Young Adult Fiction
La señora tenía el vestido roto. Las lágrimas le marcaban surcos blancos en la cara llena de polvo y suciedad. Miraba desesperadamente la loma de escombros. Allie podía escuchar los gemidos de un bebé.
I killed my best friend. Thirteen months and six days ago.
Not on purpose. It was an accident. Even the cops wrote it up that way. But if I hadn't dared Logan to race he'd still be alive.
Sometimes I swear I see him. Out of the corner of my eye. Just a glimpse. Like he's haunting me. That accident…I think about it every day. And most nights too.
The train swings around the curve. Its one headlight races toward us. High on the engine's nose, a window glints. The ground is shaking. I watch the train. It comes closer and closer. I dash to the tracks, watching a fence on the other side. Noise and wind swallow me. I jump.
I make it to the flagpole second to last. No Poo Patrol for me. Not today. Today I draw the Grooming straw. Forget my own grooming; for three leisurely hours this morning, I'll be washing, drying, fluffing and brushing out the matted and dirt-encrusted coats of a dozen-odd dogs of questionable parentage. Not that my own parentage is anything to brag about.
