But in the change room afterward, I had what was easily the worst part of my day. Because that was when Mr. Stellar said, “All right, boys, shower time. And I will be checking on your way out.”
At Little Genius Academy, the school was so small it didn’t have showers in its change rooms. So they just scheduled PE for the end of the day. That way our teachers didn’t have to put up with a class full of stinky kids, and, if we felt so inspired, we could shower when we got home. (I usually didn’t, unless my mom insisted.)
But here at Borden Secondary, it’s a whole new ball of wax, as my mom used to say. The moment we got into the change room, boys who were twice my size started to get naked. And when I say twice my size, I mean in all areas. I didn’t know what to do. I just sat quietly on one of the benches and tried not to stare, but it was impossible not to notice that almost every single guy in my class was well into puberty. They had hair in all the right places, and their you-know-whats actually dangled.
Mine does not dangle. Mine is more like a protruding belly button. Dad has told me I have nothing to worry about; he says that he, too, was a late bloomer, and that I just need to give it time.
But time was not on my side as I sat in that change room surrounded by naked, hairy guys. I held my street clothes close to my chest and tried to think. At Little Genius Academy, I prided myself on being good at analyzing situations and working out creative solutions. I was on the Model United Nations team last year, representing Denmark, and we had to resolve a food-shortage crisis in a war-torn African country, and I got a perfect score. But solving world hunger was a cakewalk compared to figuring out how not to get naked in front of all these almost-men.
I was stumped. Around me I could hear the guys cracking jokes and talking about a girl named Lauren. “She’s only a thirty-two double A,” someone was saying. “I heard from a reliable source. She stuffs her bra.”
“She’s still cute,” another boy said.
“Lauren’s okay,” said a tall, muscular guy. “But you know who’s really hot? Ashley Anderson.”
“Pretty stuck-up, though,” said someone else.
Agreed, I thought, but even though I was somewhat curious, I tried to block out their chatter and concentrate on the issue at hand.
Then I remembered the bathroom stalls. Of course! I got up and made a dash for them, my clothes still clutched to my chest. I was thinking I could change in there and then wet my hair in the sink so Stellar would think I’d showered.
But just as I got to the stalls, one of the big guys—the one who’d said Ashley was hot—stepped in front of me, blocking my path. He was about to go for his shower, and he was naked except for a towel tied around his waist. Another guy, not as tall, stepped up beside him. “Where do you think you’re going?” asked the tall guy.
“To the bathroom,” I said.
“You haven’t showered. Showers are mandatory.”
“I need to pee first.”
“Then leave your street clothes out here. I’ll hold them for you.”
“That’s okay.”
“I insist.” He tried to grab my clothes. I held on tight. “I—I can’t have a shower. I don’t have a towel.”
He looked me up and down. “How old are you, anyway? Eight?” His friend laughed.
“I’m thirteen,” I said, offended. I may be short for my age, but I’m not that short. “They bumped me up a grade because I’m gifted.”
The tall guy smirked. And I suddenly remembered Dad telling me I shouldn’t trumpet the fact that I am gifted, because people might think I was bragging.
I think the tall guy thought I was bragging, because he glanced at his friend, then back at me and said, “Gifted, huh?”
I nodded. My head came up to just past his nipples, so I had to look way up.
“You don’t seem very gifted at basic personal hygiene, like showering. Maybe you need a little help getting undressed.”
“No. Thanks anyway. If you’ll excuse me—”
Without warning, he grabbed my gym shorts and yanked them down around my ankles. Luckily I was wearing my favorite boxer shorts underneath.
The tall guy started laughing. “Holy crap! Look!” His friend started laughing, too.
My boxers have cats’ faces all over them. My dad bought them for me last Christmas. I don’t think they’re that funny, but then I remembered a technique I’d learned in Model UN: Attempt to diffuse a situation by establishing a bond.
So I started laughing, too. “Yeah, they are pretty goofy,” I said, and I actually thought my tactic was working, because we made direct eye contact, and he was still laughing.
Then suddenly he grabbed hold of my boxers and I realized with sphincter-tightening horror that he was about to pull them down, too.
“C’mon, boys, hurry it up in there!” Mr. Stellar shouted as he flung open the door. The tall guy dropped his hands and took a step back. “Jared, tryouts start in five. You’d better get a move on.”
“Yes, sir,” replied the tall guy. He sauntered away from me toward the showers. I scurried into the stall, locked the door, and changed. When I was done, I wet my hair in the sink. It was enough to fool Mr. Stellar.
But I know I can’t keep fooling him. And I certainly can’t keep fooling the guy named Jared.
The way I see it, I have a choice to make before next gym class: either I transfer back to Little Genius Academy, or I come up with a plan.
—
ON MY WAY HOME from school, I pulled out my phone and called Dad at work. He answered right away. “How are things in the newsroom?” I asked.
“Good, fine. I’m just trying to decide which story to lead with. Events in the Middle East, or the latest kerfuffle in Parliament?”
“I’d take a kerfuffle any day.”
“All right. Kerfuffle it is.” There was a pause, and then he asked, “How was your day?”
“B,” I told him. In reality it was more like a C, but I knew C would worry him, and I knew A would sound too good to be true.
“That’s great!” I could hear the relief in his voice. “I want details later. We’ll be home right after the newscast, okay?”
“Okay.”
When I arrived at the house I now had to think of as home, I stood outside on the sidewalk for a moment. I gazed at the light gray stucco exterior. It is a perfectly nice house. But it doesn’t have a lot of character. Our old house had character to burn.
I started to feel a little sad, but then I thought about Schrödinger waiting for me, so I walked up the front steps and reached into my pocket for my key.
It wasn’t there. Then I remembered I’d used it when Dad and I had raced back home so I could poop, and I’d left it in the house. I rang the bell in case Ashley was home already, but there was no answer.
Then it started to rain. Really rain. I headed through the side gate to the backyard, to see if the patio doors were unlocked. They weren’t. But as luck would have it, Ashley was there, in the kitchen. I could see her through the window. She was getting herself a snack. I knocked. She didn’t even look up. I knocked again.
This time she looked up. She looked right at me, standing there in the rain. But instead of coming to open the door, she stuck her tongue out at me and left the room.
I couldn’t believe it. You’re acting like a toddler! I wanted to shout.
It was pouring by now. I thought about calling my dad and telling on Ashley, but I knew he couldn’t leave work, and anyway, I was pretty sure ratting her out wouldn’t make her warm to me any sooner.
I was trying to think of innovative ways to break in when I spotted him.
Ashley’s dad. He was opening the door to his laneway house.
I dashed across the yard and said hello.
I’D HAD SUCH A crappy day. I failed a pop quiz in science. And Lauren had left me no choice but to spread the rumor about her bra-stuffing, but then somehow she tried to make it so it was my fault, and she wouldn’t even talk to me when the bell rang. Plus she go
t Lindsay, Amira, and Yoko to not talk to me, either.
Maybe these seem like lousy excuses for not letting Stewart in when he knocked, but I don’t know, I guess I also thought I should teach him a valuable lesson, which is “Don’t forget your key.” I didn’t notice it was raining. Honest-to-God-hope-to-die-stick-a-beetle-in-my-eye.
And when I went into his room, it wasn’t to snoop or anything, like, who cares what the little dweeb has in his room. I just wanted to check up on Shopping Cart or whatever his name is, and maybe pet him a little bit. You know, just a cuddle to cheer me up.
But once I was in there, I couldn’t help seeing a bunch of stuff. I mean, it was all right in front of my eyes. First thing I saw were the photos. There must have been ten of them, hung in a row along one wall. Some were of him and his mom, others were of his mom and dad, and a few were of all three of them.
I’ll admit I was totally one hundred percent shocked that his mom was pretty. She had a cute little pixie haircut and a nice figure. In all the photos, she had a really lovely smile, and you could tell by the look on her face that she thought Stewart was, like, a god or something. I heard one of my mom’s friends say once that biology kicks in and clouds a mother’s judgment, and obviously that was what happened in this case; she couldn’t see that Stewart was one fugly child.
Anyway, it was kind of spooky looking at all those pictures of a dead person, so I started searching for Shopping Cart. I finally found him hiding under the bed. It was the first time I’d seen him up close. You know how they say dog owners start to look like their dogs? Well, I think Stewart looks a bit like his cat. They are both highly unattractive, and the cat has weird ears, just like Stewart. But I didn’t want to give the cat a complex or anything, so I reached out to pet him anyway, and you know what happened? The stupid beast scratched me!
That made me feel really sad for some reason. Maybe because it had happened right after Lauren and my other friends ignored me, but it made me feel like everyone was against me, human and animal. And then that made me start to wonder if maybe I was a teeny bit responsible, like maybe I’d gone too far telling people about Lauren’s bra, because sometimes I do things that feel right and justified in the moment but that hours later don’t feel so right after all. And I was just thinking I should text her an apology when I glimpsed something through the window that made me freeze in my tracks.
It was Stewart, sitting on the couch in the laneway house.
Having tea.
With my dad.
MR. ANDERSON—OR PHIL, as he told me to call him once I had introduced myself—seems like a very nice man. When I explained my predicament, he sighed. “Oh, dear. That does sound like something my daughter would do. Come on in. I’ll try to call her. But I can’t promise she’ll pick up when she sees my name.”
So I stepped into his laneway house. It is a tiny space—like a dollhouse, but for humans. Except Phil is bigger than most humans; he is well over six feet tall. In my opinion, he is too big for such a little house. “Here, sit,” he said, indicating the miniature living room that opened onto the miniature kitchen. He took off his coat, revealing an expensive-looking charcoal-gray suit underneath.
I don’t really notice appearances all that much, but even I could see that Phil is good-looking. When Phil and Caroline were a couple, they must have turned heads. My dad is a quality individual, but I don’t think he turns heads. It actually made me feel rather happy, because it had to mean that Caroline had fallen in love with the person my dad is on the inside as well as on the outside.
While he hung up his coat, I glanced around his mini-house, which didn’t take me very long. It was nicely furnished with smaller versions of things, like a love seat instead of a sofa, a tiny end table, a very skinny leather chair, and no kitchen table at all, just two bar stools pulled up to a counter. An abstract painting hung on one wall. But by far the most striking feature was a blue-and-white Trek road bike hanging from hooks on the opposite wall.
“Nice wheels.”
“Thanks. I took up road-biking last year.”
“I love bicycles. I’m building an electric one with my friend Alistair.”
“Really? Is it for a school project?”
“No, just for fun.”
“Well, that’s pretty cool.” He picked up the phone to call Ashley.
“Did you just get home from work?”
He nodded as the phone started to ring.
“You work at an ad agency, right?”
“That’s right. I’m the creative director.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’m in charge of a few other creative types, and together we come up with ideas for various ad campaigns. TV and print.”
“Sounds interesting.”
“It is, most of the time. We’re working on one that’s really fun right now, for a credit union.” He hung up, shrugging apologetically. “It went to voice mail. I’m afraid I was right. Would you like to wait here till your dad and Caroline get home?”
I looked outside. Mom and I used to make up words for all the different types of rain in Vancouver. There was mog (a combination of mist and fog), strain (a steady but not heavy rain), and skyfall (a torrential downpour). Today’s rain landed somewhere between strain and skyfall. So I said, “Thanks. I will.”
“Can I make you a cup of tea?”
I don’t like tea. But it was nice that he was offering, so I said, “Sure.” I realized I was starving because I hadn’t eaten any lunch. “If you have any snacks, I wouldn’t say no.” I sat on the love seat while he went to the kitchen and filled the kettle with water.
“Caroline’s told me a lot about you,” he said. “And I’ve met your dad a few times.”
“Was it weird, meeting my dad?”
“How do you mean?”
“Knowing that he was going to be living in what used to be your house. Sleeping in what used to be your bedroom. Probably on your side of the bed.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You really cut to the chase, don’t you? Yes, I suppose it was a bit weird. But I’m glad Caroline’s happy. And I like your dad. I’d met him at Christmas parties over the years. I met your mom once or twice, too. I was sorry to hear of her passing.”
“She didn’t pass,” I said. “She died.”
“Right.” Phil looked down at the floor, then up at me. “The word pass has become all the rage, hasn’t it? It’s like people don’t want to think about death at all, so they won’t even say the word. I’m sorry your mom died.”
It was the moment that cemented it for me: I liked this guy.
“You must miss her a lot,” he continued.
I felt my eyes misting over, but luckily the kettle started to whistle so Phil wasn’t looking at me. I miss her every day, I said, but only in my head. Out loud I said, “Yes, I do.”
He poured the water into the teapot and started rummaging in the cupboards. “Is it weird for you?” he asked as he found a sleeve of cookies. “I imagine you must have mixed feelings, moving into a new house that comes complete with new people.”
I hesitated. “It’s kind of like what you said about Caroline. I’m mostly just happy for my dad. He was sad for a long time.”
Phil brought the teapot and some mugs to the living room, a total of three steps. He put them on the little end table, along with a plate of chocolate-covered Digestive biscuits. “So,” he said as he sat in the skinny leather chair, “how’s Ashley been through all of this?”
“I don’t know her very well yet,” I replied, picking up three cookies. “But she doesn’t seem very happy that we’ve moved in. She seems kind of…angry.”
Phil poured some tea into our mugs while I put a whole cookie into my mouth. “I think she is angry,” he said. “All I can say is, try not to take it personally. I’m the one she’s mad at.”
“Because you decided to be gay?”
His tea must have been too hot because he almost spit out his first sip. “Let’s back up a little, oka
y? I didn’t decide to be gay. It’s not something you choose.”
“That’s what my teacher at Little Genius Academy said, too,” I replied. “We took a health class, and Mr. Moore said people are born with their sexuality.”
“Your teacher was right—”
“But what I’m trying to figure out is, if you’re born gay, why did you only realize it two years ago?”
He nodded. “Ah. I get where you’re going with this.” He put down his tea. “To quote Lady Gaga, I was born this way.”
“Then why were you married to Caroline for all those years? Did she know you were gay?”
“No, she didn’t.”
I stuffed another cookie into my mouth. “So you lied to her,” I said with my mouth full.
“Well, yes. I suppose I did. But it wasn’t on purpose. I was lying to myself, too.”
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t want to be gay. I grew up in a very conservative and strict religious family…. Maybe it will sound strange, but I made myself believe I was straight. I just wanted a normal life. I wanted a family, kids….”
“Gay people have kids. A girl at my old school has two dads.”
“Yes. But I grew up in a small town where that was nonexistent. It just seemed like life would be so much easier if I played it straight. No pun intended.”
“Poor you.” Then I added, “Poor Caroline.”
He looked a bit offended. “I know this might be hard to believe, but Caroline and I had a great marriage for the most part. My love for her was very real. It still is.”
“Was she surprised when you told her?”
“At first, yes. But then…not really. Maybe she knew deep down.”
“And Ashley?”
He sighed. “Ashley was devastated. She still hasn’t forgiven me.”
“For being gay? Or for splitting up the family?”
“Both, I suspect. I think mostly the latter.”
“But it’s been way over a year.”
“Ashley is very good at holding a grudge.” He smiled. “Not that I blame her. We were very, very close…. She feels betrayed, like I was lying to her, too.”