Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie (21 page)

“You didn’t have to do that,” Wesley said.

I just nodded. I wasn’t sure I could talk without squeaking.

“Thanks,” he added. He drove two blocks, then pulled into the lot of another mini-mart. “They have great cocoa here. With little marshmallows. I love those little marshmallows.”

No more calisthenics in Spanish class. When we came in on Monday, the new teacher had already written her name on the board. Ms. Cabrini. I didn’t have my hopes up.

“Hello, class,” she said to us in perfect English. “I’m looking forward to teaching you.”

That got my attention. So did the next thing she said. “I was born in Argentina. I’ve also lived in Spain and Mexico. I’ve visited Puerto Rico and most of the countries in Central America. There are many dialects of Spanish. But, with a bit of practice, you’ll be able to make yourself understood all over the world.”

She picked up the textbook. “We may as well take up where your last teacher left off.” Then she started reading the lesson.

I stared at her, completely lost. It sounded wonderful. It sounded like Spanish. I just didn’t have a clue what any of it meant. Without hearing it in a French or Australian or Vietnamese accent, I couldn’t understand a word.

Caramba
.

Tuesday, I walked up behind Lee in the hall with a copy of the paper and tapped her on the shoulder. Even though she didn’t like sports, I figured she’d enjoy my article. She turned and gave me this odd smile with her lips closed. Then, just when I was about to say something clever about how she should broaden her reading interests, she opened her mouth, curled her lips, and hissed. But it wasn’t the hiss that spooked me. It was the fangs. She had vampire teeth.

There’s nothing like an unexpected encounter with a set of overgrown canines to drive home the true meaning of fear.

“Will you cut that out?” I said after I’d regained the ability to speak and determined that my pants were still dry.

She spat the teeth into her palm. “Cool, huh?” Then she held her hand out. “Want to try them?”

“Ick. No way.”

She rubbed them on her shirt. “You sure?”

“Positive.”

She popped them back in. “Thuit yourthelf.” She gave me another hiss, then danced down the hall, leaving me with the paper in my hand.

When I got home, I showed the article to Mom. “That’s really wonderful,” she said after she’d read it.

That night, I held out the paper to Bobby. “This is my best article yet,” I told him.

“Cool. Put it on the bed. I’ll read it later,” he said.

He didn’t look busy, but I didn’t argue with him.

Mr. Franka has this huge file cabinet full of comics and graphic novels. We could read any of them that we wanted, as long as we wrote up a response afterward. I even wrote one of my responses as a comic. I knew it was sort of an obvious thing to do, but Mr. Franka liked it and gave me a 98.

There were some pretty cool old horror comics in the piles, and these weird modern ones that didn’t make a whole lot of sense, but were still sort of fun to read. I think they were the graphic equivalent of modern poetry. Someone was scamming someone. But that’s okay. The art in them was pretty amazing. And some of the old comics didn’t make all that much sense, either.

I figured I’d buy a couple of the really cool ones at the magazine place in town and send them to Mouth.

On the way home from school, I finally asked Wesley if he’d finished
The Princess Bride
. He’d had the book for ages.

“Yeah.”

“Did you like it?”

“Sure.”

“So you’re done with it?” I asked.

He nodded. “Gave it to my cousin.”

“Oh.” At least he’d liked it.

“Got another good book?” he asked when he pulled up at the house.

“Tons,” I said, though in my mind I saw my shelves slowly growing empty as the contents of my library shifted, book by book, to Wesley’s cousin.

After dinner, when I walked past Bobby’s room, I noticed the school paper on the floor. Bobby was sitting on his bed listening to music.

“You read it?” I asked.

He nodded. “Nice job, little brother.”

“Which part did you like the best?”

“Hard to say. It was all real good.”

Oh man. I knew those lines. I knew that whole routine. “You didn’t read it.”

Bobby shrugged. “Not yet.”

“Come on. It’s not that long.” I really wanted him to see what I’d done. Especially since it was my best article.

“I said later.”

I picked up the paper and held it out to him. “I’ll wait. Come on—it’ll only take you five minutes.”

“Not right now.”

“Come on.” I jabbed him with the paper. “Just read it.”

Bobby ripped the paper from my hand and threw it across the room. “I said later!”

“You jerk.” I stormed out of his room. Who cared if he read my article. Who cared if he read anything.

W
e got our report cards on Friday. I didn’t care. I had something else on my mind. I kept thinking about how I’d never seen Bobby with a book. I couldn’t even remember him ever looking at the newspaper.

After school, I grabbed
Tuck Everlasting
from my bookshelf, then went to track Bobby down. He was in the garage, fiddling around beneath the hood of the ‘vette.

“Read this,” I said, holding out the book.

“Do I look like I have time to play around? I have to get this idle adjusted.”

“Not the whole book. Just the first page. Here.”

He smacked the book out of my hand. “I’m busy. What is it with you? You keep bugging me to read stuff. Go get a hobby or something.”

I bent down and picked it up. “Just the first paragraph.”

He smacked it again. “You’re being a real pain.”

I picked it up. “One sentence.”

“Scott, knock it off. Stop fooling around. I’ve got stuff to do. Maybe if you didn’t waste so much time with your nose in a book, you wouldn’t be such a creepy little loser.”

I felt like I’d been punched in the gut.
The hell with you
. I backed up a step, clutching the book so hard I could feel the cover ripple.

No. That’s what he wanted. To drive me off. Bobby knew exactly what he was doing. But I wasn’t going to play that game. I waited a moment, until I was sure I could speak, then said, “I’m not fooling. I’m dead serious.” I held the book out again, wondering if he was going to hit me.

Instead, he grabbed the book and opened it. As he read out loud, my heart ripped wider and wider. It was a struggle. Each word. Each syllable. After an eternity, he finished the first paragraph.

He shoved the book at me. “You happy now? I’m stupid. Okay. Is that what you wanted to know? Does that make you feel good? You’re smart and I’m stupid.” He threw the wrench, hard, against the engine.

I ducked as it bounced back out, but stood my ground. “How’d it happen?” I asked.

“I don’t know. It’s just always been hard. The words don’t make sense.”

“But your teachers….?”

“I learned that if I caused enough trouble, nobody would notice anything else. They never figured out how stupid I am.”

“You’re not stupid. You were smart enough to fool everyone. And it’s never too late to learn.” I thought about how hard it must have been for him to sit through year after year of school while all those kids around him could read. “Oh man, Mom and Dad don’t know, either.”

Bobby shook his head. “That’s been the worst part.”

“They’d understand.”

“Don’t you dare tell them anything.”

I held up a hand. “I won’t. I promise. But you should.”

“I can’t.” Bobby ducked his head back under the hood. “I hope the baby isn’t like me, Scott.”

“I hope he’s a lot like you,” I said.

Opening day. It was the only time I didn’t mind getting up early on a Saturday. Dad was already in the kitchen making a pot of coffee when I came down.

“Want some?” he asked.

“Sure.” It wasn’t bad once I added enough sugar.

Bobby joined us a couple minutes later. He nodded at me like nothing had happened. I played along. Fishing is like having a truce with the world. When you’re out on the stream, you leave the crap of the world behind.

We headed to the McMichaels, up in the Poconos. It wasn’t as crowded as the Bushkill or the other streams near us in the valley.

Standing there, I felt for the first time in ages that there
were some things that weren’t changing. At least not changing so fast I felt dizzy.

A minute or two after we started, Dad hooked his first fish. By ten, he’d caught his limit. I caught three brook trout. Bobby just caught two, but one of them was a nineteen-inch rainbow.

“Keep it?” Dad asked as Bobby cupped the rainbow in his hands.

“Nah, we have enough.” Bobby released his fish back into the stream.

I let mine go, too. We had plenty for dinner with just Dad’s stringer. When we got home, he cooked them. Plain and simple. Right in the frying pan with a bit of butter. It’s one of the few times he cooks, except when he’s grilling.

“We taking the ‘vette?”

“You bet.”

Thus Dad and I composed our own couplet. It was Take Your Child to Work Day. Also known as Get Out of School for Free Day. We zoomed, sputtered, and lurched our way to the dealership. Dad stuck to the back roads since it would be pretty inconvenient to break down on the highway at rush hour.

I wasn’t allowed in the garage, where the mechanics do the actual work, so I had to hang out in the front office, where Dad deals with the customers. But it was nice spending time with him. He has to wear a button-down shirt, but he refuses to wear a tie.

People came in almost nonstop, dropping their cars off for service and asking questions. They wanted to know all sorts of stuff.