"Were you standing outside my door?" Delilah slipped in. She jumped up and curled onto my pillow, then lifted a leg high over her head and started licking her you-know-hoo!
"No. Um. No. Dear. No." (guilty titter titter) "Uh, I was just passing by. Perfect timing. Anyway. What is it. Why'd you scream for me."
"I didn't scream."
That's when Matt decided to chime in. "You screamed."
"Did not." I glared at him.
He just nodded, like, did too.
Creep. I continued to glare.
"What dear? What do you want?"
My face softened, the way it will when I need something from mom and don't want to do it for myself. "Will you please make us a copy of this subject list on your handy-dandy printer/copier/fax/scanner? Pretty please, mom?" I'd turned all jello-y and sweet by then.
"Of course, honey." She turned to leave but stopped. "You kids want some cookies and a pop?"
NOW, SAY THIS TO YOURSELF, AT THE SAME TIME
Him. "Yes." (grrr) "No." Me.
"Sure thing. Right away." Mom was being so compliant and making me feel queasy in the process.
She left then and I said in a low-tone. "Don't get too cozy, mister."
"Sorry."
"You don't have to speak every time I say something to you, you know."
"All righ..." He nodded after cutting the word short.
I just shook my head and rolled my eyes. "This is so uncool. I could vomit."
"Do it on that side of the bed."
I glared at him again, which seemed to make him go limp to the point of lying back down on his stomach. He rested his head on the tower he'd built out of his fists. "Sorry."
"Look. Pop quiz. What's the gland called that makes us smell?"
"What is the olfactory gland."
My eyes popped open showing pleasure in his answer, showing hope for the future. "All right. Well done." I nodded slowly.
He smiled like he'd just been given the Nobel Peace Prize.
I looked deep into his eyes. "But, Matt?"
"Yes."
"I'm not Alex Trebec and this is NOT Jeopardy. Just answer the questions."
"K."
"Good."
"I like Alex Trebec."
"Fine."
"I like JEO-PAR-DY." He said it the way the announcer said it on TV.
"What-ever."
Right then, mom walked in, the pockets of her sweater bulging, balancing in her hands, two glasses of ice, a plastic baggie full of Costco peanut butter cookies, and copies of Matt's learning list.
Matt rolled to his back and sat up fast. Then, he stood and helped mom by taking the baggie of cookies. Of course.
"Susie? Will you take these?" She pressed the glasses at me. I took them, noticing they only had ice in them. Like, what the? And then set them onto my mouse pad that had a huge face of Mickey Mouse, so they wouldn't sweat all over my sweet desk.
"And. Here." She said, when I turned back to face her, she'd magically pulled two cans of Coke out from her pockets. "Cool. Mom. Thanks."
"Here's the original and here's your copies. I made three so you would each have two."
"Cool."
Matt stood with his hands in his pockets, the tip of the cookie bag stuck somewhere just below the edge, hanging from a pocket, as he stared, smiling at mom.
She smiled back at him. "How you doing, Matt?"
"Okay."
"Your dad?"
Gah. I mouthed Paul as if someone had stuck a tongue depressor in my mouth and I rolled my eyes.
"Mother this is not social networking time. We're working here. Okay?"
"Sorry. I'll just leave you two to your devices..." Mom made this weak and somewhat peculiar non-mom kind of smile and said, "Okay. Bye."
She shut the door behind her but kept looking into the room beaming out a smile as the space of the door's opening got smaller and smaller and smaller. Then, she and her smiling lips were gone.
"She's nice."
"She's weird." I handed Matt one of the Cokes. He tossed the cookies onto the bed and took the can, staring at it, head down and lifted the tab making it hiss out its carbonation.
"She doesn't seem weird."
A birds of a feather moment, if ever!
"Yes. Well." I handed Matt a glass of ice and poured my drink into my own leaving it on the desk. He set his down near mine and poured too. Then set down his Coke can onto the mouse pad. All I could think was 'social learner."
Matt moved fast to mom's cookies. He unzipped the baggie and forced, three entire cookies into his mouth, in one go.
"Look." I said, referring to the cookies in the bag, "They're not going to escape. You don't have to kill them all at once."
"Thorry." His mouth filled to the point he couldn't close his lips. A couple of crumbs fell out onto my carpet. He noticed and tried to catch them before they fell but didn't succeed.
"Lord."
"Thorry."
"Yes. Whatever." I sat back onto the bed. "K. What is the thing that allows us to hear?" I was jumping right into human anatomy.
He wiped his wrist across his mouth and swallowed hard. "What is..."
"NOT. Jeopardy."
"Oh. Yeah. Um. The cochlea."
"Yes!" I looked down at my sheet of paper, avoiding him. "You know this stuff." I looked up quickly at him, then, down at the sheet again. He was smiling. He sat back down on the bed, reached for his drink and swallowed a big gulp of pop. "Okay. This one's harder. What's the organ called that the cochlea contains allowing us to hear?"
"Um." He fiddled with the bag of cookies, looked inside at them and grabbed only one this time. He shoved it in his mouth. Then looked at me and shook his head, making an Um-Um? sound that, if spoken, meant I don't know.
"It's the organ of Corti." I added, "I always remember this because I think of the Sea of Cortez is in my ear!" I chuckled.
"Cool!"
"Yeah. Cool." I smiled at him. "K. Let's finish and then we can eat."
"K."
And, we continued like that for the better part of an hour.
Then Matt said, "You heard."
"Huh?"
"Morlson and me."
My eyes darted back and forth avoiding his face. "Don't know what you mean."
LIAR!!!
"Wasn't that you at her door?"
"Matt, look. I don't know what you're talking about." I forced this 'like, really, okay' face at him. "Let's just get this over with. I'm hungry. I didn't happen to eat a whole bag full of cookies."
"Sorry."
And, luckily he forgot all about his question and we continued with his list. Which, btw, he knew about two-thirds of the questions that I asked. It made me wonder why he was failing.
But, then, when he came back on Thursday, I figured it out.
THIRTY FOUR - Big Word. Little Word.
Word laws. I reject all laws purporting to instruct on proper use of words except for my own. Big words prevail. Hallelujah.
Dear Diary,
As I lie here on my bed writing to you, oh, diary--the one who knows all, Matt Ryder has corralled me into tutoring him at school. I think he likes me.
Ick. Pew.
I'm going to vomit on my own toothbrush. Gak, hack, hack.
Mom's no help. Her darling daughter's virginity may be at risk and she's turning a blind eye! What's a chaste maiden to do?
Subterfuge! That's what! If his grades don't improve with my teaching perspicacity, he'll surely dump me as a tutor. Subterfuge, it is. It's really the only way to mitigate an already putrid situation.
Mom thinks he just needs a buddy, buddy. Look again, mom, at the connoisseur of 'everything Susie' peering through his window at me... at all hours of the night and day.
Holy.
Mother. Like, duh. I need protection.
Too late! He was at the door, for the second night of tutoring.
But soft! What freak through yonder door goes knock?
It is Frank Zappa and
batboy is the Moon.
"Susie!" Mom's voice carried down the hall like a shill at an entrance to one of those sleazy girly bars downtown, those same places mom used to pull me away from. Now, she's shoving me in like I'm chattel for her new source of income.
THIRTY FIVE - Grading Matthew
Test Day with Susie Speider, the Teacher.
Pop Quiz
Name: Matt Ryder
Date: November 4, 2010
1. Q. What's the organ called that contains the cochlea?
1. A. The Sea of Cortez.
2. Q. What allows us the ability to hear?
2. A. The olfactory gland.
3. Q. What makes flowers produce fruit?
3. A. What is (lord) the stamen?
4. Q. What is the nerve that allows us to see?
4. A. The cochlea.
5. Q. What are the three main parts of a sentence?
5. A. A noun, a subject and a participle.
6. Q. Who wrote the short story, Red Wind?
a. Raymond Chandler
b. Myah Lin
c. Shakespeare
d. none of the above
6. A. D.
7. Q. Which constellations are named for the Zodiac? Hint: There are twelve, name no fewer than three.
7. A. Ursa minor and major, and Orion's belt.
8. Q. What is the eighth month in the Zodiac
8. A. Easy. (he actually drew a smiley face. the dork.) August.
9. Q. What is a novella?
9. A. Shorter than a novel. Longer than a short story.
And, the last question, I threw in for the fun of it.
10. Q. How many chucks does a woodchuck chuck?
10. A. Doi.
It was like, he had all of the information sitting inside this big snack bowl of a brain but couldn't pick out the right Chex square for any given question. So, keeping in line with my plans to foil by means of subterfuge--I gave him 99% marking him down for his Jeopardy faux pas on Q. #9.
Matt was ecstatic.
"I know." I said letting him think that I thought he was pretty hot potatoes. A kid genius at that.
"Cool."
"Yep. Cool." I turned to my desk. The evening sky was beginning to fade into muted tones, like gray flannel and mushroom-y brown. "I'll keep it with me to see how you're progressing." Referring to his test.
"We can review all of them together later." He smiled.
"Sure. Yeah. Whatever. Later is better." My face went blank.
He pulled a shaggy swatch of hair behind his ear and, paused, turned and walked to the door, then stopped. "Susie."
"Hmm?"
"Thanks for everything." He nearly lurched over the bed to get at me, and then kissed me on my cheek.
"Gah! What is WRONG with you! Don't EVER do that again."
Mom was in, in a flash.
"Everything okay in here?"
"Mother!"
Batboy stared intently at his shoes. Mom did this look between us thing and pressed open her eyes at me like it was my fault then pulled the door closed.
"Look, Ryder. I don't know what you think, here. Get one thing straight. I don't like you. I won't ever like you or your stupid father, Paul, so don't get confused. I had to tutor you. Haggert is making me. Don't forget that. I never wanted this."
"Sorry."
"Just leave."
He stopped, like he wanted to say one more thing, apologize more.
"Go."
He walked through the door. I heard him say goodbye to my mother. Then, I heard the front screen door creak and swing shut. I watched him through my window. He looked back, once he had made it across the street, just before he walked into his own house. He looked back and when he did, he just shrugged, like he was surrendering.
What was wrong with him.
THIRTY SIX - Concentration is Slipping Away
"He's such a total geek freak." Ricki said about Matt but lost her concentration when Billy passed us going the other direction, toward his ride home. We all usually walked home together.
"Hi Billy." She blushed.
I gagged.
"Ricki lo-oves Billy. Ricki lo-oves Billy." Jamie sung out, turning her back to the direction we were walking and facing us. "You are so gross, Ricki. He wants to put his thing..."
"Shut it!" I stopped her from going there. Gross. Jamie was starting to talk way too much about sex these days and I just wanted to pass Sophomore classes. "Turn around."
"He likes you." Ricki said referring to Matt.
"OMG. You sound just like my mother."
"Your mother is right. He likes you."
I stuck my finger in my mouth and grimaced.
"She's right, Susie." Now, Jamie and her freak-o Gothic way was feeding me information like she was a scholar or something. "When boys at this age, give a girl attention, any kind of attention, it means one thing and one thing only." She flipped around and started walking backwards again. "He wants to put his thing..."
"Shut. Up. Now!" I put both fingers in my ears. "La la la." And closed my eyes.
"She's right." I was wondering if Ricki knew anything else to say but she's right.
"Pa-lease." Then, a monolithic object walked into view... Morlson. "There she is." She wore a floral dress with humongo pink and green flowers. "Those petals are enormous." I stopped walking, making Ricki and Jamie hold back as well. "Hide me."
I stepped behind them. They created a wall and I, kind of, sunk shorter trying to disappear. "She totally loathes me." I whispered from behind them. They both stood like centaurs protecting me at the gate of despair.
"She's gone now."
"That was close." I adjusted my Kirkland backpack over my Kirkland sky blue sweater that bragged Kirkland on the outside of its collar. Good thing my hair hung over the logo.
"She pulls me aside every chance she gets to tell me what a moron I am."
"Toadmeister." Jamie chimed in.
"Sphincter face." Ricki added.
Then we all said together, "Queen!" and, "Throw back of cool teachers past!" Placing the cherry on the old banana split. "Gotta go. I have to try and catch Haggert the Swaggert before he leaves. Gonna beg off this tutoring job. It's not working out for me." I started to jog off but turned around. "Let you know how it goes!"
"Bye, Susie"
"Bye, Speider." Jamie never called me by my first name anymore. It was sort of frightening.
"Bye guys!"
THIRTY SEVEN -
My spider Karma kicked in. But, where was Delilah? In a nano-jiffy I forgot and then remembered, she escaped and was safe.
Phew.
But, when then I looked up...
Sca-Reeeeeeeech!
The lunking motion of an enormous human form lumbered toward me--it was Morlson!
She hath neared! Selah.
RAID in hand, one of my back legs began to unfurl (which rhymes with uncurl!), then, the other one reacted, straightening out, then the side ones followed suit--bing! bing! bing!--and then, finally, like freakin' molasses the front ones did.
If you're not privy to this info, spiders are peppy little insects. They can go from zero to sixty in about 1/2 a second. Of course, in my weakened state, my trajectory was curtailed to about 2 seconds. But, once my fore claws took hold of the carpeting, I was all about serpentining.
I'd dash one way and when she phfft-ed out a blast of poison, I zipped the other way.
But, she caught on to my method of deviation and sprayed away from me, understanding my path would be to curve in the direction of the mist. And, I would've too if I hadn't been poised to run underneath the bed. Lord, love a duck! Get it? Duck?
And, just as I ducked under, she sprayed the box spring.
I burbled out a twitchy little giggle that was jam-packed with nerves.
THIRTY EIGHT - Bullies Eat It
I'd stopped jogging 'cause my backpack began to feel like carrying around the carcass of a freshly-dead woolly mammoth. I huffed as I approached the administrative office
s of school. And, nearly made it inside before I heard the ever-recognizable voices of boys' attack on some helpless soul.
"Queer!" Joe's voice, bellowed out his usual brilliant new curse du jour on a weaker kid making me recoil and turning behind me to see.
"You freakin' butt lover!" David added the grosser comment. Weird too because Joe normally topped the grades with his insults.
Then, they started in with the physical abuses--Joe slapped Matt in the back of the head, then David pushed him squarely in the chest.
I set down my backpack near my foot watching to see what level they were going to take this. I mean. If it stopped right then, I could just walk away.
But, no. David slugged Matt in the shoulder making him trip a little backwards and drop his backpack. Then, Joe, as Matt was trying to avoid falling, swung his leg in-between Matt's causing him to fall hard on his right hip.
I bolted.
And, got there when the kicking began.
"Cut it out." I pushed David off, making him stumble away. "Stop it!" I screamed shoving Joe to the other side, standing between the cretins, and keeping them off of poor Matt.
"Just like you, freak. Another freak, a girl, no less, has to save you." David spewed out at Matt bending forward, and then actually spit on him.
"Queer!" They said in unison.
Matts face went red with embarrassment or fear, probably both. It must've been like that with deer and hunters.
"Leave him alone!" I yelled again standing in front of him. I wasn't sure if they had the balls to come after a girl so I just started to scream in this high-pitched sound like an ambulance siren racing to a hospital.
"Susie Speider loves a queer! Susie Speider loves a queer!"
I realized that Cinda and Melinda were off to the side sitting on a brick wall enjoying the scene. A few other kids had stopped but hadn't moved from their spots. They just watched on and let it happen.
Then, Haggert showed up, pulling them both off with all of his strength. "I've had just about enough of you boys. Do you want to be expelled?" He yanked at their arms again, making them answer him. "Do you?!" Yank. Yank.
"No." They both mewled like the big babies they were.
"You okay?" Haggert directed his attention to Matt.
Spider Brains: A Love Story (Book One) Page 11
