This is What I Did (2 page)

Sometimes I have to be in charge because Mom and Dad go on dates a lot.

I never really thought about dates before with parents.

Like, is that normal or is that not normal?

One time after we moved, Mack, one of my twin brothers, said I shouldn’t be in charge.

I was eating a sandwich at the table and Mack and Ryan were sitting on the couch eating chips.

Mack: Just because he’s the oldest doesn’t mean he should be in charge.

Mom: I’m not talking about this right now.

Mack: Mom, he’s such a loser. He ruins everything.

Ryan laughed.

Mom stopped washing the dishes and looked at him and then at me and then back at him. Mom in a talk-shout: Don’t you ever, ever say something like that about your brother. Ever!

She slammed the plate she was holding on the counter, walked over to the couch, yanked Mack up, and took him into the office.

Ryan laughed again.

I took another bite of sandwich.

They were in the office for a long time.

The twins are eleven and I’m thirteen and it’s true: Just because I’m oldest doesn’t mean I should be in charge.

Mack didn’t want to move to Judge even though it didn’t really matter. He and Ryan do whatever they want anyway and they’re always together. Plus, they found out there’s a full basketball court at the park at the end of our street and plus, Mom drives them back to Mulholland for school because it is not far and because of basketball. Mack just likes to complain and he gets upset about everything.

For a while “being in charge” wasn’t an issue because Mom and Dad didn’t really go out or do anything after the Zyler thing.

But then: Back to normal. Everything needs to get back to normal, Dad said.

And plus, I was fine. Just fine.

Dad works at Core Rotating. He’s worked there for years and he makes rotators for signs.

That means the turning McDonald’s sign and the turning piano on top of Jorgensen’s Music have machines under them that have rotators that make them turn because of torque.

He even helped with the biggest one ever made, at NASCAR. It holds a car and a gigantic sign.

In school I thought it might help.

Me: My dad helped make the rotator for the biggest sign in the country, at the NASCAR racetrack.

Mr. Lopez: That’s very interesting, Logan. Isn’t that interesting, class?

No one said anything or looked up even. Except a girl I found out was named Laurel, and she smiled.

When I sat down I heard this: Hey, rotator retard . . . why don’t you rotate your ass out of here?

It was hissed so that Mr. Lopez couldn’t hear. I didn’t look back to see who it was because that was the first day at Alta Jr. High.

I couldn’t look back.

I think it was Luke Randall who said it.

That was back in first term of this year — eighth grade — and I never knew for sure because Luke and Bruce and Toby were all in that class.

But Luke was the closest to my seat.

They all laughed though.

Even the girls like Carmen and Vanessa and Mallory.

But then one thing happened: The girl I found out was named Laurel handed me a piece of paper after class and then disappeared sort of.

The paper said this:

Encarta Online Dictionary:
Palindrome 1. text reading the same backward as forward:
a word, phrase, passage, or number that reads the same forward and backward, e.g. “Anna,” “Draw, o coward.”

And I guess, racecar.

Racecar racecar.

Laurel is in two of my classes this term.

She has a big nose.

I like it.

For the first few weeks of school I rode the bus instead of walked, like Zyler and I used to do. Because Judge was too far away from Alta Jr. High and maybe I’d make some friends.

That was Mom’s idea because she tried to have friends everywhere.

Even on Judge before we moved there because she had found out phone numbers of the neighbors and introduced herself.

Hi, I’m Silvia Paloney and my family and I are going to be moving into the Carter house.

Pause

Yes, we’re really excited.

Pause

Uh-huh.

Pause

Well it’s great to meet you, Lucille. We’re really excited to move into the neighborhood.

Pause

Uh, well, actually we don’t live too far away. We’re just on the west side by the lake, but we wanted to move into a new environment — get away from the freeway.

Pause

Uh-huh.

Pause

Umm, yeah, my husband works at a place downtown so we didn’t want to move too far away but, you know, just to a better situation.

Pause

Well, it’s sort of hard to explain. The easiest way to put it is we need a change — Especially my oldest boy.

And then she would start to whisper because she knew I was on the computer, seven point two steps away.

It was almost the same conversation with everyone: the Smiths, the Knights, the Hongs, the Taylors, the Andersons.

And it didn’t matter except it meant that before we even got to Judge my mom had friends: friends who knew she had a reject son for a son.

Mom and Dad met in HIGH SCHOOL.

They were both, I think, the popular ones in high school because you can feel it in the way they talk about it and how they want me to be excited about school and everything.

Plus how they looked.

Dad was hunky with muscles and football arms, says Mom.

Mom had long hair that was straight and, my dad says, super sexy. Plus, he said she had a very swayey walk that she still uses, he says.

But first he dated one of my mom’s best friends.

Mom: He was going out with my best friend . . . but not my very best friend, just one of my best friends.

Dad: Your mother had a lot of best friends and I had to make my way through all of them to get to her.

Ha ha kiss kiss sex fiends?

I think I might be sort of messed up.

I used to have only one best friend and it was Zyler. And nobody ever dated him or me or anybody.

But there was Cami Wakefield.

She didn’t live on Mulholland.

She lived on Oak and that was three streets down from Zyler and four houses in past the fire hydrant, and her house was the one with the blue shutters and the bushes that were trimmed into pinwheels.

They weren’t really pinwheels — they were more like spirals.

And Mr. Wakefield was always out clipping the bushes when we rode by on our bikes. But we never stopped.

We’d just ride by and act like it was normal and we would do this: see if maybe Cami was helping her dad or maybe pulling weeds or something.

I remember the last time we did it.

It was the afternoon before that night.

Everything was the same except now that I think about it, nothing was the same.

Cami’s dad wasn’t outside and Cami wasn’t outside.

And I just rode really fast like I always did in case someone saw me.

But Zyler didn’t.

He was sort of riding slower than usual.

I should have guessed then.

I should have known something was going to happen.

Why did it have to happen, Zyler?