The Reluctant Journal of Henry K. Larsen (15 page)

“She loves you, Henry. More than anything,” he said as we stood outside the security gate.

I wouldn’t make eye contact. I hoisted my backpack onto my shoulders and turned to get into the security lineup.

“Aren’t you going to give your Pop-Pop a hug?”

No. I wasn’t.

Just before I disappeared behind the frosted glass, I turned back and saw that Pop-Pop was crying.

My stomach churns when I think about that. But Pop-Pop and Grams aren’t innocent. They are accessories to this crime. I’ve read about cases where people seek asylum in a church, like illegal immigrants or refugees who are about to be deported back to their home country. They hide in a house of worship ’cause no one can make them leave. Well, Pop-Pop and Grams are like the church. They are harboring my mother.

And it’s not fair because Dad and I are her rightful country.

5:00 p.m. EST/2:00 p.m. PST

This flight sucks. My TV is broken. And I’m stuck in a middle seat between two fatties. I know I still have some of my own wobblies, but I look like a stick compared to these two. One of them keeps trying to see what I’m writing. The fatties are traveling together, but do you think they’d sit beside each other and let me have the window or the aisle? No. They’re forcing me to stay in the middle, where I am trapped in a sea of roly-poly arms and massive jiggling thighs that spill over into my space.

I think Window Fatty saw what I wrote. She’s no longer trying to look over my shoulder, and she looks like she might cry.

As Alberta would say,
Whatevs
.

11:00 p.m.

Dad met me at the airport. He gave me a bear hug. “The apartment’s been way too quiet without you,” he said without letting go, and I could tell he was really happy I was back.

At least one parent loves me.

We didn’t talk much in the car. He didn’t ask me how the trip had gone or how Mom was, and that’s when I realized he already knew. He’d already spoken to Mom, and probably to Pop-Pop and Grams, too. He’d heard the gory details.

“You’re still in time for your appointment with Cecil,” he said as we neared Kitsilano. “I called him. He said he’d love to see you.”

I surprised myself because I said, “Okay.”

I told Cecil everything about my visit. I confess I cried a bit, too. He just listened. He may not be a great psychologist, but he’s a great listener.

Sitting in his dinky little office with the crappy furniture and the disgusting carpet, I realized something: I’d missed it. I’d missed Cecil.

And the best part about our session: Even though he’d tried to warn me that my trip might not go as planned? He never once said
I told you so
.

Dad waited outside in his truck for my entire hour-long session, just so he could drive me home. We parked at the back of the building, by the garbage and recycling bins. New signs were posted above them. I recognized the handwriting. The first one said
PLEASE, DO A BETTER JOB OF SEPARATING YOUR GLASS AND PLASTIC CONTAINERS
. The second one said
PLEASE, QUIT BEING SO ANAL!!

“Mr. Atapattu dropped off a container of chicken curry for us this morning,” Dad told me as we entered the apartment. “He knew you were coming home tonight.”

Dad steamed some rice to go with it, and we ate in front of the TV.

“I love you, Dad,” I said, not taking my eyes off the screen.

“I love you, too, Henry.” He ruffled the top of my head. His eyes looked moist. But I think it was just the spices from the curry.

INTRIGUING FACT:
Fruit flies reproduce like crazy. A female can lay hundreds of eggs at a time. They’re attracted to anything sweet and sticky.

Why am I writing this?

Stay tuned.

Farley met me outside the school yesterday morning. Before I could stop him, he threw his arms around me. “Welcome back!” He talked a mile a minute as we headed into the school and up the stairs to our lockers. “March Break was
so boring
. Oh, and Alberta’s home sick with the flu. She told me on Facebook to tell you. She also told me to tell you to get out of the Dark Ages and join Facebook. How was your week?”

I was spared having to answer that because, as we neared our lockers, we could see right away that we had a problem on our hands.

Clouds of teensy little bugs were flying in and out of the slats in our locker doors.

It got ten times worse when we opened them. Horror movie worse.
Thousands
of fruit flies flew out.

We slammed our locker doors shut. “It’s okay,” Farley said. “We’ll just bring the bags to the depot after school. The bugs will be gone by tomorrow.”

Famous last words.

After school, we took the bags to the depot.

By the time we arrived, there were only a few flies left; the cold air must have killed them. We thought our problems were solved. But this morning, after we’d done our rounds and lugged the fresh bags to our lockers, it was obvious that we were wrong. The fruit flies weren’t gone; if anything, they’d multiplied. Talia, a tenth grader whose locker is between mine and Farley’s, was disgusted. “Get those things out of here!” she wailed, and on “here,” a fruit fly flew into her mouth. “
Aaagh
, I’m gonna barf!!” She bolted down the hall and into the girls’ washroom. I never did find out if she actually barfed.

“If she tells the principal, our entire operation will be shut down,” Farley said.

I nodded. “We need to deal with this. Pronto.”

First we lugged our fresh bags full of recyclables to Mr. Jankovich’s classroom and pleaded with him to store them till the end of the day. He reluctantly agreed. “You have till 3:15 at the latest to get them out of here, boys.”

Then we hunkered down in the boys’ washroom after the bell rang and tried to figure out how to get rid of thousands of fruit flies. This was hard for Farley, ’cause it meant he was breaking his perfect attendance record.

I wish we’d come up with our last idea first: Our last idea was a can of Raid, and it worked.

Our first idea was a vacuum cleaner.

We found one of the janitors in his basement office. He was flipping through a magazine called
The Canadian Fly Fisher
.

“Could we borrow a vacuum?” I asked.

He didn’t even look up. “Bring it back when you’re done,” he grunted.

We lugged the vacuum cleaner up two flights of stairs to our lockers. I found an outlet nearby and plugged it in. Farley took off the attachment so that just the nozzle was left. He flipped the switch to
ON
and held the nozzle in front of him, like a weapon. “Ready?” he asked.

“Ready,” I replied. Then I opened my locker door and Farley stuck the nozzle inside and sucked up every last fruit fly. We did the same with his locker, too. By then we’d gathered a small crowd of onlookers.

When we were done, a few kids clapped. I’m pretty sure they were being sarcastic. But Farley lapped it up. “Thank you, thank you, all in the line of duty,” he said, like he was a firefighter who’d just rescued a baby from a burning building.

But our moment of glory was short-lived. Someone shouted, “They’re flying out again!” Sure enough, a bunch
of fruit flies were flying
back out of the nozzle that had just sucked them up!!

Fruit flies are indestructible!!

Farley and I looked at each other, trying not to panic. “Follow me!” Farley said. So I slapped my hand over the nozzle and followed Farley into the washroom, pulling the vacuum cleaner behind me.

Once we were inside, Farley yelled, “Give me a loonie, STAT!” like he was a doctor in the middle of a medical emergency. I fished a loonie out of my pocket and handed it to him. I watched, perplexed, as he dropped it into the condom machine.

“What are you doing?” I asked, just as a toilet flushed.

“Yeah, what
are
you doing?” said a familiar voice.

Troy.

Farley shouted, “I’m buying a condom to put on my nozzle so nothing flies out!”

Yup. He said that. Direct quote.

Troy’s eyebrows shot up. For a moment, there was total silence.

Then he burst out laughing. He was laughing so hard, he doubled over. It started to dawn on Farley what he’d just said. “I meant the vacuum cleaner’s nozzle! So fruit flies don’t come out!”

Then the strangest thing happened.

Troy patted Farley on the shoulder. “You crack me up, little man. You and Freckles here.” He started washing his hands. “How’s business going, anyway?”

“Great. We have about two hundred bucks already,” Farley said.

“Wow. A couple of real entrepreneurs,” Troy replied, then he threw an arm around my shoulder, too.

I thought he was going to grab our heads and smash them together. It’s what Vlad the Impaler would have done.

But he didn’t. He just said, “See you later,” and walked out of the bathroom.

Farley and I looked at each other, mystified. “That was weird,” I said.

“Maybe he’s trying to turn over a new leaf.”

“Maybe.”

Farley tore open the condom wrapper and rolled the condom over the nozzle of the vacuum cleaner, just like we’d seen our health teacher do with a baGrams. Then we wheeled the whole thing outside and did our best to empty it.

At lunchtime, we invested some of our hard-earned money on a can of Raid and sprayed our lockers to get rid of any strays.

“Good thinking, fellas,” Troy said from across the hall.

Farley grinned. “Thanks.”

But I didn’t say a word. As far as I’m concerned, the new nicer Troy is
way
creepier than the old jerkface one.

I’m locked in my bedroom right now, and I am never coming out.

It started at lunchtime. I headed to Mr. Jankovich’s room with Farley; we were having our final Reach For The Top practice before tomorrow’s Provincials in Richmond.

When I walked in, I saw Alberta.

My heart did a little flip. I headed toward her.

“Don’t get too close,” she said, putting her hands out in front of her to ward me off. “I might still be contagious.”

She looked amazing. A little pale, yes, with a greenish hue, but it went well with her outfit. She was wearing plaid polyester pants and her purple Doc Martens and a big oversized T-shirt that read
I’m with Stupid
. The arrow pointed to her left, at Jerome.

“How was your trip?”

“Awful,” I replied.

“Crap. I’m sorry.”

I shrugged. Then she got a funny look on her face, like Dad sometimes gets when he’s constipated.

“Henry,” she said, “I need to tell you something.”

“Shoot.”

“Not here. Let’s go out in the hall.”

So I followed her out of the room. I was convinced she was going to break up with me, even though we weren’t officially going out.

“You know how you told me your mom wasn’t living with you right now?” she began.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Well, last Thursday, when you were still away and before I got sick? I was walking on Broadway. And I saw your dad, sitting in Blenz. You know, the coffee shop? He was with this blonde woman, and she was holding his hand across the table.”

It felt like someone had put my heart into a vice.

“Was she wearing lots of makeup?” I asked.

“Yup.”

“Did she have …?” I motioned with my hands in front of my chest.

Alberta nodded. “Big bazongas.”

A group of kids pointed at me and laughed as they walked past. I realized I’d wound up on Alberta’s left side, and that the
Stupid
arrow was pointing right at me.

“It was probably nothing,” Alberta said.

But I was already walking away.

“Don’t go. Stay for practice,” she called after me.

I didn’t turn back. I walked right out of school and all the way home. I called my dad on his cell. I told him it was an emergency and he had to come home right away. I hung up before he could ask any questions.

Ten minutes later, he burst into the apartment, his tool belt still attached to his jeans. “Henry! Are you okay? What is it? What’s happened?”