Нил Шустерман - Antsy Does Time

I still had no proof, only suspicion—after all, Gunnar really could have a different Dr. G—but I had a gut feeling that was impossible to ignore. The more I thought about it, the more certain I was. If Gunnar wasn’t dying, it would go a long way to explaining his family’s behavior. The way they never talked about it, as if . . . well, as if it wasn’t actually happening. And what about Kjersten? Was Kjersten in on this? Could she be? I suppose I could wrap my mind around Gunnar pretending to be sick—but I couldn’t believe Kjersten would be in on it, too. It made me realize I didn’t know, or understand, her all that well either.

I truly hoped his illness was fake. I’d be relieved if it was—and yet at the same time, the thought was already making me mad. See, I had wasted all that time collecting months for him, thinking I was doing something noble—something that might make his limited time a little brighter—and he accepted those months without the slightest hint of the lie. If this was a con, then everyone had been taken in—there was even that stupid time thermometer by the main office. Sure, I’d be thrilled to know he wasn’t dying—but I couldn’t deny the dark river of anger running beneath it. Just the right conditions for a sinkhole.

Mr. Ümlaut was home that night. I had hoped he wouldn’t be, because his presence added an even greater air of tension. His Lexus was in the driveway, but not for much longer, because it was being hooked up to a tow truck.

Good, I thought. If his car is in the shop, maybe he won’t go running off to that casino as much.

He stood there in an undershirt, in spite of the cold, watching his car as it was raised. His hands were in his pockets, and his shoulders slumped.

“Hi,” I said awkwardly. “I need to talk to Gunnar.”

“Yeah, yeah—he’s inside.”

He didn’t look at me when he spoke, or take his hands out of his pockets, and I got the feeling that if I had asked to see Attila the Hun, his response would have been, “Yeah, yeah—he’s inside.”

The front door was open a crack. I pushed it all the way open and stepped inside. Gunnar and Kjersten were in the living room—Gunnar was listening to an iPod so loudly I could hear the song all the way across the room. Kjersten sat on the sofa—but not in the way you usually sit on a sofa—she was sitting stiff and straight, like it was a hard chair. All at once I recognized this scene. This was the aftermath of a family fight. Mrs. Ümlaut was nowhere to be seen, but I suspected she was either upstairs in a room with the door locked, or in the basement violently doing laundry, or somewhere else where she could be alone with whatever emotions had gotten stirred. I wondered if this had anything to do with the car breaking down.

Kjersten noticed me first, but she didn’t smile and say hello. In fact, she didn’t seem happy to see me at all. Under the circumstances, I wasn’t entirely thrilled to see her either, but I told myself not to judge things until I had all the facts.

“Hi,” I said, trying to sound as casual as humanly possible, “what’s up?”

“Antsy, this isn’t a good time.”

Well, call me callous, but I had a mission today and would not be put off by a family squabble. “Yeah, but I need to talk to your brother,” I told her.

“Please, Antsy—just come back later, okay?”

“This can’t wait.”

Kjersten gave a resigned sigh, then threw a sofa pillow at Gunnar, getting his attention. He saw me and took off his earphones.

“Good, you’re just in time to witness this pivotal moment of our family’s history,” said Gunnar, seeming resigned, disgusted, amused, and angry all at the same time—a combination of emotions I usually associate with Old Man Crawley. “Have a seat, and enjoy the show,” he said. “You want me to get you some popcorn?”

Kjersten threw another pillow at him. “You’re such an idiot!”

“I’m here to talk about Dr. G,” I said, cutting to the chase. “Or should I say, Dr. Gigabyte?”

Then his cool expression hardened until he looked like a stubble-free version of his father. That’s when I knew my suspicions were right. It was all there in that look on his face. “There’s nothing to talk about,” he said.

“I think there is.”

He pushed past me. “Talk all you want to Kjersten—I’m sure you’d much rather talk to her anyway.” And he was gone, bounding up the stairs. A second later I heard a door slam.

I turned to Kjersten, but she wouldn’t look at me. Not that she was intentionally ignoring me, but she clearly had bigger things on her mind at the moment. Personally, I didn’t think a family argument was bigger than her brother faking a terminal illness. It occurred to me that in my conversation with Gunnar, I never asked him the question directly. The answer was heavy in the air, but the question needed to be asked.

“Gunnar isn’t really sick, is he?”

She looked at me for the first time since I had been alone with her. It was an odd look. I didn’t understand it. She seemed bewildered.

“You’re joking, right?”

“So ... then he’s actually sick?”

“Of course not!” She took a moment to gauge my seriousness, and her expression became a bit worried. “You mean you didn’t know?”

That threw me for a loop. I stammered a bit, and finally shut my mouth long enough to control it and simply said, “No.”

“You mean you weren’t just humoring him? Playing along?”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because you’re a good person.”

“I’m not that good!”

“You mean all this time ... all those contracts . . . you really thought he was dying?” said Kjersten. “I just thought it was a smart way to force Gunnar to snap out of it, and admit the truth!”

“I’m not that smart!”

She covered her mouth with both hands. “Oh no!” Her entire understanding of the situation was based on the premise that everyone knew Gunnar was faking. Now I could see all her thoughts cascading like dominoes. If I didn’t know, then other kids didn’t know, which meant the whole school believed Gunnar was dying. The fact that this was news to her made me feel sympathetic, and annoyed at the same time.

“Did you actually think Principal Sinclair was just ‛playing along’?”

“Principal Sinclair?”

“Did you think that stupid time thermometer was all part of some practical joke?”

“What thermometer?”

I explained it all to her, because between tennis, debate team, and the static filling her family life, she had missed some crucial things. She never heard my Morning Announcement, never noticed the thermometer. She knew that time donations were pouring in, but she thought it was just from other kids. She had no idea that it had become “official,” and that the faculty had begun donating months.

“There was a message on the answering machine, from Sinclair,” Kjersten said. “But I erased it before I heard the whole thing—I thought it was one of those school recordings we always get.” Which was understandable, since Principal Sinclair did sound like an automated message. I suspected there must have been more messages that Gunnar erased himself, knowing full well they were not recordings.

Then I thought about something Kjersten had said. She thought I was trying to get Gunnar to “snap out of it.”

“Does Gunnar actually believe Dr. Gigabyte?” I asked. “Does he really think he’s dying?”

The question just frustrated her. “How should I know? You know what he’s like—no one can ever figure out what he’s really thinking.”