“What do you want?” Old Man Crawley growled when he answered the door. He always said that to me. Except when he was expecting me. Then he’d say, “You’re late!” even if I was early. It wasn’t just me he treated this way, though. The whole world was an enemy waiting to happen. According to my father, Crawley’s greatest joy came from watching him squirm. In this I could teach my dad a thing or two, because Crawley never made me squirm. I just laughed at him. It annoyed him, but I think he respected me for it.
The dogs barked and pawed me with their usual greeting. Crawley pulled Gluttony back by the collar, and sent him off. Since Gluttony was the alpha male of the pack, the other dogs followed.
“Is it that time already?” Crawley asked as I stepped in.
“You’ll never know,” I told him with a grin.
“I always know,” he said. He was, of course, referring to our monthly kidnapping—the planning of which was usually why I came over to chat with Lexie. Like I said, Crawley had us kidnap him once a month, and force him to do something exhilarating. He even paid me for it. The fact that he’s rich and we get to use his money to plan our adventure outings allows us some really unique opportunities. Last month was a dolphin encounter at the Brooklyn Aquarium, with a shark thrown in for added excitement.
“What are you planning for this month?” he asked.
“Space shuttle,” I told him. “We’re sending you to blow up a comet before it can destroy the earth. You’ll be strapped to the tip of the warhead.”
“Smart-ass.” He poked me with his cane. Although he broke his hip last year, I don’t think he needed the cane to walk anymore. I believe he kept it as a weapon.
“So tell me,” he asked, “what new things have you botched up at Paris, Capisce? lately?”
“You mean besides Thanksgiving? Sorry, but I have no other screwups to entertain you with.”
He shook his head and scowled at me, annoyed that I had no humiliating food-service moments to share. “Incredible,” he said. “You’re disappointing even when you’re not disappointing.” Then he went off into the kitchen, where he was quickly surrounded by amber waves of dog.
Lexie got home ten minutes later and was surprised, but pleased, to find me there. She let Moxie, her Seeing Eye dog, out of his halter, and he came bounding to me, expressing all the emotion that Lexie was too proper to display. She did give me a hug, though.
“I’m glad you came by,” she said. “I’ve been thinking about you.”
“You have?” I instantly wondered what she was thinking, and why, and whether I should feel embarrassed, flattered, or awkward.
“There’s this new boy at school who sounds like you. I keep hearing him in the lunchroom. It’s very distracting.”
“Yeah,” I said. “If he sounds like me, he must be distracting.”
She laughed at that. “It’s only distracting because I keep expecting it to be you.”
I sat across from her in the living room and got right to business, telling her the reason for my visit. I expected her to be full of wisdom, and maybe give me a road map into the mind of Kjersten Ümlaut. Instead she just folded her arms.
“So let me get this straight,” she said. “You’re telling me you’ve been kissed by a beautiful girl, and you want me to give you advice about it.”
“Yeah, that’s the general idea.”
I could already tell this was going south. I’m not the most observant guy in the world, but I’ve learned that reading Lexie’s body language is very important. See, lots of people put on fake body language, making you see what they want you to see—but since Lexie doesn’t think in terms of sight, her body language is always genuine. And right now she was genuinely peeved.
“So, a girl kissed you. Why does that have to involve me?”
“She’s not a girl, she’s a JUNIOR, and every guy in school would give their left arm to go out with her—but she kissed me.”
Still, Lexie’s all cross-armed and huffy. Even the dogs are looking at her like there’s something wrong.
And then I finally get it.
“Are you jealous?”
“Of course not,” she says, but her body language says different.
“How can you be jealous?” I ask. “You’re dating that guy who clicks, right?” The guy I’m talking about is this blind dude with the very rare gift of echolocation. By making clicking noises, he can tell you exactly what’s around him. It’s kind of like human sonar—he’s been on the news and everything.
“His name is Raoul,” says Lexie, all insulted.
“Yeah, well, if my name was Raoul, I’d rather be called ‛that guy who clicks.’”
The scowl on her face scares away at least four of the dogs. I figure it’s time to backtrack a little bit, so I give her the whole story—about Gunnar, and his weird incurable illness, and the extra month, figuring if she has the background, she might not be so annoyed by the whole thing. The second I mention the free month, she unfolds her arms.
“You gave him a month of your life?”
“Yeah, and that’s why his sister kissed me—so she says.”
“Antsy, that was a really nice gesture!”
“Yeah, sure, but we’re not talking about that right now, we’re talking about the kiss.”
“Fine, fine—but tell me, what did that boy say when you gave him the month?”
By now I’m getting all exasperated myself. “He said ‛thank you,’ what do you think he said? Can we get back to the other thing now?”
But if there was any hope of getting advice on the subject, it flew out the window when Old Man Crawley came traipsing in, having eavesdropped on the whole conversation.
“What did he give you in return for signing away a month of your life?” Crawley asked.
I sighed. “Nothing. It was a gift. Kind of a symbolic gesture.”
“Symbolism’s overrated,” said Crawley. “And as a gift, it’s just plain stupid. It’s not even tax-deductible. You should have gotten something in return.”
So out of curiosity I asked, “What do you think a month of someone’s life is worth?”
He looked me over, curling his lip like I was a bad piece of fish at the market. “A month of your life?” he said. “About a buck ninety-eight,” and he left, cackling to himself, profoundly amused at how I had walked right into that one.
“Well,” said Lexie, no longer peeved at me. “I think a month of your life is worth a lot more than ‛a buck ninety-eight.’” She reached out for my hand, and I moved it right into her path so she didn’t have to go searching for it. She clasped it, smiling. Then she sighed and reluctantly said, “As for the kiss, my opinion, as your friend, is that it does mean something. There’s no such thing as a ‛thank-you kiss’. At least not in high school.”
5. People Sign Their Lives Away for the Dumbest Reasons, but Don’t Blame Me, I Just Wrote the Contract
I don’t think it’s possible not to be selfish. Of course that doesn’t mean everyone’s gotta be like Old Man Crawley either, but there’s a little bit of selfishness in everything. Even when you give something from the bottom of your heart, you’re always getting something back, aren’t you? It could just be the satisfaction of making someone happy—which makes you feel better about yourself, so you can balance out whatever awful thing you did earlier in the day.
Even Howie, who gets screamed at for always buying the wrong gift for his mother, is getting something out of that; each time he gets smacked for getting flowers his mother is allergic to or something, he’s left with the warm-fuzzy feeling of knowing some things never change, and his universe is all solid and stable.