Нил Шустерман - Antsy Does Time

“Hello, I’m Anthony Bonano with news for you. As many of you know, our friend Gunnar Ümlaut has been diagnosed with PMS, which is a rare life-threatening disease, pause, so I’m asking you, point at camera, to open up your hearts and donate a month of your life as a symbolic gesture, to show Gunnar that we really care. And in return, you’ll get a T-shirt that says ‛Gunnar’s Time Warriors.’ Really? There’s a T-shirt? Cool! Our goal is to collect as much time as possible. Remember, ‛Don’t be a dunth. Donate a month.’ Now excuse me while I go beat the crap out of whoever wrote that. Did I just say crap on live TV?”

Crotch Boy, Phonics Girl, and now the Blithering Wonder.

It began even before I went to my next class. I was grabbed in the hallway by people who didn’t seem to care how moronic I looked on TV. They all wanted to make time donations. Everyone had their own reason for it. One guy did it to impress his girlfriend. One girl hoped it would get her into the popular crowd. Although I didn’t want to spend all my free time at my computer printing out time contracts, I couldn’t just walk away from what I had started, could I? Besides—there was a kind of power to being the go-to guy. The Master of Time. I even felt like I should start dressing for the part, you know? Like wearing a shirt and tie, the way the basketball team does on the day of a big game. So I found this tie covered with weird melting clocks designed by some dead artist named Dolly. Okay, I admit it, this was really starting to go to my head—like when Wendell Tiggor said he wanted to donate some time.

“You can’t,” I told him, “on account of Gunnar needs life, not wastes-of-life.”

The thing is, Tiggor’s famous for having really lame comeback lines, like, “Oh yeah? If I’m a waste of life, then you’re a stupid stupidhead.” (Sometimes the person he was insulting would have to feed him a decent comeback line out of pity.)

This time, however, Tiggor didn’t even try. He just pouted and slumped away. Why? Because the Master of Time had spoken, and he was deemed unworthy.

What happened next, well, I guess I could blame it on Skaterdud, but it’s not his fault—not really. I blame it on Restless Recipe syndrome. That’s something my father once taught me.

It was a month or so before the restaurant first opened, and he was trying to figure out what the official menu would be. It was the first time in his life he’d been forced to write down recipes he had always just kept in his head.

He and Mom were in the kitchen together, cooking one meal after another, which we were giving away to neighbors, because not even Frankie could eat an entire menu. Mom had taken courses in French cooking last year, after finally admitting that Dad was the better Italian chef. It was her way of staking out new taste-bud territory. They had created these fusion FrenchItalian dishes, but that particular night as they cooked, Dad kept having to stop Mom from adding new ingredients.

“You know what your mother’s problem is?” he said to me as they cooked. He knew better than to ever criticize Mom directly. It always had to be bounced off a third person, the way live TV from China has to bounce off a satellite. “She suffers from ‛Restless Recipe syndrome.’”

Mom’s response was to throw me a sarcastic “Oh, please” gaze, that I would theoretically relay back to my father at our stove somewhere in Beijing.

“It’s true! No matter what recipe she’s cooking, she can’t leave it alone—she has to change it.”

“Listen to him! As if he doesn’t do the exact same thing!”

“Yes—but at a certain point I stop. I let the recipe be. But your mother will get a recipe absolutely perfect—and then the next time she cooks it, she’s gotta add something new. Like the time she put whiskey in the marinara sauce.”

It made me laugh when he mentioned it. Mom had added so much whiskey, we all got drunk. It’s a cherished family memory that I’ll one day share with my children, and/or therapist.

Finally she turned to talk to him directly. “So—I didn’t cook out the alcohol enough—big deal. I’ll have you know I saw that on the Food Channel.”

“So go marry the Food Channel.”

“Maybe I will.”

They looked at each other, pretending to be annoyed, then Dad reached around and squeezed her left butt cheek, she grinned and grabbed his, then the whole thing became so full of inappropriate parental affection, I had to leave the room.

I’m like my father in lots of ways, I guess, but in this respect I’m like my mother. Even when the recipe’s working perfectly, I can never leave well enough alone.

With about a dozen time contracts to fill out—each one a little bit different—I tried to hurry home from school that day, hoping to avoid anyone else who wanted to shave some time off their miserable existence. That’s when I ran into Skaterdud. At first he rolled past me on his board like it was just coincidence, but a second later he looped back around. He flustered me with his eight-part handshake before he started talking.

“Cultural Geography, man,” he said, shaking his head—it was a class we were both in together. “I just don’t get it. I mean—is it culture? Is it geography? You know where I’m going, right?”

“The skate park?” I answered. Sure, it was closed for the winter, but that never stopped Skaterdud before.

“I’m talking conceptually,” he said. “Gotta follow close or you’re not never gettin’ nowhere.”

I’ve learned that silence is the best response when you have no idea what someone is talking about. Silence, and a knowing nod.

“I’m thinking maybe one favor begets another, comprende?”

I nodded again, hoping he hadn’t suddenly become bilingual. It was hard enough to understand him in one language.

“So you’ll do it?” he asked.

“Do what?” I had to finally ask.

He looked at me like I was an imbecile. “Write my Cultural Geography paper for me.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because,” he said, “I’m gonna give up six whole months of my life to your boy Gunnar.”

That got my interest. No one had offered that much. The Master of Time was intrigued.

Skaterdud laughed at the expression on my face. “Ain’t no biggie,” he said. “It’s not like it’s never gonna matter—’cause don’t I already know when I’m gonna be pushin’ up posies? Or seaweed, in my case? That date with destiny ain’t never gonna change, because the fortune-teller’s prediction would have already taken into account whatever life I’d give away to Gunnar. Smart, right? Yeah, I got this wired!”

I was actually following his logic, and it scared me. “So ... why just six months?” I said, playing along. “If your future’s all set in stone no matter what you do, why not give a year?”

“Done,” said Skaterdud, slapping me on the back. “Don’t forget—that Cultural Geography paper’s due Friday.”

“Whoa! Wait a second! I didn’t say it was a deal.” I was getting all mad now, because I felt like I was a sucker at a carnival, and had gotten tricked into this—so I said the first thing that came to mind, which, sadly, was: “What’s in it for me?”

Skaterdud shrugged. “What do you want?”

I thought about how stockbrokers get commissions when they make a deal, so I thought, Why not me? “One extra month commission for me. Yeah, that’s it. An extra month to do with as I please.”

“Done,” he said again. “Let me read the paper before you turn it in so I know what I wrote.”

I, Reginald Michaelangelo Smoot, aka Skaterdud, in addition to the twelve months donated to Gunnar Ümlaut in the attached contract, do hereby bequeath one month to Anthony Paul Bonano for his own personal use in any way he sees fit, including, but not limited to: a. ) Extending his own natural life. b. ) Extending the life of a family member or beloved pet.c.) Anything else, really.