The McGillicuddy Book of Personal Records (10 page)

– Dag Hammarskjöld

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Lee didn't think about much of anything on his way home. For the first time today, it felt good to be empty inside. Just like that dead fly carcass. Blow on it, and poof … gone like dust.

He just wanted to be at home in his room, lying on his bed, mindlessly tossing a ball to the ceiling and catching it over and over and over again. That's why he surprised himself when he spotted Rhonda walking down the street and decided to follow her at a distance. He leaned his bike against a tree, made sure Santiago's leash was tight on the handlebar, and told her to stay. “I'll be back in a minute, girl.” Santiago didn't mind. The smell of a dozen dogs that had visited this tree before had her intrigued.

Rhonda was clomping down the sidewalk in her goofy huge running shoes, carrying a backpack in one hand, and her guitar case in the other. She was humming some crazy tune, off
key,
of course. Lee knew she was on her way to guitar lessons. She took guitar at St. Ignatius, the same school he'd taken saxophone lessons (yeah,
sax
ophone) two years ago. The school opened its doors once a week in the evenings for private music lessons. He watched her go in, then sat on the front steps to give her time to get to her lesson.
What goes on inside that girl's brain?
he wondered. Lee wished he could sneak a video camera inside her head and take a good look around.

INTERIOR OF A GIRL'S HEAD: TAKE ONE

CAMERA THREE, START WITH A CLOSE-UP OF THE BUBBLEGUM STUCK IN RON'S HAIR

The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out, through the eyeballs and out the snout
…” Rhonda could never quite remember the correct tune to that song. Bummer, 'cause she liked it. As she got closer to the school, she stopped humming and sighed. She pushed through the front doors and headed straight for the girls washroom. Rhonda laid her guitar case across the sinks and threw her backpack on the floor. Of all the music teachers in the world, why did she have to end up with a goon who insisted that “a young lady should always wear clothing worthy of the instrument she plays?” In other words, put on a dress and comb your hair before you step into my classroom, missy, or you're out the door.

Rhonda rifled through her backpack and pulled out a stupid, idiotic dress and tried putting the stupid, idiotic, stupid, stupid, idiotic … (at this point, her arms and head were good and stuck inside, since she hadn't bothered to undo the zipper) stupid, stupid, idiotic, ugly-hideous thing on over her T-shirt and shorts. The struggle left her with a red face and flyaway hair that nearly touched the ceiling. She looked at herself in the mirror. If only she could keep her high-tops on, it might not be so bad. But she'd tried that a dozen times and been sent back for her shoes— “Those runners are a disgrace, and an insult, Ms. Ronaldson. Out you go.” Rhonda had begged her mother over and over again to find a new music teacher, but in the end, even she had to admit that she learned more from Miss Edwards than any other teacher she'd ever had. Rhonda yanked her shoes from the backpack and grudgingly put them on. Then she tried to rake a comb through her tangles.

FADE TO: INTERIOR OF A BOY'S HEAD

ROLL CAMERA

Lee picked at the crumbling cement of the St. Ignatius school steps and finally stood up. The whole saxophone-lesson fiasco of two years ago was not one of Lee's favorite memories. So passing through the school doors that evening didn't exactly bring back a case of the warm fuzzies. And whether he wanted to admit it or not, his conscience didn't feel too good, either. He'd never heard Rhonda play before; she refused to entertain anyone but herself. But he had a feeling she'd suck at it—
big
time—and something in him needed to witness someone
else's
life suck for a second or two and then just walk away.

CUT TO RHONDA

Rhonda looked both ways down the hall before stepping out of the washroom. All clear. She shot down the hall like a fugitive on the run. No way was she going to take the chance of being seen looking like a Barbie doll. Miss Edwards sighed as Rhonda entered. “Miss Ronaldson, have you ever heard of that amazing little invention called the ‘iron'?”

“As in, ironing-board and all that? Yeah, I heard of it.”

“You might consider using one on your dress before you leave the house next time.”

In your dreams, thought Rhonda. The day she'd come out of her house and walk all the way to the school in broad daylight in that dress was the day they'd have to drag her yelling and screaming to the loony bin. She put her guitar case on the nearest desk and opened it.

CUT TO LEE

With rounded shoulders and hands stuffed deep in his pockets, Lee dragged his feet all the way to the music room and put his ear to the door. Nope. Piano music. Maybe she was in the next room. He popped his head into the grade three class but only saw a little kid in there with a flute. Lee walked down the hall, looking into open doors and listening at closed ones. He had thought he'd have no problem tracking Rhonda down; he'd always imagined that she played an electric guitar—an irritatingly
loud
electric guitar—but maybe not. Maybe she had one of those cheap old twangy things that most kids start on.

FADE IN TO RHONDA

“Did you bother practicing this week?”

“Of course,” fibbed Rhonda.

“Let's hear it, then,” said Miss Edwards, skeptically. “Play the song you were having such trouble with last week.”

CUT

ZOOM IN ON LEE

Fin
ally, thought Lee, coming to a stop, the sound of a guitar. But what he heard outside the door of the grade-eight classroom made him break out into a sweat. Someone in there was playing classical guitar like they knew what they were doing. Like some kind of genius. Lee touched his forehead to the door. No way. No
way
. That can't be Rhonda. Tell me that's not Rhonda. I don't think I could take it if that was R … He opened the door a crack and peeked inside. His body instantly relaxed. Whew. It was just some pizza-face kid in there—a dude who had obviously been born with a guitar in his hands. I suppose I should be thankful for small mercies, thought Lee—at least I don't have pimples.

Shoot. This is
pathetic
, thought Lee. What would it matter if Rhonda
did
turn out to be the most talented guitar-pickin' tomboy in the Western Hemisphere? Why did he suddenly have this need for her to be as crappy as him? He hung his head and started down the hall to the exit. He didn't even bother to stop at a door that had some gawd-awful, torturous guitar strumming coming from it. It didn't matter if that was Rhonda in there or not. Nothing mattered.

As he walked, Lee suddenly became aware of a dreamy, far-off whisper of music. It was coming from the downstairs library. Without thinking, he followed the mesmerizing sound down the stairs, like a snake drawn to the flute of a snake charmer. He put his ear to the door. Normally he wasn't the kind of guy who went in for classical symphony stuff, but there was something about this sad-sweet music that pulled him in and wouldn't let him go. Almost like it wasn't music at all, but some kind of growing vine slowly curling its sad tendrils around his heart. Violin. That's what it was.

Lee leaned his back against the door and slowly slid down until his bum met the ground. Any other day he would have been embarrassed to admit he'd been knocked out flat by the sentimental strains of a violin. Right now he was incapable of caring. He closed his eyes and bonked the back of his head against the door. Which turned out to be a colossal mistake. Suddenly he heard a click as the door latch gave way and he found himself lying on the floor looking up at the library ceiling. The music stopped cold.

“Jeez, sorry,” he said, scrambling to his feet. He was out the door, about to close it with a final “Sorry 'bout tha—” when he stopped in mid-sentence. The girl playing the violin looked familiar, somehow, sort of like a cleaned-up version of Rhonda Ronaldson. Lee stared. His mouth dropped open. Oh, my gosh …

Rhonda's jaw dropped, too. Her arms fell to her sides, violin dangling from one hand and bow from the other. For a second, you could have heard a pin drop. Instead,
clunk
, they heard Rhonda's bow slip from her fingers to the floor. That was just the calm before the storm. In the next second, Rhonda gathered up all her fury and fired words at Lee like fast-flying spitballs from a straw. “
What
are
you
doing here, ya stupid
jerk
?”

Lee opened and closed his mouth like a fish, but nothing came out.

Rhonda rammed her violin into the guitar case and slammed the clasp shut. Then she held the case in front of her to hide her ugly dress. “This was
none
of your business,
jerk
-head,” she said, pushing past him in the doorway. Lee watched her storm off down the hall. Then he looked at Miss Edwards, who by now had joined him at the door. They both watched Rhonda take her shoes off halfway down the hall and hurl them at the wall. Miss Edwards just shook her head and started gathering up the sheets of music.That's when the truth hit him like a punch to the gut— Lee, Einstein McGillicuddy, son of Frankinstein McGillicuddy, would never be an Einstein, or even a Frankinstein—he would never be fabulously good at anything. He could easily have shrugged it off—the belch and the poop incidents with Charlotte, the failed math exam and the total turd he'd made of himself in Woodtick's class, the embarrassing lame-brain optimism he'd felt at the beginning of the day—
my shirt is toothpaste blue!!!—
gad. Embarrassing, sure, but it was the kind of stuff that might fade, given time. But not
this
—you just don't recover from the certain knowledge that you'll never amount to a hill of stinkin' kidney beans in this life. If even someone like
Rhonda
, of all humanoids, was dripping with talent, he knew he was way too far behind to ever catch up. Might as well give up now.

And that's about when Lee felt his pilot light fizzle out— ff
ssst
—dead; not even the hint of a flame left. He headed toward the exit, numb.

When he got outside, his head rolled back on a limp neck and he found himself looking into the stars.

Einstein?

Frankindad?

Is there anybody up there?

Then he felt a surge of anger. Still glued to the stars, he yelled, “
Who's the director of this piece-of-crap movie anyhow, 'cause it sure as
frig
ain't me!”

Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible player.

– Albert Einstein

FADE TO BLACK

CUT

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

When angry, count to four.

When very angry, swear.

Mark Twain

“Frick'n Frack'n F*#!!?/*#@*#.” If you'd asked Rhonda why she was so hair-ripping furious ('cause, like, let's face it, it's not as if she'd been caught playing the violin
naked
, or anything), she wouldn't have been able to tell you. No, she would have
refused
to tell you, because she refused to even think about it herself. The word “embarrassed” embarrassed Rhonda. The word “emotions” wasn't in her vocabulary. She wasn't interested in having feelings in the first place, and if she did, she
certainly
didn't want to
talk
about them.

“For the
millionth
time,
nothing's
wrong with me,” said Rhonda to her mother.

“Oh, yeah?” said Mrs. Ronaldson. “Then why are you murdering that chrysanthemum?”

Rhonda looked down at the mess of purple petals on the kitchen table. She'd absentmindedly taken one of the flowers from her mother's vase, but she didn't realize she'd been sitting there pulling it to pieces the whole time.

“I'm just bored,” said Rhonda, hoping that would put an end to the inquisition.

“You've been cranky for days,” said Mrs. Ronaldson. “If you're so bored, why don't you go for a bike ride, or see what Daddy's up to.”

“
Daddy
?!” spat Rhonda. “He's the last creep in the world I wanna see.”

“Rhonda!” said her mother. “How dare you talk about your father that way!”

Rhonda gave her one of her “he
llo
?” looks. “What's my
father
got to do with this?”

“You just said …”

“Oh,” said Rhonda, “
that
Daddy. I thought you were talking about Daddy McGill …”

“Aha!!” interrupted Mrs. Ronaldson. “I suspected as much.”

Rhonda gave her mother another “have you gone totally batty?” look.

Her mother continued. “That Beanpole boy has something to do with your foul mood these days, am I right?”

Rhonda opened the fridge and faked looking for something inside, just to hide her face (which by now was as red as the hot-sauce bottle in the fridge door).

“Rhonda,” said her mother, her voice softening, “do you have a crush on that boy?”

Crush.
Crush!
Rhonda
hated
that word. It embarrassed her more than “embarrassed.” She slammed the fridge door, walked past her mother without dignifying her question with an answer, and walked straight out the front door. Then she saw Lee coming down Agnes's front steps and she did an about-face and came straight back in. She looked at her mother, who was looking back with an amused smile. That did it! She stormed to the back door, slamming it big-time on her way out, and took the long way to school, mumbling under her breath the entire way:

“… a
crush
? On that ‘
Beanpole boy
'? Give your head a shake, Mother. Are you on
crack
, or what?”