I am still working diligently on that novel. Here’s another excerpt:

…Richie has been to the emergency room more times then I can count on two hands and he’s only nine.

When he was five a dog bit his face and he received six stitches next to his left eye. There was a neighborhood dog, some kind of rottweiler mix, that was always kept in a yard and I am assuming because of this acquired a nasty disposition. Something that I admire about my little brother is that he has absolutely no fear. After the incident he would tell me that he just wanted to let the dog out so that it could play with him and the other kids. The story he told me was this:

Well I saw the dog and I had walked by there every day to get to the bus stop. He (the dog) always growled and barked at me but I knew that all he wanted was to play like me and my friends. Then Trevor Avery told me that if I let him out we could play games with him. Trevor knows a lot because he’s like two grades ahead of me. So I went over to the fence and I saw the dog. He had his teeth out all mean and I thought that maybe I shouldn’t let him out, you know, cuz his teeth were out. But there was Trevor being all like Richie he just wants a bone to chew. That made sense I thought. So I let this dog out and it’s really big. He jumped up at me and knocked me down and I wasn’t really sure how to get back up. His teeth were like this close to me (He held up his thumb and his index finger to indicate the distance that the dog’s ferocious jaws had been snapping at him). Before I knew it Trevor was pulling me away and we were running and I was bleeding. A LOT. Mom was really pissed. She started crying all the way to the emergency room. I hope she’s not still mad at me. It wasn’t really my fault and it isn’t fair if she thinks it is.

Another incident was maybe a few months later in June or July. We were at the community pool. The one where you have to have plastic badges with numbers raised off of them attached to pins that would always stick you if you put them on your suit. It was there that Richie decided he wanted to be the first shallow water diver to be successful at the age of five. I was with him but at the time I was enamoured with the life guard who worked there, a certain Jesse Beach. He had this great brown skin that brought out his eyes. So we were busy talking when out of the corner of my eye I see Richie run and dive full force into the swimming pool and it took a few moments to process that he was doing this from the wrong end. Jesse and I quickly exchanged horrified looks with eachother before we went running to the side of the water. Richie had stood up and was holding his nose making little plumes of blood in the water with each drop. It was swirling around him in beautiful stringy clouds. He just stood there and looked and me and smiled crookedly. With a mouth full of blood he said “I guess that wasn’t such a good idea, huh?” I shook my head and told him to get out of the water. During the car ride to the ER Richie explained himself with his hand on his broken nose. There are still stains on the passenger seat from that incident.

You know Vern. I was thinking that I could just like dive in and I’d be light enough with the right, uhm projectory then I could definitely just dive in there it turns out that I guess I am a bit too heavy and I just didn’t skim the surface enough or something. In my head it looked like something real easy to pull off you know, like a handstand underwater or those stupid teas parties that the girls do. They always look so stupid when they do that. I know I’m good at diving usually so it just seemed like something that I would have no problem.

Richie maybe you should stop talking and try not to get blood on the seat. (He laughed at that one)

It’s pretty much too late for that Vern. It’s kind of already all over the place. So I guess I shouldn’t try that one again, even though I think it’s still possible. I just need to lift myself up or something somehow. I promise not to break anything if I try it again. (He looked at me hopefully)

Yeah well. You won’t be trying that again Richie. I can’t keep bringing you to the ER when mom is at work and when I’m supposed to be watching you.

You were too busy with that lifeguard huh? (I shoot him a look. It’s the one where my face says that I have no retort but I still want to say something. Not much could really excuse me from not watching him, but fuck he should know better)

I think you should save some of your blood for the ER Richie, in which case you might want to stop talking.

But…(To which I silenced him by making a sound that is much like air escaping from a tire; a harsh SHHHHHHH!)