Liar, Liar (9 page)

When I got home, I avoided my family. Or they avoided me. Every door in the house was closed, with someone behind it. Alone. Even the door to the basement was shut, which meant that either Mom or Dad had camped out downstairs rather than share their room with each other. And Buzz didn’t swing by our kitchen on her way up to her apartment to say hi like she always does.

I didn’t sleep well, thinking about Markie and his parents. About me and my parents. About me. About how I lie to everyone. All the time. About everything. The only totally truthful thing I’d said lately was when I’d told Markie his folks were splitting up. And that had seemed to go a lot better than anything else had.

It was Friday morning and I figured I’d pushed skipping classes about as far as I could, but since the week was mostly shot, I’d take this one last day. I’d make it an even week and start fresh on Monday.

I chewed a granola bar as I walked to school and thought it might not be a bad idea if I dropped back from a 10 to a 5 in the lie department. Before things started getting out of hand.

Not that I expected they would, of course—I still had everything under control.

I’d start by telling Katie the truth about my health and begin doing my part on the assignment. We had until next Friday; I could easily make it up to her. No sweat.

I caught her in the hall by the front doors before the bell rang as she headed toward homeroom.

“Hey, Katie, I gotta come clean with you: I’m not really sick. I was just trying to get out of doing the project,” I blurted.

I couldn’t read her face and I felt nervous because of the way she wasn’t looking at me. So I started talking again to fill in the silence. Besides, the sound of my own voice always calms me down.

“But I feel really bad about it. I know there are only a few days left before we have to hand in our project and make our presentation. What should I get started on, boss?” Sucking up is always a good plan when your back’s against the wall.

“Now? Nothing.”

“What?”

That was
not
how this scene had played out in my head as I walked to school—she was supposed to be happy I’d confessed and secretly pleased that she could rely on me in the last few tense days of finishing up. Not to mention relieved that I wasn’t sick. Then we’d share a good laugh over what a rascally sense of humor I had and would bond over the experience. She wasn’t getting the big picture here. She was totally ruining my great plan.

“Everything’s done—the research, the final draft, everything; all that’s left to do is hand in the paper and make the report to the class.” She still wouldn’t look at me.

“Well, yeah, but there’s got to be something I can
do. What about fact-checking? I could go over the PowerPoint and maybe jazz it up. Maybe I can handle the oral presentation? You know, take that burden off your shoulders? I’m great in front of an audience.”

She shook her head. “I told you: everything is done. You can’t put your name on the project if you didn’t do any of it and you’re not really sick. And I’ll get in trouble for cheating if Crosby finds out about our deal. I’m going to hand in this project as mine alone.”

“What about me?”

“You’ll have to do your own.”

“But it’s due next Friday! Everyone else had an extra week and a partner.”

“Then you’ll have to make really good use of your time. And”—she did look at me here, and her glance made my blood run cold—“it’s your own fault that you don’t have enough time and a partner.”

“I know you’re probably mad at me—”

“You used me.”

“No, that’s not—well, yeah, I guess I did, but—”

“I should have known that disease was phony. I’m embarrassed that I was stupid enough to believe you.”

“I’m very believable,” I said, trying to comfort her.

She didn’t look comforted.

“It was kind of a joke.” I tried to explain. “See, my best friend is always weirding out about health things and I kind of had improbable illnesses on my mind because it’s all he ever talks about, so I—”

“Whatever.”

“Katie, please … you can’t be serious.”

“You should be glad I’m not turning you in to Crosby. I’m doing you a favor, letting you dig yourself out of this mess.”

She looked at me. Her eyes might have been a little sad, but her mouth was a tight, straight line.

“You’re on your own.”

Then she walked away from me.

Right past JonPaul.

Who had been waiting to walk to our lockers with me like he does every morning. He’d heard. Everything.

“What was that about?” He looked away from me as he carefully peeled the magnetic sticky patches that detoxified his cells off his wrists and slid them into a pocket. He unclipped the mini-sanitizer from the zipper of his backpack, too.

“It was a … misunderstanding.”

“Katie doesn’t seem like the kind of person who makes mistakes.”

“Uh … yeah … well … see, the thing is—”

“Unless you say, ‘The thing is I jerked everyone around this week because I’m selfish and stuck-up and I think I’m so much better than anyone else that I can make fun of them,’ I don’t want to hear it.”

I couldn’t speak.

What do you say when your best friend has lost his mojo because you tried to reduce him to a paranoid bundle of nerves terrified of going into anaphylactic shock? Even if it was for his own good.

“How do I make this right?”

“I don’t know. I’m not Katie or Mr. Crosby. And I have no clue what you were doing at the student government meeting the other day. I don’t know why you’ve skipped Spanish and art and gym and math all week. But I guess it has something to do with all these crazy stories I’ve been hearing all over school the past couple of days about you writing for the newspaper and joining the theater crew and becoming part of the wrestling squad and that you and Connie Shaw are going on community-access cable TV next week to debate the mayor. I thought it was
another Kevin or maybe another four Kevins, but it’s just the one. It’s you, all right.”

“I mean about you. How do I make things okay with you?”

JonPaul, without saying a word, turned away from me like I was something a fully suited hazmat team would avoid, and walked down the hall.

I remembered part of a coded message that the English used on the radio during World War II to alert the French Resistance to rise up against the German occupation: “… wound my heart with a monotonous languor.”

I knew just what that felt like. The wounding part.

And I remembered, too, that the definition of surrender isn’t to give up, but to go over to the winning side.

If they’d take me.

UBAR.

It’s one of the all-time great military acronyms, and it stands for Fouled Up Beyond All Recognition.

I. Could. Relate.

But I wasn’t going to panic just because things looked bad so bad so very very bad. Like the good general I knew I could be, I would take bold action, I would show no fear, I would stride, godlike, straight into the jaws of adversity. I wasn’t exactly sure
what
I’d do yet, but I knew
how
I’d do it.

Katie had said so and JonPaul had proved her right—I was on my own. I’d gotten myself into this
mess, and I had no one to turn to for help to get out of it.

So I went where I always go when I don’t know what to do—I headed for the library to organize my thoughts and hammer out a battle plan.

I grabbed a computer station near the back and started making notes listing how I’d messed up. When I was finished, I sat back and reread my efforts.

Wow.

People who say today’s generation has no work ethic would take that back if they saw how busy I’d been in one short week.

I’d be lying (and I’m
not going to do that anymore
) if I said that the thought of just waiting for everything to clear up naturally and hoping for the best hadn’t crossed my mind. That would have been the path of least resistance. And it looked appealing.

But lying low would show a weak character, and that was not how I wanted everyone to think of me.

There was only one solution.

I was going to have to admit to everyone what I’d done, take responsibility for my actions, express regret for the pain I’d caused, accept the consequences of my behavior, make sure they knew I was serious
about making it up to them and then never act like that again. The perfect apology.

The only downside was that a one-size-fits-all letter wasn’t going to cut it. I was going to have to write specific letters to everyone.

I grabbed a thesaurus off the shelf, because there were only so many ways I knew to say “I’m sorry” without help.

Luckily, I’ve always been a very articulate and persuasive guy. I’d never needed either quality as much as I would now, though.

I apologized my miserable butt off. I confessed. Acknowledged. Asked for forgiveness. And promised to change my ways. I pretty much groveled.

I don’t know why the popular phrase is
truth or consequences
, when it’s really more like
lies and repercussions
.

While I was working on my letters, my cell started buzzing like crazy. We’re not supposed to use cell phones in school, but I’d broken so many rules this week, what was one more?

I slipped my phone out of my pocket and snuck a peek at the screen. Auntie Buzz.

She sent seven rapid-fire texts, because Buzz
required 917 characters to make her point, with lots of ALL CAPS and tons of exclamation points!!!!!!!

Buzz was in a communicative mood for someone who was SO MAD AT ME SHE COULDN’T SPEAK!!

The bank had called to ask her to sign some paperwork authorizing the direct-withdrawal program I’d set up with the tax lady. At first Auntie Buzz didn’t know what they were talking about, but now she did and, “Mister, am I FURIOUS!! WHO do U think U R 2 MEDDLE w/ my financial affairs + VIOLATE my PRIVACY that way and does UR MOTHER kno she’s raised such a SNEAKY person?!”

I texted Auntie Buzz a message that took fifteen screens because I needed 1,974 characters to explain what I’d done, that I was only trying to help and that I’d fixed everything for her. I apologized for the MENTAL AGONY (her words) that I’d put her through and expressed my remorse that she was BESIDE HERSELF.

I was three letters into my other apologies before Buzz got back to me.

“U R out of a part-time job 4EVER. And I don’t want 2 C U 4 15 years. Or until Sunday dinner. But
don’t expect me 2 sit next 2 U or pass U the rolls. EVER!!! Maybe UR only fired 4 a week. I’ll have 2 THINK about THAT!!!!”

I felt bad, but there was a little part of me that smiled, because I could tell she was getting a real kick out of this.

I hoped everyone else would find the same kind of satisfaction in yelling at me and then everything could eventually go back to normal. I was realistic enough to accept that everyone was going to be angry at me for a while, though, no matter how amazingly I apologized.

I sat there writing letters all morning, and I was exhausted by lunchtime. The simple truth is far from simple.

But I was starting to feel better than I had all week.

fter the longest morning of my life, I printed out all the letters I’d written, signed them and started delivering them face to face, like a man, like a soldier.