Sink or Swim by Bob Balaban

Author:Bob Balaban
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2013-06-20T04:00:00+00:00

11

DON’T LOOK NOW

“SORRY I’M LATE, Doris. I can’t get this darn collar to close.” My dad races into the kitchen while Dave and I finish our egg-white omelets and gluten-free toast. Dad grabs his coffee cup and sticks out his neck, and my mom gets his shirt buttoned in about two nanoseconds. Dad sits down next to me and shoves a blueberry muffin into his mouth. Balthazar sits under the table eagerly licking up the crumbs at my dad’s feet as they fall to the floor.

“Honey?” Mom clears her throat. Dad just sits there chewing and sipping his coffee. “Wasn’t there something you wanted to say, Fred?

Dad finally gets the hint, spits out a mouthful of coffee, and nearly chokes on his muffin. “I understand you’re going through some difficulties, Charlie.” He wipes his mouth with his napkin. “And, well, your mom and I . . . we were teenagers once ourselves, as hard as that may be for you to believe, and we know it can be quite a difficult and a challenging time. So . . .”

“Get to the point, Fred,” Mom mutters under her breath. She hands Dave his lunch. He winks at me as he scoots out of the kitchen like a rat deserting a sinking ship. Great timing, Dave!

My dad swallows the rest of his muffin in one large gulp. “I want you to know your mother and I have given this a lot of thought, and after much discussion . . .”

“Your dad and I are going to be driving you to and from school for a while, honey,” my mom finishes.

“It’s not that we don’t trust you, Charlie,” my dad says. “It’s just that—”

“We don’t trust you, Charlie,” my mom interrupts.

I slurp down my glass of OJ with my long pointy tongue and try not to panic. “I get where you’re coming from.” What am I going to do now? I have totally got to bring the poor creature his breakfast before I go to school because (A) I promised, and (B) if I don’t, he’ll just go out and steal more food, and I’ll be in even more trouble.

“We called the Endervelts and the Strangs and said we’d be happy to drive Sam and Lucille, too. They’ll be here any minute. Isn’t that nice?” My mom pours my dad some more coffee.

“Yeah. Great.” When everybody sees my parents driving me to school like I’m eight years old, I will never hear the end of it. I might as well just paint a sign on my back that says SHOOT ME NOW and get it over with.

The doorbell rings. My friends are here. “Let’s go, sweetie!” My mom tosses her apron onto the counter. “Don’t forget your backpack, Charlie!”

How could I forget it? I’ve got the creature’s breakfast crammed into it: three jars of peanut butter, a loaf of bread, and all the canned tuna fish I could carry. It is so heavy I can barely hoist it onto my shoulder.

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