Handcuffs (9 page)

13

I
n my bedroom prison I glance at the right-hand corner of the hulking computer screen where it tells the time. It’s just Thursday morning. Who knew Christmas vacation could be so long? I’ve never been grounded like this, not during the holidays. I mean, this is the part that usually flies by. The first week you’re always looking forward to the big present stash, the second week you’re totally loving the break and totally dreading going back to school. But not this year.

“Do you want to play Tetris?” Preston asks.

“I guess so.”

We play Tetris for like half an hour. When he doesn’t get the blocks in the places he wants them, he gets agitated. Then, because he’s so jumpy and pacing back and forth, he misses where the other blocks should go. I beat him every time, even the last few times, when I’m really trying to let him win.

“Will you draw me a castle?” he asks.

“What?”

He asks me some crazy stuff sometimes.

My miracle brother trots into the kitchen and comes back with this big pink sheet of construction paper with the outline of a castle and, get this, pink cotton balls glued to the turrets.

“Why did you make it pink?”

“Kristi likes pink.”

I don’t ask him who Kristi is. Or if she was the reason he glued a row of Rice Chex above the purple door. Sometimes it’s better not to ask him things. My parents are always in his business, like, Who did you talk to today? And, Did you make any new friends? Did you remember to go to the bathroom?

I never ask him any questions. I find this a more restful way to interact with such a hyper kid, and I think he appreciates it.

“Wow, this door folds down.” I bend it down a couple of times. Pretty creative.

“That isn’t a door, it’s a drawbridge. I want to do a not-pink one. Will you help?”

“Yeah.” I mean, it isn’t like he asks for a lot. When he’s focused he’s easily pleased. I walk up the stairs, get my sharp pencil, and carefully ease a sheet of drawing paper from the pad I keep under my bed.

We get a couple of rulers and start designing a castle. Preston has an Elmer’s glitter glue stick. He keeps popping the cap off and then putting it back on.

“You aren’t going to start gluing stuff to this, are you?” Sometimes he makes garbage collages with all kinds of stuff that he glues to construction paper. They’re weird and occasionally gross. He smiles at me. Somehow it feels peaceful and nice working side by side with my little brother. Then he says,

“Draw the murder holes.”

“The what?”

“And the arrow slits.”

“What?”

“They gotta be angled so that you can shoot arrows out and not get shot by the people outside.” What are they teaching kids in school these days? I carefully sketch some narrow windows, hoping they look like arrow slits or whatever.

“Um, okay.” Here we go. “What’s that marshmallow for?”

“This isn’t a marshmallow. This is a vat of boiling oil. We’ll pour it on our enemies so that they can’t attack our castle. Are you gonna make me a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch?”

“I guess.” With just those few references to medieval torture and violence, our loving sibling moment is over for now. I stand up and stretch and head for the kitchen. “Will you take this pencil up to my room?” I ask, half expecting him to say something like Why? because it’s just a normal pencil, my parents have them all over the place in case we get the urge to do math homework in any room in the house, but he nods and runs it upstairs. Sometimes I think that kid may know me better than anyone else in this family.

In the kitchen, as I put the cheese and bread together and turn on the stove, I find myself staring at the phone. If I were completely lame, I would say something out loud, like How come you never ring? I would start a conversation with it. But ice princesses don’t talk to phones about their problems, if they have any. Problems that is, not phones. Ice princesses need communication as much as anyone else.

Then, as if I made it happen with my amazing mental powers, the phone does ring. I stare at it stupidly. I look at the caller ID. It’s Raye. I shouldn’t pick it up, but I really want to talk to someone from the outside world. I hit the button and put the phone to my ear.

“You know I can’t have phone calls,” I tell her. I’m unreasonably annoyed because she isn’t the one I was hoping would call, and she’s wasting stolen moments that I could conceivably spend talking to him. If he would just call me.

“Are you home alone? Preston won’t tell on you.”

“Yes he will. If she asks him he’ll tell her the truth. And she will ask. She knew I talked to you yesterday.” Raye called yesterday to tell me all about her latest date with Josh. It’s good to know that even though the world passes you by when you’re grounded, your best friend will call and update you on things outside the house. But that doesn’t make me any less frustrated that she’s the only one who ever calls.

“Well, this is important, Parker. Have you talked to the world’s biggest asshole yet?” God, I hate it when she calls him that.

“You know I haven’t, I would’ve told you.” I would’ve e-mailed her or stolen a phone and called her. I would’ve been jumping up and down if I had heard from him.

“Well, guess what, Park. He’s talking about you.” Raye sounds pissed. I can almost see her shaking her bangs out of her face. “And Kandace Freemont is talking about him. You’re featured on Marion Henessy’s blog.”

“No.” I feel a stab of dread. This is Marion Henessy, enemy of the Prescotts. The one who mangles Barbies while pretending they’re me. I’m used to being discussed on her blog, but I always hate it, and I particularly hate the idea of us being talked about, me and him, and if Kandace is in there too, this cannot be good.

“Yes. With, looks like around thirty responses, and half of them are anonymous.”

“That’s bad.” My heart sinks even more. Anonymous posters always write the most hateful things, because they don’t have to worry about a counterattack. I balance the phone between my shoulder and the side of my face and listen to Raye while I put the grilled cheese on a plate and cut it in half from corner to corner. Two big triangles, his preferred grilled cheese shape. Preston slinks into the kitchen and sits down in front of the plate. I pour a glass of milk and try to smile at him since he’s watching me with big eyes. He can sometimes tell when I’m upset, but he returns my smile and takes a big bite.

As soon as I know he’s okay I run upstairs to turn on my computer, nervous. I have to know what they’re saying about me, even if afterward I wish I didn’t know.

“Being a feature on Marion’s blog sucks,” I say as I wait for her stupid site to load.

“Depends on how you look at it,” Raye says.

“Yeah.” I know what she means. There are losers who try all year, any lame stunt they can think of, to get on Marion Henessy’s blog. Any publicity is good publicity, you know? But I am not one of these people. It’s my bad luck that in the Allenville High School social scene, Marion is the voice of relentless gossip that she smears across the Web with no thought for anyone else’s feelings or privacy. She’s just a sophomore, and slightly fanatical, but she’s good at finding scummy stories to entertain her readers. I vote her most likely to grow up and work for a tabloid faking pictures of the devil seen in the clouds or Elvis working at Burger King. Marion is a big fat attention hog and a liar. She used to be my friend, but things changed, even before Paige had her brother taken to jail in a real police cruiser, in handcuffs. They didn’t keep him, of course. The way Marion carries on, you would think her darling brother was rotting away in prison.

The short and sweet version is that Kyle, who maintains her professional-grade Web site, used to stalk Paige. Night-vision goggles and everything. Scary shit. My parents filed a police report. Then, not two weeks later the police were driving by and found him in the tree next to our house with a pair of binoculars around his neck. The judge issued a restraining order, and here we are. I used to hang out with Marion when we were younger, but now I don’t even think we were friends back then. Just little kids who thought they should be because they lived next door to each other.

I have her blog bookmarked. I would bet that everyone who goes to Allenville does.

The Social Siren by Marion Henessy

(This is the name of her stupid blog.)

January 2

Fellow students of Allenville High, Kandace Freemont is available on the Allenville dating circuit once again, according to Ellen Birch. A tearful Kandace confided to her friends that she had been ditched for Parker Prescott, aka the Ice Princess. Anyone have a comment about this development only two days before we go back to school?

Anonymous says:
Kandace Freemont can come to my house, I’ll dry her tears.

Ellen says:
I have never seen Kandace so upset. Kelsey call me about tomorrow.

Kelsey says:
what a jerk

Mathwhiz says:
what’s up with trigonometry?

Marion says:
keep the posts on topic Michael, I mean math whiz, or you will be deleted!

UbErKyLe says:
does any one have a pic of Parker Prescott? Does she look like her sister Paige? What’s she like?

Marion says:
Hey dummy we have a picture of them in our own house, from the Bahamas cruise where you got that sunburn.

UbErKyLe says:
a recent pic. Since she’s grown up.

Anonymous says:
Parker is kind of aloof, kind of cool.

Ellen says:
If by cool you mean a little bitch. I’m sorry this happened to you, Kandace.

Anonymous says:
Kandace is hot, hot is better than cool.

Hip-anonymous says:
I would rather abuse myself on a nightly basis thinking of Parker Prescott than have Kandace Freemont spread-eagled on my bed right now.

Anna Anonymous says:
Wasn’t there a post awhile back that said Parker Prescott had a nose job?

Anonymous says:
spread-eagled? I like the way you think, hippo.

Marion says:
hey guys my mom reads this blog!

Bigboy says:
maybe you’re abusing yourself too much hip guy

Marion says:
about the nose job, I quoted another student who speculated about Parker’s perfect nose. I guess there was a shadow in the shot from her middle school yearbook that made her 7th grade nose look bigger than the little nose she is wearing now.

Kandykat says:
Thank u guys for your support. It really hurts to be rejected.

Latisha says:
what exactly did he say?

Girliegirl says:
he’s an a-hole you’re better off without him.

Kandykat says:
he said, I’m sorry, but I’ve got this thing going on with Parker. I’m kind of obsessed with her or something. I don’t mean to be a dick but I guess I wanted to make her jealous by taking you out.

Anono says:
R they back 2gether?

Girliegirl says:
did you and he? U-no

Kandykat says:
you can email me, I won’t discuss it here.It was amazing, tho

Anonymous says:
Kandace you are an idiot. Shut upp!

Ellen says:
I hope Parker is reading this right now.

Girliegirl says:
Parker is too good for this blog.

Anono says:
what do you have against Parker? She’s very quiet.

Marion says:
too smart for her own good.

Ellen says:
there’s something about her.

Raye says:
WTF do you guys have a problem? Marion?

Marion says:
Hey everybody, it’s Rachel! Oh, sorry I forgot you were friends with the little Ice Princess.

Raye says:
you don’t forget anything Marion. Why are you being such a bitch?

Marion says:
C’mon Rachel, we’re only joking.

Anonymous says:
I heard the ice princess got thawed!

Ellen says:
thawed, LOL

Raye says:
You guys are idiots

Kandykat says:
I want him back