Characters in Rat

Aggie Larson’s old rag rug still lay in the center of the room, threadbare around the edges but otherwise whole.

2 That afternoon he went to see his old department head. Al Stamper had abruptly retired at the end of the spring semester, allowing Arlene Upton, also known as the Wicked Witch of Elizabethan Drama, to finally achieve the position of authority she had so long desired. Nay, lusted for.

Three at most. To get started. You can get Alice to help with the kids, you know she loves to come and the kids love their auntie.

… with no light but the kerosene lantern the sheriff had found upstairs, Jim Averill on one side and Andy Prescott on the other. In the lantern’s reddish-orange light, the kid looked no older than fourteen. He certainly didn’t look like the half-drunk, …

Al Stamper had abruptly retired at the end of the spring semester, allowing Arlene Upton, also known as the Wicked Witch of Elizabethan Drama, to finally achieve the position of authority she had so long desired.

“Holy crow.” “I’ll get it washed this afternoon,” Drew said. “I like it that way,” Brandon said. “It’s cool. You must have done some crazy driving, Dad.” “Oh, he’s crazy, all right,” Lucy said. “Your crazy daddy.

DeWitt hooked his glasses down to the end of his beaky nose and studied Drew over them. “I know I look like m’dad, worse luck, and you look like yours. You are Buzzy Larson’s boy, ain’tcha? Not Ricky, t’other one.” “That’s right. Ricky lives in Maryland now. I’m Drew.”

The lawmen had to be seen, especially the deputy named Cal Hunt, who happened to be about the same height and build as the Prescott boy.

Bullet went right through and broke the back winda. Constable Griggs was standin right where you are now when he told me.” “Christ,” Drew said, and in his mind, something changed.

They had to be sitting out front, in full view of the townsfolk and Dick Prescott’s gun thugs, because that was the basis of the clever plan Averill had hatched to get Prescott’s son out of town under the very noses of …

“You want to shop out here in the willies, Mr.... Larson, is it?” “Yes. Drew Larson.” “You want to shop out here in the willies, Mr. Larson, you gotta be prepared to pay the price.” “Where’s Roy today?” She rolled her eyes.

As he hung there, still heaving, barely aware of Lucy rubbing his back, he thought, Ellie says the book will be published next February.

“It’s time we took a little night air. Be seen by whoever wants to look at us. Hank, bring that jug.

He was there, looking through the eyes of Herkimer Belasco, the piano player, when the Prescott kid put the muzzle of his .45 (the one with the fancy pearl-handle grips) under the chin of the young …

He racked the phone and got rolling. As the day was winding down (a pretty nice one, just as Jackie Colson had predicted), he began seeing signs for the Island Falls Motor Lodge. He was tempted, but decided to press on.

“But we’re not really gonna drink, are we, Sheriff?” Jep Leonard asked. The plan had been explained to him carefully, but Jep was not exactly the brightest bulb in the Brightest bulb in the chandelier?

On the first of December, Jim Averill turned in his badge to the circuit judge who had been in town to witness the hanging, then rode back to Bitter River, where he would pack …

Thinking that brought back a memory of a lecture the English Department had sponsored five or six years before, Jonathan Franzen speaking to a full house on the art and craft of the novel.

It was Kelly Fontaine, the English Department’s administrative assistant since time out of mind. She was in tears. Al and Nadine Stamper were dead.

… in one, toys in the other—the ones left here by his kids and those left by the children of whomever Lucy had let the cabin to in the few years they’d rented it. He grabbed the crate and dumped it. At first he didn’t think the stuffed rat was …

“Goddam allergies, I get em every fall.” “Mike DeWitt, isn’t it?” Drew asked. “Nawp, Mike was my father. He passed on in Feberary.

He felt quite sure that Moose Mom would be there, so sure that for a moment (thank you, fever) he actually thought he did see her over there by the equipment shed, but it …

Almost surely. Then the tree had come down, smashing through the roof, destroying Mr. Rat’s happy home. Had he been hit by a tree branch or a piece of the roof as he scuttled for safety? Maybe by a bucket of congealed paint?

Mr. Scruffy was a poet of the Pierre Apocalypse, not quite speaking in iambic pentameter, but close.

All the best fairy tales make that clear. I thought we discussed that.” “Okay, but Nadine Stamper was never a part of it! Never a part of our... our arrangement!” “She was never not a part of it,” the rat replied, and rather prissily.

Now she looked not just worried but alarmed. “We haven’t rented it out for two years. Not since Old Bill died.” Old Bill Colson had been their caretaker, and Drew’s mom and pop’s caretaker before that. “You’re not thinking—” “I am, but only for a couple of weeks.

You can talk to Brandon, he’ll be back by then. He’s eating dinner at Randy’s house.” “Roger that.” “Anything else to report?” There might have been worry in her voice, or that might only have been his imagination.

… boarded up, the driveway chained off—and then began counting phone-and-power poles, just as he and Ricky had as kids. A few were leaning drunkenly to starboard or port, but there were still exactly sixty-six between the Cullum camp and the …

Roy DeWitt said this with palpable relish. “He was comin down with the Alzheimer’s, see? Constable found a notebook in his glovebox with all kinds of stuff written down in it. Directions, phone numbers, his wife’s name. Even the fuckin dog’s name. Couldn’t take it, don’tcha see.” “Jesus,” Drew said.

It was the fucking rat! And I turned it loose! Lucy cried all through the service. Stacey cried with her, not because she knew the Stampers well but in sympathy with her mother. Drew sat silent, with his arm around Brandon.