As I said before, it’s not enough to just observe a goober. You have to mess with him. You have to.
So day after day we pulled up to the curb at Soop’s house and we watched him hammer and saw away in his orange hat. He asked how our blisters were coming along, and we told him they were still pretty bad and we acted all sad because we couldn’t help him build the clubhouse.
We asked him tons of questions, just to keep him talking. He was our daily entertainment. Better than the movies. For instance, when we asked him what his favorite subject was, he said, “Oh, I would say mathematics.” Not just Math. But Oh, I would say mathematics. Classic goober answer.
If we didn’t get a good goober answer right away, we kept digging.
“Do you have a girlfriend?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I’m still a little young for that.”
“You like girls, don’t you?”
“Sure.”
“Why?”
“They’re people. I like all people.”
“Do you think girls are as good as boys?”
“Absolutely. I believe in gender equality.”
Bingo! I believe in gender equality. It’s like digging for night crawlers. If you keep at it, sooner or later you’ll come to a beaut.
Our questions got sillier and sillier.
“How many bites does it take you to finish a hamburger?”
“Where would you wipe your nose if you forgot your handkerchief?”
“Did you ever pee while standing on your head?”
By now we didn’t even try to hide it. We were hooting and howling at the stuff he said, and he was laughing right along. Goobers don’t know when they’re being laughed at. They just think they’re funny.
I’ve been thinking about it, and here’s the thing. A true goober—you can’t insult him. You can’t hurt him. Physically, sure. But that’s all. So go ahead, mess with him. Insult him. Mock him. Embarrass him. Boo him. Everything rolls off the inhabitants of Planet Goober. They’re invincible.
Anyway, that’s how it went—until today. Somewhere along the line Bump asked him where he moved here from and he said, “Gary, Indiana,” and Bump said, “Did you like it there?” and he said, “Yes,” and Bump said, “So why did you leave?” and there was no answer.
We were all so shocked, it took a minute to reach our brains: He didn’t answer. It’s totally ungoober-like to not answer a question. He just went on hammering. “Must not’ve heard,” Bump whispered. So Bump said, “Ernie?”
The hammer stopped. Ernie cocked his head. That’s another thing he does—he cocks his head when you say his name or ask a question, like he’s moving his ear to scoop up every last sound wave from your voice. So he cocks his head and says, “Hello?”
And Bump says, “I guess you didn’t hear me. I asked you why you moved away from Gary, Indiana.”
And Soop just stares at Bump. Stares and blinks, stares and blinks. Then he suddenly jumps up and says, “Oops, I just remembered, guys. I have to go in and do something for my mother.” He runs for the door. “Seeya later!”
We all looked at each other, like, Huh? We hung around for a couple minutes to make sure he wasn’t coming back out. As we coasted up the street we started talking.
“He’s lying,” said Bump.
We all agreed.
“Unbelievable,” said Nacho. Because goobers don’t lie.
“And he acted like he didn’t hear you the first time,” said Burke, “but he did. So that’s like a lie too.”
We pedaled for a while, trying to make sense of it. I figured I might as well ask the obvious question. “So why’s he lying?”
We came up with lots of theories:
His father is in the mob and they’re in witness protection.
His mother is a shoplifter and they were kicked out of Indiana.
His parents lost their jobs and had to move.
Soop has allergies (most goobers have allergies) and Indiana was bad for his health.
Soop is a firebug and they had to get out before he was caught.
They lost their house in a flood.
Or an earthquake.
Or termites.
Soop is a shoplifter.
We stopped to pick up hoagies and went to the hideout and kept making theories. Most of them were just silly and we didn’t believe them ourselves. We were mostly just laughing and scratching our heads over the whole thing, but then I started to notice something. The longer the list of theories got, the more it bothered us that we didn’t know the real answer. Then Burke said something. It seems pretty innocent, even now when I think of it and write it down. He said, “It was just a simple question.” That’s all. “It was just a simple question.” But now that I look back on it, and I remember his face as he said it and the sharp edge in his voice, I think maybe that was the moment things turned in a different direction. Because then the guys started saying stuff like:
“Yeah, a simple question. ‘Why did you move here?’”
“So why can’t he answer? Don’t we deserve an answer?”
“He didn’t have to go in and do something for his mother. He made that up.”
“He lied.”
“We come over every day. We keep him company. Look what he does.”
“He lies to us.”
By the time we were done saying all this, something had changed. Soop was still funny, but funny wasn’t the only thing he was. Something else was in there too, I wasn’t sure what. Then Bump said, “He didn’t just lie. He lied to the Death Rays.”
There it was. It was like the last skinny sunbeam went behind a cloud and the sky was dark and getting darker and you knew you better pedal for home before you got wet.
And then Bump rolled his hoagie paper into a ball and threw it across the hideout and said, “He’s gonna pay.”