by Susie Salom
Second bell rings. She’s waiting for me to answer.
“I don’t want us to be late,” I say. “I mean, any more than we already are.”
She looks away from me and shakes her head.
“Talk later?” I ask.
She nods but doesn’t lock in a window seat on the 7:07.
“Sure.” She slams her locker door. “Later.” Then she turns and starts to walk to 6D.
I stand there in the hall as it empties out of everyone except the most tardiest of students.
I’m not ready for this.
I’m not ready for the freaking Grand Canyon to start opening up in the middle of one of my most important relationships in the world.
It’s one thing to give Doublefart a righteous sock in the paunch when he’s acting like a jerkface buffalo bahanka. But it’s totally different to have to face the music in a win/lose situation with someone who used to be one of your very best friends.
Mom says it’s okay by her if I take both Brooke and Marcy to the cabin because I’ve really turned things around. For a second I feel so stuffed with guilt I almost bust out a confession but then I stop. I mean, what is she, Father O’Reilly? Plus a confession in the heat of the moment would ruin my plan to get Marcy and Brooke to help me figure out a way to let Mom know I’ve still been doing NAVS and to convince her to let me ride it out until the end. After all, a triple brain is like, what? Three times better than one brain. Right? Maybe more, if Brooke’s brain counts for two. (Which, in my book, it does.)
I’m hoping me and my friends can sit at the very back of Dad’s Denali but Roger gets there first—the tootweed. He’s just like a boy cat, marking his territory. The whole back of the car already smells like Cool Ranch Doritos and his deodorant.
Meowsie tells him to please move so he can share the seat.
“Sit in the front with Kyle and her friends.”
Meowsie glances at Marcy before just staring at Roger. Then, very quietly, he says, “C’mon.”
Roger rolls his eyes and shoves over some of his stuff, giving Meowsie the teensiest-tinesiest spot. Barely enough to click a seat belt.
“Thanks,” Meowsie mutters.
I feel like tagging Roger in the head with my sneaker. I think maybe I might, when he’s asleep. Or maybe I’ll just scoop out the lint between my toes with his toothbrush.
We stop on the way out of town at a drive-thru to get cheeseburgers and onion rings, which Brooke wolfs down like a person who’s been living in a shack in the middle of no-man’s-land for sixty thousand years. Has her mom gone vegan or something? Ms. Jeblanco has always been kind of an activist. But I guess that’s because she spends all her life sculpting and artists are always getting passionate about something.
The road on the way to the cabins starts off all desertish but then little by little turns into the woods. I like watching it change. It’s like moving into the green dimension. First there’s shrubs that look like fat dwarfs with grass haircuts but then they start to turn into tall trees. Like they’re all hunched together smoking bark cigars and wearing visors around a midnight game of seven-card stud.
When we get to the mountains where we have the timeshare, Dad says, “Well, everyone. I have a surprise.”
All of us sit up a little straighter except for Roger, who’s still sleeping with his mouth wide open.
“What is it?” Meowsie asks.
Dad grins in the rearview.
“Dad!” I grab the back of his seat and hang over it. “Tell us!”
“Kyle, keep your seat belt on,” Mom says.
“It is.”
She looks at me and sees that it’s still on. Just a little loose, is all.
“Kyle, for pity’s sake. Is that how you’ve been wearing it the whole time?”
“I can make it bigger or smaller.” I pull it in and out to show her. “See?”
“Just sit back,” she says. “Or else no surprise.”
I slam back into the seat, shaking Roger out of dreaming the impossible dream.
“Dad, what’s the surprise?” Meowsie asks again.
“We,” Dad begins, “are going to be staying in a newer, nicer cabin. It’s a condo, actually.”
“Snowbird Heights?” Mom clasps her hands together and Dad looks at her.
“Snowbird Heights.”
Mom squeals and unbuckles her seat belt to lean over and kiss Dad on the side of his head.
“Mom,” I say. She looks back at me with a glowy face. “Seat belt.”
She laughs and settles back into her seat with a click.
“What’s so great about Snowbird Heights?” I ask.
“Well—” Dad lifts a shoulder, still smiling all proud. “I don’t know that you kids will be able to tell much difference. It’s just a newer place, nicer kitchen.”
“So Mom can Gollum all the salt there.”
“Well, that’s the other surprise,” Dad says.
Make it a good one this time, Pops.
“I am going to be doing the cooking this weekend.”
Roger lets out a groggy laugh and a sniff.
“Thanks, Rog,” Dad says. Then he looks in the rearview at us again. “I’ve been taking cooking classes.”
“You’ve what?” Mom asks.
“At Thyme and Again. I’ll be doing the grocery shopping and cooking this weekend and if everyone likes it”—he tips his head—“maybe I’ll cook more at home, too.”
Mom looks gobsmacked—there’s another word I learned from Reed. It means super surprised. I’m a little nervous that her feelings will be hurt but then she snuggles into the seat a bit more and I can see her smiling reflection in the window.
That’s it, Pops. Soften her up. I’m gonna need all the cuddly Mom I can get when I finally grab my moment and drop the NAVS bomb.
The condo. Is. Rad!
At first, I thought Dad’s surprise was lame but now I see why Mom was so excited. The room in the center has a fireplace—which Dad called it a kiva—and it’s all huge with skylights and you can see the room on top! I mean, you can hang off the edge and look down on people and maybe toss stuff on them. As Brooke, Marcy and me race to the second floor, I think about how rad it would be to drop something on Rog when he’s not looking.
“Kyle, be careful with the loft!” Mom yells.
“Okay!” I yell back. Even though I have no idea what a loft is.
“Just put your things in your room so we can take a nice walk to the shops while Dad drives Michael and Roger to get some groceries.”
I can hear the pep in Mom’s voice. This’ll be great. She’ll get herself a decoration or two for the house from the shops and be even more happy and then I’ll start to drop hints about the importance of vibrating cables. I might even work up to it by bringing up the major problem of bear-to-human communications. It’s the genius plan.
I hang over the side of the room and look down on Dad and Roger. Now I know how birds feel scoping out cars. I let my eyes move around the big, open den and wonder what I could bean Roger’s head with.
“Girls, use the restroom and freshen up so we can go!”
And just as Mom says it—I mean, just like in the movies—Marcy tells me to come to the window.
“Mo-om!” I call out. “Snow!”
“What?” Mom cries, and we hear it all the way up the stairs. “Keith, you’ll have to get to the store quickly to get all we need. Was this in the forecast?”
Maybe I can add mustard to Dad’s grocery list. That’d be pretty easy to tag Roger’s head with if it’s the squeezie kind.
“What do you guys think about roasting hot dogs over the open fire tonight?” Dad calls out.
“What about marshmallows?” Brooke says to me.
“And get marshmallows!” I shout.
“Marshmallows,” Dad says. “Great idea.”
I can see him pull out a piece of paper and a pen to make a list. Roger says put down Doritos and Meowsie asks if we can get stuff for S’mores.
&nb
sp; “Anything else?” Dad asks.
I hang over the edge like an opera singer.
“Mus-taaard!”
The whole night it snows. Meowsie finds out the coffee table is a chest that opens up and is full of board games. Some of them haven’t even had the plastic taken off. We play one where you have to draw things and make people guess what you’re drawing, but nobody draws that great so sometimes it takes too long to guess to be any fun. The best part is when we turn off the lights to roast marshmallows for S’mores and I get this fantastic idea. I grab Dad’s flashlight and tell everyone to listen because I have an important safety message and turn the light up on my face.
“This is the story,” I start quietly, “of the family who couldn’t understand bears.”
I wish I had some creepy sound effects to go with my important safety message but I didn’t think that far ahead.
“Far away in a cave,” I say, “lived an old, shrivelly woman who knew how to tap messages. But the shrivelly woman’s mom told her she was not allowed to work on her message system. So she had gone to make her house in a cave.”
“Thought this was about bears,” Roger says all bored.
“For years,” I go on, “the old woman’s message system was not used and the bears in the county all began to come up to people’s windows in the middle of the night and steal their pies.” I lower my voice and make it all gravelly. “They especially loved huckleberry.”
“Why do you have to use the flashlight? This isn’t scary.”
“Roger! I’m setting a mood.”
“Well, get to the point already.”
“Rog,” Dad says.
Just wait until he gets up in the night for a glass of water or to take a whiz. Mustard city, baby.
“Only the woman’s message system could stop the bears from stealing huckleberry pies,” I say. “But no one really cared about that. They just started making cherry.”
Roger yawns.
“But then,” I say with a fierce voice, “the bears began to find a way into people’s houses and steal their pants. Dads had to take out the trash in just their underwear. And you could see their brown socks pulled all the way up to their hairy knees.”
Marcy and Meowsie laugh.
“And older brothers couldn’t go out on dates!” I point a finger. “Because none of the girlfriends wanted to be seen with a guy in just boxers with funny short guys wearing beanies.”
“You wear boxers with weird men in beanies?” Dad asks Roger.
“They’re not beanies, they’re fezzes,” Roger answers. “And they’re worn by Shriners in this edgy cartoon that’s really popular online.”
“Yeah, Shriners sound totally edgy.”
“Look, can we just get on with the story?” Roger looks at me. “Else the shrivelly old woman is gonna have a rock rolled over the entrance to her cave.”
“It’s not a story,” I say. “This is for safety. Of everyone you love.”
“And their pants,” Brooke adds.
“Just wrap it up, Kyle,” Mom tells me. “I think everyone’s about ready for a movie.”
After the movie—which had Humphrey Bogarts and was boring and super long and even made Mom cry a little in the one part where Ol’ Humphs comes back to tell the main girl that he will never forget her—everybody except the parents fights over the sink in the one bathroom to brush their teeth. Mom and Dad don’t have to wait their turn because they get their own sinks—two!—in the master bedroom. That’s always been a funny thing to me, the master bedroom. Like it’s the ruler of all the other bedrooms.
You must give me the spring-fresh sheets—straight from the dryer—and the only night-light that still works!
But why?
Because I am the Master!
Brooke and I finish up and wait for Marcy to carefully clean her hearing aids before we all go into the bedroom at the corner of the condo. It’s a crazy-rad room. With a mondo three-sided window ledge and a skylight in the corner. We all agree to keep the blinds open so we can watch the moon shine all over the freshly fallen snow.
There’s two twin beds and a big open space by the window. I let my friends have the beds and grab some comfy-cozy blankets from the hallway closet to make a fort on the ledge. Except that it’s not a very good fort. More like a nest but whatever.
“Did you hear that?” Brooke whispers.
“What?” I say.
“This!” She grabs my shoulders and roars in my face.
“Girls!” Mom yells from the master bedroom after my scream. “Lights out!”
I have to admit that was a good scare. Not that it was well planned or anything. It was just good because it worked. We click the door to the bedroom shut so Mom and her jumbo sonic ears won’t pick up every sneeze.
“Who wants to go back into the kitchen and get more marshmallows?” Brooke says.
Marcy gags. “This late at night?”
Brooke climbs into one of the beds and leans back on the pillow with her arms behind her head. “It’s never too late for marshmallows.”
And with that, I’d have to agree.
I lean back on the ledge by the window as a big white chunk slides off the roof and makes a plonk as it hits the ground. After Marcy switches off the big lamp, she pulls out a flashlight to light up our faces.
“Let’s tell scary stories,” Brooke says.
“I don’t really like scary stories,” Marcy puts in. “Unless they’re like Kyle’s and are more funny than scary.”
“What about you?” Brooke asks me. “Tales from the dark side, yea or nay?”
“I like spooky stories,” I say, snuggling into the covers. “And if we wait for like an hour, I’ll get up with you to go get more marshmallows.”
“Okay then, how ’bout Truth or Dare?” Brooke suggests. “Kyle, you go first.”
“All right,” I say, “truth.”
“Okay.” Brooke props her head on one hand.
She’s got her crazy curls up in a ponytail on the top of her head and her shadow looks just like a monster. But it’s a cute monster. Because it’s Brooke.
“Do you—” she starts.
“No, I get to ask the truth,” I say.
“No,” Marcy tells me. “You chose truth, so one of us gets to ask you.”
I roll my eyes in the light of Marcy’s flashlight. “Fine,” I say. “Go ahead and pick my brains, why don’t you.”
“Do you,” Brooke says, “have a crush on anyone this year?”
Go for the jugular.
“Can I pick Marcy to answer first?”
“Nice try,” Marcy says.
“Well, do you have a crush?” I ask her, even though I kind of can already guess. Starts with an M, ends in an E and has EOWSI in the middle.
“Kyle, c’mon,” Brooke says.
The truth is I’ve never been the type to share my crushes. Because, even if my friends don’t like the same guy that I do, what if the person I trust all of a sudden cracks under the weight of my confession and stands up in a crowded room to yell, ‘Kyle has the screaming hots for so-and-so!’ Then I’d have to walk around for the rest of the year in dark glasses and a mustache.
I cross the fingers on both hands under the covers. “I don’t really think I have a crush on anyone this year.”
“Kyle,” Brooke says. “This is Truth or Dare.”
“Fine, Chris Dixey,” I say.
“Who’s Chris Dixey?” Marcy asks.
Brooke bolts up in her bed. “You have a crush on Chris Dixey?”
I turn my head to look at her. I swear, it’s like her curls got even springier in the last five minutes. She looks almost electrocuted.
“Why?” I ask Brooke. “You think Chris is a grossening hog breath or something?”
“No,” she says quietly.
“All right, well, I said my truth,” I tell her. “What’s yours?”
The room is totally silent.
“Brooke.”
She clears her throat.
“Just that Chris gave me his email before he moved,” she says.
My mouth goes dry.
“So, did you write to him?” I ask.
“I wanted to,” she says. “He wrote me a couple of times.”
“Well, why’d he give you his email?”
I can’t believe this. Here Brooke hasn’t been on Instant but she’s been secretly keeping in touch with Chris Dixey and his hydramatic freckle. I’m totally and completely speechless.
“I don’t know,” Brooke says. “I guess maybe he had a little crush on me? I don’t know.”
Oh, I think she knows.
“Brooke, why didn’t you tell me this before?” I ask.
“Well, why would I?” she says. “I mean, it’s not like I knew you had a crush on him. You’re not like some people who have ‘Sheroo Youngblood’ signed all over the inside of their binder.”
James and the Giant Crud Bomb.
“So, did you write Chris back?” Marcy asks Brooke.
“I might have written an email or two.”
“Why’d you stop?”
For a second, Brooke is quiet.
“My mom’s been kind of, I don’t know, having problems.”
Now Marcy and I both sit up, her in her bed and me on the ledge.
“What kind of problems?” Marcy asks.
“She’s been having a lot of tests run because she gets nauseated and her head hurts all the time,” Brooke says. “She even gets pain in her muscles and feels really tired.”
I sink against the pillows and stare at the ceiling with a cold pit in my stomach, thinking about Donna’s mom.
“But what does that have to do with emailing Chris back?” Marcy says.
“Her naturopath thinks it might be EHS.”
EHS?
“What’s EHS?” I ask.
“Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity Syndrome. It means she might be allergic to Wi-Fi.”
“You mean, like, the Internet?” Marcy asks.
I had no idea people could be allergic to the Internet. “So that means you can’t—”
“Write emails to anyone. Or chat. Least not in my house.”
“Well, why did you have to have tests run?” I ask.
“They were trying to see if whatever was wrong was genetic,” Brooke says. “But it turns out I’m not allergic to Wi-Fi. I only have a mild allergy to kiwi. But my mom still chucked a ton of electronics from the house anyway. She won’t even let us use an Ethernet cable. She says all screens leak radiation and the more you’re exposed to, the worse it can get.”