Off to Be the Wizard by Scott Meyer Read Free Book Online

was watching a rerun of an old sitcom. Back when he was working, he thought the show wasn’t worth his time. Now that he and his wife were retired (him from Boeing, her from a desk job at the school district), and the kids were grown and out of the house, he had more time to spend on TV shows. This, he was deciding, was not a good thing. He didn’t know the name of the show he was watching, but he did know that it adhered to the standard sitcom template. Average looking guy, married to stunningly beautiful woman, is unhappy.
    His wife, Margarita (who was roughly equal to him in attractiveness, but had made him very happy) was in the kitchen, doing whatever it was she was doing this week. If you asked her what her hobby was, she’d call it crafting. Crafting was a broad term, and every week she had some new thing she was making out of some new thing he wasn’t allowed to throw away anymore, or which he had to go to the craft store and buy with her. They’d stand in the aisle of Styrofoam balls, which was next to the aisle of big sheets of cardboard, and across from the aisle of fake ficus trees. It was the ficus trees that confused him. What could anyone possibly make out of those?
    TV wasn’t holding his interest, so Walter went to see what his wife was up to. She was sitting at the dining room table with her back to the entryway. A large part of the table was covered with newspaper. On the newspaper, blobs of white clay were sitting, spaced evenly. As he got closer, he was confused by what he saw. He kissed his wife on the top of the head.
    “Margarita, what are you doing?”
    She turned and showed him what she was working on. “I’m sculpting little geoduck clams! We can send them to our friends who live in other parts of the country. A little piece of the Northwest,” she said, holding up the one she was working on so Walter could appreciate it.
    Walter asked, “That’s a clam?”
    ”It’s not done yet. I’m doing the necks first, and when they’re dry, I’ll do the shells.”
    In the distance, they both heard the sound of multiple sirens, getting louder very quickly. Walter walked toward the front window to see what was going on, but only got two steps before they heard the hollow crunch of a collision. Walter went to the window and started to open the curtains, but the front door burst open, and their youngest son Martin burst into the house. Martin slammed the door shut and locked the deadbolt. He had a plastic bag in one hand.
    “Son …” was all Walter had time to say before Martin had spun around and hugged him so firmly that it squeezed the breath out of him.
    “Dad! Mom! I need you to know two things,” Martin said. He released his father from the vice-like hug and advanced on his mother. He paused, confused at what his mother was holding, then hugged her much more gently then he had his father. “Just remember, I love you, and it isn’t true.”
    He released his mother and walked toward the hall that led to his old bedroom.
    “It’s not true that you love us?” His mother said, in a quiet, confused voice.
    “What? No! I love you. Something else isn’t true.”
    “What isn’t true?” his father asked. He had to shout, as the sirens were very loud now.
    Martin looked at the front window. He saw the color of the police lights filtering through the drawn curtains. He said, “You’ll see soon enough.” He took one last look at his parents, then said, “I’ll be in my room.” He walked into his boyhood bedroom and closed the door behind him.
    Martin felt bad for dragging his parents into this, but he knew they’d be fine. No evidence tied them to anything illegal, because there was no evidence of anything illegal. He’d securely wiped his old computer, and he hadn’t done anything with the new one. He was taking his phone with him. His parents could afford a lawyer if it came to that, but there might still be a way to keep them from needing one. He needed time to think.
    Peeking