CHAPTER TWENTY

There are only two ways to live your life.

One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.

Albert Einstein

Lee looked out his bedroom window but didn’t really “see” anything. Not the sunshine creeping up on his mother’s marigolds, turning them into orange balls of fire, not the three blue eggs in the nest under his window that had overnight morphed into three gaping beaks screaming for breakfast, not even Santiago’s thumping tail in the rhubarb patch (the opening of Lee’s eyes every morning automatically set Santiago’s tail a-thumpin’—she sensed his waking even when she wasn’t in the same room). Life might as well have been a silent black-and-white movie for all Lee noticed or cared. Black and white. Black or white. Either you care or you don’t. Simple as that.

And it wasn’t so bad, really, this not caring. More like a relief. Lee just wished everyone would stop being so overly worried about him. He didn’t like the weight of their concern. It irritated him—the worried look in Agnes’s eyes, the way Mrs. Burns had gone easy on him on his final mark (that piece-of-crap essay he’d handed in wasn’t fit to line the bottom of a canary cage, let alone earn a B-plus), the very fact that his mother was right now downstairs frying bacon for him—a treat she generally reserved for special occasions. Her little attempts to lift Lee’s spirits made him uncomfortable. Not to mention the fact that bacon was wasted on him these days. He didn’t have much of an appetite and everything tasted the same, anyway. If Gertrude had served him a bowl of Santiago’s Chuck Wagon Vittles, he probably wouldn’t have noticed.

Oh, God, Lee closed his eyes, Santiago. The thought of her sad eyes these days was enough to make him feel like the biggest crud on earth. Having the power to make or break a dog’s day was not a responsibility he wanted right now. And it’s not that he didn’t love Santiago. Love had nothing to do with this. He just didn’t have the energy to fake cheerfulness. Not with her; not with anyone. Feeling down in the dumps is hard enough, thought Lee, but trying to convince people (or dogs) otherwise takes more energy than running a marathon. Backwards!

Lee heard the MSN “ding-dong” informing him that he had a new e-mail. Terrific. He plunked himself down in front of the monitor, although he didn’t know why he bothered. These days the only stuff he ever seemed to receive was junk mail (and the odd idiotic note from Rhonda—Dear Daddy, sorry to hear you’ve been diagnosed with Zactly Disease—your face looks zactly like your butt! Heh, heh! Your Pal, Ron).

Lee checked the sender of his latest e-mail—“Angel Wings.” Again! I can’t believe this, thought Lee. How many times had he “unsubscribed” himself from this stupid mailing list. Their sappy inspirational messages made him want to hurl. Lee read the message:

AWESOME PRAYER
May today there be peace within you.

May you trust that you are exactly where you are meant to be.

Remember that friends are quiet angels who lift us to our feet when our wings have trouble remembering how to fly. Just send this to four people and see what happens on the fourth day. Do not break this, please. There is no cost, but lots of rewards.

Lee banged the delete key. If he was exactly where he was “meant to be,” then life was a bigger joke than he thought.

As he got up to leave, Lee noticed the tip of a familiar scribbler poking out from under his bed—The McGillicuddy Book of Personal Records. He flopped heavily onto the mattress and flipped through the pages. Man, oh man. Was it possible that he’d aged a hundred years in one week? Suddenly his handwriting looked like it had been scribbled by a six-year-old. He shook his head as he flipped through the pages of idiotic facts, figures, and records. It all seemed so weird and childish now. What thrill had he ever gotten out of being able to say that he’d bounced a stupid basketball for twelve straight hours without stopping? What did it say about him? Only this: that his longing to be good at something, anything, had turned him into a fruit-loop crazy enough to believe that any hard accomplishment had the power to transform him. Into what? No more than a basketball-dribbling nitwit, thought Lee. Embarrassing. Humiliating, even.

So that was one good thing about not caring, Lee decided. At least you didn’t run the risk of turning yourself into an obsessed nincompoop (accent on the poop). Lee dumped the scribbler into the wastebasket on the way out of his room. The smell of frying bacon in the hallway—along with Gertrude’s hope that it would bring a smile to his face—made his shoulders slump. Shoot. He didn’t take any joy in disappointing the people around him. Maybe if he just made an effort …

“Yum, bacon!” The sound of his own phony voice made him feel nauseated. No, he just couldn’t do it. “Thanks, anyway, Mom, but I’m just not hungry. Give it to Santiago.”

There followed a short silence. Then …

“You give it to Santiago,” snapped his mother, surprising Lee with her impatience. “That poor dog has been half-starved for your affection for weeks. If you can’t give her that, then at least give her this!” She shoved two pieces of bacon into Lee’s hand. It was still hot. Lee felt the heat burning in his cheeks instead of his hand.

As he watched Santiago chaw down the bacon in the front yard, tail wagging a mile a minute, slobber flying, Lee realized that there were some things that he still cared about. Or, at least, wanted to care about. What he felt on the inside was his own business. No one could touch that. But the outside was a different story. Okay, so he’d do the hard thing. For the sake of the people around him, he’d break a world record in faking it. Lee Sonny Daddy Beanpole Einstein McGillicuddy breaks an all-time world record for faking a good mood 24/7. God help me.

Light up your face with gladness
Hide every trace of sadness
Although a tear may be ever so near
– Charlie Chaplin