Bad Taste in Boys (12 page)

“I didn’t.” Jonah frowned like the lights were a personal affront. Like father, like son. Dad got a little crazy about green issues.

The front door opened before we could even get out of the car. Dad stepped outside and glowered at us so hard I felt the force of it from a hundred feet away.

“Katherine Curie and Jonah Salk Grable, get in the house right now,” he said sternly.

I hobbled up the driveway under my father’s stern gaze. Jonah hurried behind me and joined me inside on the couch. Dad didn’t
sit. He loomed over us in that parental way I thought they must teach in secret night classes. Then he folded his arms, as if we hadn’t already gotten the picture that he was pissed.

“Someone,” he said, “better start talking. Because otherwise, I will be forced to conclude the worst.”

Confessions were the best way to avoid being punished, but I wasn’t sure where to begin. “About what?” I asked.

He looked at me like I was a complete moron. “Perhaps it wasn’t clear what I meant when I took your keys away. I meant that the car wasn’t to be driven. Particularly by Jonah after dark on a school night, when the only licensed driver in the car might start convulsing any minute. What were you two thinking?”

“It was an emergency,” I said, and I would have continued if Jonah hadn’t butted in.

“Yeah, Kate had another seizure at school, and she needed a ride home. It’s not like we ran anyone over or anything.”

He was lucky Dad was there, or else I would have punched him. The last thing we needed was to inspire Dad to check out the front bumper and discover Coach’s face imprinted on it. Luckily, Dad was focused on the driving itself, so the last sentence didn’t register.

“So you decided to compound the problem by taking the car rather than calling me for help?” Dad asked. “I’m not impressed by your reasoning, Jonah.”

“I was worried about her,” Jonah said, mustering more sweetness
than I thought possible. “So maybe I wasn’t thinking clearly. I’m sorry.”

Dad softened noticeably, uncrossing his arms and relaxing the ramrod-straight posture just a little. I’d have to ask Jonah to teach me that trick someday. I couldn’t apologize without wanting to repeatedly whack my head on something.

Dad sighed. “Perhaps I’m overreacting. But if something had happened to you …”

“Everything’s okay,” I said. “I’m fine. Jonah’s fine. The car is fine. And if something like this happens again, I’ll call you at work, okay? I should have done that, but I wasn’t exactly thinking clearly either.”

He took a deep breath and ruffled my hair. “I’m sure you’re upset at this sudden relapse, pumpkin. I can understand that. Just don’t let it happen again, either of you. Okay?”

Jonah and I nodded like crazy.

“Good.” Dad gave me a once-over. “Now go take a shower. It looks like you seized in the middle of a mud puddle.”

“Oh.” I looked down at my mud-spattered jeans and soaking wet socks and decided that the best explanation was no explanation at all. “Yeah. That’s a good idea.”

I felt much better once I took some painkillers and a shower. It amazed me how a stream of steaming water and some strawberry-scented shampoo could soothe the soul of the zombie-plagued.

The feeling didn’t last long. I wrapped myself in my periodic-table robe and walked down the hall to my bedroom. My brother was hunched in front of my dresser, pawing through my underwear drawer. And for a minute I had actually started to like him.

“Jonah!” I shut the door behind me, because I didn’t want Dad to overhear. He was on the alert already, and if I had to say the words “My brother touched my panties” aloud, I’d lose it. “What are you doing?”

He whirled around. My favorite panties, with
I
♥
SCIENCE
printed on the butt, fell out of his hand and onto his foot. I was never going to be able to wear them again.

“You stole my elf ear,” he said, waving a pitiful piece of latex at me.

“What?”

“Ear thief. Anatomical kleptomaniac. Body-part pilferer.”

“Oh yeah? Well, you happen to be wrong. I don’t steal ears. I steal fing—”

I snapped my mouth shut.

“You steal what?” Jonah asked.

“Nothing.” I muttered. “Get your hands off my underwear.”

He put the ear in his pocket and slammed my dresser drawer shut. I knew it had been too good to last. He’d worn those stupid elf ears everywhere for an entire year; I’d had to take action before he started high school and I became known as the elf boy’s older sister. Because really, I was geeky enough without my brother adding to it. The ear had been in the back of my underwear drawer for
about four months. All my undies smelled like rubber, but it was a small price to pay for an elf-free reputation.

“You know what? I forgive you, even if it was a cruddy thing to do. I don’t want to fight with you, Kate.” He held his hands up, like an empty placating gesture was going to make up for the fact that his hands had just been on my underthings. “I was just looking for it.”

“And you thought your ear might be inside your sister’s underwear? You. Are. A. Freak.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” he snapped.

“Well, if your pronoun had an antecedent, I might have some idea what you’re talking about. And you’re still a freak.”

“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” he said, edging closer to me. My panties slid off his foot. I was going to have to burn the contents of that entire drawer and buy all new underwear. “I was looking for the zombie foot. I thought maybe you’d put it in the dresser while you were in the shower. Where’d you hide it?”

“The foot? Oh crap!”

The delightful, relaxed postshower feeling evaporated immediately. We were back to full-on panic mode.

“Kate, you’re killing me here.” He folded his arms. “I want to know everything. How did you find out about the zombies? Did you know before we ran into Coach? His foot just fell off by itself, didn’t it?” Then he let out some weird snort-cackle combo. “I totally can’t believe my sister is a kick-butt zombie hunter. Wait till I tell the guys!”

“Jonah, you can’t tell anyone I stole a foot,” I hissed. “I’ll get arrested.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” His face fell momentarily, but nothing was going to rain on his undead parade. “Well, can’t I see the foot one more time? Come on. I didn’t really get to look at it before.”

I rubbed my head. “I think I left it downstairs. On the table. With Dad.”

“You forgot the foot?” Jonah grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me, as if scrambling my brains was going to help anything. “How could you?”

“Jonah, I was attacked by zombies twice today. I had a seizure, and now I’ve got the beginnings of a monster migraine. So excuse me if I’m a little discombobulated.” I couldn’t believe I was justifying myself to my brother. “Like you were any better? You practically advertised the fact that we ran someone over with the car. Why not take him outside and offer to show him the skid marks while you’re at it?”

He frowned. “Well, we can stand here and yell at each other until Dad finds the foot and decides we’re grave robbers, or we can do something about it. When did you have the foot last?”

I thought back. After we got in the car, I’d wrapped the foot in a Country Kitchen grocery bag that was on the floor. I’d placed the bag on the coffee table while Dad was interrogating Jonah and me. I was almost sure of it.

The operative word there was
almost
. Normally I wouldn’t
space out like that, but I was so tired. And hurt. And stressed. My brain was practically dribbling out my ears.

“All right,” I said. “You check the car. There’s a chance I left it in there. I’ll check the living room, which is the other best possibility. Meet me in the basement.”

“Okay.”

Jonah thundered down the stairs.

The living room light was off and the room empty, which made my life easier. It would have been a lot more difficult to remove a foot-shaped bag from right under Dad’s nose. I could probably have managed, but it was nice not to have to worry about it. I flicked the lights on with a feeling of relief.

The bag wasn’t there.

I swallowed. It wasn’t like the foot would walk off on its own. Or would it?

stared at the empty table and tried not to panic. The missing foot wasn’t going to suddenly come to life and stomp my family to death, right? That kind of thing only happened in horror films, in which case I would have been a lot blonder and more buxom. It was one of the few situations in which my geekiness was reassuring.

The foot was probably in the car. I stared at the door to the garage, expecting Jonah to bound through triumphantly at any moment with a plastic bag full of foot. It didn’t happen.

I heard Dad pounding away at the keyboard in his study down the hall, Armstrong growling as he worked on his nightly rawhide chewie. Personally, I could think of better things to do than sit on Dad’s smelly feet and chew rawhide, but it was Armstrong’s
favorite activity in the world. He was really going at it tonight too. The snarly noises he made were almost comical.

Then it hit me. Oh my god. Armstrong had the foot.

All of Dad’s work stuff had been on the table too. He’d probably grabbed the bag by mistake, and Armstrong got hold of the dismembered body part somehow, and now he was chewing it into bits.

I ran down to the study. Dad looked up from the computer with an expression of mild puzzlement.

“What?” he said, pushing his glasses up onto his nose. “Is there a fire?”

“No. I …” I looked around wildly. “Um. I forgot to take Armstrong out for a walk. Is he in here?”

Dad glanced at his dog-covered feet. I needed to distract him before he discovered what Armstrong was really chewing on.

“Dad!” He jerked at my shout. “Sorry. I just don’t want to disturb you. And I know Mom would be upset if she came back from her trip overseas to find the carpet all yucked up.”

Dad looked at me like I was insane. And really, I doubted Mom would notice if I dug up the living room and installed a swimming pool, even if she wasn’t overseas. There was a reason we had a cleaning lady come once a week.

“Well, if it means that much to you, I’m not going to discourage you from performing your chores,” he said, but he was watching me now. My erratic behavior had definitely gotten his attention. At this rate, I’d be lucky if he didn’t decide to get me drug-tested.

I chuckled. It sounded so fakey stupid, but Dad was already back at the keyboard poundage and didn’t seem to notice. I stooped down to reach under the desk and extract the zombie part from our dog’s mouth. Once I got my hands on that foot, I was going to brush Armstrong’s teeth about twenty times. He was a face licker, and I couldn’t even think about that without wanting to throw up.

Armstrong was curled around his treat. I’d have to drag him out from under the desk to get the foot. I grabbed his foreleg and tugged, and he growled at me.

“Hey, Army,” I cooed. “You want a walk? You can have your treat after we come back in.”

He went back to chewing.

“I think he wants to be left alone, Kate,” Dad said.

“Yeah, but I need to take him out.”

“In your robe?” He arched a brow. “You’re not making any sense, Kate.”

“Well, I’ll get dressed again,” I replied somewhat desperately.

This wasn’t going well. I pulled the periodic-table robe more tightly around myself, grabbed the dog, and tugged. He bit me. Not really hard, because he wasn’t that kind of dog, but enough of a nip that it drew some blood. I yelped and withdrew my hand.

“Armstrong, bad!” Dad exclaimed, rolling up a piece of paper and tapping the dog on the hind end with it. I was surprised when he reached across the desk and biffed me on the head too. I put my hand to my scalp like the paper might have damaged me. “And you should know better, Kate. I told you he didn’t want to be disturbed.”

“Sorry,” I said, but my attention was on Armstrong. He picked up a huge piece of rawhide shaped like an egg roll, gave me a reproachful glance, and walked out into the hall. I gaped at him for a minute before stooping to look under the desk. There was no sign of the foot. Just a couple of scattered bits of dog chew.