by Vicki Grant
Andy insisted I play the CD and show Chuck what I’d done so far on my project. I said okay. It wasn’t worth fighting about. Chuck crouched down behind me. We were all squished together, practically on top of each other, trying to look through the camera’s little viewfinder. Andy did most of the talking—it was all along the lines of “Isn’t this fabulous? Isn’t my son brilliant?”—but Chuck said something too. What?
Think.
We’d just watched the part of the video with Disco ‘Stache and the Reith guy in the lab. Then I cut to Ernest explaining how he’d accidentally dropped the sea lice in the coffee. I’d spliced in a few shots of these huge black beetles I’d put in the bottom of Ms. Cavanaugh’s World’s Best Teacher mug. They were crawling all over each other like they were playing Twister: The Insect Edition or something. It was hilarious.
Andy went, “Gross!” and laughed.
Chuck didn’t laugh. I remembered that. It was supposed to be funny, but I got nothing from him. He was so serious. He went, “Thath very interethting, Thyril.” I could feel the spray all over my ear.
I could still feel the spray.
The spray. Of course!
I hopped on my board and chased Kendall down into the bowl. His little posse of girls had to kind of dive for their lives.
“Oh, yeah?” I went. “Then how come he wasn’t wearing them today? Huh? Tell me that!”
Kendall was like, “Who wearing what?”
“Chuck. His teeth. He wasn’t wearing his teeth today! If they’re new, how come he’s not wearing them now? How come he’s not showing them off? Like, what kind of guy wears his teeth at home but not when he goes out? I mean, is that not weird to you?”
Kendall went, “Yeah, okay, I guess. That’s sort of weird.”
I went, “Good. Thank you. That’s all I wanted.”
The girls were smiling at me, but it was in that “Poor Cyril” sort of way. I had to admit it was probably a little, I don’t know, peculiar to get that excited about somebody else’s dentures. Didn’t matter. I felt like I’d just made some major breakthrough. The girls might have thought I was crazy, but at least I didn’t anymore.
I stopped at Toulany’s on the way home for a big bag of extra-spicy barbecue chips and a liter jug of pop. It wasn’t the best dinner in the world, but I figured it was probably better than what we had back at the apartment. Andy wasn’t even buying very much take-out any more. The night before, she’d brought home a single-serving taco for us to share. I didn’t like to ask myself why. I kept on hearing Atula say, “But if you lose the case, of course, you will get nothing!”
Nothing.
I didn’t like nothing. I’d had nothing before. Nothing isn’t fun. It doesn’t taste good and it doesn’t keep the power going or the landlord happy. It’s cold and it’s dark and it keeps you up at night. Even a little bit of something—anything!—is better than that.
I got back to the apartment and there was a Tupperware container sitting outside the door with a note attached.
Hi Sport,
Thought you might like a good meal for a change. (I know your mother wasn’t going to make it for you!)
Biff
I had this little life-ain’t-so-bad moment. Biff cares. Food shows up when you really need it. We’d survive.
I picked up the container and went into the apartment. The place was empty. Just as well. I wasn’t sure I wanted Andy catching me eating Biff’s food right then—or seeing that snarky note of his.
I tore it up and stuffed it in my pocket. It depressed me. It was so un-Biff. He always seemed to take everything in his stride. He was always the one to give people a break. He was probably the only guy in North America not cheering when that fish-eyed hairstylist from Orillia got voted off the island. What was with that “I know your mother wasn’t going to make it for you” crack? I really didn’t need him getting mad now too. There’s no way they’d ever get back together then.
I zapped the container and sat down to eat. I was pretty full after all those chips, but I was powerless to stop myself. It was a real meal. I couldn’t remember the last time I had a real meal. (Wrong. I could. It was the night Biff left.) The mashed potatoes were a little lumpier than I’d expect from him, but I didn’t care. They were good. So what about the note? Why shouldn’t he be mad? He had feelings too.
And Chuck? So he didn’t wear his teeth. What business was that of mine? Maybe he thought he looked better without them. How would I know? Weirder things have happened. I mean, Andy preferred her pantyhose with holes in them. Maybe Chuck just thought he had particularly attractive gums or something and didn’t want to hide them away behind an ugly old set of teeth.
A hot meal makes you see the world kind of different.
I put my fork down and groaned. It was good, but I had eaten too much. I put the lid back on the container and hid it in the fridge behind a tub of yogurt Andy must have bought when she was in junior high. My chicken dinner would be safe there. No way she’d ever risk going back that far in the fridge. It was like a toxic waste dump back there.
I went to turn on the TV. I had to get up to do it because the stupid remote wasn’t working again. Andy had probably taken the batteries for her Dictaphone or something. I was leaning down to push the power button when I just happened to glance out the window.
That’s when I saw Biff again.
It was dark out, and he was more or less in the shadows, but the circle of light from the streetlamp sort of glinted off the top of his buzz cut. I knocked on the window and gave him a thumbs-up. I was just trying to say thanks without looking too sucky about it.
Biff looked up. He didn’t smile or wave or anything. He just deked back into the dark like he wasn’t even there.
chapter 16
Assault
Any unlawful touching of another person
without justification or excuse.
I’m terrified. The tall skinny guy with the bad ‘stache is chasing me. He’s going, “I told you to get me a thoda! I want a thoda!” I’m running as hard as I can to get away from him. My lungs hurt. My ribs hurt. I can barely hear him over the sound of my own breathing.
I see an alley on the far side of our building. I never noticed that alley before. I dart down it. It’s dark and wet and hollow sounding. I run and I run and I run as hard as I can. I keep going until, I don’t know, I suddenly realize there’s only the sound of one pair of feet slapping the pavement. I can’t hear the guy screaming anymore. No footsteps. No voices. No heavy breathing. Nothing. It’s just me now.
He must have given up. Made the wrong turn. Tripped. Something. Whatever. I’ve lost him.
I’m free! I’m going to live.
I throw my head back and kind of stagger to a stop. For a second, it’s almost like I’m floating, like I just won the hundred-meter crawl or something, and now I can finally just lie on my back and relax. I almost feel kind of heroic.
Life is good for about two seconds, then bam! This giant sea louse leaps out at me from behind some garbage can. It’s got this big wet mouth and these white, white teeth that it keeps snapping at me, and my heart slams into over-drive again. I know I’m doomed, but I start running anyway. It dawns on me that I’m a lousy runner. I’ve always been a lousy runner. I’m always the last in gym class. I don’t know how I lost the other guy. It was a total fluke.
No way am I going to outrun some giant sea louse. It’s got way more legs than I do. It’s using all of them. It’s not going to fall. It’s not going to get tired. It’s so close I can feel its sick clammy breath on my ear.
I’m all ready to give up, to go, “Okay, fine. You won!” but then I see Biff. He’s sort of hiding in the dark. He’s motioning for me to run to him. He’s going, “C’mon, Sport! You can do it! C’mon!” I put on this big burst of speed. I’m almost there. I stretch out my hand. He grabs it. He goes, “I got you!” and I think that means I’m safe, but then I look at him. He’s smiling at me, but it’s not a happy smile. Not a Biff smile
. It’s evil, like the Joker’s smile on Batman or something. It makes him look even bigger than he is. I realize he meant “I got you!” as in “You’re mine, sucker!”
There’s no hope now. I know that. Even my body knows that. My internal organs have already started to liquefy. It’s all over. Biff’s big mitts are clamping down around my neck. He’s still smiling. I scream.
I kept screaming even though my eyes were open. I heard Andy going, “What is it? C-C! It’s me! What is it, sweetie?”
I shook my head and she sort of swam into focus. Even in the dark, I could tell she was as scared as I was. I tried to tell her not to worry, that it was just a dream, but before I could, I started barfing.
This wasn’t just a mouth-and-stomach thing. This was a full-body barf. It came in these big heaves, as if somebody had me by the feet and was playing crack-the-whip with my body. I could feel the bones in my neck snapping. By the time my insides were empty, I was exhausted. I flopped back on the bed with my mouth open and my heart pounding and just stared at the ceiling. There were little white dots dancing around in the air. I figured those were blood vessels popping. Can you go blind from barfing?
Andy cleaned me up and wiped my face with a cool cloth and sort of cradled my head in her lap. She kept going, “Oh, sweetie pie. Oh, sweetie pie.” It floated across my mind that, despite everything, I loved her. I was so glad she was there. She was always there. She wouldn’t desert me. I could count on her. I let her run her fingers through my hair like she used to when I was little and we’d lie in bed together reading. It felt good. Right then, those five little grooves she drew on my scalp were the only part of me that didn’t want to die.
She went, “It must have been something you ate. Did you eat anything weird today, C-C?”
chapter 17
Larceny
The unauthorized taking of someone’s
personal property. Theft.
I couldn’t face breakfast the next day, but otherwise I felt okay. I made myself feel okay. I had to get that project done. I couldn’t think about my empty stomach or my sore throat or why, no matter what you eat, it always smells like cheese when you barf it up. I couldn’t think about Chuck’s teeth or the orange envelope from the power company marked Urgent! Payment Required or whether Biff had actually meant to poison me.
I had to make myself believe that the only thing that mattered right then was getting an A (or at least a B or even a C) in media arts.
I just needed to get one last interview with Andy and Chuck for my Gleamoccino video. A few hours to edit, a couple more for voice-over and I’d be done. I could reward myself. Go to the bowl. Watch crappy TV. Waste time.
I snapped into gear. I was all ready to go. I had my questions written out. Andy finally had her makeup on the way she liked it—i.e., too much and messy. Chuck had even agreed to be on camera again. (Since “it’th only a little thchool project.” Like he was doing me a favor or something! Right. Mr. Get-Me-a-Thoda. He so owed me.)
I looked through the viewfinder and saw a little white message flashing on the screen.
No Disc.
I immediately forgot about how lucky I was to have Andy and how much I loved her and all the other garbage I thought the night before. Now I was ready to kill her.
I was like, “Okay. Where is it? What did you do with the CD? I told you not to touch the camera!”
She went, “What? What are you talking about? I didn’t touch the camera, Cyril! Why would I touch your camera?”
Just to bug me. Because I told you not to. Because you couldn’t keep out of trouble even if you wanted to. There were a thousand different reasons.
I just glared at her.
She put her hands up like she was a hostage negotiator and I was some deranged maniac she had to talk down. She went, “Seriously. Honestly. We looked at it with you. Then you went to the bowl. Then we went to the law library. Then I came home and went to bed. That’s it! I never touched it, Cyril. I wouldn’t touch it. Really. Seriously. Honestly.”
I could feel my brain cells exploding like popcorn in the microwave. All I could think about was how much trouble I was in. I threw my head back and did this silent scream. I started tearing the place apart.
Either Andy actually understood how important this was or she was trying to cover something up, because she didn’t fight back. She always fights back, no matter how wrong she is. In fact, the wronger she is, the harder she fights. It’s one of her most effective defenses.
She started tearing the place apart too.
Chuck, meanwhile, was sort of doing this half-hearted attempt to look. He shuffled a few flyers around. He lifted up a cushion on the love seat but was too lazy to lean his head down low enough to actually see under it. He went, “Ith anything elth mithing?”
Andy stopped tossing around a pile of old newspapers and went, “What? Sorry. Can you say that again?”
He went, “Mithing? You know, gone. Ith anything gone?”
I felt like saying, “Would you just put your teeth in?” but I didn’t. I didn’t even answer. Who cared about anything else? Was anything else due Tuesday? I shook my head and sort of growled under my breath.
Andy ignored me. She looked at Chuck and went, “Why?”
Chuck licked his finger and pushed his glasses up. “I don’t know. Maybe there wath a robbery and the perpetrator took the thee dee too.”
Andy slapped her hand on her cheek.
“Of course! That’s it, Chuck! I bet we were robbed!” She looked at me like, See! I told you I didn’t do anything.
It was so stupid I couldn’t even get mad. I made my face go all flat. I went, “What would anyone steal from us? We don’t...have anything...worth taking.”
Andy dropped her jaw and bugged her eyes out at me. She went, “Cy-ril!” all insulted and everything. “We’ve got lots of stuff other people would want!”
I couldn’t control myself anymore. I did this spokes-model-from-hell thing with my hands. “For instance, this lovely, secondhand, twelve-inch, black-and-white television set with its matching cardboard entertainment unit—otherwise known as a box.”
Andy was mouthing “ha-ha” and desperately looking around the room for something worth stealing.
I ran over to the windowsill. “Or this state-of-the-art 1976 radio–alarm clock with its unique Screeching Zombies reception system.”
She went, “That works perfectly well. It’s vintage. People pay a lot of money for vintage radios.”
I picked her fourteen-dollar Salvation Army “fur” coat up off the floor. “Or, of course, this new-to-you designer mink, complete with bright red ketchup accent and fuzzy pocket mints!”
I threw it back down on the floor. I went, “Well, looks to me like all of our valuables are safe. So much for the robbery idea.”
I tipped over the beanbag chair. I found a pair of socks I hadn’t seen since grade four and about a buck in change but no CD.
Andy went, “My toe rings! They’re...they’re gone!”
I ignored her. I knew what she was up to. Another one of her diversionary tactics. I wasn’t falling for it. I got down on my knees and looked under the love seat. The dust bunnies were breeding. Another reason we needed Biff.
I would have stayed under the love seat until the grief counselors came and took Andy away, but my asthma was starting to kick in.
I got up. Andy and Chuck were over by the window, looking all devastated. Andy was saying, “They were right here! I’m sure of it. I was sitting on the floor doing my toenails and I put them here and now...” She paused as if it was too painful to go on. “And now, they’re gone!”
She got those toe rings on the street, five for two bucks. Like someone’s going to break into the apartment for that. They would have been better off stealing our recycling bag.
Chuck was nodding and tapping his finger against his lips as if he was Sherlock Holmes hot on the trail of some international diamond thief or something. He went, “Hmm. Yeth. Anything elth d
ithappear you can think of?”
Andy scoped the room like she was some emo snowy owl looking for prey. I wanted to kill her. Why did I have to put up with this garbage?
She gasped and fell against Chuck. “My Catcher in the Rye is gone!”
I looked at the busted TV we use as a coffee table. Andy was right. The Catcher in the Rye was gone.
That might not sound like such a big deal to most people. It’s this beat-up old book held together with an elastic band. You can pick up one just like it at almost any yard sale for a quarter.
But this was serious.
Andy loved that book more than anything in the world (with the possible exception of me and cigarettes, although not necessarily in that order). When she was living on the street, she used it as a pillow. When other mothers were reading Go, Dog. Go! to their kids, she was reading me The Catcher in the Rye. She liked to keep it close enough that she could flip through it whenever she needed a little hit of Holden Caulfield to make it through the day. She always kept it on that busted-up TV like it was a little shrine or something. Her friends all knew how important it was to her.
Call me crazy, but for a second there I started to think someone might have stolen some stuff after all.
Andy was sitting on the love seat, rocking back and forth, going “Holden! Holden!” like someone had just kidnapped her kid. Chuck was patting her back. I couldn’t tell if he was trying to comfort her or burp her.
The CD with my entire project on it disappears, and this is what I get? What a touching scene.
I came to my senses.
I went, “Would you just quit it! It wasn’t a robbery. The windows are all locked. The door wasn’t kicked in. No one came in here. Why would they bother? For your rings? My video project? Some old beat-up copy of The Catcher in the Rye? I don’t think so. That stuff isn’t worth anything to anybody. It’s only important to us.”
