“In Dad’s defense,” Daniel finally piped up, “Teddy’s not the friendliest cat who ever lived. I can see how Dad wouldn’t have noticed him, because Teddy’s always hiding. Most of the time you can only see his tail, and that’s if you know where to look. Or,” he added slowly, “if you look at all.”
“That’s the thing, Danieclass="underline" Dad doesn’t look.” Sarah was still studying Mrs. Ebeling as if the secrets of the universe, or at least of our family, could be found by determining the most effective manner of bringing groceries into the house. “And besides, the cat is not the problem; Dad not knowing he exists is merely a symptom of what’s wrong with this family.”
“How long have you known things suck?” We all asked each other the same question at the same time. If it hadn’t been so sad, I’d have been impressed.
“A few months,” Sarah admitted. “I asked them about it last week, but they said everything was fine, that they just had normal family issues to work through.”
“When he went away for over a week for the third time in a month.” Daniel was still working on that blister.
“About twelve minutes ago,” I said. “But I also realized, about eleven minutes, fifty-five seconds ago, that I am beyond dense.”
Sarah and Daniel nodded.
“What do we do now?” I asked.
Sarah glanced at me in the rearview mirror. “Oh, god, Kevin, you look horrible. Put your head between your legs and take deep, slow breaths. And don’t barf in my car.”
“Our car!” Daniel and I roared together at her.
She looked startled. Then mad. Then she started to laugh. Pretty soon she was laughing so hard I couldn’t tell if she was laughing or crying.
Then I realized she was laughing and crying.
Daniel and I were too.
I didn’t understand what had just happened. Everything had been going so well. I mean, I guess not, but …
9. A GOOD LIE SHOWS YOU THE TRUTH
The next day, I just didn’t feel like myself. Sure, I watched Tina during class and at lunch and in the hall and on the way to the bus, and she was still so pretty that she made my heart twist.
I met with Connie and we discussed whatever it was she was talking about; it’s easy to be a good listener and make people think you’re part of the conversation if you just say “What did you do then?” a lot, because that way they think you’re paying attention, impressed with them. I think I said yes to something she had planned for next Monday at six-thirty in the evening, but I’m not sure what it was.
I even let Katie corner me in the hallway after school and go over her outline again because she’d changed seven words since the last time she’d shown it to me and she wanted to make sure I approved. And I agreed with her that apathy was going to ruin this society. Or something.
JonPaul and I walked home together. He’d been wearing a motion-sickness band around his wrist because, he said, he was queasy all the time. He had a portable, disposable heating pad wrapped around his midsection because he thought his lower back was going into spasms. He lifted a pants leg so I could see the Ace bandage he’d wrapped around the ankle he swore was strained. And he carried a packet of wet wipes to scrub down his desk chairs and locker handle. He showed me a face mask in his backpack. “I’m just glad it’s not cold and flu season,” he whispered, “or I’d have to wear it. I’m just carrying it for security.”
It was only Thursday and I’d only been ditching class for four days, but I was getting homesick for my regular routine.
I’d somehow staggered through a long and weird day, but when I saw Auntie Buzz through the kitchen window as I got home, I headed straight over to Markie’s house for my babysitting gig without even dropping my stuff off in my room first. I wasn’t up for watching Buzz’s demo reel or hearing about the friendly-faced Buddha she needed for the Tibetan prayer room she was designing.
The now EpiPen-free Markie is a sheer terror.
I never feel right about trying to get out of babysitting, though, because his parents always seem so worried I’ll say no and sound so grateful when I say yes. I usually dread it, but the day after the Kitchen Scene, I was glad. And I hoped his folks would stay out really late. Because I didn’t want to run the risk of seeing my folks. For the first time, Markie looked good by comparison.
His parents call him precocious; I looked it up, and it does not mean the personification of an ear-splitting, nerve-jangling, head-pounding, exasperating plague that makes you long for deportation from your own country.
Little kids smell funny—like blue cheese and day-old socks and dog butt. Markie smells like all that, plus he’s so freaking hyper and chatty that I know why his parents make such a fuss about “date night” just to get away from him once a week.
Sarah thinks they go out to romantic dinners and take ballroom dance lessons or see black-and-white foreign movies with subtitles and deep meanings. I’m pretty sure they park their car in the empty lot behind the bank and just sit there enjoying the silence. As well as checking off the boxes on their countdown to when Markie turns eighteen and leaves home.
The only good thing about spending the afternoon and evening with Markie was that I wouldn’t have to think about what was going on with my folks.
On top of having a weird smell and the attention span of a fruit fly, that day Markie rushed me at the front door with a buttload of disgusting questions. Like he does every single time I come over. He must save them up for me.
“Dutchdeefuddy, where do farts come from? What are boogers made of? Have you ever tasted pus?”
Oh yeah, and he has this habit of beginning every sentence with the word dutchdeefuddy. Which does not mean anything. In any language I can find on the Internet. I finally decided that it must be like shalom or aloha and has as many meanings as necessary.
I always have to fight the urge to put Markie in a cardboard box in back of the furnace in the basement, securely closed with duct tape. Tied with stout rope. And swaddled with some sort of soundproofing material.
But that kind of babysitting doesn’t get a guy paid. So I sighed and answered his questions. Like I always do.
“Farts are made of methane produced during the digestion of food in the small and large intestines. Boogers are the thickened or dried mucus that the cells in the nasal cavity need to function. And don’t taste pus. Ever. It’s a terrible idea. Kind of like the time I told you not to shove baby carrots up your nose and then eat them.”
Then, grossed out by my efforts to educate a young mind, I sent him outside to play with the kids next door. When I looked out the window a few minutes later, Markie had seemingly cloned himself and there were fifty, sixty, I don’t know, hundreds of him running around the yard. I shook my head to clear my vision and made a careful head count.
Three. Three small children plus Markie. They were just moving so blazing fast that they looked like a crowd. Sounded like one too. I bet Hell sounds a lot like a bunch of little kids shrieking.
The only solution was storytime. Little kids are suckers for stuff like that. And it quiets them down like a tranquilizer gun.
I rounded them up, dumped some dry cereal in a bowl—because you can always get on top of the situation with little kids by offering treats—and put my creative powers to work.
“Well,” I began, “once upon a time, there was this guy. He was a … pirate-magician-dragonslayer-quarterback-sailer-musher-trapper who owned a carnival. He lived in suburban hedges waiting to find tiny soldiers for his army of puppy-sitters, who don’t have bedtime and can eat pizza for breakfast with potato chips and chocolate milk. He recognized them by the balloons they tied to their clothes.”