"She frowned at the calendar. He didnt know what else she might have there at the foot of the bed, but one of them was a box of Diamond Blue Tip matches.
I know how to hurt you. Paul jammed his teeth together and grimly told himself hewould not vomit, would not, would not. She looked at it briefly, contemptuously, then began to shake a finger in his face, more of those empty white balloons puffing from her mouth. The thought that grieving for a fictional character was absurd did more than cross his mind during his tossings and turnings.
It was summer vacation, his father working, his mother gone to spend the day in Boston with Mrs Kaspbrak from across the street. That bird came from Africa.
The song came back, the one by the Trammps: Burn, baby, burn, burn the mother down! She screamed like a cat, writhed like a cat, and tried to claw out from under him like a cat.