Be on the lookout for Per Bastet’s Day of the Dead giveaway this coming week. You could win a free copy of A DEAD GUY AT THE SUMMERHOUSE!

Here’s a bit from the first chapter, when Mitch tells his young roommate he’s moving out.

Mitch Leaves The Refuge

excerpt from A DEAD GUY AT THE SUMMERHOUSE
by Marian Allen

“You’re leaving?” This time, I heard an edge of almost-panic in the words. I knew how he felt. I’d been at the Refuge my whole life. Every kid who came through the Faelin system found me there and left me there; a kid, like them, but part of the process. Kind of a humanizing element, you might say. Like a camp mascot, only I could talk.

I pulled a dozen comics off the top of the stack. “Here, you can have my duplicates.” I had planned to trade them, but I was feeling weirdly too-old-for-that-stuff right now. “You can have my Enterprise model, too, if you want it.” I wasn’t really into “Star Trek” anyway: the model had been under the Refuge tree in a box marked BOY 10+, and Mrs. Brandt’s fat cousin in the Santa suit had just happened to give it to me. I had always planned to give it to Jimmy as soon as I thought he had drooled over it enough.

“S-sure!”

Mrs. Brandt’s shoes clicked across the tile floor. “Come to the office when you’ve finished saying goodbye.” Her voice sounded thick to me, like she was trying not to cry. Maybe I just thought that because it was what I was about to do.

“Where’s everybody else?” I asked Jimmy. There were six of us at the Refuge just then, with room for two more.

“Movies.” Jimmy went back to drawing on his shoe.

“Why didn’t you go with them?”

“No money.”

“Why didn’t you ask me? I’d have given you –”

Jimmy stopped drawing and threw the pen at me.

“Go on and leave, then!” he shouted.

“Hey!” I used my deepest, hardest voice. His head snapped around to stare at me. I pointed at him. “Don’t touch my comics. You do, and you die.” I stepped over and ruffled his hair with my knuckles.

“Ow!”

And that was goodbye.

~ * ~

If you can’t wait for the giveaway, here are the buy links:

In Print: http://bookShow.me/1942166087

For Kindle: http://bookShow.me/B00OJ93Y8IA WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Write a farewell scene.

MA