Do You Think This Is Strange? by Aaron Cully Drake Read Free Book Online Page B

observant.
    I am.
    Says someone who stares at a clock that isn’t there.
    I only look at it to stop you from talking to me.
    Not true. You only look at the clock because you don’t want to look at anything else.
    Because you won’t give me peace.
    Because you won’t say anything otherwise.
    How about I say this? Shut up.
    Not productive.
    I will talk to you later.
    Yes. You will talk later. You will talk to all of us later.
    â€œFreddy?” said Mr. Pringle, seemingly from the end of a long hallway.
    I pulled myself up from the depths of my own mind to see him staring at me from his desk, with a puzzled expression.
    I looked around. Everyone else was doing their homework. My pen was in my hand, but my pad was empty. I looked back at Mr. Pringle.
    â€œDid you have a question?” he asked me.
    â€œNo.”
    Don’t call him Mr. Chips.
    Stop it.
    Really. Mr. Chips. Don’t say it.
    â€œYou were looking at me,” Mr. Pringle said.
    â€œYou were looking at me,” I said and put my head down, beginning my exercises.
    â€œBecause you were looking at me .”
    Mr. Chips. Mr. Chips.
    I bit the inside of my cheek. Focus on the bite. Focus on the bite.
    Mr. Chips.
    â€œWell?” he asked.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œWere you looking at me?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWhy?”
    I clenched my teeth together. “I don’t know.”
    â€œIf you don’t know why you’re looking at me, don’t look at me.”
    He was looking at you!
    â€œOkay,” I said.
    Mr. Chips.
    â€œLook at your homework, okay?”
    I started writing quickly. Avogadro’s constant. Moles. Equilibrium.
    â€œOkay?” he asked again.
    â€œMr. Chips,” I said softly.
    I told you not to call him that.
    Mr. Pringle stood up. “ What did you say?”
    â€œYou looked at me ,” I said.
    This time, he stared at me with a little more than indifference. But he said nothing. He shook his head and returned to his work.
    One of these days , the threads said , you will fail to dodge the bullet .

AN ACCOUNTING OF MY
DAY IN THREE PARTS
    The evening of the day Saskia returned, Bill and I walked the trails behind the house, and he requested an accounting of my time.
    â€œTell me three things you did today,” he said as we walked single file up a path made rough by granite knobs, made stubborn by hemlock roots, some as thick as an arm, lacing up the path underneath.
    As we walked, I took my water bottle from my belt. Bill led, at a steady pace, not looking back, waiting for my reply. He didn’t wait long. He never did.
    â€œThree things, Freddy,” he said, and his voice was irritated.
    â€œI ate my lunch,” I said and shook my bottle, listening to the water splash about.
    â€œYou can do better than that,” he told me and turned back to look at me directly, still walking, paying no attention to the broken ground beneath him. I broke from his gaze, and he turned back to watch his footing. The forest was silent, except for the dropping of our feet, and the sloshing of the water.
    â€œWhat else did you do?” he asked again. “Lunch is no longer an allowed answer.”
    â€œI sat at the cafeteria table with someone.”
    He stopped walking. His eyebrows went up. “With someone?” he said, as if he were contemplating a new postulate of science. “What kind of someone?”
    At that moment, I felt my stomach tighten. I didn’t want to tell him about Saskia Stiles but I didn’t know why. Not knowing my own motivation is unusual and causes me alarm. But I was even more alarmed that there were no threads appearing in my head, asking why I didn’t want to tell him.
    Zero threads.
    None.
    Apparently, the threads in my head were quite okay with it.
    â€œWho did you have lunch with, Freddy?” my father asked again.
    â€œWith a janitor,” I said, and I wondered if I said it too quickly and was now acting