Title: The Doom Stone
Author(s): Paul Zindel
Publisher(s): HarperTeen
Pages: 192
Year: 2005
Format: PDF
Language: English
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I don$prime;t happen to buy all of Lorraine$prime;s stuff about omens. She talks about me distorting, but look at her. I mean, she thinks she can get away with her subliminal twists by calling them omens, but she doesn$prime;t fool me. The only difference between her fibs and mine are that hers are eerie-she$prime;s got a gift for saying things that make you anxious.
I happen to have enjoyed that little trip to the zoo even if she didn$prime;t. I think it was sort of nice that a baboon had a friend like Mr. Pignati. I$prime;d say that baboon was lucky. As a matter of fact, the way the Pigman was treating Lorraine and me you$prime;d have thought he liked us as much as Bobo. He bought me two cotton-candies-on-a-stick, one bag o? peanuts, and a banana split at this homemade icecream palace. Lorraine got at least four bags of peanuts, one cherry ice-cream cone, and a black-and-white soda. If you let her, Lorraine would eat until she dropped, and if she keeps going at that rate, I$prime;m afraid she$prime;s going to be somewhat more than voluptuous. She could end up just plain fat
We finally told him to call us Lorraine and John because every time he$prime;d say Mr. Wandermeyer I$prime;d
forget that was supposed to be me. Besides, he was harmless-a little crazy-but really harmless.
Lorraine and I went to school the following day, and we didn$prime;t get over to the Pigman$prime;s until that night around seven o$prime;clock. That was because when we were heading over there at three thirty, we ran into Dennis and Norton who wanted to know where we were going. We made believe we weren$prime;t going anywhere, so we had to go to the cemetery to have a beer with them. We drink at a special part of the cemetery called Masterson$prime;s Tomb. That$prime;s where all the famous Mastersons are buried, you know. It$prime;s a fantastic place because they have acres and acres all for their own tomb, and it$prime;s fenced in with a private road which they only open up when one of the Mastersons dies. But there is a hole in the fence at one place in the woods, and that$prime;s where all the kids go through.
The tomb is a great big marble building thafs set in the side of a hill so only the fancy front sticks out. The columns and everything are nice, but it$prime;s all chained up, so we climb up the side of the hill and get on top by these two glass domes that let you peek down inside. You can$prime;t actually see anything, but it sure makes you wonder.
I think cemeteries are one of the loveliest places to be-if you$prime;re not dead, of course. The hills and green grass and flowers are much nicer than what you get when you$prime;re alive. Sometimes we go there at midnight and hide behind stones to scare the @ #$% out of each other.
Once I ran away from Lorraine and the others and hid in a part of the cemetery that didn$prime;t have
perpetual care. That$prime;s the part where no one pays to keep the grass cut. I was just lying on my back, looking up at the stars, and I was so loaded I thought I could feel the spin of the earth. All those stars millions of light years away shining down on me-me glued to a minor planet spinning around its own gigantic sun.
I stretched out and touched stone. I remember pulling my hands back to my sides, just keeping my eyes on the stars, concentrating on bringing them in and out of focus. «Is there anyone up there trying to talk to me? Anybody up there?»
«Anybody down there?» If I was lying <on somebody$prime;s grave, whoever it was would be six feet away. Maybe there had been a lot of erosion, and whoever it was was only five feet away … or four. Maybe the tombstone had sunk at the same rate as the erosion, and the body was only a foot away below me-or an inch. Maybe if I put my hand through the grass, I would feel a finger sticking out of the dirt-or a hand. Perhaps both arms of a corpse were on either side of me right at that moment. What could be left? A few bones. The skull. The worms and bacteria had eaten the rest. Water in the earth had dissolved parts, and the plants had sucked them up. Maybe one of the molecules of iron from the corpse$prime;s hemoglobin is in the strand of grass next to my ear. But the imbalmers drain all the blood-well, probably not every drop. Nobody does anything perfectly.
Then I got very sad because I knew I wasn$prime;t really wondering about the guy underneath me, whoever he was. I was just interested in what was going to happen to me. I think that$prime;s probably the real reason I go to the graveyard. I$prime;m not afraid of seeing ghosts.
I think I$prime;m really looking for ghosts. I want to see them. I$prime;m looking for anything to prove that when I drop dead there$prime;s a chance I$prime;ll be doing something a little more exciting than decaying.
Anyway, we finally got away from Norton and Dennis, but it was too late to go over to the Pigman$prime;s -mainly because Lorraine had to get home to check in with her mother.
She finally got out of the house again that night by performing an elaborate ritual about having to go to the library. As for myself, I didn$prime;t have much of a problem.
«Eat you peas, John,» the Old Lady said, dabbing her mouth with a napkin. «Don$prime;t roll them around.»
Tm not rolling them around.»
«Your mother said to stop it,» Bore ordered. It was the first thing he$prime;d said to me during dinner, and even though it wasn$prime;t the warmest remark, I could tell he had given up prosecuting the case of the$prime;phantom gluer.
$prime;Tour father sold over three hundred lots today,» the Old Lady said, like she was patting a cocker spaniel on the head. Bore has a seat on the Coffee Exchange, and if he sells more than two hundred lots in a day, he$prime;s in a good mood. Anything less than that and there$prime;s trouble.
«It was like pulling teeth,» Bore returned, slightly embarrassed but pleased with the praise. He cut deep into the steak on his plate. «Wait until you start working, John.»
«I have to get the dessert,» the Old Lady said, violently polishing a teaspoon and dashing out to the kitchen. She always gets terrified if it looks like my father and I are going to have any type of dis-
cussion. A suitable pause occurred after Hyper left the room, and then he started in. x
«I think your problem is you have too much spare tirne.»
«That$prime;s an interesting point of view.»
«Don$prime;t be fresh. I was thinking maybe you$prime;d like to work with me over at the Exchange a few days a week. Just after school?»
I almost choked on a mouthful of yams when he said that. I mean, I$prime;ve been over to the Exchange and seen all the screaming and barking Bore has to do just to earn a few bucks, and if he thought I was going to have any part of that madhouse, he had another thought coming.
«It$prime;d be better than the way you waste all your time now. After all, what are you going to do in life?»
«I$prime;m thinking of becoming an actor.»
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