Diary One: Dawn, Sunny, Maggie, Amalia, and Ducky

  And the drive up into Vista Hills—sitting here, writing, with the breeze blowing through the open windows—that’s the

  perfect dessert.

  In Which You Ask the Question:

  So Why Couldn’t the Day

  Have Ended There?

  You are a maniac.

  Your hands are filthy. Your shirt is clammy with sweat. You smell.

  It is 11:21, and you have spent the entire night cleaning.

  Why did you bother coming home?

  WHAT A DISGUSTING MESS this place is! Cigarette butts in the toilet tank. Fungus growing under the fridge. Chewing gum on the kitchen floor. A rock in the stove that looks like it was once a hamburger.

  Clothes you forgot you even owned. Clothes that were once Ted’s but have been lying around so long they probably fit you. Clothes that don’t belong to anyone you know and you don’t know what they’re doing here. You don’t want to know.

  HOW DID IT GET THIS BAD? You were HERE the whole time. Didn’t you notice?

  You did notice. You just didn’t care. Because it was just the way things were. Life with Ted and Ducky.

  It hit you tonight, though. You opened the door, and—WHAM—the stench hit you.

  Your house SMELLS.

  It’s like a combination locker room, laundry hamper, and dumpster from the back of a restaurant.

  And up until then, you’d felt so good. Driving into the hills was relaxing. And the meal at Sunny’s—you’d forgotten how much fun it could be to just sit around eating and talking.

  It’s such normal stuff. But it’s stuff you haven’t done in months. Since Mom and Dad left. Which is so weird because you never think life is so great when they’re here—and maybe it isn’t, but it sure feels better than it does now.

  For one thing, when they’re here, it feels like you live in a HOME.

  You look forward to coming back to a HOME. A HOME doesn’t stink.

  SUNNY has a home.

  You have a HOLE.

  She has a FAMILY.

  You have a

  What? What do you have?

  What are Ted and you?

  It’s like, when Mom and Dad leave, you say: okay, family’s over for awhile. Suspended animation. Don’t do anything until they come back.

  You and Ted don’t talk to each other much. You don’t do ANYTHING much. You just come home, sleep, go to school. Like you’re waiting for someone to tell you what else to do. Someone to tell you how to act. Like you’re both paralyzed.

  So how ARE you supposed to act? It’s not like you can buy a book about this. There’s no Homemaking Guide for Virtual Orphans.

  So you cleaned.

  The house still looks disgusting. But it’s a start.

  Maybe you’ll talk to Ted about this tomorrow.

  Maybe not. You don’t need another argument.

  What

  Have

  You

  Done?

  You couldn’t have kept your mouth shut?

  You had to tell JAY, of all people, about your housecleaning? You had to paint this picture of yourself flitting from room to room, picking up old underwear, putting on an apron like Suzy Homemaker to do a stack of dishes that was almost glued together with dried food?

  You didn’t ASSUME he was going to tell everybody in school? That this would NOT help your reputation at all?

  Duh.

  NOW what?

  Now Jay is coming over after school to help you. And he’s bringing Lisa, a broom, and a can of Lysol.

  And…Bud.

  Bud the Cro Mag.

  Why?

  You don’t know why. Jay secretly hates you, you guess.

  Jay insisted that Bud is OK. Which you accepted. You said FINE—but WHY ON EARTH MAKE HIM COME TO YOUR HOUSE TO CLEAN UP, OF ALL RIDICULOUS THINGS?—And Jay insisted that he was talking to Bud the other day, and JUST CASUALLY in conversation your name came up, and Bud said he FELT BAD about the way their pals treat you, and so Jay said, okay, if you want to do something about it, let’s help my buddy Duckster clean his trashed house, and Bud was psyched about it.

  DOES THIS MAKE SENSE?

  No, it doesn’t.

  Why was he psyched? Does he want to do research? Take photos? Infiltrate the house of Ducky and report to the Cro Mags, so they can humiliate you EVEN MORE?

  And what’s worse, YOU COULDN’T SAY NO. You tried, but Jay just railroaded you. He insisted that he was trying to help.

  And you know what happens when Jay “helps.”

  McCrae, your days are numbered.

  The Great McCrae

  Cleanup

  You’re home alone, after school. You’re in a blind panic.

  You consider calling a cleaning service. You consider calling Jay and saying you’re sick. Locking the door and running away. Setting fire to the whole thing.

  But instead you stand there in the house, frozen.

  You figure: cleaning the place up before they get here might make Bud angry, because then he’d be coming over for no reason. But leaving it filthy might make him hate you, because he’d have so much work to do.

  You try to imagine you’re a Cro Mag, living alone with your brother. How would YOUR house look?

  Like a prehistoric cave. Finger paintings of bison on the walls.

  So you decide to do nothing because maybe a messy house is a good thing, like a badge of honor, and just the thought of this makes you realize you are OVERTHINKING and MAKING THIS TOO IMPORTANT, and maybe Jay was right and Bud has nothing better to do than come over and help out a friend of a friend.

  Still, you’re constantly looking out the window for Ted. Maybe—just maybe—your brother would come home the ONE day you need him. But no. He’s probably stuffing his face with pizza and having a great time in your moment of humiliation.

  The doorbell rings, and your hand shakes as you reach for the knob. You open the door, trying to look as macho as possible.

  “Yo,” you say. “’Sup?”

  But Jay’s not looking at you. He’s staring at the room behind you and his first comment is “WHAT HAPPENED?”

  Lisa’s face is all twisted in shock and disgust, as if she just walked into a fertilizer sale at Sears.

  Behind her is Bud McNally—and he looks amused. HE’S LAUGHING AT YOU.

  “I’ve been working real hard with the decorator,” you say—just a joke, you can’t help it—AND YOU WANT TO KICK YOURSELF because that’s just the kind of sarcastic comment Cro Mags hate.

  “How about a few more dustballs near the sofa, for atmosphere?” Bud suggests.

  And you’re amazed. A Cro Mag with a sense of humor!

  Jay rolls up his sleeves and asks if I have kitchen trash bags.

  Soon we’ve started. We toss clothes into bags. We sweep. We throw out food. We fix broken hinges. Bud opens windows you hadn’t even realized were closed. We work, work, work.

  And that’s when you make your discovery: YOU ARE A RAVING, STEREOTYPING, PARANOID, IMMATURE fool, just as bad as the Cro Mags.

  Because Bud is a good guy.

  You actually have fun. By the end of the day, everyone’s laughing at your jokes and asking you to do your imitations of Ms. Patterson and Mr. Dean.

  And just before you go, Jay asks you if you want to go to his house Saturday. Just a “small hang with the guys,” he calls it, and Lisa is rolling her eyes and teasing him for not inviting girls, so Jay has to make excuses and claim that he TRIED, but the other guys wouldn’t let him—which makes you think this is really a Cro Mag gathering, but you don’t want to ask right out, so you casually ask who’ll be there, and Bud jumps in and mentions Sam and Travis and Marco—and you say you’re not sure you can come, and Jay says, “I’ll take care of Marco,” so you think about it awhile.

  Before today, you would have said you’d go to the party when hell freezes over.

  But you realize that you were wrong about Bud.

  Maybe you’re wrong about some of the other guys.

  Wou
ldn’t it be nice to actually have them ON YOUR SIDE? To have so-called NORMAL guys as your friends?

  You picture a new life. A house that can actually be a HOME, even without Mom & Dad. Guy friends your own age.

  It COULD happen.

  So you say yes.

  The Morning After

  In Homeroom

  Ted is flabbergasted.

  You know this because he came into your room this morning and woke you up, saying, “Ducky, I am flabbergasted.”

  You told him you’d be full of flabbergast too if your little brother had totally cleaned the house out of the goodness of his heart, without asking for so much as a dime.

  Then he asked where his college jersey was, and why some of your socks ended up in his drawer, and whether or not you threw away his intro biology notes that were probably lying on the living room floor, etc., etc., and soon you felt like you’d done something terribly wrong.

  But you didn’t. You were actually able to open the fridge without worrying that something living would crawl out, and you could walk through the house to the front door without tripping over anything. THAT’S progress.

  But that was nothing compared to what happened at school, when you saw Bud and Marco and Travis and a couple of other goons standing at the door in their familiar places.

  Bud said hi.

  Just HI.

  No other singsongy voices or snickers or comments about your clothes or imitations of the way you walk—nothing.

  So you said hi back.

  And you strolled into school feeling about seven feet tall.

  You could get used to this.

  Today, friend of the Cro Mags. Tomorrow, who knows? Cigarettes, flannel shirts, and muttering with lots of one-syllable words.

  Ha.

  Ducky, you are SUCH a snob.

  Anyway, at your locker, Jay was his usual self. Talking so fast you could barely understand him. He went on and on about Saturday, insisting it’ll be fun, just hanging out, no big deal, etc. Then he asked a question you REALLY didn’t expect.

  Did you think ALEX wanted to come?

  Alex? To a place where Cro Mags are invited? (To ANY party, for that matter?)

  You burst out laughing. You told Jay he was nuts. You reminded him he hates Alex. You reminded him that all the Cro Mags hate Alex.

  But Jay was totally serious. He said he’s been getting on the Cro Mags’ cases about the insults and comments. He’s convinced them that Alex and you are good guys, and Bud has backed him up. So now they’ve promised to have open minds.

  Then Jay told you that he’s been missing the old days lately. Whenever he sees Alex and you hanging out, it brings back the happy times you three spent together. “Maybe Alex has gone slacker on us, but hey, he’s the same guy inside, right?” Jay said. “Once a friend, always a friend, that’s what I say.”

  You couldn’t argue with that. So you said you’d ask Alex if he was interested.

  You’ll catch him at lunch.

  You KNOW that he’s going to say no. But it’s worth a try.

  Sometimes—

  Rarely, but Sometimes—

  You’re Not as Smart as You Think

  You did tell Alex about Jay’s gathering.

  He didn’t believe you.

  Well, he didn’t believe JAY. He thought the invitation was a trick. But you told him you were CONVINCED that Jay was just being friendly, just trying to bring back the old times, and why not give it a try.

  And then Alex—Alex the humor-challenged—told a JOKE.

  He said that if Jay was trying to bring back the old times, maybe we should show up with our Darth Vader masks and plastic lightsabers, the way we used to when we were seven.

  Not a great joke, but a try. A good try. And it did make you laugh, and you reminded him about the time we all went trick-or-treating and Jay’s bag grew much bigger than ours and we didn’t know why until we figured out that he was stealing our candy while we weren’t looking, and Alex remembered some other crazy thing, and you were both laughing so hard that you almost forgot to ask him again about the “get-together.”

  But you did.

  And he said yes.

  And somehow you avoided fainting from shock.

  Mirror, Mirror

  On the Wall,

  Who Are You Trying to Kid?

  Ducky, you are nuts.

  Take off the Penn State football jersey. You don’t even know where Penn State is. Well, Pennsylvania, but that’s not the point. Put it back where it belongs, in the closet with all the rest of the Christmas gifts from Uncle Chad, like the football and the metal bat and the ʼ76ers autographed team poster.

  YOU ARE NOT A CRO MAG.

  YOU WILL NEVER BE A CRO MAG.

  DON’T EVEN TRY TO LOOK LIKE ONE.

  You should be ashamed of yourself.

  In Which Ducky

  Takes Hold of His Senses

  And Prepares to Leave

  I am nervous.

  I am scared.

  I am very, very, VERY glad that Alex is coming to this party.

  I just called. He’s ready and waiting for me to pick him up.

  Here goes.

  It’ll be fine.

  Lots of fun.

  And if things get bad, we can always leave.

  Late

  Maybe Too Late

  I don’t know what to do—I’m home—alone—no, not alone—Alex is here too—but I might as well be alone because

  What? What? My mind is jumping around and I’m forgetting things and I feel like I’m in shock or something, and it’s so late I should be fast asleep but I can’t sleep because I HAVE TO DO SOMETHING and besides, if I DO sleep what’ll happen to Alex? And I WISH MOM AND DAD WERE HERE or at least Ted, Ted might know what to do, but it’s so late now and I’m worried about HIM too, what if he’s lying in the street somewhere and he has no I.D. and

  Stop.

  Get it together.

  Alex is ASLEEP. BREATHING. Muttering to himself.

  Let him be. Decide what to do AFTER he wakes up.

  Think it over. Start from the top. You have time. Alex isn’t going anywhere.

  Okay.

  The top.

  7:30. This evening.

  You pick up Alex. He’s back to his old self. Not his OLD old self, as in happy Alex of long ago, but his new old self, as in quiet and gloomy. And you don’t know what has caused this to happen, so you make the best of it, joking around and singing to the tape of Maggie’s rock group, Vanish, and have you ever heard them and yada yada yada you’re talking so much you sound like Jay, and Alex is just sitting there looking like something out of a wax museum.

  Finally he warms up a little and asks if you “brought anything” to Jay’s, and you figure he means a GIFT or something, so you ask if it’s Jay’s birthday and he cracks up, REALLY laughs, as if you’ve just made a joke, and you’re so relieved he’s coming out of his bad mood that you laugh along with him.

  So we get to Euclid Ave. and Jay’s house. You shut off the ignition and look at Alex, and he’s smiling and suddenly you remember what we always used to say to each other when we were kids—“May the force be with you”—and when you say it, he laughs again.

  TWO laughs in one day. You high-five, leave the car, head for the party. The music is so loud, the LAWN is vibrating.

  Jay greets you at the door with a holler that sounds like the call of a wild boar—not that you KNOW that sound, but that’s the general idea—and he practically pushes you and Alex inside, shouting all his “Duck-Duckman-Duckometer” variations and then slapping Alex on the back and saying how HAPPY he is that they’re BUDS again JUST LIKE THE OLD DAYS, and Alex is smiling away now, but you’re distracted because somebody’s shoving a bottle of beer at you, and you take it only because you don’t want it to drop onto the Adamses’ living room rug, which feels a little moist and squishy already.

  And that’s when you notice that the house—the neat Adams house that’s always so perfect-lookin
g, so full of expensive stuff that Mr. and Mrs. Adams loved to show off to Mom and Dad way back when you used to visit, so nice that you always felt awkward just walking in there, like you might bump into the cabinet full of delicate crystal or get mud prints on the Persian rugs—the house is SWARMING. Guys all over the place, shouting and laughing and smoking and drinking beer and eating chips and candy and pretzels, and two guys are leaning against the china cabinet and it’s shaking, and you KNOW the Adamses would be having a coronary if they could somehow see what was going on.

  And then, just like that, Alex is gone. He’s not by the door, where you last saw him, but it’s not easy to actually see anybody specifically, because it’s pretty dark and smoky in the living room and everyone’s moving around, jumping to the music—not exactly dancing, because no girls are there—and as you’re scanning the place you notice that Marco is standing in the corner, staring right at you.

  You sort of smile, sort of nod, and he comes walking toward you, puffing away on a cigarette, and saying, “Yo, Bambi, what are you drinking?” And you freeze up.

  THIS is the new Cro Mag attitude?

  THIS is the open-mindedness?

  Then it’s as if Marco’s reading your mind, because he starts laughing and says, “Yo, guy, just a joke, all right?”—and as he walks toward you, he is weaving, as if the house were a ship on stormy seas.

  You try to laugh along. You watch Marco flick his cigarette ashes into a coffee cup at the edge of the piano top—only it’s NOT a normal coffee cup, because you remember the collection it came from, the BONE CHINA collection that Mr. and Mrs. Adams used to brag about. And you notice that this expensive bone china cup is full of a liquid that is definitely NOT coffee, definitely STRONGER than coffee—and you realize that Jay will be in the DOGHOUSE if the cup breaks. So you pick it up, ashes and all, in front of Marco, and he laughs and says, “Oh, sorry to mess up your drink, har har!” So you pretend to laugh too, and you head toward the kitchen.

  On the way, you pass by guys you don’t know very well, guys you don’t WANT to know, and a couple of guys you’ve never seen before.

  Quickly you wash out the cup, dry it, and put it back in the china closet. And from behind you, someone reaches in and grabs a delicate little glass thimble from Mrs. Adams’s collection, and she ALWAYS used to talk about how valuable THAT is too, so you grab it back, and you realize you’ve just taken something from Mad Moose Machover.