Small Steps - Louis Sachar [43]
He wondered if she had checked his record and found out about his prior conviction. He didn’t want her to think badly of him.
Cherry Lane called once, to ask how he was doing. His mother had answered the phone and was very impressed when she realized who she was talking to.
Armpit was disappointed it wasn’t Kaira.
“Why’d the mayor call you?” his mother asked him.
“Remember, I told you I met her? I did some work at her house.”
For the first time in a long while, his mother looked at him and saw someone who maybe wasn’t all bad.
Now it was Thursday evening, eleven days since he saw Kaira, and he was trying to get through a chapter in economics. The final exam was in eight days.
He’d thought about asking Matt Kapok if he might want to study together. They greeted each other every day in class. But he didn’t want to leave the house, just in case Kaira called, and he would have been embarrassed to invite Matt over here, where, who knows, his parents might accuse Matt of being a drug dealer.
The speech final was also a week from Friday, but he wasn’t too worried about that. There were no more speeches due, and the stuff in the book was all obvious stuff, like how you should look your prospective employer in the eye at a job interview.
He reread a paragraph in his econ book and studied the graph next to it. It was just beginning to make sense when the phone rang, shattering his thoughts.
He waited nervously for a moment before returning to the graph.
“Theodore, telephone!” his mother called.
He tried to remain calm. Most likely it was just X-Ray. He took a deep breath, then went into the kitchen.
His mother mouthed the words “a girl” as she handed him the phone.
“Yeah, hi,” he said, trying to sound casual.
“Hi, how’s it going?”
He recognized the slightly nasal voice of Detective Debbie Newberg. He walked back into his bedroom as he spoke to her.
“Oh, uh, fine.”
“You probably thought I’d forgotten about you.”
“Uh, no, not really.”
“How certain are you that the guy’s name was Habib?”
“Not real certain.”
“Could it have been Felix?”
“Felix? No, I don’t think so.”
“How about Moses?”
“No. I’m pretty sure he said it was Habib.”
“Maybe he had a nickname. Is that possible?”
“I guess.”
“Did he ever refer to himself as X-Ray?”
He took a breath, then said he’d never heard that name before.
“How about Armpit?”
He almost dropped the phone.
“Hello? Are you there?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m here.”
“Does Armpit ring a bell?”
“No, I think I would have remembered a name like that.”
Debbie Newberg laughed. “I suppose so,” she said.
Armpit looked at his economics book opened on his desk. He knew he could forget about studying tonight.
22
A letter came the next day. Armpit checked the mail when he got home from school. It was addressed to Theodore A. Johnson, and its return address was the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego. His middle name was Thomas.
The letter was written with a purple pen on hotel stationery in remarkably neat handwriting.
Dear T (or should I say Dear A?),
I hope you don’t mind a long and dopey letter. I know it’s going to be long and dopey, because every letter I’ve written to you has been long and dopey. They just keep getting longer and dopier! Of course, I don’t actually mail them, so I guess it doesn’t matter whether you mind or not.
I always say all kinds of stupid things about how much I miss you, and wish you were here, and lame junk like that. Once I even used the L word! How dumb is that??? Nobody falls in L after a bowl of ice cream and a ten-minute walk! Now you know why I didn’t mail the letters. I may be dumb, but I’m not stupid!!!
It’s just that you and Ginny are really my only friends. Is that pathetic or what? I don’t mean you and Ginny are pathetic. I’m the one who’s pathetic!
It feels good to write to you, even if I know you’ll never read it. It sure beats talking to my shrink. I can see your face in my mind. Your eyes. Your smile makes