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by David A. Poulsen


  “You have to print your name and then sign right next to it. If you put anything else down or don’t sign in the right place or anything, you won’t count. It won’t be genuine.”

  When he said “genuine” it was like this rushing noise started in my head. I looked up and T-Ho was leaning against a wall, not far away, grinning at me like he had every time he said “jen-yoo-wine.” He’d been banned from the school but it wasn’t like he couldn’t get in there if he really wanted to. I guess he figured this was too good to miss.

  The rushing noise was getting louder inside my head. And I was seeing all these images: The look on Mr. R’s face when he’d said, “The fall of the Alamo” … Rebel being all curious that day at the ruins of the Bidwell Plant … Uncle Herm, his face red from drinking or being pissed off or maybe both, practically yelling at me, “There’s a few of those guys around — Holocaust deniers is what they’re called — and they’re all full of shit” … Mr. R covered with blood lying on the street by that bus … Patti looking so intense in social studies … my burned out Biscayne … an old lady standing on a falling-down porch late at night with the sleeve of her housecoat pulled up and asking in the softest voice, “Why do you hate me?”

  I’ve thought about it a thousand times since and I can’t explain why. Why it was that with all those images flashing around like a video on fast forward and the rushing noise getting louder in my head and T-Ho grinning at me and Darrell Whitchell pointing at where I should sign, that I picked up the pen and wrote in the space right next to Darrell Whitchell’s finger —

  8-5-2-3-9

  Copyright © David A. Poulsen, 2015

  First published in 2008

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purpose of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.

  All characters in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Design: B.J. Weckerle

  Cover design: Laura Boyle

  Cover image: © kevinhillillustration/istockphoto.com

  Ebook Design: Carmen Giraudy

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Poulsen, David A., 1946–, author Numbers / David A. Poulsen.

  Originally published by Key Porter Books, 2008.

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-4597-3248-3 (pbk.).—ISBN 978-1-4597-3255-1 (pdf).--ISBN 978-1-4597-3256-8 (epub)

  I. Title.

  PS8581.O848N85 2015 jC813’.54 C2015-901309-7 C2015-901310-0

  We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and Livres Canada Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.

  Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.

  J. Kirk Howard, President

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