Make Something Up by Chuck Palahniuk Read Free Book Online Page B

white, like she’s some trashed teddy bear somebody loved too hard.
    To cut you off using some brilliant strategy, the United States Marine, the bastard, he says, “Nine dollars.”
    Then to cut him off, the rocket science guy says, “Ten. Ten dollars.”
    It must be some trick question, because the old grandma says, “One dollar and ninety-nine cents,” and all the music starts, loud, and the lights flash on and off. The host hauls the granny up onto the stage, and she’s crying and plays a game where she throws a tennis ball to win a sofa and a pool table. Her grandma face looks just as smashed and wrinkled as that Kleenex she pulls out from her sweatshirt cuff. The big voice calls another granny to take her place, and everything keeps rushing forward.
    The next round, you need to guess the price of some potatoes, but like a whole big thing of real, alive potatoes, from before they become food, the way they come from the miners or whoever that dig potatoes in Ireland or Idaho or some other place starting with an “I.” Not even made into potato chips or French fries.
    If you guess right, you get some big clock inside a wood box like a Dracula coffin standing on one end, except with these church bells inside the box that ding-ding whatever time it is. Over your phone, your mom calls it a
grandfather clock.
You show it to her on video, and she says it looks cheap.
    You onstage with the TV cameras and lights, all the Zeta Delts call-waiting you, you cup your phone to your chest and go, “My mom wants to know, do you have anything nicer I could maybe win?”
    You show your mom those potatoes on video, and she asks: Did the old host guy buy them at A&P or the Safeway?
    You speed-dial your dad, and he asks about the income tax liability.
    Probably it’s the Hello Kitty, but the face of this big Dracula clock just scowls at you. It’s like the secret, hidden eyes, the eyelids open up, and the teeth start to show, and you can hear about a million-billion giant, alive cockroaches crawling around inside the wood box of it. The skin of all the supermodels goes all waxy, smiling with their faces not looking at anything.
    You say the price your mom tells you. The United States Marine says one dollar more. The rocket science guy says a dollar higher than him. Only, this round—you win.
    All those potatoes open their little eyes.
    Except now, you need to guess the price of a whole cow-full of milk in a box, the way milk comes in the kitchen fridge. You have to guess the cost of a whole thing of breakfast cereal like you’d find in the kitchen cabinet. After that, a giant deal of pure salt the way it comes from the ocean only in a round box, but more salt than anybody could eat in an entire lifetime. Enough salt, you could rim approximately a million-billion margaritas.
    All the Zeta Delts start texting you like crazy. Your in-box piling up.
    Next come these eggs like you’d find at Easter only plain white and lined up inside some special kind of cardboard case. A whole, complete set of twelve. These really minimalist eggs, pure white…so white you could just look at them forever, only right away you need to guess at a big bottle like a yellow shampoo, except it’s something gross called cooking oil, you don’t know what for, and the next thing is you need to choose the right price of something frozen.
    You cup one hand over your eyes to see past the footlights, except all the Zeta Delts are lost in the glare. All you can hear is their screaming different prices of money. Fifty thousand dollars. A million. Ten thousand. Just loony people yelling just numbers.
    Like the TV studio is just some dark jungle, and people are just some monkeys just screeching their monkey sounds.
    The molars inside your mouth, they’re grinding together so hard you can taste the hot metal of your fillings, that silver melting in your back teeth. Meantime, the sweat stains creep down from your armpit to your elbow, all black-red down both sides of