Dedication by Emma McLaughlin Page B

blood-spurting ankles, or even the gnarled spine of the dying girl. I am piano-bench straight, every inch of me realigning to this new state, this Jake Sharpe Compass I have just become.

    “I’m going to kill my mother.” Laura runs her hands down the back of her thighs, smoothing her oversize letter jacket under her as a barrier against the cold curb, and sits.
    “What’d she say?” As cars pull in and out circling for rest, I stare across the dark lot to the food court carousel’s twinkling lights, visible through the mall’s atrium. Jake Sharpe leans against the brick wall of the Cineplex. About twenty feet behind me, to the left.
    “She wasn’t there. Just my sucky brother, who bit my head off because I’d woken him from his sucky nap.”
    “She’ll be here soon.” I pat her knee reassuringly. “Let’s just hope JenniferTwo brings her sex slave back before she gets here.”
    “So disgusting.” We squint into the tall trees lining the edge of the parking lot where JenniferTwo marched Sam off as soon as she saw that Laura’s mom wasn’t waiting. It’s what we’re all not talking about. With the exception of Benjy screaming, “Don’t forget to swallow!” met with the screeching, “You wish, asshole!”
    The chilly October night blows through us and I withdraw my hands into my sleeves, wishing I could be wearing the ski hat Mom made me tuck in my pocket.
    “All that calling and picking out outfits for this.” Laura waves her hands around at our pathetic clusters. “Ugh.” She stands and steps out into the lot, peering up to Route 14A. “I’m going inside to try her again.”
    “I’ll keep guard,” I volunteer.
    “I’ll guard for bloodthirsty toddlers back from the dead.” Benjy extracts the straw he’s been chewing for three hours and waves it like a scalpel, showering spittle on the concrete.
    “I feel safer already.” Laura backs out of mucus range.
    “Actually, I have to take a whiz.” He grabs the theater door as she drops it and follows her into the purple-carpeted lobby.
    Jake drums the top of the garbage can. I focus very hard on the rippling outline of the mall carousel’s horses because now it is just the two of us and the band is getting tighter, tighter until his high-tops are next to me. “Stupid.”
    My eyes fly up.
    “The movie. Pretty stupid.”
    “Yeah.” I nod, the wind blowing into the coat I can’t zip up, must keep off my shoulders like I’ve just shrugged carelessly and couldn’t be more comfortable this way even though I can see my breath. His toe nudges an empty can of Squirt soda off the curb. He rolls it lightly to my ankle and back again.
    “All that from burying a cat. Seems kind of extreme,” I offer.
    “Yeah,” he laughs. I’m riveted by the lolling hot pink letters under his red rubber sole, seeing if I can anticipate the direction it will go next. A test. “You see Big?” he asks. “That was pretty cool.”
    “I loved Big! Where he has to say good-bye to Elizabeth Perkins because he has to grow up and she has to let him. Oh, it was so good.”
    “…Yeah.” Wrong! Wrong! What else happened?! What else?!
    “And the whole thing where he plays the giant keyboard, that was cool.”
    “Totally!” Yay! “It’d be awesome to get all that stuff without having to live with your parents or finish school or go to college or any of that. Just stick a ticket in a machine and bam! You’re there. Wicked pad. Cool job doing cool stuff. Hot girl.” The can slips out and his foot falls onto my toes, pain shooting up through my leg and I bite my lip.
    The Heller station wagon honks, approaching through the maze of mall stop signs, and I wave. Then his feet are opposite mine, toe-to-toe, his hands dangling in my face. He flicks them in insistence and I realize what he wants. I push my numb fingers through my sleeves, our shivering skin meeting. He grips my wrists and then leans back, pulling me up. I arrive just beneath his face, looking into the