goatee, rolling his tongue around his mouth. “Okay, okay. I’ll give it a couple of hours. Then I’ll phone her up. Just to say hello. And we’ll see if she mentions it.”
I tell him that sounds like a plan, but he doesn’t seem to be listening. I pull my workout instructions from my back pocket and head upstairs.
Pete’s room is like a museum exhibit. Everything is neat and organized and clean. All his CDs and DVDs are lined up in alphabetical order. All his books are arranged in the bookshelves using the Dewey decimal system. The clothes in his closet are color-coordinated. His posters — Harry Houdini, Clint Eastwood, the Beatles — are professionally framed and hung squarely on the walls. His fancy airplane models are placed strategically around the room, strung up from the ceiling or set out on a special display table made up to look like an aircraft carrier, with little air force figures standing around and tiny brass placards describing each airplane. He spends months making these models, getting all the details exactly right, and I have to say, I don’t see the big deal.
Pete’s dumbbells are stacked by the weight bench in neat little pyramids. I tiptoe toward them, careful not to brush up against anything. I unfold my workout sheet and look around for somewhere to place it. I decide that the floor would be best.
I test out a few of the weights to see how much I might be able to lift. I decide on two ten-pound dumbbells and start in with the Barbaric Bench Press. Three sets of thirty reps. I barely make it through, but you’re not supposed to rest in between exercises, so then it’s a twenty-pound dumbbell in each hand and some Ludicrous Lunges. My legs are burning halfway into the second set.
This working-out stuff really sucks. It feels like my muscles are being torn apart. There’s no need to look like Mr. Universe, so I decide to skip the last set of lunges and pick another exercise from the sheet. Impossible Push-ups are out, because I know from gym class that I can only manage three regular push-ups before I collapse. I’ll give the Crazed Crunches a shot and see if they don’t make me want to puke my guts out.
You’re supposed to be able to do the entire routine in forty-five minutes.
It takes me three hours.
When I finally get to my last set of Insane Standing Shoulder Presses, I am spent. But I’m not giving up. I have to finish. I’ve got too much riding on this to shortchange myself. I heave the fifteen-pound dumbbells over my head using all the force of my breath and every ounce of strength I have left. It’s twenty-four . . . twenty-five . . . twenty-six . . . twenty-sev . . . sev . . . sev . . . But I can’t get the dumbbells up past my ears. My legs feel rubbery. My arms are empty. With only four reps left.
I don’t know why, but I get it into my head that if I can just finish these last few presses, then I will somehow be able to take second in the butterfly and I’ll be able to ask Kelly out and she will be happy to be my girlfriend. I make that deal with myself.
I take a deep breath, screw up my face, and groan loudly as I force my arms up into the air. They’re shaking like crazy, but somehow I get the weights up past my ears.
I smile because I know that I am going to finish now. There is no doubt.
And just as I’m thinking this, my arms lock and my legs disappear from under me, and life switches into slow motion as I fall backward, clutching the dumbbells, smashing into Pete’s model-airplane display table, sending shards of wood and plastic and figures and little brass placards soaring and tumbling into the air.
I lie there on the floor in complete shock. It looks like a miniature Pearl Harbor. Pete is going to freak. He might even cry. Right before he beats me to death with what’s left of his Sopwith Camel. He won’t care that it was an accident. I could have taken a loose lamb-tikka-masala dump on Pete’s pillow and it wouldn’t have been as bad as
I tell him that sounds like a plan, but he doesn’t seem to be listening. I pull my workout instructions from my back pocket and head upstairs.
Pete’s room is like a museum exhibit. Everything is neat and organized and clean. All his CDs and DVDs are lined up in alphabetical order. All his books are arranged in the bookshelves using the Dewey decimal system. The clothes in his closet are color-coordinated. His posters — Harry Houdini, Clint Eastwood, the Beatles — are professionally framed and hung squarely on the walls. His fancy airplane models are placed strategically around the room, strung up from the ceiling or set out on a special display table made up to look like an aircraft carrier, with little air force figures standing around and tiny brass placards describing each airplane. He spends months making these models, getting all the details exactly right, and I have to say, I don’t see the big deal.
Pete’s dumbbells are stacked by the weight bench in neat little pyramids. I tiptoe toward them, careful not to brush up against anything. I unfold my workout sheet and look around for somewhere to place it. I decide that the floor would be best.
I test out a few of the weights to see how much I might be able to lift. I decide on two ten-pound dumbbells and start in with the Barbaric Bench Press. Three sets of thirty reps. I barely make it through, but you’re not supposed to rest in between exercises, so then it’s a twenty-pound dumbbell in each hand and some Ludicrous Lunges. My legs are burning halfway into the second set.
This working-out stuff really sucks. It feels like my muscles are being torn apart. There’s no need to look like Mr. Universe, so I decide to skip the last set of lunges and pick another exercise from the sheet. Impossible Push-ups are out, because I know from gym class that I can only manage three regular push-ups before I collapse. I’ll give the Crazed Crunches a shot and see if they don’t make me want to puke my guts out.
You’re supposed to be able to do the entire routine in forty-five minutes.
It takes me three hours.
When I finally get to my last set of Insane Standing Shoulder Presses, I am spent. But I’m not giving up. I have to finish. I’ve got too much riding on this to shortchange myself. I heave the fifteen-pound dumbbells over my head using all the force of my breath and every ounce of strength I have left. It’s twenty-four . . . twenty-five . . . twenty-six . . . twenty-sev . . . sev . . . sev . . . But I can’t get the dumbbells up past my ears. My legs feel rubbery. My arms are empty. With only four reps left.
I don’t know why, but I get it into my head that if I can just finish these last few presses, then I will somehow be able to take second in the butterfly and I’ll be able to ask Kelly out and she will be happy to be my girlfriend. I make that deal with myself.
I take a deep breath, screw up my face, and groan loudly as I force my arms up into the air. They’re shaking like crazy, but somehow I get the weights up past my ears.
I smile because I know that I am going to finish now. There is no doubt.
And just as I’m thinking this, my arms lock and my legs disappear from under me, and life switches into slow motion as I fall backward, clutching the dumbbells, smashing into Pete’s model-airplane display table, sending shards of wood and plastic and figures and little brass placards soaring and tumbling into the air.
I lie there on the floor in complete shock. It looks like a miniature Pearl Harbor. Pete is going to freak. He might even cry. Right before he beats me to death with what’s left of his Sopwith Camel. He won’t care that it was an accident. I could have taken a loose lamb-tikka-masala dump on Pete’s pillow and it wouldn’t have been as bad as
Similar Books
