Hero–Type by Barry Lyga Read Free Book Online

myself caught in a moment of memory, that moment when I threw down my backpack and charged at the Surgeon. Maybe it's the pot. Maybe it's confessing to Tit. I don't know
what
it is, but for some reason the memory is really intense and I'm lost in it, in that endless moment of decision ... And then ... Throwing down the backpack...
    I throw it down over and over and over.
    I remember one of the cops coming up to me, afterward. He held my backpack by one strap and held it out to me and something made a noise inside and he said, "This yours?" and I nodded and he said, "Sounds like something broke in there."
    "What?" says Tit, and I realize that I mumbled that last bit out loud.
    "Nothing," I tell him.
    That's when Flip gets back. Fam's with him. He leads us through the park, back to the entrance and the statue that stands there. He jumps up on the pedestal, wraps his arms around the statue, and dry-humps it for a little bit.
    "You're
soooo
mature," Fam says.
    "Don't be jealous, baby," Flip says. "I just gotta give her what she needs, you know?" He pulls back, slaps the statue on its ass, and says, "That ought to hold you for a while, huh, sweet cheeks?" before jumping down.

Chapter 11
     

How I Got Screwed Over
    I T'S JUST ABOUT MIDNIGHT BY THE TIME I GET HOME . I creep into the apartment as quietly as I can. Dad's a pretty sound sleeper, but he'll be up in a couple of hours and I don't want to wake him.
    As usual, Flip provided all kinds of sprays and lozenges and stuff to take the smell of beer and smoke and pot out of my clothes and my breath. He's always prepared like that. Just to be safe, though, I take off all of my clothes and stuff them deep into the laundry hamper. I'll do laundry tomorrow and Dad will never know.
    I lie there on the sofa bed for a while, thinking of the broken camera under me, thinking of the tapes, thinking back to Flip's whole deal with fractals and how the end of a situation totally depends on its beginning. And I wonder: Is it all Mom's fault? Does it go back that far? I mean, if Mom had been here, I never would have bought the camera. I never would have accidentally filmed Leah. I never would have...
    Been there.
    Leah dies. But am I innocent? Am I guilt-free? Does it all come down to Mom?
    When she left for California, I was thirteen, almost fourteen. So they let me decide where I would live and which parent I would be with. And you know what? That's total bull. Because it's so not cool to sit down a kid and say, basically, "Who do you love more?"
    Especially when you do it the way my parents did it. They sat me down and Mom did all the talking. I already knew they were getting divorced and that Mom was moving to California. I guess I thought Dad would move there, too. I don't know—maybe that's stupid. Maybe it's wishful thinking. I look back on it now and I think I was just in shock from everything. I wasn't thinking straight. I was thinking really, really crooked back then.
    So Mom said to me, "Kevin, your father and I think you're old enough to make this decision. You know I'm going to California. We want to let you decide if you want to go with me to California or stay here in Brookdale with Dad."
    I was thirteen, remember. The idea of picking up and moving across the country was scary. I would have a new school. I would have to make new friends, and—tell the truth—I wasn't very good at that. And who knew what it would be like in California?
    Plus, I liked the townhouse we lived in. It was in a nice part of Brookdale. I could ride my bike all over the place.
    "We might have to move," Dad said, popping that particular balloon. "I don't know yet. But we would stay in Brookdale and you would still go to South Brook."
    That sounded good.
    Mom chewed her bottom lip. "Honey, you don't have to decide right now if you don't want to."
    I suddenly realized that my little brother was nowhere to be found. "Where's Jesse?"
    "He's at Gramma's house for the day."
    That was another reason to stay, I