“Why didn’t you say something earlier?”
“I didn’t think anything needed to be said!”
“Bad call on your part.”
“You don’t take down my posters without telling me. That’s totally uncool, and I’m pretty sure you know it.”
“Am I supposed to feel like I’m in a museum here?”
“No, but you’re supposed to ask permission before redecorating.”
“Hmm.”
“Could you open your other eye while we talk?”
Blake opens his other eye and sits up in bed. “I apologize for not knowing that you were my all-powerful ruler. I assumed that since we were sharing this living space, I’d be allowed to make a small effort to stave off the homesickness and make myself at home.”
“Don’t say stave. Nobody says stave.”
“I say stave several times a day.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Whatever.”
“How would you feel if I went into your room and took down your rodent posters?” I ask.
“Please don’t call them rodents. It’s disrespectful.”
“No, it’s not. That’s what they’re called.”
“If you say so.”
“It’s the actual word! Rodents! It’s not a derogatory term! It’s like calling cats felines!”
“Since you’re my ruler, I guess I can’t argue.”
“Are you kidding me?” I know that there is a zero percent chance that this conversation is worth continuing, yet for some strange reason, I forge onward. “If I told somebody they had a rodent face, yeah, that would be disrespectful. But calling a rat a rodent is just using the proper term.”
“Did you really wake me up to discuss animal classifications?” Blake asks.
“No, I woke you up because you took down my posters.”
“Your posters weren’t injured.”
“That’s not the point.”
“What is the point?”
“The point is that we’re not roommates. You’re a guest. I’m totally willing to compromise. I even cleaned up my room for you, which is something I never do. But if you want to change things around, we have to discuss it first. That’s all.”
“We’ll just have to agree to disagree.”
“No! I don’t agree to that!”
“Rodney, Rodney, Rodney,” says Blake. “You need to relax. Being so high-strung isn’t good for you. You don’t want to have a nervous breakdown, do you?”
“I’d rather not, no.”
“So take a deep breath. In the grand scope of the universe in which we live, the posters in your room are a mere speck on a dot. In the overall scheme of things, it wouldn’t even matter if I set them on fire.”
Did my cousin threaten to set my posters on fire, or is he trying to make a point? The fact that I’m not immediately sure is a little scary.
“All I’m saying is—” I begin.
“You don’t need to say anything. You’ve made your point. If I’d known you had a squirrel phobia, I never would have decorated my half of the room this way. I’ll take them down first thing in the morning, unless they’re going to give you nightmares.”
There’s a pillow nearby that looks like it could be an excellent smothering tool. That’s probably a bad idea.
Sure, I could explain that I don’t have a squirrel phobia, but then he’d say something else infuriating, and we’d go back and forth until I start to gnaw off my own lips. For my own sanity, it’s time to bail.
“Good night, Blake,” I say.
“Good night, Rodney.”
“Call me Rodney again, and I’ll shave off your eyebrows while you sleep.”
“Good night, Rod.”
“Good night.”
Only ninety-two more days to go.
7.
“So I think Cousin Blake may be evil,” I tell Mom in the morning.
“Excuse me?”
“He’s evil. I’m not saying that he’d push somebody in front of a bus—though I’m not ruling that out—but I think there’s something genuinely wrong with him…in an evilish kind of way.”
Mom stops pouring her cup of coffee. “What makes you say that?”
“Basically, it was all the evil things he said and did yesterday.”
“Rod…”
“I’m not asking you to talk to him about it,” I say. “I can handle the situation. I just want it on record that I think he’s pure, dark evil.”
Mom resumes pouring her coffee. “Noted, I guess.”
Blake is still asleep. I had to play loud music through my headphones and put several layers of blanket over my head to drown out his snoring last night. If this continues, those layers of blanket are going to be stuffed in his mouth. Though prison wouldn’t be fun, at least it would be quieter.
“Like I said, I can handle it, but he should have come with a warning label.”
“It’s natural for there to be an adjustment period,” says Mom. “You’ve never had to share your space like this before. You’re used to having things your own way.”
“No, no, no, no, no, this isn’t me being selfish,” I insist. “I’m the good cousin here. He’s…he’s rotten. We’ll work it out, but I’ll tell you right now, for the sake of my social standing, I’m going to pretend I don’t know him tomorrow at school.”
“I hope you change your mind.”
“Not likely, but we’ll see.” It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours. Blake could still be a cool guy. Maybe his ears didn’t properly pop during the flight.
Mom heads off to work. Everybody is going to come over for band practice this afternoon, so we’ve got to get Blake’s boxes out of the garage, but I’m not going to touch them until Blake is up to do his share. Until Blake is awake…until Blake, that snake, is awake to take a break from being a flake and make my garage… Sorry, I’m not good at making up song lyrics on the spot. He doesn’t deserve his own song anyway.
Around noon, the snoring ceases. He’s either awake or dead. Despite the impression I may have given, I hope it’s the former.
My bedroom door opens and Blake emerges, looking like somebody who’s stepped off a thirty-six-hour ride on a Tilt-A-Whirl. “G’mrn,” he says, which I think translates to “Good morning.”
“Good morning, Sunshine,” I tell him. “I trust you had a restful night?”
“It was okay. Mattress could be better.”
“Well, it’ll be a lot better tonight because you’ll be
