Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie (22 page)

“I drove a hundred miles with that oil light flashing. Do you think I hurt my engine?”

“What’s the best type of soap to wash my car with?”

“Is it bad when smoke comes out from under the hood?”

“I hear this weird thump every time I hit my brakes. Is there something wrong with them?”

Dad answered the brakes question by popping open the trunk and taking out a two-liter bottle of soda.

At one point, this old man and woman brought their car
in for an oil change. I was looking through the large window into the garage, watching a guy putting a car on a lift, so I wasn’t paying a lot of attention, but I heard the man ask if the job could be done today. They didn’t have an appointment. The woman explained that they were going on vacation tomorrow.

“I’m sorry,” Dad said. He sounded puzzled. “I don’t understand.”

That was weird. I looked across the service counter at the couple.

“Please,” the man said. “Can you?”

“What?” Dad asked. He glanced over at me.

I knew an oil change didn’t take long. Assuming I wasn’t the one doing it. In that case, it would take about half a lifetime. I turned to Dad. “Can you fit them in for an oil change today? They’re going on vacation tomorrow.”

“Sure,” Dad said. “No problem. We’ll have them all set in half an hour.”

“
No problemo
,” I told them. “
Media hora
.” And then my jaw dropped.

Caramba
!

“
Gracias
,” the man said, thanking me.

“
De nada
.” Oh, my God. I’d been speaking Spanish. I’d understood them—at least, enough of the words to know what they’d been asking—and answered them. Ms. Cabrini had done it. She’d made a Spanish speaker out of me.

“Thanks,” Dad said after he’d taken care of them.

“
No problemo
.”

• • •

I actually had a complete break that day. The play started tomorrow. There was no rehearsal the night before. That’s a theater tradition, I guess. We’d already had our dress rehearsal, and I’d survived it without getting crushed by any of the scenery we’d moved in the dark. But I was beginning to understand why everyone kept saying, “Break a leg.”

I got two free tickets for the play, since I was on the stage crew. I thought about giving them to Mom and Dad, but Mom hadn’t been going out a whole lot. And Dad didn’t like to sit and watch stuff. He won’t even see a movie unless it’s under two hours. I gave one ticket to Lee. “You’ll like it,” I told her. “People die.” I left the other ticket on Bobby’s bed.

And, inspired by going to my dad’s workplace, I finally asked Lee what her folks did.

“My mom’s a phlebotomist.”

I guess she figured she’d stump me. But I was up to the challenge. “She draws blood, right.”

Lee nodded.

I thought about Lee’s fondness for vampires. “You must be very proud of her.”

“For sure.”

“What about your dad?”

She made a face. “My dad’s a complete failure.”

“Wow. Sorry.” I hadn’t expected that. “He can’t get a job?”

She shook her head. “No. He has a job. He’s a lawyer. He was the smartest guy in his class, and you know what he does? He spends his life helping companies get around antipollution laws.” She sighed. “Any way you look at it, I am the offspring of bloodsuckers.”

I pulled the curtain closed as the last note of the final number faded, then opened it for the curtain call. I’d been too busy running around and carrying props to see much of the play. But I heard it all. When the audience clapped at the end, I pretended the applause was for me.

We had five more performances scheduled between that weekend and next. Then it would be over. That was fine with me. Show business wasn’t anywhere near as much fun as people thought.

Julia was there, waiting for Kelly. I watched them walk off together. It was nice that the play hadn’t ruined their friendship,
though I was still sort of bummed it hadn’t started a new one between Julia and me. Wesley was there, too, sitting right up in the front, all the way to the left of the stage. When I thanked him for coming, he shrugged and said, “No problem. It’s way easier than the movies.”

“To understand?”

He looked at me like I was an idiot. “To sneak in.”

Over on the right, far up the aisle, I saw Lee heading toward me. “I’ll catch you later,” I said to Wesley.

As he turned to leave, I headed over to cut Lee off. I had the feeling they shouldn’t be allowed to get too close to each other. It would be like a snake and a mongoose.

“Great job,” she said. “You really managed to minimize the thumps and crashes.”

“Of course. I’m a trained professional.”

She glanced past me toward the stage. “I love that guillotine. Can I have it when you’re done? It would look so great in my room.”

“I’ll ask Mr. Perchal.”

“Tell him I have a ton of stuffed animals that need drastic body modification, and this would make the process so much easier.”

“That’s definitely a compelling argument.”

I checked with him right after Lee left, though I didn’t pass along the details of her request. He said it was school property and he couldn’t just give it away. Score one for the stuffed animals.

• • •

As thrilling as it was to be part of the exciting world of the theater, I took greater pleasure in my journalistic efforts. I was sitting on my bed Tuesday evening, leafing through the school paper, when Bobby came in. He held up the play ticket. “Hey. Thanks for this. Did I miss it?”

“Nah. It’s on again this weekend.”

“Any good?”

“Not bad. For high school.”

He glanced down at the paper. “You write another one?

“Yeah. Want to—” I stopped before I could make a jerk out of myself by asking if he wanted to read it. Then I thought about sitting in the kitchen with Mom, reading to her from
To Kill a Mockingbird
. I picked up the paper. “Want to hear it?”

“That would be great.”

I read the article to him. I was a little nervous at first, but then I sort of enjoyed reading it out loud. It was nice hearing my words spoken—even if I was the one doing the speaking. I caught a sentence or two that I wished I’d rewritten, but most of it sounded pretty decent.

“That’s good, Scott. Really good. You have a gift.”

I shrugged. “It’s nothing.”

“Don’t ever say that. It’s very good. Honest.”

“Thanks.”

Bobby paused by the door on his way out. “I haven’t been much of a big brother …”

“Are you kidding? You’ve been great. You take me places. You teach me all kinds of stuff about cars and music. And you saved my butt lots of times. Remember when those big kids were chasing me?’

“They were little,” he said.

“Maybe to you.” It was back when I was in first grade. Bobby had saved me from a group of third graders. When he was around, nobody ever picked on me.

He smiled. “Man, they sure took off when I showed up.” The smile faded. “Scott …”

“What?”

“You’re not really creepy. I shouldn’t have said that.”

I help up the paper. “And you’re not stupid. This isn’t your fault. Someone should have realized you needed help.”

“Someone did.”

I wanted to say it was no big deal. But my throat had gotten kind of tight, so I just shrugged.

As Bobby turned away, he said, “I’m lucky you’re my brother.” He went back to his room before I could tell him I felt the same way.

In a couple minutes, I heard an old song drift through the walls. He was playing “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”

• • •

“Okay,” Mr. Franka said, “you cruised along for a month reading comics. Now it’s time for some serious contemporary literature.”

I groaned along with everyone else, but I figured whatever he handed out would be interesting. We’d read some really difficult stuff scattered throughout the year, but none of it was boring.

A minute later, I was staring down at a script on my desk. Not a play, either. This was a movie script, for
Terminator 2
.

“Welcome to Hollywood,” Mr. Franka said.

That weekend, we gave the last two performances of the play. When the crew was striking the set—in other words, when I was clearing the stage and the other guys were horsing around—I spotted Bobby standing in the back of the auditorium. I hopped off the stage and walked over to him.

“Not bad,” he said.

“You liked the play?”

“Nah. But the stage crew rocked.”

“Thanks.”

“This whole school thing—you’re doing good. Way better than I ever did. I think you can do whatever you want. Anything at all.”

“Except find the right wrench.”

Bobby shrugged. “There are plenty of guys who can do that. I’m serious—except for that wrench thing, I’d bet you could do whatever you set your mind to.”

“So can you,” I said.

“No way. I’m just good at one thing. And right now, nobody’s buying. There are a zillion guitar players out there. Hey—you want a ride home?”

“No thanks. Believe it or not, I have a social event to attend.”

I finished up with the props, and then went to the cast party. It was sort of like the dance. I stood around drinking soda, eating potato chips, and watching everyone else mingle. At least Julia and Vernon weren’t there.
You can do whatever you want
. If only that were true.

Kelly was there. What I wanted to do was walk over to her and ask if she’d ever heard Julia mention me. But I didn’t have the guts. I did overhear her say, “They’ve been fighting a whole bunch.” I couldn’t tell who she meant, but I had my hopes.

Mr. Perchal came over and clamped his hand on my shoulder. “Well done. I hope we can count on your help next year, Scott.”

I mumbled something about needing to make sure it would fit in with my other activities. I had a feeling my career behind the curtains had gone as far as it was ever going to go. Between rehearsal and performances, I must have carried a grand total of about 87,000 tons of lumber. On the other hand, next year I could sit back, play poker, and let some poor freshman do all the work. The thought of that made me grin.

Toward the end of the party, Ben came over, punched me on the shoulder, and said, “Good job, frosh.” That was sort of nice,
but after each of the other guys on the crew repeated the praise-and-punch routine, I was hurting. But it was a good sort of hurt.

And then there are bad hurts.

They taught us on the newspaper that every story had to answer the questions
who, what, when, where, why
, and
how
? On Monday, coming out of the locker room after gym (which is the
when
and
where
), I had an unanticipated
what
with a totally unexpected
who
.

Say what?

Say this: I got in a fight with Kyle.

I’d decided it was time to test Bobby’s belief that I could do anything I wanted. This seemed like a good place to start. And I was willing to take the risk that Kyle would kid me about it. We’d just reached the door when I said to him, “Hey, maybe you can get Kelly to mention me to Julia, and see what she says about me.”

“Forget it,” Kyle said. “She’s out of your league.”

Ouch. Kyle was my friend. At least he had been until he became a jock. Friends weren’t supposed to be brutal about stuff like that. “You’re not exactly in Kelly’s league,” I said. “Or anyone else’s. She probably wouldn’t even look at you if you weren’t a wrestler.”

He pushed my shoulder. “Yeah, well who’s standing around all by himself at the dances?”

“Like you weren’t?” I pushed him back.

“Not anymore.” He pushed me with both hands.

I held off from pushing him back. I didn’t want this to get out of control. “I could get a date if I wanted,” I lied.

“With who? Some freaky bitch with a face full of pins?”

The air in the hallway suddenly felt ten degrees warmer. Those words were way too familiar. “What did you say?”

Kyle’s eyes shifted away for an instant, then locked back on mine. “Freaky bitch.”

“You’re the one who wrote on her locker.”

I expected him to deny it. Instead, he shrugged. “Hey, it looks like you’re not the only creative writer around here.”

And there went the
why
.

I tackled him. No pushing. No working up to it. I just dove at him like a madman. Which should have been a big mistake. Everyone knows it’s a bad idea to tackle a wrestler. That’s the first rule of fighting. If a guy knows how to fight on the ground, you have to stay away and use your fists. If he knows how to box, then you try to wrestle him.