“Say, Marvin, can I, um, ask you something?”
Monday morning, I was still standing at my locker, only seconds after Hank and Anna Kay had loudly argued. Now speaking to me was druggie girl Janice Wesley, whose locker was next to mine. Before today, I don’t think she’d said three words to me in a week.
“Sure, what’s up?” I replied.
Janice looked shy. “Have you been working out, or something? Something’s different about you.”
“No, not working out. Everything’s the same with me.” If you don’t count growing five inches since midnight.
“Oh. Okay.” She started to turn away, then turned back to face me. “Would you like me to get you something now? A soda, or a candy bar? I think there’s time before the bell if I run.”
What’s going on here? I wondered. Aloud, I said, “No, I’m good. Thanks.” Now it bothered me that she’d complimented me, but I hadn’t complimented her back. So I added, “I like your t-shirt.”
“Cool. You’re a fan of Paranoid Mushroom?”
“No, I mean the lettering, it’s light blue. Matches your eyes. You have nice blue eyes, Janice.”
“You really think so? Thanks.“ She gave me a smile like small children give to mall Santas.
Come to think of it, before today I’d never seen Janice smile, either.
It is amazing what someone can learn, just by listening carefully and by asking a few seemingly unimportant “Jog my memory, my mind blanked out” questions.
Here’s what I learned, at school by the start of fifth period—
Now, Miller also learned all those things by the start of fifth period. But whereas I learned everything by listening to people’s talk and by asking questions, Miller learned it by shooting his mouth off and getting pounded for it. The argument with Anna Kay that I witnessed, happened because Miller demanded to know why Anna Kay hadn’t called him this morning.
Then there was that misunderstanding in the cafeteria that I witnessed. I truly thought that Rodriguez was going to beat Miller into strawberry pulp.
When Miller paid for his lunch, he then walked over to the football players’ table. He was displeased to see Jorje Rodriguez sitting in his seat, which was at the center of a semicircle.
If Jorje had pulled that stunt last week, Miller would have walked up to him and told him to move. Loudly. Loudly enough, in fact, that Jorje would have been humiliated in front of everyone in the lunchroom.
But today, it didn’t seem to be something worth making a fuss over. Miller took a seat at the end of the group.
Still, when Jorje stood up with an empty cup, and started walking toward the soda dispenser, Miller raised his own nearly empty cup. “Hey Rodriguez, fill mine up too. Coke, easy ice.”
Jorje stopped dead in his tracks. All the football players went silent, except for one voice that said, “What the fuck?”
“DID YOU HEAR THAT, GUYS?” Jorje said. “THE RELIEF QUARTERBACK IS GIVING THE STARTING QUARTERBACK HIS DRINK ORDER.”
Too late, Miller realized what else had happened on this Murphy’s Law day. If he could wake up two inches shorter, and suddenly nobody remembered him dating Anna Kay, why not be suddenly downgraded from starting quarterback to benchwarmer? It made a certain sick sense.
By now, Jorje was leaning down, getting in Miller’s face. “What’s your problem, Harold? You still sore because you lost out? A chihuahua with a good throwing arm is still a chihuahua, amigo. If you can’t see the receivers, how you gonna hit ‘em?”
Then Jorje got a thought. “Or is it that I’m Mexican? You think Mexicans are only good to be leaf blowers and fruit pickers?” Jorje grabbed the apple off Miller’s tray. “Well, now I’m picking your fruit.”
“That’s my apple, Jorje.”
“Not any more it isn’t, pendejo. Now, get your ass over there and refill your own fucking drink, if you’re so thirsty.”
Miller was indeed thirsty, so he stood up from the table and followed Rodriguez to the soda dispenser. Walking along, Miller heard a girl say, “Harold Miller, such a loser.”
Whoever said that, it wasn’t “Princess Anastasia.” Natasha Ludmenkov stood by the soda dispenser, staring at Miller and not speaking a word. And then, without gesture or changed expression to warn him, she turned on her heel and walked away. Students stepped aside for her.
Miller watched Natasha move away. Before, he’d always been offended by her queenly nature, but today he found it to be intriguing.
Miller and I both had the last lunch of fourth period, and we both had Mr. Spinelli for Government during fifth period. But while I was always in my seat when the Tardy Bell rang, Miller had often (before today) “extended” his lunch.
Up till now, that hadn’t been a problem. Miller’s assigned seat for fifth period was in the front seat of the far-right row—or from Mr. Spinelli’s perspective, the far-left row. And Mr. Spinelli was blind in his left eye. Many times, Miller had sneaked into class, thirty seconds after the Tardy Bell, without Mr. Spinelli even noticing.
That assumed, of course, that other students kept quiet. Today, as Miller was about to pull his book bag off his shoulder, Jorje Rodriguez said, ”Glad you could join us, Miller.”
Mr. Spinelli turned his head around and looked disapprovingly at Miller. “I’m marking you tardy, Harold. One more and you go chat with Mr. Bender.”
It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that this really rattled Miller. To make things worse for him, all the girls behind him were giggling. And just as I wasn’t quite adjusted to my taller body, I’m sure that he wasn’t yet used to his shorter, weaker body. Which all explains what happened next: When Miller tried to put his book bag on the floor, he missed. The bag clipped a corner of his student desk, knocking the desk over and making a racket.
Fifteen seconds later, Miller’s desk was upright and he was sitting in it. His face was blushing scarlet. I actually felt a little sorry for him.
When I walked into Math class, I discovered Anna Kay already sitting in her seat. She was staring out the window, and she looked lonely.
But when she felt me looking at her, she faced me and gave me a very photogenic fake smile.
Before I took my seat in Math class, Anna Kay and I made a “date” for tutoring after school.
The school day was over, and I was walking out to my clunker, when my cell phone rang. Calling was Mr. Dodd, Uncle Warren’s probate lawyer. I wondered, Why is he calling me again?
Seconds later, Dodd over the phone was telling me, “Mr. Harper, it’s just as I feared. Your inheritance is being challenged by one of your relatives.”
“My inheritance? What inheritance? I thought everything was going to the Eisenhower Library.”
“No, he changed his will the day before he died, left everything to you. I’m sure I showed you the will.”
“Um, uh, if you did, I was thinking about a homework assignment. Mr. Dodd, I’m jumping in my car and heading straight to your office. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
I then used my cel to call Anna Kay. Without going into detail, I told her that a legal situation had come up, and so I had to cancel our math-tutoring “date.” Anna Kay was gracious and understanding.
Twelve minutes after those two phone calls, I was staring at the paper in my hand, which read—
“I leave five thousand dollars to the Eisenhower Center and Library in Abilene, Kansas. Everything else that I own, except for personal items (which I don’t care about), is to be passed to eighteen-year-old Marvin Steven Harper. He was the only one of my relatives to visit me during my current hospitalization. He has right of first refusal of my computer.”
The will that Mr. Dodd showed me in his office sure looked legit. It was laser-printed on paper marked with the law firm’s watermark. If I hadn’t seen the other one, I’d never suspect that this one had been magically created last night. The big clue was that one of the three listed witnesses was “Fatima Delaverte.”
The second witness was Marie Nguyen, whom I remembered as the nurse I had met in Uncle Warren’s hospital room. I pointed to the third name. “Who is she?”
Mr. Dodd blushed. “You’ve met Sherry Benson. She was your uncle’s ... he called her his `odd-days girlfriend.’ Virgilia O’Keefe was your uncle’s, you could say, `even-days girlfriend.’”
I handed the will back to Mr. Dodd. “So what’s this about a challenge to the will?”
“Warren Harper had two siblings, Herbert and Florence. You are Herbert’s great-grandson. The challenger, Esther Flint, is Florence’s granddaughter. She claims that she should inherit because she is more closely related to Warren Harper than you are. Also, her attorney claims that you exerted `undue influence’ on your uncle to name you in his will.”
“Wait, they’re trying to use the fact that I visited him and she didn’t, against me?”
“I’m afraid so.”
There was a knock at the door then, and a redheaded woman in her twenties stepped in. She said, “Mr. Dodd, I’m headed over to the Harper mansion now, to start the inventory.”
Dodd said, “Excellent timing, Ms. Roberts. This is Marvin Harper, who will be inheriting Mr. Harper’s `mansion.’ Unless, of course, the judge rules against us. Marvin, this is Bridget Roberts, one of our legal assistants.”
She walked up to me and shook my hand. In the seconds that it took to walk across the room to me, Bridget’s eyes, her pinched mouth, and her hurried walk all said I have more important things to do than talk to some kid. But as she was shaking my hand, Bridget’s expression changed.
Now she was looking at me like I were a rock star. “It’s so nice to meet you, Mr. Harper. Before I go, do you need anything? Coffee? Soda? We still have two or three donuts, but they’re stale—I can run and get you more if you want.”
I was expecting Mr. Dodd to rebuke Bridget, but instead he said, “Certainly. Marvin, have you eaten? I can send Bridget out to get you a burger, on us. It’s not a problem.”
“I don’t want to impose.”
Bridget said, “Oh no, Mr. Harper, it’s no imposition at all. Whatever you want, just tell me.”
I thought, Does she mean what I think she means? Aloud, I said, “Thanks, but I need to get home.”
That was no lie, I did need to get home. I needed to grab the footlocker’s sticky-note and a USB stick, and warp-drive over to Uncle Warren’s house. His computer was waiting for me.
Sometime between twenty and thirty minutes later, I was parking in front of Uncle Warren’s house. Getting out of my car, I saw that Bridget Roberts was standing in the doorway, arguing with two young women.
Those two women each were blond and huge-breasted. One of the blondes I recognized as Sherry Benson.