Нил Шустерман - Antsy Does Time

I was relieved to know that it wasn’t just me. If he stymied his own sister, it meant he was more of a mystery, and I was less of a numbskull.

Out front I heard the scrape of metal on pavement, and glanced out of the window to see the tow truck leaving the driveway, scraping the underside of the Lexus on the curb as it did. Mr. Ümlaut just stood there and watched it go. I almost expected him to wave.

“So what’s wrong with your car?” I asked, in an attempt to change the subject.

“It’s not our car,” Kjersten said. “At least not anymore.” Then she got up and closed the blinds so she didn’t have to look at her father standing in the driveway. “It just got repossessed.”

This is something I knew a little bit about. When my parents got my brother Frankie a car, he was supposed to get a part-time job and make payments on it. He didn’t, and the family fights all became about how they’d come and take the car away. Dad was going to let the bank repossess the car to teach Frankie a lesson, but it never got that far—Frankie got the job, started making payments, and the threatening phone calls and letters in red ink stopped coming. I wondered how many letters and phone calls you had to ignore until they actually showed up at your door.

“My father tried to stop them by ripping out some hoses so they couldn’t drive it away. Then they sent a tow truck.”

“I’m sorry,” was all I could say to Kjersten. Now I felt like an idiot for dismissing the whole thing as just a family argument—but before I started beating myself up over it, I did a quick search for ultracool Antsy, who seemed to be easier to find these days. Even without thinking, I knew what he would do. I went to her, and gave her a gentle kiss. She kissed me back with a little bit of spark, so I kissed her again with slightly higher voltage, and she returned that with enough electricity to light Times Square, but before circuit breakers started popping, we shut it down, because we both knew this wasn’t the time or place. Just my luck, right?

“Don’t be too hard on Gunnar,” Kjersten said.

“Hey, you’re the one throwing pillows at him.”

With a gust of cold air, Mr. Ümlaut came in and saw Kjersten and me standing a little too close. I made no move to back away from her. Sometimes a guy’s gotta stand his ground.

“I thought your business was with Gunnar,” he said.

“Yeah, well, I got lots of business.”

He looked from me to Kjersten, to me again, like he was watching one of her tennis matches. Finally he settled his gaze on her, and he pointed the parental threatening finger.

“We’ll talk about this later.” Without looking at me again, he went to the back of the house and I heard the door to his study close. This was a house of many closing doors.

“We won’t talk,” Kjersten said. “He says that all the time, but we never do.” Kjersten smiled at me, but there wasn’t much joy in that smile.

“Yeah,” I said, shaking my head in understanding. “Fathers and follow-through . . .” My own father didn’t follow through on much of anything these days—threats or promises—since he started the restaurant. But Mr. Ümlaut did not have work as an excuse.

“I just wish things could be the way they were a couple of years ago,” Kjersten said, “back when everything was fine—or at least when I was naive enough to think it was.” Some warmth came back to her smile as she looked at me. I was glad I could have that effect on her. “You’re lucky you’re a freshman—you’ve got your whole life ahead of you.”

That made me laugh. “And you don’t?”

She kissed me gently on the forehead, then looked out to the grease spot on the driveway where her father’s car had been. “My life is going to change very soon.”

“Whoever it is, I have no intention of letting you in.”

I knocked on Gunnar’s door again. A more sensible guy might have been satisfied with Kjersten’s kisses and left, convincing himself that Gunnar was somebody else’s problem, but I don’t possess the self-preservation instinct. I’ve got the this-frying-pan-isn’t-hot-enough-let’s-try-the-fire instinct. I must have been Roadkyll Raccoon in a previous life.

I knocked again. This time there was no response, but I did hear the door being unlocked. I opened it to find Gunnar lying facedown on his bed, with a pillow over his head to shut out the world. This was quite a feat—because just a second ago he had unlocked the door. He must have hurried back to his bed at lightning speed, just so he could present himself to me in this state of anguish.

I sat at his desk chair, realizing he couldn’t stay that way for long—he’d have to breathe eventually. Sure enough, he loosened the grip on the pillow, turned to see me for just a split second, then turned his face the other way.

“Go away,” he said. But if he really wanted me to go away, he wouldn’t have unlocked the door.

I said to him the one thing I could think to say under the circumstances. “I’m sorry you’re not dying.”

He sat up and faced me. He seemed insulted. “Who says I’m not? Just because it’s a Dr. Gigabyte diagnosis doesn’t mean it’s not true.”

“Well, then maybe my sister has leprosy.”

He showed no sign of being surprised or confused by that, and I wondered if maybe he had, at some point, been given that diagnosis by Dr. Gigabyte, too.

“Have you seen any real doctors? What do they say?”

“I don’t care what they say. ‛The enlightened man knows the workings of his own body and soul.’”

“Who said that?” I asked.

I could see him thinking and he said, “The Dalai Lama.”

“You made that up!”

“So what.”

And then I had a sudden revelation. “You made them all up!” Even as I said it, I knew it was true. Nobody could have so many quotes-for-all-occasions at their fingertips. “None of those people ever said those things, did they? Your quotes are all fake!”

He looked down at the pillow in his hands, and punched it like he was kneading a wad of dough. “That doesn’t mean they couldn’t have said them,” he mumbled.

I laughed. Maybe it was the wrong thing to do, but the fact that even his pretensions were pretend struck me as funny. He didn’t react well to that. He stood up, and went to the door. “I’d like you to leave now.”

This time I think he meant it. “Well, for what it’s worth, I’m actually glad you’re not dying.” I stood up and went to the door. “Do your parents have any idea you’ve been conning the whole school?”

“I’m not conning anybody,” he said. “My life is over. Whether or not I actually die is just a technicality.”

But before I could ask him what that meant, he closed the door between us.

The next day—the Friday before a desperately needed Christmas vacation—I was hauled into the principal’s office again. This time he already had other guests—a man and a woman in expensive-looking business suits. When I walked in, they both stood up. I flinched, like you do when the cat jumps out in a horror movie.

“Ah,” said Principal Sinclair, “here’s the boy I’ve been telling you about.” I shook their hands—but can’t remember their names, on account of my brain was still processing the fact that they had been talking about me—but I’m pretty sure that the woman was the newly elected superintendent of schools.

“Anthony has been spearheading a schoolwide community-service effort to give hope to a terminally ill student.”

“Uh ... yeah,” I said, looking anywhere but at the three of them. “Funny you should mention that...”

“I’ve heard all about it,” said the superintendent. “We need more students like you.”