Нил Шустерман - Antsy Does Time

That almost made me laugh.

“If you don’t mind,” the man said, “we’d like to donate time, too.”

Call me a gutless wonder, but I didn’t have the courage to let them know the truth about Gunnar and his “illness.” I tried, but the words stuck in my throat and clung to my tonsils like strep, refusing to come out.

“Yeah, sure, why not,” I said, and reached into my backpack, pulling out two blank time contracts for them to fill in and sign, with my principal signing as witness. Then, when it was done, Principal Sinclair sat on the corner of his desk, in that casual I’m-your-principal-but-I’m-also-your-friend kind of way. “Now, I’m sure you’ve heard that the student council has organized a rally for Gunnar during the first week of January,” he said.

“They have?”

“Yes—and I think you should give a speech, Anthony.”

There comes a moment in every really, really bad situation when you realize your canoe’s leaking, there’s no paddle, and you can hear Niagara Falls up ahead. There’s nothing you can do but hold on and pray for deliverance. I don’t mean the movie Deliverance, which is, coincidentally, about canoes—I mean real, Hail Mary, Twenty-third Psalm kind of deliverance.

“I’m not good at speeches.”

“I’m sure you’ll do fine,” said the superintendent. “Just speak from the heart.”

And the other guy said, “We’ll all be there to support you.”

“You’ll be there?” I asked. The Falls were getting louder by the minute.

“This school,” said the principal, “is under consideration as a National Blue Ribbon school. Academics are only a part of that. The school must also demonstrate that its students are committed to making the world a better place . . . and you, Anthony, are our shining star.”

In spite of what happened on the Double Date From Hell, my friendship with Lexie was back to normal. “I care about you too much to be anything more than mildly furious at you,” she had told me, but even then, I could tell she wasn’t furious at all.

The two of us kidnapped her grandfather as planned—the first Saturday of Christmas vacation. As usual, Old Man Crawley had no concept of what was in store for him today. “I don’t want to do this!” he yelled as I fought to blindfold him. “I’m calling the police! I’ll skewer you on the end of my cane!” But this was all part of the ritual.

By the time we got him out to his chauffeured Lincoln, he had stopped complaining about being kidnapped. Now he merely complained about the conditions.

“You forgot my winter coat.”

“It’s a warm day.”

“I just ate. If I have digestive problems because of this, I won’t be happy.”

“When are you ever happy?” I asked.

“Your attitude does not bode well for your paycheck.”

But I knew he paid me for my attitude as well. It was all part of the ambience of the experience. “This one’s special, Grandpa,” Lexie assured him.

“That’s what you always say,” he grumbled.

Our Holiday Kidnapping Extravaganza was a zip line fifty feet off the ground through the treetops of Prospect Park—the largest park in Brooklyn. Lexie had arranged to have engineering students build the zip line for class credit. There were two platforms equipped with rope-and-pulley lift systems, because Old Man Crawley couldn’t be expected to climb a ladder. Flying down the wire from one tree to the other, you reached a top speed of about forty miles an hour.

This was a good distraction from the Gunnar Debacle, as I was now calling it, since I figured I’d earned the right to be as pretentious as him. Still, it weighed heavily on my mind.

As the chauffeur drove to Prospect Park, I told Lexie everything.

“I knew it!” she said. “I knew something was wrong with that whole family. I could tell the way whatserface left that night without as much as a good-bye.”

“You were pouting in the bathroom,” I reminded her. “She couldn’t say good-bye to you. And anyway, I’m not breaking up with her, if that’s what you’re thinking. The problem is with her brother, not her.”

I had had enough time to really think about Gunnar’s behavior, and realized that this wasn’t just a simple con. He wasn’t faking in the traditional sense. There’s a fine line between being a hypochondriac and being a faker. I think Gunnar was speeding down that particular zip line at speeds in excess of forty miles an hour.

“Sounds to me,” said Lexie, “that he’s more miserable at the prospect of being healthy than being sick.”

“Exactly! It’s like he actually wants to have Pulmonary Monoxic Systemia.” And I posed to her the question that had been rattling in my head for days. “Why would anyone WANT to be dying?”

“Munchausen,” said Lexie.

I was tempted to say “gesundheit,” but I took the more serious route instead. “What’s that?” I asked. “Sounds bad.”

“It can be. It’s a mental illness where someone lies about being sick, to get attention. There are people who give themselves infections, so they can go to the doctor. There are people who make their own children sick.”

“All for attention?”

“Well,” said Lexie, “it’s complicated.”

“Which means,” grumbled her blindfolded grandfather, “that you’re wasting your breath trying to explain it to him.”

I thought about Gunnar. Did he want attention? He got a lot of it already. He was popular, girls liked him, everyone knew him. He wasn’t starving to be noticed . . . but, on the other hand, he wasn’t exactly the focus of his parents’ lives these days. But, on the other hand, neither was I, and I wasn’t telling everyone I had a dreaded disease, although I’m sure there are some people who are convinced I do.

We reached Prospect Park and walked Crawley, still blindfolded, to the first tree. When we took off the blindfold, Crawley made a move to run, but I caught him. This was a standard part of the ritual, too.

“This is too dangerous!” he shouted as we moved him onto a platform rigged with pulleys—probably more than were necessary, but after all, it was done by engineering students—they were trying to show off. “There must be laws against things like this!”

“That’ll be a great quote for your tombstone,” I said, but then I shut up, because it reminded me of Gunnar.

Crawley gave me the kind of gaze that knows no repeatable words, and we were hoisted up to the high platform, where one of the engineering students waited with sets of harnesses, helmets, and gear that looked like it was meant for space walks.

“How far is it to the other platform?” I asked the engineering guy next to me, but before he could answer, Crawley said bitterly:

“Lexie’s boyfriend could probably tell you.” And he made some clicking noises.

“Stop it, Grandpa.”

Now that he was safely in his harness, I pushed him and he went flying down the zip line, screaming and cursing for all he was worth.

“So how is Raoul?” I asked Lexie.

“Raoul and I agreed it was best to end it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No you’re not.”

“Yes, I am,” I told her. “Because now you’re going to want me to end it with Kjersten, just to keep the status quo.”

“Status quo,” she said. “Big words for you.”

“I’m Catholic,” I reminded her. “I get Latin.” Then I gave her a gentle shove, and she shot down the zip line, toward her grandfather and the nervous engineering students waiting to catch her.

“It’s a quarter mile,” said the engineering student, who had been waiting all this time to answer my question, “but it feels a lot longer!”