Free The Big Chili by Julia Buckley

friendship.
    But for some reason, right before I fell asleep, I remembered what Pet had said: “Alice Dixon always wanted to ruin things.” I wondered if this tendency in Alice was the reason that she’d died.

CHAPTER SIX

    T he next night I went to J enny B raidwell’s place. Jenny had been my college roommate for four years, when we had challenged our intellects and our social lives on the Lake Shore campus of Loyola University. I majored in English but decided, in the end, that I didn’t want to teach, and that was how I ended up doing secret catering and working at a real estate office, occasionally tutoring young people who didn’t get
The Scarlet Letter
or
Moby-Dick.
    Jenny had majored in elementary education, and she was now a respectable third-grade teacher. She had a cute two-bedroom apartment in a twelve-story building in the center of town, and while I liked my space better, I did admire Jenny’s sense of style. She had inherited some rustic-looking furniture, which she highlighted with little country accentslike a whimsical goose wearing an apron and a wooden magazine rack with a dotted-swiss skirt.
    When I walked in, I waved to Jenny, who was tying her sandy red hair into a ponytail in front of her hall mirror; we were distracted from our meeting by a dark-haired child, who launched himself at me and began patting my pockets. This was Henry, Jenny’s nephew, who knew that I sometimes carried Baggies full of cookies on the off chance that I would encounter a small boy. Jenny babysat for Henry fairly often; his father sometimes had the night shift at the post office, and his mother, Jenny’s sister, had an evening class twice a week.
    I pried his hands from me and forced him to give me a proper hug. “Hello, Sir Henry of Pine Haven.”
    Henry shook his head. “I’m Sir Henry of
Weston
.”
    This was true. Henry lived a town over. “I stand corrected, Sir Henry of Weston. And what are you seeking in my pockets?”
    â€œYou know,” said Henry. “Stop tickling me.”
    â€œI’m not. I’m just brushing some dust off of your clothing. There’s so
much
, Henry.” He giggled and then screamed, so I finally let go of him and let him find the cookies. “Only two before dinner, or your parents will never let me see you again,” I warned. “You need Aunt Jenny’s healthy dinner— What are we having, Aunt Jenny?”
    â€œHot dogs,” Jenny said drily. “And frozen French fries.”
    â€œYou need Aunt Jenny’s
minimally
healthy dinner to stabilize you before you consume more sugar.”
    â€œStabilize,” said Henry, who liked learning words. He was newly six, but had the brain of an older child. “What’s
stabilize
?”
    â€œYou know—to strengthen and balance you. Like the bigblocks at the bottom help to stabilize those giant towers you like to build.”
    â€œHuh.” Grasping his cookie bags in one hand, Henry took my hand in his other and led me to Jenny’s rather cluttered dining room table, where she had cleared a corner for him and given him some Play-Doh. “Look,” he said. He pointed at a strange blob of clay sitting on a base of tinfoil.
    â€œIt’s kind of a hideous color, dude.”
    Henry laughed. “Hideous,” he said.
    I sent an apologetic look to Jenny, whose lips curled in disapproval. “How did you get that shade?”
    Henry shrugged his little shoulders. “I mixed orange and brown.”
    â€œAnd what is that supposed to be?”
    â€œA kind of monster guy.”
    â€œWell, he’s pretty scary, Henry. You have done well. Now eat your cookies and never darken my door again. I need to speak with your aunt on official business.”
    Henry giggled and took out some more Play-Doh. Jenny and I moved into the kitchen, where I asked her for the latest news.
    â€œThere’s always gossip at a school,” she