Shining On

by Lois Lowry

  Then when I got there and found him waiting for me in his driveway, I don't know what came over me, but before we even had our seat belts on, I was like, “Greg, thanks so much for driving me home. You must really think I'm obtuse,” and he was like, “Why, Allie, I don't think you're obtuse at all.”

  And then of course I couldn't help myself, I had to kiss him again. This time with tongue.

  So I guess the truth is, I DO like him.

  That Way.

  A lot.

  So then while he was recovering from my tongue being in his mouth, which sort of seemed to send him into a coma, I decided to give him The Speech … you know, about how any guy who wants to be Allie Finklestein's Boyfriend has to:

  1) Ask me on proper dates, which means meals only at restaurants with actual metal silverware (unless it's sashimi, in which case, chopsticks, but real ones, not those kind you pull apart and get all splintery), not fast food.

  2) Come to my house to meet my parents (which he's already done, because, duh, they pay him twenty bucks an hour to tutor me).

  3) Finance all movie tickets. I will pay for refreshments.

  4) Not ask me to Touch It, and no Doing It till Prom. And then only if he's confessed his un-dying love for me and sworn he'd never even think of looking at another girl, especially Tiffany Haynes.

  To which Greg replied he'd never in a million years look at Tiffany Haynes, whom he finds obtuse … which I'm pretty sure he didn't say just to get me to kiss him again. Even though I did. I mean, he can't KNOW what that word does to me … can he?

  And then after we'd kissed for a while, he was like, “Touch what?”

  Oh, God. I can't believe this. Greg Harding might be the perfect guy for me.

  Note to self: Febreze Betsey Johnson blouse. Something at Kimmy's party was RANK and got into clothes. Possibly Bill Stoddard. Smell, not Bill. Got into clothes, I mean. Duh.

  Party food:

  Two Diet Cokes

  Handful Chex Party Mix

  Five peanuts

  One jalapeño popper

  5 Listerine strips (to cover jalapeño popper breath. Good thing I had them with me, too, considering what went on in Greg's car!)

  Calorie total: 325

  From: PartyPrincess@andrewshigh.edu

  To: CheerGrrl@andrewshigh.edu

  Sunday, November 4, 4:25 p.m.

  U are so busted. Stephanie's cousin's best friend's boyfriend Bud was playing Dungeons and Dragons over at Greg Harding's last night, when Greg suddenly told them he had to leave to take u home, and not to roll while he was gone.

  If u want to resign your position as cheer captain now, it will spare us having to vote u out on Monday.

  From: CheerGrrl@andrewshigh.edu

  To: PartyPrincess@andrewshigh.edu

  Sunday, November 4, 4:31 p.m.

  Um, this may come as a surprise to you, Tiff, but I am NOT resigning my position as cheer captain. Because unlike you, Tiffany, I do not plan to spend the rest of my life doing basket tosses, gliding along in my Capucine-Puerari bra and see-through Betsey Johnson blouses, never feeling anything, never loving—or being loved—by any man. Unlike you, Tiffany, I can't be satisfied to spend my free time with a CALORIE COUNTER and MY USCA CHAMPIONSHIP PIN. OK? I need REAL CONVERSATION and COMPANIONSHIP, which Greg Harding provides me. I LOVE GREG. AND HE LOVES ME.

  And you know what? Even if I DO get voted off the team, I have WAY more important things to worry about right now than that, such as becoming a well-rounded, interesting individual, capable of contributing in myriad ways to society, and also cutting down on my saturated fat intake. Oh, and passing geometry and all.

  So, in closing, you, Tiffany, could not BE more obtuse.

  From: PartyPrincess@andrewshigh.edu

  To: CheerGrrl@andrewshigh.edu

  Sunday, November 4, 4:43 p.m.

  God, have a coronary, why don't u? I was totally kidding. I don't care who u go out with. Especially since—I might as well tell u now—last night after u left Kimmy's, I fully made out with Cal. I hope that's OK. But u kept telling us all you were over him.

  There's just one thing though … he kept asking me to touch it. What was he talking about?

  Anyway, congrats to u and Nerd Boy. U know, I heard trombone players really know how to kiss.

  PS: What does obtuse mean??????

  Melvin Burges

  I'd come home early from school. It was a hot day. I let my-self in and went to the kitchen to get some juice out of the fridge. As I stood there swigging orange out of the carton, I looked out the kitchen window. There, tucked down be-hind the shed, was my mum having a snog with some bloke. They were dappled with shadow from the trees. Her blouse was unbuttoned, hanging open. They were kissing each other very hard, and he kept crushing her up into his chest and sliding his hands under her blouse at the back.

  I ducked out of sight. I felt a bit like James Bond, hiding there with my back to the wall, the carton of juice in my hand like a gun. Then I peeped round again to have an-other look. I wanted to see if he was going to take her clothes off.

  They were smiling now. She put her hands round his face and kissed him in a way I never saw her kiss my dad. It was like a film. It was so unreal, it made me think of fairies at the bottom of the garden. I felt that if I took a picture of it, it wouldn't come out. He pushed her up against the shed wall and slid his hands down to her bum. I could see her hands stroking the back of his neck.

  I walked back to the front door, opened it, slammed it hard, and then wandered about shouting, “I'm home, Mum, I'm home! Mum, I'm home!” at the top of my voice. I went back into the kitchen and pretended to get the juice out of the fridge again and didn't look out that window.

  “Mum, I'm home!” I bellowed. I went into the sitting room and turned on the TV. There was nothing on. It was only half past two. We'd been let out of school early. Mum should have been at work. There was a school program about geology and I watched that.

  They came into the house a couple of minutes later. I could hear their voices.

  “… yes, nice to see you.”

  “And you. We'll get that trip organized, then.”

  “OK.”

  “Right…”

  “Cup of tea?”

  “No, better go …”

  They walked down the hall and stopped outside the door. Mum's head popped in.

  “You're home early, Laurence,” she said.

  “So are you.”

  “They let us off early.”

  “Same here.”

  Outside the door a voice called, “Hi, Laurence.”

  “Oh, hi, Nigel.”

  Nigel Turner. Mr. Turner. Someone from her school. There was a pause and then he said, “I better be off, San-dra.” She walked him to the door. I ran to the window to see him. I caught him standing right next to his car, and he looked over his shoulder full into my face, but I didn't run away or even flinch. We stared at each other for a second; then he opened the car door and got in, and I went back to the TV.

  Mum came back and said, “Hello, darling, good day?”

  “Sure.”

  She said, “How did you know I was home, Laurence?”

  “Dunno,” I said.

  I could feel her staring at me. “Must've seen your bag or something.”

  “You're home early,” she said again.

  For the first time I looked up at her. She tried to smile. I smiled back, but my face must have looked like a cartoon. I looked back at the telly and waited while she left the room.

  I thought, she knows I know, and I know she knows I know. I expected her to have a little talk with me, which is what usually happens in our house if there're any problems, but she never said a thing about it. She was scared…. You see? Chicken.

  My sister, Gill, came home later and we sat and watched TV and ate crisps together, but I never said any-thing to her about it. She's sixteen, two years older than me, and she's always giving me advice about girls.

  Once
I said to her, “What do you know about girls?”

  And she said, “I am a girl.”

  “Not a proper one,” I said.

  She got up in a huff. “Can't you take anything seriously?” she snapped.

  “Only if it's worth it,” I said, and she rolled her eyes and stamped out. But I was being serious, she doesn't know any-thing about girls, not the kind of girls I want to go out with. The kind of girls I want to go out with would like me talking like that.

  I once caught my mum and dad having sex, you know. I went into the room without knocking and she was sitting on top of him. I hadn't thought at the time, but looking back I could hear her making pleased-sounding noises be-fore I went in. I didn't really know what it was at the time, but Gill told me. She said it must have been. It didn't look anything like what Mum was doing with this other bloke, though.

  The day after I saw her and Nigel Turner, I remember standing by my bedroom window, which is above the kitchen, looking down into the garden where they'd been and saying to myself, “She has a lover,” but I still couldn't make it as though it had really happened. I said, “Sandra,” to myself. We always called her Mum. Even though that woman down there with her blouse open had been my mum, it wasn't the same person who cooked and worked and shopped and woke up every morning smelling of Dad.

  When I was younger, a few years ago, I used to try to see my mum with nothing on. I used to peep through the key-hole of the bedroom…. Well, I'd never seen a real woman in the nude. I hadn't done it for years, but now I wanted to see her like that again. I was handing the dishes to her after dinner a few days later. I was fed up thinking about it when-ever I saw her. She still hadn't said anything to me. She was bending over, putting the plates in the dishwasher, and I was looking at her back. I was wondering what was it that made Nigel Turner so turned on. She had on this slightly transparent blouse—you could see her bra strap under it, and where the flesh squeezed out on either side. I reached down, I took the strap in my fingers and I snapped it.

  She looked up at me as if I'd hit her. “What did you do that for, Laurence?” she exclaimed.

  I shrugged. “I dunno.” Well, I didn't know … I just did it.

  She scowled; she was really furious. She stood up and yelled in my face, “You're not to do that to me again. Do you understand?”

  “Yeah, sure, so what?”

  Then she stamped off out of the room. I was really angry. It was just a joke. It didn't mean anything, it was a joke. Maybe I did it harder than I'd meant to. I thought she should be grateful to me, really. I could have said something if I'd wanted. I thought, what would happen if I told my dad?

  It was at dinner. Dad always says, “The family that eats together stays together.” He's done nearly all the cooking ever since he went part-time at the school where he teaches. He used to be Head of English, but it was too much work for him. Now he thinks how lucky we all are because we can have home-cooked food three or four times during the week and not just at weekends. Sometimes he even bakes bread. The bread's nice, and sometimes he does nice meals, but I prefer meals out of a packet.

  Someone said my name.

  “What?”

  “Pass the sauce, deafo,” said Gill.

  “Sorry.”

  I had this plan about making loads of money by blackmailing my mum. I could threaten to tell my dad unless she gave me loads of money. I could make her write her will out in my favor. I could make her give me tenners whenever I wanted. Then Gill would always be saying, “Where did you get all that?” and I'd just go, “Ah ha! Nothing for noses,” like she does to me whenever I ask her anything.

  “Laurence!”

  “What?”

  “Not what—pardon.”

  “What?”

  “Christ. Do you want more fish pie?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “You're in a dream.”

  I was in a dream. I could make a fortune. Out of Nigel Turner, too. He was married. I think he and his wife had even come to dinner sometime. I could blackmail both of them. I'd be the richest kid in the school. I could have any-thing I liked. It would be great.

  Mum and Dad started bickering. Dad wanted Mum to go part-time, like him. He was saying it was too much stress working full-time at a school these days. He was saying how bad-tempered and distant she was. He was always going on about all these other teachers who were having nervous breakdowns and falling to bits, and that she should get out and go part-time before it happened to her and he was left having to pay all the bills on half a wage and run the house all on his own.

  “We could have days out. We could walk or visit places. Look … I can do anything I want on Mondays, Tuesdays and Friday afternoons. You could do it with me,” he said.

  “But I like working full-time,” she said.

  “Well, I think it's selfish of you,” said my dad. “Life's to enjoy, not to work yourself into the ground.”

  “I'm not working myself into the ground.”

  “Then why are you so distant? If you're married with a family, you ought to be prepared to spend a bit of time with them.”

  Gill said he only went on like that because he couldn't bear Mum being better at work than he was. She said, “He can't take it. Men are weaker than women, really.” Well, I dunno. Dad used to be good at everything. He never had to work hard, it always came out right for him.

  The other really great thing about Mum having an affair was that I had it in my hands like a time bomb or a grenade or something. I could pull the pin and let it go. I could blow up the family! Or I could quietly sit on it, show it to my mum … and make my fortune. It was like a weapon. I'd never really thought before about knowledge as being dangerous like that. When you know certain kinds of things, it's like power. It lets you do things you could never have done before. I started thinking about how to ask Mum to put my pocket money up. It would be a start.

  “What's wrong with you?” yelled my dad. I think I heard him, but I assumed he was talking to my mum. There was a pause. He got really cross and he bawled, “I said, what's the matter with you, Laurence?” When he said my name I almost jumped out of my chair.

  “What?”

  “What? Is that the only word you know? Get a grip, will you? What's the matter?”

  I looked at my mum. She blushed. She blushed! It was suddenly like it was all out in the open. I blushed. My dad was staring at me, scowling away. Then he noticed my mum as red as a tomato and all his anger went and he looked shocked.

  Then I started acting stupid. I don't know what was going through my head. I was fed up with keeping it a secret, I wanted to tell someone and it suddenly occurred to me that it didn't matter if I did. I mean, so what? People have affairs all the time. It was a joke!

  I leaned across to my mum and I said, “Give us a kiss, Sandra.” And I blew her a kiss and winked. It was the wink that did it. It was a long, slow lecherous wink and it served her right.

  I didn't mean to. Maybe I was getting messed up with the game and real life, because although I liked thinking about making all that money, it was like the other ways I've had of getting rich—they never work in the end. Listen, she should have had one of her little talks with me. She should have said something. She just left it up to me, and I'm a child still, right? And … she shouldn't have hit me.

  Suddenly my mum swung forward and slapped me round my face as hard as she could. It went … crack! It really hurt. I put my hand to my cheek and it felt red-hot and smooth.

  I didn't actually tell, even then. I just said, “You shouldn't have done that,” like it was a threat.

  Dad jumped up. He was really angry. “Or what?” he yelled. “Or what?”

  I ignored him and I said to my mum, “I didn't tell. So what did you hit me for?” and I nodded at Dad, just so it was clear who I hadn't told.

  Everything was very quiet. I could see my dad licking his lips. Then Mum said, “You and Gill better go upstairs. Your dad and I need to talk.”

  Gill said, “But
we haven't finished.”

  “Just go upstairs for half an hour. Both of you. Go on.”

  Gill tutted and groaned, but we got up to go. Mum looked at me and said, “Happy?”

  We got upstairs, and I made to go into my room, but Gill grabbed hold of me and said, “What's going on? What's wrong with you?” I didn't want to, but she made me tell her everything. Afterwards, she thought I was the most stupid person in the whole world. She started to shout at me, which was a bit much after I'd told her everything. It made me incredibly angry, it was so unfair. I screamed and shouted, I was so angry, and I threw her out of my room. Afterwards, I could hear her crying next door.

  Of course, I got the little talk then. Then she was right up the stairs, my mum, telling me how it wasn't my fault, but it was all too late then, wasn't it? Anyway, she was only saying that, she never believed it. Gill thought it was my fault all right, she never stopped going on about it. Mum and Dad were always saying how it wasn't my fault at all, but even they say I should have spoken to Mum about it first. But I never let it out, did I? I didn't actually say anything about it.

  They were down there for ages. We never did get our pudding. After a while, they started shouting. It went on for ages, and then the next night and the next … it just kept on.

  The thing that gets me is the way it all just fell to pieces. I don't think they even tried. My dad had it coming, actu-ally. He's always been the smart one, the good-looking one, the clever one. He's one of those people, everything they do is perfect … it makes you sick. And then when things do go wrong he can't take it! And he's had affairs… he admitted it. Can you believe that? Gill heard them talking about it. You know what he said to Gill when she accused him of being a hypocrite? He said, “Yes, but that was just mucking about. Your mother is in love.”

  The day she left he was working in the garden. All along the bottom of the garden there's a long row of poplar trees. He's been on about them for years. He says poplar trees have robbing roots, which is why nothing grows well in our garden—they steal all the goodness out of the soil. You can find the roots just under the surface almost any-where in our garden. So on this day, the day she left, he started to dig a trench right across the end of the garden to cut through all the roots growing our way.