The Encyclopedia of Me

by Karen Rivers

  “Oh,” I said.

  “Your parents fight?” he said.

  “Um,” I said. “Yes.” I thought about it. My parents fought a lot, actually, when they were together, which was pretty rare because they were both so busy. Luckily. They always said they weren’t fighting, but rather “disagreeing.” They disagreed loudly and with lots of slammed doors about 90 percent of Seb-related stuff, like what therapy he should have or if he should have it or whether he should take medication or whether he shouldn’t. I didn’t want to talk about it. “I mean, no,” I said quickly. I snuck another look at him. He was staring at me in a funny way, cocking his head to the side.

  “You’re lucky,” he said, getting off his board.

  No, I’m not! I wanted to correct him, but I couldn’t explain it all. It was too much. He got off his board and shuffled on the sidewalk for a few steps, and then kicked a stone. We both watched it skitter down the hill. I felt funny, like there was a lump somewhere inside my chest.

  Then I took a big breath and really quickly said, “My brother’s autistic, so there’s always lots of . . . stuff going on. It’s complicated. It’s not like they’re mad at each other, it’s more like they are mad at the situation. It’s not my fault or anything. Or anyone’s. Not even Seb’s. He’s the autistic one. Anyway, it’s not a big deal.” I blushed and right away wished I had a big rewind button so I could take it all back.

  “Oh,” he said. “I saw a thing about autism at my old school. There was a kid with that and he traveled around and talked about it. He was OK. He was a decent boarder.”

  “Cool,” I said. “Seb doesn’t. Travel, I mean. Or skateboard. He has one. He just doesn’t like it.”

  “I mean, this kid was just . . .” he continued. “He was just sort of regular but then he had this whole movie he was in, a documentary or whatever, and in the movie it was all about how he freaked out in, like, train stations. Does your brother freak out in train stations?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t think he’s ever been in a train station.” I started to laugh. “Where is there a train station? That’s so random!”

  He smiled. “This kid was from Chicago or something.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Well, Seb freaks out about cameras. Maybe it’s the same. I haven’t seen that movie. I kind of get enough of autism at home. You know. Too much, really.”

  Suddenly, it was like the bubble of awkward that was holding us in burst open and all the fresh air rushed back in. I took a big breath. It felt good.

  “I’m just going into 7-Eleven for a quick sec,” I said. “Wait here.”

  “OK,” he said. He got on his board again and started hopping on and off the sidewalk.

  I bought an Everybody magazine and two Cokes. I couldn’t very well sit and enjoy a Coke if he didn’t have a drink. When I gave it to him, he sort of lit up, and when he did, I noticed that he has really interesting eyes. They were golden brown with a lighter ring around the middle.

  “Hey, thanks,” he said. “You’re, like, awesome.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I’m not awesome!”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know you very well yet, but so far I think you are.”

  “You do?” I said.44 My heart plinked in my chest like a rock falling into a bucket. Did he like-like me? I really needed to talk to FB, and fast. But I also wanted to hang with Kai. I wanted him to stay.

  “The Coke’s no big deal,” I said. “My mom gave me ten dollars to make her coffee.” I did not mention the eggs. It seemed too complex to bring up.

  We found a good spot on the beach in a circle of logs, and we propped some logs up over the top like a shade. I’m terrible in the full sun. My freckles go crazy. Well, crazier. They’re already crazy.

  We sat and talked for a long time. I didn’t get a chance to read Everybody at all.45

  When we got to Kai’s house, he waved and jumped up the stairs in one bound, then slid down the railing on his board and fell over. I don’t think he hurt himself because he got up really quickly and ran inside before I could go and see if he was OK.

  “See you,” I called, even though he was already inside and the door was closed.

  I was in such a good mood, I didn’t even notice that to get back at me for the missing Wii, Seb and Lex had rearranged my bedroom so when I threw my bag on what is usually my desk, it spilled its sandy contents out all over my bed.

  Oh, they’re so funny. A brilliant future in comedy awaits them! But only if the entire world accidentally loses all its IQ points in a mysterious and top secret alien attack.

  See also Autism; Boarding, Skate.

  Cortez Junior

  Cortez Junior is my school, named after the Spanish conquistador46 Hernando Cortez, who apparently was the person responsible for ending the Aztec empire. I’m really not sure why he has so many things named after him, as ending an ­empire as amazing as the Aztecs’ does not seem like something you should be rewarded for, especially when you think about the cool Aztec stuff they built before he marched in with his army and killed them all.

  Cortez is a school like any other, I guess, but I have never been to any other school, so what do I know? It has classrooms and hallways and motivational posters on the wall that say things like “STRIVE” and “EXCEL,” which are regularly vandalized by disenchanted students in ways that make no sense. For example, someone wrote “OW” over the “EL” at the end of “EXCEL,” so now it says “EXCOW.” Hilair! But not really.

  The only difference between Cortez and other similarly depressing places is that, like I’ve mentioned, it is a school for “gifted” children. We have been “gifted” with the chance to attend Cortez Junior, which is the kind of gift you would like to return to the store to exchange for an iPod, only to find out that the gift is handmade and can’t be returned.

  We do not wear uniforms at Cortez, but we do have jackets that we have to wear to team events. The jackets are an unhealthy shade of purple and have the crest of the school on the back. Under the crest, it says CORTEZ SCHOOL, then under that it has FINDING EXCELLENCE: COGITO ERGO SUM.47 However, due to a horrible design flaw, after a few washes the small letters fade away, leaving the wearer with a jacket that says — I couldn’t make this up if I tried — CORTEZ SCHOOL, F E C E S.48

  Cortez is a series of small, randomly colored buildings that, from the street, looks like a rainbow that has been stepped on by a giant. Last year, I was in the green building — Cortez Elementary (CE) — and this year I will be in the yellow building — Cortez Junior (CJ). Eventually, I guess I will be in the orange bulding, Cortez Senior (CS). Is that something to look forward to? I am undecided. The orange building IS the newest, so I suppose it will be the best.

  It’s going to be very strange to be the youngest kids in the building again, after being the oldest last year. Freddie Blue says this is a good thing because there will be older, more interesting, and much cuter boys there. I’m not the least bit intimidated by the hugeness of CJ because I know that me and FB will be going together, so everything will be an adventure. A super-awesome, fun adventure.

  I just know it.

  See also Anderson, Freddie Blue; BFF; Bullies.

  Couch, Itchy

  This is not my couch. Those are not my brother’s feet. (But it is exactly what my brother WOULD have done if I’d tried to take a picture of the ACTUAL couch for your viewing pleasure: SHOW OFF.) Like the rest of the pictures in this book, I “borrowed” this one from the Internet, because REAL encyclopedias all have useful illustrations. If this picture was a scratch and sniff, it would smell exactly as awful as my brother’s feet, and you would be forced to burn the book and endure a nasal cleansing ritual involving ­lemons and boiling water in order to survive.

  Crush List

  List of boys who we have crushes on, but unlike the Boys We Wouldn’t Touch With a Ten-Foot Pole List, for some misguided reason this one is actually written down.

  Freddie Blue currently has seven boys on her Crush L
ist. Seven. However, her list is also full of crossings-out and arrows and add-ons, which does detract slightly from the prettiness of the page. It includes a bunch of older boys who don’t know she exists, as well as the likes of Wex Stromson-Funk. (“What?” she said. “Why are you all mad and rolling your eyes? He’s mean as a pit viper, but he’s cute. That’s all I mean by it.”) At one point, Jedgar Johnston was even on her list, even though now she says that she was kidding when she wrote it and that his association with Ruth Quayle makes him the least pops boy in school.

  Freddie Blue’s list has recently been updated in capital letters at the top with the name “KAI.” Not the worst, as in the worst choice. But the worst, as in the worst for me. When I saw his name there, my heart stuttered and then stopped entirely. She saw me looking and she said, “Whaaaaaaat, you don’t like him, do you?”49

  “No!” I said. “You have him! I thought you didn’t like him, though, because he’s too nice?”

  “I changed my mind,” she said, waving her hand in the air like she was brushing off a fly.

  I felt sick. “OK,” I said. And just like that, I decided to stop my crush clear in its tracks. I refused to compete with my BFF. And I couldn’t win, even if I tried. Against FB? Never! I’d only HAD the crush for a few days! What a waste.

  Ergo, my Crush List was blank. A VERY long time ago, I wrote Shane Dubois on my list, which has now been crossed out so thoroughly, there is a hole in the paper. He was OK looking and had great teeth. But when Shane found out,50 he stuck a charming note on my locker that said, “I love you, I love you, I love you. NOT.” Oh, that was so funny. I laughed so hard about that! What a jokester! Except the part where it wasn’t the least bit funny and I did not laugh.

  I also did not speak to Freddie Blue for five days afterward, and did not entirely forgive her until she got a baby picture of Shane Dubois from his mother, who happens to teach French at our school, and blew it up to poster size and added a bubble above his head that said, “I wear diapers! I’m Shane Dubois!”

  Before Shane, I also — and I hate admitting this but it’s true, so I have to — had a small potential-crush on Wex ­Stromson-Funk. But! That was ONLY because Freddie Blue was working hard at the time to convince me that he was only mean to me because he was in love with me. It didn’t take long to figure out that she was just being nice and that actually he hated me. Which was fine, because I hated him too. I only would have liked him if all the bullying had been a way of masking the pain he felt of having a terrible unrequited love for me. Then I might have made an exception.

  Keep in mind, that happened when I was eight. I didn’t understand much about love back then.

  Under pressure, I just wrote Brendan Carstairs, because he’s nice enough — kind of a smiling guy who is always in the background but never stands out, sort of like wallpaper with a not-too-ugly pattern — and would never laugh at me if he found out about the list, but he’s so boring that I’m really mostly lying by putting him on the list at all.

  See also Bullies.

  Dark

  The opposite of light. Well, obvi.

  I hate the dark. I’m not scared of it, I just don’t like it. (I blame Freddie Blue. Freddie Blue enjoys films that involve people in bikinis being killed brutally while at summer camp.)

  When it is dark, because my house is farther up the hill than Kai’s, I can look down and see into his family’s TV room. Not that I’m spying on him. I am not. Don’t even think that! I can usually see only the TV, not the people. When I watch, it sort of feels like we are watching TV together, even though I can’t hear the sound or really even see what show he is watching. I haven’t seen Kai since we went to the beach, but I know he is still alive because there is the TV — I can see it right now — showing either a sporting event or a movie, I can’t really tell which.

  I wonder if he is watching it, or if it’s his dad or his mom, taking a break from their fighting, which I imagine goes on all the time.

  I wonder if he is going to hang out with me again.

  I wonder a lot of stuff. Most of it has nothing to do with the dark, so I now return you to your regularly scheduled program of alphabetical facts, currently in progress.

  Devil-May-Care Attitude

  An attitude that says, “I just don’t care what you think about me and what I’m doing, and the devil doesn’t care either.”

  Grandma used to say that I should always have a devil-may-care attitude. This means that I should never let anyone see when I’m upset. If I ever have a rock band51 or a line of clothes52 or even a record label or a small yacht, I will call it “Devil-May-Care.”

  The devil may care if Kai is cute. The devil may also not care.

  Drop Mac Park

  Drop Mac Park is the neighborhood skate park. It’s also got a playground and grassy field, but it’s mostly a big cement pit with slopes and walls. Graffiti artists go crazy on all that concrete. The kids at Drop Mac Park are mostly from the big public school or Prescott. I guess “gifted” kids aren’t as into boarding as everyone else.

  Except me, I guess.

  I keep thinking about skateboarding and having dreams at night that I’m really doing it, with the clatter of the wheels on the pavement and the feel of the board under my feet. Which makes no sense, because other than that one terrible awful erase-it-from-your-memory INCIDENT, I’ve never done it! Not properly, anyway. Still, it’s like it’s calling to me, like when you are super hot, all sticky with sweat and ick, and you go to the beach and you look at all that cold bluish-grayish water and it’s all you can do to not dive in with your clothes on.

  I wanted to dive into Drop Mac Park. (That’s a metaphor! If I dove into concrete, I would break my neck.) I wanted to just swoop and glide. I wanted to . . . try. Just to see if it was as awesomesauce53 as I thought it might be.

  I stopped typing and came down from the Tree of Unknown Species.54 I went to the basement where Seb’s old skateboard was kept.55 It was painted a faded dark green with a picture of a pirate flag. The wheels, however, were lit up and glowed orange. If I was hoping not to be noticed, I wouldn’t have a chance.

  “Go big or go home,” I whispered to myself, by way of encouragement. I found a helmet and knee pads and put them on.

  Doing something alone felt weird and wrong, like I had my shoes on the wrong feet. Could I have an adventure without FB? But she was at her dad’s and I wasn’t allowed to call her there! What could I do? I hoped she wouldn’t be mad.

  I didn’t try anything on the way. Instead, I carried the board all the way to Drop Mac Park. To get there, I had to walk ­directly by Mrs. O’Malley, who was perched, as usual, on her bench. She was enshrouded in a large plaid blanket, which was odd, as it was ninety degrees. She glared at me. I glared back.

  “You look like a juvenile delinquent!” she shouted.

  “How’s Mr. Bigglesworth?” I said.

  On cue, poor Mr. Bigglesworth stuck his head out of the bag and barked. His bark was quite listless. It was clearly a call for help.

  “I’m calling animal control,” I whispered to him reassuringly. He growled. I kept walking.

  “Woof,” said Mrs. O’Malley. I don’t know if she was talking to me or to the dog.

  I sighed. It was too hot to think of a witty comeback.

  But underneath the hotness of the day, the air had that funny smell it has when fall comes, which made me think of back-to-school. Thinking about back-to-school made me feel off balance, so I ran. Running is a good way to stop your brain from turning. It works every time. I couldn’t outrun back-to-school, but I could try.

  When I got to the park, I had to rest in the shade until I could stop sweating and panting. Then I got up and self-consciously put the board in position. At first, I was really nervous. I couldn’t get the feel of it. I scooted around a bit, keeping my pushing leg close to the ground so I didn’t tip over. It felt way more wobbly than I’d thought it would. After a few passes just going back and forth on the flat, I tried lif
ting my foot a little higher. It didn’t quite click. It was nothing like snowboarding either. I kept looking for the feeling inside me, the feeling of how to do it, and it just wasn’t there. Inside, I was empty.

  I thought about giving up. From across the park, I could hear music. A bunch of kids were sitting on the climbing thing, drinking huge Slurpees. They were laughing. I felt dumb.

  But I didn’t have anything else to do. And I just wanted to feel how it was supposed to feel. I wanted it to feel like the ground was like music I could hear through my legs, carrying me. I wiped the sweat that was dripping down my nose. I wished I’d brought a drink.

  I picked the board up and looked at the wheels like I knew what I was doing, in case anyone was watching. Just so maybe they’d think it wasn’t that I didn’t know how to skate, but that something was wrong with my wheels.

  Then I made myself try again. This time, I tried to relax the whole top part of my body. I pretended the ground was water and I was surfing. I breathed as deeply as I could. And I pushed off hard. Before I could even think about it, I swooped down one ramp. It was so fast, I crouched down automatically because it seemed like being closer to the ground was a better idea than being farther away.

  And I did it! I was doing it! And it felt totally amazing! For about ten seconds!

  And then I fell off. AGAIN. The board skidded out from under me, and my body twisted and hit the ground hard enough to knock the wind out of my lungs. I lay on the smooth, hot concrete, frying like an egg.

  I looked up at the blinding sky and I felt . . . kind of giddy inside. Because I DID it. I knew I’d find it, and I found it: the feeling. Sort of like what I think love might feel like.

  The same feeling I had when I climbed the tree for the first time.

  Sort of the same feeling I had at the beach with Kai. NOT that I would tell anyone this, not even Freddie Blue. ESPECIALLY not Freddie Blue.