Free The Spaceship Next Door by Gene Doucette Page B

to one of the two places that specialized in burgers. Second, it was 100% ten-pin bowling. Most of New England bowled a version called candlestick, which used narrow pins and shot-put sized balls. It was about a thousand times more frustrating than ten-pin, which meant it served an important regional purpose of teaching local children how to swear effectively.
    “Hit me.”
    “Do you like any of those people?”
    Annie laughed.
    “How long have you wanted to ask me that?”
    “About as long as I’ve known you. Or since you started trying to indoctrinate me.”
    “Ooh, indoctrination. That’s definitely what I’m doing. No, come on, I’m just trying to, I don’t know, insert you into the world a little.”
    “I’m perfectly happy with my degree of insertion.”
    In the ninety-odd minutes of their whirlwind shopping circuit (in which there was virtually no shopping) Violet had said approximately five words, and all five of them were hi . The people of Annie’s tribe knew her exactly well enough to understand that Vi was meant to be ignored, and that she preferred it that way.
    “I know you are, but it’s not healthy!”
    “I’m perfectly healthy as well.”
    “But I can’t be your only lifeline to the world, what if something happens to me?”
    “What’s going to happen to you?”
    “I don’t know, but something could! And if it did and I wasn’t around any more, your meager social skills would just wither away. A decade from now you’ll be like Nell, grunting in a cabin in the woods.”
    “I already live in a cabin in the woods.”
    “ That’s my point .”
    Violet sighed grandly.
    “All right, I will try . But seriously, the banality is difficult to stomach.”
    “You are so full of it.”
    “Me? How so?”
    “Nobody is actually this pretentious. People have to work at it.”
    “I think I’m offended.”
    “See, that’s what I mean, you can’t actually even be offended, you have to announce that it’s a possibility you may at some point develop a feeling, and that feeling if, when felt, might develop into a sensation akin to a quality reminiscent of offense.”
    “Well I would never say that, but that was impressive. You should write it down.”
    Annie threw a balled-up straw wrapper at Vi, and then Rodney sat down.
    “Hey, did you hear?” he said.
    Rodney Delindo was either nineteen or twenty, which put him squarely outside of the tribal demographic of Annie’s sociology study. He still had a spot inside her circle of friends, though, perhaps an even more important spot than most everyone aside from Vi. Rodney was, for a short while not too terribly long ago, quite possibly Annie’s very best friend.
    They hardly spoke any more, because they both got older and things changed. Rodney’s graduation from high school was one of those things. He was a manager at the bowling alley now, while he considered his higher education options. This meant, in less polite terms, his grades were not fantastic and his ability to pay college tuition suspect. At the same time, the job still had to be considered temporary because nobody goes through life planning to be a shift manager at a bowling alley. Especially not one without a candlestick lane.
    He was Annie’s first crush. She never said so, but he probably knew it.
    When he sat down, he flipped the chair over so the back was facing the table, and then straddled it cowboy-style. It was a modestly stud-worthy maneuver.
    “Hey, Rod. What were we supposed to have heard?”
    “Yes, there’s so much,” Violet said. Annie shot her a look, and got back a, you wanted me to engage, so… shrug.
    Rodney more or less pretended Vi wasn’t there. It wasn’t even impolite; it was just what one did.
    “About Rick.”
    “I heard he saw a vampire. But this is Rick we’re talking about.”
    Rodney laughed.
    “No, no, it wasn’t a vampire.”
    “Of course it wasn’t. That’s my point. Rick is Rick.”
    Rick Horton was a year above Annie, which made