The Complete Short Fiction of Charles L. Grant, Volume IV: The Black Carousel by Charles L. Grant Page A

Maybe Elly, maybe Susan. That was three.
She had lots of friends back in Cambridge. Tons of them. What was
going on?
    Elly nodded, and brushed at her skirt. “She’s
been here long enough, but does she want one?”
    Kitt chewed on the end of a pigtail, lifted one
shoulder.
    “Hey,” Fran said.
    They all looked at her. Except Elly.
    “I’m here, you know,” she said, pointing at her
chest “It’s not like I’m a ghost or anything. Why don’t you just
ask me?”
    Elly swiveled around, smoothed her skirt,
brushed at her bangs. Smiled sweetly. “Do you?”
    “Do I what?”
    “Want a friend.”
    “I’ve got them.”
    Maddy laughed, and cut herself off.
    “What is this, some kind of club?” Fran shook
her head, not liking the way they were so serious. “Yon guys some
kind of club?” She looked at Kitt. “What?”
    Kitt pulled the end of her pigtail out of her
mouth and plucked at the grass beside her. It wasn’t a club, she
said, not exactly. It was kind of like some of the kids hung out,
that’s all, and when one of them got in trouble, the others kind of
helped out, stuff like that. Homework, teachers, brothers, stuff
like that. Finding things that got lost, chipping in when you
couldn’t afford a new necklace or headband or wristband, stuff like
that. Sometimes, when you needed a friend, they kind of helped out
there too, checking the guy out, making sure he was all right,
wasn’t a creep, a dork, a scuzzbag, stuff like that. Sometimes you
couldn’t tell. Sometimes they smiled at you, said things to you,
you think maybe he likes you, but he really doesn’t, he just wants
to pretend like he’s something else, not just a kid with zits and
glop.
    “A boyfriend?” Fran said, not believing what
she’d heard.
    “You,” She laughed, but not aloud.
    New kids didn’t know about the kids who already
lived here, Kitt went on. New kids sometimes got hurt when they
didn’t have to be hurt, didn’t have to cry themselves to sleep
every night, didn’t have to make a jackass of herself over some
jerk who couldn’t even remember her stupid telephone number. The
old kids helped the new kids. Stuff like that.
    Fran didn’t know whether to laugh, get mad, tell
them they were nuts, tell them without knowing why she wanted to
that her parents had started to fight every night when they thought
she was asleep, could they help her with that with their stupid
little club? But she didn’t say anything. Because the expressions
they had weren’t hostile any longer, or uncaring, or suspicious;
they were patient. As if they had read her thoughts, or had had
them before themselves, and were just waiting for her to make up
her mind that things were really okay, there wasn’t anything she
had to worry about. Not here.
    It almost made her cry.
    “There’s this kid who came around once,” she
said at last, and shook her head. “Twice. I saw him at the carnival
too.”
    They waited.
    “Chip. He said his name is Chip.”
    “Chip Clelland?” Elly said as if she hadn’t
heard the name correctly.
    Fran nodded.
    “You want him for a friend?”
    She shrugged. “I don’t know. He’s nice, I guess.
Not a boyfriend. He doesn’t have to be a boyfriend, does he?”
    “Hell, no,” said Maddy as she unwrapped a
chocolate bar, her offer to share untaken, “Besides, boys are dumb
shits anyway.”
    Kitt and Susan giggled.
    “Language,” Elly said softly.
    Maddy stuck out her tongue.
    “Mine,” a voice said then. Frail. Quiet; so
quiet it screamed.
    Fran looked around, wondering who else had
joined them, and saw the fifth girl staring at her. Pale, scrawny,
her T-shirt baggy though it couldn’t get much smaller; her legs
were crossed, the flesh stretched so tightly across her knees, the
white of the bone showed through. Her elbows were the same.
    Fran recognized her then — the girl on the
carousel, the one riding with, talking to, laughing with Chip.
    “Mine,” she repeated, from behind limp bangs
that nearly covered