Mascot by Antony John

Author:Antony John
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2018-07-05T16:00:00+00:00

24

Criminal Masterminds

Dee-Dub invites me around to his house on Friday evening. He lives a couple miles away near Tower Grove Park, in a three-story brick house that’s even older than mine.

He answers the front door and helps me bump up the step into the house. The hardwood floors are shiny, and there are three squares of paint in different shades of beige on the wall beside us. If Mr. and Mrs. Hardesty are decorating, they must be planning to stick around St. Louis for a while, which means Dee-Dub will too. This makes me very happy.

Dee-Dub leads me into the dining room, where an impressive telescope stands by a window.

“Stargazing’s not so good in St. Louis,” he says, following my eyes. “Too much light pollution. New Mexico had amazing skies, especially outside Albuquerque.”

Talking about amazing, his computer station is gigantic. Sprawling across one corner of the room is a desktop tower with about eighty fans and a monitor that’s larger than our TV. There are even speakers mounted against the wall. Dee-Dub could probably take over NASA with this gear. Maybe he already has.

“I built it myself,” he says. “Mom doesn’t like me wearing headphones because she says it’s hard to get through to me. So I added an amplifier and surround-sound system instead. That way I can just drown her out.”

I’ve been told that honesty is the best policy, but Dee-Dub’s mom is standing in the kitchen doorway watching us. “I heard that,” she tells him.

“That’s okay,” he says. “You’re allowed to listen in.”

In my house, this would count as snarky or disrespectful, but I don’t think Dee-Dub is trying to be either. He’s just being honest, even if that includes telling me about the insanely loud speakers designed to block out his parents’ voices.

With a deep sigh, Mrs. Hardesty leaves the room.

“I . . . uh . . . need to say sorry,” Dee-Dub mumbles. “For getting angry at you in math.”

I don’t know what he’s talking about.

“On Tuesday, remember? You called me the name of a famous Austrian physicist.”

“Oh, you mean Einst—” I stop myself just in time. “It’s no big deal.”

“I never should’ve gotten angry.” He furrows his brows. “I’m supposed to count to ten. I have deep-breathing exercises too.”

I think I might be pulling a Ms. Guthrie Mount Rushmore face. Or Mom’s Did-that-smell-come-from-Noah-or-the-dog? face. “It’s okay,” I say. “Honestly, I won’t say that name ever again. Well, except maybe when I get to high school physics. But can I ask you something?”

“You just did.”

“Huh? Oh, yeah. Right. But seriously . . . why are you okay being called Dee-Dub and not, you know, a famous scientist?”

“Because Einstein was an actual living person,” he says like it’s obvious. “I am clearly not Albert Einstein. But I am definitely twice as wide as the average seventh grader. So one name is accurate, and the other isn’t. You see?”

I remember what he said about his nickname being based on “objective data.” Since he’s not literally Einstein, I guess this makes sense to him.

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