Fruit by Brian Francis Page B

She’d be on my case all the time, asking me if I called him. So I bit my tongue.
    “Beth, I don’t think the solution to this is golf,” my dad said.
    “Well what is the solution, Henry? Assuming there is some kind of problem to begin with. Personally, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with Peter. He’s my little angel.”
    “There you go again,” my dad said as we pulled into the driveway.
    “What do you mean?”
    “Smothering him. Making excuses for him. Setting him up just like you know who.”
    “Who?” my mother asked. “Who?” She sounded like an owl.
    My father didn’t say anything. He just got out and left the two of us sitting in the car.
    “Don’t pay any attention to him, Peter,” my mother said, “he’s just grouchy from shift work. It happens. Oh no! I forgot about getting the ashtrays!”
    She ran into the house to get my father. I got out and went straight to my room, shut the door, and stuck my desk chair under the knob. I should’ve been happy that Dr. Luka didn’t discover my nipples, but I wasn’t. All I kept thinking about was what Dr. Luka had said when he stopped adjusting the scale.
    “Vow.”
    Two hundred and four pounds. I reached between my mattresses and pulled out a list I had made when I turned thirteen last year. I had written down all the things I needed to change in order to become a new and improved Peter Paddington.
    1) Lose weight.
    2) Buy more clothes.
    3) Learn how to play sports.
    4) Try to look Mr. Hanlan in the eye.
    5) Get a boy friend.
    6) Smile more.
    7) Be vague.
    8) Get tanned.
    9) Act confident.
    10) Lose weight.
    And here I was, almost a year later and I hadn’t managed to do one thing on the list. In fact, the list only got bigger. I grabbed a pen.
    II) Get normal nipples.
    “You think getting rid of us is going to turn you into the ‘new’ Peter Paddington?” my nipples asked.
    “It’d be a start.”
    “Give us a break,” my nipples said. “You made us this way in the first place.”
    “I did not!” I said. “I’m innocent.”
    “That’s a bunch of baloney. Let’s see. Who was it checking out the men’s underwear section in the Sears catalogue last night?”
    “I need new underwear,” I said. “How do I know what kind to get unless I see what the latest styles are?”
    “Face it,” my nipples said. “We’re going to be together for a long, long time. You might as well get used to us.”
    I got out the masking tape and shut them up. I was so angry at my evil nipples. Who did they think they were, anyway?
    I needed to do something to take my mind off things so I decided to play the Mirror Game. The Mirror Game is kind of creepy, so I only do it when there’s someone else home. I never do it late at night, either. To play the Mirror Game, I turn off all the lights and close my curtains and light the candle I keep in the right-hand drawerof my desk. I sit in front of my mirror and put the candle beside me. The trick is to keep staring at yourself without blinking. Once you blink, you lose your concentration and have to start all over again.
    After a while, everything will start to get cloudy. Then I’ll see other people’s faces. Sometimes, I see the face of an old woman. Sometimes, an old man. There’s a guy with a dark beard that shows up sometimes, too. One time, I think I saw the Devil, which creeped me out pretty good.
    Once, I told Christine about the Mirror Game. She said that the faces I saw were proof of reincarnation.
    “Your soul goes into another person that’s being born at the same time and you live your life as someone else,” she said. “Anyone with half a brain knows it’s true.”
    “Can a man come back as a woman?” I asked.
    “You could come back as anything — a tree, an eagle, even a fly. You just never know.”
    I don’t know if I’d like to come back if I had to be a boring old tree. Or if I had to be a fly and eat dog poop all day. If I had a choice, I’d like to come back as a fashion