Reality Boy by A. S. King Read Free Book Online

I wished someone would say that.
    Nanny looked back at Tasha and continued. “We can make a new chart with different chores on it for you, and this time, if we put something on there that disturbs you, you have to speak up, all right?”
    Tasha glared at me, then asked Mom, who looked scared, “How is this fair?”
    “It’s fair because you’re learning to work as a family,” Nanny said.
    “Those charts are stupid,” Tasha answered.
    “Don’t say ‘stupid,’ ” I yelled from the couch. “You’re not allowed to say ‘stupid.’ ”
    “Oh, shut up, you little crapper!” Tasha screamed. “I hope you choke on your stupid ice cream!” She ran to her room and locked the door.
    After the crew left, Mom asked Dad to take me out for ice cream. We went to Blue Marsh Dairy and I got a big cone of strawberry and Dad talked on his cell phone to a client about a bi-level he was trying to sell. Then he joined me in eating my cone because I couldn’t eat it all.
    He said, “I’m proud of you, son.”
    “Thanks,” I said.
    Then we went back home and Tasha was sitting on the couch eating ice cream out of a bowl and watching TV.
    I said, “Hey! I thought she wasn’t allowed!”
    Mom tried to say something from the kitchen, where she was making dinner, but Tasha talked over her and said, “Shut up, you little troll. You’re the problem child. Not me.”
    So I went upstairs and I did two things.
    I crapped in Tasha’s pink-sheeted bed—right at the bottom, where her feet would hit it. After I was done, I pulled up the covers and sat on it, so it would be a big, nasty, sticky mess.
    Lisi and I never got to go to the circus.

12
    LET’S GET THIS out in the open: Lisi doesn’t call home because Mom tried to talk her out of college. Not specifically, mind you, but in her own ignore-the-middle-child kind of way. She never urged Lisi to get college catalogs, never bought her SAT prep books. The guidance counselor even called her from school one day and asked why Lisi hadn’t made college plans yet. Maybe the guidance counselor heard it in my mother’s voice—the complete lack of giveashit—because after he talked to her, he started to get Lisi applications and interviews. After Lisi started getting offers from colleges, Mom said two things.
    “College is such a hard place to fit in” and “Look at what happened to your sister.”
    Lisi doesn’t call home even though she knows I need to talk to her.
    Lisi is probably too stoned to care.
    She proved Mom wrong and went to college.
    I would very much like to follow her lead—not only in getting the hell out of here but also in going to college, maybe… though that’s going to be hard, considering SPED class and all this trouble I get into. Mom and Dad could have helped me, but instead Mom just kept meeting with school officials with that same face she gave to Nanny.
What can I do with this boy?
    So I got to meet the first caring and nurturing people I ever met, thanks to the least caring and nurturing person I ever met.
    SPED class is my mother.

    When I get back from gym class, Deirdre tells me I look even sexier sweaty.
    “Jesus, Deirdre,” I say. “You’re killing me here.”
    She spins her wheelchair around and smiles her crooked smile. “That’s only because you want me and you can’t have me,” she says.
    I smile at her. Then I notice that her right foot is off her footrest, and I reach down to put it on for her.
    “While you’re down there…” she says as I go to stand.
    I turn bright red.
    “You made him blush, Deirdre!” Karen says.
    “Dude, you’re gonna have to wear baggy clothes from now on,” Kelly boy says. “These chicks are crazy.”
    Fletcher says, “Okay, guys. Can we please stop concentrating on Gerald’s deltoids for a minute and get back to linear equations?”
    “Linear equations suck,” Kelly boy says.
    “Yes,” Mr. Fletcher answers. “Linear equations
do
suck. However, you have to learn them or you can’t graduate,