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About After The First Death
Product Description Who will be the next to die? They've taken the children. And the son of a general. But that isn't enough. More horrors must come... From the Publisher Who will be the next to die? They've taken the children. And the son of a general. But that isn't enough. More horrors must come... From the Inside Flap Who will be the next to die? They've taken the children. And the son of a general. But that isn't enough. More horrors must come... From the Back Cover Who will be the next to die? They've taken the children. And the son of a general. But that isn't enough. More horrors must come... About the Author Robert Cormier (1925–2000) changed the face of young adult literature over the course of his illustrious career. His many books include The Chocolate War, I Am the Cheese, Fade, Tenderness, After the First Death, Heroes, Frenchtown Summer, and The Rag and Bone Shop. In 1991 he received the Margaret A. Edwards Award, honoring his lifetime contribution to writing for teens. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. I keep thinking that I have a tunnel in my chest. The path the bullet took, burrowing through the flesh and sinew and whatever muscle the bullet encountered (I am not the macho-muscled type, not at five eleven and one hundred eighteen pounds). Anyway, the bullet went through my chest and out again. The wound has healed and there is no pain. The two ends of the tunnel are closed although there's a puckering of the skin at both ends of the tunnel. And a faint redness. The puckering has a distinct design, like the old vaccination scar on my father's arm. Years from now, the wound will probably hurt the way my father's old wounds hurt him, the wounds he received in those World War Two battles. My mother always jokes about the wounds: oh, not the wounds themselves but the fact that he professes to forecast weather by the phantom pains and throbbings in his arms and legs. Will my wound ache like his when I am his age? And will I be able to tell when the rain will fall by the pain whistling through the tunnel in my chest? I am joking, of course, but my joking is entirely different from my mother's tender jokes. I am joking because I won't have stayed around become a human barometer or an instrument capable of forecasting weather. But - who's the joke on? The first of many questions about my presence here. Keep a scorecard handy. My father is scheduled to visit me today. His first visit since the Bus and the Bridge last summer. I am typing this in the room at Castle and it's beautiful here as I write this. Through the window, I can see the quadrangle and the guys indulging in a snowball fight. The first snowfall of the season. The snow is late this year. Christmas is only two weeks away. Thanksgiving was dry and cold with a pale sun in the sky but no wind. Perfect for a football game, the traditional game between Castle and Rushing Academy. Castle won, 21 to 6, and there was a big celebration on campus. Elliot Martingale brought these fireworks back from summer vacation; they were left over from July 4th at his family's place on Cape Cod, and he said they would be touched off when we won the big game on Thanksgiving Day. We won, he set them off. Beautiful. That's when I went to the john, swallowed fourteen sleeping pills, lay down on the bed listening to the cherry bombs explode and then a cluster of firecrackers going off like a miniature machine gun; and it was nice lying there, drifting away, and then I thought of the kids on the bus, strewn around like broken toys while the guns went off, and I started getting sick and rushed off to the bathroom to vomit. Please do not consider these the notes of a self-pitying freak who needs the services of a psychiatrist. I am not filled with pity for myself. And I'm not writing this to cop a plea of some kind. I do not consider this a suicide note either. Or even a prelude to one. When the time com
