Dead Water Zone - Kenneth Oppel [15]
“Well,” he began, “my mom is an insurance adjuster.”
Monica’s nose wrinkled. “What’s that?”
“I don’t know.” And he laughed with her. “I swear, I have no idea what that means!”
“What about your dad?”
“He’s a sales rep for a company that makes, um, business forms.”
“Oh, a stiff.”
“A what?”
“You know, like a corpse—because his job’s so boring.”
Paul grinned. “I guess.”
“But what are they like? Do you like them?”
If she had asked whether he loved them, he could have automatically answered yes. But did he like them? That was different.
“I…I guess I don’t know them,” he said, a little bewildered.
“Well, you never do, do you?” she said matter-of-factly. “Anyone in your family. I don’t think I know Armitage very well.” She paused, looking at him carefully. “And how well do you know Sam?”
He held the pose in front of the mirror, chest heaving from the push-ups. He studied his reflection critically, forcing himself to hold the position even though it was beginning to hurt. When he was younger, he’d been afraid that one day he’d wake up to find himself like Sam—losing weight, shriveling up. It still lingered, that irrational fear, always at the back of his mind as he pushed and strained against the gym machines.
But there was another reason he’d worked so slavishly for his body. He liked the strength. It gave him power. Power over Sam. Sam needed his muscles.
* * *
“So you’ve got one wish,” Sam said. “What do you do with it?”
It was a game they often played.
“Just one wish?” Paul asked.
“This time, just one,” he said, setting down his notebook.
“Can I ask for more wishes, as my wish?”
“Sorry.”
Sam wasn’t normally so stingy with the wishes. Three was the usual number—it gave you some room to play around, to find out what you really wanted. Sometimes the games were serious, but mostly their wishes became more and more ridiculous until they were shrieking with laughter.
When he was younger, Paul almost always wished for things: video games, a portable stereo, new track shoes. Occasionally, he wished his parents wouldn’t fight so much or that Sam’s new pills would work. Lately he’d been wishing for various girls in his class, a better lap time on his fifty-meter crawl, a fraction of an inch on the high jump.
Just one wish. It was a serious game. What did he want? It had been on his mind quite a lot recently. He didn’t want to be separated from his brother.
Sam had just applied for early admission to college. If he got in, he’d be leaving home next fall. The two of them had often talked about leaving Governor’s Hill together, being roommates. It was silly, he supposed, because he lagged years behind Sam at school. But they’d still talked about it, made plans, imagined what it would be like to live in a new place. Their rules only.
Sam had seemed so eager when he’d filled out his applications, as if he’d forgotten about their plans. Or maybe they just didn’t matter. Hadn’t Sam known how hurt Paul would be if he went away to college?
“My wish,” he said, losing courage, “is for a shower with Susan White.”
“That’s it?” said Sam.
“Yeah. What about yours?”
“Forget it.”
“Why?”
“You’re not taking this seriously.”
“I just couldn’t think, that’s all. Tell me your wish anyway.”
Sam wouldn’t look up at him. He was sketching in his notebook, tracing lines, shading in with the side of his pencil.
“At the doctor’s this afternoon,” he said in a conversational tone, “he left the room for a few minutes. My file was just lying there on his desk. You should see the size of it!” He spread two of his fingers, grinning, and Paul found himself grinning back uneasily.
“I couldn’t resist. I wanted to see all this stuff about me—charts, letters, ECG scrolls, X-ray results. You thought my textbooks were bad!”
Paul chuckled nervously.
“I was looking at this one lab report, and my eyes caught