Gary Paulsen: Liar, Liar

“I’ve never seen you at a student government meeting before,” Connie said. Coldly, I felt.

“It’s the social studies project,” I explained. “I’m all of a sudden interested in the functions of government.”

“Really?” Connie raised her monobrow at me suspiciously.

“Yeah, sure, I love government. In fact”—I frantically tried to recall that morning’s announcements—“I’m worried, uh, concerned, really, one could even say dismayed, about the … referendum … thingie,” I finished, and hoped I’d turn into a socially aware and deeply concerned kind of guy in the next 3.4 nanoseconds.

Connie furrowed her monobrow in shared worry, or concern, or dismay. It was hard to read one eyebrow.

“Yes”—I kept babbling, trying to win her over—“the referendum about the distribution of property tax income and how it’s used to fund public schools and if the idea of a tax hike should be put on the upcoming ballot.”

I had no idea how I remembered that.

Connie thawed a bit. “I’m glad you care about such an important issue. Sit down and I’ll explain what’s going on until you catch up.”

I tapped into my ability to go on mental autopilot. My face looked interested and I made “um-hum” noises at the proper times. All the while, I was watching Tina and getting more annoyed with JonPaul, who whispered to her the entire meeting. I was sure it was just about his body mass index or the tensile strength of his ligaments, but still, he had her ear and he wasn’t using it to talk me up.

The fact that he didn’t even know he should didn’t cross my mind.

By the end of the meeting, Connie had pushed her phone number and email address on me and I think I’d offered to serve on her committee to present ideas to the school board. She was going to argue the … distribution of something, and the something public ballot.

I wondered if she and Katie Knowles were close friends. If they weren’t, they should be, because although I was looking at Connie, I was seeing a Katie clone. I’d have to find a way to tell Katie about Connie’s committee and the presentation and, presto, she’d probably volunteer to help me out with that, too.

Then, when Tina and I were finally dating, I’d make sure Connie and Katie had the chance to hang out together and get to be BFFs. Minds like theirs, working together, could rule the world. And I was finding that they were very handy to have around. Plus, I was already starting to feel a twinge of guilt for the way I was about to take a lot of Tina’s free time away from Connie.

Until then, though, Connie would give me insight into Tina’s likes and dislikes so I could shape myself into perfect boyfriend material. And hanging around with Connie, I’d be hanging around with Tina by extension. And proximity would give me opportunities to catch her attention by being wonderful.

I don’t know how dumb guys get girlfriends, I really don’t. It’s a lot of effort, and it seems to me that without my work ethic, you’d be screwed.

JonPaul came home with me after school to hang out and watch movies. But not until he’d asked if anyone else would be around.

“No, just us. Why?”

“Your mom and Sarah are okay and your Auntie Buzz moves so fast I don’t think germs have a chance to land on her, but Daniel … well, he doesn’t seem like a lather-rinse-repeat kind of guy, and I’ve seen how hockey players bleed on each other. That can’t be sanitary.”

“What about my dad? Does he give you the germ willies too?”

“No. Not since I got him to buy those preflight vitamin packs to ward off airplane-cabin viruses.”

Bought them, gagged on them, flushed them, I remembered. But I didn’t tell JonPaul; he’d have been so disappointed in my dad and probably too worried to come over to my house again.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the guy, we’ve been friends since nursery school and always will be, but it’s hard to get his attention. Once you do drag his mind off bacteria and injuries, he’s okay. But keeping a conversation alive with him is a lot of work, and I worry that there aren’t very many people like me who would put that kind of energy into getting past JonPaul’s paranoid outer layer and finding the decent guy inside. It’s not like our other friends bust him for the way he is, but I can tell they’re not as understanding as I am.

JonPaul is nearly six feet tall, with shoulders as broad as a four-lane highway, and he can bench-press me. He’s an über-jock and a gym rat, but he lives in such fear of illness that he never wants to get close enough to anyone to catch anything they might have or be carrying. I didn’t understand how he could play all those full-contact sports if being touched and being breathed on were so abhorrent to him, but when I asked, he got a determined look in his eye and said, “I don’t think about it during the game. I get in the zone and stay there. It’s about discipline.”

He washes his own equipment and uniforms after every practice and game, though, and he takes showers that seem like the kind that workers get after there’s a chemical leak at a nuclear power plant. I heard his mother tell my mother that she has to buy industrial-sized bottles of bleach and boxes of detergent in bulk at the buying club.

I thought we were going to kick back, shoot the bull and watch a movie, but JonPaul couldn’t relax until he’d disinfected his gym clothes. He tossed me a duffel bag.

“Hey, there’s only one pair of shorts and a single T-shirt in here,” I pointed out. “Are you sure you want to wash them all by themselves? We usually wait until there’s a full load.”

He didn’t answer. I looked up to see him reading the ingredients on my mother’s box of presoak powder. I was kind of surprised when he didn’t ooh and aah.

Right. Time to change the subject to what I wanted to talk about. I started the washer and we walked out of the laundry room and crashed on the couch in front of the TV.

“So, hey, you seemed to be pretty friendly with Tina Zabinski at the student government meeting,” I said. “I didn’t know you knew her that well. What’s up?”

“Oh yeah, what were you doing there?” As I suspected, JonPaul had completely forgotten my surprise appearance that morning.

“Broadening my horizons. So, back to Tina—are you two friends?”

“No, not really. She’s just, you know, around.” He pulled a small lunch cooler out of his backpack and became completely engrossed in pouring out individual portions of raw almonds and golden raisins into cereal bowls he’d wrapped in plastic. Undoubtedly after sterilizing them.

I am not easily distracted. “What do you think about her?” I persisted.

“Oh, she’s … hey, I only have enough organic peanut butter left for one sandwich. Wanna share?”

“No, I’m good.” I peered into the jar of what looked like baby diarrhea and then jerked away.

“Looks like baby diarrhea, doesn’t it?” He spread it happily on some whole-wheat, flax-enriched bread and took a hefty bite. “This stuff is so good for your digestive system. Healthy turds float, bro, did you know that? The ones that sink are bad news and mean you’re eating all the wrong stuff and poisoning your own body with toxins like preservatives and additives.”

We. Are. Not. Talking. About. This.

I couldn’t take it anymore, and as he started jotting down the details of his snack in his food log like some obsessive hippie survivalist scientist hybrid, I jumped up from the couch, hollering, “JonPaul, are you okay? Can you hear me? Don’t go toward the light, come back to my voice!”

“What are you talking about? I’m just sitting here adding up my carbs and my protein grams.” JonPaul looked totally freaked out. He should have—I’m very dramatic; I was totally committed to the moment, and I was selling this bit.