“Tomorrow’s the company dinner,” Dad says. “Hannah Jackson’s kid won the county spelling bee.”
Before Dad even finishes speaking, Nathan bursts out, “Ursprache. U-R-S-P-R-A-C-H-E. A hypothetically reconstructed parent language. Balalaika. B-A-L-A-L-A-I-K-A. A Russian stringed musical instrument. Psittacine. P-S-I-T-T-A-C-I-N-E. Of or relating to parrots. I can keep going.”
(He could. And has.)
“You’ve got your best jewelry?” Dad asks Mom.
Mom nods. “I have Mommy’s cross.”
“Your mother’s jewelry?” Dad shakes his head. “You should wear the one I bought for you.”
Mom doesn’t look at her plate this time. Instead she says, “That cross—that cross has special meaning for me.”
“Old memories,” Dad replies. “We made new ones together. I don’t want Mr. Harrison to meet a wife who clings to the past.”
“There’s nothing bad about clinging to the past,” Mom says. “To happier times.”
My eyes, and Nathan’s eyes, bulge out of their sockets, ping-ponging back and forth between our parents.
Dad laughs a chuckle made of sandpaper. “What happier times?”
Mom looks down.
“Be happy now,” Dad says. “Happy for my promotion. Wear my cross and don’t disappoint me.”
Mom wrings her hands but says nothing.
Dad massages his temples and looks at me. “What sports do you play?”
It takes me a few seconds to find my voice. “I run long distance, I play shortstop, and I’d show you my bicycle kick if I remembered to bring my soccer ball.”
Dad raises his eyebrows. “No mistakes. You’ve been practicing. Good job.”
His praise reaches me, but it doesn’t have the same effect it usually does. I look down at my plate.
“Dad,” Nathan says. If words could tiptoe, he’d be creeping around a corner. “Can’t I go over to Marcellus’s? You don’t need me there.”
“Everybody’s going,” Dad says.
“But Dad—”
Dad raises his head. “You have one job tomorrow. This isn’t one of your history tests, little pig, so don’t make any mistakes. Be like your brother.”
It’s like Dad slaps Nathan across the face. Dad stands up, which is the cue that dinner’s over, so Nathan immediately runs upstairs. Mom slowly clears the table, balancing four plates. She drops a knife. I look around—no Dad.
When Mom reaches the sink, I tap her on the shoulder and hold out the knife. She takes the utensil from me and turns back around.
I grab a dish towel and start drying the dishes she washes. She watches me as she hands me a plate, a little smile on her face. I almost give her a smile back, but then—
“What are you doing?”
Dad appears from behind me. I look between my parents as I absentmindedly dry the same spot on the wet plate.
“Leave it,” Dad says. “If you want to be useful, help me in the garage. This is your mother’s job.”
“I was just helping,” I squeak out.
“This is your mother’s job.”
He watches me—they both watch me. Slowly, looking down, I place the rag and the plate on the counter and walk upstairs. I can’t look her in the eyes.
The awesome and cool Alan Cole, who’s completed two out of seven CvC tasks, who’s currently the most well-known kid in school, can’t even help his mom with the dishes.
What a coward I am.
But now, as I walk into my room and stare out at Big Green, it’s officially the weekend, and even though that awful party lingers in the background like somebody’s bad cologne, I can finally relax. I can start my cretpoj, because now I know who it’s going to be a portrait of, and I make for my art supplies—
—until I’m tackled to the floor, tasting a face full of carpet.
“Mmrph!” I try to spit, but he presses my face down hard with one hand, and with the other hand he takes my left arm and holds it out behind my back, at just the right angle where I know, if he twists it the right way, it’ll snap off.
With his knee he digs into my back. My vision’s getting white; little discs of light swim in my eyes. He yanks on my arm and I scream, muffled by the rug.
Everything is spinning and I think I’m going to throw up dinner, and he pulls my arm up and away from my body, and I hear this terrible cracking noise, and I think, oh my God, he broke it, and there’s a little voice inside me that says, at least now you won’t have to go to the company dinner, but that voice goes away with one final yank. I scream again, and now I’m breathing really heavy, and I’m sobbing like a little baby.
He reduced me to this in under a minute.
He hops off me and spins me around onto my back. I can’t even sit up, I’m so dizzy. I rub my arm. Still in one piece. Looks like I’m going to the dinner after all.
Nathan snarls, “You think you’re smarter than me, huh?”
My head’s still swimming; what he’s saying isn’t sinking in.
He slaps me—hard—on the cheek. “You do. You think you’re smarter than me. You little piece of crap.”
I’m still crying a little, trying to regain my breath, my footing. “Nathan—”
He drags me to my feet and presses me against the wall, right underneath my poster of The Old Guitarist. “Say it,” he spits in my face. “Say I’m smarter than you.”
“You’re—hic—smarter than me.”
“Louder!”
“You’re smarter than me. You’re smarter—hic—th-than me.”
Nathan’s eyes narrow, and he lets me go. I massage my tingly arm and rub my cheek, finally almost catching my breath. My brother paces around my room, angrier than I’ve seen him in a long time. “I found it,” he finally says.
I keep quiet. This is one of those times where it’s best to sit, and watch, and brace myself for the next wave.
Nathan pulls something out of his pocket and tosses it onto my bed: a small, folded-up piece of paper that says NATHAN on it. “Band room,” he says. “Did you really think I wouldn’t look there? I know how you think, because you’re dumber than me.”
“Oh,” I squeak.
“And I made someone cry,” he goes on. “That’s two for me. We’re tied.”
I almost ask who. Then I hiccup. Right.
Nathan continues, “I joined the swim team today. Not enough people signed up over the summer, so they took me on. I’ll learn to swim by Thursday. You’ll never get that paper out of the vending machine, or do anything else. You’re going down, goldfish. And when you do, I’ll make sure to let everybody know your terrible little secret.”
And it finally occurs to me, where all this is coming from.
I’ve seen Nathan scared plenty of times before, but all of them were a result of Dad.
This is the first time he’s ever been scared of me.
Nathan starts to laugh. Not his hyena’s cackle, loud and brash—this is uneven, spastic, frantic. “I’m going to have fun destroying you,” he growls. “You’re a disgrace. You’re barely even human. Soon I’ll make you pay for even thinking you could be smarter than me.”
He stomps out of my room and slams the door shut, leaving me rubbing my arm and wiping my eyes.
Why did I think, even for a second, this was possible?
I wish I knew what was making him freak out like this, why he suddenly thinks I’m a threat. When he beats me up he normally enjoys it, but this wasn’t enjoyment. I don’t even know what it was. He’s never felt threatened by me in a CvC game before. Is it the unbelievable idea he might not win something? Or is it something else?
A low vibrating hum snaps me back to my room: my phone’s going off from a text. There are only two nonfamily people who have my number, and both of them got it after lunch today. Sure enough, the text message reads:
What time should I pick you up tomorrow?
I inch into my chair, still tender all over. My old sketchbook sits on my desk. The tingling in my body fades as I reach for the last empty page and my paints.
But first, I type my response:
earlier the better.