he does. He hangs up in my ear. The disconnect noise starts up, but I stupidly keep saying, “Hello? Hello?”
“What’s he saying now?”
“He’s hung up.”
“Well, put the phone down and come back upstairs. We’re wasting valuable time here.”
I cradle the receiver, shaking my head and rolling my eyes.
The phone instantly begins ringing. I reach out, and Davy puts his hand over the top of mine, holding the hand piece down.
“Don’t answer it. This guy’s a whacko.”
“He said he’d call back.”
“He must be a whacko. Listen, let’s just—”
I push his hand away. I hate it when people try to boss me about. “Hello, is that you again?”
“Hello, Jenny. Is this my third call to you or my fourth?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!”
“Sorry, it was a stupid question. Let me put it another way. Um, that stuff you just wrote down for me.... You did write—?”
“Yes, the number and the—”
He yelps. “Don’t look at it!”
“I haven’t touched it. But I can remember the quote, it said—”
“Don’t tell me! This is a test, Jenny. This is a way for me to prove my credentials to you.”
“Uh huh.” I roll my eyes some more. Davy is going off his face, trying to jam his ear up against the other side of the receiver.
“You’re a smart girl, there’s obviously some books about the place.”
“Half the house is lined with them.”
“Right. Great. Now look, this’ll sound even crazier than anything I’ve said yet—”
“That’ll be pretty hard to manage.”
“Yes, but do it. Number One, get a book with some numbers in it. The telephone book will do, or a table of random numbers if you’ve got one, or—”
Is he an encyclopedia salesman? Instead of just challenging him, I say cunningly, “How about the Britannica Yearbook?”
“Fantastic! Ideal! Get the latest one that’s there, and bring it back to the phone. Hang on. While you’re there, get another book as well. Any book at all. I want this to be your choice. I want you to know that it’s your choice. Okay?”
This still doesn’t rule my theory out—he could be trying to find out how recent our set is, so he can pitch us a more up-to-date one—but I have to admit to myself that the idea is leaky. “Two books. Pure insanity, but okay.”
When I put the phone down and start off along the hall, David turns into a dog with two bones. He snatches up the receiver and holds it to his ear, but presumably the guy isn’t saying anything so he drops it and rushes after me into Poppa’s study.
“What’s he want you to do? This guy sounds dangerous, Jen, I really think I should go next door and ring the cops.”
I’m rooting around on the lower shelves, breathing hard with pure delight. “Davy, this is getting quite exciting. I don’t know what he wants, but it sounds like a sort of quiz. Maybe he works for some, I don’t know, some special place that tests you to see if you’re smart enough to join them, and then—”
“Oh yes. And then what?”
“I don’t know! Get off my case, David. He rang me, not you.”
“Hey, I’m just trying to help!” He’s halfway between hurt and angry. He says petulantly, “Did I know you were gunna chuck a menstrual? I can piss off right now if that’s how you feel.”
I can feel my face going red. How did he know? Has he been keeping count? My body is betraying me. I’m even more shocked by that thought. No, it’s not. There’s nothing wrong with my body. I’m a girl becoming a woman. It’s a proud thing to be. It’s certainly nothing to be ashamed of. I’m so confused I don’t know whether to shove him out the door or apologize for my crankiness. But why should I apologize? What have I done? Anyway, I realize abruptly, it’s just a silly sexist pun, he probably doesn’t have a clue. So I say, to placate him and me, “David, don’t be like that. Pass me the Britannica Yearbook. Second shelf.”
He’s still sulking. “Get this guy to show you a video. You can read encyclopedias together.”
“David, please.” All of a sudden I can’t be bothered arguing with him. Silly child pretending to be a man. I take two books down the hall, with David complaining along behind me.
“Hello? I’ve got them. Now what?”
“You found the Yearbook?”
“Right here.”
“Which year?”
“The latest one Poppa bought. 1985. But I think all the stuff in it’s about 1984, so it’s eleven years out of date.”
“Eleven years out of date! My aching bones! 1995. Thirty-five years. Oh my God they’ll give me the Nobel Prize for this. Jenny.”
Davy pulls the phone away from my ear, scowling. “What’s he saying?”
I shove him away. “He’s going to win the Nobel Prize in the twenty-first century or something. Yes, O Mugger, I can hear you.”
“Call me Rod. Open the Yearbook anywhere there’s statistics, tables of numbers, Gross National Product, that sort of thing.”
“Got it. Argentine Employment and Labor, how’s that?”
“Don’t tell me! This has to be a blind test, or you’ll never believe me. Close the book and open it again somewhere else, and find, let’s say, the number on the top left-hand side of the page. Write it down on the back of the piece of paper you used before.”
“You want me to find a number that you couldn’t possibly known what it is, is that the test?”
“That’s the proof.”
“Gotcha. I’ll make it the right-hand page in that case. Okay, page 901, um, communications, this runs across from the other page anyway, France is the top country, over to the right-hand side, international outgoing—122,623.” I lose my voice for a moment, and something creepy happens to my skull and the skin down the back of my arms. Maybe this is what they mean when they talk about your hair standing on end. I clear my throat and say very faintly, “Holy smoke. Isn’t that the—?”
“Don’t turn the page over!” the guy called Rod bleats. He’s having as much trouble breathing as I am, from the sound of it. I can barely see Davy jumping about like a blurry lunatic, wanting to know what’s going on. “Open the next book at any page
