CHAPTER 15

RECKLESS DRIVER

Sunday was a mess. My family went to church in the morning. The air-conditioning wasn’t working inside the chapel, and light coming through the stained-glass window was making us extra warm. Libby believed it was a sign of how the heavens thought she was beautiful. Tuffin felt differently. He was too hot, and he had gorged himself on scrambled eggs at home. So when the preacher wouldn’t stop talking and our bench got super warm, Tuffin lost his breakfast all over Libby.

After we got home and Libby got cleaned up, more mess happened. Tim Knollmiller, one of the older neighborhood kids, crashed into our mailbox with his mom’s station wagon. Tim had just gotten his license, and everyone knew he drove too fast. Now he claimed the mailbox had jumped out at him.

My dad was actually really nice to Tim. He told him a story about how he had accidentally knocked over a can of paint while painting a fence when he was a kid.

There was no damage to Tim’s mom’s car and the mailbox was fixable, so my dad let Tim go but with a warning.

Tim thanked him for the advice and drove off quickly. I helped my dad repair the mailbox, wanting all the while to get away and check on Kat. I didn’t know exactly when Pilot Dean would be home, and I was worried about her. So once the mailbox was fixed, I made a couple of sandwiches and hiked down the alley and over to Pilot Dean’s house. When I got there I could hear someone talking in the backyard. I opened the gate slowly, and there was Jack sitting on the edge of the pool, having a conversation with Kat. She was still very much a mermaid. Jack was wearing a nice shirt and had his hair combed back. He looked upset about something.

Jack stood up and noticed me for the first time. He seemed embarrassed to be there and kind of sad about something.

Jack walked off dejectedly. After the gate had closed, I kneeled down and offered Kat a sandwich. She ate it really fast. So I offered her another.

She finished the second one even quicker. I gave her both my sandwiches and the whole bag of potato chips. She was like a vacuum.

Kat started to go on and on about things she liked about me. Normally I would have killed for a girl to list things about me that were good, but I kind of felt like Kat wasn’t talking to me exactly.

I was the one? The Little Mermaid part of Kat was concerning me. I needed to find out what was going on so that I could figure out what I was supposed to do. She had said she was here to help me and now I wasn’t so sure. I just couldn’t see how I could make a mermaid fit into my life. I had read The Little Mermaid, watched the movie, read The Hunger Games, watched the movie, and now I was reading Catching Fire. I had all the information, but I wasn’t even sure how to move her around or where to put her. I told her I was worried about her condition, and she said,

I reminded her that she was supposed to be helping me smooth things over with Janae. She was all set to tell me about something when Mr. Foote’s gong rang out two streets over. I was looking right at Kat, so I was pretty certain that she wasn’t the one who gonged it.

I let her know she had already said that. Things were getting uncomfortable. Kat’s personalities were much more distinct than the past creatures’. When she was speaking as a mermaid, her voice was soft and almost a whisper. But when the Katniss part came out, she was much bolder. Kat shook her head and the bolder part started talking.

I wanted to point out that she was a big part of my problem, but I didn’t have the heart. I talked with Kat for about an hour. She wanted to know everything about me. I told her everything I could think of. I told her about Janae and how badly I had messed things up at my school. I also told her about the funstival and how Principal Smelt was putting on a Fun-ger Games contest.

I told Kat about how I was going to play in the band for the funstival. She jumped out of the water as I stood up. I also told her how I had read and watched The Little Mermaid. The fish part of her liked that.

Her Katniss part apologized. We talked some more, and she told me about herself. I really liked Kat, but I could see now that I didn’t like her the way I liked Janae. It was cool to have a friend who was a girl. Oh yeah—and a fish. Kat confessed to me that part of her was really hungry and another part of her just wanted to sing. I told her I needed to get home but that I would bring her food every three hours. She said she would miss me, but she was more worried about the sandwiches.

I ran home and made six more sandwiches. I dropped them back off with Kat and then jogged to Trevor’s house. He was waiting outside with his guiro.

Principal Smelt and his group, Leftover Angst, always practiced on Sunday afternoons in Principal Smelt’s open garage. He and the other band member would play music for anyone who wanted to stop by and listen. Not many people did. When we got to the garage they were already practicing. The other member was Mr. Pickel. Everyone called him Pickle. He taught Italian to the gifted students of Softrock Middle School. I hadn’t even spoken to him before, and now that we were in the group, he still didn’t speak. Principal Smelt did all the talking.

The things we sang didn’t seem very cultured—they seemed dumb.

I just kept hitting my piece of wood while Trevor slid his stick up and down the guiro. It sounded horrible, but Principal Smelt felt differently.

After practice I went with Trevor to the mall because he needed to look for a costume to wear to the funstival. I didn’t mind shopping with Trevor, but he was too obsessed with his guiro. He couldn’t put the thing away.

We left the mall as soon as Trevor found a costume. He then went to his house to practice, and I headed home to make some more sandwiches. I had been making so much food that we were running out of normal ingredients, so I had to use what I could find.

It wasn’t something that I would enjoy, but I had a feeling Kat would eat every bite.