He actually held it together. No screeching or stomping off or any of his other usual tricks. Plus, I had to admit it, he was right: I couldn’t tell him how to spend his own money. Besides, there was no sense pressing my luck with his temper.
“Okay, Mem, fine,” I said. “You do what you’re doing, and I’ll stand over here and look at the paint chips.” I decided to amuse myself by counting how many shades of white there were. I was at 68 when Mem brought a mound of decals to the counter. I joined him just in time to hear Mr. Wizzly remark, “Seems to be a run on these things this week.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, but what I really wanted to know was whether Dirk Dempster had been buying them.
“Selling like hotcakes,” Mr. Wizzly answered. “Isn’t that what you were here for the other day? You and some other folks. A regular hot item. That’ll be five dollars and thirty-five cents…thank you, young man. He handed Mem his change, which didn’t include any state quarters. Have fun.”
“Have fun,” Mem said.
“Always do,” Mr. Wizzly winked.
Mem winked back.
When we got home, Mem stashed the decals in his room before parking himself and Jambalaya in front of the TV. Okay, no immediate decal danger, I decided. Maybe he’ll forget all about them. Still, he was in an especially good mood—he even let me change the channel—so I wasn’t done being suspicious. He was a man with a plan, and I had the feeling I was going to be the one to pay for it. Thankfully, he didn’t carry out his scheme that day. He seemed happy to hang out in front of the tube, and all I had to do was make sure the Twinkies didn’t run out.
One other weird thing did happen though toward evening, and I mean it was totally bizarre. I’d been in my room listening to tunes and lounging with Linguini, and then I went downstairs to call Mo. But I never made it to the phone. I was too amazed by the scene in the living room: Mem was playing my GameCube, and he’d gotten StarBender all the way to level 10! No one I know has ever gotten that video game beyond level 8, and I’ve never made it past 7.
“Mem? What—how—”
He jumped at the sound of my voice. “I was being careful with it, honest, Johnny,” he pleaded.
“It’s all right,” I said. “But how do you know how to play?”
He shrugged. “My friend Chip. And school.” Now that he sensed I wasn’t going to holler at him, he turned his attention back to the game.
“You have video games at school?”
“Yup. This one’s my favorite.” With that, he advanced to level 11. “I like Olympiad too.”
I sat down next to him on the floor. “Sounds like a pretty cool school.”
“It’s all right. I like summer better.”
“Yeah, me too. You want to try a two-player round?”
“Yup,” he said, handing me the other controller.
Mem won three straight games before I top-scored him once. Then we switched to Air Angler, and he got my guy every time.
“You should open your second parachute when I get that close,” he said at one point.
“These guys have extra parachutes?” I asked.
“Yup. And the plane’ll drop you a ladder if you go under the escape hatch.”
Whoa. This was awesome. Not just the game, but being able to play it with Mem—I mean, really play it. In my whole life, Mem and I had never played a legitimate, regulation game together. Mom always made me play cards and checkers with him, and then she made me let him win. Aunt Collette would try to let me off the hook, but Mom would insist, or she’d pressure me into playing stupid games like hide-and-seek or Marco Polo with him. Mem never “got” hide-and-seek because he was never willing to come out of his hiding place, even when he got caught. And he wouldn’t keep his eyes closed for Marco Polo, so I always had to be It. Talk about lame. And boring.
But this—this was a real competition. I was free to try my hardest, and I wasn’t guaranteed to win, not by a long shot. It was kind of like having Mo or Reed here. Well, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but it was definitely better than being by myself, and that was a first. We played until Aunt Collette got home.
Chapter 5
I had the next day free because Aunt Collette was off from work. A whole day to myself—no taking care of Mem, no cutting the grass, nothing but taking it easy. The first thing I did was sleep until I felt like getting up—I didn’t even hear Mem sneak in to get the ferrets—and then I wandered down to the kitchen to call Mo and Reed.
Aunt Collette was scooping coffee beans into the grinder and humming some country western song. She was wearing a striped beach dress and looking tired again, or maybe she just didn’t have her lipstick on yet. “Morning, sunshine,” she said. “Your mom called earlier. Want some joe? It’s decaf.”
“I’ll give it a try.”
“The way I like it—black—or the way Remember likes it—with enough cream and sugar to rot out all your teeth?”
“How about somewhere in between?”
“You got it.” She turned on the grinder and took three mugs out of the dishwasher. They were the mugs Mom gave her last Christmas, with snowmen in Hawaiian shirts and sunglasses. The shirts reminded me of the one The Man was wearing yesterday, and I considered asking her about him, but then the phone rang.
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