Born Weird by Andrew Kaufman Read Free Book Online Page B

unseasonably warm, above zero, which made the snow wet and perfect for packing.
    The tunnel was almost complete, with less than three feet separating the two teams of diggers. Richard suddenly felt an overwhelming compulsion to look up. He looked at the icicles. He looked down to where his siblings worked beneath the snow.
    “Out now!” Richard screamed. “Everybody out now!”
    There was something in his voice, a confidence, a complete lack of doubt that none of them could question. They scurried out of the tunnel. They ran as fast as they could across the backyard. They stopped just before the east wall of the house. They turned and looked back at the tunnel. Nothing happened.
    “What?” Lucy demanded.
    Then they heard a crack and all of the giant icicles fell from the roof. The tunnel was speared at sixteen different points.
    “I hate it when you do that!” Lucy said.
    “You hate it when I save your life?”
    “You don’t know that,” Kent said. “They might have missed us.”
    “They would have speared your skulls!”
    “Or maybe not. They could have missed.”
    “How could they? Look!” Richard said, pointing to the sixteen-time-speared tunnel.
    “Still, you have no proof that you saved our lives,” Lucy said.
    “Not for sure,” Kent said. Richard let out a very deep sigh.
    And that’s how it went. Even with proof as tangible as sixteen icicles, going along with Richard’s predictions remained, for Lucy and Kent at least, an act of faith, every time. Although they always eventually went with what Richard said, they never stopped wondering what would have happened if they hadn’t. Would the danger have beenexactly as Richard predicted? How bad would the bad thing be? As the years progressed they began to wonder if being so careful all the time was actually the best course. It didn’t seem to be working out all that well for Richard.

R ICHARD , L UCY AND A NGIE STOOD so close to the automatic doors that their bodies triggered the sensors, keeping them open. Passengers gave jet-lagged sighs and wheeled their suitcases around them. Angie and Lucy didn’t move until Richard put down his camera.
    “You’re not still letting Mother cut your hair?” he asked.
    “You think I paid for this?” Lucy said.
    “See, Lucy? Is this a coincidence?” Angie asked. Then she stepped forwards and hugged her older brother. Both her belly and the seven years of separation made this awkward.
    “Wow!” he said.
    “I’m pregnant. Not fat. Just so you know.”
    “You’re beautiful,” Richard said.
    “The clock is ticking,” Lucy said. She gestured towards the departures board to their right. Very near the top, their connecting flight aboard Airways Upliffta, flight AU812, was listed. There were forty-seven minutes before takeoff.
    “This doesn’t feel fated to you? This doesn’t make you believe?” Angie asked her.
    “It means nothing if you don’t get him to come along,” Lucy said.
    “What are you two talking about?”
    “Forty-six minutes …”
    “Okay!” Angie said to Lucy. She took a very deep breath. “I went to see the Shark …” she said to Richard.
    “Good God why?”
    “That’s exactly what I said.”
    “She’s on her deathbed …”
    “Again?”
    “Listen to me!” Angie said. She stomped her foot. Her crazy hair flopped crazily around. “She told me that she blessed each of us at the moment of our births. But these blessings became curses and ruined our lives. In thirteen days …”
    “Twelve.”
    “In twelve days, at the moment of her death, provided I gather the five of us in her hospital room, she will lift the curses, finally and forever.”
    “What did she say that she gave me?”
    “That’s it?” Lucy asked. “You’re just buying that?”
    “Self-protection,” said Angie.
    “Interesting,” Richard said. He rubbed his thumb against his wedding ring, making it circle his finger.
    “Lucy is directions. I’m forgiveness. Abba is hope. And Kent is, like,