The Reluctant Journal of Henry K. Larsen by Susin Nielsen Read Free Book Online Page B

started out on tree-lined residential streets. Then, after a few blocks, we turned left onto Broadway. We walked past four produce stores, five coffee shops, three bookstores, and a gazillion sushi restaurants. We passed the billiard hall, where men in sweater-vests stood outside, speaking in Greek and drinking coffee from tiny cups. Farley was trying to tell me the entire story line from Season 1 of “Battlestar Galactica,” but I tuned him out.
    Then I saw the Crazy Lady up ahead. She was outside the Vietnamese restaurant, wearing a purple dress, red kneesocks, and hot pink Crocs. She sang tunelessly while strumming on a plastic dollar-store guitar.
    The Crazy Lady is there most days when I walk home from school, and the sight of her always makes me queasy.
    “C’mon,” I said to Farley, “let’s cross here.” I didn’t tell him we’d have to cross back a block later. I do this all the time to avoid the Crazy Lady.
    When we got to our dingy gray building, my stomach was in knots. I took Farley up the back stairs so we wouldn’t run into Mr. Atapattu. I unlocked the door, and we stepped inside.
    Suddenly I felt ashamed. The beige carpeting is covered in burn marks. The white walls haven’t been white for years. Everything looks dingy and worn. Plus, webrought all the furniture from our three bedroom house and tried to fit it into a one bedroom + den, so it’s jammed with stuff that’s too big for the rooms. You have to squeeze your way past the big brown leather couch and the big brown leather La-Z-Boy and the big oak coffee table to get to the galley kitchen.
    But Farley just said, “Wow, what a cool apartment!” Then he made a beeline for the shelf that held my PS3 games. He grabbed Call of Duty 4 off the shelf. “Wanna play?”
    “Sure.”
    As I loaded up the game, he said, “What happened in here?” He pointed to a particularly large burn mark on the carpet, which we’d tried to cover with the coffee table.
    “Rumor has it, the previous tenant had a meth lab,” I told him. “He got caught because he started a fire one day.”
    “Wow. You’re living in a former drug den!” He sounded impressed.
    Confession: Playing Call of Duty 4 with Farley was fun. I hadn’t played with a real live human being in ages. After a while, Farley said, “I need to use your facilities.” It took me a moment to realize he meant the bathroom. I felt ashamed again because my dad and I haven’t cleaned in there once since we moved in. I might keep my ownroom neat and tidy, but cleaning toilets is not my thing. Also, the toilet seat has a crack in it – if you need to sit down, you have to be very careful or risk getting your bum pinched.
    Sure enough, a few minutes later I heard a yelp. But when I went down the hall to investigate, Farley wasn’t in the bathroom anymore.
    He was in my bedroom.
    My heart started pounding.
Where else had he been? What else had he seen?
    He was staring at my Great Dane poster. “You’re a GWF fan, too!” he exclaimed. “This is incredible. We have so much in common, we could practically be related. Separated at birth or what!” I was speechless. There were so many ways that this made no sense. “Except
my
favorite is Vlad the Impaler,” he continued.
    “Vlad the Impaler?” I blurted. “Are you nuts? That guy is pure evil.”
    “Exactly! Every time he steps into the ring, you know it’s gonna get interesting. Vlad means drama. Did you see last week, when he clotheslined Jett Turbo?”
    “Duh, of course I saw it!”
    We argued for a few more minutes about the Great Dane versus Vlad the Impaler, then Farley saw the time on my alarm clock. “Yikes, I’ve got to go. Maria will start worrying.”
    “Is Maria your mom?” I asked as we headed back to the living room.
    “No, she’s my nanny.”
    I laughed because I thought he was joking.
    “My parents live in Hong Kong. Maria lives here, with me. She’s from the Philippines.”
    “You’re serious? You don’t live with