I'll Mature When I'm Dead (20 page)

“What do they want?” I inquired.

Phil scratched his tousled hair with Denise’s hand. “Apparently they want to be part of the climactic action sequence,” he postulated, adding, “and it appears there’s going to be a lot of action.” Using Denise’s head, he nodded toward the opposite side of the clearing. My jaw dropped as I saw a pack of enormous werewolves, including Stewart, who gave me a look of desperate werewolf longing before he turned away and resumed forlornly licking his private parts. As I watched, saddened and guilt-ridden because of the pain I had inflicted on him by being so attractive without making any conscious effort, I saw more shapes emerge from a third side of the clearing. This time it was Denise’s jaw that dropped, as it fell from Phil’s hand when he saw who it was:

His vampire family: Grover, Buck, Scooter, Eldridge, DeeDee, Trixie, and Skeeter. Despite the obvious seriousness of the situation, there was no mistaking how good-looking they all were. Grover nodded to Phil with a special code vampire nod, indicating something ominous was about to transpire.

“Stay here,” asserted Phil, flinging aside what I think was Denise’s thorax. “Stay perfectly still. Whatever you do,
don’t do anything to draw attention to yourself
.”

I wanted to shout something that would stop Phil, such as “Stop, Phil!” But he had already become a blur of speed like a really chiseled supernatural Road Runner as he raced toward the middle of the clearing, where an incredible battle had erupted between the werewolves and the various attractive sets of vampires. There were snarls and roars and hideous supernatural screams as the fighting raged at fantastic speeds all around me. It was incredibly exciting and terrifying, although because of my trademark inability to describe action in anything except very general terms you are just going to have to take my word for this.

It was all happening so fast that I couldn’t tell who was winning and who was losing. But as the battle raged on, an alarming thought crept into my mind:
I was not playing a central role
. I realized that I needed to do something. But what could I, a mere human, although a highly endearing one, do? Then it struck me:
I could draw attention to myself
.

Frantically I looked around, searching for a sharp object. Suddenly I saw it, lying on the ground, clearly visible in the bright moonlight:

A sharp object.

I picked it up and stabbed at myself. I was aiming for my arm, but because of my trademark clumsiness I actually stabbed one of Denise’s arms, a piece of which broke off and flew into my right leg, leaving a deep gash. Blood streamed redly down my leg. Suddenly there was a vampire stampede coming my way at the speed of vampire, with the werewolves right behind. The vampires came from all directions, their fangs extended to the length of No. 3 Phillips screwdrivers. In the crowd I caught sight of Phil, who had a look of deep horrified concern on his face, and even in that moment, knowing I was definitely going to die in seconds although obviously I didn’t because here I am narrating this, I remember thinking how good-looking he was, and wondering how he got his hair to always stay at exactly that level of tousle.

Now they were almost on me, dozens of blood-crazed vampires and enraged werewolves. I knew there was no way I could be saved. I heard Phil shout, “No!” Then I heard a howl of despair from Stewart. Then, in the distance, I heard the distinctive hydraulic sound of an anguished Zamboni.

And then, at the absolute climactic height of the action sequence, everything went dark.

“She’s coming around,” I heard Phil’s voice intone. Raising my eyelids, I opened my eyes. I was lying on my back, and a small piece of Denise’s back. Hovering above me were Phil, Stewart, and Sven, as well as Phil’s family, and the Jonas Brothers.

“What happened?” I queried weakly.

Phil shook his head lovingly. “You almost got yourself and all of us killed because of your unbelievably irresponsible, deranged, and self-centered behavior,” he remarked, adding, “but that just makes me desire you more, you crazy, quirky, irresistible woman, you.”

Stewart and Sven moved their heads vertically up and down in nods of agreement.

“But how did you win the climactic fight?” I pressed.

“Through a lot of action,” Phil explained.

“Wow,” I stated. “It must have been incredibly exciting.”

“It was,” he concurred with a twinkle in his tawny eyes.

“But what are the Jonas Brothers doing here?” I persisted.

“We love you,” they stated in unison.

“Join the club,” I sighed in rueful resignation, drawing hearty supernatural chuckles all around. “Well,” I went on, “at least our other troubles are over.”

Phil looked at me with an expression of not totally agreeing with my assertion.

“What is it?” I interrogated, adding, “Is something wrong?”

“The Gambinis are very upset,” he replied pensively. “They vowed to return with a huge vampire army and kill everybody in the Pacific Northwest, including Boise.”

I nodded, struck once again by the way Phil’s gorgeous cheekbones accented the chiseled perfection of his chin.

“Also,” he went on, “it turns out that all those recent hiker deaths were not caused by Denise, but by a long-dormant supernatural race of giant homicidal pine cones who have been awakened by global warming and now prowl the woods around Creepstone each night, savagely attacking every living thing in their path.”

“I thought that was just a Native American legend,” I protested, fighting the urge to run my hand through the tousled perfection of Phil’s hair.

“If only,” he muttered. “It’s only a matter of time before they come into town and are attracted to you. And on top of all that, there’s also the fact that Stewart and I are still mortal enemies who could very well kill each other in our relentless struggle to possess you.”

“Don’t forget about me,” chimed in Sven.

“And us,” assented the Jonas Brothers.

“Me too!” called a voice from a distance.

“Who was that?” I inquired.

“Zac Efron,” observed Phil.

Oh no,
I reflected.

“I love you!” shouted Zac Efron, getting closer. “I want to—”

His voice was suddenly cut off. I heard a harsh chomping sound.

“What happened?” I ventured.

“Pine cone got him,” responded Stewart. “Those things are
fast
.”

“We’d better get back to town,” suggested Phil warily.

“Yes,” I assented eagerly. Pete would be regaining consciousness soon.

Phil picked me up in his gorgeous sculpted arms and began running with impossible swiftness through the trees toward Creepstone, followed by Stewart and Sven, and, much farther behind, by the Jonas Brothers, who lack supernatural speed but are very cute. Reflecting in my mind on how much I had made all of these males suffer, I vowed mentally to stop, once and for all, being such an indecisive, self-centered ninny.

Until the next book.

I
’m standing next to a soccer field at the Wide World of Sports complex in Walt Disney World, the Happiest Place on Earth. There are two men standing about twenty feet from me. They are not happy. Their faces are the color of wild cherry cough drops, and they are shouting.

“GET IT OUT OF THERE!” one of them shouts.

“GET IT OUT!” the other one affirms, adding, by way of explanation, “GET IT OUT! GET IT OUT! GET IT OUT!!”

The men are shouting at nine-year-old girls, presumably their daughters, playing in a big soccer tournament. The girls are trying to kick a ball away from their goal. The men are not satisfied with their efforts.

“
GET IT OUT OF THERE!!!
”
shouts the first one, so violently that I half-expect him to expel a chunk of trachea onto the perfect Disney grass. But the man doesn’t attract any attention, because there are hundreds of other adults around, watching dozens of games, most of them shouting just as loud, and sounding just as unhappy. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think all these people were furious at their children.

But of course they’re not: They’re modern American parents raising modern American children, and God forbid that a modern American child should engage in an athletic activity without being shouted at by adults.

“
GET! IT! OUT! OF! THERE!
”
shouts one of the sideline dads, who is now so worked up that his words are coming out in bold-faced type.

The other dad, sensing a teachable moment, shouts, “KIM-BERLY! WHAT ARE YOU DOING
???
”

 

 

 

When I was
a child, things were different. For one thing, North America was covered by glaciers. For another thing, when it came to sports, we kids were pretty much on our own. Where I lived, in Armonk, N.Y., the only organized sport was Little League, and aside from the dads who coached the teams, there were few grown-ups around. When the games were going on, my dad was on the train home from another long day in New York City, wearing a hat, smoking, and reading the newspaper in a car full of other smoking, hat-wearing, paper-reading dads. My mom had four kids to manage, so the last thing she had time for was to sit in the bleachers at the Wampus
³³
School ball field and watch me scurry around right field like a disoriented gerbil in a desperate and almost always futile effort to position myself where the ball was going to come down.

So Little League was really just for us kids. We rode our bikes to the field, played the game, and rode our bikes home. At dinner our parents might ask us how the game went, but they might not. It was not a big deal either way. We didn’t expect the grown-ups to think it was all that important.
We
didn’t think it was all that important. It was
Little League
. If an adult had appeared at the Wampus ball field and spent an entire game yelling at the players, everybody would have thought that person was a lunatic.

The other sports we played had no adult involvement whatsoever—no coaches, no referees, no league officials, no score-keepers, no uniforms. We played anywhere we could, including living rooms, with whoever was around—three on a side, nineteen on a side, one on a side, whatever. We picked our own teams and made our own rules and argued a lot and played until it was so dark that while trying to catch a football that you could not see you might (this happened to me) run face-first into a tree that you also could not see.

Nobody watched us play these sports. Nobody encouraged us from the sideline. But we managed to have fun anyway. And we went on to become a strong and proud generation that survived the Great Depression and won World War II.

No, wait, that was my parents’ generation. My generation’s big achievements ran more along the lines of spending junior year abroad. But we did learn some important life lessons from sports. I learned, for example, that even though I was not as big, or fast, or strong, or coordinated as the other kids, if I worked really hard—if I gave 100 percent and never quit—I would still be smaller, slower, weaker, and less coordinated than the other kids. In other words, I learned that even though I enjoyed playing sports, I sucked at them. And understanding that you suck at some things is useful information in life. The world would be a better place if people were fully cognizant of their areas of suckage.

For example: I have, over the years, received in the mail approximately 17 million manuscripts from people whose goal is to become professional writers. They want me to discover them, encourage them, mentor them, find them an agent, etc. Some of these people have talent; some have actually become professional writers. But a great many of them will never become professional writers, because—follow me closely here—they are not good at writing. Of course I don’t
tell
them that. Probably nobody will ever tell them that. They will continue to try and fail, and in the end they’ll be bitter, like the early-round contestants on
American Idol
who think they got booted because Simon Cowell is mean, rather than because their singing sounds like a bull being castrated with a hockey stick.

These contestants humiliated themselves on national TV because when they were growing up, loving to sing, always singing around the house, no thoughtful family member or caring friend ever had the kindness to put a hand on their shoulder and say, in a gentle and loving voice, “You suck.” They needed Simon Cowells, but instead they were surrounded by Randy Jacksons and Paula Abduls, trying to be nice, not wanting to hurt their feelings, and thus setting them up for failure. Because the cruel fact is that the world does not reward suckage, outside of Washington, D.C.

Take nature. If you are a wildebeest that happens to be bad at running fast, you will fail. You might have a sincere
desire
to run fast, and you might
believe
you can run fast, because when you’re hanging out at the water hole, other wildebeests—the Randy and Paula wildebeests—are telling you what you want to hear:
Sure, dog! You run pretty fast!
But when the cheetah shows up and the herd takes off, you will be a wildeburger. You would have been much better off if you had accepted your limitations and gone into some other line of endeavor more suited to your talents, such as sloth, or professional writer.