The Bubble Wrap Boy (11 page)

A
lthough my mouth had never been covered, I still found myself gasping for air as the last of the wrapping was yanked from my head.

It could have been relief or shock that had me hyperventilating, not that it mattered. All I could feel was the sweat that had been trapped against my forehead tumbling down my face and onto the padding below. I felt like a burst water bed.

Slumped against the car seat, I swiveled to thank my rescuer, only to be confronted by the last person I'd expected.

Sinus. He might not have spoken to me in weeks, but here he was now, picking impatiently at the Scotch tape around my wrist, like it was a run-of-the-mill thing to be doing.

“Interesting look you're rocking today,” he said without looking at me. “Urban skateboard chic?”

“Linus!” barked his mom from the driver's seat. She peered at me through the rearview mirror, a look of puzzlement and concern on her face. “Are you all right, Charlie, dear?”

“Never better,” I answered, pasting on a smile. I liked Sinus's mom. She was okay. Interesting-looking, but I suppose she'd have to be, with sons like Sinus and Bunion.

In fact, that's a bit of a lie, as I didn't really know what she actually looked like. Her face was always caked in so much makeup that I had no idea if she was pretty. I had to presume not.

She did that weird thing that some women do where they smear as much orange onto their face as they can, until it reaches their chin, where it stops dead, leaving a pasty neck beneath. Her head looked like a lollipop on a stick: so sickly orange that I always expected a swarm of wasps to surround it in summer.

I liked her, though. Her smile might have been fluorescent red, but at least it was sympathetic.

“What's been going on?” she asked. “You being bullied?”

“No, he always dresses like this after school,” deadpanned Sinus. “Especially when he's trying to impress his new friends.”

“I'm sorry,” I gasped, not quite sure to whom or for what I was apologizing. After all,
he'd
been ignoring
me
too.

“Do you want me to call your mom? Tell her what's going on?”

“No!” I shouted, a bit too urgently. “I mean, she's in an exam. She'll have her phone switched off.”

“Well, you'd better come back to our place, then. You look like you could use a drink.”

I spotted my face in the mirror. It was as red as hers was orange, and no more appealing. I did need a drink, although I thought I had three pints of water trapped between the bubble wrap and my skin. Didn't want to drink it, though.

Sinus harrumphed next to me, but still picked away at the tape. It meant he didn't have to lift his long nose and actually look at me. It suited him fine all the way back to his house.

The towel was dripping by the time I'd dried myself off. The bubble wrap lay at my feet in a monumental heap.

“I think I preferred you with the padding on,” said Sinus, more sarcastically than ever.

“I look like a prune.” I showed him my fingers, which were shriveled and puckered like I'd been in the bathtub for a day and a half.

“Am I supposed to feel sorry for you? Well, don't ask for a hug, because you're not getting one.”

I sighed. Why did it have to be Sinus who helped me out, when things had been so tense between us? I knew there was a massive “I told you so” moment coming.

“Are you still pissed off because—”

“Whatever gave you that impression?”

“Let me finish, will you!” I barked. Too much had gone on today to leave me any patience for Sinus. “Are you pissed off because the kids at the park laughed at you that time?”

“Don't be ridiculous,” he scoffed. “Do you really think I care about any of their opinions?”

“Then is it because I've been busy practicing? Is that it? Not involving you?”

He shrugged. “It's your funeral.”

Good grief, he was like a sulky toddler.

“Because if I have ignored you, I'm sorry. I suppose I might have gotten carried away with it all.”

“Whatever.”

“I got excited, you see. You would too, you know, if you had something you cared about, something you were good at.”

He jumped off his chair and straight down my throat.

“Who says I'm no good at anything? Who? And based on what? Anyway, how would YOU know what I care about!”

“Whoa, ease off, will you?” Sinus was fuming, doing this funny little dance of anger in front of me. It looked like he needed to pee. “It's just…well, you've never told me about anything, that's all. You're my friend, but it's not like we talk about anything, is it? Not really…”

“Yeah, well, maybe I don't feel the need to shout about things I'm good at. Maybe it's enough for
me
to know. I don't need to feel popular, unlike some other people.”

All right. It was a cheap shot, but it was true. Hurtful too. I was sick of being the clumsy kid from the Chinese place. I wanted people to notice me for once. But look where it had gotten me. I couldn't tell Sinus that, though. Couldn't let him off the hook that easily.

“Well, I'm not like you. And, anyway, it's not like you're happy, is it? Whatever it is you're so good at, it's not like it fills you with joy. You spend all your time these days with your nose in that dumb notebook.”

A cringe flashed across his face until he shook it off. I'd wounded him. I'd never so much as pierced his armor before.

“It may be stupid to you, but I know what's in it.” He sounded so immature I expected him to blow a raspberry at me.

“Show me, then,” I fired back. “If it's so impressive, show me what's in it. Dazzle me.”

“Nobody looks in my notebook but me.”

He was driving me mad. And I wasn't up for it anymore.

“Do you know what, Sinus? I'm grateful for your help today, I really am, but I can't figure you out. You sit there, all smug, laughing at me for putting myself out there, but you'll never do the same for yourself. You do realize what the other kids think of you, don't you?”

He shrugged like he didn't care, but for once I knew he did.

“They think you're a head case. That your brain doesn't work properly. You stand there, staring at walls for hours on end like some kind of block of wood. I mean, doesn't that bother you at all?”

The words fell out of my mouth too easily. Never in my life had I ever been that direct with anyone. I suddenly worried I'd been way too harsh and backpedaled furiously.

“But I don't think you're weird, because you're my friend. So if there's something amazing going on in that notebook, then show me. Because if you're not prepared to show everyone, I am. Because that's what friends do.”

I saw his hand linger by his back pocket where the legendary notebook lived. But nothing came out. Instead, he smiled and shook his head.

“Can't do that, Charlie. Not the book.”

I groaned and thought about leaving, but he stopped me.

“I'll do better than that. I'll show you exactly what I can do. Full throttle.”

He had this mad look of confidence on his face. He looked more smug than ever before, which, given his usual, misplaced arrogance, was saying something.

“Go on, then.”

Again, his head shook fiercely.

“Nope. I'm not going to tell you when. You'll have to wait. Keep your eyes open and you'll see it.” His eyes widened with excitement. “Thanks to your little escapade today, you won't be able to miss it.”

In that moment, I wondered if all the other kids were right, if maybe Sinus's brain had fallen out of his nose when he was blowing it.

But there was something about the steel in his eyes that made me stick with him, tell him that I looked forward to it.

“Walk to school tomorrow?” I asked him.

“Nope,” he answered. “Things to do tomorrow. Stuff to plan. I'll see you there.”

I'd undoubtedly stirred something up in him. So without another word, I gathered up the soggy rolls of bubble wrap and headed first for the trash can, and then for home.

D
espite his being annoying and way too smug for his own good, it was fantastic having Sinus back on my side. The weeks that followed the bubble wrap incident would've been horrific to survive on my own. The ribbing after my public run-in with Mom at the ramp was nothing compared to this.

Kids openly laughed in my face. Poems and songs were penned in my honor, portfolios of photos were downloaded and taped to every surface imaginable, even toilet seats.

Nowhere was safe.

Camera phones were undoubtedly my nemeses. There were at least thirty different images available: you could've made a slide show out of them.

In fact, someone did, and had it playing on the plasma screen TV in the cafeteria. Never before had there been so much laughter about something other than the excuse for food being offered. I sat and watched through my hands, feeling my world end yet again as I rolled around on the ground on screen, every inch of me popping and bursting.

Cue Sinus, cape practically billowing behind him as he strode toward the TV.

He got within a couple of feet before running into two teen gorillas from our school.

“Switch it off and we'll do the same to you,” one grunted.

Sinus cocked his head and looked them in the eye. “Interesting image,” he said. “But it doesn't really make sense as a threat, does it? Why not just tell me you'll deck me if I touch it? Far more effective that way, isn't it?”

They looked at each other, completely baffled by this lesson in bullying, before both throwing their fists in his direction.

Strangely, Sinus understood this threat clearly, and ran toward the exit, pulling the TV's plug out of the wall as he went.

I'd never seen him move so quickly, especially when they threatened to pick him up by his nose.

They could've fit a fist up each nostril with ease. Not that I bothered telling them myself; I was in enough trouble as it was.

Sadly, the ribbing wasn't limited to the cafeteria. It started when I stepped inside the gates at eight a.m. and didn't stop, even when I was taking orders over the takeout counter in the evening.

I had a nickname too, one to rival Sinus. But it wasn't the Pocket Rocket, as it had once been.

Nope, I was now the Bubble Wrap Boy to anyone who knew me, and to plenty who didn't.

Sinus and I hid our way through the school day like a couple of outcasts, trying to find humor in the new and varied ways they found to ridicule me, but every minute of every day physically hurt. Especially since I'd been so close, for once, to some kind of acceptance.

I felt their taunts whacking me on the head, pressure building, making me feel shorter by the second, but each time I was in danger of disappearing into the mud, Sinus picked me up and told me not to worry.

“It could be worse—you could be our Bunion,” he'd offer, and that would keep me going to the end of break, at least.

He was no less weird than usual, though, still as obsessed as ever with his notebook and walls.

He became really fixated on one massive expanse of brick just outside the school gates, the side of a row house that overlooked the classrooms. It loomed large enough to remind me of the skate ramp, and was visible from pretty much every part of Bellfield Academy.

It was, in short,
his
kind of wall, and so when some graffiti appeared on it, he took a particular interest in it.

Well, I say graffiti. At first it was just one letter, a huge, thirteen-foot-high
B
that had been crudely sprayed. Someone either had very long arms or a freakin' big ladder.

“What do you make of that?” he asked as he stared critically at it.

“What?”

“That!”
He nodded, like he needed to debate the merit of it.

“What, the graffiti?”

“Is it graffiti?” he asked. “Is that what you think it is?”

“Well, it's not the
Mona Lisa,
is it? And unless we're living on Sesame Street, then what's the point? We all know what a
B
is.”

He didn't say anything else, just stared at it over his shoulder as we walked away, pausing for one last look before we turned the corner.

“Is it all right if Sinus comes in for a bit?” I asked Mom from the other side of the counter at Special Fried Nice.

She eyed my friend suspiciously, Sinus returning her stare with the most innocent one he owned. He knew Mom didn't like him, but as usual, he didn't care.

“We've got homework to do. A project.”

“I say he can,” chipped in Dad, eyes watering as he skillfully diced the biggest onion I'd ever seen.

Mom glared at him, leaving Dad to shrug and continue chopping.

“As a trial, yes,” she said eventually. “But don't think I've forgiven you or your brother for lending our Charlie that skating board.”

I cringed at her mistake.

“Skateboard.”

“Whatever. Death trap is what it was. A noose on wheels.”

She shook her head and pulled her scarf around her neck.

She must have guessed what had been going on for me at school those last few weeks. Maybe this minute softening was her way of telling me she was sorry for what she'd caused? Doubtful, but in my position you'd be scrambling for consolation too.

“You off to college?” I asked.

“Not tonight.” The look of sadness returned to her face. “Night off. But that doesn't mean I'm not busy. Those kitchen cupboards don't fill themselves, you know.”

This was excellent news. It meant we had a good hour of peace before she returned to shoo Sinus out the door.

“Straight to your homework,” she said as she walked away, finger pointing at us both. “No PlayStation!”

“Of course,” I replied.

“No way,” agreed Sinus.

She walked out of the door and we turned to each other.

“PlayStation?” I asked him.

“It would be rude not to,” he agreed, and followed me up to my room.

What followed was a very happy but all-too-short fifteen minutes of
Call of Duty.

Mom didn't know I had that game, of course. There was no way she'd let me have something so violent. She was reluctant to let me play
FIFA 2013
for fear of me pulling a muscle. I'd picked up
COD
secondhand on eBay, then threw the packaging away the second it arrived, hiding the disk inside a case from an old Muppets game. Mom didn't think Miss Piggy could do me any harm, you see.

Every time we got stuck into our mission, though, the phone would ring. Not the one in the takeout, weirdly, but our home phone. People never called us on that number. Mom was always on her cell, taking calls about her latest school course, but the home phone? Well, it needed dusting.

Nobody answered the first time it rang. Dad wouldn't have heard it above the woks and there was no way I was interrupting my game for someone trying to sell us double-pane windows.

I ignored it the second time too, but by the third attempt I was starting to feel paranoid.

“Do you think it's Mom checking up on us?” I asked Sinus.

Sinus didn't take his eyes from the screen, but launched into this full-on impression of her, his voice all shrill and panicky. It sounded nothing like her, but it was funny.

“Have you finished your homework yet?” he squealed. “Don't sharpen your pencil too much. Lead poisoning's a killer!”

I didn't mind
him
making fun of her, unlike the idiots at the ramp. From him it was funny. Plus he'd shut up if I told him to. Eventually. So I joined in (not that it was much of a stretch to pretend I had a high-pitched voice) and we were off, dreaming up ridiculous ways of hurting ourselves. We must have sounded crazy, aping her voice like that, but we didn't care—it was great to laugh. It'd been a while.

The phone started ringing a fourth time and rang for ages, then a fifth time. I couldn't ignore it any longer and, still chuckling, I walked into the hall and picked it up, forgetting to stop talking in Mom's voice as I spoke.

“Hello,” I shrilled.

A voice came back at me immediately, a breathless panicky voice that didn't belong to Mom but to another woman.

“Oh, thank goodness you're there, Shelly. I couldn't get through on your cell. It's Pauline from Oakview. There's been a setback with your Dora. I'm afraid she's had another one. Another seizure.”

I had no idea who this woman was or what she was talking about. But in the two minutes that followed, everything I thought I knew was turned upside down.