Slob - Ellen Potter [29]
In its place was a note. It said:
NEXT TIME I LEAVE THE CLASS, COUNT TO 20, THEN FOLLOW ME.
9
“I wouldn’t,” said Izzy. He had given me half his sandwich since I didn’t have anything to eat at lunch. “It’s probably a trick. He’ll get you into some dark corner and pull out his buck knife.”
“Switchblade. And it is in his sock,” I said. My voice was dead-sounding. “By the way.”
“Oh, dude.” Izzy shook his head, looking at me piteously.
Mason was sitting at a corner table in the lunchroom, all by himself as usual. There was no sign of my lunch sack anywhere around him. He’d probably taken out its contents and dumped the bag. Mom would not be happy. She hated wastefulness. Plus, she’d ask how it had happened and I would have to make up a lie.
Every so often I glanced over to see if Mason was eating my cookies yet. Seeing Mason gag on facial hair bleach cream was the only glimmer of possible satisfaction in this whole situation. The lunch bell rang and Mason got up and dumped the contents of his tray in the trash. He hadn’t eaten any Oreos as far as I could tell.
“Just think,” Izzy said, “anything could happen over the weekend. Mason might get run over by a truck.”
“Or he might devise a new and improved way to torment me.”
“Think positive, man, think positive.”
I spent most of Friday afternoon at the Ninety-third Street demo site alone (Jeremy was busy plotting out some new GWAB scheme with Arthur) poking through the same debris in the hopes that I’d find an amplifier. I didn’t find one. In fact, there wasn’t much of anything left at that site. The only thing I took was a plastic bag full of small metal brackets.
On my way home, I saw a group of kids hanging out together on the steps of a brownstone. I crossed to the other side of the street. A group of kids hanging out always spells trouble for me. But to my surprise, the kids were actually calling to me. Not by name, but a few of them were waving their arms for me to come over.
I’m not a moron. I ignored them. But when they quieted down I glanced over. The steps of the brownstone were strewn with stuff—toys, games, lamps, books. Stuff. It’s really hard for me to turn my back on stuff. So I crossed the street.
The kids spotted me crossing and immediately started frantically motioning for me to come over again. I was guessing that sales hadn’t been stellar.
“Anything on the first three steps is one dollar,” a girl explained to me. “Everything above that is two dollars.”
“But we’re willing to negotiate,” a boy added. He was a little chunky. Not fat like me, but he was younger too. I had a sudden urge to warn him. Life is tough when you are significantly fatter than the national average, kid. You might want to cut back on the Cheez Doodles.
But who am I to give advice?
After a quick scan of all their items, I could see there was nothing I wanted. “Sorry,” I said, and started to leave.
“But we have a large selection of board games,” the chunky boy said, sweeping his arm across a stack of beat-up board game boxes.
“Thanks, but I don’t need any,” I said, backing away.
“Well, what do you need?” the boy persisted. He was a natural salesman, actually. You had to admire that. So I played along.
“I need a forty-decibel amplifier.” I smiled as I said it. It reminded me of playing bank teller with Jeremy when we were little kids—“I’d like to withdraw fifty billion dollars, please.” “Here you go, ma’am. Don’t spend it all in one place.”
But this kid, he wasn’t playing around.
“Hold on,” he said, jabbing a finger at me. “I think I may have what you need.”
He jumped up and ran inside the brownstone. He was gone for a good five minutes, during which the other kids tried to convince me that I needed a pair of binoculars with one busted lens.
Finally the brownstone door opened and the kid came out with this huge smile on his face, carrying a rectangular black metal box. He walked down the steps and thrust the black box toward me.
“Is this was you’re looking for?” he asked.
You know what? It was.
“Two dollars,” he said.
Once again,