his Jeep cruising past with the bass thumping, his worn jeans and tight T-shirts, his muscled arms and the way he can just glance in your direction and make you feel as if you’re all of a sudden the center of the universe. All that makes him cool, but that sort of thing is lost on Margaret. Mom says she’s a late bloomer. I love Margaret, I really do, but sometimes I wonder if she’ll ever bloom at all.
Chapter Two
I finally have my Very Own Cody Dillon Moment today. I’m just coming out of the corner store on the way to school, and he’s just going in, but the door kind of jams, and he kind of bumps me, and I drop my math text and my lunch bag and the pack of gum I just bought. He picks it all up and hands it back to me all slow, eyes on mine.
“Sorry,” he says, and then the two girls he’s with, the ones from the Chinese restaurant, are all, “Um, Cody? Hello?” He puts up his hand. They shut up and roll their eyes, hands on their hips, belly buttons exposed even though that’s against school rules. One of them has a pierced belly button. It’s not like I’m some kind of prude or anything; I actually like the way it looks, but it’s just that belly button piercings are even more against the rules, so, um, hello? How To Get Kicked Out Of School In One Easy Lesson—get your belly button pierced and show it off. Duh.
He takes my hand (TAKES MY HAND!) and kisses the back of it (KISSES THE BACK OF IT!) and says, “My apologies” in an English accent, even though he’s from Vancouver.
When I tell Margaret, she’s all, “So what, Izzy? So your planets crashed for a second. Let me remind you, Cody Dillon is not from our planet. He’s a dropout.”
I don’t talk to her for the rest of the class. By the time the bell rings, she’s apologizing to me.
“Sorry. He’s not that bad,” she says. “I guess.”
“You guess he’s not that bad?” This is an apology?
“Well, he is kind of a badass.”
“With a nice ass.” I decide to let it go at that. Margaret has no idea what she’s talking about when it comes to boys. Men. The bad-asses are the best ones. The boring ones are just that: BORING.
But then there are the Robs of the world. Mom picks those. They seem like cool bad-asses at first, but then they turn out to be lazy slobs. Rob the Slob is the king of that particular population.
Chapter Three
Reliving my Cody Dillon Moment takes up most of my time. I don’t have much time left over to care that Rob the Slob hasn’t said one word to me since Mom left. I did a test. I made him macaroni and cheese seven nights in a row and he still didn’t say a word, even though there was meat in the fridge going bad. When Mom gets back, he’ll rat on me and she’ll do all the freaking out he’s too lazy to do. On the eighth night I add hot dogs (not moldy or stinky, probably still good) and some real cheese (slices), and make toast too, just so he can’t say I didn’t try. I just know it: she’ll come back and he’ll sit her on the couch, and then he’ll bring out the list of all the things I did wrong while she was gone and pace in front of her, reading right from the list.
My crimes? Let the laundry pile up, didn’t do the dishes, forgot to let his dumb dog out so it pissed on the floor, and of course that’s my fault too, nicked his cigarettes, skipped school and got caught. There’s more, I bet. I bet he’s waiting for Mom to come home so he can lay out how I ruin his life and it would be much better if I went and lived with my dad. Yeah, right. I’d rather fall off a cliff and break my neck. Like living with a manic-depressive freak who never leaves his spider-infested basement suite would be anything other than unbearable. That man collects dead spiders. He fills up entire jars with them. Mom says he wasn’t always like that, but how would I know? When I was two, just before he went to the loony bin the first time, he burnt down our house. There are no photos or anything else from
Chapter Two
I finally have my Very Own Cody Dillon Moment today. I’m just coming out of the corner store on the way to school, and he’s just going in, but the door kind of jams, and he kind of bumps me, and I drop my math text and my lunch bag and the pack of gum I just bought. He picks it all up and hands it back to me all slow, eyes on mine.
“Sorry,” he says, and then the two girls he’s with, the ones from the Chinese restaurant, are all, “Um, Cody? Hello?” He puts up his hand. They shut up and roll their eyes, hands on their hips, belly buttons exposed even though that’s against school rules. One of them has a pierced belly button. It’s not like I’m some kind of prude or anything; I actually like the way it looks, but it’s just that belly button piercings are even more against the rules, so, um, hello? How To Get Kicked Out Of School In One Easy Lesson—get your belly button pierced and show it off. Duh.
He takes my hand (TAKES MY HAND!) and kisses the back of it (KISSES THE BACK OF IT!) and says, “My apologies” in an English accent, even though he’s from Vancouver.
When I tell Margaret, she’s all, “So what, Izzy? So your planets crashed for a second. Let me remind you, Cody Dillon is not from our planet. He’s a dropout.”
I don’t talk to her for the rest of the class. By the time the bell rings, she’s apologizing to me.
“Sorry. He’s not that bad,” she says. “I guess.”
“You guess he’s not that bad?” This is an apology?
“Well, he is kind of a badass.”
“With a nice ass.” I decide to let it go at that. Margaret has no idea what she’s talking about when it comes to boys. Men. The bad-asses are the best ones. The boring ones are just that: BORING.
But then there are the Robs of the world. Mom picks those. They seem like cool bad-asses at first, but then they turn out to be lazy slobs. Rob the Slob is the king of that particular population.
Chapter Three
Reliving my Cody Dillon Moment takes up most of my time. I don’t have much time left over to care that Rob the Slob hasn’t said one word to me since Mom left. I did a test. I made him macaroni and cheese seven nights in a row and he still didn’t say a word, even though there was meat in the fridge going bad. When Mom gets back, he’ll rat on me and she’ll do all the freaking out he’s too lazy to do. On the eighth night I add hot dogs (not moldy or stinky, probably still good) and some real cheese (slices), and make toast too, just so he can’t say I didn’t try. I just know it: she’ll come back and he’ll sit her on the couch, and then he’ll bring out the list of all the things I did wrong while she was gone and pace in front of her, reading right from the list.
My crimes? Let the laundry pile up, didn’t do the dishes, forgot to let his dumb dog out so it pissed on the floor, and of course that’s my fault too, nicked his cigarettes, skipped school and got caught. There’s more, I bet. I bet he’s waiting for Mom to come home so he can lay out how I ruin his life and it would be much better if I went and lived with my dad. Yeah, right. I’d rather fall off a cliff and break my neck. Like living with a manic-depressive freak who never leaves his spider-infested basement suite would be anything other than unbearable. That man collects dead spiders. He fills up entire jars with them. Mom says he wasn’t always like that, but how would I know? When I was two, just before he went to the loony bin the first time, he burnt down our house. There are no photos or anything else from
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