Free Jump into the Sky by Shelley Pearsall Page A

gloom. He had on a sloppy white shirt—collar hanging open, top button missing—and then the rest of him became clear. Aunt Odella woulda called him a big eater. His chin sloped into his chest, no neck to speak of. I couldn’t tell if the man was G. W. Keeton or not, but I figured he worked there, by the look of the smudged-up canvas apron he was wearing. A can of apricots was in his left hand.
    “Why you asking?”
    The fleshy white face wasn’t smiling in a friendly way at me. Maybe I’d interrupted his canned-fruit count, who knows.
    I pointed at the windows behind me where thin stripes of sunlight were showing around the war bond posters and advertising signs. Tried making my best guess at where the Coca-Cola advertisement had been hanging. “Saw a sign up there in the corner.”
    “Did you now?” The man crossed his thick arms, staring at me with unblinking eyes.
    Like an icebox opening, a chill swept over me even though it wasn’t cold. I eased myself backward a little, leaning in the direction of the door, and glanced toward the windows again. “Yes sir. I believe so,” I mumbled.
    “You got any money to pay for your soda?”
    I shoulda taken off then, feeling the icy dread that was getting stronger by the minute, as if the whole Antarcticcontinent was slowly freezing around me. But I was stuck. I’d asked for a soda pop and now I was caught by asking.
    Trying not to seem any more jumpy than I already was, I dug around in my pocket for one of Uncle Otis’s dollars and held it toward the man. Sodas were only a nickel, but I figured he’d give me back the change and all.
    “Put it on the counter.”
    The counter wasn’t far away. Now that my eyes had gotten used to the shadows, I could see the brass cash register nearby with some jars of gumdrops and licorice lined up next to it, just like Hixson’s back in Chicago. There was a pyramid of dry-looking donuts stacked under a glass dome. And ads for Lucky Strike cigarettes. And Ivory soap. I stepped forward and slid my dollar onto the top of the counter, making sure the man could see I had plenty of money and wasn’t trying to cause him any trouble.
    He didn’t take his eyes off me. Just walked over and snatched my dollar bill off the counter. “I’ll get your soda from the back,” he spat out, and I listened to his heavy footsteps thumping down the aisle as if he was the King Kong of the grocery business. Seemed like a long time before he returned holding a dusty bottle of grape soda.
    “There’s your Coca-Cola.”
    The bottle slammed down on the counter so hard, I swear you woulda thought it was a grenade exploding. How the glass didn’t shatter to pieces I have no idea, but thenoise shocked me so bad, everything from my feet to my head suddenly began prickling as if I was being stuck by a thousand ice-cold needles. Even my back teeth started rattling together on their own. Standing there in that dark, deserted store, I suddenly realized the trap I was in.
    Crossing his arms over his chest, the fellow gave me a slow grin, as if daring me to reach for the bottle he’d thrown on the counter. He was looking to pick a fight, you could tell. Heck, I wasn’t that stupid. I was tall, but it woulda taken two of me to equal his size. Archie woulda taken him on probably and popped him in the gut a few times, but not me. I wasn’t a fool. My brain told me to leave the soda where it was and run. Forget the rest of Uncle Otis’s dollar and bust outta that store in whatever way I could.
    I tried turning.
    But the man moved faster than I did. His hand snaked behind the counter and came up holding something small and metallic. “Don’t you even think about moving, boy.” My mouth went chalk dry.
    Clenched in his hand was a gun.
    Time seemed to stop.
    Sounds seemed to stop.
    The world outside the store shriveled up and disappeared.
    The man shoved the bottle toward me with a lopsided grin. “Drink it.”
    There was no way I could drink anything in that