FAVORITES BY JUDY BLUME
Picture and Story Books
The Pain and the Great One
The One in the Middle Is the Green Kangaroo
Freckle Juice
The Pain and the Great One Chapter Books
Soupy Saturdays with the Pain and the Great One
Cool Zone with the Pain and the Great One
Going, Going, Gone! with the Pain and the Great One
Friend or Fiend? with the Pain and the Great One
The Fudge Books
Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing
Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great
Superfudge
Fudge-a-Mania
Double Fudge
For Middle-Grade Readers
Iggie’s House
Blubber
Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself
It’s Not the End of the World
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.
Then Again, Maybe I Won’t
Deenie
Just As Long As We’re Together
Here’s to You, Rachel Robinson
For Young Adults
Tiger Eyes
Forever …
Letters to Judy: What Kids Wish They Could Tell You
Places I Never Meant to Be: Original Stories by Censored Writers
(edited by Judy Blume)
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 1981 by Judy Blume
Cover art copyright © 2013 by Ericka O’Rourke
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Bradbury Press, Scarsdale, New York, in 1981. Reprinted by arrangement with Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
Visit us on the Web! www.randomhouse.com/teens
Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at
RHTeachersLibrarians.com
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition of this work as follows:
Blume, Judy.
Tiger eyes : a novel/Judy Blume.
p. cm.
Summary: Resettled in the “Bomb City” with her mother and brother, Davey Wexler recovers from the shock of her father’s death during a holdup of his 7-Eleven store in Atlantic City.
[1. Death—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.B6265 Ti
[Fic]—dc22
81006152
eISBN: 978-0-307-81778-5
Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.
v3.1_r1
FOR GEORGE
CONTIGO LA VIDA ES UNA BUENA AVENTURA
Contents
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Chapter Forty
Author’s Note
ONE
It is the morning of the funeral and I am tearing my room apart, trying to find the right kind of shoes to wear. But all I come up with are my Adidas, which have holes in the toes, and a pair of flip-flops. I can’t find my clogs anywhere. I think I packed them away with my winter clothes in a box in the attic. My mother is growing more impatient by the second and tells me to borrow a pair of her shoes. I look in her closet and choose a pair with three-inch heels and ankle straps.
I almost trip going down the outside stairs. My little brother, Jason, says, “Watch it, stupid.” But he says it very quietly, almost in a whisper.
Mom puts her arm around my shoulder. “Be careful, Davey.”
At the cemetery people are fanning themselves. We are in the midst of the longest heat wave Atlantic City has seen in twenty-five years. It is 96 degrees at ten. I think about how good it would feel to walk along the beach, in the wet sand, with the ocean lapping at my feet. Two days ago I’d stayed in the water so long my fingers and toes had wrinkled and Hugh had called me Pruney.
Hugh.
I see him as we walk through the cemetery to the gravesite. He is standing off to one side, by himself, cracking his knuckles, the way he does when he’s thinking hard. His hair is so sun-bleached it looks almost white. Maybe I notice because it is parted on the side and carefully brushed, instead of hanging in his face, the way it usually does. Our eyes meet, but we don’t speak. I bite my lower lip so hard I taste blood.
At the grave, I stand on one side of my mother and Jason stands on the other. I feel the sweat trickling down inside my blouse, making a little pool in my bra.
My aunt and uncle, who flew in from New Mexico last night, stand behind me. I have seen them only one other time in my life, when my grandmother died. But I was only five then and wasn’t allowed to go to her funeral. I remember how I’d cried that morning, not because my grandmother had died, but because I wanted to ride in the shiny black car with the rest of the family, instead of staying at home with a neighbor, who tried to feed me an apricot jelly sandwich.
This time I haven’t cried at all.
Now I hear my aunt making small gasping sounds, then blowing her nose. I hear my uncle whispering to her but I can’t make out his words. I feel their breath on the back of my neck and move closer to my mother.
Jason clings to Mom’s hand and keeps glancing at her, then at me. My mother looks straight ahead. She doesn’t even wipe away the tears that are rolling down her cheeks.
I’ve never felt so alone in my life.
I shift from one foot to the other because my mother’s shoes are too tight and my feet hurt. I concentrate on the pain, and the blisters that are forming on my little toes, because that way I don’t have to think about the coffin that is being lowered into the ground. Or that my father’s body is inside it.
TWO
The heat wave breaks that night and the next day, when my best friend, Lenaya, comes to visit, it is still raining. She sits on the edge of my bed and piles up the newspapers that are scattered all around.
“Hi,” she says. “How are you?” Her voice sounds shrill, not at all like her usual voice.
“I’m okay,” I answer, not able to look directly at her.
“I’m sorry about your father.??
?
I nod, afraid that if I try to speak I will break down and cry.
“It was a real shock.”
I nod again.
“We were in Baltimore, so we didn’t know until my uncle read it in the paper. He called to tell us. But by then there was no way we could get back in time for the funeral.”
I felt myself drifting off, hearing only a few more words. I feel very far away, as if nothing that is happening is real.
On the day that we met, Lenaya gave me a picture of a dissected female frog. She’d drawn it herself, with colored pencils. Every organ was carefully labeled. Heart, stomach, lungs, ovaries. I still have the picture somewhere. In my bottom drawer, I think. That was in eighth grade.
Lenaya is six feet one, skinny and black. Everyone assumes she must be great at basketball, but the truth is, she hates the game. She’d rather do an experiment with her chemistry set or read a book on genetics.
My father played basketball when he was in high school. He made the All State team twice. He could have had a college scholarship but he and my mother got married instead. And six and a half months later I was born.
“Davey … are you awake?” Lenaya asks, bringing me back from my thoughts.
“Yes.”
“Why don’t you get out of bed and get dressed … it’s after twelve.”
“I don’t feel like getting up. I’m tired. Besides, I’ve got blisters on my feet.”
“Your aunt says you haven’t been out of bed since the funeral.”
“That’s not true. I get up to go to the bathroom.” I shift my position and as I do my cat, Minka, who has been asleep next to my leg, stretches, yawns and begins to lick herself. I stroke her under the chin until she settles down again. “Did you read the story in the paper?” I ask Lenaya.
“Yes,” she says.
“Which one?”
“I don’t remember.”
I rummage through the pile of papers Lenaya had stacked a few minutes earlier, choose one, hold it up, and read the headline out loud, ADAM WEXLER, 34, SHOT AND KILLED. I show the article to Lenaya. “It made the front page,” I say, tapping the paper with the back of my hand. “It’s a nice picture of him, don’t you think?” I don’t wait for her to answer. “I took it myself … in June … in front of the store. He’s shading his eyes from the sun but other than that he looks good, doesn’t he?”
“Yes,” Lenaya says, softly.
I put down that paper and pick up another. ADAM WEXLER, LOCAL MAN, MURDERED. I glance at Lenaya. Her head is bent and she is fiddling with her belt. I read from the paper.
“Adam Wexler was shot in the chest and killed Tuesday evening during a robbery in his 7-Eleven store on Virginia Avenue, Atlantic City. The unknown assailant or assailants escaped with fifty dollars in cash. Mr. Wexler, a 1964 graduate of Atlantic City High School, is survived by his wife, Gwendolyn; a daughter, Davis, 15; and a son, Jason, 7.”
I fold up the paper and toss it to the end of my bed.
“Do you think it’s a good idea to keep reading about it?” Lenaya asks.
“Why not? Everyone says you have to face the facts. So I’m facing them.” Newspapers are very big on facts, I think. But not on feelings. Nobody writes about how it feels when your father is murdered.
“In lieu of flowers the family has asked that contributions be sent to the American Heart Fund.” I recite this for Lenaya, while I stare at the ceiling. I wonder why my mother has selected the Heart Fund, unless it is because my father was shot in the chest. Four times. Four times by an unknown assailant or assailants.
My aunt pokes her head into my room and says, “Lunch time, girls.”
“I’m not hungry,” I tell her.
“It’s just soup and sandwiches,” she says. “Lenaya … would you like to stay for lunch?”
“Sure,” Lenaya says. “Thanks.”
“I don’t want anything,” I say.
“You’ve got to eat, Davey. At a time like this it’s important to keep up your strength. I’ll fix you a tray. You and Lenaya can eat in your room. How about that?”
I nod. It is easier than arguing.
When she is gone I turn to Lenaya and say, “Her real name is Elizabeth but everyone calls her Bitsy. Isn’t that a dumb name for a forty-seven-year-old woman? She’s my father’s sister. I mean was. That’s the way you put it when somebody dies, isn’t it? You say was.”
“I guess,” Lenaya says.
“She’s from New Mexico.”
“I know. She seems nice.”
“My uncle, Walter, is a physicist at the Lab in Los Alamos. That’s where the first atom bomb was built.”
“I know,” Lenaya says again. “I was talking to him before, while you were asleep. I can’t wait to take physics, but I think you have to be a junior.”
Bitsy carries a lunch tray to my room. Lipton Country Vegetable soup, tuna fish sandwiches and iced tea, with lemon slices floating on top.
I watch as Lenaya begins to eat.
I take a sip of iced tea. Then I try a bite of tuna fish sandwich. I chew and chew until I feel myself gagging. I jump off the bed and race down the hall to the bathroom, where I spit the food into the toilet.
But this time I don’t throw up.
THREE
On the night that my father was killed, after the police and the neighbors had left, Jason and I got into bed with Mom. We’d left a light on in every room. The house was very quiet and I thought about how strange it is that sometimes quiet can be comforting, while other times, it becomes frightening.
“What’s it like to be dead?” Jason asked Mom.
“Peaceful,” Mom told him.
“How do you know?” Jason said.
“I don’t really,” Mom said. “But it’s what I believe.”
“Suppose they come back?” Jason asked.
“Who?” Mom said.
“The guys who shot Daddy. Suppose they come back and shoot us, too?”
“They won’t,” Mom said.
“How do you know?” Jason asked.
“I just do, that’s all,” Mom said.
“Do you think it hurt?” Jason said.
“What?” Mom asked.
“When Daddy got shot. Do you think it hurt him?”
“No,” Mom said. “I think it happened so fast he didn’t feel a thing.”
“That’s good,” Jason said. “Isn’t that good?”
“Yes,” Mom said, “that’s good. Now let’s try to get some sleep, okay?”
“Okay,” Jason said, yawning, as he snuggled up against Mom and closed his eyes.
Mom looked at me. I didn’t say a word. I couldn’t. I reached for her hand and held it tightly. I rested my head on her shoulder.
FOUR
Walter and Bitsy stay with us for ten days and Bitsy offers to stay longer, to help my mother. But Mom says, “No, you’ve done enough already.”
“There’s no such thing as enough,” Bitsy says. “We’re family. Maybe we haven’t seen much of each other over the years …” Her voice trails off.
“We kept planning a trip to New Mexico,” Mom says, “but somehow …” She shakes her head. Neither one of them seems able to finish a sentence.
“Come with us now,” Bitsy says. “The change would do you good.”
“I can’t,” Mom says. “I’ve got to pick up the pieces by myself.”
“All right … but we don’t want you to worry about money, Gwen. We can help. We want to help … until you get back on your feet.”
My mother presses her lips together and shakes her head again. “I think we can manage.”
Bitsy gets up from the table and walks into the kitchen where she pours herself a third cup of coffee. I am standing by the stove, stirring honey into a cup of tea that I am not going to drink.
“I remember when he was born,” Bitsy says. “He was such an adorable baby.” At first I think she is talking about Jason. But when she says, “Always drawing … right from the beginning … and such
a good student … such a fine athlete …” I realize that she means my father. “I still can’t believe it …” Bitsy continues, her voice breaking.
I don’t want her to cry. Not now. She takes a few deep breaths, blows her nose and the moment passes. She carries her coffee cup back to the dining area and sits down again. “No will, no insurance, no savings,” she says to Mom. “What were you living on, anyway … love?”
“More or less,” my mother answers.
Bitsy sighs. “Adam always was a dreamer.”
“Yes,” Mom says. “That’s one of the reasons I loved him.”
But we’re all dreamers, I think. If you don’t have dreams, what do you have?
Later, as Bitsy and Walter kiss each of us goodbye, Bitsy says, “We have a big house … and you’ll always be welcome.”
“We’re only as far away as the phone,” Walter adds.
“Thank you,” Mom says. “I’m glad you were here. You were a real help.”
I have mixed feelings when Walter and Bitsy leave. It’s good to be by ourselves again. Just us. Just the family. But it’s also a reminder that my father isn’t here anymore. That he won’t be back. That from now on it will be only the three of us.
At night, I lie in my bed, frightened. I hear noises I’ve never heard before. With Bitsy and Walter sleeping on the sofa, in the living room, I wasn’t so scared. None of us was. Now it’s back to a light on in every room and Jason creeping into Mom’s bed in the middle of the night.
I feel like going into Mom’s room, too. With the three of us close together I don’t feel so alone. But I’m fifteen, I keep reminding myself. I can’t sleep in my mother’s bed forever.
The worst times are when I start to think about the brown paper bag on my closet shelf. Then my heart beats very fast and I have trouble breathing. So I squeeze my eyes shut to erase the picture in my mind.
We live above the store and I listen for footsteps on the outside stairs. I’ll have plenty of warning if anyone tries to get up here, I tell myself, touching the breadknife that I’ve hidden under my pillow.
And I’m not the only one who’s prepared. My mother keeps the gun under her bed. She doesn’t know that I know. But I do. I’ve seen her holding it. It’s loaded. She’s ready to use it, if she has to.