The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp Read Free Page A

Alfred?”
    â€œDidn’t you just say you were watching the monitors?”
    â€œI am watching nothing, Alfred. Eight hours a day, six nights a week, I sit in this little chair right here, watching nothing.”
    He leaned very close to me, so close, I could smell his breath, which did not smell very good.
    â€œThis is the future, Alfred. Your future, or something like it, if you don’t find your passion. If you don’t figure out what you’re here for. A lifetime of watching nothing.”

3
    I studied hard for my driver’s test, but I flunked it. So I took it a second time and flunked again, but I didn’t miss as many questions, so at least I was improving as a failure. Uncle Farrell pointed to my scores as proof I lacked the guts to achieve even something as simple as a learner’s permit.
    Things were not much better at school. Barry Lancaster’s wrist was still badly sprained, which meant he was now a bench player just like me. Barry wasn’t happy about this. He went around telling everybody how he was going to “get Kropp,” so I spent my days looking over my shoulder, waiting for the getting to start. I became jumpy; every loud noise, like the slamming of a locker door, was enough to make me nearly wet my pants.
    One afternoon in early spring, I came home to find Uncle Farrell already out of bed.
    â€œWhat is it?” I asked.
    â€œWhat’s what?”
    â€œWhy are you out of bed?”
    â€œAren’t you the king of Twenty Questions.”
    â€œThat was only two questions, Uncle Farrell, and they were kind of related, so that probably would only count as one and a half.”
    â€œYou know, Alfred, people who think they’re funny rarely really are.”
    â€œI don’t think I’m funny. I think I’m too tall, too fat, too slow, and too much of a screwup, but I don’t think I’m funny. Why are you out of bed, Uncle Farrell?”
    â€œWe have company coming,” he said, wetting his big lips.
    â€œWe do?” We never had anyone over. “Who’s coming?”
    â€œSomebody very important, Alfred. Put on some clean clothes and come into the kitchen. We’re eating early.”
    I changed my clothes and found my Salisbury steak frozen dinner fresh from the microwave sitting at my spot on the kitchen table. Uncle Farrell was drinking a beer, which was unusual. He never drank beer at dinner.
    â€œAlfred, how’d you like to move out of this dump and live in one of those huge mansions in Sequoia Hills?”
    â€œHuh?”
    â€œYou know, where all the rich people live.”
    I thought about it. “That’d be great, Uncle Farrell. But when did we get rich?”
    â€œWe’re not rich. But we might be. Someday.” He was smiling a mysterious smile while he chewed his Salisbury steak.
    â€œAnd you’ll be taking your driving test again next week—how’d you like a Ferrari Enzo for your first car?”
    â€œOh, boy, that’d be great, Uncle Farrell,” I said. He got like this sometimes. It’s no big secret that it’s lousy being poor. But there’s poor and then there’s really poor, and we weren’t really poor. I mean, I never went to bed hungry, and the lights always stayed on, but I guess it wasn’t easy working a lonely night job for the richest man in Knoxville. He wasn’t getting much sleep lately either, and that can make you a little loopy. “But I’d rather have a Hummer.”
    â€œOkay, a Hummer. Whatever. The kind of car doesn’t matter, Al. This guy who’s coming tonight—he’s a very rich man and he’s got this proposition that . . . well, if it works out the way I hope, you and me, we’ll never have to worry about money again.”
    â€œHonestly, Uncle Farrell, I didn’t know we worried about it now.”
    â€œHis name is Arthur Myers and he owns Tintagel International. You ever hear