“Break the lock or something,” I go.
“Right before,” he goes. “Then you come in this double door.” He puts his finger in the dirt. “And I come in this one.” He’s still nodding, picturing the whole thing. He looks at me, happy for the first time all day. “This is a good idea,” he goes. “This is a good idea, Edwin.”
“What’d you teach today?” I ask my dad. Dinner’s late because the sweet potatoes are taking forever. He and Gus are hanging out on his bed watching TV. He’s lying on his back with his head on the headboard, and Gus is sitting on his chest. He has to tilt his head to the side to see.
“Wanna see my wicked face?” Gus asks. When I tell him sure, he pulls his lower eyelids down and grimaces.
“Macro,” my dad goes.
“Was it fun?” I ask him.
“I like macro,” he says, then looks at me sideways. “You looking for something?”
I wander into the kitchen.
“What’s everybody up to?” my mom wants to know.
They’re watching TV, I tell her. She’s cutting up an avocado for a salad.
“Are there any other kids at school who don’t watch TV?” she asks.
“Besides me, you mean,” I go.
“Besides you and Roddy,” she says.
“Not that I know of,” I tell her.
“Don’t kids talk about shows and stuff that’re on all the time?” she asks.
“All the time,” I go.
“Don’t you feel left out?” she asks.
“All the time,” I go.
She washes her hands and dries them and checks the sweet potatoes in the oven. They must be done because she sticks each of them with a fork and then pulls them out and dumps them in a bowl.
“I think Gus is going to turn out to be normal,” I go.
“Oh, Edwin,” she says. She acts like the potato bowl is too heavy to lift. “Don’t say that.”
“He is,” I tell her.
“You’re not abnormal,” she says.
“I’m not?” I go.
She starts putting stuff on the table.
“I’m not?” I go.
“Look, I don’t have the energy to fight about this right now,” she goes.
“I’m not fighting,” I go. “I’m asking a question.”
“What’s the question?” she asks, sitting down alone at the dining room table.
“I’m not abnormal?” I go.
“Let’s move,” she calls to everybody else. “Dinner!”
I sit and take a sweet potato and cut it open. It’s like lava inside. “I’m glad to know I’m not abnormal,” I go.
“Edwin, please,” she goes.
“Edwin please what?” my dad goes. He’s in charge of drinks, so he hits the fridge and brings over a pitcher of ice water for them and a carton of milk for us.
“Turns out I’m not abnormal,” I go.
“Well, let’s not rush to judgment on that one,” he goes.
“Honey,” my mom goes.
“What?” he goes. “I can’t kid around with him?”
She shakes her head and starts dishing out the meat.
“You’re fine,” my dad says to me. “I grew up with kids who make you and Flake look like Archie and Jughead.”
Everybody eats for a while. I’m mad I got into this.
“I got a rash on my butt,” Gus says.
“Does it still hurt?” my mom asks.
“Wanna see?” Gus says to me.
“Maybe later,” I go.
He gets up on his chair and drops his drawers. The rash doesn’t look so good.
“Whoa,” I go. It’s just what he wanted to hear.
“You remember when I was six and there was that huge birthday party, pool party?” I ask my mom and dad. “And I didn’t want to go?”
Gus pulls up his pants and sits back down. “We remember,” my mom says.
“How come you made me go to that?” I ask.
“You told that little boy you were going to go at least a dozen times,” my mom says. “Remember how he kept calling to make sure you were still coming?”
“I really didn’t want to go,” I tell them. “I really didn’t want to go.”
“Well, maybe we shouldn’t’ve made you go,” my dad says.
The kid’s older brothers had all their friends there. They took my bathing suit. They locked me in the pool shed. When I got out I had to run around trying to get my suit back, covering myself with a Frisbee. Two kids took my picture.
“Poor Edwin had a hard time today,” the kid’s mother told my mom when she came to pick me up. I got a shovel from our garage and tried to go back. My mom had to call my dad.
“No more pool parties,” my dad goes.
“You better believe it,” I tell him.
“All right, we made a mistake,” he tells me. “From now on, whatever happens, it’s because we made that one mistake.”
“Can we just drop this?” my mom goes.
Gus is taking all this in without saying a thing.
“I don’t need to talk about it,” I tell her.
The phone rings. Nobody answers it. The answering machine clicks on but whoever it is doesn’t leave a message.
“You just shouldn’t have made me go, that’s all,” I tell her.
“Oh my God,” my mom says.
5
My English teacher is coming down the hall in the morning before homeroom. Of course I’m having trouble with my locker and when I finally rip it open I’m rushing to dump stuff out of my knapsack and pick up other stuff for first and second period. My math book and some papers flop onto the floor, and Dickhead, the kid who beat me with a plank, is going by and scuffs them out into the middle of the hall.
Of course my teacher doesn’t see that. She helps me pick stuff up.
“Thanks, Ms. Meier,” I tell her.
“What’s this?” she goes. It’s a drawing of a pot with curvy fumes coming off it. The pot has a skull and crossbones on it and next to the pot it says 200 degrees in Flake’s spaz handwriting.
The look on my face catches her attention. I’m staring at the thing thinking, I can’t believe I didn’t get rid of this.
“What is this?” she goes.
It’s a chemistry experiment, I tell her. The bell rings.
“You’re not old enough to take chemistry,” she says.
“No, I don’t mean for school,” I go. “My dad got me one of those sets.”
She turns the paper over to look at the front again and asks, “What’s supposed to be in the pot?”
“I don’t know,” I tell her. “Chemicals.”
“Why does it have a skull and crossbones?” she wants to know.
“I don’t know. Because it looks cool,” I tell her.
She thinks about it for a while and then hands it back to me. “Can you write me a pass?” I ask her.
She says okay and before homeroom I go to the bathroom. There’s a boy leaning over the sink to put on Chap-Stick in the bathroom mirror. In a stall I tear the picture into two thousand pieces and flush them down the toilet.
“Bowel trouble?” the vice principal asks when I pop out into the hall. It’s empty and quiet.
“I got diarrhea,” I tell him.
“Mr. Davis, do you think I have problems?” Bethany asks as she goes by with a girlfriend.
“I reserve the right to not answer that question,” he tells her, and they both laugh.
“Mighty quiet in there for diarrhea,” he tells me once they’re gone.
Up yours, I think, on the way to homeroom.
Step two is figuring out a way of sealing up the little door in the gym. We talk about it either at Flake’s house or in the fort. After what my mom said about our sitting around and talking about getting even with people, my room’s out.
Step one I get all the credit for, according to Flake. Step one was figuring out we could do it in the gym instead of having to lock up the whole school.