Resurrection Bay (5 page)

Authors: Neal Shusterman

BOOK: Resurrection Bay

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“Your mother,” grumbles Dad, “knows full well that
inscrutable
was one of my words.”

“Nope,” says Mom, “it was one of mine.”

They’re referring to the vocabulary curse Brontë and I have been under since kindergarten. Mom and Dad alternate in force-feeding us one power word every day, which we are expected to swallow without vomiting. That’s what you get when both of your parents are professors of literature. That, and
being named after dead writers. Very aberrant, if you ask me (Mom’s word). As teachers, however, they should have realized that Tennyson Sternberger would not fit on a Scantron.

“The Bruiser comes from a screwed-up family,” I tell Dad. “They’re a bunch of nut jobs.”

“Oh,” says Brontë, “and we’re not dysfunctional?”

“Only your father,” says Mom. “But apparently he’s taken care of it.”

Mom could have been a great sniper if she had chosen that line of work. Every time she gets off a nice one, it gives me hope that her soul might be reviving.

As for the Bruiser, he has no mother. No father either. No one knows what the deal is there. All people know is that he lives with his uncle and an eight-year-old brother who looks like he’s being raised by wolves. And this is the family Brontë wants to date into. My sister obviously was never visited by the common sense fairy.

“Exactly when were you planning to see this boy?” Dad asks.

“He’s taking me miniature golfing on Saturday afternoon.”

“Real high-class,” I say.

“You shut up!”

And I do, because now I know everything I need to know about her so-called date.

2) CONSOLATION

I take my girlfriend, Katrina, to play miniature golf Saturday afternoon. Is it coincidence, or is it design? You tell me.

“Must we?” she asks when I suggest it.

“We must,” I answer, and offer no further explanation. Her hatred of miniature golf, I think, is born of the fact that her father golfed away her entire childhood instead of spending it at home. I suppose Wackworld Miniature Golf Emporium is a reminder of those dark times.

“It’s a happy place,” I tell her. “You can’t hate Wackworld; it’s like hating Disneyland.”

“I hate Disneyland,” she says, although she won’t tell me why. Actually, I’m afraid to find out.

“Okay, I’ll go,” she tells me, “as long as we don’t keep score.” And since my motives have nothing to do with golfing competition, I agree.

“You’re paying, right?” Katrina asks. “Because I will not pay money to hit a ball with a stick.”

I tell her that I’ll pay, but she really didn’t need to ask because I always pay. Katrina’s very old-school when it comes to dating. The guy always pays, and holds doors for her, and pulls out chairs. I actually kind of like it; it’s cool pretending to be a gentleman.

Katrina and I had begun as what you might call a consolation couple. In other words, she really wanted to go out with my friend Andy Beaumont, and I really wanted to go out with her friend Stacy VerMoot. But Andy and Stacy found each other, and have since become surgically attached at the hip. That left Katrina and me as each other’s consolation prize. As I had just dislocated my shoulder and Katrina wants to be a nurse, it all just popped into place.

“Life,” my father had once said, “is all about settling.” Unfortunately, he’d said that right in front of Mom, who proceeded to serve him a peanut butter and onion sandwich for dinner that night.

“Life is all about settling,” she reminded him as she slipped the plate in front of him. His response had been to eat the whole horrific sandwich out of spite, then catch her unawares with a big, slobbery, peanut butter and onion kiss. After that they didn’t speak to each other for about a day and a half. I swear, parents can be such children.

I meet Katrina at her house, and we walk to Wackworld, since buses in our corner of suburbia don’t go anywhere but to some place called the Transportation Center, where you can catch a dozen other buses that don’t go anywhere. Since I’m still not old enough for a license, my only choices are bike, parental taxi, or my own two feet. Katrina always prefers walking, because it provides us with an opportunity to talk. Actually, it provides
her
with an opportunity to talk and me with the opportunity to listen. The only time those roles reverse is after a lacrosse game, when you cant shut me up.

“. . . so for the entirety of math class,” Katrina continues, “Miss Markel has one of her false eyelashes dangling half on, half off her left eye, like a caterpillar; and the whole class is watching and waiting for the thing to drop. . . .”

I don’t mind her stories anymore. When we first started going out, I would zone out when she got into it; but as time went on, I got used to it and actually found that I enjoyed listening.

“. . . I don’t know why she wears false lashes; I guess it must be a generational thing, like the way some women pluck out their eyebrows, then paint on fake ones, or like foot binding in India—”

“China.”

“Right, and I think she wears a wig, too. So anyway, she finally turns her head real fast and off the eyelash flies, and where does it land? Right on the head of Ozzy O’Dell—who had just shaved all his body hair for swimming, including his head; and since the thing still has a little glue, it sticks there on top of his scalp, like a teeny-tiny Mohawk, and he doesn’t even know. . . .”

The thing about Katrina is that her voice is kind of hypnotic, like a spiritual chant in some foreign language.

“. . . so tell me, how was I supposed to focus on a math quiz with Mini-Mohawk Ozzy sitting in front of me, the thing flapping in the breeze from the open window?”

“Did Markel ever notice it?”

“Yeah, like five minutes before the end of class she saw it, quietly plucked it from his head, then slipped it into her desk drawer, thinking no one saw, even though everyone did—but by then it was too late to get my quiz done, so the whole thing was a crash and burn of epic proportions, and all because of a stupid fake eyelash.”

Katrina’s life is very dramatic. Maybe my sister thinks that by going out with the Bruiser she’ll have drama, too; but I know guys better than she knows guys, and knowing
that
guy, I think she’s in for something more in the horror genre.

About the Author

Courtesy of Neal Shusterman

NEAL SHUSTERMAN
is the award-winning author of more than thirty books for teens that span many genres. He has also written screenplays for motion pictures and television shows such as
Animorphs
and
Goosebumps
. He won the
Boston Globe-Horn Book
Award for
THE SCHWA WAS HERE
and has had numerous books on American Library Association and International Reading Association award lists, including
UNWIND
and
EVERLOST
. Neal lives in Southern California with his four children. You can visit him online at www.storyman.com.

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Credits

COVER DESIGN BY JOEL TIPPIE

R
ESURRECTION BAY
. Copyright © 2011–13 by Neal Shusterman. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

EPub Edition © August 2013 ISBN 9780062295163

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

FIRST EDITION

Previously published in a somewhat different form on www.storyman.com in 2011-12.

About the Publisher

Australia

HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.

Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street

Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia

http://www.harpercollins.com.au/ebooks

Canada

HarperCollins Canada