Bye-bye, Blue Creek by Andrew Smith

Author:Andrew Smith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Published: 2020-10-13T00:00:00+00:00

47. Did I mention that attics in haunted houses are places where no lights are ever supposed to be turned on?

48. And by “this” I meant all the stuff that Karim and I had convinced ourselves was happening, while having no concrete proof to back up our wild assumptions.

CANNIBALS DON’T EAT NOODLES

No one told Bahar’s parents that their daughter had been transformed into a mindless thrall for the Monster People, because in the end, Karim and I decided that a “wait and see” approach would be the wisest strategy for us to pursue.

Anyway, we had no choice since we couldn’t agree on whose job it was to break the news to them. We argued about it for the rest of the walk home, but fell silent and grumpy through dessert.

It was chocolate-banana crepes, which I did make, by the way.

I was so mad at Karim for not being brave enough to go to Bahar’s house and warn her parents that I didn’t even tell him about the chocolate sauce he had on his face. I let him go to bed like that. And then he woke up that way too, stained with a dark brown slash across his cheek.

At breakfast, Dylan and Evie laughed at him.

And Mom, who would happily adopt any straggler that Dad or I brought into our home, just shook her head sadly and grabbed a damp dishcloth. And as she gently wiped the chocolate sauce49 from his face, she made big love-eyes at Karim and said, “Oh! You poor sweet thing! I bet you miss your mom!”

Then she combed his hair with her fingers, which kind of made me mad because hand-combing of a boy’s hair is something that I believed Mom was only allowed to do to Dylan, or possibly to me, but only if there were no other middle-school-aged boys around to witness it happening.

Karim shrugged and said, “Well. I’m not really missing Mom and Dad, Mrs. Abernathy. Um. They came home yesterday from the nudist retreat in Mexico, but Mom and Dad were so sunburned, they asked me if I could stay away from home for a little bit longer. They can’t really move, and they look like the flag of Denmark.”50

Mom said, “Oh, sweetie! You can stay here as long as you’d like.”

It was a good thing breakfast was oatmeal, for two reasons: (1) I was near to choking from listening to Karim’s wild fabrications, and (2) Mom was acting like she was about one step away from actually chewing Karim’s food for him.

Luckily for all of us, Karim’s phone began buzzing inside his Teen Titans pajama pants pocket.

“That must be Denmark texting you,” I said.

Karim pulled out his phone and looked at the screen, then at me.

“It’s from Bahar,” he said.

“Oh my gosh! Is she okay?” I asked.

Then Mom got this super-concerned mom-bird look on her face.

“Did something happen to Bahar?” she asked.

“Um.” I glanced at Karim, but his perpetual-motion lie generator hadn’t kicked into first gear yet. Even he didn’t know what to say to Mom.

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