Wonders of the Invisible World by Christopher Barzak Read Free Book Online Page A

clearly. Sometimes I’ll get migraines if I try to think about something too hard. And, well, I get this feeling like I shouldn’t tell my mom and dad what I’m telling you right now. Especially my mom.”
    Jarrod wrinkled his nose and said, “Your mom has always been a little odd.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “You know,” he said. “Telling fortunes and stuff like that. My mom used to go to her after she got out of rehab a few years back, trying to figure out what she should do with herself after she got cleaned up.”
    “Are you serious?” I said. Jarrod pulled back and looked like I’d accused him of lying, which I guess was true in that I doubted what he was saying. But I couldn’t grasp what he was telling me and recognize it as reality. “My mom doesn’t do that,” I said, shaking my head. “I mean, I’ve never seen her do anything remotely like that except on occasion, like by accident. At home. With just us around. My dad and Toby and me. We used to joke that she was psychic, but she’d be the first person to tell you psychics are fakes performing for money.”
    “Well,” Jarrod said, “according to my mom, she does. Maybe your mom just likes to keep it on the down low.”
    “On the down low?” I repeated the words like they were a phrase from a foreign language, squinting as I shaped the syllables.
    “I’ve been in Cleveland too long,” Jarrod said, snorting, “or else you don’t watch enough TV. Just keeping it under wraps, is what I’m talking about.”
    “Oh,” I said, still stunned, trying to take everything in. “I don’t know why she’d do that, though,” I said. “I mean, yeah, sometimes she knows things before other people do, but it’s always random, and it’s usually something not that important. Like she gets itchy fingers and thinks it’s a sign that money is coming to her, so she goes to play bingo or something. Stupid stuff like that. Half the time she’s joking. She’s never been someone who just sits down and tells someone’s future.”
    “Maybe it’s pocket money for her,” said Jarrod. “Maybe she’s ashamed of it and doesn’t want you and your dad or your brother to know about it. Anyway, you should tell your dad about not remembering things if you don’t want to tell your mom.”
    “I don’t know,” I said. “I think telling you has been enough.”
    Jarrod smiled then. A genuine smile, no teasing grin. Softly, he said, “It used to be.”
    “What?” I asked, smiling back now, ready for him to deliver a line that would most likely make fun of me somehow.
    “When we were kids,” he said. “It used to be enough for you to tell just me your secrets.”
    I suddenly felt awkward again, like we were talking about someone else, this someone else in the past who happened to be me. I couldn’t remember the memories he referenced, though, and my face must have shown as much, because the next thing Jarrod said was “You’re freezing up on me again, Lockwood. Fine. Let’s talk about something else. What’s there to do around this godforsaken place, anyway?”
    “Not much,” I said. “Most people drive out to Niles to hang at the mall.”
    “Is that where all the good boys go?” Jarrod asked. He lifted his chin as he posed the question, like he was challenging me to not be one of the good boys.
    I shrugged. “I don’t know,” I told him. “My parents keep me busy at home. I don’t have a lot of time to run around, really.”
    He laughed, repeating my words. “
Run around.
Sounds like something your mom and dad would call what everyone else calls
having fun.
” He lifted his hands off the recliner arms and dropped them down hard, like he’d just made a big decision. “Well then,” he said. “Let’s take a drive out there and find out what’s happening. God knows I could use a little running around right now.”

    Forty-five minutes later, we strolled into the mall like two cowboys busting through the swinging doors of a saloon,