The Lovely Bones
A Novel
Chapter One
My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was
murdered on December 6, 1973. In newspaper photos of missing girls from the
seventies, most looked like me: white girls with mousy brown hair. This was
before kids of all races and genders started appearing on milk cartons or in the
daily mail. It was still back when people believed things like that didn't
happen.
In my junior high yearbook I had a quote from a Spanish poet my sister had
turned me on to, Juan Ramn Jimnez. It went like this: "If they give you ruled
paper, write the other way." I chose it both because it expressed my contempt
for my structured surroundings ? la the classroom and because, not being some
dopey quote from a rock group, I thought it marked me as literary. I was a
member of the Chess Club and Chem Club and burned everything I tried to make in
Mrs. Delminico's home ec class. My favorite teacher was Mr. Botte, who taught
biology and liked to animate the frogs and crawfish we had to dissect by making
them dance in their waxed pans.
I wasn't killed by Mr. Botte, by t ... read full excerpt from The Lovely Bones ebook
