Harry didn’t bring his laptop with him to Mexico, and writing lists without a computer was hard. He couldn’t remember the last time he had handwritten anything for fun. He didn’t write postcards, like Nat told him she did. He never wrote letters. He just wasn’t a person who wrote stuff.
He typed stuff.
He was a typer.
He had a lot of things he wanted to write down about Mexico. Like, observations.
So instead of typing it, he wrote everything he knew about Mexico down, but in his head.
Which was really so much better and easier anyway. You couldn’t mess up stuff you wrote in your head. It always worked perfectly. It was when you tried to write it down that it started sounding dumb.
Observations about Mexico, he wrote, smoothly, in his imagination.
1. Hot
2. Dry
3. Nice ocean water
4. Good surfing (looks good from the beach)
5. Nice people
6. Being rich would be good!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Harry added a whole row of mental exclamation marks after that one. The house where they were staying was so nice. It probably cost more for a night than their house at home did for a year. He couldn’t figure out why Nat and her dad lived in a trailer. They could afford a palace, probably. They could even build this exact same house overlooking French Beach and be the envy of pretty much everyone. Not that they weren’t already, but still.
7. Mexican hot salsa is way hotter than Canadian hot salsa.
Harry had requested spicy salsa at lunch and so had Nat, and he had nearly stopped breathing, it was so hot. His throat had slammed closed, and for a second, he had forgotten how to breathe. Nat had eaten all of it, scooping great mouthfuls onto her chips like it was nothing. “Is your tongue deaf?” he had asked, and then they had both laughed so hard, they got the hiccups.
“Is your tongue deaf?” she kept repeating.
He stopped writing his list and whispered it to himself. “Is your tongue deaf?” He snorted and laughed again. Still funny, he thought. It was a good thing he wasn’t really writing it down, because if he was and someone saw it, they would probably think he was weird, and he wouldn’t be able to stand it.
8. Is your tongue deaf? ☺
9. Cool cereal boxes
10. Learn to surf?
Harry sat up.
Maybe he could ask XAN GALLAGHER to teach him how to surf. He lay back down and closed his eyes. He could imagine it happening. XAN GALLAGHER was super friendly, and Harry was positive that if he asked, XAN THE MAN would sweep him up into a huge bear hug and drag him to the beach, and maybe even hurl him into the water like a . . . coconut or something. (There were no coconuts in Mexico—it just looked as though there should be.)
He didn’t want to be thrown into the water.
On the other hand, being taught to surf by XAN GALLAGHER would be so rad. Beyond rad. Whatever word was bigger, cooler, and more amazing than “rad.”
Seth would die of jealousy.
Maybe Harry’s dad would see Harry surfing with XAN GALLAGHER and he’d realize how cool Harry was, too.
“I should have brought my laptop,” said Harry, but he was sort of glad he hadn’t. It was nice to not have to feel like he needed to be writing a book or making a list or explaining something to someone about who he was.
It was nice to not have to think about an answer and to just be.
He got up from his bed and walked around his room. His room at home could fit into the closet of this room. This room was huge. Just to see if it would echo, he shouted the word “DUDE.” It did sort of resonate. Harry shook his head. “This is crazy,” he said to himself. He was suddenly so glad to be there, in this weird fancy house, with Nat and her dad.
He unpacked his swimsuit and changed into it. He’d see if Nat wanted to go for a swim in the pool. It was OK to be really good friends with Nat here in Mexico, even if it wasn’t so much OK at school. No one would see him. He could still be in with Seth at home, but here, who cared? He grinned.
In the bathroom, he carefully rewrapped his chest with an Ace bandage so it wouldn’t show through his swim shirt. He made a face at himself in the mirror. He couldn’t wait to be an adult who could make his own decisions about his body.
And his boobs.
And he wouldn’t have to ask his dad about it.
He wouldn’t have to explain it to anyone.
He looked out the window at the pool. No one was in it, and it looked like something you’d see in a commercial for lottery tickets. It was huge and still and the perfect color blue. It had an infinity edge, which made it look like you could swim off the side and through the air and into the ocean in a single stroke.
This place was seriously amazing.
“Dude,” he said out loud, again, which pretty much summed it up.
Then he went out of his room to find Nat. The house felt so vast and empty around him, he suddenly knew what it must be like to be a fish in an aquarium, except this was a house with proper furniture and not just, say, a plastic diver who blew bubbles and a plastic log.
He went into the living room. The largeness of the house was creeping him out. Then he remembered what Nat had told him about how her dad did yoga when he was stressed. He, Harry, was no XAN GALLAGHER, but if it worked for XAN THE MAN, maybe it would work for him, too.
He had literally no idea how people did yoga.
Harry lay down on the floor. He started to tug on his own arms and legs. Maybe if he could jam his leg behind his head, he’d feel better. The room spun a bit. Harry picked up his right leg. He stuffed his head under it. It hurt, but maybe he did feel better, at least a little.
The trouble was that now he was also a little stuck.