The Grass 1 страница

PART TWO

The Grass

I’d been asleep for just about thirty minutes when my alarm clock went off at 6: 32. But I did not personally notice that my alarm clock was going off for seventeen minutes, not until I felt hands on my shoulders and heard the distant voice of my mother saying, “Good morning, sleepyhead. ”

“Uhh, ” I responded. I felt significantly more tired than I had back at 5: 55, and I would have skipped school, except I had perfect attendance, and while I realized that perfect attendance is not particularly impressive or even necessarily admirable, I wanted to keep the streak alive. Plus, I wanted to see how Margo would act around me.

When I walked into the kitchen, Dad was telling Mom something while they ate at the breakfast counter. Dad paused when he saw me and said, “How’d you sleep? ”

“I slept fantastically, ” I said, which was true. Briefly, but well.

He smiled. “I was just telling your mom that I have this recurring anxiety dream, ” he said. “So I’m in college. And I’m taking a Hebrew class, except the professor doesn’t speak Hebrew, and the tests aren’t in Hebrew — they’re in gibberish. But everyone is acting like this made-up language with a made-up alphabet is Hebrew. And so I have this test, and I have to write in a language I don’t know using an alphabet I can’t decipher. ”

“Interesting, ” I said, although in point of fact it wasn’t. Nothing is as boring as other people’s dreams.

“It’s a metaphor for adolescence, ” my mother piped up. “Writing in a language — adulthood — you can’t comprehend, using an alphabet — mature social interaction — you can’t recognize. ” My mother worked with crazy teenagers in juvenile detention centers and prisons. I think that’s why she never really worried about me — as long as I wasn’t ritually decapitating gerbils or urinating on my own face, she figured I was a success.

A normal mother might have said, “Hey, I notice you look like you’re coming down off a meth binge and smell vaguely of algae. Were you perchance dancing with a snakebit Margo Roth Spiegelman a couple hours ago? ” But no. They preferred dreams.

I showered, put on a T-shirt and a pair of jeans. I was late, but then again, I was always late.

“You’re late, ” Mom said when I made it back to the kitchen. I tried to shake the fog in my brain enough to remember how to tie my sneakers.

“I am aware, ” I answered groggily.

Mom drove me to school. I sat in the seat that had been Margo’s. Mom was mostly quiet on the drive, which was good, because I was entirely asleep, the side of my head against the minivan window.

As Mom pulled up to school, I saw Margo’s usual spot empty in the senior parking lot. Couldn’t blame her for being late, really. Her friends didn’t gather as early as mine.

As I walked up toward the band kids, Ben shouted, “Jacobsen, was I dreaming or did you—” I gave him the slightest shake of my head, and he changed gears midsentence— “and me go on a wild adventure in French Polynesia last night, traveling in a sailboat made of bananas? ”

“That was one delicious sailboat, ” I answered. Radar raised his eyes at me and ambled into the shade of a tree. I followed him. “Asked Angela about a date for Ben. No dice. ” I glanced over at Ben, who was talking animatedly, a coffee stirrer dancing in his mouth as he spoke.

“That sucks, ” I said. “It’s all good, though. He and I will hang out and have a marathon session of Resurrection or something. ”

Ben came over then, and said, “Are you trying to be subtle? Because I know you’re talking about the honeybunnyless prom tragedy that is my life. ” He turned around and headed inside. Radar and I followed him, talking as we went past the band room, where freshmen and sophomores were sitting and chatting amid a slew of instrument cases.

“Why do you even want to go? ” I asked.

“Bro, it’s our senior prom. It’s my last best chance to be some honeybunny’s fondest high school memory. ” I rolled my eyes.

The first bell rang, meaning five minutes to class, and like Pavlov’s dogs, people started rushing around, filling up the hallways. Ben and Radar and I stood by Radar’s locker. “So why’d you call me at three in the morning for Chuck Parson’s address? ”

I was mulling over how to best answer that question when I saw Chuck Parson walking toward us. I elbowed Ben’s side and cut my eyes toward Chuck. Chuck, incidentally, had decided that the best strategy was to shave off Lefty. “Holy shitstickers, ” Ben said.

Soon enough, Chuck was in my face as I scrunched back against the locker, his forehead deliciously hairless. “What are you assholes looking at? ”

“Nothing, ” said Radar. “We’re certainly not looking at your eyebrows. ” Chuck flicked Radar off, slammed an open palm against the locker next to me, and walked away.

“You did that? ” Ben asked, incredulous.

“You can never tell anyone, ” I said to both of them. And then quietly added, “I was with Margo Roth Spiegelman. ”

Ben’s voice rose with excitement. “You were with Margo Roth Spiegelman last night? At THREE A. M.? ” I nodded. “Alone? ” I nodded. “Oh my God, if you hooked up with her, you have to tell me every single thing that happened. You have to write me a term paper on the look and feel of Margo Roth Spiegelman’s breasts. Thirty pages, minimum! ”

“I want you to do a photo-realistic pencil drawing, ” Radar said.

“A sculpture would also be acceptable, ” Ben added.

Radar half raised his hand. I dutifully called on him. “Yes, I was wondering if it would be possible for you to write a sestina about Margo Roth Spiegelman’s breasts? Your six words are: pink, round, firmness, succulent, supple, and pillowy. ”

“Personally, ” Ben said, “I think at least one of the words should be buhbuhbuhbuh. ”

“I don’t think I’m familiar with that word, ” I said.

“It’s the sound my mouth makes when I’m giving a honey-bunny the patented Ben Starling Speedboat. ” At which point Ben mimicked what he would do in the unlikely event that his face ever encountered cleavage.

“Right now, ” I said, “although they have no idea why, thousands of girls all across America are feeling a chill of fear and disgust run down their spines. Anyway, I didn’t hook up with her, perv. ”

“Typical, ” Ben said. “I’m the only guy I know with the balls to give a honeybunny what she wants, and the only one with no opportunities. ”

“What an amazing coincidence, ” I said. It was life as it had always been — only more fatigued. I had hoped that last night would change my life, but it hadn’t — at least not yet.

The second bell rang. We hustled off to class.

I became extremely tired during calc first period. I mean, I had been tired since waking, but combining fatigue with calculus seemed unfair. To stay awake, I was scribbling a note to Margo— nothing I’d ever send to her, just a summary of my favorite moments from the night before — but even that could not keep me awake. At some point, my pen just stopped moving, and I found my field of vision shrinking and shrinking, and then I was trying to remember if tunnel vision was a symptom of fatigue. I decided it must be, because there was only one thing in front of me, and it was Mr. Jiminez at the blackboard, and this was the only thing that my brain could process, and so when Mr. Jiminez said, “Quentin? ” I was extraordinarily confused, because the one thing happening in my universe was Mr. Jiminez writing on the blackboard, and I couldn’t fathom how he could be both an auditory and a visual presence in my life.

“Yes? ” I asked.

“Did you hear the question? ”

“Yes? ” I asked again.

“And you raised your hand to answer it? ” I looked up, and sure enough my hand was raised, but I did not know how it had come to be raised, and I only sort of knew how to go about de-raising it. But then after considerable struggle, my brain was able to tell my arm to lower itself, and my arm was able to do so, and then finally I said, “I just needed to ask to go to the bathroom? ”

And he said, “Go ahead, ” and then someone else raised a hand and answered some question about some kind of differential equation.

I walked to the bathroom, splashed water on my face, and then leaned over the sink, close to the mirror, and appraised myself. I tried to rub the bloodshotedness out of my eyes, but I couldn’t. And then I had a brilliant idea. I went into a stall, put the seat down, sat down, leaned against the side, and fell asleep. The sleep lasted for about sixteen milliseconds before the second period bell rang. I got up and walked to Latin, and then to physics, and then finally it was fourth period, and I found Ben in the cafeteria and said, “I really need a nap or something. ”

“Let’s have lunch with RHAPAW, ” he answered.

RHAPAW was a fifteen-year-old Buick that had been driven with impunity by all three of Ben’s older siblings and was, by the time it reached Ben, composed primarily out of duct tape and spackle. Her full name was Rode Hard And Put Away Wet, but we called her RHAPAW for short. RHAPAW ran not on gasoline, but on the inexhaustible fuel of human hope. You would sit on the blisteringly hot vinyl seat and hope she would start, and then Ben would turn the key and the engine would turn over a couple times, like a fish on land making its last, meager, dying flops. And then you would hope harder, and the engine would turn over a couple more times. You hoped some more, and it would finally catch.

Ben started RHAPAW and turned the AC on high. Three of the four windows didn’t even open, but the air conditioner worked magnificently, though for the first few minutes it was just hot air blasting out of the vents and mixing with the hot stale air in the car. I reclined the passenger seat all the way back, so that I was almost lying down, and I told him everything: Margo at my window, the Wal-Mart, the revenge, the SunTrust Building, entering the wrong house, SeaWorld, the I-will-miss-hanging-out-with-you.

He didn’t interrupt me once — Ben was a good friend in the not-interrupting way — but when I finished, he immediately asked me the most pressing question in his mind.

“Wait, so about Jase Worthington, how small are we talking? ”

“Shrinkage may have played a role, since he was under significant anxiety, but have you ever seen a pencil? ” I asked him, and Ben nodded. “Well, have you ever seen a pencil eraser? ” He nodded again. “Well, have you ever seen the little shavings of rubber left on the paper after you erase something? ” More nodding. “I’d say three shavings long and one shaving wide, ” I said. Ben had taken a lot of crap from guys like Jason Worthington and Chuck Parson, so I figured he was entitled to enjoy it a little. But he didn’t even laugh. He was just shaking his head slowly, awestruck.

“God, she is such a badass. ”

“I know. ”

“She’s the kind of person who either dies tragically at twenty-seven, like Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, or else grows up to win, like, the first-ever Nobel Prize for Awesome. ”

“Yeah, ” I said. I rarely tired of talking about Margo Roth Spiegelman, but I was rarely this tired. I leaned back against the cracked vinyl headrest and fell immediately asleep. When I woke up, a Wendy’s hamburger was sitting in my lap with a note. Had to go to class, bro. See you after band.

Later, after my last class, I translated Ovid while sitting up against the cinder-block wall outside the band room, trying to ignore the groaning cacophony coming from inside. I always hung around school for the extra hour during band practice, because to leave before Ben and Radar meant enduring the unbearable humiliation of being the lone senior on the bus.

After they got out, Ben dropped Radar off at his house right by the Jefferson Park “village center, ” near where Lacey lived. Then he took me home. I noticed Margo’s car was not parked in her driveway, either. So she hadn’t skipped school to sleep. She’d skipped school for another adventure — a me-less adventure. She’d probably spent her day spreading hair-removal cream on the pillows of other enemies or something. I felt a little left out as I walked into the house, but of course she knew I would never have joined her anyway — I cared too much about a day of school. And who even knew if it would be just a day for Margo. Maybe she was off on another three-day jaunt to Mississippi, or temporarily joining the circus. But it wasn’t either of those, of course. It was something I couldn’t imagine, that I would never imagine, because I couldn’t be Margo.

I wondered what stories she would come home with this time. And I wondered if she would tell them to me, sitting across from me at lunch. Maybe, I thought, this is what she meant by I will miss hanging out with you. She knew she was heading somewhere for another of her brief respites from Orlando’s paperness. But when she came back, who knew? She couldn’t spend the last weeks of school with the friends she’d always had, so maybe she would spend them with me after all.

She didn’t have to be gone long for the rumors to start. Ben called me that night after dinner. “I hear she’s not answering her phone. Someone on Facebook said she’d told them she might move into a secret storage room in Tomorrowland at Disney. ”

“That’s idiotic, ” I said.

“I know. I mean, Tomorrowland is by far the crappiest of the Lands. Someone else said she met a guy online. ”

“Ridiculous, ” I said.

“Okay, fine, but what? ”

“She’s somewhere by herself having the kind of fun we can only imagine, ” I said.

Ben giggled. “Are you saying that she’s playing with herself? ”

I groaned. “Come on, Ben. I mean she’s just doing Margo stuff. Making stories. Rocking worlds. ”

That night, I lay on my side, staring out the window into the invisible world outside. I kept trying to fall asleep, but then my eyes would dart open, just to check. I couldn’t help but hope that Margo Roth Spiegelman would return to my window and drag my tired ass through one more night I’d never forget.

Margo left often enough that there weren’t any Find Margo rallies at school or anything, but we all felt her absence. High school is neither a democracy nor a dictatorship — nor, contrary to popular belief, an anarchic state. High school is a divine-right monarchy. And when the queen goes on vacation, things change. Specifically, they get worse. It was during Margo’s trip to Mississippi sophomore year, for example, that Becca had unleashed the Bloody Ben story to the world. And this was no different. The little girl with her finger in the dam had run off. Flooding was inevitable.

That morning, I was on time for once and got a ride with Ben. We found everyone unusually quiet outside the band room. “Dude, ” our friend Frank said with great seriousness.

“What? ”

“Chuck Parson, Taddy Mac, and Clint Bauer took Clint’s Tahoe and ran over twelve bikes belonging to freshmen and sophomores. ”

“That sucks, ” I said, shaking my head.

Our friend Ashley added, “Also, yesterday somebody posted our phone numbers in the boys’ bathroom with — well, with dirty stuff. ”

I shook my head again, and then joined the silence. We couldn’t turn them in; we’d tried that plenty in middle school, and it inevitably resulted in more punishment. Usually, we’d just have to wait until someone like Margo reminded everyone what immature jackasses they all were.

But Margo had given me a way of starting a counteroffensive. And I was just about to say something when, in my peripheral vision, I saw a large individual running toward us at a full sprint. He wore a black ski mask and carried a large, complex green water cannon. As he ran past he tagged me on the shoulder and I lost my footing, landing against the cracked concrete on my left side. As he reached the door, he turned back and shouted toward me, “You screw with us and you’re gonna get smackdown. ” The voice was not familiar to me.

Ben and another of our friends picked me up. My shoulder hurt, but I didn’t want to rub it. “You okay? ” asked Radar.

“Yeah, I’m fine. ” I rubbed the shoulder now.

Radar shook his head. “Someone needs to tell him that while it is possible to get smacked down, and it is also possible to get a smackdown, it is not possible to get ‘smackdown. ’” I laughed. Someone nodded toward the parking lot, and I looked up to see two little freshmen guys walking toward us, their T-shirts hanging wet and limp from their narrow frames.

“It was pee! ” one of them shouted at us. The other one didn’t say anything; he just held his hands far away from his T-shirt, which only sort of worked. I could see rivulets of liquid snaking from his sleeve down his arm.

“Was it animal pee or human pee? ” someone asked.

“How would I know! What, am I an expert in the study of pee? ”

I walked over to the kid. I put my hand on the top of his head, the only place that seemed totally dry. “We’ll fix this, ” I said. The second bell rang, and Radar and I raced to calc. As I slid into my desk I dinged my arm, and the pain radiated into my shoulder. Radar tapped his notebook, where he’d circled a note: Shoulder okay?

I wrote on the corner of my notebook: Compared to those freshmen, I spent the morning in a field of rainbows frolicking with puppies.

Radar laughed enough for Mr. Jiminez to shoot him a look. I wrote, I have a plan, but we have to figure out who it was.

Radar wrote back, Jasper Hanson, and circled it several times. That was a surprise.

How do you know?

Radar wrote, You didn’t notice? Dumbass was wearing his own football jersey.

Jasper Hanson was a junior. I’d always thought him harmless, and actually sort of nice — in that bumbling, dude-how’s-it-going kind of way. Not the kind of guy you’d expect to see shooting geysers of pee at freshmen. Honestly, in the governmental bureaucracy of Winter Park High School, Jasper Hanson was like Deputy Assistant Undersecretary of Athletics and Malfeasance. When a guy like that gets promoted to Executive Vice President of Urine Gunning, immediate action must be taken.

So when I got home that afternoon, I created an email account and wrote my old friend Jason Worthington.

From: mavenger@gmail. com

To: jworthington90@yahoo. com

Subject: You, Me, Becca Arrington’s House, Your Penis, Etc.

Dear Mr. Worthington,

1. $200 in cash should be provided to each of the 12 people whose bikes your colleagues destroyed via Chevy Tahoe. This shouldn’t be a problem, given your magnificent wealth.

2. This graffiti situation in the boys’ bathroom has to stop.

3. Water guns? With pee? Really? Grow up.

4. You should treat your fellow students with respect, particularly those less socially fortunate than you.

5. You should probably instruct members of your clan to behave in similarly considerate ways.

I realize that it will be very difficult to accomplish some of these tasks. But then again, it will also be very difficult not to share the attached photograph with the world.

Yours truly,

Your Friendly Neighborhood Nemesis

The reply came twelve minutes later.

Look, Quentin, and yeah, I know it’s you. You know it wasn’t me who squirt-peed those freshmen. I’m sorry, but it’s not like I control the actions of other people.

My answer:

Mr. Worthington,

I understand that you do not control Chuck and Jasper.

But you see, I am in a similar situation. I do not control the little devil sitting on my left shoulder. The devil is saying, “PRINT THE PICTURE PRINT THE PICTURE TAPE IT UP ALL OVER SCHOOL DO IT DO IT DO IT. ” And then on my right shoulder, there is a little tiny white angel. And the angel is saying, “Man, I sure as shit hope all those freshmen get their money bright and early on Monday morning. ”

So do I, little angel. So do I.

Best wishes,

Your Friendly Neighborhood Nemesis

He did not reply, and he didn’t need to. Everything had been said.

Ben came over after dinner and we played Resurrection, pausing every half hour or so to call Radar, who was on a date with Angela. We left him eleven messages, each more annoying and salacious than the last. It was after nine o’clock when the doorbell rang. “Quentin! ” my mom shouted. Ben and I figured it was Radar, so we paused the game and walked out into the living room. Chuck Parson and Jason Worthington were standing in my doorway. I walked over to them, and Jason said, “Hey, Quentin, ” and I nodded my head. Jason glanced over at Chuck, who looked at me and mumbled, “Sorry, Quentin. ”

“For what? ” I asked.

“For telling Jasper to piss-gun those freshmen, ” he mumbled. He paused, and then said, “And the bikes. ”

Ben opened his arms, as if to hug. “C’mere, bro, ” he said.

“What? ”

“C’mere, ” he said again. Chuck stepped forward. “Closer, ” Ben said. Chuck was standing fully in the entryway now, maybe a foot from Ben. Out of nowhere, Ben slammed a punch into Chuck’s gut. Chuck barely flinched, but he immediately reared back to clobber Ben. Jase grabbed his arm, though. “Chill, bro, ” Jase said. “It’s not like it hurt. ” Jase reached out his hand, to shake. “I like your guts, bro, ” he said. “I mean, you’re an asshole. But still. ” I shook his hand.

They left then, getting into Jase’s Lexus and backing down the driveway. As soon as I closed the front door, Ben let out a mighty groan. “Ahhhhhhhggg. Oh, sweet Lord Jesus, my hand. ” He attempted to make a fist and winced. “I think Chuck Parson had a textbook strapped to his stomach. ”

“Those are called abs, ” I told him.

“Oh, yeah. I’ve heard of those. ” I clapped him on the back and we headed back to the bedroom to play Resurrection. We’d just unpaused it when Ben said, “By the way, did you notice that Jase says ‘bro’? I’ve totally brought bro back. Just with the sheer force of my own awesomeness. ”

“Yeah, you’re spending Friday night gaming and nursing the hand you broke while trying to sucker punch somebody. No wonder Jase Worthington has chosen to hitch his star to your wagon. ”

“At least I’m good at Resurrection, ” he said, whereupon he shot me in the back even though we were playing in team mode.

We played for a while longer, until Ben just curled onto the floor, holding the controller up to his chest, and went to sleep. I was tired, too — it had been a long day. I figured Margo would be back by Monday anyway, but even so, I felt a little pride at having been the person who stemmed the tide of lame.

Every morning, I now looked up through my bedroom window to check whether there was any sign of life in Margo’s room. She always kept her rattan shades closed, but since she’d left, her mom or somebody had pulled them up, so I could see a little snippet of blue wall and white ceiling. On that Saturday morning, with her only forty-eight hours gone, I figured she wouldn’t be home yet, but even so, I felt a flicker of disappointment when I saw the shade still pulled up.

I brushed my teeth and then, after briefly kicking at Ben in an attempt to wake him, walked out in shorts and a T-shirt. Five people were seated at the dining room table. My mom and dad. Margo’s mom and dad. And a tall, stout African-American man with oversize glasses wearing a gray suit, holding a manila folder.

“Uh, hi, ” I said.

“Quentin, ” my mom asked, “did you see Margo on Wednesday night? ”

I walked into the dining room and leaned against the wall, standing opposite the stranger. I’d thought of my answer to this question already. “Yeah, ” I said. “She showed up at my window at like midnight and we talked for a minute and then Mr. Spiegelman caught her and she went back to her house. ”

“And was that—? Did you see her after that? ” Mr. Spiegelman asked. He seemed quite calm.

“No, why? ” I asked.

Margo’s mom answered, her voice shrill. “Well, ” she said, “it seems that Margo has run away. Again. ” She sighed. “This would be — what is it, Josh, the fourth time? ”

“Oh, I’ve lost count, ” her dad answered, annoyed.

The African-American man spoke up then. “Fifth time you’ve filed a report. ” The man nodded at me and said, “Detective Otis Warren. ”

“Quentin Jacobsen, ” I said.

Mom stood up and put her hands on Mrs. Spiegelman’s shoulders. “Debbie, ” she said, “I’m so sorry. It’s a very frustrating situation. ” I knew this trick. It was a psychology trick called empathic listening. You say what the person is feeling so they feel understood. Mom does it to me all the time.

“I’m not frustrated, ” Mrs. Spiegelman answered. “I’m done. ”

“That’s right, ” Mr. Spiegelman said. “We’ve got a locksmith coming this afternoon. We’re changing the locks. She’s eighteen. I mean, the detective has just said there’s nothing we can do—”

“Well, ” Detective Warren interrupted, “I didn’t quite say that. I said that she’s not a missing minor, and so she has the right to leave home. ”

Mr. Spiegelman continued talking to my mom. “We’re happy to pay for her to go to college, but we can’t support this. . this silliness. Connie, she’s eighteen! And still so self-centered! She needs to see some consequences. ”

My mom removed her hands from Mrs. Spiegelman. “I would argue she needs to see loving consequences, ” my mom said.

“Well, she’s not your daughter, Connie. She hasn’t walked all over you like a doormat for a decade. We’ve got another child to think about. ”

“And ourselves, ” Mr. Spiegelman added. He looked up at me then. “Quentin, I’m sorry if she tried to drag you into her little game. You can imagine how. . just how embarrassing this is for us. You’re such a good boy, and she. . well. ”

I pushed myself off the wall and stood up straight. I knew Margo’s parents a little, but I’d never seen them act so bitchy. No wonder she was annoyed with them Wednesday night. I glanced over at the detective. He was flipping through pages in the folder. “She’s been known to leave a bit of a bread crumb trail; is that right? ”

“Clues, ” Mr. Spiegelman said, standing up now. The detective had placed the folder on the table, and Margo’s dad leaned forward to look at it with him. “Clues everywhere. The day she ran away to Mississippi, she ate alphabet soup and left exactly four letters in her soup bowl: An M, an I, an S, and a P. She was disappointed when we didn’t piece it together, although as I told her when she finally returned: ‘How can we find you when all we know is Mississippi? It’s a big state, Margo! ’”

The detective cleared his throat. “And she left Minnie Mouse on her bed when she spent a night inside Disney World. ”

“Yes, ” her mom said. “The clues. The stupid clues. But you can never follow them anywhere, trust me. ”

The detective looked up from his notebook. “We’ll get the word out, of course, but she can’t be compelled to come home; you shouldn’t necessarily expect her back under your roof in the near future. ”

“I don’t want her under our roof. ” Mrs. Spiegelman raised a tissue to her eyes, although I heard no crying in her voice. “I know that’s terrible, but it’s true. ”

“Deb, ” my mom said in her therapist voice.

Mrs. Spiegelman just shook her head — the smallest shake. “What can we do? We told the detective. We filed a report. She’s an adult, Connie. ”

“She’s your adult, ” my mom said, still calm.

“Oh, come on, Connie. Look, is it sick that it’s a blessing to have her out of the house? Of course it’s sick. But she was a sickness in this family! How do you look for someone who announces she won’t be found, who always leaves clues that lead nowhere, who runs away constantly? You can’t! ”

My mom and dad shared a glance, and then the detective spoke to me. “Son, I’m wondering if we can chat privately? ” I nodded. We ended up in my parents’ bedroom, he in an easy chair and me sitting on the corner of their bed.

“Kid, ” he said once he’d settled into the chair, “let me give you some advice: never work for the government. Because when you work for the government, you work for the people. And when you work for the people, you have to interact with the people, even the Spiegelmans. ” I laughed a little.

“Let me be frank with you, kid. Those people know how to parent like I know how to diet. I’ve worked with them before, and I don’t like them. I don’t care if you tell her parents where she is, but I’d appreciate it if you told me. ”

“I don’t know, ” I said. “I really don’t. ”

“Kid, I’ve been thinking about this girl. This stuff she does— she breaks into Disney World, for instance, right? She goes to Mississippi and leaves alphabet soup clues. She organizes a huge campaign to toilet paper houses. ”

“How do you know about that? ” Two years before, Margo had led the TP-ing of two hundred houses in a single night. Needless to say, I wasn’t invited on that adventure.

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