Liar & Spy by Rebecca Stead Read Free Book Online Page B

smiling.
    “Pigeon!” Safer’s mom says. “Is that a hello? This is Safer’s friend, Georges.”
    “He lives on three,” Candy adds.
    Pigeon’s eyebrows shoot up. “Cool,” he says. “Nice to meet you, Georges.” He sticks out his hand, and we shake.
    “Hmph.” Safer slams into his chair.
    “Don’t mind Safer,” Pigeon tells me. “He’s still mad at me.” He turns to Safer and puts him in a headlock. “Can’t stay mad forever, buddy. I’m still the only brother you’ve got.” Safer squirms and turns his face away. Pigeon lets him go.
    The food is chicken stir-fry and rice, and it’s good. Safer’smom and Pigeon pretty much carry the conversation, asking me questions about my family and school. I end up telling them about how we’re studying taste in science, and about umami. I don’t explain about how it’s the Science Unit of Destiny, because they would all think my school is full of idiots and they don’t need to know that. Safer frowns through the whole meal.
    Safer’s mom watches as Pigeon picks all the chicken out of his stir-fry and pushes it to one side of his plate.
    She frowns. “Not with your fingers, Pigeon. And have you had any protein today?”
    “Ate a bean burrito for breakfast,” Pigeon says. “Ha! ‘Bean burrito for breakfast.’ In poetry that’s called alliteration.”
    “Alliteration,” Safer mimics. “Oh la la .”
    “Are you a vegetarian?” I ask Pigeon.
    “No, I just don’t eat birds.”
    “Oh.”
    “Tell him the story!” Candy says.
    “Candy!” Safer’s mom says. “Don’t talk with your mouth full. Swallow, then talk.”
    Candy swallows and looks at me. “It’s a really funny story.”
    Pigeon smiles. “Okay. So one day when I was totally little, Mom, Dad, and I are driving along this road up in Connecticut and we see these cows. And I’m like, what are cows for? I mean, what do they do , you know? And Mom’s trying to give me the easy answer, so she tells me, ‘Cows are for milk, remember? Cows give us milk.’
    “But then Dad pipes up, ‘And meat.’ And I’m like, ‘What do you mean, meat?’ Then he tells me that hamburgers arecow meat. And this lightbulb goes on in my head, and I start thinking about all the foods we eat, and I’m asking, what about dumplings, and what about bacon—and they’re telling me, pork dumplings are from pigs, blah blah blah. I was real interested in all of it. It’s one of those things you remember—you’re just a little kid, and you’re finally clueing in to the real world, you know? And so then I say, ‘What about chicken? Where does chicken come from?’ And right then this other lightbulb goes on in my head, and I start screaming, ‘Chicken is chickens ?’
    “At first they thought it was funny—you know, ‘Chicken is chickens,’ ha ha. But I was horrified. I would rather gnaw off my own fingers than eat a bird. And that was it. No birds for me since that day in the car.”
    “Isn’t that hilarious?” Candy says. “Chicken is chickens?”
    “So what do you eat on Thanksgiving?” I ask Pigeon. Don’t ask me why I’m thinking about Thanksgiving in particular. It’s just the one day of the year when everyone in the country is eating a bird, I guess.
    He shrugs. “Stuffing, mashed potatoes, string beans, cranberry sauce—all the side dishes. I hear turkey doesn’t have a lot of flavor.”
    “I love turkey,” Safer says. “It’s delicious. I wish I could eat turkey every day.”
    “Safer,” his mom says. “No baiting.”
    Safer pushes back from the table and stands up. “Come on, Georges.”
    “You didn’t ask to be excused,” Safer’s mom says.
    “Fine. Can Georges and I be excused?”
    She smiles. “Yes. Thank you for asking.”
    I stand up and thank Safer’s mom for dinner. She beams at me.
    “Why do you hate your brother so much?” I ask Safer when we’re back in the living room, sunk into the beanbag chairs.
    “I don’t hate him,” Safer says.
    “He seems