Talk to her.
Mike tenses up.
You can trust her.
I’m louder and clearer right now than I’ve ever been. It’s so satisfying! But there’s a catch of panic in Mike’s throat. He is hoping desperately that the voice he hears is just a bizarre product of the heat. And he wonders why it would tell him not to talk to Tamio, and now it’s telling him to confide in the weirdest girl he knows.
Amber: “Mike?”
Mike: “My summer’s been good. You?”
Amber: “Oh, fantastic!”
Mike should be curious about her fantastic summer, but he’s not.
Mike: “Maybe I’ll go in and look around.”
Amber: “You want a healing object?”
Mike: “Maybe.”
Amber: “Okay. See you at school. You taking physics this year?”
Mike: “Yeah, in the afternoon.”
Amber: “Me, too.”
Mike’s thinking, Oh, no, classes with Ralph and Amber. He doesn’t yet see why she’s so special. She’s not typical Belle Heights. She doesn’t seem to belong to any specific time or place. He should feel such a connection to her—if you believed in past lives, you’d think she and Mike were once related.
But Mike has already forgotten her now that he’s in the flea market. There’s a whole table of tube socks, six for a dollar. A big chair with stuffing bursting out. Stacks of old rock albums. The Mamas & the Papas are looking up at Mike. Mike wonders why there’s a fat kid standing right next to him, looking at The Mamas & the Papas, too….
He can’t believe it.
He’s looking in a mirror.
The fat kid is himself.
The mirror is leaning against a table. It’s tall and narrow, about three feet by one foot. The wooden border looks rotted and splintery, but that’s not important. Mike looks at himself again. How did this happen? He was weighed last spring at the doctor’s office and was average then; how did he go from average to fat so quickly? He thinks about what he had for lunch: two burgers and double fries.
You need to buy this mirror. So you can keep an eye on yourself.
He’s a little less frightened by me. He’s beginning to wonder if I’m right, if maybe I have his best interests at heart. He’s not sure. But he is sure that he wants the mirror.
Mike (to a woman in a lawn chair, next to the mirror): “How much?”
Woman (frowning): “You want to buy the mirror?”
Mike notices a table full of sunglasses. So the mirror’s just there for people to see how they look in sunglasses. It doesn’t matter.
Mike: “Yeah, I want to buy the mirror.”
Woman: “Isn’t there a price tag on it?”
She’s stalling. She knows there isn’t a price tag and she can see how much Mike wants it. Mike looks for a price tag and finds only a rusty wire in the back.
Mike: “There’s no tag.”
Woman: “It must’ve fallen off. Well, it’s eleven dollars.”
That’s a lot, he thinks; he can buy sixty-six tube;
Mike: “I’ll take it.”
She wraps up the mirror in some old newspaper. Mike notices the date—sometime in May, before his mom started hibernating and soaking, and his dad started going to the gym. Mike tucks the mirror under his arm and heads out. On the way home, he passes a woman with a pigeon on her shoulder. At least he thinks it’s a pigeon, until it talks and he realizes it’s a parrot.
Bird: “What’s the matter? What’s the matter?”
Mike thinks about the fact that this woman has a voice on her shoulder, but she can go home and put it in a cage. He wonders if there’s a cage that can hold the voice in his head.
He doesn’t understand. Not yet.
CHAPTER 5
MIKE POUNDS A NAIL INTO HIS BEDROOM WALL, and the sound drives Mighty Joe Young under the bed. Most of Mike’s walls are covered by Mets posters, but there’s a tall, empty rectangular space just opposite his bed. The mirror fits the space perfectly, as if it was waiting for it.
Mom (standing in doorway): “You woke me.”
Mike: “Maybe you shouldn’t be sleeping in the middle of the day.”
Mom (either not hearing or ignoring Mike’s comment): “What are you doing?”
Mike: “I got a mirror.”
Mom: “I can see that. But why? Oh, you’re bleeding.”
Mike looks down and is surprised to see blood all over his finger.
Mom: “Don’t wipe it on your pants! No wonder you cut yourself—the wood’s coming off in splinters.” She pokes around the mirror. “The wire’s all rusty. When’s the last time you had a tetanus shot?”
Mike (remembering): “In the spring.”
Mom: “Why did you get this, if it’s warped?”
Mike: “Warped?”
Mom: “Definitely. The glass is wavy. Look how wide you look.”
Mike (sadly): “That’s what I look like.”
Mom: “No, it isn’t. Where’d you get it?”
Mike knows she wouldn’t like the truth. He could lie. It would be so easy. But Mike hasn’t ever been a good liar.
Mike: “A flea market.”
Mom (as if pierced to the heart): “No! How much did you pay?”
Mike: “Eleven dollars.”
Mom: “You got robbed.” She sighs. “Could you call my four o’clock for me? I’m not going to make it.”
Mike sighs too.
Mom: “Did you pick up the Feline Fine?”
Mike remembers the cat food he was supposed to buy.
Mike: “Ahh, no. I totally forgot.”
Mom: “You’ll have to go out again.”
Mike: “I know.”
Mom: “Where’d you put the laundry? I looked on the shelf—”
Mike: “It’s on top of the machine, already folded. I didn’t put it away yet.”
Mom: “Oh, and Mighty Joe Young threw up near the couch.”
The cat throws up a lot. It’s disgusting, the way Mighty Joe Young walks backward while he’s doing it. Tamio once said, “He looks like a movie of a cat eating, on rewind.” Mike laughed, but there’s nothing amusing about the fact that he has to clean up cat vomit all the time.
Mike: “Mom, I already cleaned up after him twice today.”
Mom: “But… could you, again? I can’t.”
Mike: “Fine.”
Look at yourself—running errands, doing laundry, cleaning up cat vomit. Is this the person you are meant to be?
Mike thinks the voice in his head must hate him. But I don’t. I’m the best thing that ever happened to him.
CHAPTER 6
JUST AS IT’S ALL COMING TOGETHER, LIKE A PAINTING that looks like random dots until you step back and see the whole glorious scene, the worst possible thing happens.
Mike falls in love.
It’s not love, of course—it’s idiotic teenage infatuation and will lead only to rejection and heartbreak—but Mike is convinced it’s the real thing and he won’t listen to reason.
It’s the first day of tenth grade, homeroom. Mr. Clayton, his homeroom and physics teacher, is standing at the front of the room with a girl taller than he is.
Mr. Clayton: “This is Valerie Braylock.”
Mike instantly adores everything about Valerie Braylock, including the fact that she’s a giant. She’s African American with dark-gray eyes much too big for her face, but Mike thinks they’re beautiful, the color of smoke. Dark, curly hair spills over her shoulders and Mike is gone, absolutely gone.
Mr. Clayton: “She’s new.”
Valerie: “Well. I’m new to Belle Heights, and new to Belle Heights High School, but I’m not new to myself.”
What is that supposed to mean?