by David Lubar
“Better stop,” Kyle said, “or she’ll call the cops on you.”
Mitch turned his stare toward Kyle. “Obviously, you know nothing about girls.”
“And you do?” Kyle said.
Mitch nodded. “She’s been checking me out.”
“Then go talk with her,” Kyle said.
“I will when I’m ready.”
“No, you won’t,” Kyle said. “You’re chicken.”
“Watch and learn.” Mitch got up and strolled across the cafeteria.
“Oh, my God,” Patrick said. “He’s going to do it.”
Kyle shook his head. “This won’t be pretty. She’ll shoot him right down.” He formed a gun with his hands and made shooting sounds.
I figured he was right. The girl was at least a sophomore. No way she’d be interested in a freshman. Still, I couldn’t help rooting for Mitch. If just one of us made it out of the cave, that meant there was hope for everyone. And while I’d chew off my own tongue before admitting it out loud, he was probably the best-looking guy in our group.
We all stared when Mitch started talking to the girl. We stared even harder when he sat down next to her. I felt like I was watching a nature film about the mating dances of adolescent humans. Mitch spoke. The girl nodded and smiled. Then she spoke. Lips moved. Words flowed. They looked very much like two people having a conversation. Or exchanging propositions.
“Let’s do some Tom Swifties,” I said after I got tired of watching.
“Let’s stick forks in our eyes,” Kyle said. “That would be even more fun.”
That made me think of the perfect one. “‘Let’s stick forks in our eyes,’ Tom said blindly.”
“‘And knives,’ Tom said cuttingly.”
I nodded at Patrick. “Good one. Hey—how about, “‘Cafeteria food makes me gag,” Tom said wretchedly.”’
Patrick and I kept at it until the bell rang.
“You guys are so hopeless,” Kyle said as he dashed out.
Right after I left the cafeteria, a scary-looking senior was nice enough to help me get rid of the coins that were jangling in my pocket. He was wearing a plain white T-shirt, tucked into jeans, and had the sort of arm muscles that couldn’t possibly have been made out of anything organic. My best guess was either granite or steel.
He made it sound like a voluntary act. “Got any spare change?” But the look in his eyes told me there was only one safe answer. The last time I’d seen eyes that deadly, I’d been at the hyena cage at the zoo. I handed over my change. It was better than handing over my teeth. I was happy I’d had a chance to eat first.
He actually said, “Thanks.” Like I was doing him a favor. Later, I heard a couple other freshmen talking about the guy. His name was Wesley Cobble, and nearly everyone in the school was afraid of him.
Somehow, I managed to stay awake through the rest of the day. Not that it made any difference in Spanish. Things were just as confusing as they’d been yesterday. “‘Spanish makes no sense,’ Scott said unknowingly.” Unwittingly. Incomprehensibly.
In history, while I was pretending to take notes, I jotted down some more Tom Swifties. A couple were so funny, I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing.
Much to my amazement, I made it through the day.
I sat behind Sheldon on the ride home. It worked. The big kids smacked him and left me alone. If I could figure out some way to make life-size Sheldon Murmbower decoys, I’d be rich. Every freshman on the planet would buy one.
The minute I got home, I headed for the shower. I cranked the faucets up full blast. It felt great. For about sixty seconds. Then the hot water ran out. I ran out, too.
“Mom,” I shouted, “there’s no hot water.”
“Sorry,” she yelled back. “I’m washing the new sheets I bought for the baby.”
I toweled off, grabbed my robe, and worked on my homework until the wash was done, then stepped back in the shower.
The phone rang as soon as I got out.
“Want to go bowling?” Kyle asked.
“It’s a school night,” I said.
“So?”
“So I have homework.”
“So do it later.”
“I can’t. I’ve got plans for later.”
“Like what?”
“Like sleep.”
“You’re no fun anymore.”
“Thanks.”
“Not that you were all that much fun before, either.”
“Thanks again.”
“We’ll be at Devon Lanes if you change your mind.”
As soon as I hung up, I regretted saying I couldn’t go. A couple games wouldn’t take all that long. But if I showed up now, Kyle would give me a hard time about mentioning my homework. I decided I’d better just get it over with. So once again, I sat at my desk, face-to-face with a wad of assignments, and instantly looked around the room for some way to avoid starting my work.
• • •
September 6
Hey—stomach virus—I have a question for you. What’s the point in giving clean sheets to someone who’s going to spurt all sorts of fluids from every body cavity? Give up? Yeah; me, too. It would make more sense to get you a wading pool than a crib. At least then we could hose it off when it got too yucky. Look up viscous when you get a chance. If you thought I said vicious, you need to pay more attention. Vicious is how you make me feel. Viscous describes the stuff that flows from you.
You’re driving Mom crazy, you realize. But you probably don’t care since you’ll have clean sheets. And I’ll have cold showers.
But I’m not so coldhearted that I don’t want to share what I’ve learned. So here’s a tip. Start planning now for a way to get out of gym. It’s never too early to work on your excuses. And here’s today’s survival rule: don’t carry loose coins in your pants. The sound attracts thugs who’ll tap your pocket and say, “Gimme some change.” At which point, you either “give ‘em some change” or get hurt.
My day wasn’t all disaster. We did something totally cool in English. It’s called Tom Swifties. I wrote a couple pretty good ones. Here—check these out.
Scott Hudson’s Tom Swifties
“Who turned off the lights?” Tom said dimly.
“I lost my legs right below the ankles,” Tom said defeatedly.
“I lost my fingers,” Tom said disjointedly.
“I lost my wrists,” Tom said offhandedly.
“I lost my elbows,” Tom said disarmingly.
“I lost my ribs,” Tom said decidedly.
“The worms are eating my organs,” Tom said wholeheartedly.
“I’ve been sliced in half,” Tom said intuitively.
Well, that’s my list. Did you get the last one? If not, think about how in half means in two.
Okay. Enough for now. “Time to do my homework,” Scott said slavishly. “I can’t wait for Saturday,” Scott said weakly. “Okay, I’ll stop now,” Scott said. Endlessly.
You know what? These aren’t bad. I wonder whether Julia would think they’re funny. Hard to tell. Guys and girls don’t always have the same sense of humor. But that’s something I’ll let you find out for yourself. You quivering sack of viscous fluids.
{six}
i managed to get a bit more sleep Thursday night, but still nowhere near enough. I realized I was going to be a zombie for the next four years.
“You look tired,” Mom said when I went down to breakfast.
I nodded. “A bit.” I noticed she looked tired, too.
She slid a plate of fresh-baked blueberry muffins in front of me. “Well, don’t work too hard.”
As I reached for a muffin, she added, “But work hard enough. Okay?”
“I will. You don’t have to worry.” I broke the muffin in half and watched the rising steam.
“I guess, the way you like to read, you’ll have an easier time in school than Bobby did.”
“Yeah. It helps if you like books.” I ate the muffin, then grabbed another to eat
on the way to the bus. This time, I made sure not to fall asleep during the ride.
My exhaustion might help explain my act of stupidity. When I got to English class, I pulled out my list of Tom Swifties and passed them to Kelly. That was step number one in my master plan. I figured she’d laugh, then Julia would ask her what was so funny, and Kelly would pass them over.
The first part worked. Kelly laughed. I could tell when she got near the end because she blurted out that ewwwww sound girls make when they bump into something especially gross. It was probably wholeheartedly that pushed her over the edge. I took it as an ewwww of appreciation, since she still laughed. Vicky Estridge leaned over from the seat behind Kelly and asked, “What’s so funny?” Kelly passed the list to her. After an eww or two, Vicky gave it to the kid on her right. Before I could get the list back, Mr. Franka came in and hit us with a quiz.
By the end of the period, I didn’t have a clue about what happened to the paper, or whether Julia even saw it. “I lost my Tom Swifties,” Scott said listlessly.
I was almost too tired to care. At least it was Friday. I had the whole weekend ahead of me to sleep. Or to waste time sharing my thoughts with imaginary creatures.
September 7
So, you formless clump of cells, you’re probably wondering whether I learned anything today. You bet.
Listen carefully. This is important. Never try to impress anyone. Especially not a girl. It won’t work. You’ll just end up feeling stupid. (If you’re a girl yourself, just ignore this. But since I don’t have a clue about how to talk to girls, and couldn’t possibly have any advice for one, I’m going to assume you’re a guy.)
Meanwhile, the workload keeps on growing. We’re starting a novel in English. To Kill a Mockingbird. Weird title. I wonder if there’s a sequel where they make fun of hawks. You know, To Mock a Killing Bird. Sorry. That was really awful. I must be more tired than I realized.
But that’s not going to stop me from going to the movies. I’d ask you to come, but I don’t think the seats are fluid-proof, you wet, oozing mess of ichor.
I met up with Kyle and Patrick in front of the Cinema Twelve on Milford Street. “Where’s Mitch?” I asked after I bought my ticket.
“Don’t know,” Patrick said. “He’s out somewhere, I guess.”
“Screw him,” Kyle said. “I’m not missing the previews.” He headed through the doors.
Patrick and I followed him. This will work, I thought as I dropped down in my seat. I could get my homework done and still have a normal social life. I figured I’d catch up on my sleep, then tackle the homework on Saturday afternoon. There was nothing I liked more than sleeping late on the weekend.
It was a perfect plan, except that the phone woke me the next morning. I figured someone would get it, but it rang four times. Then I heard the answering machine from the living room downstairs.
Still half asleep, I listened to Bobby’s voice. “Someone pick up. Come on. Please?”
I thought about crawling out of bed, but I knew I had a shot at falling back to sleep if I stayed where I was.
“Anyone there?”
He sounded desperate. But I was desperate for sleep.
“I only get one phone call.”
One phone call? Shoot. I knew what that meant. I went downstairs and picked up the phone. “It’s me,” I said.
“Is Mom there?”
“Yeah.” I could hear the sound of the dryer. “I think she’s in the basement. What’d you do?”
“Nothing. Just get Mom.”
“Hang on.” I went down to the basement. When I told Mom that Bobby was on the phone, she raced up the stairs. Her smile didn’t last long. It was pretty easy to figure most of it out from listening to her half of the conversation.
“The police station? Oh Bobby, what did you … So it was just parking tickets? How many? Oh, my. That’s a lot. If you didn’t have the money, you should have told us. No, it doesn’t matter if you don’t have the car anymore. You still have to pay the tickets. Don’t worry. We’ll get it all straightened out. No, I can’t do that. I have to tell him. We’ll be there right away. I love you. Bye.”
She sighed, hung up, and went to get Dad.
“He’s in jail?” I asked when they came downstairs.
“It’s nothing,” Mom said. “Just a little misunderstanding.”
They headed out. I headed upstairs. I was too wound up to go back to sleep. So I picked up the notebook.
September 8
Bobby’s in trouble. It’s no big deal. He’s had a lot of bad luck recently. He totaled his car last month. He wasn’t hurt. Nobody else was, either. Just the tree.
I wonder what it felt like for you when Mom ran up the stairs. Fun ride? Want me to see if I can get her on a roller coaster?
The movie was awful, by the way. I’m still glad I went out. I think Kyle’s pissed at Mitch because Mitch found a girlfriend. Patrick doesn’t seem to care. I’m not sure how I feel about it. No, that’s a lie. I wish it was me.
Oh crap, this is starting to sound like a diary. Next thing I know, I’ll be telling you who my dream date is. Oh crap again. I already did that, didn’t I?
“Guess who’s home?” Mom called from downstairs.
I closed my algebra book. Two o’clock already. I’d started around noon. Wow. Homework could really swallow time. Someday, I expect to look up from a textbook and discover that I’m fifty.
I ran into Bobby halfway down the steps. He had a pile of clothes in his arms—mostly flannel shirts and jeans, topped with T-shirts, socks, and stuff. As high as they were stacked, he could still see over them.
“Hey, squirt, give us a hand.” He nodded in the direction of the front door.
“Sure.” I squeezed past him and went out to the driveway, where Dad had left the car. The trunk was filled with Bobby’s stuff. Dad took Bobby’s tool kit into the garage.
“He’s staying here for a while,” Mom said, passing me a box of CDs. I noticed Bobby’s Fender Stratocaster guitar in the backseat.
I helped bring in the rest of his stuff, then sat in his room while he hung up his clothes.
“You move out of your place?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Sort of. I owed rent.”
“How come?”
“No money.”
“What about your job?”
“I was late a bunch. I had to walk ‘cause of the car getting totaled. They got an attitude about it and fired me. I was looking for another job. But it’s tough without wheels.”
“Yeah. Must be.” I flipped through his movie collection. He had some pretty good action films. “You remember being a freshman?”
He shook his head. “I’m not even sure I remember last night. Why?”
“Nothing …”
“What is it? A girl?”
“How’d you know?”
He threw a shirt at my head. “It’s always a girl. So what’s the problem?”
“Well, how’d you get girls to notice you?”
“I never thought about it. I guess they just notice me. They’ll notice you, too. You’re a Hudson. We’ve got the power.” He flashed me a grin.
Right. They’ll notice me. If I paint myself orange and glue hamsters to my shirt.
I helped him put his movies and music on his shelves. I was dying to find out how he felt about the baby. Mom and Dad must have told him by now. But I wasn’t sure he’d even want to talk about that.
When I got up to leave, Bobby said, “It’s all going to change, you know.”
“What? School?”
He shook his head and pointed downstairs. “Everything. After the baby’s born, they won’t have time for anything else.”
“Sure they will.”
Bobby stared at me. “Stop lying to yourself. I was only four when you were born, but I can remember how much it changed things.”
“I’m not lying to myself,” I said. It was a lie I really wanted to believe. “Nothing’s going to change.”
{s
even}
monday morning, I plunged myself into my first full week of school. It didn’t start out much different from my first three days. Mouth talked nonstop from the moment he caught sight of me. Julia didn’t even glance in my direction. I glanced in hers. She seemed to grow more gorgeous each day. At this rate, I figured I’d explode sometime around mid-November. I’d look at her and just blow apart in a gruesome hydraulic disaster.
At least the Sheldon shield worked. I had a feeling that by the time he graduates, the accumulated smacks will have turned his brain into some sort of liquid resembling bean soup.
Maybe Julia didn’t notice me, but someone else did. All through English, Mr. Franka kept looking at me with this amused smile. I honestly didn’t have a clue what was going on. I even checked under my nose a couple times, to make sure nothing was dangling.
“Scott,” he said to me at the end of class, “I need to ask you something.” He held up a piece of paper. When I recognized it, I thought about making a dash for the door. But I figured he was fast enough to run me down.
I also figured he was going to give me a lecture because of all the things I wrote about losing legs and arms and stuff. I was really really really glad I didn’t put down the ones that I thought of later, like “Clean the toilet seat,” said Tom peevishly. Or “Who sneezed on my hamburger,” said Tom snottily.
Mr. Franka caught me by surprise. “You’re very creative, Scott. Have you thought about joining the school paper?”
I expressed my great creativity by saying, “Huh?”
“They could use you on staff. What do you think?”
“No thanks.” I couldn’t believe I wasn’t in trouble. But I didn’t want to join the paper. I already had too much to do.
“There’s a perfect opening for you,” Mr. Franka said.
“What?”
“Book reviews. With your wit, I suspect you’d be good.”
