Liar & Spy (13 page)

“Wait,” he says, “I—” And then he hangs up.

Or someone hangs up for him.

Before I can even think, I’m back on Mr. X’s doormat, staring at Safer’s loafers. I put my ear to the door—nothing. I hold my breath, put my hand on the doorknob, and turn. The door is unlocked.

Quietly, quietly, I swing it open and step into Mr. X’s apartment.

It’s pretty dark in there, so I can’t see much—a wicker table piled with mail and magazines, an old-fashioned umbrella stand, and a green plastic watering can on the floor. I can see one corner of the kitchen because the light is on in there. It looks just like ours, with a big white fridge and white counters.

“Safer?” I whisper.

Safer saunters out of the kitchen, sipping a bottle of water. “If you were a key,” he says, “what would you open?”

I’m speechless mad. I grab Safer’s arm and pull him into the hallway. He lets me.

“What’s wrong with you?” I say when the door has closed.

Safer steps into his loafers. “Nothing is wrong. Well, there is one thing—I couldn’t find anything I could open with this.” He holds the key up between two fingers.

“You scared me to death. And you—you turned me into a criminal! Do you realize that?”

“A
criminal
? You’re a hero!”

“What are you talking about?”

“You came to save me, didn’t you? That’s hero behavior.”

“I don’t care. I walked into someone’s apartment. In the middle of the night. That’s breaking and entering!”

“It’s not like you took anything,” Safer says. “Thirsty?” He holds the water bottle out to me.

“Did you steal that? Did you open his
refrigerator
?”

“I was parched.”

“You’re crazy.” I start down the stairs.

“I gave you a gift,” Safer calls after me softly. “Now you know exactly what kind of person you are. You’re brave, Georges! Your skills need work, but you’re brave!”

Heat

Saturday morning, Dad wants us to go to MoMA, which is the Museum of Modern Art, which is “just across town” from Mom’s hospital, where he says we can “pop in” for lunch.

I tell him that hospital food is not my idea of lunch, and besides, I have a lot of homework. Dad settles for breakfast together at Everybody’s Favorite Diner and then I walk him to the subway. He’s got Mom’s robe and some of those yogurts she likes in a plastic bag.

When I get back to our lobby, I don’t feel like going home. I don’t want to chill with Sir Ott, I don’t want to eat string cheese, I don’t want to watch TV, and I definitely don’t want to do homework. So I buzz Safer, even though it’s on the early side and I’m officially still annoyed at him for acting like a lunatic last night. He answers immediately.

“Did you buy any
gum
while you were out?” Safer asks through the intercom. “I’m really in the mood for
gum
.”

“I’m still mad at you,” I tell him.

“I’m all
out
of
gum
. I had some
gum
this morning, but now I’m
out
. So hurry up.”

Safer must think I’m stupid or something. He buzzes me in, and I head for the stairs. On four, I glance at Mr. X’s door and see the gum wrapper tucked neatly into the doorframe. Safer must have put it back last night after I stomped off.

But I’m not up to spying today. I pluck the wrapper out with two fingers and run up to Safer’s. I ring the bell and stand there holding the gum wrapper out in front of me, totally forgetting that Safer never answers the door.

“What’s that for?” Candy says when she sees me holding out the gum wrapper.

“Nothing,” I say quickly. “People are slobs!”

“That’s true,” she says, looking at me funny.

I change the subject. “You never told me how old you are. Is it a big secret or something?”

She narrows her eyes. “You never asked. I’m ten.”

“Ten,” I repeat.

“Almost ten. I’m small for my age.”

“Yeah.”

“If I was in school, I’d be in fourth grade. I looked it up.”

“Yeah, that sounds right.”

“If I went to your school,” she asks me, “would I be the smallest fourth grader?”

“I don’t know the fourth grade that well,” I tell her. “But there’s actually one kid in
my
grade who’s about your size.”

“Really? Who?”

“Teresa Conchetti. She’s always been super-short.”

“Oh.”

That came out wrong. “But she’s really smart, and also funny. She sits at the cool table and everything.” I don’t add that, last I knew, Jason had a crush on Teresa Conchetti, and
that he actually stood up for her once in sixth grade when Dallas was calling her Terry Conchesty. But that was before.

“With you, you mean?”

“What?”

“She sits at the cool table—with you?”

“I don’t sit at the cool table,” I tell her. “I wouldn’t even want to sit there.”

“Why not?”

“Because half the kids at that table are total jerks.”

She looks at me. “Then why do the other half of them sit there?”

I’ve wondered this too. Specifically, I’ve wondered it about Jason. “I don’t know. Maybe they think that if they sit there, they won’t be victims, or whatever.”

“So why don’t you sit there?”

“Because I would rather be a jerk’s victim than a jerk’s friend.”

She nods. “The friend of my enemy is my enemy. Somebody said that once. So maybe the friend of a jerk is a jerk.”

I look at her. “Maybe.”

“You guys are both forgetting the most important rule,” a voice behind us says.

“Oh, yeah?” Candy turns and looks Safer up and down. “What’s the most important rule?”

“ ‘Keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer.’ ”

“Meaning what, exactly?” Candy asks.

“Meaning maybe the friends of the jerks are only pretending to be their friends. Maybe they recognize the enemy and they’re keeping him close.”

No wonder these two don’t go to school. They would take it all a little too seriously.

“You know what I would do?” Candy says. “I would decide that my table is the cool table. Anyone could sit there. And that would be that.”

“You can’t just do that,” I tell her.

“Why not? Why do you get to make the rules?”

“
Me?
Trust me. I have nothing to do with making the rules.”

“Weren’t you the one who just told me I couldn’t sit at the cool table?”

“I didn’t say that!”

“You did, Georges. Think about it.”

“
Goodbye
, Candy,” Safer says. “Georges and I have things to do.”

Candy humphs and disappears into the kitchen, and I’m not all that sorry to see her go.

When I’m alone with Safer, I show him the gum wrapper. “Looks like Mr. X came home,” I say. “I guess it was a short trip.”

He looks surprised. Very surprised. He takes the wrapper and rolls it slowly between his fingers. “It was on the doormat?”

“Yeah. Bummer, right? Now you can’t act like a crazy person. I guess your whole day is shot.”

“Frustrating.” Safer stares hard at the gum wrapper. Then he looks me in the eyes, and I get the distinct feeling that he knows I’m lying. Then he holds out his flask. “Coffee?”

“Hey, did you tell him yet?” Candy calls from the kitchen. “You told me not to tell him, and then you didn’t even tell him!”

Safer drops his arm. “The parrots are back.”

“The parrots are back!” Candy says.

We take turns looking at them through the binoculars. One of them—I can’t tell, but Safer says it’s always the same one—keeps leaving and then flying back to the nest.

“He’s carrying twigs,” Safer says. “Rebuilding.”

“Aren’t there two of them? How come the other one doesn’t help?”

“I wonder if she’s getting ready to lay eggs,” he says, flipping through his notebook. “It’s about that time, I think.”

We can’t talk about Mr. X because Candy is there, but for once Safer doesn’t tell her to go away. She brings out her stash and we have a little welcome-back party for the parrots: Starbursts and the last of the Chicks, Ducks, and Bunnies SweeTarts.

Pigeon wanders out of his room right before lunch, looking sleepy. Safer tells him about the parrots being back, and they high-five.

“How goes it, Georges?” Pigeon asks me.

“It goes okay.”

“You taking care of our boy?” He palms Safer’s head.

“I guess,” I say, thinking that Safer pretty much takes care of himself.

Pigeon smiles at me. “Good.”

Safer’s mom is at an all-day wedding and Saturday is his dad’s busiest day at driving school, so Safer makes scrambled eggs for lunch and keeps his promise to teach me how.

“The secret of good scrambled eggs,” he tells me, “is very low heat.” He turns the flame way down and stands there stirring the eggs in the pan forever, but when they finally cook, they’re delicious. Candy makes toast and provides dessert.

Then we just hang out doing nothing, which is exactly what I feel like doing. Dad calls my cell to check on me and puts me on the phone with Mom and she doesn’t sound too tired.

When it’s almost dinnertime, I tell Safer I have to meet my dad downstairs.

“We’re going to Yum Li’s again. You want to come with us?”

“I can’t,” Safer says. “Dad’s taking Pigeon to his track meet, and my mom has the wedding. I have to stay home with Candy.”

“You could both come,” I say. “My dad won’t mind.”

“I love Yum Li’s!” Candy says.

“No,” Safer says. “Mom left us ziti.”

“Isn’t that the ziti Pigeon made?” Candy makes a face. “His ziti is terrible. I want to go to Yum Li’s.”

“No,” Safer says.

“Yes,”
Candy says.

“No,”
Safer says.

Candy walks up close to Safer and growls right in his
face—or up toward his face, I guess, since she’s a head shorter than he is: “I
hate
you.”

Safer doesn’t say anything. He just takes a step back.

She stomps down the hall and into her room, slamming the door so hard the windows shake.

Safer looks at me.

“Um,” I say, “maybe another time?”

He smiles. “She has a temper.”

He walks me to the door, and I tell him I officially forgive him for what he pulled last night. Safer says, “Yeah, I forgive you too,” and he puts a fresh gum wrapper into my hand.

He knows I lied, but I have no idea how he knows.

A Message from the Chef

We can’t see the parrots from our apartment, but when I’m walking to Yum Li’s with Dad, I realize that I can see the nest a little bit from the street. I tell Dad about how the birds’ grandparents escaped from Kennedy Airport, and I point at the air conditioner they live under.

It’s that time of day when the sun seems to come closer and closer, sending this incredible light almost sideways, and all of a sudden we see a flash of color and then, for one long second, a bright green fan of feathers against the sky.

“Wow!” Dad says. “That’s amazing.” And I can tell he’s not faking it for my sake.

When we walk into the restaurant, Yum Li is standing next to the coatrack in his cooking clothes, which Dad calls his chef whites.

“You again?” Yum Li says when he sees us. “Did you forget where the grocery store is or something? I’ll draw you a map.”

Dad laughs and starts to walk toward an open table, but I don’t move because I’m stuck in the spot I was standing on
when I realized that the big table in the middle of the room is full of Jason’s family. And Jason. And Carter Dixon.

Now Dad has seen them. He booms “Hello!” and starts chatting away with Jason’s parents.

“How’s Sara doing?” I hear Jason’s mom ask.

I force myself to move. I don’t get why I’m feeling so upset. I see Jason and Carter practically all day, every day.

I walk over to their table, and I smile while Jason’s parents tell me I got tall. Jason waves and says hi. Carter Dixon is looking at his plate. I follow Dad to our corner.

“You know what? We should have some people over soon,” Dad says. “When things calm down.”

I nod. “The chicken or the beef?” I ask him. Because we always get one or the other. Like it isn’t enough that we come to the same place over and over. We also have to eat the same thing.