Liar, Liar (4 page)

Sarah works like a beast of burden: She’s got a part-time job at the hospital; she babysits a couple of times a week; she occasionally works for Auntie Buzz; and she charges her friends to do their hair and makeup for weekend parties and dates. Our sister is a mogul-in-training and only complains about being broke because she loves to sound dramatic and put-upon.

But Daniel isn’t aware of these facts. He doesn’t particularly notice things, not if they aren’t in a hockey rink or a computer game; he’s not stupid, he’s just not observant.

But I am. I’m a very observant guy.

Daniel was still thinking. “I heard Mom and Dad talking with Sarah the other day in the kitchen. They seemed really upset. I couldn’t hear much, but I wonder
if they were trying to figure out what to do about her stealing.”

I pretended to look surprised. Then thoughtful. Then sad. I said, slowly, reluctantly, “I read an article in the newspaper the other day about the rise in teen shoplifting statistics.”

Daniel looked at me disbelievingly. Then an expression of disgust crossed his face.

“Knowing Sarah, she probably made herself seem misunderstood so that they’d feel bad for her and let her off easy.”

“She can talk her way out of anything.” I shook my head in dismay. “I can’t believe, though, that Mom and Dad didn’t at least take the car away.”

Bingo.

Daniel has always thought Sarah is spoiled and selfish and never gets what she’s got coming to her.

“She’s in all this trouble and she still busts my chops about giving me a ride to and from hockey practice? She’s got nerve.”

Just then Sarah came into the kitchen and, as luck would have it, she was carrying four or five shopping bags and looking smug. Her natural expression.

“You always get everything exactly the way you
want it, don’t you?” Daniel snapped before he stormed out of the room.

“What’s with Dannyboy?” Sarah asked me.

“He was all peevish that you always take the car because of your, what did he say? Oh yeah, selfish nature.” I didn’t bother mentioning that I had manipulated the situation and that he now thought she was a klepto. Oops. My bad.

“Well, if that’s the way he feels about me, then—” Sarah has never backed down from a fight, and I knew exactly how the next five minutes were going to play out.

She went flying down the hall and started pounding on Daniel’s door. His stereo volume increased to drown her out.

Just as Sarah started shouting curse bombs to get his attention, my mother came home.

She opened the kitchen door and looked at me. “Why do they sound like tiny demons from hell?” Without waiting for my reply, she marched to Daniel’s bedroom and flung open the door.

“Sarah, give me your car keys. Daniel, yours, too. I’ve had it with this constant fighting. Now neither of you will be driving that car for a week and maybe I’ll get some peace and quiet around here.”

“That means I’ll have to get a ride to school with Alex the greasy loser from across the street and his skanky girlfriend,” Sarah moaned.

“Indeed.” Mom was not impressed.

“And”—Daniel’s voice was glum—“I’ll have to bum a lift to hockey practice in Derek’s deathmobile that reeks of jockstraps.”

“That’s what you get for not honoring the spirit of Buzz’s gift by working things out with each other,” Mom said.

A better person than me would have felt bad that Daniel thought Sarah had issues that led her to thievery.

And a more upstanding young man than me would have felt terrible that Sarah felt compelled to yell at Daniel:

“You’re nothing but fecal matter and I wouldn’t spit on you if you were on fire!”

“But I’m your brother.” Daniel sounded genuinely wounded.

“You,” she announced, “are a turd in the punch bowl of life.”

Nice one, Sarah! Even Mom, who was back in the kitchen and sorting through mail, lifted an eyebrow in approval.

Two doors slammed. Silence.

“Ah, that’s better,” Mom said. “And how was your day, Kev? And have I mentioned that lately you’re my favorite, and not incidentally quietest, child?”

Before I could answer, Sarah, seething, reappeared in the kitchen.

“I’m telling Dad.”

“Be my guest,” Mom snapped as she swept out of the room. Under her breath, I heard her say, “The next time he stops in for a visit.” Her bedroom door shut. Then she opened the door and slammed it.

Blink.

Huh.

That was new. Mom is usually as cool as a cucumber and, as family fights go, this one was only about a 4 on a scale of 10; I’ve seen Mom reach out and catch sandwiches we kids have hurled at each other without losing her page in the book she was reading.

Mom had been working overtime because the bookstore she manages is short-staffed. Meanwhile, Dad’s new promotion meant that he was always on a business trip. They’d both been crabby lately. I hadn’t really noticed that until Mom slammed her door.

Sarah, having lost everyone’s attention, slunk back to her room. I sat at the kitchen table and thought.

It occurred to me that our family didn’t pay much attention to each other when we were together, which, once I thought about it, wasn’t much to begin with. We were all so busy. And when we
were
home, everyone usually had his or her nose stuck in one of the books or advance readers’ copies that Mom brought home from work.

My father always says she only works to feed our family’s book addiction and that we’d be further ahead financially if she collected aluminum cans from the side of the freeway to recycle.

In the past couple of weeks, I’d been seeing Daniel reading some business book about how to unleash your inner hound to get ahead in sports; I’d read
Lady Chatterley’s Lover
(because I thought it was dirty, but I couldn’t find the sex parts); and, over supper, Sarah had been flipping through a baseball book about the steroid scandal. As for Mom, she reads so much and so fast that I can’t keep up with her.

We read a lot, and we have great vocabularies as a result, but we don’t talk very much.

Which kind of leads to a bad place, I guess.

I tried to shrug off a dark feeling I was getting
and recapture the warm sense of justice: Sarah and Daniel, carless too. I’m a guy who’s all about justice. In a week they’d get their keys back, but they’d have a better sense of my point of view, and maybe they’d remember to give me a ride now and then.

I headed to my bedroom to start homework and tried to ignore the shiver that ran down my back when I passed three closed doors.

eanwhile, back to Operation Tina.

I was sitting on the front steps of school Tuesday morning before the homeroom bell rang, trying to finish an assignment while keeping an eye on Tina, three steps down, when it hit me: Classes were getting in my way.

It’s not that I don’t like school—I do. But wasting my time in class was a problem if I was going to make Tina understand what a great guy I was.

Out of the eight periods a day, I only saw Tina in three—language arts first period, lunch fifth period and science seventh period. Thanks to the social studies get out of jail free card, I could go to the commons
and watch her during her free period while waiting for the perfect moment to dazzle her with my personality.

But I needed more free time. Classes were slowing me down.

A lesser mind would have accepted defeat, since the odds were stacked against me, but the best military leaders always find ways to eliminate obstacles. It was clear that I was going to have to bail on my Tina-free classes: Spanish, math, and gym and art, which alternated days.

I looked around the front steps and sidewalk, assessing my options. I saw Freddy Dooher, who’s on the wrestling team. Normally I hate him because he’s as mean as a snake during the season when he’s starving to death, trying to make weigh-in before the meets. But that day I loved him because he gave me a great idea.

I dashed inside as soon as the first bell rang and ran to the Spanish lab to tell Señora Lucia that I’d recently begun student-managing the wrestling team. She’s only at school two or three times a week because we share her with the other two middle schools in the district, so I didn’t think she’d have a clue about the sports schedules. I didn’t, and I’m here five days a week, all day.

“Buenos dias, Señora.”

“¿Cómo está, Señor Kev?”

“
Bueno
. For a while now I’ve been wondering how I can add more to the school spirit. I’ve decided to become an athletic supporter.” I snorted at my own lame joke. I wasn’t sure the humor translated, because she kept organizing her stack of bilingual flashcards.

“So I’m helping the wrestling team, keeping track of scores and … like that.”

“¡Que peligroso!”
she said, clearly mistaking wrestling for extreme sheepherding or something riskier than a bunch of guys rolling around on stinky mats in the gym.

“Would it be okay if I missed some classes so that I can … help the guys get ready for … tournaments? I’ll get the homework and reading assignments from Roberto.”

“¡Bueno!”
She beamed. She gave me a hall pass so that I could go to the gym when I was supposed to be in Spanish.

I hustled to get to homeroom on time. Once I was there, Brooke Daniels and her sickening boyfriend, Timmy Kurtz, caught my eye. They’re Mr. and Mrs. Drama Department and really annoying—always eee-NUN-cee-ate-ing. It’s really gross the way
Timmy lets loose with flying gobs of spit. He gives JonPaul total germ fits when he talks.

However, seeing them gave me another idea. Art! I asked for a pass from my homeroom teacher and blasted down to the art studio, where Mrs. Steck was counting tubes of paint.

“Mrs. Steck!” It’s the only way to talk to her about anything, because she herself speaks with lots of exclamation points in her voice. “I’m working on the crew for the musical!” I blurted. “Can I miss a few days of class to paint scrims?!” I was glad I’d seen a rerun of
High School Musical
recently; I had my drama department terminology nailed.

“Kev! That’s wonderful!” Mrs. Steck looked at me with admiration. “I always give extra credit to my students who paint flats and build sets!”

I hope she’ll feel the same way about pretend walls on imaginary stages, I thought as I tucked her hall pass into my pocket.

Two down, two more to go.

On my way to language arts, I passed the school newspaper office, which gave me a new idea. Coach Gifford was about to discover that the athletic department was finally going to enjoy the editorial support it had long been denied.

I caught him as he headed into the locker room.

“Hey, Coach, gotta second? I’m gonna be writing for the sports section of the newspaper.”

“Good work. I’m always available to offer a quote. Do you want one now?”

“Not just yet, thanks. But I was hoping it would be cool with you if I missed gym for a few days while I learned the ropes.”

“Anything for some friendly press, sport.” We fist bumped, he scribbled a hall pass and I turned to leave. “Don’t forget to run a few laps,” he bellowed down the hall after me. “Wouldn’t want you to get flabby and out of shape.”

I flashed him a thumbs-up.

Check. Check. And check. One more.

I thought for a few minutes, stymied about how to get out of math. Then the voice came from on high, the loudspeaker in the hall.

“Would all members of the student government please report to the auditorium at the start of the fourth class period? Thank you.”

No, thank
you
.

Tina is the student rep for room 81. I knew this because I’d looked up her name on the school
website the night before in my information-gathering process.

I’d skip fourth-period math and send Mr. Meyers an email alerting him to the fact that I’d taken over as the room 82 alternate. He’d be impressed by that, because he’d run for town council once and was always talking about “what a pleasure and a privilege it is for one citizen to serve another.”

Even though all the information about the wrestling team and the musical crew and the newspaper staff and the student government could be verified on the school website, I’d never been a troublemaker, so no one would suspect I was lying and check up on me. I knew they’d want to think I was a good kid working his tail off to make the school a better place.