Croak
Gina Damico
Table of Contents
Title Page
Table of Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Map
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
About the Author
More Morbid Reads
Copyright © 2012 by Gina Damico
Map illustration copyright © 2012 by Carol Chu
All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.
Graphia and the Graphia logo are trademarks of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
www.hmhbooks.com
Text set in Garamond Premier Pro
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Damico, Gina. Croak / by Gina Damico. p. cm. Summary: A delinquent sixteen-year-old girl is sent to live with her uncle for the summer, only to learn that he is a Grim Reaper who wants to teach her the ISBN: 978-0-547-60832-7 [1. Death—Fiction. 2. Future life—Fiction.] I. Title. PZ7.D1838Cr 2012 [Fic]—dc23 2011017125
Manufactured in the United States of America
DOC 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
4500341976
For Mom, Dad, and Lisa.
In exchange for years upon years of supporting my nincompoopery, I offer you this simple, heartfelt dedication.
Call it even?
Acknowledgments
Let’s kick off this shindig with a Titanic-size thank-you to my rocktastic agent, Tina Wexler. Simply put, none of this would exist without you and your steadfast kickassery. You’ve breathed life into my work, loved my characters as if they were family, and read more emails, drafts, and misguided tangents than I can shake a scythe at. Thank you so, so much for seeing a spark and sticking it out with me.
To my editor Julie Tibbott, who finds the humor in board games, gentlemanly named roosters, and death-related puns and is therefore a rare, treasured find. Thank you for your encouragement, collaboration, and adoption of my merry band of misfits. Thanks also to Michael Neff and the New York Pitch Conference for giving me the kick in the pants I so dearly needed.
To my parents, for their unflagging love in all its forms (encouragement, money, eye-rolling). Mom, thank you for reading to me from day one—it made all the difference. Dad, thank you for keeping bookstores in business.
To my sister, Lisa, whose refusal to be killed by the Lego I fed her when she was a baby made me rather angry at the time but now pleases me greatly, as I can’t imagine life without her.
To my big, awesome Italian family for always sending good thoughts and good eggplant parm my way. And to the in-law clan, for coming with a pre-established YA fan club.
To every single member of the Committee for Creative Enactments at Boston College between 2001 and 2005: You are the reason I started writing. Hands down. I adore you more than any drunken Baggo words can say, and I thank you dearly. Profigliano!
To Brittany “Hotpants” Wilcox, for the countless Red Lobster dinners, and Allison “Nickname Unprintable” D’Orazio, for agreeing with me in thinking—nay, knowing—that sad trombones are the funniest things on earth.
To the Onondaga County Public Library for publishing my very first work when I was five years old, a story about dead rabbits that, in retrospect, makes a hell of a lot more sense now. Also, huge thanks to all libraries and librarians everywhere. Keep at it.
Other invaluable contributors include Azadeh Ariatabar Brown and her bitchin’ website skills, TVGasm, and everyone at all the jobs I’ve ever had, even that crappy temp one. Thanks also to milk, Australia, whoever invented the DVR, The Simpsons, Kurt Vonnegut, Jack Bauer, Toby the wee computer, and, finally, Utz Cheese Balls, for being both delicious and packaged in massive, heart-disease-inducing buckets.
To Big Fat Lenny Cat: your unconditional enthusiasm for anything having to do with me is so appreciated, even if you are roughly the same weight and shape of a bowling ball. To Carl, the other cat: you’re okay too.
To my husband, Will, whose adamant insistence that I not get a real job and instead pursue these writing shenanigans is the very reason this is an actual book and not some forgotten, scribbled notes on the back of a crossword puzzle. Thank you for not hurling me out of the house every time I’ve asked you to read the newest revision. Sooo much.
And finally, to you, dear reader, for picking up this book! There’s no way you could have known that it was rigged with explosives, but since it would be disastrous to put it down now, enjoy!
1
Lex wondered, for a fleeting moment, what her principal’s head might look like if it were stabbed atop a giant wooden spear.
“I can’t imagine why you’re smiling, young lady,” Mr. Truitt said from behind his desk, “but I can assure you that there is nothing funny about this situation. How many of your classmates must end up in the emergency room before you get it through that head of yours that fighting on school property is strictly forbidden?”
Lex yawned and pulled the hood of her black sweatshirt even farther over her face.
“Stop that.” Her mother pushed it back to reveal a messy head of long black hair. “You’re being rude.”
“I’m in an awkward position here,” the principal continued, running a hand through his greasy comb-over. “I don’t want to expel Lex. I know you two are good parents; Cordy is practically a model student!” He paused and eyed Lex for a moment to let this sink in, hoping to maybe guilt the wicked girl into obedience. Her face, however, remained stony.
“But when it comes to Lex, I don’t see any other choice in the matter,” he went on, frowning. “I’m sorry, but the list of scars that my students have sustained at the hand of your daughter grows longer each week. Poor Logan Hochspring’s arm will forever carry an imprint of her dental records!”
“You bit him?” Lex’s father said.
“He called me a wannabe vampire,” she said. “What was I supposed to do?”
“Oh, I don’t know—maybe not bite him?”
Lex zoned out as her parents once again launched into the traditional practice of begging Mr. Truitt for just one more chance. She had heard it so many times by now that she could even mouth the words in certain places, with a little “She’s just troubled, you see” sprinkled with a dollop of “It’s probably just a phase” and closing, of course, with the ever-popular “It’ll be different this time, you have our word.” Lex stuck a slender finger into her mouth and fished around until she found a small blond hair. She pulled it out of her teeth with a quick snap, the memory of Logan Hochspring’s startled cries of pain ringing through her ears.
“Very well,” Mr. Truitt finally said, standing up. “One more chance. With only a week left in the school year, I can hardly justify an expulsion.” He shook her parents’ hands with a meaty paw, then regarded Lex with a smile. “Perhaps a summer away will do you some good.”
Lex hissed.
As she was yanked out to the parking lot, however, the principal’s cryptic farewell began to trouble her. And something about the way he had smiled—the way doctors beam at children right before jabbing them with tetanus shots—felt very ominous.
“What did he mean, a summer away?” she asked.
“I knew you weren’t l
istening,” said her mother. “We’ll talk about it over dinner.”
“Can’t wait,” Lex said as her father shoved her into the back seat, taking note of the adorable way he attempted to engage the child safety lock without her noticing.
***
Lexington Bartleby, age sixteen, had spent the last two years transforming her squeaky-clean, straight-A life into that of a hooligan. A delinquent. A naughty little rapscallion, as it were.
To the untrained eye, it appeared as though Lex had simply grown bored. She had begun acting out in every way that a frustrated bundle of pubescence possibly could: she stole things, she swore like a drunken pirate, and she punched people. A lot of people. Nerds, jocks, cheerleaders, goths, gays, straights, blacks, whites, that kid in the wheelchair—no one was safe. Her peers had to admire her for that, at least—Tyrannosaurus Lex, as they called her, was an equal opportunity predator.
But something about this transformation didn’t quite add up. Her outbursts were triggered by the smallest of annoyances, bubbling up from nowhere, no matter how hard she tried to resist them. And worse still, they seemed to grow stronger as time went on. By the end of Lex’s junior year, every swear word was reverberating at a deafening volume, and each human punching bag lost at least one of his or her permanent bicuspids.
Parents, teachers, and classmates were stymied by the atrocious behavior of the menace in the black hoodie. These crime sprees simply did not fit with the bright, affable Lex everyone had known and loved for fourteen years prior. Even her twin sister, Concord, who knew her better than anyone, could not come up with a way to unravel this massive conspiracy. Lex was furious at something, and no one could figure out what.
But the truth was, Lex didn’t know either. It was as if her psyche had been infected with an insidious pathogen, like the viruses in all those zombie movies that turn otherwise decent human beings into bloodthirsty, unkempt maniacs who are powerless to stop themselves from unleashing their wrath upon the woefully underprepared masses. She just felt angry, all the time, at absolutely nothing. And whenever she tried to pinpoint the reason why, no matter how hard she tried, she was never able to come up with a single, solitary explanation.
***
The Bartleby house was a modest abode, squeezed and cramped onto a crowded neighborhood street in Queens, New York. One got the impression that the city planners, when making room for the slender pile of wood that the Bartlebys would one day call home, simply shoved the adjacent houses to either side, dumped a truckload of floorboards and piping and electrical wires into the empty space, and let nature take its course.
The dining room was at the rear of the house, overlooking a small backyard that contained the following items: a rusty swing set, a faded plastic turtle sandbox, a charcoal grill still crusty with the forgotten remains of last summer’s cookouts, and a once-beloved tree house now inhabited by a family of raccoons.
Lex looked out the sliding glass door at the remnants of her childhood and wondered if the tree house’s new tenants were rabid. Maybe she could train them as her minions.
“Lex,” said Mrs. Bartleby, rousing her daughter from her maniacal fantasies, “your father and I are going to talk at you. And you are going to sit here and listen. Any questions?”
“Yes,” said Lex. “Are restraints really necessary this time?”
“You bet.” Her mother sharply tightened the tangled mess of jump ropes around Lex’s midsection, all the while struggling not to let her heartache show. Mrs. Bartleby, despite all current appearances to the contrary, loved her children more than anything in the world. Each double knot she made in the rope mirrored the increasingly gnarled lumps tugging deep within her gut.
“Isn’t this child abuse?” Cordy piped up from across the table, eyeing her writhing twin. “She’s not going to bite us.”
“She might, once we start talking. Note the absence of cutlery as well. There’s a darn good reason I made tacos tonight.”
Lex wriggled some more, but soon found that the ropes were tighter than usual. “This is insane!” she yelled, tearing at the knots. “Seriously, what the f—”
“Lexington!” Her mother pointed across the room to a large pickle jar filled to the brim with dollar bills. “I don’t think I need to remind you that you’re already forty-two dollars in debt. You can’t afford to swear any more, my dear child.” Mrs. Bartleby loathed swearing, but was in fact beginning to secretly enjoy the small stash her daughter’s foul mouth had produced. She was thinking of using the proceeds to purchase a desktop Civil War cannon replica for her fifth grade classroom, as the only thing Mrs. Bartleby loved more than her children was American history and the spectacular weaponry it had produced.
“Can we get on with this?” Mr. Bartleby said. “The game starts in twenty minutes.”
“You and that infernal team, honestly—” she started, but then closed her mouth after receiving a harsh glare from her husband, who often asserted that anyone crazy enough to name her daughters after the first battles of the American Revolution waived all rights to accuse anyone else of being too obsessed with anything.
Mr. Bartleby took a deep breath and gazed across the table at his small but loving family. Storm clouds were beginning to gather in the murky sky outside, artfully adding the right amount of gloom to the situation.
“Okay, Lex,” he began, “here’s the deal. You’re our daughter, and we love you very much.” He briefly glanced at his tired wife, as if to receive verification of this fact. “But enough is enough. I don’t know what’s gotten into you over the past couple of years, but I don’t like what I’ve seen, and I definitely don’t like where it’s heading.” He scratched at his goatee, trying to think of how to say what he had to say next. His shiny bald head, shaved smooth every morning, gleamed in the dull glow of the dining room light.
He looked helplessly at his daughter with kind, sad eyes. “We think—your mother and I think—that it would be best for you to go away for a little while.”
Lex’s eyes widened. Cordy dropped her taco.
“Go where?” Lex said, doubling her unknotting efforts. “You’re kicking me out of the house?”
Her mother shook her head. “No, honey, of course not. We’d never put you out on the street.”
“Then what?”
Mr. Bartleby looked at his wife, then at his non-tethered daughter, then up, at nothing. Anything to avoid the squirmy, hurt visage of his troubled baby girl. “You’re going to go stay up north with Uncle Mort for the summer,” he told the ceiling.
Lex, who a second ago had been fully prepared to explode into a vicious rage and had even started planning some sort of dramatic dive through the plate glass window, chair and all, was for once shocked into speechlessness.
Mrs. Bartleby put her hand on Lex’s shoulder. “I know it’s a rather odd decision, but we think that a few months of fresh air could do you some good. You can get in touch with nature, lend a hand on Uncle Mort’s farm, maybe even learn something! You could milk a cow!”
Cordy let out a snort. “She’d probably punch the cow.”
“We’ve been thinking this over for a while now, and we really believe it is the best thing for everyone at the moment,” said Mr. Bartleby. “It’ll only be for the summer, sweetie.”
Lex couldn’t believe what she was hearing. They were really doing it. They were kicking her out.
But they were her parents! Putting up with all of her crap was their official job—they couldn’t just wriggle out of it! She tried to swallow the lump forming in her throat. How could they do this to her? How could they not see past all the recklessness and beatings and remember the real daughter they had raised? She was still in there somewhere, deep down. Wasn’t she?
Almost as an answer to that very question, the inescapable anger arose once again. With one last tug at the knots, Lex stood up, slammed the untangled jump rope onto the table, and, well aware of how bratty it sounded, spat out the only thing her reeling temper could think of.
Her father sighed as she thundered upstairs. “I know.”
***
Lex flopped onto her bed and stared at the ceiling. She wished, as almost all kids wish at one point or another, that she could turn into a pterodactyl and fly away and never come back.
Cordy cautiously made her way into the room that she and her sister had shared for the entirety of their sixteen years together. It should be noted, however, that the mere word “room” could in no way convey the sheer dimensions of it all; it seemed, in fact, to bend the very fabric of space. A normal bedroom could not possibly contain this much stuff.
Clothing littered every available surface. Schoolwork converged in a pile in the middle of the floor. Walls were no longer visible behind a plethora of posters, tapestries, and artwork. Cordy, who from the age of five had dreamed only of designing roller coasters for a living, kept a trunk full of engineering projects under the window; while Lex, who despite years of flawless report cards had yet to be struck by a single career aspiration, stored a graveyard of abandoned hobbies under her bed. Bowing wooden shelves held scores of books, candles, McDonald’s Happy Meal toys, movies, snow globes, awards, and stale, forgotten pieces of candy. It was a veritable museum of useless crap.
But all of these treasures paled in comparison to the photographs.
Pictures of Lex and Cordy blanketed the room like oversize confetti, not an inch of blank space left exposed. An inseparable childhood, all summed up in an endless series of four-by-six-inch prints: several taken in the hospital nursery shortly after their birth, a few of their first steps, two featuring their matching pink backpacks on the first day of school, one taken on Halloween when they were eight and had dressed as salt and pepper shakers, and another taken five seconds later, as the cumbersome headpiece had toppled Lex to the floor. Birthday parties, backyard antics, school plays, soccer games—no event escaped diligent documentation.
And although the more recent photos implied the evolution of two separate, distinct species, the Bartleby girls were undeniably twins, through and through. The shared room was merely an extension of their shared lives, and Lex found her hands trembling as Cordy sat down on her bed. She couldn’t remember the last time they had been separated, because it had never happened.
