The Tutor by Peter Abrahams Read Free Book Online Page A

point, sooner the better, but—”
    “I’m not taking any fucking SAT course.”
    The pink patches on Scott’s face went red.
    “Do you know what would have happened if I’d talked to my old man like that?”
    Brandon rolled his eyes; made him a bit dizzy, he wouldn’t do it again. “I’m not taking any SAT course.”
    “But Brandon,” Linda said, “haven’t you been listening?”
    “Forget it.” He started walking away.
    “Do you think Sam would act this way?” Scott said.
    “Sam? What’s that asshole got to do with it?”
    “That asshole,” said Scott, “will probably go to Harvard.”
    “He’ll still be an asshole,” Brandon said, walking out of the kitchen, into the front hall, on the way to a good long piss, his room, an end to all this bullshit. He raised his voice to make sure they’d hear. “And no way on that goddamn course. You can’t make me and that’s that.”
    The front doorbell rang. Brandon happened to be right there. He opened the door. It was true: they couldn’t make him. They could drop him off at Kaplan, Princeton Review, whatever it was, and pick him up, but they couldn’t make him listen to one word, make one mark on a sheet of paper, answer a single question. The course wasn’t going to happen. End of story.
    There in the doorway stood Dewey’s mom.
    “Are your parents in?” she said. Or something like that; mostly he was just taking in the glare she gave him.
    Brandon thought fast, but no good ideas came. He tried the best of what he had: “I think they’re eating dinner right now. Is there something I could—”
    “Brandon?” Linda called from the kitchen. “Who’s at the door?”
    “It’s, uh, Mrs. Brickham.”
    “Mrs. Brickham?”
    “Dewey’s mom.”
    Then Linda was in the front hall too, everything happening too fast. “Mrs. Brickham? Nice to meet you at last. I’m Brandon’s mom.” Brandon watched his mom taking in the expression on Mrs. Brickham’s face. “Is something wrong?”
    “Yes indeed,” said Mrs. Brickham, turning that glare right back on him.

    U pstairs, Ruby was running into a little problem with “A Scandal in Bohemia.” Holmes was a cocaine user, she knew that—in fact she was considering bringing it up during discussion period at the next schoolwide DARE conference—but she’d been taught that cocaine revved you up, and here was Dr. Watson talking about the drowsiness of the drug and how Holmes had to rise out of his drug-created dreams to get on with the business of solving crimes. Was this another mistake, like the hunting crop and poker mess-up? If so, there was something wrong with Sherlock Holmes, like he didn’t quite make sense, fit together, and Ruby didn’t want that. She got up and started down the hall to the stairs. In the mirror at the top, she saw that her right side Thumbelina had unraveled, leaving just one horn sticking up on the left. Cool.
    Ruby went downstairs, taking the last three in one jump—landing with both feet inside a black square—heard talking in the kitchen, ran in. “Is cocaine an upper or a downer?”
    The talking stopped and everyone turned to her: Mom, Dad, Brandon, and some fierce gray-haired lady she didn’t know.
    “Our daughter, Ruby,” Mom said. The woman’s angry gaze rested on Ruby’s single Thumbelina. A scary woman: on Halloween she’d make a perfect Wicked Witch of the West. Ruby herself always went as Princess Di. She had a huge tiara with a heart-shaped ruby, her favorite gem, of course, and she said, “Trick or treat?” with an English accent.
    “How about watching TV for a half hour or so, angel?” Mom said.
    “Sure,” said Ruby, and left the room. Left it with every intention of going downstairs to the home entertainment center, with the big TV, surround sound, DVD, but out in the hall she heard her Dad say:
    “The car got towed?”
    “To the pound,” said the fierce woman. “Right out from under their drunken noses. That’s what led to their