David A. Poulsen's Young Adult Fiction 3-Book Bundle. David A. Poulsen

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      I was in the hospital overnight and the next day when I got home, they had a party for me … like a birthday party. There was a cake and some of Aunt Meg’s neighbours were there and some little kids from around the neighbourhood. I didn’t even know most of them. Sandy the poop ass was there too. I mean she would be. I saved her, didn’t I?

      My mom carried me in from the car and set me in this big soft chair in the living room of my aunt’s house. I liked that chair. There was more of the “brave little soldier” talk, and people I’d never seen before were taking my picture and smiling big smiles at me and touching me on the face.

      It was okay for a while, but then I started crying and couldn’t stop, which pretty much wrecked the party. My mom finally carried me upstairs to bed and read me a story. I don’t remember which one.

      I think maybe the reason I was crying was that I knew they were wrong. I wasn’t brave at all. I was scared to death. Long after it happened, if I thought about it, I’d start shaking, and I’d clench my eyes shut to try not to see that dog.

      But it didn’t work. For a really long time I’d see that dog’s face right in front of me, the huge jaws, the terrible teeth, always coming back at me, even though I was already hurt and not doing anything to him anymore.

      I don’t see the dog’s face anymore. Haven’t for a few years now. But I’m still scared of dogs, especially big ones. Little dogs don’t scare me as much, but I don’t like them. We’ve never had a dog. I’m probably the only kid I know who doesn’t bug his parent to get a dog.

      8

      Another thing about me you should know is that I get headaches. Mom even had me checked out a couple of times to see if there was something wrong with me, like really wrong with me, but nothing showed up. “Tension headaches,” the doctor said. Stress. When he said that, I was like, Come on, I’m fifteen years old. You can do better than playing the stress card. But maybe he was right. Sometimes I get pretty wound up, I guess.

      So, no surprise — the night after the old man’s call, I woke up with a headache. The pounding kind … like there’s somebody chopping wood, and they’re using your head for a chopping block. This time I could definitely see stress as the cause. I got out of bed and crunched a toe trying to get to the bathroom in the dark.

      I swore, fumbled for the light switch, turned it on and made it the rest of the way to the bathroom. I took a Tylenol, drank a glass of water, and stumbled back to bed, pain now throbbing at both ends of my body. Terrific. I hoped the painkiller would kick in real soon.

      Meanwhile, I lay in bed thinking about the old man’s phone call and my mom talking about him and sort of defending him, but all that did was make my head feel worse, so I tried thinking about something else.

      When I was little, if I had a headache or an earache or a fever, all I had to do was let out one squeak and Mom was in my room like a shot. Then it would be a hot towel or ear drops or ground up baby Aspirin, whatever she figured I needed. Usually worked too. And she’d stay there until I fell asleep again.

      She told me once she’d wanted to be a nurse. Couldn’t afford to go to school to become one. Sometimes I think it must suck to have this thing you really want to do with your life, and you don’t get the chance. She doesn’t complain or even talk about it except that once, but I sometimes see her staring off out the window, not really looking at anything, and I wonder what she’s thinking about.

      I figure Mom would have been an awesome nurse — she loves to do things to help people, and if anybody we know gets sick, she’s the first one over there with a casserole and a magazine for the sick person to read. Same kind of stuff that she did for me when I was younger.

      Mom works for an accounting firm. Does some bookkeeping and receptionist stuff. She goes crazy at tax time. Gets home late pretty well every night for about a month, and I get to practise my cooking skills. I make killer Pizza Pops, chicken noodle soup, and peanut butter and banana sandwiches. Most of my meal preparation doesn’t involve actually turning on the stove. Even the soup is a microwave creation.

      It’s weird but she never watches any of the doctor shows on TV. No ER reruns, none of them. I don’t either, but with me it’s because I hate watching shows about sick and dying people. I figured the way Mom likes to look after sick people, she’d be into every medical show on television, but it’s just the opposite.

      Maybe it starts her thinking about how she wanted to be a nurse and never got to be one.

      9

      The rest of that school year was pretty forgettable. I’d kind of lost interest after the phone call from the old man and the change to my summer plans. I did pretty good in English, social, and French. Okay in math and science. Kicked in phys ed. And that was it. End of tenth grade.

      I tore up my list for the Summer of the Huffman. And gave up on Jen Wertz.

      Shit.

      Summer Part One

      1

      The old man pulled up to the house in a Dodge pickup. Black, dually crew cab. Not a bad truck except that it looked like he washed it every three, four years at the most. We wouldn’t be picking up any girls in this tub. Not that we would’ve done any better in a Maserati. My girl, the lovely Jen, wasn’t actually aware I was alive, and my summer wasn’t likely to change that. And the old man, last time I checked, likes ’em young. The only dental hygienist in town was like fifty and wielded that cleaning thingy like a pickaxe.

      So, no, I didn’t need a fortune cookie to tell me babes weren’t in my future. Which meant it didn’t matter that the Dodge had little “Wash me” notes finger-scribbled into the dirt that was layered up on all four doors.

      I was sitting on the front step holding a copy of Catch-22. I hadn’t actually opened it and wasn’t sure I would since it didn’t fit in with the summer this one had become.

      The old man didn’t try to hug me, so at least he wasn’t stupid. Didn’t shake my hand either or even say much. Climbed out of the truck, nodded to me on the way to the front door of the house, and said, “Throw your stuff in the back seat.”

      I did that. My “stuff” was the duffle bag I’d found in the basement and my school backpack. Then I went back up the sidewalk, put Catch-22 in the mailbox (I’d let Mom figure that one out) and sat back down on the front step. Mom had made blueberry muffins, so I figured he’d be a while talking to her, drinking coffee, and eating muffins. I liked where I was — outside, far from all of that. Far from him.

      I thought about my first impression of him. Pretty well all of it was a surprise since I really didn’t know what he’d look like. He was pretty tall. And skinny. See, right away I was wrong. I guess I expected a bald, fat, slobby-looking guy, dirty T-shirt, ass crack showing over his jeans whenever he bent over. The only part I had right was the T-shirt, and it wasn’t dirty.

      If he’d shaved that morning, he hadn’t done a very good job of it, but his hair was neat, no Hank’s Auto Parts ball cap, a little grey but not much. He was wearing jeans, but they were clean and new-looking, crease down the front of each pant leg. Looked younger than sixty-two. Maybe fifty-two. Still, no kid.

      That’s about all I had time to notice in the time it took him to get from the Dodge to the house.

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