Страница 6 из 44
That was the day we had to sign up for John Steinbeck lit circles in English class. Apparently Of Mice and Men was just a prelude to a whole lot of reading. I showed up a few minutes late, and all the short books like The Red Pony were gone, leaving monsters like The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden.
Gu
After class he came up to me. “So I see we’re both in the Group of Wrath,” he said. “Why don’t you come over after school—I’ve got the movie on DVD.”
It was pretty bad timing, because just then Mrs. Casey, our English teacher, was passing by. “That’s cheating, Mr. Ümlaut,” she said.
“No,” I offered, without missing a beat. “It’s research.”
She raised an eyebrow as she considered this. “In that case, I’m assigning you both to compare and contrast the book with the movie.” Then she struts off, very pleased with herself. Gu
I leaned closer to him and whispered, “It’s okay—I think my brother’s got the Cliff’s Notes.” And from the far end of the hall Mrs. Casey yells back, “Don’t even think about it!”
Going over to someone’s house you barely know is always an adventure of strange smells, strange sights, and strange dogs that will either yap at you or sniff places you’d rather not be sniffed. But there’s interesting things at unexplored homes as well, like a giant tank of Chinese water dragons, or a home theater better than the multiplex, or a goddess answering the door.
In the Ümlauts’ case, it was choice number three: the goddess. Her name was Kjersten, pronounced “Kirsten” (the j is silent—don’t ask me how that’s possible) and she was the last person I expected to see at Gu
“Hi, Antsy.”
My response was a perfect imitation of Porky Pig. “Ibbidibibbiby-dibbity...” The fact that Kjersten even knew I existed was too much information for me to process.
She gave a little laugh. “NeuroToxin,” she said.
“Huh?”
“You were looking at my shirt.” She pointed to the logo on her chest. “It’s the band NeuroToxin—I got it at their concert last month.”
’Yeah, yeah, right.” To be honest, in spite of where my eyes were staring, my brain had turned everything between her neck and her navel into that digital blur they put up on TV when they don’t want you to see something. Her shirt could have had the answers to tomorrow’s math test on it and I wouldn’t have known.
“What are you doing here?” I said, like a perfect imbecile.
She gave me a fu
“Why do you live with the Ümlauts?”
She laughed again. “Uh ... maybe because I am an Ümlaut?”
With my brain somewhere between here and Jupiter, I was only now catching on. “So you’re Gu
“Last I checked.”
The concept that Kjersten could be the sister of someone I actually knew had never occurred to me. I suppressed the urge to do another Porky Pig, swallowed, and said, “Can I come in, please?”
“Sure thing.” Then she called to Gu
There was no response from Gu
“He’s out back working on that thing " Kjersten said. “Just go on through the kitchen and out the back door.”
I thanked her, tried not to stare at any part of her whatsoever, and went into the house. As I passed through the kitchen I saw their mother—a woman who looked like an older, plumper version of Kjersten.
“Hello!” she said when she saw me, looking up from some vegetables she was cleaning in the sink. “You must be a friend of Gu
Di
Now, thanks to my own stubbor
I knew if I dwelt on this much longer, I would either talk myself out of it or my head would explode, so I said, “Sure, I’ll stay for di
“Antsy, is that you?” Gu
“Maybe,” Mrs. Ümlaut said quietly, “you shall get him away from that thing he works on.”
Gu
“Neither did I.”
He continued his tapping. There were uneven letters toward the edge of the block. G-U-N. He was already working on the second N. I laughed. “You gotta make the sculpture before you sign it, Gu
“It’s not that kind of sculpture.”
It took me a moment more until I got the big picture, and the moment I realized just what Gu
Gu
“Gu
He stood back to admire his work. “Well, the letters aren’t exactly even, but that will add to the overall effect.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
He looked at me, read what must have been a pretty unpleasant expression on my face, and said, “You’re just like my parents. You have an unhealthy attitude. Did you know that in ancient Egypt the Pharaohs began pla
“Yeah, but you’re Swedish,” I reminded him. “There aren’t any pyramids in Sweden.”
He finished off the second N. “That’s only because Vikings weren’t good with stone.”
I found myself involuntarily looking around for an escape route, and wondered if maybe I was a “not-in-my-airspace” type after all.