The Accidental Genius of Weasel High

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The Accidental Genius of Weasel High Page 9

by Rick Detorie


  “Sounds a bit clichéd, don’t you think?” he said.

  “Okay,” I said, “instead of a cheerleader, we’ll make it a shampoo girl.”

  “A what?” my dad asked.

  But before I could answer, a door swung open, scaring us both so hard that we squealed like little girls.

  It was Doug Cleary, another English professor at the college and a friend of my dad’s. “Hey, Marty, Larkin, what are you guys doing here?” he asked.

  It was kind funny hearing him call my dad “Marty.” Only my grandmother and my aunts call him that.

  My dad explained that we were here to pick up a few things that were stored in his office.

  “And, Larkin, look at you,” said Doug Cleary. “You’ve really grown since the last time I saw you.”

  “Yeah, I wish,” I said.

  The three of us walked together to my dad’s office, and the two of them talked a lot about people I didn’t know and about things they’d done together. Doug made my dad sound like a fun guy.

  From the closet in his office, my dad took out a big box of movies and an old eight-millimeter movie projector that we were going to take home with us.

  Just before we were about to leave, Doug asked me if my dad acted as crazy around the house as he does at school. Like, does he do his impression of Shakespeare’s Romeo as performed by Rocky Balboa?

  “No,” I said. I didn’t know what he was talking about.

  “Aw, Marty,” said Doug, “you’re holding back from your very own son? Do it! Do it!”

  “Yeah, come on, Dad,” I said, still kind of confused, “please?”

  So he did it, and he sounded just like Sylvester Stallone in Rocky:

  He did this whole long speech, and I’ve got to admit, it was pretty funny.

  So, there. I’m writing something nice about my dad. Maybe I will show him this notebook blog sooner than one hundred years from now.

  Let’s make it ninety-nine years from now.

  WHEN A BUDDY NEEDS A BUDDY

  I was in my room working on a project for art class. We had to make a collage, and the theme of it was supposed to be “blue.”

  So I was searching the Internet for blue images, and Photoshopping them together to form an upside-down smiley face, which I guess you could call a frowny face. I chose a frowny face because blue is not only a color, but it means sad, too. So then my collage would be, like, blue squared.

  But I finally decided to do it as a smiley face after all, because that would make the collage ironic. You know: blue, but happy!

  That would surely get me an A because teachers love irony. It makes them feel all warm inside. Or, maybe because it’s ironic, they expect to feel warm inside but actually feel kind of chilly instead.

  My phone rang, and the caller ID said it was Brooke.

  Since the freshman dance, I’d only seen Brooke a couple of times at school, but we hadn’t said much of anything to each other. I’d texted her at least twice, but she hadn’t responded.

  “Hello?” I answered, like I thought maybe it was some kind of trick.

  “Hi, Larkin,” she said. It was Brooke.

  “Hey,” I said. “I texted you a few times, but—”

  “I know,” she interrupted, “but I’ve been so busy lately that I didn’t get a chance to get back to you.”

  “That’s cool,” I said, trying to sound cool.

  “The reason I’m calling,” she said, “is to ask you a favor. As you probably know, ever since Misty died, things haven’t been the same around here.”

  Misty was her little dog that died last year.

  “Oh, yeah, that was sad,” I said.

  “Thank you,” she said. “Well, my mom and I have been talking it over, and we’ve decided that it’s about time we got another dog, and we were wondering if we could come over and adopt one of the Buddies.”

  “Uh, yeah, sure,” I said.

  I sounded real calm when I said it, but inside I was jumping up and down and yelling. I knew that once she was here and spent some time alone with me, I would activate my killer charm, and she’d be all powerless to resist and she’d fall madly in love with me all over again, and we’d live happily ever after.

  Or at least through the summer.

  “How soon can you get here?” I asked.

  “We were thinking of doing it the Saturday after next.”

  “The Saturday after next?”

  “Yes,” she said, “we want to wait until my dad is out of town.”

  “Oh, okay,” I said, “I’ll see you the Saturday after next.”

  I hung up the phone and did a little dance of joy. Actually, it was more like a big monkey madness jungle stomp fest.

  It lasted until I saw Kelly standing at my door.

  “You are such a pathetic mess,” she said.

  “Yeah,” I said, “but now I’m being a pathetic mess in the privacy of my own room!”

  And I slammed the door in her face.

  THE BIG SECRET

  When my mom picked me up from Miss Sadie’s this afternoon, instead of going right home, she drove into town to pick up a check for a job she’d done last week. The sun had just about set when we got there, and she found a parking spot almost right in front of Yuddy’s Curl Up & Dye Hair Salon. She told me to wait in the truck and left the keys in the ignition so I could listen to the radio.

  So I was flipping through the channels, trying to find something to listen to other than commercials for discount car insurance, credit dentistry, and Macaroni Grill, and I noticed this short, four-legged thing walking along the sidewalk.

  At first I thought it was a possum, but once it moved into the circle of streetlamp light, I saw that it was a dog. It looked like it might be a Chihuahua or a miniature terrier of some sort.

  There was nobody with it, and it wasn’t wearing a collar.

  It sniffed at Yuddy’s front door, and headed towards the truck. I turned down the radio so it wouldn’t suspect that I was spying on it or anything.

  I figured it might be either lost or abandoned, and maybe I should take it back to the farm, and come back later to post signs in the neighborhood saying I’d found it.

  I got out of the truck and walked very casually towards it. It stopped as soon as it saw me. I crouched down very slowly and held out my hand as if I were holding a treat. “Come here, buddy,” I said.

  The dog turned and ran back towards the hair salon, where it made a sharp right turn, scooting under a wooden gate that was between Yuddy’s and the shop next to hers. I opened the gate and peered down the long narrow passageway that led to the rear of the buildings. It was completely dark, except for a patch of dim light at the end, where the little dog had stopped. It seemed to be waiting to see if I would follow it.

  I did.

  I made my way through the dark passageway very cautiously, in case I ran into something hidden in the darkness, like a trash can or a bicycle or a crouching vampire.

  I made it to the end, where I found a small area, almost like a courtyard. There were some trash cans there, a stack of wooden boxes, and a couple of tires, but no dog.

  There was a second dark passageway, which led farther back, so I followed it. I wound up next to a big Dumpster in an alley.

  There was no sign of the dog.

  I tried calling him again, saying, “Here, buddy. Come here, boy.” But no luck.

  Then I heard voices.

  Three guys were in the alley walking towards me. I didn’t want them to see me, so I ducked into the passageway and pressed my back flat against the wall.

  Their voices sounded angry, and I could tell by some of the words they were using that there was a pretty good chance they weren’t returning from a Bible study class.

  I kept very, very still, but there was a problem.

  I felt a sneeze coming on, and it was going to be a big one.

  I knew if I tried to hold it in, I could pop an eardrum, so I did the next best thing. I pressed my jacket hard into
my face and let the sneeze explode out of my mouth and nose. Sure, my jacket was covered in snot and spit, but the heavy fabric had absorbed most of the sound. I hoped.

  “Did you hear that?” one of the guys said. He stopped and looked in my direction.

  I held my breath and didn’t move.

  “Ain’t nuthin,’ man,” said one of the other guys, “probably a rat or somethin’.”

  They continued on their way, and I heard one of them say, “We oughta kill it.”

  “You crazy, man?” said the other one. “Do I look like a sterminator to you?”

  When they were finally out of sight, I hurried back through the passageway and into the little courtyard. There was some light coming from an upstairs window. I looked up and saw the little dog I had been chasing. He was perched on the back of a chair and looking at me as if to say, “Will you get lost, please, so I can resume my evening stroll?”

  Then I saw the little doggy door he must be using to make his escapes.

  The other source of light was coming from a small window in a very large metal door. I decided to take a peek inside, but the window was kind of high up, so I had to stand on a wooden box.

  I was looking into Yuddy’s hair salon from the back door. Up near the front counter I saw my mom talking to Yuddy. I recognized Yuddy because I’d been here lots of times with my mom. Her real name is Yudmilla, but she shortened it to Yuddy when she came here from Russia. Every time I see Yuddy, her hair is a different color. Right now it’s blonde. She looks kind of like that lady on 60 Minutes, only worse.

  I looked around, hoping to spot a shampoo girl or two, but no luck. I’ve been working on an idea for a movie that’ll be one of my first feature films. It’s sort of like Charlie’s Angels, but not as dumb, and instead of being about a team of beautiful private detectives, it’ll be about a team of beautiful shampoo girls.

  I didn’t see any shampoo girls, but I did see a guy sitting in a salon chair. I could tell it was a guy because he was pretty big. There was aluminum foil on his head and pieces of his hair were poking through the foil.

  It looked like he was wearing one of the costumes I’d put together when I made my first science-fiction movie: It Came from A Million Miles That Way! I think I was about nine when I did it.

  As I was comparing the aluminum foil on his head to the aluminum foil helmet I’d made for my movie, he spun around in his chair, and I saw his face in the mirror.

  I could hardly believe what I saw.

  It was Dalton Cooke!

  I nearly fell off my box. I looked again, and sure enough, it was Dalton. What was he doing here, and what was that stuff on his head? Maybe he was involved in some kind of weird scientific experiment, like trying to keep out mind-control waves or something.

  Suddenly, it occurred to me that I’d left my mom’s truck with the keys in it and the radio on. She would probably die from a heart attack if her truck wasn’t there, or even worse, if it was there with the keys in it, the radio on, and me on a box in back of Yuddy’s spying through the window!

  I ran back to the truck, thinking I could always blame it on that dumb dog.

  I jumped into the front seat just seconds before my mom came out of Yuddy’s.

  “You’re certainly out of breath,” she said, snapping on her seat belt. “What’s wrong?”

  “Oh, nothing,” I said. “I was just singing along to a song on the radio.”

  “Oh,” she said, and she started the ignition. “What happened to your jacket?” she asked.

  I looked down at all the snot and spit. “Oh, uh, it was a very sad song,” I said, “and I guess I got a little carried away.”

  Am I quick, or what?

  On the ride home, I asked my mom about the tinfoil-hair thing. She explained that it’s a process that a woman goes through when she’s having highlights added to her hair. “Tips and highlights,” she called it. “It’s a fancy, and expensive, way of having your hair dyed.”

  Did you notice that she referred to the person as a woman?

  So big strong tough guy Dalton Cooke is having his hair dyed—just like a woman.

  Wow, this is major.

  THE SATURDAY AFTER NEXT

  From my bedroom window I saw Brooke and her mother drive up.

  I checked myself in the mirror. Brooke always used to like it when my hair was kind of messed up, so I went to the bathroom, splashed water on it, and massaged it around a little. I tried to make it stick up—you know, to make me look taller.

  I went downstairs.

  They were in the living room, where Brooke’s mom was making a big deal about some cabinets my mom had built.

  “You did all of this yourself?” said Brooke’s mom. “I’ve been looking for something exactly like this for my office!” “Gee, Pam,” said my mom, “I’d be more than happy to work with you on something like this. If you have the time, I have plenty of catalogs we can look through for ideas.”

  “But, Mom,” said Brooke, who was standing at the front door, “what about the dog?”

  “I think you and Larkin can probably handle that,” said her mom. “Why don’t you go take a look at what’s available, narrow it down to a couple, and I’ll be out later to help you decide.”

  “Yeah, Brooke,” I said, “we can audition the Buddies.”

  “Just remember, Brooke,” added her mom, “we don’t want a big one or a slobberer. The last thing we need is a big, drooling dog slobbering all over our furniture and new carpets.”

  So Brooke and I went outside, and I opened the gate of the dog run and let them all out. They raced around the barn, as they usually do, and Brooke and I tossed tennis balls to them, flung Frisbees, and played hide-and-seek until they tired us out.

  “Is that the end of the audition?” asked Brooke.

  “No, that’s just the beginning,” I said. “Now I’m going to play the guitar, and you’re going to sing to them.”

  “I don’t get it,” she said, “that sounds like we’re auditioning for them.”

  “No,” I explained, “we’ll be auditioning the audience. They’ll be the audience, and whichever one can tolerate our singing the longest wins the audition.”

  The Buddies followed us around to the back of the barn to a little platform where Brooke and I sang two songs. The Buddies only stuck around for one number, then they took off after a squirrel.

  It felt great being with Brooke again. She was laughing and acting crazy just like we used to whenever we got together.

  We even did a short scene from Batman Returns, where she played Catwoman and I played Batman.

  “You’re catnip to a girl like me,” she purred, “handsome, dazed, and to die for.”

  “Mistletoe can be deadly if you eat it,” I said.

  “But a kiss can be even deadlier if you mean it,” she said. “You’re the second man who killed me this week, but I’ve got seven lives left.”

  “I tried to save you,” I said. I pulled her towards me and I kissed her right on the lips, slowly, like I really meant it, with my eyes closed and everything.

  “Oh, Larkin,” she said.

  “Hey, that’s not your line,” I said.

  “I don’t think of you that way,” she said.

  “Oh, but Dalton Cooke—him you think of that way!” I was mad.

  “Dalton’s a very nice person,” she said. “He might not seem like it all the time, but that’s because he has issues, big issues. You don’t know him the way I do.”

  “Oh, yeah? Well, he dyes his hair!” I blurted out.

  “What?”

  “I saw him with my own eyes in a hair salon.”

  “Really?” she said, “at a salon? I’m surprised. I always thought he did it himself. It’s not a real professional-looking job, whoever’s doing it.”

  “You knew about this?” I was kind of shocked.

  “Yeah, of course,” she said. “What’s the big deal?”

  “The deal is, he’s a guy who dyes his hair,” I said.
/>   “So, lots of guys do it,” she said. “My cousin Anthony has been dyeing his hair since he was twelve years old.”

  “Is he the cousin who eats paper?”

  “He doesn’t do that anymore,” she said, “not since he’s being seeing a therapist.”

  And, well, that’s pretty much how things ended between me and

  Brooke. Our moms came outside looking for us, and Brooke told them she’d decided on a dog. She chose the one I thought she was going to choose: a white poodle/terrier mix that looked a lot like her other dog, Misty.

  She decided to name her Stella.

  But she’ll always be Buddy to me.

  MY BIG BREAK

  Something happened today that’s so weird, I’m not sure that it really did happen.

  Dalton came up to me after school this afternoon and told me that the French class prank that we’d pulled was kind of lame, and he had an idea for another bigger and better prank.

  It involved releasing some guy’s boa constrictor, or maybe a live deer (or maybe both), in the cafeteria or in the auditorium during assembly, and he wanted me to film it.

  Instead of just saying no and walking away, I stuck around and argued with him about it until I missed the school bus.

  He said, no problem, because a guy he knew was picking him up to go work out at some gym someplace, and they could drop me off at whatever bus stop worked for me. And that way, the two of us could spend more time in the car discussing his dumb prank.

  So Dalton and I got into the backseat of this old clunker that Dalton’s friend Ivan was driving. Also in the front seat was a guy named Sam, who was talking on a cell phone.

  Both of them seemed to be a whole lot older than me and Dalton. Ivan had tattoos all over his arms, and one on his neck that looked like a rotten banana, but I found out later it’s supposed to be a samurai sword.

 

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