Read Online When I Was Five I Killed Myself by Howard Buten - Free Book Online

cut in his head. Shrubs said that Jessica Renton had hit him with the Nesbitt’s bottle when he was on top of me. I saw Miss Hellman was holding Jessica real tight and yelling at her. The water fountain had the water coming out of a lion’s head. He was puking.
    I sat down at the picnic table and Miss Iris sat down next to me. She did this to my hair, and said “Are you ok, Honey? Is there anything I can do for you?”
    â€œYeah,” I said. “Don’t call me Honey, ok?”
    Soon it was time to look at animals again. Everybody switched buddies. I got Shrubs. He walked with a limp. I said, “Why are you limping?” and he said, “A lion ate my knee.”
    We had to go to the birds. I hate them because they aren’t wild animals and they smell. When we got there Shrubs and me didn’t go in, we waited outside and made a plan to ambush Marty Polaski when he came out and throw my shirt over his head and beat him up. Then Shrubs said that he didn’t want to because he wanted to go see the mooses because he knew one of them. I said who. He said Bullwinkle.
    I feel that sometimes Shrubs is a moron. Once I taught him idiot, and he stood on his front porch and said idiot to everyone who walked past his house.
    Everybody started to come out of the bird house. The first one out was Miss Iris. She said, “Burt, why in the world do you have your shirt off, do you want to catch pneumonia on top of everything else?” I said yes.
    Then Jessica came out and she saw me and walked over to me, and I was embarrassed because you could see I had a crewcut on my stomach.
    â€œIt doesn’t matter that you don’t have your shirt on,” Jessica said. “Germs and bacteria give you sickness, not drafts. I’m just telling you.”
    â€œHow do you know?” I said.
    â€œI read it in a magazine.”
    â€œNo you didn’t, you’re too young.”
    â€œI did,” she said. “We get them in the mail at my house. My daddy’s a high school teacher and he lets me read all I want.”
    â€œBig wow,” I said, and I put my shirt back on, only I buttoned it crooked and had to do it over. “Ig bay eal day,” I said. (This is Pig Latin. It is eat nay.) Then I sawShrubs was asking the man from the zoo where the mooses were. Then we all went to look at the porcupines. They were all sleeping in a hole, you could hardly see them. I remember once on “Popeye” a porcupine shot needles at him and then he drank some water and it came out all over him. Jessica leaned on the chain around the porcupines. She was angry.
    â€œYou didn’t have to knock the bottle out of my hand,” she said. “You could have said, ‘I don’t care for any thank you.’ It stained my dress.”
    â€œI was like Tarzan,” I said.
    â€œYou’re mental,” she said, and went to the llamas.
    In the same thing as the llamas there was a bird, he was large. It was a Kukaberra. Jessica looked at him, and I sang a song, I learned it in Music.
    Kukaberra sits
    In the old gum tree
    Merry merry king
    Of the bush is he
    Laugh Kukaberra
    Laugh Kukaberra
    Gay your life must be.
    Jessica looked at me for a minute, she listened to my song. Then she like shook her head.
    â€œIt doesn’t cost anything to be nice,” she said. “My dad said so.”
    â€œSo?”
    â€œSo what?”
    â€œSo?”
    â€œSo what?”
    The llamas were all sleeping but they weren’t in holes, so you could see them.
    â€œSometimes I don’t read magazines,” said Jessica. “Sometimes I just look at the pictures. I like to look at clothes. They are very elegant.”
    â€œI never look at clothes,” I said. “Never.”
    â€œYou look at Miss Iris’ clothes,” she said.
    â€œDo not.”
    â€œDo so,” said Jessica. “She sits next to you all the time and you look at her clothes and when she crosses