by Gary Paulsen
“I’m impressed by your initiative,” Mom said, “but that’s not going to get you out of the punishment your father and I have been talking about.”
“You’re going to have to earn the money for your driver’s ed class next year,” Dad said. “We paid for Daniel’s and Sarah’s, but the situation you caused with the car this week …” He trailed off.
“I understand.”
“No allowance for a month, you’re grounded for two weeks and we have a list of jobs around the house and yard with your name on it.”
“Okay.”
“What were you thinking?” Mom asked, holding her temples.
“I had this idea—well, it doesn’t matter what I thought, it was a boneheaded plan and everything turned out horrible. I was trying to help Buzz, really; you’ll see, I made everything better. But I went about it all wrong. I know that asking Dad about the concert was shady, but I never thought it would make you two so mad at each other. And I couldn’t think of any other way to get Daniel and Sarah to see things from my point of view. They never listen to me and all we do is fight and it’s two against one and the whole thing with the car has been a mess.”
“Things between you three won’t always be this intense,” Mom said. “I have faith that you’ll stop fighting as you get older.”
“You’ll appreciate each other more,” Dad said. “The age difference will matter less and less.”
Sarah and Daniel and I exchanged dubious glances.
“It’s almost,” Dad continued thoughtfully, “like you’re triplets. Think of it: you’ll be in college together, get married at around the same time, and maybe your kids will be close in age.”
Mom snorted, but she was smiling at Dad as she spoke. “I’m pretty sure you only think like that because when you’re on the road you watch those reality television shows about people who have weirdly large families.”
Dad grinned back. “Maybe so.”
Daniel scratched his head. “Wow. Kev. You …” He trailed off.
“Yeah.”
He flopped onto the couch, tipping his head back and closing his eyes. I knew just how he felt—exhausted to the bone. I glanced at the grandfather clock in the corner and was shocked to discover it was only four-thirty. I’d really packed a lot of revelation into one short day.
Mom and Sarah must have realized how weird we looked standing around in the living room, because they sat down on the love seat together. Dad dropped onto the couch next to my brother and threw his arm around Daniel before tipping his head back too. I shifted from one foot to the other, watching them.
“Kevin.”
“Yes, Dad.”
“Come sit next to me.”
I had never been more grateful to sit next to my father.
He put his other arm around me.
I caught Daniel’s eye on the other side of our father; he studied me for a long minute. His eyes were kind, though, and finally he smiled, looking remarkably like Markie.
Even Sarah winked at me from across the room. Of course, she flipped me the bird, too, but for Sarah, that was pretty warm and fuzzy. She leaned her head against Mom’s shoulder and glanced at the book lying next to Mom on the love seat. “Oh! You’re reading To Kill a Mockingbird. I love that book. Read it out loud. Like you did when we were little.”
Mom smiled and opened the book. “ ‘When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem …’ ”
Daniel and I sat with our father’s arms around us for a very long time, listening to Mom read to us.
14. A GOOD LIE IS AN OXYMORON
First rule of lies: Keep it simple.
Even though I know better, I forgot that bit for a while.
I also forgot what I learned in science class: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
For most of the weekend I sat at the kitchen table and did my homework. Every assignment was completed, every page was read, every paper was written and ready to be turned in.
I also did a cubic ton of extra-credit assignments that I came up with on my own to try to get back on all of my teachers’ good sides—plan B. The paper I wrote for Crosby was about dishonesty in politics in the twenty-first century. I thought he’d appreciate the irony. I sure did.
I got to school super-early Monday morning and I ran all over, handing the stacks of work to Señora Lucia, Mrs. Steck, Mr. Crosby and Mr. Meyers. They didn’t smile or nod or look approvingly at me in that heartwarming way teachers always do in made-for-TV movies when the troubled student has turned over a new leaf.
Clearly, they’d talked with each other about me, or else there’s a playbook in the faculty lounge on how to handle students who ditch classes and lie, because each of them said the exact same thing.
“Unless you get straight As for the rest of the year, you’re looking at summer school. And I’m giving you detention for three days.”
That seemed fair.
Katie narrowed her eyes when she saw me in the hall, and radiated loathing.
Reasonable.
But maybe, I thought, she won’t wind up swindled by a con man someday because of having known me. There’s got to be a silver lining somewhere.
I was worried that I’d probably lost the best friend a guy ever had. But I knew I had to find JonPaul and give him the chance to tell me to drop dead and then never talk to him again. He deserved that much. I caught him at his locker.
“Are you going to keep sending me notes like we’re fifth-grade girls?” He punched my arm and I knew we were good. Whew.
Then he reached into his backpack and handed me the Buket o’ Puke ’n Snot T-shirt that he’d bought me at the concert.
Best. Friend. Ever.
Jay D. and Jay M., Scott, Greggie, Todd, Kurt and Sean, however, were a whole ’nother story. The guys went all Amish at lunch and shunned me. I walked up to the table where we always sit together and they looked right through me. They got over it, though, when they saw that JonPaul wasn’t mad at me anymore. And the fact that I bought them all monster cookies from the cafeteria didn’t hurt my cause.
Connie was a little cheesed off that I’d lied to her about being into government, but then I handed her a file folder.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“An abstract of our argument for the debate tonight.”
“A what?”
“A brief summary and succinct explanation, the theoretical ideal, if you will, behind our position.” Katie would be so proud of me if she knew I’d paid attention to her.
“Really?”
“I read up on debating over the weekend. And I made an outline for us to follow and another of points to rebut our opponent’s likely arguments. I put myself in his shoes and then worked backward to strengthen our position.”
I walked away while her mouth was still hanging open. But she was nodding. Leaving on a great exit line is awesome.
The director of the school musical had set up a meeting to discuss the responsibilities of the house manager.
I’m kind of digging this theater thing. Plus, there’s a cast-and-crew party on closing night.
The wrestling team and gym class situations aren’t working out as slick for me as everything else. Coach Gifford and I chatted on the phone over the weekend. Turns out he’d gotten hold of my letter and signed me up as a probie wrestler. Not a student manager. My first practice is Tuesday, but he’ll also see me after school for three weeks to run laps and do pull-ups and climb the rope because “it’s good old-fashioned sweat and hard work that’ll knock some sense into that head of yours. And I expect favorable articles about my teams in the newspaper.”
I’ve always sensed that he has a mild mean streak, but, well, at least I’ll get really buff. And JonPaul probably has lots of remedies for sore muscles and will tell me the fastest way to stop puking after I run. I’m looking at this experience as if it was basic training. Yikes.
Next, I’m writing a few sports articles for the newspaper. Considering my flair with words,
how could I not be an awesome reporter? I’m going to start with an incredibly flattering interview of Coach Gifford.
Plus, Tina’s on the swim team. The paper doesn’t feature nearly enough profiles of student athletes. Meaning interviews with pictures.
Dutchdeefuddy’s parents came over Sunday afternoon to tell me they’re officially splitting up. But Markie’s getting the house in the divorce settlement; he’ll stay put and his parents will move in and out according to their allotted time with him. They’re still going to want me to babysit every week because they think I’m such a good influence.
That’s cool. Because every little kid (and probably even the not-so-little ones) needs a dutchdeefuddy he can count on.
Auntie Buzz wound up sitting next to me at Sunday dinner and passing me the rolls and acted like nothing ever happened with us.
A tiny part of me knew it was Buzz’s way of saying thanks for all the checkbook magic I did.
She said she’d hired an accountant to manage things.
She didn’t wind up applying for the TV gig after all. She was so hyped on espresso when she taped her audition that “I sounded like I was speaking chipmunk.” But she didn’t seem too disappointed, especially since her finances are okay now.
Mom and Dad and Sarah and Daniel and I have been speaking very quietly and walking very lightly; I’m sure bomb squads train this way.
And we’re all going to have to get used to having Dad around all the time. Because of his seniority in the company, he was transferred to another department, and now he’ll only have to travel a few times a year, and he’s talking about taking Mom with him when he goes.
Mom finished reading To Kill a Mockingbird to us and hauled out James Michener’s The Source. “It’s a watershed book,” she said. “You’ll love it.”
“It’s a bazillion pages,” we said. But everyone smiled when she licked her finger and said, “ ‘Chapter One: The Tell …’ ”
Sarah and Daniel and I have agreed to drive to school together in the mornings. They’ll leave a little later than they’d like and I’ll get to school a little earlier than I want to, but we can cruise through the drive-in at Donut Deelite for long johns or at BurgerBurgerBurger for breakfast sandwiches. There’s something really nice about scarfing greasy carbs with your brother and sister in the morning. Breakfast really is the most important meal of the day.
The whole family is going to start having dinner together every night, too. But Mom’s not much of a cook, and I don’t think anyone’s ever going to get used to the slow cooker spewing out what Daniel refers to as gelatinous goo. You’d think a woman who works in a bookstore would have stumbled into the cookbook aisle by now, wouldn’t you?
But we’ll be together. And maybe Sarah and Daniel and I should learn to cook.
The truth really does set you free. Who knew?
Well, everyone, I guess, except me.
The only thing is—I still haven’t gotten the chance to make Tina see that I could be the world’s greatest boyfriend. But I’m working on that.…
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