Believing Cedric by Mark Lavorato Page A

check your wrist for the time, all while you plodded along across this no-man’s-land of a world, with catastrophes flaring up in every direction around you. That’s what you had to do—that and nothing else. Peter was done with trying to calculate the statistical likelihood of getting hit between the frontlines. It was high. Higher than ever. And no amount of guessing or preparation could do a single thing about it.
    Which, naturally enough, led him into his backyard, to sit with a bottle of whisky and watch the sky like it was Dominion Day and the fireworks had just popped from the ground and fizzled into the night sky, wavering sparks tracing them to the spot where they would detonate. There was even a part of him that was half-curious as to what it would look like, wondering if he would see the wave of destruction fanning out over the land like he’d seen on some of the safety commentaries before movies—which made you feel anything but safe—houses pulverized in microseconds, frames of instant tinder skeletons that wouldn’t even have the time to topple to the ground.
    Peter returned his drunken gaze to Cedric, who was now nearing his house. And as Peter was watching him, something bizarre happened: the boy stopped in his tracks and, blinking hard, held his hands out in front of him, turning them over, inspecting them. When he was finished, he let them drop to his sides and started taking in the rest of his surroundings, pivoting in a full circle, absorbing the details of the skyline, the knee-high grass, the coulee where his companions were climbing up the other side. Then, as if remembering something, he turned directly to Peter and started walking toward him. He was walking, Peter noted, in a very different manner now, with confidence and direction, ostensibly forgetting his sore ankle altogether.
    Impulsively, Peter raised his glass at this strange Johnson boy, feeling a little dizzy, a little unsteady in his chair. “Hey, kid,” he mumbled, waiting to hear what would come out of his mouth next, “here’z . . . to th’end o’the worl’ tonight.” He pushed the glass out to clink with an imaginary counterpart and took a sip.
    The boy didn’t flinch at what he’d said or at his inebriation. He had walked straight toward Peter and stopped just in front of him, placing his foot—his bad foot, as far as Peter reckoned—onto the raised deck where Peter’s chair was perched. “See,” Cedric said, “the thing is, you’re wrong about that. The world’s not gonna end tonight, or tomorrow, or any time soon for that matter. Trust me.” A practised smirk, a sweep of his blond hair.
    Peter shifted in his seat. “Oh yeah, kid? Wlll . . . I’m sher yer parens tellya everythin’s fine’n’dandy, but I’m afraid th’truth is—”
    â€œNo,” Cedric interrupted. “That’s not what they tell me. Not at all. In fact, if I was to go down that street right there,” he pointed, “and ask my parents about what you just said, about the world coming to an end tonight, they wouldn’t be able to reassure me in the least. Instead, they’d exchange this kind of serious look and avoid the question, which, if you think about it, is the kind of thing that would make a boy lose sleep for weeks, months even, waiting around for the world to blow up. I mean, Christ .” Cedric shook his head. “What a thing to say to a kid.”
    Now Peter was squirming in his chair, feeling more than uneasy and, to his unpleasant surprise, somewhat nauseous. “Look,” he slurred, “whut I’m talk’n’bout is politics, kid, ’bout complucated . . . adult things, ’kay? ’Bout Russian boats and Kenndy and . . .” Trailing off, feeling weary, annoyed even, Peter looked over Cedric’s shoulder at the barn not far