Excerpts

Chapter One One It is the morning of the funeral and I am tearing my room apart, trying to find the right kind of shoes to wear. But all I come up with are my Adidas, which have holes in the toes, and a pair of flip-flops. I can't find my clogs anywhere. I think I packed them away with my winter clothes in a box in the attic. My mother is growing more impatient by the second and tells me to borrow a pair of her shoes. I look in her closet and choose a pair with three-inch heels and ankle straps. I almost trip going down the outside stairs. My little brother, Jason, says, "Watch it, stupid." But he says it very quietly, almost in a whisper. Mom puts her arm around my shoulder. "Be careful, Davey." At the cemetery people are fanning themselves. We are in the midst of the longest heat wave Atlantic City has seen in twenty-five years. It is 96 degrees at ten. I think about how good it would feel to walk along the beach, in the wet sand, with the ocean lapping at my feet. Two days ago I'd stayed in the water so long my fingers and toes had wrinkled and Hugh had called me Pruney. Hugh. I see him as we walk through the cemetery to the gravesite. He is standing off to one side, by himself, cracking his knuckles, the way he does when he's thinking hard. His hair is so sun-bleached it looks almost white. Maybe I notice because it is parted on the side and carefully brushed, instead of hanging in his face, the way it usually does. Our eyes meet, but we don't speak. I bite my lower lip so hard I taste blood. At the grave, I stand on one side of my mother and Jason stands on the other. I feel the sweat trickling down inside my blouse, making a little pool in my bra. My aunt and uncle, who flew in from New Mexico last night, stand behind me. I have seen them only one other time in my life, when my grandmother died. But I was only five then and wasn't allowed to go to her funeral. I remember how I'd cried that morning, not because my grandmother had died, but because I wanted to ride in the shiny black car with the rest of the family, instead of staying at home with a neighbor, who tried to feed me an apricot jelly sandwich. This time I haven't cried at all. Now I hear my aunt making small gasping sounds, then blowing her nose. I hear my uncle whispering to her but I can't make out his words. I feel their breath on the back of my neck and move closer to my mother. Jason clings to Mom's hand and keeps glancing at her, then at me. My mother looks straight ahead. She doesn't even wipe away the tears that are rolling down her cheeks. I've never felt so alone in my life. I shift from one foot to the other because my mother's shoes are too tight and my feet hurt. I concentrate on the pain, and the blisters that are forming on my little toes, because that way I don't have to think about the coffin that is being lowered into the ground. Or that my father's body is inside it. Excerpted from Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.