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
“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.”
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. Umlaut 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. Umlaut 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. Umlaut did not have work as an excuse.
