The Size of Your Dreams, - [good books for high schoolers txt] 📗

I knew she’d say mushroom. “Want to get garlic sticks too?” I asked.

Megan avoided looking at me. “Whatever.”

“Helloooo. Want them or not?”

Megan’s shoulders rose and fell. I squatted to get a better look and saw her eyes were red. By unspoken rule, we left each other to do our own thing when I babysat, but I had a sudden inspiration.

“Hey, it’s going to be a half hour before the pizza gets here. Want to go for a walk?”

“A walk?” She rolled her eyes at me. “Really?”

“Why not?”

“Well for one, it’s freezing out.”

“It’s not so bad, and it’s a clear night. Come on.”

“What are you up to?”

“Nothing. I just think it would be nice to go for a walk.”

Megan shrugged, but then said, “Okay, I guess,” and got up to get her coat while I called in the pizza.

It really was cold out. I tightened the scarf around my neck. “How are things going?” I asked.

“Fine.”

What did I expect, that she was going to open up the moment I tried to act brotherly? “You having a hard time?” I tried again.

She crossed her arms. “A bit, I guess.”

“Want to talk about it?”

“Not really.”

Had we been inside the house, I probably would have given up at this point. But even if we turned around now, we’d have to walk home together. I’d feel like an idiot doing it in silence. “I had a tough time when I was your age,” I said.

“You did?”

Where had she been? There were only five years between us. Surely even then she was old enough to notice I spent most of my time alone on my computer. Then the truth slapped me in the face. She wouldn’t have seen that, she was only eight at the time. I was the one who should have noticed she was now on her own most of the time. This wasn’t the first time her eyes had been red from crying. Where had I been?

The answer came screaming in. I’d been so absorbed in my own pity party that I’d spared no attention for her struggles.

It’s strange. I’d tried to be there for her tonight, tried asking her about her hard time, and she bottled up. Then I mentioned my own, and she suddenly seemed interested. I didn’t understand it, but decided to take the opening.

“Oh yeah, seventh grade was the worst for me. I still don’t have as many friends as I’d like, but back then I had none.”

“Why not?” she asked.

“I don’t know. It’s like when I was young, all the boys were more or less the same. Then when we hit middle school, suddenly I felt different.”

“How?”

“Well, my interests weren’t theirs. I was into computers. They were into girls.”

Megan laughed. “You weren’t into girls?”

I laughed along with her. “I was, but none of them ever seemed to notice me. It’s like there were suddenly all of these rules about how you had to look, how you had to talk, or whatever. But no one ever explained the rules to me, and the ones I did get seemed stupid.”

“I totally know what you mean.”

“In elementary school, we were all friends with each other. Middle school was a lot bigger—there were so many more kids. All these groups started forming, and before I knew it, I was on the outside.”

“Yeah, that’s how it feels with me.” Megan wrung her hands together as if debating something, then said, “A bunch of girls are over at Joanna’s tonight for a sleepover.”

“You and Joanna used to be such good friends.”

Megan nodded.

“But she didn’t invite you, and you’re feeling left out.”

“Yeah.”

We came around the block back to our house. Inspiration struck again. “What do you say we make a huge vat of popcorn and watch The Princess Bride tonight?”

“Can we do it in our PJs?”

“Absolutely.”

We’d reached our front door. For the first time I could remember, Megan hugged me. “That sounds great.”

* * *

The next morning I took my notecards into the bathroom. Though I still locked the door and turned on the radio, it didn’t feel as necessary as on that first night.

I looked at myself in the mirror and, for the first time, had little difficulty holding my gaze. I said, “Kelvin, I love you,” and laughed at the silliness of it. The awkwardness was still there, but it was no longer so difficult.

When thinking of examples of my sensitivity, I reflected on my walk with Megan and the fun night we shared.

When I read off the card about how funny I was, I thought of all the moments I got Megan to laugh after we’d already finished the movie and sat up eating ice cream and telling stories.

In fact, for each trait on my card, something about Megan came up. And the strange thing was that I felt great. Here I’d spent a Friday night doing exactly what I’d tried desperately to avoid for years—sitting at home with my kid sister while the cool kids at school partied—and I’d had a great time.

After reading through all of my card (which only took ten minutes this time), I decided to visit Darnell. He hadn’t reached out since that night I’d blown him off a week earlier. Suddenly, I wanted to connect with him and see how much progress he was making toward his goal.

I made it over to his house in the early afternoon and found him watching football with his family, as usual. While none were quite as heavy as Darnell, everyone in his family was obese. All of them sat on the couch watching the game, except for Darnell, who chugged away on his treadmill. He wasn’t quite running—I doubted Darnell had run since middle school—but he kept a fast walk.

“Hi Kelvin,” his mom said. “Nachos?”

Darnell’s mom had always been incredibly warm and welcoming whenever I’d been to their house, and the woman knew how to cook. Now she extended a plate of nachos dripping with cheddar cheese and flecked with bacon. I didn’t like the idea of eating junk food in front of Darnell, but I also didn’t want to be rude and refuse, especially given how good the nachos looked. “Thanks, Mrs. Jones.” I helped myself to a small serving, poured some picante salsa on the side, and plopped myself onto a plush armchair.

Darnell’s eyes followed the plate of nachos.

“How’s it going, Darnell?” I asked.

“Good. Five more pounds to go.”

“I’ve never seen him work so hard.” Mrs. Jones sipped her Mountain Dew.

Darnell smiled at the praise, but the smile only lasted a moment. I didn’t think a 230-pound man could appear starved, but that’s exactly how he looked. There was a desperation in his eyes, as if he hadn’t eaten in weeks. His father ate a slice of sausage pizza, and his sister had already moved onto ice cream for dessert. But Darnell kept his eyes on the TV as though it were a bull’s eye.

I stayed until the end of the first game—Darnell walking on the treadmill the entire time—and I left marveling at his willpower.

* * *

On Monday, Darnell came in another two pounds lighter, but it wasn’t just his weight that had dropped. Dark caves sunk under his eyes, and his skin was pasty—like raw brownie batter.

Mr. Griffin took one look at him, then turned his attention away. “Jarod, how did it go with Bill on Saturday?”

“OK, I think.”

“You think?”

“He worked me hard and didn’t say much.”

“Any value in what he did say?”

“Not sure.”

“Tell us about it.”

“Well, I showed up at 7:30 Saturday morning at the address he gave me, just like we agreed. The houses out there are like four times the size of the ones around here, and the yard was at least ten times the size of the ones I normally work on. I saw the truck from his landscaping company in the driveway, so I knew it was the right address. There wasn’t any work being done in the front, so I went around to the back of the house. The backyard was even bigger, with a pool and a whole decked out patio, but I didn’t see any work being done back there either.

“So I returned to the front and rang the bell. Bill answered the door himself. Turns out it was his house. Even though I was on time, he said, ‘Glad to see you’re finally here. Let’s go.’”

In middle school, Jarod had starred in all the school plays. He gave up drama when he’d given up all other school activities, but he still had a knack for doing voices. He portrayed Bill as having a rough, somewhat Italian accent.

“We got into his truck, but as we drove off, he looked at my pickup. ‘You got a snow plow for that thing?’ When I told him no, he said, ‘Get one.’

“I’ve got a decent snow blower, and I told him I never wanted to spend the money on a plow for the truck, especially when I still needed a snow blower for the walkways anyway.

“This just pissed him off. He said, ‘One shnook pushing a snow blower is no different than another shnook pushing a snow blower. A 10-year-old can do the same work as you for half the price.’

“When I told him that I make more money on snow days than any other day of the year, he said, ‘How much?’ I told him, and he just said, ‘peanuts.’

“He said, ’99% of the time no one values manual laborers. The exception is emergencies. When there’s a heavy snowstorm, a guy with a truck and a plow is more important than the governor. That’s when guys like you and me make our money.’

“I said there’s only so much time during a snow day.”

“He waved me off. ‘That’s why you don’t even worry about the piddly jobs. If someone asks you to plow their walk, you tell them you’ll get to it once the snow stops falling and all the driveways are clear. Then you watch and see what happens. If some hysterical businessman says he needs his parking lot plowed out, and he’s a mile away, what do you do?’

“I book it over there.”

“‘The hell you do. You tell him absolutely sir, you’ll be happy to get to it in a couple of hours when you’re in that part of town. Then you watch and see what happens.’

“He’ll go nuts.”

“‘Exactly…’”

“Most of the day the equipment was too loud for us to hear each other. When we got a quiet moment, he barely even answered my questions but kept spitting out random pieces of advice. Whenever I asked him to explain anything, he would say, ‘You just watch and see what happens.’”

“So are you going to buy the plow for your truck?” Mr. Griffin asked.

“I don’t know. It’s going to cost me thousands of dollars out of my college fund. What do you think, Mr. Griffin?”

“I know little about landscaping. Did it strike you that Bill knew what he was talking about?”

“His house was certainly nice enough. I expect he does know. It’s a big expense, but it will last me for years. I can do a lot more driveways with a truck plow.” Jarod slapped his desk. “I’m going to do it.”

* * *

Tuesday night, my mom made my favorite: homemade ravioli with mushrooms. By the time she finished cooking, flour covered the countertops, two sticky pots sat on the stove, and chopped mushroom bits lay scattered about.

Megan brought her latest art project to the table; she