Freak City Read Free Page B

pool.
    Someone tugged on my sleeve.
    “Iris!” I was startled out of my thoughts. My room pulsated with Coldplay music. I had been staring hypnotically at the painted wall for at least ten minutes.
    My sister chewed on a piece of pink gum and studied me with curiosity. Quickly, I rubbed my eyes.
    “Are you crying?” Her gum let off an artificial strawberry scent into the room.
    “No,” I said. “Boys don’t cry. They don’t have any tear ducts. Didn’t your biology teacher explain that to you?”
    She shook her head. “We don’t have biology, just science. And we only talk about frogs all the time.”
    I sat up. “And you’re supposed to knock before you come in my room!” I yelled at her much too harshly. “I’ve already told you that a thousand times!”
    “I did knock,” she protested. “Three times!”
    “When you knock, you wait until someone tells you to come in,” I lectured her. “And if no one tells you to come in, you get lost. That’s called being polite, get it?”
    In my opinion, my parents had completely failed in raising their daughter. I turned the music down with the remote control.
    “Can I listen to a Benjamin the Elephant story in your room?” She stuck a finger in her mouth and pulled out a strand of pink gum.
    “No.” I knew I was being mean. But if she had her way, she would hang around in my room all day long. Drawing pictures on my desk, leaving her Barbies all over my bed, or torturing my new CD player with Benjamin the Elephant.
    “What did you do in school today?” I asked her in an effort to make peace. I did want to be a good brother, just not at any price.
    “Traffic safety,” she said, her feelings hurt. I thought about the girl with the curly hair this afternoon. How she had almost been run over by the truck. Something about her appealed to me, even though she was a completely different type than Sandra.
    “What do you do when the light is red?” I asked.
    “Stop!” popped out of her like a gunshot.
    “And if the light is just changing?” That was a little trickier.
    Iris thought about it. “Run across really fast?”
    “No!” I looked at her sternly. The thought of Iris being my age one day was almost frightening. I imagined her in several years, how she would prance through the city and boys would call crass things after her. How maybe she would almost be run over by a car because she was trying to get away from a bunch of immature guys.
    On the other hand, it had all been in fun. We weren’t really harassing the girl. We had just followed her for a bit . . .
    “If some day a couple of guys are walking behind you . . .”
    Iris looked at me with big eyes. “Boys are stupid,” she said.
    “Yeah, of course. But someday you might not think that anymore. And if the boys are following you and yelling things like. . . . Well, they don’t necessarily mean what they say. They just want to annoy you a little.”
    “Boys are stupid,” Iris repeated.
    “Yeah, yeah.” I sighed. “And remember one thing: never, ever wear miniskirts!”
    Clueless, Iris continued to chew her gum. “Did you already get me the autograph book?” She blew a gum bubble.
    “What autograph book?”
    “My birthday is on Saturday!”
    It suddenly hit me. Iris would be seven on Saturday, and I had promised to get her an autograph book. “One with My Little Pony, Hello Kitty, or the Little Mermaid on the cover,” she rattled off.
    “Mmhmm.” Weren’t there any normal autograph books anymore? When I was in elementary school, we wanted puppies or race cars on the covers.
    “You can order it online,” Iris said, “from Amazon!”
    I looked at her in astonishment. What had happened to her childhood innocence? “No,” I said, “I’m going to get it in town. Can I just pick one out, or does it really have to be one of those name-brand things?”
    Iris sighed.
    “You know, all the other kids probably have those Hello Kitty albums,” I tried to explain. “And Little