Free Windfall by Sara Cassidy Page A

hurts my throat. My orange juice stings. The yellow kitchen walls, normally cheerful, are dull. It’s like the light’s been sucked out of the house.
    Neighbors keep calling. The phone sounds robotic and shrill. I hear Mom refer to Richard as being “gone” or “passed on.” Once, she says he’s “crossed over.” Crossed over to where? Some sunshiny happy place? I’ve seen police shows. I know Richard is in a steel drawer in a frosty room with a numbered tag around his big toe.
    Between phone calls, Mom makes the boys’ lunches. She spreads peanut butter on slices of bread and fills Tupperware with grapes and animal crackers as if it’s just another day. The boys hunker over their Lego as if nothing remarkable has happened. Nobody cares that an entire person has gone— poof! —out like a light. Shouldn’t we all be bawling? Shouldn’t the world stop spinning for a moment?
    Or maybe it doesn’t matter that Richard is dead. Did it matter that he was alive? All he did was sit on a bench and sleep in the bushes of Meegan Park. We passed him nearly every day on our way to school or to the store. He never held out his hand, but Mom always gave him a fistful of change. She always asked how he was. Richard always replied in his warm thick voice, “Good.”
    Was he good? He was dirty! His hair was a pile of knots, and his clothes were stained and torn. He was always bundled in layers of coats, pants, shirts and sweaters. He even wore wool hats in the middle of summer. You’d know him from a block away. He was rumpled and baggy, like a hulking pile of laundry.
    â€œCheck it out!” Silas shouts as we enter Meegan Park on our way to school. He’s pointing at Richard’s bench. Someone has laid a huge sunflower and a framed photograph of Richard there. In the photograph, Richard is sitting on the very same bench. His warm bristly face looks calmly at the camera. A hand-printed note is propped against the sunflower’s thick stem. It says Rest in Peace, Richard.
    Leland swings his backpack to the ground and pulls out his lunch kit. He takes an apple and places it on the bench between the jar and the picture.
    â€œThere,” he says, his chin wobbling.
    The apple gleams in the morning sun. It seems to swell against its taut red skin, bursting with life. We continue on to school. We’ll be late now. Maybe the world did stop spinning for an instant. As I turn away from Richard’s bench, the nearby bushes rustle. A few fall leaves scatter to the ground. I get a strong feeling that Richard is watching us. It’s spooky, but it’s not scary.

Chapter Two
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    << Hi, Liza! Over.>>
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    I got walkie-talkies last month for my birthday. I wanted a cell phone, but Mom is too cheap. Well, that’s not how she tells it.
    â€œCell phones mess with your brain,” she says. “Radio waves equal radiation. Radiation spells tumors.
    Experts predict a brain-cancer tsunami in ten years. No one under eighteen should use cell phones—except in an emergency.”
    Olive is my neighbor and best friend. It’s a cool September evening, so I throw a jean jacket over my sweater as I head out to the tree house. These are the best weeks of the year, because I can reach out the tree-house window and pick apples straight from the branch. I’m munching one when Olive straggles up.
    â€œBad news,” Olive puffs. “I looked everywhere for batteries. We’re out.” She gives me a look. What she’s really saying is that our walkie-talkie days are over.
    â€œI can get some,” I say.
    â€œNo,” Olive says gravely. “That would be cheating.”
    Three months ago, Olive’s