Deception

by Lisa Clark O'Neill

  Of course, he’d probably never been eyeball to eyeball with a snake.

  Or with Declan Murphy.

  “You’re right,” she finally said, swallowing hard so that she didn’t choke on the lie. “It’s… just a snake. Nothing to be afraid of.”

  Declan straightened his hipshot stance, looking confused for a moment, but then that single eye narrowed. His dirty cut-offs slid lower and sweat dripped down his skinny expanse of naked chest. “So you’re not afraid of it, Sadie Rose?” His own tongue darted forth dangerously snake-like to lick at his chapped lips, and Sadie shivered compulsively. Just at that moment Declan looked every inch the reptilian predator, waiting to devour her whole in one fell swoop as if she were a rodent in his mother’s garden. He inched forward, close enough that she could smell the stench of brine from where he’d been playing near the creek bed, close enough to see that the mud which smeared his cheek had dried and cracked around his stupid dimple, close enough that he could touch her if he so desired, and judging by the look in his eye that was an option he was considering. Knowing the way his little pea-brain worked, a challenge of some sort was imminent. Probably along the lines of if you’re not scared, then why don’t you touch it?

  “If you’re not scared, then why don’t you touch it?”

  Sadie wished she could feel triumphant over the fact that she’d been able to predict his words before he uttered them, but knowing Declan Murphy like the back of her hand was not a state to which she aspired. In fact, she’d be perfectly happy to forget the little toad ever existed, if he wasn’t constantly reminding her by presenting himself in her presence. She might have been able to avoid him, despite the fact that he lived next door, if it weren’t for the twin curses of being best friends with his sister and the fact that it was summertime in South Carolina. No child in her right mind would spend the endless dog days inside a non-air-conditioned old house that had the unfortunate tendency to reek of mothballs when there was a perfectly lovely tree-house in which to while away the hours, reading Sweet Valley High or sketching the passing shrimp boats.

  And that tree house, despite being located in the massive oak in Gloria Mayhew’s back yard, by equal rights belonged to the four Murphy children because it was their father who had built it. It was simply an unfortunate accident of timing that Sadie had been coming down the ladder when Declan desired to go up, and now here they were, squaring off over a stupid snake.

  She almost wished she’d put a pillow over him and smothered him back when she had the chance.

  “I don’t have to prove anything to you, Murphy.” Sadie drew herself up to her full height, which unfortunately wasn’t all that impressive.

  Declan waggled his eyebrows and sidled closer, forcing her to scratch her sweat-dampened skin against the bark. “Come on, Sadie. It won’t bite. It’s just a harmless little snake out of my mamma’s garden. She doesn’t even let my dad kill this kind because she said they discourage pests.”

  Well if that was true, then why hadn’t the dumb thing discouraged Declan? Because she was pretty sure if you looked in the dictionary under “pest,” you were bound to find his ugly picture.

  Deciding she’d had enough of his particular brand of irritation for the day, Sadie located her backbone and thrust out her fingers. The move was lightening quick, and Declan blinked as if he wasn’t quite sure what had happened.

  “There. I touched it.”

  His thick brows drew together under the fall of his hair. “That doesn’t count, Sadie.” He was sounding a bit discouraged. Probably because he hadn’t managed to make her run screaming from the scene in terror, which was the obvious goal of this little exercise. Then a solitary brow arched heavenward, the only body part with aspirations, and his tongue darted over his lips. “Do it again,” he ordered, in some new voice she didn’t recognize. It was like he was trying to sound like some of the high school boys who worked over the summer at his parents’ downtown Charleston restaurant – Murphy’s Irish Pub.

  One side of Sadie’s face scrunched up as she regarded him with suspicion.

  “No.” It was pretty succinct, as far as answers went. Then he did that licking thing again, and Sadie drew back in alarm.

  “Touch the snake, real slow-like, or else you’re gonna have to kiss me.”

  “I’d rather kiss the snake,” she told him, before thinking.

  Declan looked disgruntled, but then grinned as evilly as always. “That can be arranged.”

  Before Sadie could prepare to defend herself, the snake was thrust toward her face. She had a fleeting image of lurid green scales and forked tongue and beady little eyes before the thing made contact with her lips. The touch was less than fleeting, but for Sadie that was more than enough to send her shrieking into full-blown hysterics. She trampled right over Declan, who’d been weakened by his own fits of laughter, and left him writhing on the ground like the snake that he was as she shot back toward her house. Her screams rent the still summer air, drowning out the cicadas which had been chirping languidly and the sound of Declan’s guffaws. Somewhere down the street a screen door banged as some concerned neighbor came to investigate the ruckus, but her own house remained placidly oblivious because her Granny was deaf as a post.

  Sadie shut down the siren only after she’d made it to the safety of the wide back porch, where she turned, panting and furious, toward the tree house. “I’ll get you, Declan Murphy!” she promised, her little face red and twisted with rage. “One of these days, if it’s the last thing I do, I’m going to get you good