“Swear,” she said, and poked him in the ribs with a bony finger.
He clutched his hands to his ribs. “Look,” he said, “I swear. I’m good at secrets.”
Her eyes narrowed slightly. “Oh, aye? And I suppose you’ve lots of secrets, then?”
He said nothing, and worked at keeping the smile off the corners of his mouth.
She poked him in the ribs, then got him in the stomach as he moved to protect his chest. “Secrets, huh?”
He shook his head and clamped his lips shut. She jabbed a flurry of pokes and prods at him while he scooted back on his butt, then dug her clawed hands into his tummy and tickled him viciously. He giggled, then laughed, then started to hiccup uncontrollably. He shoved her away roughly and got up on his knees, gagging.
“Oh, I like you,” she said, “just look at that. A wee tickle and you’re ready to toss your lunch.” She tenderly stroked his hair until the hiccups subsided, then clawed at his belly again, sending him rolling through the mud.
Once he’d struggled to his feet, he looked at her, panting. “Why are you doing this?”
“You’re not serious! It’s the most fun I’ve had since we moved to this terrible place.”
“You’re a sadist!” He’d learned the word from a book he’d bought from the ten-cent pile out front of the used bookstore. It had a clipped-out recipe for liver cutlets between the pages and lots of squishy grown-up sex things that seemed improbable if not laughable. He’d looked “sadist” up in the class dictionary.