Slob - Ellen Potter [57]
“The videos that Jeremy borrowed.”
“Liar!”
There. I had completed the moment of drama that had been so rudely interrupted in the lunchroom today. I did it without thinking, and I hadn’t really meant to be so harsh, but I tell you, I had had it up to here with being lied to that day (my hand is hovering about a foot above my head at the moment).
To Arthur’s credit, she didn’t get all huffy about being called a liar. She did the sensible thing. She put the box down, took off the lid, and let me look inside.
The thing was filled with videos. The spine of each video sleeve was labeled with a white sticker with neat black printing on it. Among them were Charlie’s Angels/Pom Pom Angels/October 14, 2006 and The Brady Bunch/Katchoo/ October 15, 2006.
For several moments I was so confused that I didn’t say a word. Finally, I managed to utter, “When did Jeremy borrow these?”
“This past Monday.”
The same day the supposed old signals came through Nemesis.
“But . . . why would she do that?” I said this out loud to myself.
Now Arthur did get huffy. “Because they’re great shows, why else?”
Yeah. Why else?
“Thanks, Arthur,” I said, replacing the lid on the box, picking it up, and handing it back to her.
“I’ll be by to pick up the Retro TV Magazines a week from Saturday,” she said.
I nodded, but I wasn’t really listening. I was thinking hard.
Jeremy was in her room. When I knocked, she called back, “I’m busy!” I came in anyway.
She was sitting in her rocking chair, rocking back and forth. She stopped abruptly when she saw me and frowned. “I said I was busy.”
“You look it,” I said dryly. I folded my arms across my chest and stared at her.
“What?” she said, not meeting my eye. She started rocking again.
“I don’t need to ask you how you did it,” I said. “That part is obvious. You took that signal splitter I found at the Seventy-fifth Street demo site and you fed Arthur’s videos into my TV. To get the image all fuzzy, you messed with the video tracking.”
There was some satisfaction in seeing the surprised look on her face. Actually, it was very satisfying, since I had been such a complete sucker for the past few days.
“What I’d like to know is why you would do that to me,” I said. I was so angry that my voice cracked. I’ll tell you the truth, I was so angry I wanted to hit her.
“Did you want to make me look like an idiot, is that why?” I said.
She shook her head but didn’t say anything and didn’t look at me, she just kept rocking.
“Stop rocking!” I screamed at her.
She did, and now she looked up at me. With her hair all short like that, she looked older. Smarter. More serious. It was like she had been tricking me about everything, even her personality.
“WHY?” I yelled at her so loudly that I made her jump a little.
“Because . . .” she said, “because . . . because I felt sorry for you.”
I think that was probably the worst thing she could have said. I turned around and walked right out of her room. Honey had been sitting outside the door, and I pushed her aside with my foot. I walked into my room, slammed the door, and furiously shoved my bed against it to keep it closed, since there was no lock on it.
Then I began to tear Nemesis apart. I ripped out wires, yanked apart cables. I took all my anger out on the thing. It now seemed like a useless, silly toy. I couldn’t believe that I had ever thought it would work. I had been so stupid! And there’s me, crowing to Jeremy about getting the signal, there’s me, getting all excited about finding out Penny Marshall’s stupid birthday, there’s idiotic me, telling Nima all about my ingenious invention.
“Owen?” Jeremy was outside, twisting the knob and pushing against the door.
I took the green paper that said SLOB on it out from under the amplifier and put it back under my drawer. I took the satellite dish off the tripod.
“Let me in, Owen!”
I wouldn’t, but she threw all her weight against the door again and again until it opened just enough to let her slip through. She stood there for a minute, looking around. I think she was