Word Nerd

by Susin Nielsen

  ‘Mom, c’mon.’

  ‘I’m not comfortable living in the same house as that young man,’ she replied.

  ‘But we don’t even know what he did.’

  ‘Well, whatever it was, it got him a jail sentence, so it can’t be good.’ She took a sip of her coffee. ‘I just can’t believe how expensive everything is.’

  We spent the day doing laundry. The Economopouloses had offered their washing machine to my mom a zillion times, but she didn’t want to knock on their door and walk through their house to use their machine. So every weekend we wheeled a cartful of dirty clothes up to Broadway and Collingwood to the Laundromat. After laundry, we hit a few garage sales, and Mom found a great cable-knit sweater and I found some old Spider-Man comics and a kite. Then we walked to Jericho Beach because, for the first time in a while, it was a beautiful day, and we tried to fly the kite. It got tangled up in a tree and we had to leave it there, but at least it had cost only fifty cents.

  That night we made a pizza – my favorite – and Mom even let me put pepperoni on half of it. After she’d done a bunch of exam marking, we played Scrabble. I won, 272 to 203, thanks to the words ‘WHIMSY’ on a triple word score and ‘JIVE’ on another, and Mom didn’t drink anything but water because the ouzo had made her feel kind of sick the night before. All in all, it was a very nice day.

  And then it was Christmas. We bought a little tree. It was very Charlie Brownish, and we decorated it with all the decorations we’d made over the years. We did popcorn strings, and I wound up pricking my thumb with the needle a gazillion times, and we hung homemade paper snowflakes on our door. I liked walking down Broadway from Kidsbooks to Shoppers Drug Mart, where they strung up the most beautiful blue Christmas lights. If I squinted my eyes, the lights would go all fuzzy and it felt the way Christmas should.

  On Christmas Day, Mom gave me a multicolored hat with a big pom-pom on top that she’d knit all by herself. And she gave me socks and underwear, and two new books – Inkheart by Cornelia Funke and Bud, Not Buddy by a guy named Christopher Paul Curtis. Nana Ruth sent me a cheque for twenty dollars and Mom a cheque for a hundred.

  I gave my mom a picture frame from a kit I’d bought at the craft store on Broadway. I’d decorated it with all sorts of found objects, like moss and dried flowers, and inside I put a photo of the two of us. She got kind of teary-eyed when she opened it.

  Then the phone rang and it was Nana Ruth. Mom spoke politely with her for ten minutes or so, then Nana and I talked for over half an hour, getting caught up. It was great to hear her voice. I’d sent her a picture frame too, with the same photo of my mom and me inside. ‘I love it,’ she told me. ‘I’ve got it sitting right on top of the piano, where I can look at it every day.’

  ‘I miss you, Nana.’

  ‘I miss you too, Ambrose. What’s it like in Vancouver?’

  ‘Not bad. It rains a lot.’

  ‘Well, we’re having a hailstorm here, so maybe rain is better.’

  ‘When will you come and visit?’

  There was a pause on the other end of the line. ‘I’m not sure, hon. Soon, I hope.’

  After we’d hung up, I felt a little blue. It was very quiet in the house because we were the only people there. The Economopouloses, even Cosmo, had gone to Mr E’s brother’s house in Maple Ridge on Christmas Eve, and they were staying until Boxing Day.

  We put on Christmas music to fill the silence and ate a late breakfast of pancakes. Afterward we went for a long walk on the beach, then came home and made hot chocolate. For dinner, Mom cooked us a turkey breast because there was no point cooking an entire turkey for just the two of us. She didn’t overcook it, like she sometimes did, and it was very good. We had pumpkin pie for dessert and topped it with whipped cream from a can, which was a treat. Then we went for a short walk around the neighborhood to digest our food, and I gazed at all the Christmas lights and peered into all the brightly lit windows, where I could see families and friends enjoying each other’s company. When we got home, we watched It’s a Wonderful Life on the CBC, which we’ve done every Christmas Day since I can remember. We opened a bottle of Champagne – not real Champagne because that was too expensive – and Mom even let me have half a glass.

  Around eleven o’clock, I went to bed and I waved at the picture of my dad and I wished him a Merry Christmas.

  And then I put the pillow over my head so my mom wouldn’t hear me and I cried a little because, even though it had been a really nice day, I felt lonelier than I ever had in my entire life.

  12

  UECSER

  cue, sure, ruse, seer, user, us, cure, curse, reuse, secure

  RESCUE

  BY THE SECOND week of January, I was back into my correspondence-school routine and bored out of my mind. The initial excitement had worn off. I had no one to talk to all day except my mom, and a cyber-teacher once a week. At nights, when she went to work, I felt lonely in our apartment, but I was under strict orders not to go to the Economopouloses’.

  Just before two o’clock on Thursday, my mom and I walked over to Cypress Elementary so I could ‘talk’ to my cyber-teacher on the lab computer. My life had become so dull that this was now the highlight of my week. I wore a big sweater that used to belong to my dad, with a T-shirt underneath so the wool wouldn’t itch my skin.

  When we walked into the school, the hallways were mercifully deserted. I breathed deeply and took in the smell of books and B.O. and other kid-smells, and as weird as it sounds, I felt a longing – not to be picked on again, but to be part of something bigger than just me.

  Mr Acheson came by the lab to say hi and ask about our Christmas holiday, which I found kind of weird because the guy never said two words to me the entire time I was at his school, and now he made a point of dropping by to chat every time I showed up.

  ‘How are things going, Ambrose?’

  ‘Fine.’ He was wearing his Homer Simpson tie today, and the way he stood over me, I could see his nose hairs. Lots of them.

  ‘So far so good with the correspondence schooling?’

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘Irene, is it working out alright for you?’

  I waited for my mom to tell him to call her Mrs Bukowski, but instead she just said, ‘Yes, Bob, it’s going well so far. Thanks for asking.’

  Bob?

  ‘I found some materials about correspondence schooling on the Web that I printed out for you,’ he said to her, as I logged on to the computer. ‘Do you have a moment to come to my office?’

  I glanced up at Mom, whose face had, for some reason, gone blotchy and red. ‘Sure. Ambrose, you’ll be OK in here?’

  ‘Unless the other computers decide to launch an attack, I should be fine,’ I said, and I was kind of disappointed that neither of them laughed at my joke.

  She and ‘Bob’ left, and I got down to work. It was warm in the lab, so I took off my sweater. I had a lot of questions today, and my cyber-teacher had some comments on an essay I’d handed in the week before on Mesopotamia. By the time I was done, I realized it was almost dismissal time. My mom still hadn’t returned. I jogged quickly down the hall to Mr Acheson’s office, but the door was open and they weren’t inside.

  Then the bell rang. And that’s when I realized I’d forgotten my sweater in the lab. It’s also when I realized that one of my mom’s T-shirts must have wound up in my drawer and that I hadn’t even looked at it when I pulled it on because it said NUMBER ONE MOM in huge letters on the front.

  I could not be seen. I ran out the front doors of the school and sprinted across the soccer field. But even my Ikes couldn’t turn me into a good runner and, within moments, I heard footsteps behind me and they were getting closer. Then a hand grabbed my shoulder and spun me around.

  It was Troy.

  ‘Well, if it isn’t Spambrose,’ he said, dropping the soccer ball he’d been holding and taking a few steps toward me.

  ‘Hey, Troy. How’s it hanging?’

  ‘Why is it that words that so
und normal in someone else’s mouth sound so retarded in yours?’ said Troy, just as Mike and Josh appeared, flanking him on either side.

  ‘Look at his T-shirt,’ Mike said, and they all cracked up.

  ‘You really are a fag,’ Josh said, then he made his wrist go limp and pranced around like he figured a homosexual would do.

  ‘I should let you start your game,’ I said. I tried to step around them, but the three of them blocked my path.

  ‘I was grounded for a month, thanks to you,’ said Josh.

  ‘I couldn’t use my Wii for three weeks,’ added Troy.

  ‘Well, you guys did almost kill me—’

  ‘It was your fault. If you hadn’t been such a frigging liar,’ Mike said, then he shoved me so hard, I fell to the ground. When I tried to stand up, Troy kicked me and I fell again.

  ‘C’mon, guys, can’t we let bygones be bygones?’

  ‘Shut up,’ said Josh, kicking me hard in the stomach, and even though he was only wearing sneakers, it really hurt. Mike bent down and pulled the Ikes right off my feet and threw them into a garbage can on the edge of the field. Then all three of them were kicking me and it hurt like hell and I started to cry because nothing like this had ever happened to me before … well … only twice before … once in Regina and once in Kelowna, but never this bad. So I tried to curl up in a ball and protect my head, and there was this weird screeching sound, which I realized only later was probably me.

  And then suddenly, like the voice of an angel (only not, because it was a harsh, mean voice full of swears), I heard, ‘Get the f— away from him, you f—ing punks!’ And the kicking stopped and I peered up from the ground to see Cosmo striding toward us with his fists at the ready. He looked really scary, and I wasn’t the only one who thought so because Troy, Mike, and Josh took off in the other direction as fast as their legs would carry them.

  Cosmo helped me up. I was shivering, partly because I was wearing nothing but a T-shirt on a drizzly January day and partly because I was still freaking out.

  ‘You saved my life.’

  ‘That would be an exaggeration.’

  I felt my face and my body. I didn’t appear to be bleeding, but I was sore all over, especially in the stomach.

  ‘What’d you do to them?’

  I shrugged. ‘They hate me.’

  Cosmo nodded like this made sense. ‘You do have a knack for bringing out the worst in people.’ Then he glanced at my T-shirt. ‘Aw Jesus, kid …’

  ‘It was an accident,’ I said. ‘I didn’t see what it said, I just grabbed it.’

  I could tell he was trying not to laugh, but a laugh came out anyway. ‘Where are your shoes?’

  I walked over to the garbage can and fished them out.

  ‘Can you get home OK?’ he asked, as I put them back on.

  I nodded, and then suddenly I was crying again, blubbering and feeling like a giant baby. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘It just really hurt.’

  To my surprise, Cosmo stopped laughing. ‘I bet it did.’ He put a hand on my shoulder. ‘C’mon, I’ll walk you home.’

  We took the alley so we wouldn’t run into my mom. But as we walked through the back gate I saw her, entering our apartment. ‘Oh, no,’ I moaned. ‘I can’t let her see me like this. She’ll freak.’

  Cosmo didn’t say a word. He just let me into his place. Mr and Mrs E weren’t home, so I went into their bathroom and cleaned up, washing off the grime from my scraped-up elbows and my face. Cosmo even went back to the school and grabbed my sweater, when I told him it was missing, so I could put it back on over the T-shirt and my mom would never know the difference. I didn’t tell him it had belonged to my dad and that if I’d lost it, I would have hated myself for the rest of my life.

  When I came out of the bathroom, Cosmo was in the living room, watching TSN. ‘Thanks again,’ I told him.

  He stared at the TV. ‘You should learn how to protect yourself.’

  I didn’t know what to say. How was I supposed to learn how to protect myself? It wasn’t like Mom could afford to give me karate lessons, or boxing lessons, or any lessons at all, and even if she could, she’d never let me anyway for fear I’d get hurt, which, I guess you could say, was kind of ironic.

  But all I said to Cosmo was, ‘Yeah.’

  I got down to our place just in time to say bye to my mom before she left for the university. She’d been getting worried about me. I told her I’d gone looking for her and she told me she’d gone looking for me, and we agreed we must’ve just missed each other.

  It wasn’t till later that I realized I hadn’t felt scared of Cosmo at all. I didn’t for a moment think he was going to kill me while I was alone with him upstairs, and he hadn’t tried to do any of the yucky things my mom had warned me about over the years, like a) touch my penis or b) get me to touch his.

  In fact, for a criminal, he didn’t seem like a bad guy at all.

  13

  EAITHMLIU

  math, lime, them, lithium, malt, helm, mule, mail

  HUMILIATE

  ‘SUNSHINE!’ I SHOUTED the following Monday, when I looked outside my bedroom window. Standing on my bed, I could just see a band of blue sky.

  I dashed into my mom’s room. She was still sleeping, but I couldn’t resist. ‘Mom, it’s sunny out.’

  She opened her eyes groggily, then smiled. ‘Well, this I have to see.’

  We got dressed to go out right after breakfast. Mom said, ‘Screw marking and schoolwork. We can do it later.’ It was great to see her in a cheerful mood.

  When we stepped outside, both of us blinked like moles coming up from their underground burrows. ‘Let’s walk around the neighborhood and treat ourselves to a hot chocolate when we’re done,’ Mom said.

  We had a great walk. I quizzed Mom on her classes at the university. ‘Best student?’ I said.

  ‘Easy. This young woman who’s studying mechanical engineering. Annabelle’s her name. She’s only taking my class because she needs a certain number of humanities courses. But she’s very bright, and she has a beautiful way with the English language … I wish she’d reconsider her field of study, but, on the other hand, she’ll find it easier to get a real job with an engineering degree than she ever would with an English degree. Just look at me.’ I glanced at her when she said this, but she was smiling.

  ‘Worst student?’

  She laughed. ‘Also easy. Carl, a math major. I hope he’s better with numbers than he is with words … the guy can’t string a sentence together, let alone a coherent thought. And the most grating part is, he couldn’t care less.’

  ‘Friends?’

  ‘Friends?’

  ‘Have you made any friends?’

  ‘Oh. Well, yes. Jane. She’s another sessional lecturer. We sometimes grab a coffee together between classes.’ This was good to know, especially since mom was like me when it came to making friends: not very good at it. I was happy she’d made one, even if she’d beat me to it.

  After our walk, we stopped at Yoka’s – a little coffee shop on Broadway. Mom went inside to get our hot chocolates while I waited outside and soaked up the sun. I checked out the flyers posted on a hydro pole in front of me. Mostly they were ads for rock concerts and political rallies. Except for one. Do YOU LOVE THE GAME OF SCRABBLE? it read.

  COME JOIN US AT THE WEST SIDE SCRABBLE CLUB, WEDNESDAY NIGHTS AT 7:00 P.M., AT THE WEST SIDE UNITED CHURCH.

  There was an address and a phone number. I didn’t have a pen, so I glanced around to make sure no one was watching, then I tore the notice off the pole and stuffed it into my pocket.

  I waited till Mom had gone to work, then I knocked on the Economopouloses’ door. Mrs E answered.

  ‘How are you doing, Ambrose? We haven’t seen much of you lately.’

  ‘Is Cosmo home?’ I asked.

  Mrs E looked puzzled, but she disappeared down the hallway and I heard her shouting to Cosmo that he had a visitor.

  It took a couple of minutes before Cosmo appear
ed. He was wearing a white undershirt and boxer shorts, and his hair stood up on end. He looked like he’d just woken up.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Are you working nights?’

  He looked confused. ‘No.’

  ‘Then why do you look like you just got up? It’s five o’clock in the afternoon. Shouldn’t you be looking for a job?’

  He tried to close the door, but I wedged my body in before he could.

  ‘I guess it’s hard to find work with a criminal record, huh?’

  He gave me a dirty look. ‘Next time I see those kids kicking the piss out of you, I think I’ll join in.’

  ‘You don’t mean that,’ I said. I pulled the flyer out of my pocket and handed it to him.

  ‘Why are you showing me this?’

  ‘I think we should go.’

  ‘You think we should go. You and me. To a Scrabble club.’

  ‘It’s too far to walk, but I figure you can drive.’

  He laughed. ‘You are hilarious. You don’t even know it, but you are. You’re, like, mildly autistic or something.’

  ‘Screw you,’ I retorted. That was just mean. And, I was pretty sure, untrue. I was not autistic (attics, static, tacit, acts, tact, cast, cats, cist, cuts, scat, tics). I’d seen Rain Man.

  ‘Look, no offense, kid, but I’m not joining a bunch of word nerds.’

  ‘Come on, it’ll be fun. And it’s not like you’re too busy,’ I added, indicating his boxer shorts and undershirt, which, now that I looked closer, were stained. ‘If you don’t mind my saying so, you should have a shower. You kind of smell—’

  ‘Bye, Ambrose.’

  ‘Will you think about it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Please. If you don’t go, I can’t go either. I need a drive—’

  ‘Whoa, would you look at the knockers on that chick,’ he said, staring openmouthed at someone behind me.

  I spun around, looking up and down the street. All I could see was an older man, walking his bassett hound.