Antsy Does Time by Neal Shusterman

donations. Everyone had their own reason for it. One guy did it to impress his girlfriend. One girl hoped it would get her into the popular crowd. Although I didn’t want to spend all my free time at my computer printing out time contracts, I couldn’t just walk away from what I had started, could I? Besides—there was a kind of power to being the go-to guy. The Master of Time. I even felt like I should start dressing for the part, you know? Like wearing a shirt and tie, the way the basketball team does on the day of a big game. So I found this tie covered with weird melting clocks designed by some dead artist named Dolly. Okay, I admit it, this was really starting to go to my head—like when Wendell Tiggor said he wanted to donate some time.
    â€œYou can’t,” I told him, “on account of Gunnar needs life, not wastes-of-life.”
    The thing is, Tiggor’s famous for having really lame comeback lines, like, “Oh yeah? If I’m a waste of life, then you’re a stupid stupidhead.” (Sometimes the person he was insulting would have to feed him a decent comeback line out of pity.)
    This time, however, Tiggor didn’t even try. He just pouted and slumped away. Why? Because the Master of Time had spoken, and he was deemed unworthy.
    What happened next, well, I guess I could blame it on Skaterdud, but it’s not his fault—not really. I blame it on Restless Recipe syndrome. That’s something my father once taught me.
    It was a month or so before the restaurant first opened, and he was trying to figure out what the official menu would be. It was the first time in his life he’d been forced to write down recipes he had always just kept in his head.
    He and Mom were in the kitchen together, cooking one meal after another, which we were giving away to neighbors, because not even Frankie could eat an entire menu. Mom had taken courses in French cooking last year, after finally admitting that Dad was the better Italian chef. It was her way of staking out new taste-bud territory. They had created these fusion FrenchItalian dishes, but that particular night as they cooked, Dad kept having to stop Mom from adding new ingredients.
    â€œYou know what your mother’s problem is?” he said to me as they cooked. He knew better than to ever criticize Mom directly. It always had to be bounced off a third person, the way live TV from China has to bounce off a satellite. “She suffers from ‘Restless Recipe syndrome.’”
    Mom’s response was to throw me a sarcastic “Oh, please” gaze, that I would theoretically relay back to my father at our stove somewhere in Beijing.
    â€œIt’s true! No matter what recipe she’s cooking, she can’t leave it alone—she has to change it.”
    â€œListen to him! As if he doesn’t do the exact same thing!”
    â€œYes—but at a certain point I stop. I let the recipe be. But your mother will get a recipe absolutely perfect—and then the next time she cooks it, she’s gotta add something new. Like the time she put whiskey in the marinara sauce.”
    It made me laugh when he mentioned it. Mom had added so much whiskey, we all got drunk. It’s a cherished family memory that I’ll one day share with my children, and/or therapist.
    Finally she turned to talk to him directly. “So—I didn’t cook out the alcohol enough—big deal. I’ll have you know I saw that on the Food Channel.”
    â€œSo go marry the Food Channel.”
    â€œMaybe I will.”
    They looked at each other, pretending to be annoyed, then Dad reached around and squeezed her left butt cheek, she grinned and grabbed his, then the whole thing became so full of inappropriate parental affection, I had to leave the room.
    I’m like my father in lots of ways, I guess, but in this respect I’m like my mother. Even when the recipe’s working perfectly, I can never leave well