Thirsty - M. T. Anderson [15]
And I’m thankful for the little normal morning things my family says to one another. Like the way my father says, “I’m going to play golf with Dan this afternoon.”
And the way my mother says, “Oh.”
And the way my brother always pours a bowl of cereal for me really, really early so it gets soggy, then says in a voice like he’s the patron saint of Fruity Pebbles, “Chris, look, I already poured a bowl of cereal for you.”
Then I say, “This is all mush.”
And my mother says, “Chris, your brother was doing you a favor making you breakfast. You are not going to throw away a perfectly good bowl of cereal just because you happen to be feeling finicky. Thank Paul. Sit down. Chew. Swallow.”
I might argue, but I am so happy to see them all, and to see everything so normal, that I slurp up the mush and let it roll and slobber down my throat. “Mmmm! Mmm, mmm, mmm! Mmmm-hmmmm!” I exclaim, enjoying that wholesome American goodness.
I’m halfway through my bowl when I look down at my spoon. My reflection is still there. I’m obsessed with my reflection nowadays. I pick up the spoon and lick off all the milk.
My reflection stands out clearly, inverted. I turn from one side to the other. My nose swells and dances like the chorus line in a big Broadway Nose Revue. I move my head from one side to the other, and my nose kicks left, then right. One side, then the other. The nostrils are open so wide they must be belting out the finale from the end of act 3.
For a moment, I’m proud of my reflection. Then I look closer, and I’m not so happy. My hair is lanky and hangs down, from what I can see in the spoon. My eyes look sunken and dark and my features look haggard and ugly.
I hope nobody asks me why I look so tired.
My father and Paul get up from the table and leave.
I wonder whether anyone will notice how bad I look. People might start to guess why I haven’t been sleeping well. They might start to notice before Chet comes back from his mysterious Arm errand and cures me of my curse.
“Chris,” says my mother. “Earth to Chris.”
I will have to wait to really talk to Rebecca Schwartz until Chet has healed me. I can’t talk to her right now when it would be like a greasy lizard monster shambling up to her. I’ll wait until after I’m back to normal, and sleeping. Then I’ll buy some new clothes, too.
My mother is leaning against the table, looking at me with interest. “What do you think about when you start daydreaming like that?” she asks me. “You daydream all the time.”
“Sorry,” I say and put down the spoon.
“I really worry about you, Chris. Sometimes you are a complete space case. Someday you’re going to have to stop daydreaming and do something,” she says.
“Hey,” I grumble. “I was just looking at the spoon.”
“What?”
“I was just looking at a spoon. Okay? Looking at the flatware. That was all. Any other questions about me looking at the flatware?”
She shrugs and tosses out her coffee in the sink. She has a scowl on her face. “You’re beyond me. You really are beyond me. I hope your father manages to understand you someday, because you really make no sense to me.”
I don’t mind that she says this. At least everything is normal, and there it is, my ugly reflection in my spoon.
I catch myself in the mirror when I go to the bathroom after breakfast. There is my uneven hair and my pasty face, and I don’t even know if it’s as ugly as sin or as beautiful as a reward for deeds well done.
After three sleepless nights in a row, it really starts to show. I lie there at night worrying because I’ll be so bashed-up looking and stupid at school the next day. And in fact I am bashed-up looking and stupid at school. I’m sleepy and I can hardly eat. I sit there at lunchtime, hunched over my black cracked Fenway Frank, wishing it were liquid. It’s pasted to the inside of my mouth. I keep gagging on the pieces of ash. Tom is across from me, watching me. He sees that I’m not eating much anymore, that I have not eaten much for days. I think he wonders why.
I fail a test. I sit in class not