My Life as a Book

by Janet Tashjian

  I get back to my illustration.

  “Does your school have summer reading? God, I used to despise those lists.” She holds out the potato chip bag, and I take a handful.

  “Imagine telling people what to read,” she continues. “It’s criminal!”

  “Exactly!” I agree.

  “When I was your age, all I wanted to read was Garfield.”

  “I love him, but for me, it’s Calvin and Hobbes.”

  She nods, as if remembering her own favorite comic strip. “Books aren’t as fun without the pictures.”

  “I know exactly what you mean.” I want Margot to move in with us and talk some sense into my parents.

  Margot tosses the chips bag in the trash and wipes her hands on her denim shorts. “You want to know a secret?”

  I nod furiously, like one of the bobbleheads in Matt’s collection.

  “You seem like you have a good imagination—you have to use it when you read. Reading became fun again when I taught myself to visualize the story like a movie. You like movies?”

  “Of course I do.” I tell her my father is a storyboard artist for films.

  “That’s perfect. Just picture every paragraph like a scene in a movie. Close your eyes and see the character act out the story in your mind.” Margot rummages through her backpack and pulls out a novel.

  “I can’t read that,” I say. “It’s too hard.”

  “You could if you took your time. But it doesn’t matter because I’m going to read it to you.”

  I look up to see Carly staring at Margot and me. She grins and mouths the words teacher’s pet.

  I move away from Margot as if I’m not interested in what she’s saying. But she sees Carly and waves her over. Great.

  “Your friend can do this too,” Margot says.

  “We’re not friends!” Carly and I say in unison.

  “Close your eyes, both of you.”

  Carly and I follow Margot’s directions, and she reads us part of her book, a scene about a family walking on the beach.

  “Picture the ocean,” Margot tells us. “Feel how the waves touch your feet. The text said it was a cloudy day—can you picture the clouds?”

  I take a peek to see if Carly’s eyes are closed; they are. I close mine again and follow the story as Margot describes the main character throwing rocks into the water.

  Part of me wonders what the other kids are doing, but most of me watches the story unfold in my mind. And at the end of the page, when Margot asks us questions about the story, Carly isn’t the only one who knows all the answers.

  Saying Good-bye to Matt

  On my way to Matt’s, I run into Joe Brennan at the tennis courts. He waves me over, so I pull my bike to the curb.

  “Listen to this,” he says. “A chimpanzee who’s allergic to bananas—what do you think?”

  I think it’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard, but he’s got a huge rock in his hand, so I tell him the idea is brilliant. He tosses the rock into the air with one hand and catches it with the other.

  “So the chimp ends up being the best climber in his tribe because he has to get peanuts instead of bananas.”

  “Peanuts don’t grow on trees.” I keep my eye on the rock as I disagree with Joe. “They grow on plants, underground.”

  “They do not.”

  “Do, too.” What are we, five? I take a few steps away from Joe. “And groups of chimpanzees aren’t called tribes. They’re called cartloads.”

  Joe bounces the large rock from one hand to the other even slower than before. “Cartloads of chimpanzees—that doesn’t make sense. They can’t drive carts.”

  “Maybe in your story they should. Cartloads of chimpanzees in carts—might be funny.” Why am I wasting my time trying to collaborate with this knucklehead?

  The rock suddenly stops; it appears to weigh a hundred pounds in Joe’s meaty hand. “Since when did you get so smart?” he asks.

  “Just ’cuz I have a hard time at school doesn’t mean I’m stupid.” I skid back and forth on the sidewalk with my bike. “Besides, my mom’s a veterinarian. I know a lot about animals.”

  “’Cuz you are one.”

  I nod as if Joe got the last laugh, but inside I’m thinking, We’re all animals, you moron. I tell him I’d love to stay and chat—another lie—but I’m on my way to Matt’s.

  “I might use that cartload of chimps idea,” Joe shouts after me. “But I won’t give you credit for it!”

  As I bike past the school, I think about Pedro. A group of monkeys can also be a cartload, but they can be a barrel too. I wonder when the woman in Venice Beach will bring Pedro back for a checkup. If Pedro wants me to roll him down the street in our recycling barrel with the wheels on it, I’d be happy to oblige.

  Matt’s family car is loaded with luggage and boxes for their trip. He tells me they will fly from L.A. to Boston, then drive to Cape Cod and take a ferry to Martha’s Vineyard. I feel sad for lots of reasons—because my best friend is deserting me, because my family’s not going anywhere, and because the rest of my summer is going to be WORK, WORK, WORK.

  “Learning Camp won’t be so bad,” Matt says. “Jamie went there when he was our age and said it wasn’t that terrible.”

  “The worst summer of my life!” Jamie jams another bag into the car. “Doing math for an hour, then shooting hoops for ten minutes? That’s a formula for misery.”

  I figure out that Jamie is just helping them pack the car and won’t be going on vacation with the rest of the family. His mother gives him instructions ten times about what to do and what not to do while they’re gone. I feel bad that he’s standing there taking orders from her, but I’m also glad I’m not the only one who gets treated like a kindergartner.

  Matt pulls me aside. “First rainy day on the island, I’m going straight to the library.”

  “You are?” I suddenly feel like I’m alone in protesting the summer reading books.

  Matt can read my mind. “Not for the reading list, you goon. I’ll see what I can find out about Susan James.”

  Not only is my best friend leaving, but he’s going to be having my adventure.

  After they pull out of the driveway, Jamie runs into the house and blasts the stereo as loud as it can go. I stand outside for several minutes to see if he’ll invite me in, but he doesn’t. I ride back home and try to figure out how summer went from being the best season of the year to the absolute total worst.

  Susan’s Site

  My mom has a medical conference on Saturday, so I watch YouTube videos while Dad works. He points to the storyboard he’s illustrating and shows me how the director will use it to plan her camera angles and shots.

  I know it’s a matter of time before he tries to tie the subject into my life, and after a few moments, he does. “Just like the illustrations you do. Have you found them helpful?”

  “I do my drawings because they’re fun.”

  I head back to the couch and the laptop. It’s Saturday—can I have one day off from learning stuff, please?

  I email a quick note to my grandma in Boston, then head for the online Garfield archives. I swear, I don’t know what I’d do without him, Calvin, and the other guys. Garfield makes me think about Margot; it’s been a week since Carly and I visualized the story with her. Next time I read—whenever that is—I’ll definitely do that again. The beach scene we re-created from Margot’s book that day reminds me of Susan James, so I type her name into the search engine. After a million other sites come up, I find a Web page in Susan’s memory with photos and quotes from her family.

  Staring up from the computer screen is a girl with long brown hair, a huge smile, and a Red Sox cap. In another photo, she holds a field hockey stick with four other athletic girls. I read about what a good student she was, how she helped her neighbors after school, how she loved her younger brother and playing piano. I guess when you’re dead no one talks about how you used to fart in bed or talk with your mouth full.

  On the l
ast page is a guestbook. I scroll through the entries and read what her high school classmates and teachers have to say about her. She’s been dead for almost a decade, yet the latest entry was written only a month ago. I guess some people still miss her.

  When I look up, I realize I’ve just spent an hour reading. Part of me is proud of such an accomplishment, but another part wants to protest by jumping on my bike and racing to the pier to watch the guy spray-painted in silver stand like a mannequin for money. The whole time I was reading the entries, a thought kept nagging at me, and now it finally hits the surface. All these people who miss Susan, like her friends Lauren and Danny, miss her because of me.

  Although no one on this Web site knows I exist, I’m the missing link in their pain. I feel something dark in the center of my chest. I should’ve figured this day would be a disaster—whoever heard of thinking on a Saturday?

  For several minutes, I face the blank screen, then gather my courage and begin typing my own entry.

  Dear Susan,

  What were you thinking? You obviously had friends and family who loved you, people more important than some two-year-old you just met. I’ve seen photos of me at that age; I was cute, but not THAT cute.

  I guess what weighs on me most is this: Am I supposed to grow up to be some guy who stops wars or creates new energy sources just because you saved me? Can I still be a normal kid who makes a lot of mistakes, maybe even MORE mistakes than the average kid? I guess what I really want to say is: I didn’t ask you to save me, but I’m glad you did.

  I hit “enter” and watch my note disappear into time and space.

  Movies Run in the Family

  I make a deal with Margot: If I read the first chapter of one of my summer reading books, she’ll give all the Mustangs a break and get us out of Fraction Friday. As much as I don’t want to read one of the books, I really don’t want to have some fake contest with one of the other camp groups about fractions and percentages.

  I settle on my bed with Bodi and try the whole movie thing Margot taught Carly and me a few weeks ago. It’s harder to do without Margot here, but I take my time, trying to picture every little detail of the story. I even try to predict what might happen in the next scene. I make it halfway through the chapter before I have to take a break.

  Bodi puts his front paws on my chest, and I soak in the cool breeze coming from the open windows. I grab my markers and sketchbook and check out all the illustrations I’ve done so far this summer. As I look through the drawings, I get an idea. I hold the book in one hand and flip through the pages like one of those old flip-o-ramas and suddenly the story of my summer appears like a movie: Mom vaulting over the laundry, me rummaging through the attic.

  I feel a little like Carly, eager to find a teacher, because I can’t wait to show Margot my vocabulary word flip-o-rama. But there’s someone else I have to show first.

  Dad is whacking weeds alongside the driveway when I show him my new invention. He pulls off his headphones, wipes the sweat from his hands, and flips through the book himself.

  “I used to make these all the time when I was your age,” he says. “I wish I’d thought of it as a way to study vocabulary words. Would’ve saved Mrs. Patrick from yelling at me all the time.”

  I wipe the edges of my sketchbook, which are already smudgy from Dad’s hands.

  “Makes you really want to get going on that assigned reading and fill the whole book with new words,” he says.

  And just like that, my fun new invention becomes contaminated by work. I go back inside to put away my pad. The attic is steaming hot, but I find the boxes of Christmas ornaments and lights, then get Henry from down the street. We decorate the trees and shrubs in the front yard, even up the trunk of the palm tree near the driveway. I plug the whole thing in, and we sit back and watch the blinking lights.

  It would make a great scene for my flip-o-rama—if I ever decide to draw again.

  A Different James Bond

  It should be illegal to make kids do math when it’s 80 degrees and sunny and the calendar reads “August.” I wait near the gate for Mom to pick me up after Prison Camp and see Carly standing a few feet away. She spends most of Learning Camp with three other girls who practice cheerleading routines between sessions. We’ve had a few conversations about Ginger the hedgehog but not much else.

  When Mom pulls up, I’m surprised to see Carly approach our car.

  “What are you doing?” I ask.

  My mother answers for her. “Maria called and asked if I could pick up Carly today. By the time we get her back, Maria will be home from work.”

  Thankfully, Carly doesn’t try for the shotgun seat and slides into the back. We haven’t even hit the 405 when my mother asks Carly about her summer reading.

  “I keep telling Derek he would love one of the books on our list,” Carly says. “This boy and his dog meet this guy with a—”

  “I worked hard today—can we talk about something else?” I ask.

  Carly changes the subject by talking about her mother’s landscaping company, and when we get to her house, I see she isn’t exaggerating her mother’s talents. Pink hibiscus weaves its way along the fence, and huge bushes of rosemary surround two palm trees on either side of the front door (Carly has to tell me what kinds of plants they are). Even though the smells want to coax me from the car, I still ask my mother if I can wait outside. She says Carly’s mom will be home in a minute and insists I come in and wait with Carly.

  “This wasn’t my idea,” Carly whispers as she unlocks the door. “In case you think it was.”

  Soon Carly’s mom pulls up in a small red pickup. She has long, dark hair like Carly’s. When Mom accepts an iced green tea from her, I know we’ll be here longer than a minute.

  Carly asks if I want to see Ginger. I follow her to the dining room, where the hedgehog’s crate takes up most of the table. She nibbles at the carrot Carly gives her, then walks to the other side of the cage.

  “Can your mom look at her?” Carly asks. “I want to make sure she’s okay. She didn’t eat much yesterday either.”

  She hands me a glove—probably one her mother uses to landscape—and I take Ginger out of the crate and hold her like we’re back in school.

  Mom comes in and examines Ginger. “I haven’t seen a hedgehog as a patient in years—I’m not much of an expert. But if you bring her in, I can call a colleague with more experience. It might be the change in location; they hate to be moved.”

  Carly nods and I put Ginger back in her cage. My mom and Mrs. Rodriquez head back to the kitchen.

  “Hey, do you want to see what I made?” Carly asks.

  I tell her sure, but inside I’m thinking, If this involves dolls, tea parties, or karaoke, I’m grabbing on to that huge spider plant in the living room, smashing through the window, rolling onto the landscaped lawn, and sprinting the whole way home without looking back.

  Carly leads me down to the playroom in the basement. The entire room is laid out in grids of fishing line crisscrossed from floor to ceiling. Because the lines are clear, they almost seem invisible. There are at least fifty of them, all fastened to the wall with wide, clear tape.

  “You made this?” I ask.

  She points to the other side of the room, where a crystal bowl is upside down on top of a stool covered in purple velvet. “I’m pretending this is a famous museum, and that’s the largest diamond in the world.” She nods toward the fishing line. “This is the alarm system, and I’m a burglar. I have to get to the diamond without triggering any of the motion detectors.”

  Not that I would ever say so to Carly, but I am very impressed. She tosses me a black ski mask and tells me to give it a try. I slip on the mask and limbo under the first line with no problem but nail the second one with my shoulder. I make three more attempts before she asks for a turn.

  She puts on the mask, takes a deep breath, and moves across the room like a hybrid gymnast/feline. The image makes me think of Joe Brennan and his stupid fantasy
stories. But the person I really want to show this to is Matt. He and I could play this game for hours, hands down.

  Carly makes her way under the intricate web of “detectors” until she reaches the stool. She bends under the last one like she’s going deep underneath a limbo pole, then turns—ever so slowly—to lift the fake diamond into her hands.

  I can’t help but applaud.

  She puts the bowl back on the stool and removes her mask. “I’ve had a lot of practice,” she says. “You want to try again?”

  This time, I take off my sneakers before slipping on the mask. When my mother calls down, I ask if we can stay a little longer. She seems surprised but says yes. Carly shows me a few tricks, and by the time we leave an hour later, I’ve stolen the diamond twice.

  I scan the room one last time. “You built this yourself AND read all the summer reading books?”

  She shrugs. “It wasn’t that hard.”

  Somehow that just doesn’t seem fair. Is that what my summer has come down to—getting my butt kicked by the school’s Goody Two-shoes?

  A Call from Matt

  It’s Thursday night, and Amy’s favorite show is on, so she basically ignores me while I lie on the floor and rub Bodi’s belly. He’s back to his old self, but Mom still says he should rest. I wish she’d follow her own advice when it comes to taking care of me.

  Amy calls her best friend, Tina, during every commercial and they ooh and ahh over the celebrity actor playing the doctor on their stupid show. I want to go onto the roof and knock the satellite dish so the picture messes up, but it’s raining and Amy’s reaction would hardly be worth the effort of getting soaked.