Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Vol. 40, No. 6, June, 1995

“Okay, I’ve got it,” says Alicia now, sitting bolt upright on the sofa. “Ready?” She closes her eyes and speaks very fast. “Tiffany didn’t even have time to scream before he was on her like a wild animal. Her naked, glistening body flopped as helplessly as a dying fish as he squeezed her neck harder and harder. He wouldn’t stop no matter what she did. Something terrible was happening to her. She couldn’t breathe. She was passing out. She thought, he’s trying to strangle me, I can’t believe he’s trying to strangle me.”

I am writing as fast as I can. When I look up, Alicia’s face is a little pink. “Did you get it all?” she says.

“Yeah,” I say, “it’s great.”

Later, in my room at home, I try to read it back and see that I was writing too fast. Most of it is just a squiggle, but two words leap out at me, the only two I can read: strangle, strangle.

Sometimes in school I time out the teacher and remember things about Alicia. Like:

Alicia spits into her right palm, and I spit into mine. We grind our palms together to mix the spit, then wipe our hands on the grass of her lawn.

“Now we’re really married,” she says. We run into her house, where the cook gives us lemonade and sugar cookies.

Today, in Mrs. Hennessey’s English class, one of the bad ones is starting, but I know by now that I can’t do anything to stop it. I just have to let it play out and out until it’s done. It’s the one where Alicia and me are six years old and playing hide and seek. Alicia’s It, and I have a really good hiding place under her parents’ bed.

“Shh,” I tell Suki, Alicia’s new Siamese kitten, who’s rubbing against my head and purring so loud I am sure Alicia can hear it. Suki meows loudly, twice, then streaks across the room. I see Alicia’s bare ankles and her new red Keds start to walk past the doorway, then stop. I freeze. My heart is pounding hard, and I’m trying not to sneeze as a dust ball tickles my nose.

“I know where you are,” Alicia says, almost singing it, her feet coming slowly toward the bed. “I know where you are, and I’m gonna get you.” I’m so scared I fling up my head and hit it hard on the wooden frame. Tears spring out of my eyes. All I can think of is to get away. I scuttle over to one side of the bed, but Alicia’s hanging over it, her face upside down and red, her pigtails hanging to the floor.

“Boo,” she says.

I yell and crawl over to the other side. Her face is there, too. Her eyes are crossed, and she’s sticking out her tongue.

Back and forth we go. She doesn’t get tired, and I can’t fake her out. I can’t stand it under the bed. It’s hot and itchy, and I feel like I can’t breathe. Finally I just give up and start to cry.

“Crybaby,” Alicia says, and jumps off the bed. She gets down on the floor and reaches toward my hand. I look at her face, at her hand. “Come on,” she says, smiling.

I put out my arm, thinking she’s going to pull me out from under the bed.

She laughs a nasty kind of laugh and smacks my wrist with her palm, hard. “You’re it,” she says. She runs from the room, away from me, fast.

“William,” Mrs. Hennessey says, “have you heard a word I’ve said?” I look up, and my vision starts to clear. I see Mrs. Hennessey’s face all splotchy, the fat under her chin wiggling with every word. I start to laugh. And then, right in front of the whole class, she sends me to the guidance counselor because she says I have problems concentrating. As I leave the room, Alicia gives me The Look. I know she won’t speak to me for the rest of the day.

Basically, The Look is a mixture of things. Part of it is the face you make when you step in something soft and squishy in the street. And part of it is pity, like when teachers give you the textbook when everyone else in the class has to buy it.

Mostly, though, it’s hate.

You don’t want someone giving you The Look. Trust me, you don’t.

And what did I do that was so bad? I really ask myself that sometimes. That first time I got The Look, it was an accident. I swear.

I mean, it happened so quick. One minute I’m in the playroom with Suki, and the next minute Alicia’s crying and the kitten is lying on the carpet all broken and still.

“It was an accident!” I say. “She was scratching me, and I had to pull her off. I guess I squeezed too hard. I couldn’t help it. I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry.”

I tell this to Alicia over and over again, and finally she believes me. We bury Suki in the lot across from the railroad tracks and tell Alicia’s mom that Suki ran away. Alicia swears never to tell anyone, but she gives me The Look for the first time.

I don’t know why. It really was an accident, just like I told her.