was just wondering how he might be doing.”
    “Hmmm.” She squints a little, sizing me up, probably wondering about my motivations. “Well, I know that they moved out of the country.”
    “Out of the
country
? Like to Canada or something?”
    “Farther than that. His parents were from Germany, so they returned there.”
    “Oh. You haven’t heard anything about him since?”
    “Not at all. Sorry. I know you two were”—she squints a bit—“friendly?”
    “Not exactly.”
    She leans against her desk and smiles at me.
    I’m confused. “They didn’t move to Pennsylvania? Or Japan?”
    Her smile gets broader. “Oh no,” she says. “The father was very … old-country, if you know what I mean. Very traditional. They were definitely going back to Europe.”
    “So as far as you know, he’s okay?”
    “As far as I know. Is anything wrong, Jordan?”
    I shake my head. “No. I just was thinking about him lately. He wasn’t treated so good around here.”
    She lets out her breath and stands straighter. “You’re right about that. Lorne was … unusual. Some children used that against him.”
    “Yeah.”
    “It’s nice that you’re thinking of him.”
    I turn to go and mumble, “Thanks.”
    “Jordan.”
    “Yeah?”
    “We’ve all been cruel to others at some point in our lives. Sometimes in a small way, sometimes more seriously. And sometimes, unfortunately, we never get the chance to atone for that.”
    I’m feeling squirmy now. She must know about that time I pushed him into the chairs.
    “But we can learn from that, right?” she says. “We can do good turns for someone else and make the world a little better.”
    I swallow and try to say thanks again, but my throat is tight. So I just nod really hard and walk away toward home. I’ve got some research to do on the Internet.
    *   *   *
    miller funeral home davenport pa
    I press
search
and the website pops up on my screen. The obituaries are listed by date, and the first page shows all of the ones from this month. Just as I was starting to suspect, there’s no Bainer. I start clicking on them anyway.
    The third one down shows
Brandon Matthews, Age 12
.
    Brandon Matthews of Davenport, Pennsylvania, died Tuesday, Nov. 12. He is survived by his parents, William and Natalie. He attended Lake Erie Middle School in Davenport and was a member of the city’s First Presbyterian Church. He was born in Youngstown, Ohio, and attended Euclid Elementary School there before moving to Davenport.
    Funeral arrangements are by the Miller Funeral Home of Davenport.
    Memorial contributions can be made to the Leukemia Foundation at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
    It’s the exact same obit with the names changed, and a cancer foundation instead of one for brain injuries. I click onthe guest book and find the same sympathy wishes for Brandon Matthews: “… we’re soothed that his lingering distress is over …”
    I do another quick search just to make sure. There’s no Western Pennsylvania University.
    Gary. You bastard. Prepare for another bloody lip.
    I’ve calmed down a little by the time I get to his house. We go up to his room and he shuts the door, even though nobody else is home but the dog.
    Obviously, he did some cutting and pasting. I trusted his links and that made for a