The Deception Artist by Fayette Fox

Author:Fayette Fox [Fayette Fox]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781908434258
Publisher: Myriad Editions
Published: 2013-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Lunch on Repeat

I have a baloney sandwich for the fourth day in a row. I used to open my lunchbox and find roast beef on rye, Monterey Jack and tomato, or a peanut butter and banana sandwich. Mom would pack string cheese, a tiny box of raisins, or yogurt with M&Ms. There would be red wax cheese, grapes or animal crackers. On tuna days, she always remembered a mint.

Now there’s a new cook in the kitchen and every day this week he has packed me the same exact lunch. The apple is always green and the potato chips are always plain old original. I feel like an animal, forced to eat the same food, like Mortimer and his kibble. Caterpillar Christa and Ladybug Melanie won’t trade because they say baloney is gross and they only like barbecue-flavoured chips. Cricket Sara licks her cookies so I can’t have any. You can only share an apple if it’s sliced, so I’m stuck with my own lame lunch. Today is Thursday but you wouldn’t know it from my sandwich. Dad has stopped time. I am stuck in a loop. Flip the tape over and press play. All living things eat, so I eat. Still, I wonder if it is possible to actually die of boredom, because these lunches are killing me.

In the afternoon we start a new unit on The Ocean. Seventy-one per cent of the Earth is covered with water. Our ocean is the Pacific which I love very much. One time at Drakes Beach, I came back to our blanket after shell-hunting. My family had disappeared and a seagull was eating my lunch. I flapped my arms, screaming at it. I had a turkey sandwich, which is kind of gross if you think about it because they’re both birds. It would be like a person eating a gorilla sandwich. The seagull stared at me with its pale, beady eyes, waiting until the last possible moment before spreading its wings and taking off.

‘Ivy, class is happening in here, not out the window,’ Ms Kelley says. The kids snicker. The board is covered with lists of sea creatures. Dolphin, starfish, crab, hammerhead shark, flounder…

That day at the beach, I sat by myself on the blanket and tried to eat what was left of my sandwich, nibbling around the seagull bites. I couldn’t see my family anywhere and I worried they’d left without me. The beach is an hour’s drive from my house so it would take about a hundred years to walk. I would live my whole life walking back and by the time I got home I would be ready to die. I wouldn’t be able to ask anyone for a ride, because hitchhiking is dangerous and when they kidnapped me it’d be my own fault. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. My sandwich had sand in it, so I tried not to chew too much. Finally, I spotted Dad in the water laughing with some lady in a bikini. I wondered if they were telling each other jokes and thought of a few myself.

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