The Encyclopedia of Me (19 page)

For all I knew, being grounded was illegal in Norway. It probably was.

“Oh, Norway,” I sighed. I flipped open the
N
volume to take a look at the pictures. It looks pretty there. You should go.

I would, but I'm grounded.

This bear is saying, “Welcome to Norway!” But what he means is, “Oh, you don't speak bear? Well, too bad. WELCOME TO MY STOMACH, TOURIST.” (Norwegian bears are very similar to Alaskan bears.)

See also
Boarding, Skate; Grounded; Hairless Cats.

NT is an abbreviation for “neurotypical,” and it is the word that people with autism use to describe people without autism. This gets very confusing because autism is a “spectrum” and depending on who you ask (e.g., Dad), “everyone is on the spectrum,” meaning that no one is NT.
97

Charlotte Ellery says that we are all NT in this family — and she tested us just to make sure — except for Seb. Dad despairs when she says that, because he is going to stick to his idea that everyone is autistic no matter what anyone else says. “NT is just the far end of the spectrum, then,” says Dad. “But we're all on it somewhere.”

“Fine,” says Charlotte. “If that's what you want to think. You're all on it, shoved right up at the far end labeled NT.” Sometimes Charlotte is hilair.

What Seb wants to know is what is going to happen when there are more autistic people in the world than people without autism. Will autism then be neurotypical? Because technically it will be more typical than not? In that case, then what will the rest of us be called?

It's a great mystery, Seb. I'm sure we'll get to the bottom of it eventually, but in the meantime, it's like the Stonehenge of questions: an unsolvable mystery. A koan.

See also
Autism; Ellery, Charlotte; Koan.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder is when you have to do something a certain way or you'll feel crazy inside, like your brain is in the washing machine on a spin cycle and can't stop. So you do things to stop it, like sanitizing your hands a million times, or touching your nose before you turn right.

Charlotte Ellery says people with autism often have a touch of OCD and that Seb is no exception. (It was Seb who said that about the spin cycle on the washing machine. I stole it from him, but it's not like he's going to read this anyway, so I don't have to credit him, but I will because I'm nice that way.)

It's true, he does wash his hands a lot. He always has sanitizer in his pockets, both of them, in addition to in his backpack, tucked into the side of his shoe, and in a little dispenser that attaches to the zipper on his hoodie. Once I caught him sanitizing his boots after he stepped in dog poop. I wish he didn't have to do that. I mean, I understood about the
poop
, but there is something about his face when he starts sanitizing that makes me feel like what he really needs is a hug.

However, Seb loathes hugging and if you hug him, he is likely as not to practice a karate chop on your forearm that will require surgery to repair. Don't say I didn't warn you.

See also
Aaron-Martin, Sebastian (Seb); Autism; Ellery, Charlotte.

Mrs. O'Malley, as you well know, is the mean old woman who sits outside smoking on a bench and insulting us if we walk by, while keeping her sad, mangy miniature pugapoo, Mr. Bigglesworth, prisoner against his will in her purse. I very much doubt anyone really knows Mrs. O'Malley. She's not exactly someone who welcomes new friends with her open smile and laughing eyes.

I think the only pleasure that Mrs. O'Malley gets out of life is derived from thinking of new insults to throw at passersby. This makes me both sad and happy. Sad, because that's pathetic. And happy, because thinking of new insults to throw back at Mrs. O'Malley gives me a goodly amount of pleasure too.

See also
Arms.

The coolest skateboarding move ever, where you jump WITH the board, but without grabbing it first. So you're just rolling along and then, using only gravity (!), you and your board leap into the air. Together. Somehow, the board stays glued to your feet, even though it seems like it wouldn't or shouldn't. Ollies are both hard to explain AND hard to do. Trust me.

See also
Boarding, Skate.

A cookie that is black on the outside and white on the inside, best eaten by separating the halves and scraping the icing out and throwing it away, as the icing is disgusting.

I like Oreo cookies, but I don't love them, due to the icing factor. In fact, I have almost nothing to say about them, but “Oreo” is approximately the only other word I can come up with that begins with
O
, and seeing as I have nothing but spare time, I do not want to neglect any of the poor little letters of the alphabet. Even the ones that don't start any good words.

I will try to think of more
O
words and may return to add more entries, breaking my own just-made-up-right-now rule about not going backward. But unlike Seb, I can break my own rules without it being a federal case that I first need to plead in front of the Supreme Court of Me. In fact, forget it. This is my encyclopedia! THERE ARE NO RULES!

So there.

Large, hairy animals, likely with a great deal of excess saliva dripping off their curly-haired mouths. I have never seen an ox, but I would imagine they smell just terrible, and I am as affronted by bad smells as I am by spit. They are probably also quite drooly, what with their huge heads and furry faces.

Honestly, I'm a bit afraid of all large animals because they look like they might trample me to death and not even notice.
98
Being trampled to death is my number four fear, after heights, brain tumors, and being nibbled by fish, but may have been bumped to number five by my new fear that has just jumped into my head just now: Kai doesn't really like me after all and instead is just a compulsive kisser with impulse control problems.

See also
Elephants; Fish; Ice Cream Incident, The; Kai; Kissing.

A half-celebrity, half–“normal person” magazine — sound famil­iar? — copies of which also flop listlessly on every surface of this house, much like The Magazine That Can't Be Named.

Superior to the other, similar magazine in every way,
People
magazine has never been known to destroy entire families by publishing a photo of them looking completely demented, such as the one that was in today's
Everybody
. A photo that featured two manic-looking twin teenage boys, a beat-up father, a mother with something resembling a giant octopus of slime in her hair, and a small girl who was almost entirely hidden by a large shrub, under which a cat imitating a wrinkled-up handbag was perched. The proximity of the cat to the girl and the weird angle of the shrub, combined with the girl's huge and puffy shirt, makes her look like a human who has been shrunk in the wash and then tossed into a regular-sized scene for giggles. You can be assured that the entire family in that photograph is now in very, very dark moods, and it is best to not mention
Everybody
magazine in their presence.

In related news, I've just read the terrible, no-good, very bad article in
Everybody
magazine that accompanied The Worst Photo of All Time, and I have to go now and cry into my pillow about the fact that not only will I not be made popular by fame, I will likely be the laughingstock of the school and referred to only as “Arrrgh, matey!” (thanks to the shirt) or “Freckle Peckle” (kindly contributed by Seb in a lovely quote about how “coping with a Freckle Peckle is more difficult than ‘coping with autism,' dude.”
99
)

I have just now made a commitment to being tough and impermeable to meanness, so I refuse to let the article bother me in any way, even though it really, really does.

From now on, the only magazine I will ever read will be
People
, my new favorite.

See also
Everybody
Magazine; Magazines.

Otherwise known as “bad people,” these people do not warrant a mention in this encyclopedia. Go back and strike from your memory any mention of any such person that might have been previously mentioned in this weighty tome.

Oh, bollocks, as Dad would say.

I
am going to call
Kai
. This is ridic! It's almost 2020, for goodness' sake, which — if not the start of a new century — is at least the start of some decade where it is perfectly acceptable for girls to phone boys and say “hey” without the girl feeling like she should be waiting for the call. I don't know what is going on here, except maybe there is something in the atmosphere that is making me act like someone who is not the real me.
100

If only I had the Internet so I could e-mail him or IM him or write on his wall instead, which would be so much less personal and nervous-making than an actual real live CALL.

I'll work up to it. Soon.

I don't know what I'm so afraid of.

See also
Kai. Kai. Kaiiiiiiiiiii. Oh, stop it.

An instrument that I suppose is electrical that allows you to talk to people by pressing a piece of plastic and metal against your ear after first dialing their number into a keypad. An antiquated invention that few people use, preferring as they do the asynchronous
101
conversations they have on the Internet, where they can not bother answering and not be considered rude. The exception to this is that sometimes your BFF calls you on the phone up to ten times a day! To the annoyance of your brothers! Until suddenly, something happens in your friendship, and just like that, she stops.

See also
BFF.

Prince X is, well, a prince. I can't tell you which prince! Because it's a secret. Not really. But it is. The thing is that if you knew which prince, you would laugh at me until your face turned purple and you began gasping for air, much like you would if you were choking to death on a piece of bubble gum that was lodged in your esophagus. So I'm not going to tell you.

And you can't make me.

Sometimes, I write small, non-embarrassing plays featuring myself and Prince X. Who am I kidding? It's the most humiliating hobby of all time, but each time I promise to stop doing it, I come up with an excellent idea for a new one and do just one more. If anyone ever saw one, I'd die. Or I would will the earth to open up a giant crack that would swallow everyone who saw what I had written and they would be destroyed or spat out in Australia, and I would be able to survive with my head held high, knowing it would be very unlikely that I would run into them at ballet or in the line to buy a large cookie in the cafeteria at lunch.