Читать книгу Be More Chill - Ned Vizzini - Страница 14

Next morning I am determined to sort out who started the rumour about me and Christine and the letter.

Before that, though, I go to the bathroom to do an Appearance Check. I’ve been doing a lot of Appearance Checks lately. I’ve noticed that I’m kind of ugly. I mean, I have brown hair and brown eyes—good, right?—but under a critical light, which is how the world views you, I can see how I might resemble someone with a palsy. My face is too long and the sockets that my eyes sit in are off-kilter sizewise, as if I were meant to have a larger eye on the left. My hair might be thick but it’s full of dandruff like a snowstorm. (Me and Michael used to have dandruff battles, actually, ruffling our heads violently in a sunbeam to see who had more glittering scalp waste.) My lips are drawn back and ghoulish. My earlobes are huge. When I get enough money for plastic surgery, I’m going to start with—

“Goood morning,” Dad says, ushering himself into the bathroom.

“Uh, hey,” I say, breaking my stare with the mirror, turning the water on so it looks like I was washing my face. Dad is completely naked, as usual before 10.00 a.m, except for his black socks. “Um, could I, um, get a little privacy in here?”

“Son, you’re catching me midstream,” Dad says.

“Yeah, I can hear that.”

“Don’t be embarrassed. Pretend we’re in the army. No other heads available. Ten-hut.”

“Dad, you were never in the army.” I turn toward him, then regret it because his naked butt looks weird. It always looks like it’s pressed up against a sheet of glass.

“How’re my two boys in there?” Mom asks from outside in a sing-song voice. “I’ve got to take a sho-wer!”

“Ho pippity pum pum!” Dad says, shaking his penis—

“Jesus, what is wrong with you people?!”

“Jeremy?”

“Can you finish off in the second bathroom? Please?!” I plant my hands to either side of the sink and close my eyes.

“Jeremy?” Mom asks, cracking the door. Then, hissing at Dad: “Put a towel on!”

“It’s not like he’s a girl,” Dad retorts. “We never had a girl.” I hear a soft ruffle as he grabs a towel and gets it around his wide body. Mom comes in and puts a hand on me. “What’s wrong, Jeremy?”

“Nothing.” I open my eyes and look at the mirror image of me and Mom, with her face slightly wrinkled before she gets the make-up in the creases, and Dad on the right, a naked fat face with a naked fat body, hands securing his towel like a happy Buddha. We look like an example of two people who shouldn’t breed and what their offspring would be.

“Humuckuggg…” I say. Then I stomp out of the bathroom, put on clothes, grab a fresh Humiliation Sheet and walk to school.