First Times

by Marthe Jocelyn

“To keep the house warm,” I say. “When the bulbs get hot, it saves the furnace.” I wonder if it's true. “Get your guitar,” I call. “Mine's in there.”

  Trevor doesn't answer.

  I look into the den. Trevor is standing over the toaster, reverently turning the pages of my brother's magazine. “Sweet,” he says, without looking up. “I don't have this one. Too bad it's wrecked.”

  We get out the guitars. Sometimes we can write five or six tunes in a single night, and good ones too, like “Self-Destruct Button” and “Amps at Eleven,” which are pretty much our theme songs. This time, though, nothing is happening.

  “Why are you finger-picking minor chords?” Trevor finally complains. He adds an iced-tea can to the empties pyramid we've started on the coffee table.

  Because they're moody and romantic is the answer. My secret plan is to write a song for Sarah. Then I can somehow, just by accident, have my guitar with me tomorrow and get it out at lunch and start picking quietly, as if I don't want to bother anybody. She'll ask what I'm playing, and I'll say, “Oh, just something I wrote last night,” and she'll want to hear it, and be totally blown away.

  I go, “Maybe we should write a ballad for a change.”

  “What for?” Trevor hits some power chords. “Emo sucks. Hey, what are we having for dinner, anyway?”

  We select a balanced junk-food menu of chips, dogs, and cereal, with a side of popcorn and ice cream for dessert. We agree a predinner cocktail is in order. Not booze. We're being responsible; what we have in mind is a Flush Puppy.

  We invented Flush Puppies back in grade nine, when we formed the band with the other guys. Everybody agreed they were the perfect initiation. You start with club soda and milk, then you freestyle with anything you can find. This time we put in salt, mustard, relish, olive oil, anchovy paste, lemon juice, cayenne pepper, curry powder, maple syrup, and soy sauce.

  I get out two shot glasses and plug in the blender. “Ready?”

  “Wait, we forgot the puppy!” Trevor pops in a hot dog. “Now.”

  I don't remember the lid until after I start the blender, but it doesn't spray that far. There's enough left for two shots. I pour, we clink glasses, and give the Flush Puppy toast, which is tipping your head back and howling awoooo, then, whammo, we sock the stuff back as fast as we can. Speed is important because the less you taste, the less chance there is that you'll hurl.

  “Ah!”

  “Ah!”

  We slam our glasses back down on the counter.

  “We must have tunes!”

  Trevor leaps into action. The phone rings as the first notes explode from the speakers. I let the answering machine pick up, while I fiddle with the microwave.

  Trevor comes back in, twirling a CD. “Hey, do you think this thing would me-e-elt in there?”

  It's the start of a busy evening, but we don't kick into high gear until halfway through the third movie, when we crack open the second carton of iced-tea cans. I happen to be wearing the first empty carton on my head as Trevor announces an incoming, so naturally I pull it down for protection. The handle hole turns out to be right at eye level.

  “Hey,” Trevor says, “that looks just like a jouussting helll-met.”

  I check in the mirror; he's right. Clearly, to be fair and have two helmets, we must unload the other carton by drinking our way through several more cans of iced tea. I get the swimming noodles from the basement for lances and we use the sofa cushions for shields. It's decent, but tough to run with all that iced tea sloshing around inside, and the noodles are too floppy. We stop.

  “We need toast,” Trevor pants.

  “Have some more chips.” I straighten a couple of pictures.

  “Not to eat. For targets. We tape toast to the ends of our lances, then we have to knock it off.”

  It's brilliant, but there's a problem: something seems to be wrong with the toaster.

  “What happened to it?” Trevor asks.

  “Beats me.”

  I find an equally brilliant solution in the kitchen. I almost miss it because there is so much stuff on the counter, but there, in a small puddle of soy sauce and Flush Puppy, sits the iron. My mom used it to press something yesterday afternoon. And if I'm not mistaken, a spare is in the broom closet. Oh, yes, yes, yes. I plug them in and hand one to Trevor. Then I position a piece of bread on the bottom of my iron and delicately hold it against Trevor's, making sure not to squish the bread.

  “Right,” I say, twisting my dial. “Iron's on high. Arm's length.” Presto, the PF PressToaster is born. Works like a charm. We start on another piece right away. You can never have too much toast while watching bad movies. We are toasting contentedly when Trevor says, out of the blue, “Girls wouldn't like this, would they?”

  “Some of them might,” I say, hopefully. I imagine Sarah facing me with an outstretched iron, wearing, say, plaid pajama bottoms and a way-too-short T-shirt. Oh, yes, yes, yes.

  “Nah, they wouldn't.”

  Care is needed here. Why are we talking about this? Is Trevor thinking about Laura, his ex-girlfriend? She broke up with him by pouring a medium drink into his lap at the movies, after he made a bad choice about where to put his hand. Or is he ticked about losing out on Sarah? Oh-oh.

  I say, “Maybe they would. Maybe some of them would call this madcap revelry. Like, um … Sarah, say.”

  Trevor shrugs. “Aw, who cares about Sarah?”

  I would fall over if I were not part of the intricate PF PressToaster. Trevor has acknowledged defeat. Even he can see that Sarah likes me. I am golden. Oh, yes, yes, yes. Tomorrow for sure.

  Trevor plucks the last slice from between our irons. I unplug and flex my arm. An iron gets heavy at one in the morning. He says, “Anyway she wouldn't like it either. You know what girls'd call it? Immature. We are im-mature.”

  He has a point. Behavior is a right place, right time thing. Which is why I am not a guy who gives out fart bulletins. I am the guy Sarah Riley wants to be in the same car with. I have matured. Still I try to be kind; Trevor has already faced his limitations today.

  “Some girls just like older men. Not all of them. You'll see.”

  “Yeah, well, I get so fruuuu-straaaated.”

  Whew, we are back to goofing. “So, let off some steam.”

  “How?”

  “I don't know. Why don't you run naked up and down the street?”

  So he does. I, being more mature, do not. I watch from the front window, strumming my guitar. The way Trevor said “I get so fruuuu-straaaated” had a beat to it. It has a definite punk feel. By the time Trevor comes back in, I have two other lines: “I'm not mot-i-vated” and “I just mastur-bated.” (Okay, that one's a maybe, but it's punk.) I need another to finish the chorus. I decide not to play it for Trevor till I get it. I am mature enough to write on my own now.

  When I wake up next morning, I'm still on the couch. Over the pyramid of iced-tea cans, I see Trevor playing video soccer. A piece of toast is balanced on his knee.

  “You'd better get up, Josh,” he says, still clicking. “My mom just called. She'll be over to pick us up in ten minutes.”

  I roll off the couch. Crumbs prickle my feet. In the kitchen, there is one clean glass left for juice. The bread and irons sit by the ice cream.

  “And if you're making toast,” Trevor calls, “I have a suggestion: don't put the peanut butter on till after.”

  I look blearily at the irons. The bottom of one has a shiny brown coating. I have a cold hot dog instead.

  Trevor's mom honks while I am pulling on my pants. Since I was up till four in the morning, this is harder than it sounds. Also, a jousting noodle is in one leg. I clear it, toss it over the chairs, grab my coat, jam my toes into my runners, and swing the door open in one graceful motion.

  Trevor bustles down the hall, hopping over the sofa cushions and out into the cold morning. I take a last quick look around. The place definitely has that pf lived-in look. Why are bath, towels all over the stairs? Oh, yeah to soak up
the iced tea. Fortunately my parents won't be home till late. We have plenty of time to clean up. I notice the answering-machine light flashing. I hit play. It's Mom, from last night.

  “Hi, hon, just checking that everything is okay, and to let you know that we're skiing again tomorrow…”

  “That's great, Mom. Thanks for telling me.” I set the door lock.

  “… and then after that, we'll be heading str-”

  “You bet. Have fun.” I slam the door and run. Sarah Riley is waiting.

  After our late night, the morning is kind of blurry. I sit by Sarah again and she tells me how she helped Matt sew his jeans back together, which just shows she is even nicer than I thought, doing that for someone who is not even, like, a close friend. I don't say a lot because I'm pretty bagged, but that's okay. Laid-back is good. It will be more private talking in the backseat anyway.

  After lunch there is more classroom stuff to do, so it's quite late when we head out. We go to the street just around the corner from my place. It's quiet there, so we practice three-point turns. The backseat is not exactly private with everyone looking back. Still, I'm cool; there will be time.

  Our instructor gets three orange cones out of the trunk and sets them up for us to try parallel parking. It's my turn. I get behind the wheel and pull up beside the cones. I'm supposed to park behind them. I flick on my turn signal, put the car in reverse, and check my mirror. I lift my foot off the brake, easing us back. Now I cut the wheel more, a little more flick a glance forward to make sure the front of the car is going to clear the cones, and see a van turning at the corner.

  I say, “Aaah!”, everyone else says, “Wha –?” and I hit the gas. Bam. We shoot backwards. There's a bump, a grrrrrrrrch, and the back of the car lifts off like a rocket. Everybody screams, and, at an impossible angle, we stop.

  When my stomach catches up to me, we are hanging forward against the seat belts, balanced on the front bumper. We are looking straight down at someone's lawn, which is yellow and soggy, it being March and everything, and there is this intense roaring noise all around us.

  The instructor says, “I think you can take your foot off the gas now.”

  Right. It gets much quieter. In the back, Matt is muttering, “Stink, stink, stink.”

  Sarah isn't saying anything. I am cool with this. I know I won't be asking her out for at least a month, anyway. I now realize why Mom called last night to tell me they were coming straight home from skiing. I don't floor a car in reverse when just any van turns a corner, only my parents'. They ought to be squeezing past the chairs to the sofa cushions by now. The towels and the cushions and the crooked pictures ought to keep them out of the den and the kitchen for a while. They might never even notice the microwave; the CD melted so smoothly on the glass turntable thingy you can hardly see it. On the other hand, with all the lights on, it'd be hard to miss anything.

  I sigh. It hardly matters; I'm majorly grounded assuming we ever get down. We seem to be quite stable, but I crane my neck up to the rearview mirror and spot a black streak. It's a cable. It seems to be running out of the trunk, straight up past bare tree branches. I see more black streaks and clouds. Ah. I have cleverly parallel parked up one of those wires that anchor telephone poles.

  As I look away, I also understand I will not be asking Sarah out at all. The rearview mirror has shown me that she and Matt are holding hands. Have I missed something? I feel like running naked up and down the street.

  Maturity, I think, as the instructor carefully opens his door, is overrated. Hey … maturity is … dum, dum, dum, dum-dum-dum….

  All is not lost. I have the first line for my song.

  First Time Never Holding Hands

  RICHARD SCRIMGER

  I'd been living next door to Aluka for a couple of weeks before I found out she was a zombie.

  I guess you're wondering how I could miss something like that. Zombies are noticeable what you might call a visible minority. But Aluka's not your typical zombie. It's hard to tell that she belongs to the realm of the undead. Among other things, she's a vegetarian. She doesn't smell like an open grave, or lurch around with her arms outstretched. I'm pretty sure I'd have noticed stuff like that early on. Maybe even during our first conversation.

  “Hi,” I'd say. “My name's Petey I live next door. We're neighbors now.”

  “Uuuggh!” she'd say.

  “Beg your pardon?”

  “Brains,” she'd say, lurching towards me. “Eat … brains.” Drool would be pouring from her open mouth. And I'd know.

  “Hey!” I'd say. “You're a zombie.”

  Didn't go that way. It was Labor Day, and I was sitting on the front porch trying to decide on the perfect last-day-before-school snack. Peanut butter or cocktail sausages? Bacon-flavored chips or jelly doughnuts? Figuring out the perfect snack is a favorite game of mine. There are so many possibilities, and none of them is wrong.

  I'd decided on crackers with cheese spread when the moving van drove away from the house next door, and a jeep pulled into the drive. Out popped a mom and a baby, and a girl about my age. The mom carried the baby inside, and I went over to introduce myself.

  “Hi,” I said. “My name's Petey I live next door. We're neighbors now.”

  And she smiled back and said, “Hi, Petey. My name's Aluka.”

  We shook hands.

  “I'm thirteen,” I said.

  “Me, too.”

  And we checked each other out, like you do. She was tall and thin. Almost bony. With her long hair and the way she had of gazing off into space, she looked kind of romantic. I'd like to be romantic, but everyone laughs at me. Not to be mean, or anything, they just think I'm funny It helps that I'm kind of short and round.

  “Say, Petey, do you have any pets?” Aluka asked.

  “No.”

  “Good. Pets don't seem to like me much.”

  “No pets,” I said. “Got a big sister, though. She's in grade twelve. She's worse than a pet.”

  We laughed. “My baby brother is a handful, too,” she said. Then her mom called her to come in, and she said she'd see me around.

  See? All perfectly normal stuff. No indication that Aluka was a zombie. Maybe the bit about pets was unexpected, but I just figured she was nervous around animals. Oh, yeah, and her hand was like ice. But most people's hands are cooler than mine.

  And anyway, whoever heard of a zombie with a jeep? Whoever heard of a zombie buying a split-level bungalow in a small town like ours? If you want to know what my house looks like, turn on the cartoon channel of your tv set.

  I didn't talk to her for a while after that. School started, and I was busy doing homework. I'm in grade seven this year, Mr. Robertson's class, and I never had so much homework. Ten math questions the first night. Homework, the first day of school? What kind of world is this? I went home fuming.

  “Hello, Petey dear. How was school?” my mom asked.

  “Well,” I began, but Marisa butted in.

  “Ohmygawd!” she cried from upstairs. “Mom, come quick! I'm bleeding!”

  That's my sister for you. My dad calls her Ohmygawd Marisa. Ohmygawd, today was the worst day ever. Ohmygawd, the movie was so bad I wanted to die. Ohmygawd, look at my hair it's a disaster.

  Mom is used to her, but you can't ignore bleeding, can you? She ran upstairs.

  I got myself a first-day-of-school snack nachos and hot salsa, if you're interested and took the math problems to my room.

  It went on like that for the rest of the week. There were maps to color and cloud types to identify. X had a buddy named Y, and neither of them could solve anything.

  Every afternoon, just before the bell went, Mr. Robertson got out a book and read to us. That wasn't bad because I could think about other stuff while the words washed over me. When he brought the book out on Friday, I thought about the weekend. Two days without much homework. There was a new horror movie opening at the theater in the mall. I'd overheard Nancy-Jane talking about it at lunch, while she was eating
yogurt and celery. That led me to think about the perfect first-weekend-of-the-school-year snack. Chunky peanut butter. Mmmm. Chunky Monkey ice cream. Mmmm.

  Someone was calling my name.

  “Huh?” I woke up out of my daydream. Mr. Robertson was standing in front of me, smiling. Smiling teachers are like crying crocodiles you can't trust them.

  “Did you enjoy that story, Petey?”

  “Oh, yes,” I said.

  “Bet you wish you could write a story that good, don't you, Petey?”

  “Oh … um … yes,” I said.

  “Good.” The smile broadened. “I'll give you a chance this weekend.”

  He wasn't kidding. He explained that the story, which I hadn't listened to, was about somebody holding his girlfriend's hand while she died. Yech. And now bigger yech Mr. Robertson wanted me just me, no one else to write a story about holding hands, and bring it in on Monday.

  “No fair!” I said. “I don't have a girlfriend. I've never held anyone else's hand!”

  The class laughed.

  “There's always a first time,” Mr. Robertson said. “And, Petey one more thing. Try not to make the story funny”

  “What?” I said. “What-what-what-what-what?”

  The class laughed again.

  “See? Funny is too easy for you,” he said. “Try to be serious.”

  The bell rang.

  Having a dramatic big sister means that you aren't important. There are times when that's upsetting, but not this afternoon. I didn't want to talk to Mom about my day, so I was happy when Marisa cried, Ohmygawd, look at them all it's an infestation! and Mom went running.

  I went for a walk along Westwood Road to the edge of the subdivision. There's a little strip mall there, with a convenience store. As I walked, I wondered about the perfect candy bar. It would have peanuts in it, and white and dark chocolate, and caramel, and it would crunch when you bit into it. Fine. But was it perfect? What was perfection, after all? Could I eat that kind of chocolate bar every day? Could you? I doubt it. Sometimes you feel like sponge toffee. Sometimes you feel like raisins.

  The sun was warm, and it shone directly into my face. September can be a great month.