Why We Took the Car Read Free Page B

about. I don’t know Tatiana at all. I know the things that anyone in her class would know about her. I know what she looks like, what her name is, and that she’s good at sports and English. And so on. I know how tall she is because of the physical exams they gave us on health day. I found out where she lives from the phone book. And other than that, I know basically nothing. Obviously I could describe exactly what she looks like and how her voice sounds and what color her hair is and everything. But that seems to me unnecessary. I mean, everyone can imagine what she looks like: She looks great. Her voice sounds great too. She’s just great all around.

CHAPTER 6
    I guess I never explained why they called me Psycho. Because, as I mentioned, I was known as Psycho for a while. No idea what the point was. I mean, obviously I know it was supposed to suggest that I had a screw loose. But as far as I’m concerned, there were several other people who deserved the name more than I did. Frank could have been called Psycho, or Stobke, with his lighter. They’re both way crazier than I am. Or the Nazi. But then again, the Nazi was already called Nazi, so he didn’t need another name. And of course there was a reason that I got the name instead of anyone else. It was the result of an assignment in Mr. Schuermann’s German class, sixth grade, a word prompt story. In case you don’t know what a word prompt story is, it goes like this: You get four words, like “zoo,” “ape,” “zookeeper,” and “hat,” and you have to write a story that includes all of the words. Real original. Totally moronic. The words Mr. Schuermann thought up were “vacation,” “water,” “rescue,” and “God.” Which was definitely more difficult than zoo and ape. The main difficulty was God, obviously. We only had ethics classes, not religion, and there were sixteen kids registered as atheists in the class, including me. Even the Protestants in the class didn’t really believe in God. I don’t think. At least, not the way people who really believe in God believe. People who don’t want to harm even an ant, or who are happy when someone dies because that person is going to heaven. Or people who crash a plane into the World Trade Center. Those people really believe in God. That’s why the writing assignment was tough. Most of the students grabbed on to the word “vacation.” A little family is paddling around off the Côte d’Azur and are taken totally by surprise by a terrible storm and yell “oh, God” and are then rescued or whatever. And I could have written something like that too. But as I sat down to write the story, the first thing that occurred to me was the fact that we hadn’t been on vacation for three years because my father had been preparing for bankruptcy. Which didn’t bother me — I never particularly liked going on vacation with my parents anyway.
    Instead, I spent last summer squatting in our basement carving boomerangs. One of my elementary school teachers taught me how to do it. He was an expert in the boomerang department. Bretfeld was his name, Wilhelm Bretfeld. He’d even written a book about boomerangs. Two books actually. But I didn’t realize that until after I’d finished elementary school. I ran into old Bretfeld in a field. He was basically standing right behind our house in the cow pasture throwing his boomerangs, homemade boomerangs he’d carved himself. It was yet another thing I had never realized really worked. I thought the things only came back to you in the movies. But Bretfeld was a pro, and he showed me how to do it. I was blown away. Also because he’d made them himself. “Anything that’s round in front and sharp at the back will fly,” said Bretfeld. Then he looked at me over the frames of his glasses and asked, “What’s your name again? I