The Boy Who Made Them Laugh
The kitchen in the Marsh house smelled like burnt toast and something else, something sourer that Ethan could never quite name but had come to associate with Tuesday evenings. He sat at the table with his chin propped on one small fist, swinging his legs beneath the chair because his feet still didn't reach the floor, not really, and stared at his own face bending and stretching in the curve of a soup spoon.
He pulled his mouth wide with two fingers, stretching his cheeks until his reflection became something rubbery and strange, a gargoyle version of a nine-year-old boy. He held the pose, studying it, then let go and watched his face snap back to something ordinary. Behind him, through the thin wall that separated the kitchen from the living room, his parents' voices rose and fell like a tide that never quite reached the shore and never quite retreated either.
"—told you three times, Richard, three times I told you about the Hendersons coming Friday—"
"—if you'd written it down instead of just assuming I'd remember every single—"
Ethan pressed the spoon closer to his face until his nose became a swollen blob and his eyes turned into two dark smudges. He crossed them, just to…