“You’ve had a long day,” says Mom.
“Yeah, it was exhausting to carry all that luggage,” I add.
Mom glares at me. She thinks I’m making a snide comment about the quantity of luggage he brought when I was actually making a much worse comment about the fact that he made me carry it all.
“Very exhausting,” says Blake, not giving away that he didn’t participate in any of the luggage transport. He yawns again. “I’ll see you in the morning. I bet tomorrow will be an even greater pleasure than today, if such a thing is possible.”
“Good night,” says Mom. “We’re glad you’re here.”
“Good night,” I say, not adding anything about being glad that he’s here.
Blake walks back to my bedroom and closes the door.
“He’s very well-mannered,” says Mom.
“Yeah.”
“And you were worried that you two might not get along. Sometimes you just have to give people a chance.”
“You’re right,” I say. This is not the time to blab about Blake’s dual nature. I’m not saying that I’ve got a code of honor where I won’t squeal. Believe me, if Blake keeps up his behavior, I’ll squeal like a mobster ratting out his associates in exchange for immunity and a new identity under the Federal Witness Protection Program even if it means a lifetime of always looking over my shoulder and waiting for the ghosts of my past to make a reappearance. (Sorry if that was melodramatic. It’s been a rough day.)
For now, I’ll remain optimistic and trust that I can work things out with my cousin. If he knows I’m on to him, he’ll have to change his ways. He can’t maintain the illusion of not being despicable for three full months.
Mom yawns. “I think I’m ready for bed. Don’t stay up too late.”
“I won’t.” I give Mom a good night kiss. (Giving your mother a good night kiss is totally punk rock, and don’t you forget it!) And then I sit down on the couch. I text with Audrey for a while, giving her the latest thrilling updates, and then I brush my teeth, floss (I don’t expect you to consider me as a role model, but, yes, I floss every day), take care of other business that doesn’t require a detailed description, and then head to my bedroom.
(Okay, you need to trust me as a narrator, so I’ll confess that I don’t floss every day. But I floss at least three days out of five. That’s a sixty percent flossing rate. When the dentist asks, I lie and say that I floss every day, but it’s not like I’m saying, “Yep, I’m a flosser!” while plant life grows between my molars. I do have the occasional cavity. So though I’m not a perfect role model for dental hygiene, I do all right. And if you’re one of those people who thinks, Gosh, yanking strings around my teeth sure seems like a lot of work! I hope you’ll consider shifting your point of view and say, “Rod Conklin, lead singer of Fanged Grapefruit, flosses an adequate amount and now I shall too!”)
(I apologize if you’re not the kind of person who enjoys long parenthetical digressions. I’ll try to do better in future chapters, although I make no promises.)
(Note that I said future chapters. This chapter is going to be all parenthetical digressions, all the time! Woo!)
(Okay, I’ve got that out of my system. Apologies. But I can’t offer a refund for the purchase price of that portion of the book.)
As I open my bedroom door, it creaks. Fortunately, the creak is not nearly as loud as Blake’s awe-inspiring snoring, so I don’t wake him up.
It’s dark in my room, but something seems wrong.
The first wrong thing is that Blake is sleeping in my bed instead of on the inflatable mattress that I set up for him. But that doesn’t surprise me at all. Something else disturbs me.
I turn on the light.
Blake has redecorated my room.
To be fair, he’s only redecorated half of it. But he’s taken down everything on the left side of the room and replaced it with his own stuff. The punk rock band posters and a Guitars through History calendar that I’d had on my wall now rest in a neat stack on my desk.
I really don’t like the idea of Blake messing with my posters. He’d better not have torn any corners. If he’s so much as crinkled one of them, oh, how my cousin will suffer! Death would be too good for him!
The left side of my room is now decorated, walls and ceiling, with animal pictures. But not cute animals (I can enjoy a kitten picture as much as anybody) and not interesting animals (giraffes sure have wacky necks!) and not majestic animals (lions, tigers, elephants, pumas, leopards, hippos, etc.) and not even animals that indicate some sort of hobby. (For example, I don’t necessarily want to spend every evening looking at a picture of a salmon, but at least I could say, “Okay, Blake enjoys fishing.”)
No, Cousin Blake seems to have a thing for rodents.
I’m serious. There are pictures of rats, squirrels, opossums, and lemmings. If it’s got beady eyes and fur, there’s a picture of it up on my wall. Why would anybody want to look at a squirrel on purpose?
The giant-sized poster of a rat on my ceiling looks like it’s in 3-D. It’s not a greasy sewer rat, but it’s still a rat that’s placed exactly where I stare at the ceiling when I can’t fall asleep. If I already can’t sleep, how is a three-foot-long rat going to improve the situation?
Blake rolls over on his side. “Too much light,” he mutters.
“I didn’t give you permission to do this,” I whisper.
Blake opens one eye. “Huh?”
“Nobody said you could mess with my stuff.”
“I only touched my half of the room.”
“It’s not your half of
