Squint

by Chad Morris

  “Where are your parents?” McKell asked.

  I threw my clothes in the open hamper across the room. “Um.” It’s crazy that I’ve answered this question my whole life and it still feels awkward every time. “My dad left before I was born. I don’t know him at all. And my mom isn’t very good at being a mom. So my mom’s parents are kind of like my parents.”

  I sat on the edge of the bed, trying very hard to hook my underwear with the toe of my shoe without being too obvious about it.

  She sat on my bed and I was so grateful that Grandma had me make my bed that morning. For once I was glad I’d done my chores. “You live with your grandparents? Cool. Your grandma seems nice.”

  I glanced down quickly. Got it! I slowly brought my foot up like I was going to sit cross-legged and pulled my underwear off my toe and wadded it up into an unrecognizable ball in my hand.

  “When she’s not being bossy,” I said, walking to the hamper this time. I didn’t want to miss and have my underwear flop all over the floor.

  “She didn’t seem bossy,” McKell said. “Besides, most parents are bossy. It’s part of being a parent. If they just gave you money and made your meals they’d be your bank and restaurant, not your parents.” She laughed a little. She’d probably gotten that from an adult.

  I doubt I’d hear anyone say anything like that at school. Not even McKell.

  Middle-School Rule: Cool kids don’t defend parents—or teachers.

  I moved from the hamper to my desk and grabbed a stack of papers. “This is it. It’s stupid,” I said handing her my comic. “And some of the art is bad. I couldn’t see well with my eyes and my glasses didn’t help enough.” The words sounded pathetic as they tumbled out.

  McKell grabbed her end of the stack of papers but I couldn’t let go of mine. What if she thought it was awful and told everyone? I mean, I already knew that it had problems. “I can see how bad it is now that I have my good eye. So I might not enter it into the contest.” More rambling.

  I let go and took a step back. “Either way it won’t win. It’s not finished, not entirely. The ending has more—”

  She shushed me. “Stop talking so I can read.”

  I put my back against the wall and watched for a minute. When she flipped the first page I slid down the wall and sat with my arms wrapped around my knees. I felt wound up, like my insides were stuffed into a space only half as big as it should be.

  She laughed and I knew exactly what joke that was.

  She flipped through a few more pages and gasped and chuckled in all of the right places. At one point she looked up from the comic to see me just sitting there staring at her. I’m sure I had a big dumb smile on my face.

  “I’ll go get us a snack or something,” I said, jumping to my feet. I didn’t want to sit there awkwardly watching her as she read.

  She nodded.

  My grandma was in the kitchen working on dinner when I got there. Her old laptop was open on the counter. She must have been looking up a recipe. “You look as happy as Grandpa when Big Red wins.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that.

  Grandma smiled. “She seems real nice.”

  “She is,” I said.

  “Grandpa would want me to tell you to treat her really well,” Grandma said. “And he would tell you some story of someone who didn’t treat some woman well and how shameful it was.”

  I nodded. “I’ll pretend he told me the stories and I’ll live by them.” I peered in the pantry. “Can I make a snack?” I asked.

  “It’s almost dinn—” Grandma didn’t finish. She looked at me for a moment then glanced down the hall. “Yes,” she said.

  Once I got back, I felt embarrassed that all I had were cracker sandwiches. But I’d said I would get a snack so I had to come back with something. McKell took one from the plate. “It’s good,” she said.

  “It’s just peanut butter and saltines,” I said.

  “I meant the comic,” she said. “It’s really, really good,” she corrected, nodding to accentuate her point.

  “It’s not as good as it should be,” I said.

  “Are you kidding me?” she asked. “I think it’s great.” And she emphasized great. “I mean, look at this.” She held up a page with Squint soaring and fighting against Gunn. “This looks fantastic. The colors are fun, the characters are interesting, and I love where this story is going. You could make people pay to read this kind of stuff.” Her voice was a little louder. I tried to figure out if she was really as excited as she seemed.

  “No way,” I said. “Not even close.” My cheeks felt hot.

  “Well, to you, maybe,” McKell said. “But not to me. I can’t figure out what they’re going to do next. It’s so interesting.” She made me wonder if I was too critical of myself and my story. “But the best part is this Diamond girl. Whoever came up with her was brilliant.”

  I laughed. “A straight-up genius. For sure.”

  McKell’s voice got a little softer. “I hope she ends up helping Squint out.”

  “Me too,” I said.

  Neither of us said anything else for a moment.

  “He had to squint to get a glint,” McKell started, bobbing her head with her beat. “And put in his heart to start, but now with his new eye, he tried, and the new comic . . .” She paused, her eyes looking to the side. “The new comic . . . the new comic,” she repeated.

  “Yeah, good luck rhyming that,” I said, trying to think of options and not coming up with anything.

  “Oh, I can rhyme with it,” she said. “Just nothing good. Balsamic. Economic. ‘The new comic is economic’ doesn’t sound very cool, you know?” She turned her hands up. “Wait. Got it.” She stood up straighter. “With his new eye, he tried, and the new comic is . . . atomic.” She nodded in approval and then made an exploding noise.

  “It’s a good thing to have an atomic comic, right?” I asked.

  “Definitely,” she said. “You might just win this contest.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “There really isn’t much of a chance, plus I’m going to have to work like crazy to finish it.”

  “You might surprise yourself,” she said.

  I wanted to bring up our deal, the challenges, but I didn’t. “Maybe,” I said.

  She looked down. “Oh, yeah. Now it’s my turn.”

  McKell decided to get it over with. Even though Grandma said dinner was in an hour, we biked to her house. And of course my bike squeaked every time I pushed on the left pedal.

  The houses on her street had so much detail. Brick, stone, and wood placed just right, with windows of all shapes and sizes, spires and gables on the roofs. Definitely something I wouldn’t have noticed before I got my new eye.

  I recognized McKell’s home and we dropped our bikes and made our way up the front walkway, past the fountain that wasn’t turned on, and in through the huge front doors. The house was quiet except the ticking of some clock in another part of the room. It was interesting to see where the furniture usually sat when the place wasn’t set up for a movie party. It reminded me of a house on TV. Very fancy, like nobody actually lived there. Like a waiting room at the doctor’s office.

  We slipped off our shoes again. Thankfully, my socks didn’t have holes in them. “Have a seat,” McKell said, gesturing toward the fancy family room. “I’ll get my ukulele and be back.” She disappeared down the hall and I sat down on a large brown leather chair.

  “Hello, there,” a voice said from the kitchen. McKell’s mom was so quiet I didn’t see her sitting in her pajamas at the table with a mug and a book. “What are you kids up to?”

  A grown-up in her pajamas at dinnertime? Odd. Maybe she was going to bed early. Maybe she had some appointment really early in the morning.

  “I’m Squi—I mean Flint,” I said. “I was here the other night for the movie,” I rambled, sit
ting a little straighter and fidgeting with my hands. “McKell is going to show me one of her songs.”

  Her mother’s face lit up. “Really?”

  I nodded. “At least, she told me she would.”

  McKell came in the room holding her ukulele. “Mom!” she nearly shouted when she noticed her mother in the kitchen. She shuddered and grabbed my hand. “That’s it. We’re going outside.”

  Her mother gave a tired smile as McKell dragged me into the backyard. “I’m really sorry about her. There’s not much more embarrassing than a mom that hasn’t got out of her pajamas.”

  Oh. McKell’s mom hadn’t gotten into her pajamas early; she hadn’t changed out of them. “Don’t worry about it. She’s fine,” I said. I had never seen that before. My grandparents were always up and dressed before I was really awake.

  McKell looked at me and shook her head.

  Hadn’t we just done this at my place? I was embarrassed by my grandma, but McKell wasn’t. Now we had switched.

  Middle-School Rule: Every kid thinks their parents are embarrassing. (But mine really are.)

  I could see McKell’s mother from where she sat, looking out a big kitchen window at us. “My grandma’s hair is fake blonde and she was wearing her work uniform.”

  McKell suppressed a smile. “Your grandma was really nice. My mom’s depressed. She can’t even be a mom right now.”

  I swallowed hard. A mom who couldn’t be a mom was something I knew too well. Probably a lot more than McKell.

  “Sorry,” was all I said. I couldn’t help but glance once more at her mom, who was still watching from the window and holding her mug with both hands.

  It was time to change the subject, I could sense it. I gave her a big smile. “Let’s hear your song.”

  She nodded, sat against the patio table, took a deep breath, and began strumming. I pulled a chair out so I could watch her.

  Strumming.

  And more strumming.

  She wasn’t saying or singing anything, just strumming. Was she chickening out?

  “I’ll love it,” I said. “Promise.”

  She looked down at her moving fingers. “It’s not as good as your comic.”

  I chuckled. “It’s probably better. Just play already.”

  McKell stopped her strumming and ran her fingers through her hair. She shuffled the position of her ukulele and glanced towards the kitchen window, which was now empty.

  She started again and eventually her voice came out, breathy and light.

  “Miss. Miss. Miss,” she sang. “Miss. Miss. Miss.”

  Please like it. Please like it. Please like it. I really didn’t want to have to fake anything. I wasn’t very good at faking.

  Her voice became fuller, each note right on pitch. The last note she even moved it up and down like singers on the radio. She sounded good and the ukulele blended right in.

  “Miss,” she drew out the word, long and lonely before going into her first verse.

  You can miss a train or the rain, or your chance to explain.

  You can misspell, mismatch, miss your love, miss a catch.

  Her words had a beat and melody that moved along well together.

  Miss a chance for romance,

  Miss it all by happenstance.

  Misjudge, mistreat, miss the turn down the street.

  She changed rhythms, longer, and slower.

  Don’t misunderstand.

  You can miss all that you’ve planned,

  The strumming calmed. She closed her eyes.

  And I can miss a smile.

  I can miss a laugh.

  And all of this missing, feels like I’m only half

  The person I once knew.

  She paused and sang beautifully soft, a little quiver in her voice.

  I miss you.

  Obviously, it was about Danny. Did I have any clue what it must be like for her? I had lost my mom—kinda. I didn’t really have her in my life. And some days that felt really terrible. But she wasn’t dead. I would see her again. I didn’t even know my dad, so it didn’t feel like I had lost anything. I had lost friends, like Gavin and the other boys I used to play with, but again, they weren’t dead. Losing Danny would be a million times harder.

  “It’s really good,” I whispered while she strummed a few parts without words. She seemed to relax a little.

  The song went on with a few more verses and a longer chorus at the end. There was no way around it, McKell was talented. Her rhymes were clever and her voice was hypnotizing. And I had never heard anything like it. She had a style all her own.

  “Really, really good,” I said, when it was all done. “And it’s so you. The way you rhyme and everything.”

  “Thanks,” she said, a little red on her tan cheeks. “Danny kept telling me to make my songs more like me and less like the songs on the radio.”

  “Well, it sounded like you,” I said. “And I’d put it on the radio.” I looked away for a moment. “I’m sorry that you miss him so much.”

  She nodded.

  “But I guess that’s also a huge compliment to him,” I said. “You really loved him. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t miss him so badly.”

  She nodded again. “I guess you’re right.”

  “You should totally do it,” I said.

  “What?” she said.

  “The song. You should sing it in the talent assembly. I mean . . . um, you should try out. And then they’ll definitely pick you and then you should sing it in the assembly.”

  She dropped her head. “I still can’t do it. It is one thing to sing in front of one person and a whole different thing to sing for hundreds of people who aren’t sure they want to listen to you.”

  “You’re totally right,” I said. “At least I think you are. I haven’t sung in front of anybody since our third-grade ‘America Is Great’ program.” I brought my hand to my chest.

  McKell set down her ukulele on the table and chuckled.

  She had to do this. I wasn’t going to let it go until she agreed. “But can you imagine how happy that would make Danny for you to show everyone what you can do?”

  “Maybe,” she said.

  “When are tryouts?”

  “Thursday,” she said. “They’ve been announcing them for weeks.”

  “Right,” I said again. “I should probably pay attention to announcements. I tend to tune them out.” I punched my open hand. “You can do this.” Maybe it sounded cheesy. If it were a line in my comic I would try to think of something more original, but I meant it. And that was enough for now.

  She looked up. Her voice trembling, she said, “Maybe.”

  I sat in the back row of the auditorium watching five girls dance. The two in the middle were Chloe and Emma. And they were good. They moved and swayed and swished the way good dancers did.

  And Chloe looked as cute as ever. I swear all of the boys at school liked her. Well, like 95 percent of them. But not me. At least not like I used to.

  McKell hadn’t showed up yet, but I still hoped she would. She had actually signed up. I told her I’d be waiting for her. Maybe she could come in and sit a few rows in front of me. That way she wouldn’t have to be seen with me, but she could still know I was there for support. It wasn’t my favorite situation, but what else was I going to do?

  “Hey.” I turned and saw McKell. She had her ukulele in a case at her side. She sat down right next to me. “Can I sit here?”

  I looked up at Chloe and Emma on stage and then back at her. “Sure, if you want.”

  “I think I’m going to need it,” she said. Her voice trembled a little.

  McKell Panganiban actually came to tryouts, and she was sitting right next to me.

  Right next to me.

  And Emma and Chloe could totally see. I didn’t know if
they’d notice. They were kind of busy right now. But they could.

  Today was going to be life-changing. McKell would make it into the talent show and I would finish up my comic and send it in tomorrow. I still wasn’t confident in it, but I could try.

  At the last note, the dancing girls all froze in different dramatic poses. Everyone clapped. McKell joined in, so I gave a few claps too. Mine weren’t very loud.

  “Great job,” Mrs. Lin, the drama teacher said. Mr. Mueller, the choir director, sat front and center, the tryout list in his hand.

  “Well done,” Mr. Mueller said. Then he turned out to the auditorium with students waiting to perform. He glanced at the list. “Caleb Hein is up next. JanaLee Gonzalez to follow.”

  Chloe, Emma, and the other girls all hugged and congratulated each other. Then they grabbed duffel bags, probably filled with their non-dancing clothes, and walked up the aisle toward the doors. They were going to walk right past us.

  They were still talking with each other and I hoped they wouldn’t notice us.

  Chloe stopped. “Hey, McKell.”

  “Good job, girls,” McKell said. I couldn’t tell if it bothered her that they noticed her or not.

  “Yeah, thanks,” Emma added. Then she looked at me and back at McKell. I could almost see her mind working. Why were we sitting together?

  “Is there something wrong with your eye?” Chloe asked, looking at me. Weird question, but I was glad it wasn’t something like, “What are you doing here together?” or “Why don’t you go hang out with people on your level?”

  The other girls all looked at my eye. “It’s really red,” McKell said. “Is it okay?” I guess she hadn’t noticed it before.

  I shrugged and blinked several times. It was irritated and dry, but that happened. “I’ll put in some drops after auditions.”

  Chloe looked back at McKell. “What is . . . Wait, are you two trying out?”

  I shook my head and pointed at McKell.

  McKell took a deep breath. “I am. Well, at least I think so.”