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  “I’m not the king,” I said.

  “He’s not the king,” Maddie said.

  “Remember? We’re making a funny video,” I said. “Hopefully.”

  Gus poked his head out the front door. “Where the hell’s the scooter?” he shouted.

  Abby held up her phone. “Jess is bringing it over. She’ll be here soon.”

  “Can’t believe you’d forget the scooter,” Maddie said.

  “I brought my bikini. I’m not an idiot,” Abby said.

  “You are an idiot. Now Jess Withrow is coming over,” Maddie said, shaking her head.

  “What is your problem?” Abby spat.

  “Jess is a bitch!” Maddie spat back.

  “Jess is my best friend.”

  “Ooooh,” Maddie said, waving her hands in the air, her eyes big. “Best friends!”

  It didn’t seem possible we could make a funny movie with so much pissy-ness floating around in the air.

  “Everybody relax, okay?” I said.

  “I’m going to wear a long blond wig,” Pig Boy said.

  “Yeah, I know,” I said. “I invited you to this.”

  “Sorry,” Pig Boy said. His face fell.

  “No. I’m glad you’re here,” I said.

  “Let’s go inside and costume up,” Gus said. “My parents are out at brunch. They’ll go for a walk after. We’ve got like four hours. Go.”

  ***

  While Abby held her aching smelly beer head in the corner and Pig Boy stared at my ear (I’m serious, poor kid), Maddie pulled a black wig over my hair. It was a vampire wig from a 1970s costume and it smelled really bad. “Where did you get this?”

  “Cal’s basement. Cat probably pissed on it,” Maddie said.

  “Awesome.”

  “I got you a brand-new mustache though.”

  She glued on my mustache. It was slicked down, like a Latin lover kind of deal.

  Then she gave me giant sunglasses her grandpa wore in the 1970s.

  “Oh hell yeah. That’s good.” She laughed.

  Abby looked up at me and giggled, nodding.

  Outside, the sun began to burn off the fog. “We’re getting good light,” Gus said.

  Then I went into the bathroom and pulled on a pair of gut-buster elastic band coaching shorts I bought when I thought that’s what jocks wore (just trying to fit in, homies!…duh). Gus gave me a pillow from his room, and I stuck it in my too-tight white polo and pulled the shorts up and tucked in the shirt.

  I walked back into the living room. Maddie, Abby, and Bony Emily blew a freaking gasket when they saw me. Abby seriously fell off her chair, laughing.

  “Holy cow!” Bony Emily said.

  I tried to do my best Mr. Karpinski imitation, “What are you ladies laughing at, heh? You get into the laughing gas over at the doctor’s office? What makes a lady laugh? Gas. Am I right?”

  “Holy shit! You have it down!” Abby said.

  “Felton used to be hilarious all the time. Then he found sports,” Gus said.

  Just then, a scooter buzzed into the driveway. A couple seconds later, Jess Withrow knocked on the door. “Come in,” Gus shouted.

  Jess entered. She looked at me. She said, “Are you dressed up like Mr. Karpinski?”

  I nodded. I tried not to laugh.

  Jess smiled too, but she didn’t laugh. “Wow. Cruel,” she said.

  “You would know,” Maddie spat.

  Jess blinked and looked at her. “Uh, okay?”

  “Come on,” Gus said. “Let’s do this.”

  ***

  “Yes. Yes. Good light,” Gus said. His hands were on his hips. He stared at the sky. (Back in the day of the wad, he’d have had to lift his hair to see up—I understood the advantage of the new ’do.). The sky held puffy clouds. The brown ground reflected an orange glow on everything.

  Gus stood with his camera. (He has a Canon Rebel that takes awesome video.) I stood next to him fully dressed in Karpinski style.

  Bony Emily wore really tight black clothes and sort of heavy black eye makeup. She stood next to me.

  Pig Boy, in his Bully Me/Pig Boy T-shirt, wore a long blond Miss Piggy wig. He stood next to Emily.

  Abby came out of the house in a robe because she had a bikini on and it was definitely not bikini warm.

  Jess stayed and watched. “Karpinski’s going to love it that you’re making shit out of his dad,” she told me.

  “I’m not Mr. Karpinski, okay?” I said. “Call me Mr…Mr. Dickinski. I’m the Polish Fist.”

  “I don’t know, Felton,” Jess said. “Everybody’s going to recognize you.”

  “I guess that’s the point,” I said.

  A few minutes later, Gus started to film.

  ***

  Gus, having learned what works from our pipe-fight video, shot a lot of me at low angles, karate chopping and kicking the air. He had me drive the scooter back and forth in front of his house, swooping across the street, doing little putt-putt loop de loops and crap. (At one point, some dude in a Ford SUV nearly smashed into me. He shouted at everyone and Abby gave him the finger, which made Gus tell her to chill.) Then Gus had Maddie hold a mic out while I first swooped around Bony Emily, she pouting, looking like an angry punk girl.

  “Hey, baby doll. What you so angry about?” I asked (like Mr. Karpinski).

  “Life is hell,” Bony said. “My dad’s a dick.”

  “Do you want to feel the thrill of victory?”

  “Yes! Yes, I do!” she said.

  In the next shot, “Mr. Karpinski” showed her how to punch-chop a man’s neck so he’d die instantly.

  Maddie filmed for a moment while Bony E punch-chopped Gus dressed like a dad and he died.

  “Oh yes! Yes! Yes!” Bony cried. She kissed my cheek.

  Then a close-up of me barking: “That’s the Polish Fist!”

  Bony said, “Sexy Victory!”

  Gus stared through the lens. “That’s seriously good. Seriously funny,” he said.

  It didn’t really feel that funny. I just felt sort of dumb.

  Then I hit on Pig Boy in the Piggy wig. I said a bunch of Karpinski crap. Using Karpinski ancient Polish-Chinese magic, I turned Pig Boy into Maddie. She pulled on his shirt and the wig and blinked sexy style at the camera. Poor Pig Boy sat there shirtless for ten minutes, covering his chest and nipples with his hands.

  Then I swooped around and around Abby in her robe, whooping. Gus put the camera on a clip tripod on the front of the scooter and had me drive real slow and mumble super fast and over and over, “Legs up to here. What a filly. I’d ride that pony.” (He also had me say that crap over and over into his iPhone so he had extra audio.)

  Then I did some weird kung fu poses aimed at Abby and we used kite string tied on the back of her robe (and yanked) to make it look like a magic Karpinski wind blew it off. (Pig Boy actually screamed “Oh man! Oh!” when Abby’s robe slid off).

  Close-up. “You’re a friend of my boy’s up at the old high school, am I right?”

  Abby, “Yessss…”

  “Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty,” I mumbled. “Um-hmm. Sexy.”

  “Yes!” Abby cried.

  “Would you like to be the new Mrs. Dickinski, baby doll? Would you like to hot-rod bikini style on the back of my motorbike?”

  “Yes! Yes! Yes!” Abby cried.

  Then me punching. Then a close-up. “That’s the Polish Fist!”

  Then Gus filmed Abby and me from ten different angles riding away, Abby on the back of the scooter, hugging me and laughing and oohing and crap.

  “That should do it,” Gus said. “I can make something pretty good out of what we’ve got.”

  “Freezing! Freaking ice cold!” Abby shouted, pulling the robe back over her.

  “Jesus
. I don’t know,” Jess said. “That’s mean, Abby.”

  “So?”

  “Don’t you think rubbing Karpinski’s face in…in the way his dad acts is pretty bad?” Jess asked.

  “No,” Abby said. “Not at all.”

  “Fine. Give me the keys, Felton.”

  I tossed Jess the keys to the scooter.

  “I’m not going to tell Karpinski about this and I hope to God he never sees it. You’re acting like a puke, Abby,” Jess said.

  “Up yours,” Maddie said.

  “Up yours, whoever you are,” Jess spat. Then she took off.

  Abby’s face had gone totally pale.

  “We don’t have to make anything out of this,” Gus said. “It was fun just filming. We should totally drop it.”

  “No,” Abby said. “We shouldn’t be afraid of what they think.”

  “They?” Maddie asked.

  “Just make the stupid movie, Gus, okay?” Abby said.

  “Okay,” Gus said. “I don’t care. They’re not my friends.”

  I pulled off the wig and began to pull off the mustache, but it was glued pretty well. “Ouch. Mother mustache is stuck,” I said.

  Pig Boy came up to me and said, “That was the funnest day I ever had in my whole life. You are funny.”

  “Thanks, man.”

  “I’m going to make some cartoons of you being Dickinski solving crimes and helping kids.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Sounds good.”

  I wasn’t really paying attention to him though. I was worried about Jess and about Abby too.

  Pig Boy grabbed my arm. “Really. It was really fun.”

  I squinted at Tommy. He nodded. He swallowed.

  “I don’t have much fun,” he said.

  “Okay, man. We’ll do it again,” I said. “We’ll make some more fun stuff. That was awesome.” I smiled big.

  “Cool,” Tommy said. “I’m going home.”

  He waddled to his dipshit bike and was gone.

  “Pig Boy is one weird kid,” Gus said.

  “Felton, I need to get this swimsuit off,” Abby said. “Can we go to my house?”

  “Yeah,” I said. Off we went to Abby’s. I didn’t want to go. I wanted to go home to sleep, but I meant it when I said I wouldn’t leave her alone.

  Chapter 35

  No Cody

  But Abby was a wreck at her house. She bitched about Jess. She bitched about Cody. She started crying but wouldn’t say why. We ate spaghetti again (I thought I’d puke), and she didn’t say a word for like a half hour.

  Then she went to the bathroom for twenty minutes.

  When she came back, she acted drunk again. She might’ve had some schnapps hidden in there. She tripped on crap on the floor. She swore really loud, “Bleep, bleep, bleep, Mom can’t take care of bleep. What the bleep?” Etc.

  My Mr. Karpinski shorts started feeling like they were strangling my business so I closed myself in her closet and changed back into jeans. I came out in time to see Abby pull off the bottom of her swimsuit. She stood straight up. “So. There. I’m naked. Are we going to do this?”

  “What?”

  “It,” she said.

  “We’ve barely even kissed.”

  “So?” she barked. “This is what you want, right? Come here.”

  Abby looks like a Russian tennis-playing Sports Illustrated swimsuit model, so I had to breathe really deeply a few times and blink. Then I shook my head. “No.”

  “No?” she asked.

  “No,” I said.

  “Oh really?”

  “Yeah. I don’t know what’s going on with…”

  “Whatever. I have to go to sleep,” she said. “I need to be alone.”

  “Okay?” I said.

  Abby climbed in her bed and at least pretended to be asleep.

  My stupid heart hurt. I waited for a while, then left her room.

  I made it through the house without running into anybody. That was good. But not everything was good.

  Big problem: I didn’t have a bike or a car. I stood on the Sauter front lawn staring at the street leading toward my house, miles away.

  In the past, when I found myself in this circumstance—without a car and far from home—I’d call Cody and he’d swing by in his truck and usually we’d get something to eat or whatever, then he’d drop me off.

  I’d been rude to Cody. Stupid. I couldn’t call him for help.

  So I started hoofing it. The wind had shifted and it was cold.

  I walked up Camp Street into growing darkness. An old car came rushing past. Someone yelled, “Homo Rein Stone,” from the window. They took off up the street fast. It was a burner car, not a jock or whatever. It didn’t make me mad. It just struck me as messed up. Why did these people who seemingly had no interest in sports otherwise care about Wisconsin Badger football? Lots of people care about the Badgers apparently.

  Or maybe people just like to pile on when shit’s bad? Could that be true?

  I sort of hugged myself, mostly against that damn wind, and kept hoofing.

  Twenty minutes later, about the time I hit Smith Park, my phone buzzed in my pants pocket. I worried about looking at it because I didn’t want to turn around and walk all the way back to Abby’s. But I wanted to be there if she needed me, so I did look.

  The text was from Andrew. Call me when you can, Felton. Serious.

  Andrew was really into checking on me. Good brother.

  I thought, You’re not alone. Not like Abby.

  It began to snow.

  By the time I got home, it was snowing pretty hard. I sort of liked it. When I got to the front door, I looked back from the house (the driveway light was on) and could see where I’d come from, my footprints in light snow going all the way down the drive, almost out to the main road before they disappeared in darkness.

  You’ll miss this in California.

  I stood and watched the falling snow get thicker. Sweet. My stomach still hurt and I felt heavy. But the snow was pretty and I had Andrew and I took care of Pig Boy and I wouldn’t leave Abby.

  You’re doing okay…You’ll be okay.

  I think I believed it.

  Chickens Start Landing

  Chapter 36

  Terry Sauter’s Beer

  When I entered the house, Jerri sat on the couch in the living room with only one lamp burning. She wasn’t reading an accounting book or anything. She seemed to be sitting there in the gloom, just waiting for me to come in.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “So you’re a fan of German beer?” Jerri said.

  “No.” My heart accelerated. I mumbled, “Not a fan.” My heart began thumping hard. Abby and I hadn’t cleaned up the beer bottles. We’d left so fast in the morning that it hadn’t even occurred to me.

  “Are you a drinker?” she asked.

  “Not really,” I said.

  “Is Abby Sauter?”

  “Abby? How did you know about…”

  “Terry saw the bottles and he swore the only way you’d have that kind of beer is if you took it from Abby’s house. You can’t buy it in town. You can’t buy it in the U.S. Have you gone to Europe without me knowing?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Do you and Abby think it’s funny to take people’s prized possessions?”

  “Terry’s prized possession is beer?” I asked. “Really? You’re okay with that?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I do. Your boyfriend’s prized possession is beer.”

  “Don’t turn this back on me. You’re stealing. You’re drinking. I’ve given you room to be an adult and this is how you pay me back?” she snapped.

  I paused for a second. I glared at Jerri ,who hadn’t been a mother to me through the roughest of years. “You�
�ve given me room?” I spat.

  “I’ve given you free rein…”

  “This is your gift?” I shouted.

  She sat forward in her chair. “What’s going on, Felton?”

  “Maybe I crashed a car. Maybe I beat up some kid. Maybe I got drunk by a Dumpster at Kwik Trip.” I turned and walked out of the living room.

  “You did what?”

  “Up yours, Jerri,” I called.

  “You’re grounded, Felton!” she shouted after me.

  “You going to hang around to oversee that?” I shouted back.

  She didn’t answer, and I ran down the stairs.

  I walked past the empty bottles and the half-eaten pizza on the floor. My head exploded. That German beer smell made me sick. My mouth dried like crackers. I flopped onto my bed. “Shit,” I said. I thought about calling Abby to warn her of impending trouble. Then I thought, That asshole Terry isn’t going to call anyone…these people aren’t even adults.

  However, Abby wasn’t remotely fine at that moment.

  Chapter 37

  Dad Drank Alcohol

  A few hours later, I woke to my phone buzzing again. I didn’t get it because I couldn’t find it in the dark. A few seconds later, a voicemail dropped and I saw the phone light up in my pants pocket.

  It was Andrew. I listened to his message.

  “He won’t go to the doctor. Please call, Felton.”

  Who won’t go? Grandpa?

  I called Andrew’s cell immediately. He answered.

  “Where have you been? I texted five times today. I’ve called five times,” Andrew said.

  “I’m sorry. I thought you were calling to check on me,” I mumbled.

  “So you don’t answer? God, you’re dumb,” Andrew said.

  “What’s going on? Is Grandpa sick?”

  “Yes,” Andrew said.

  “How? Why? Is it bad? Should he go to the doctor? What’s happening? Can he stand up? Is he in pain?” I assumed Grandpa Stan was at death’s door. That’s how things work in my family. Disaster.

  “He’s not acting like Grandpa. He won’t play tennis and he groans when he drives. He can’t walk very far and he gets out of breath,” Andrew said. “He’s obviously in pain. Like when he wasn’t feeling good at Christmas—but worse.”