Katfish

  My father told Kat how important tire swings and sliding poles can be in preventing kids from becoming criminals.

  My dad invited Kat to have dinner with us. I thought it was a bad idea, but there was something about Kat that made me want her around. She was strong, and interesting, and so different from the other girls I knew. It’s not that she was better than Janae. It’s just that she was speaking to me and Janae wasn’t. Plus, Kat had to be here for a reason. Everyone who came out of my closet had taught me something. Kat was also different because I had already read the book she had come from, so I sort of felt like I knew her already. Maybe she was here because I had everything figured out and now I needed a girlfriend.

  My dad told her to come at six, and Kat turned, looked up at the low sun, and licked her finger to test the wind. She then quickly jumped back over the wall and ran off down the alley.

  I loved my dad, but sometimes he was just plain clueless. I finished cleaning the pool while my father finished his exercises. Tuffin wouldn’t get out of the pool, so I was forced to use the net.

  CHAPTER 8

  SHARING CAN BE MESSY

  I don’t want you to read too much into this, but I actually took a shower and changed my clothes before dinner.

  Trevor called and I made the mistake of telling him that Kat was going to eat with us. He was so jealous, he hung up on me. I thought that would be the end of it, but ten minutes before dinner he showed up at my house, hinting that he would like to eat with us.

  My mom fell for it and invited him. Apparently, Trevor had told my other friends, because one by one they showed up at my house, begging to join us for dinner.

  So by the time it was dinner, all my friends were there but there was no sign of Kat. My dad had mentioned to my mother that a foreign exchange student would be joining us, so she had made a ton of food.

  Right before my dad started to say a prayer and bless the meal, the doorbell rang. All my friends and I jumped up and ran to get it. There was no one at the front door.

  When we got back to the table, however, Kat was sitting in a chair next to Libby.

  Apparently, Kat liked to create diversions. She had rung the front doorbell and slipped in the back door. We were all shocked to see her. My dad tried to make things better by explaining how Kat’s ways might be strange to us, but that different cultures did things differently.

  I didn’t know where my dad was getting his information, but I had a feeling he was wrong. My friends and I took our seats, bummed that Kat had decided to sit between Libby and Tuffin. My dad told Kat that we usually bowed our heads and prayed before eating. We all lowered our heads, except for Jack, as my dad said an unusual prayer.

  My dad didn’t need to worry about that. I’d never seen anyone attack food like Kat did. If she found my mom’s food to be strange, she sure didn’t show it. She shoved whole rolls in her mouth and drank gravy straight from the gravy bowl. I think if any other girl, besides Janae, had done that I would have thought it was disgusting, but with Kat it wasn’t so bad.

  Everyone seemed to love her. My mom thought she was interesting, my dad thought she brought culture to our home, Tuffin thought she was funny, and Libby liked her style.

  My friends were all trying so hard to prove they had good manners that it was beginning to get awkward. Each kept trying to act more polite than the other until they all ended up screaming at one another.

  I don’t think Kat was impressed. When she wasn’t eating, she was busy talking to Libby. This was not a good thing. None of the creatures who had previously come from my closet had been normal size. I had kept them hidden, and for the most part, they had been my problem alone. Pinocula had tried to pass as my cousin, but other than that, they had stayed mostly out of sight. Not Kat. She seemed to have no problem letting everyone know she was around. I also noticed that since I had read The Hunger Games I knew the answers to all the questions people asked her. My dad questioned her about her parents, and for some reason I spoke up.

  My mom looked at me like I was nuts. I suddenly remembered that she had read the books and would know I was talking about Katniss. I thought she was going to bust me, but she just said,

  So Kat started talking. She went on about everything. Most of the stuff about her I knew. There were a few times, however, when her story didn’t quite hold up to the book I had read. For example, she complained a couple of times about her feet hurting, and when my dad asked her if her mother worked, she said,

  I figured these were things I would have known if I had finished the second book in the Hunger Games series. In between all the questions and answers, Kat just kept on eating. She ate so much that in less than twenty minutes all the food on the table was gone. The only remaining food was on everyone else’s plate.

  Jack offered to give Kat what he had left, but Teddy told her that Jack had licked all the food on his plate, so she should eat his. Rourk picked up his roll and tried to hand it to Kat, but Aaron wouldn’t have it. He grabbed the roll from Rourk and handed Kat a fistful of his mashed potatoes.

  Now was my moment. While Libby was grossing out, I scraped my meat off my plate onto Kat’s. Trevor didn’t like that.

  In the spirit of sharing, Trevor tossed her a handful of his peas.

  The peas bounced off her dish and onto the floor. Tuffin picked up his plate and heaved it at my dad. My dad dodged the plate, which hit Jack in the back of the head. Jack wasn’t mad—he now had more food to give Kat. She was just a girl, but for some reason, Kat made me and my friends act like idiots. It felt like my brain was being spun around and around and that the only way I could think straight was to get Kat to like me. My friends were also having a difficult time controlling their actions and emotions. We wanted Kat to like us so desperately that we all began throwing food at her to eat. Teddy grabbed my mom’s plate, and Rourk grabbed Libby’s.

  My mom and Libby were shouting and trying to make us stop. My dad got up and grabbed his video camera to film the fight. By the time we all ran out of food and came to our senses, Kat was covered in food. It was not pretty.

  There was food dripping from the ceiling. There was food on the walls, food on the floor, and food in everyone’s hair.

  My dad tried to explain to Kat how this was just a cultural misunderstanding, but she was already up and heading for the back door. She stopped in front of Teddy and looked him in the eyes. Teddy seemed as if he was going to throw up from nervousness. Kat blinked and said,

  Kat left through the back door while Teddy wobbled and shook. My mom looked at me and my friends.

  Whenever the house was a mess, my mom would just look at us and announce that she was going to nap. I always tried to get out of the room before she could tell me to clean up while she slept, but this time I was too slow. She was going to take a nap, and my friends and I were going to have to clean up everything.

  Trevor stayed, but everyone else left. Libby went off to do homework I know she didn’t have. Tuffin went off to watch a movie he had already seen a thousand times. My dad went off to watch TV and think about what we had done. Trevor and I were on our own.

  Trevor and I cleaned everything up, including ourselves, then went to the garage to work on our wood blocking and guiro skills. The funstival was only three days away, and we needed all the practice we could get. Even while practicing, it was hard not to think of Kat.

  Down the street the sound of Mr. Foote’s gong rang out. The noise filled the neighborhood and then faded. I looked at Trevor and shivered.

  She was counting down something, but I had no idea what she meant by it all. Trevor seemed excited.

  I didn’t want to be mean, but there was no way Trevor was the one—at best he was the two. Of course in my mind I had a pretty good idea who “the one” actually was.

  I just hoped that being number one was a good thing.

  CHAPTER 9

  ONLINE

  Trevor left after we practiced for about an hour. I don’t think people really need to practice
things like the wood block and guiro, but we stood there scraping and hitting things until we felt like we were pros.

  After I got ready for bed I sat down in front of the family computer to do a little research. We had only one computer, and my parents made us keep it on a small table in the middle of our family room.

  My dad tried to make it sound like it was a good thing, but Libby and I knew the real reason was because our parents wanted to know what we were doing. We used to keep the computer in the office nook near the kitchen, until Libby got busted looking up

  That was when my dad decided to put the computer in the most public place in the house. I didn’t really care because I usually used it only for games or homework. Tonight, however, I needed it for other reasons. I was having multiple girl problems, and I wanted to see if there was something I could do to correct them. Janae still wouldn’t speak to me, and now Kat was here. I wasn’t exactly smooth in the “lady” department.

  I had seen a TV show where they gave out some advice to people who were having trouble with their girlfriends. They had mentioned a website where you could find ideas to help make things better.

  I typed in the address and pressed ENTER. There were tons of dumb ideas for boys to impress the girl of their dreams. They seemed silly, but it said they were guaranteed to work. Quickly, I wrote down a few. My dad came into the room and saw the list I was writing.

  I just nodded and quietly hoped he would go away. My dad started talking about how he used to impress my mom. He went on and on about all the cute things he did. He described how he used to comb his hair and polish his shoes so that …

  I wanted to simultaneously throw up and die, but he kept on talking. He told me about their first date, their second date, and their third date.

  He told me what flowers were appropriate for a fourth date and how girls love it when you call them by their first and last names. He kept talking about my mother and his relationship with her so much that I thought maybe it would just be better for me to become a monk and never even date girls.

  I thanked my dad for no reason and ran off with my list. When I got to my room I closed my door and there was Kat. I screamed in the most manly way I could.

  Kat had come through my window, and she was trying to get back into the closet. Puck was there with her. He was obviously not a very good guard dog. Kat pulled as hard as she could on the closet doorknob. I explained to her that Beardy wouldn’t open up until the time was right.

  I knew what Kat meant. My closet usually mixed creatures up, but she didn’t seem to be a mash-up. I thought maybe if we took a moment to think about why she was here it would help.

  Kat told me she had been using her bow and arrows to shoot at the gong. She kept them hidden so she wouldn’t waste the arrows. It wasn’t easy for me to talk to girls, but I just went for it. I told Kat about everything I had learned about Katniss from reading The Hunger Games. Kat told me that it did sound a lot like her, but there was another part of her that didn’t match up with Katniss.

  Kat couldn’t whistle either, which was weird, seeing how in The Hunger Games she could. I didn’t know why she wanted to sing, but whenever she tried, nothing came out of her mouth.

  Kat knew she was here to help me, but she wasn’t totally sure how yet. When I suggested she could start by telling Janae that I wasn’t such a bad guy, she smiled and asked me if she could read my copy of The Hunger Games. It was a weird request, but I found my copy and gave it to her. She thanked me and promised she was going to find a way to help me, then she climbed out the window.

  I closed the window behind her. Kat was something else. I mean, she was sort of interesting. I sat on my bed and looked at the list of ideas I had gotten from the internet to impress girls. I wanted to get Janae to forgive me, but for some reason every time I saw Kat, my thoughts about her got bigger while my thoughts about Janae shrunk.

  I changed into one of my dad’s old concert T-shirts and got ready for bed. Then I found the second book in the Hunger Games series, Catching Fire, and began to read.

  CHAPTER 10

  GOOD IDEA

  Books and I have an unusual relationship. I used to hate reading. My fourth-grade teacher, Mr. Nark, used to say that books were like a garden, and if we didn’t pick them and “weed” them, they would die. It was annoying because he said the whole thing in baby talk.

  I know Mr. Nark was trying to help, but it didn’t. If I really had had a book garden, the books would have died long ago.

  But now that I was in middle school, I was beginning to feel differently. I’d had a real change of heart.

  Sure, the main reason for how I now felt about books and reading had to do with my closet. Books had come alive in my room and made life exciting. It seemed like every day there were things that books made a little bit better or more interesting. I had even gone to the library once for fun.

  I had gotten faster at reading, and I wasn’t scared to start books that were more than a half-inch thick. I read a good chunk of Catching Fire before I went to bed, and when I woke up, I read a little more. I hopped out of bed, got dressed, and studied my list of ideas to help me win back Janae. Some of them were too stupid to even consider.

  There were really only a few that I would even consider. The safest one seemed to be making a poster that I could put in Janae’s front yard. The list suggested that I make it look like one of those posters that people put out on their lawn when they want other people to know who they’re voting for.

  So I got some markers and poster board from my mom’s craft room. I then sat down on my bedroom floor and began to create. I had barely gotten the first word drawn when my friends began showing up at my window.

  Jack had really good ears. I let him in, and two minutes later Teddy was there. He was followed by Rourk, then Aaron, and finally Trevor. It wasn’t unusual for my friends to crawl through my window on a Saturday, but it was only eight in the morning and they were all showered and looked spiffed up. I told them Kat wasn’t here, and they seemed disappointed. When I asked them to help me with my signs, they seemed even more disappointed. Luckily Trevor was still his usual positive self.

  I gave Trevor a piece of poster board, and he grabbed some markers. Not wanting to be left out, my other friends took their own pieces of poster board and began to draw on them. I explained that they needed to make signs about how sorry I was and that the signs should be positive and help Janae think about forgiving me. I had lied to Janae and she had kissed me before she had found out that I had tricked her into going to the dance. Things needed to be fixed. Everyone began to draw and create. It made me feel really good that my friends were helping. I really felt that after Janae saw the posters her heart would soften.

  It was kind of stupid for me to feel good. When my friends were done, it was obvious that I had asked the wrong people to help me make posters.

  I took the signs from my friends and thanked them for nothing. Jack said it was a stupid idea anyway, so I showed them the list of other dating tips.

  The only person willing to suggest one was Jack.

  My mom had a big plastic container filled with hundreds of balloons in her craft room. I got them and we all wrote a bunch of cute sayings on small slips of paper. I didn’t check them, but my friends promised they weren’t bad.

  I stuck one of the pieces of paper in one of the balloons and blew it up. I tied it shut and held it for everyone to look at.

  Jack stabbed the balloon with a pencil, and a loud pop echoed around my room. We all covered our ears as the little paper drifted to the ground. It was loud, but the idea was kind of cool. I figured if we blew up fifty, stuffed them with notes, and left them in Janae’s front yard she would have to forgive me. The only problem was that the noise from the popped balloon had caused my mother to come and investigate. She knocked on my bedroom door and asked,

  I yelled back,

  My mom twisted my bedroom doorknob. I sent all my friends back out the window as fast as I could and slipp
ed the posters under the bed. I grabbed my book to make it look like I was reading. My mom came in and asked me what that good explosion had been. I blamed it on the one thing I could think of.

  Puck looked guilty. My mom noticed the book I was holding and started to tell me about how much she’d enjoyed it. It was always weird to read books that my parents liked. I couldn’t tell if it made me like the book more or less. My mom gave me a list of Saturday jobs I needed to do. I wasn’t happy about the jobs, but I was happy that she didn’t question me further about the popping balloon. I didn’t think she would notice the missing supplies, knowing that she only went into her craft room twice a year and it was usually just to find scissors to cut a tag off something. Before she left I asked,

  My mom must have been in a good mood because she didn’t say yes or no. She just turned around and walked down the hall. In my mom’s language that was a yes. I did all my jobs as fast as I could. I cleaned my room, helped Tuffin clean his, emptied the dishwasher, vacuumed the family room, and gave Puck a super-quick bath.