Free Lunch: List 2

Mrs. Winstead makes this face like she bit a lemon. Then her lips curl up at the ends, like she’s real sly. “Perhaps I should call your mother and tell her what you’re reading.”

My friends snicker. I hate being laughed at.

I see a couple of cockroaches scurrying for cover.

“Oh, here we go. You read one article and now you’re Mr. Science! Are you a doctor now? No! You’re not! Quit being a hypochondriac.”

“That’s right, lactose intolerant,” Mom continues. “Terrible disease. Anyway, the burger he got had cheese. When I returned it to the cashier and explained, I asked her nicely to fix the mistake. Do you know what she did? She screamed at me!”

Luke Dodson is taller than everyone else in sixth grade. He’s wearing a pastel polo shirt and pleated dress pants.

Luke Dodson is taller than everyone else in sixth grade. He’s wearing a pastel polo shirt and pleated dress pants.

“I thought he died.”
“But he came back. He resurrected,” Polly adds.

She isn’t smiling anymore. Her arms are crossed like I said something offensive.

My mom is real crazy about church stuff. She says religious people are all twisted and evil and manipulative and just want money.

I don’t believe that. But I also don’t know if I believe in the same God they do.
I don’t say any of this though. People get real touchy about this kinda stuff.

The smell of fresh-baked bread or cookies wafts in from outside.

That’s it. No photos. No albums. No books. No jewelry box with a ballerina in it. No tin of little keepsakes. My mom doesn’t have anything.

Lumps adorn her legs and arms, the hues so brilliant, they could be shiny new tattoos.

She goes and checks the thermostat, to make sure I didn’t turn the heater on or anything.

This big dread comes over me. Like I’m all alone, and cold inside my body, and I want to run into Mom’s arms and just cry.

The second Mom turns on the light, a dozen roaches skitter and scurry toward the crack in the wall.

There’s no furniture in my room, but it feels claustrophobic.

“Here’s a fun fact,” Mr. Chang says, “if humans bomb the planet with their nuclear arsenal, the only life left on Earth will be cockroaches. Only they can survive the toxic fallout.”

“Here’s a fun fact,” Mr. Chang says, “if humans bomb the planet with their nuclear arsenal, the only life left on Earth will be cockroaches. Only they can survive the toxic fallout.”