Spider Brains: A Love Story (Book One) (20 page)

She smiled back at him. "How you doing, Matt?"

"Okay."

"Your dad?"

Gah. I mouthed
Paul
as if someone had stuck a tongue depressor in my mouth and I rolled my eyes.

"Mother this is not social networking time. We're working here. Okay?"

"Sorry. I'll just leave you two to your devices..." Mom made this weak and somewhat peculiar non-mom kind of smile and said, "Okay. Bye."

She shut the door behind her but kept looking into the room beaming out a smile as the space of the door's opening got smaller and smaller and smaller. Then, she and her smiling lips were gone.

"She's nice."

"She's weird." I handed Matt one of the Cokes. He tossed the cookies onto the bed and took the can, staring at it, head down and lifted the tab making it hiss out its carbonation.

"She doesn't seem weird."

A birds of a feather moment, if ever!

"Yes. Well." I handed Matt a glass of ice and poured my drink into my own leaving it on the desk. He set his down near mine and poured too. Then set down his Coke can onto the mouse pad. All I could think was 'social learner."

Matt moved fast to mom's cookies. He unzipped the baggie and forced, three entire cookies into his mouth, in one go.

"Look." I said, referring to the cookies in the bag, "They're not going to escape. You don't have to kill them all at once."

"Thorry." His mouth filled to the point he couldn't close his lips. A couple of crumbs fell out onto my carpet. He noticed and tried to catch them before they fell but didn't succeed.

"Lord."

"Thorry."

"Yes. Whatever." I sat back onto the bed. "K. What is the thing that allows us to hear?" I was jumping right into human anatomy.

He wiped his wrist across his mouth and swallowed hard. "What is..."

"NOT. Jeopardy."

"Oh. Yeah. Um. The cochlea."

"Yes!" I looked down at my sheet of paper, avoiding him. "You know this stuff." I looked up quickly at him, then, down at the sheet again. He was smiling. He sat back down on the bed, reached for his drink and swallowed a big gulp of pop. "Okay. This one's harder. What's the organ called that the cochlea contains allowing us to hear?"

"Um." He fiddled with the bag of cookies, looked inside at them and grabbed only one this time. He shoved it in his mouth. Then looked at me and shook his head, making an
Um-Um?
sound that, if spoken, meant I don't know.

"It's the organ of Corti." I added, "I
always
remember this because I think of the Sea of Cortez is in my ear!" I chuckled.

"Cool!"

"Yeah. Cool." I smiled at him. "K. Let's finish and then we can eat."

"K."

And, we continued like that for the better part of an hour.

Then Matt said, "You heard."

"Huh?"

"Morlson and me."

My eyes darted back and forth avoiding his face. "Don't know what you mean."

LIAR!!!

"Wasn't that you at her door?"

"Matt, look. I don't know what you're talking about." I forced this 'like, really, okay' face at him. "Let's just get this over with. I'm hungry. I didn't happen to eat a whole bag full of cookies."

"Sorry."

And, luckily he forgot all about his question and we continued with his list. Which, btw, he knew about two-thirds of the questions that I asked. It made me wonder why he was failing.

But, then, when he came back on Thursday, I figured it out.

THIRTY FOUR - Big Word. Little Word.

Word laws. I reject all laws purporting to instruct on proper use of words except for my own. Big words prevail. Hallelujah.

Dear Diary,

As I lie here on my bed writing to you, oh, diary--the one who knows all, Matt Ryder has corralled me into tutoring him at school. I think he likes me.

Ick. Pew.

I
'm going to vomit on my own toothbrush. Gak, hack, hack.

Mom's no help. Her darling daughter's virginity may be at risk and she's turning a blind eye! What's a chaste maiden to do?

Subterfuge! That's what! If his grades don't improve with my teaching
perspicacity
, he'll surely dump me as a tutor. Subterfuge, it is. It's really the only way to mitigate an already putrid situation.

Mom thinks he just needs a buddy, buddy. Look again, mom, at the connoisseur of 'everything Susie' peering through his window at me...
at all hours of the night and day
.

Holy.

Mother. Like, duh. I need protection.

Too late! He was at the door, for the second night of tutoring.

But soft! What freak through yonder door goes knock?

It is Frank Zappa and batboy is the Moon.

"Susie!" Mom's voice carried down the hall like a shill at an entrance to one of those sleazy girly bars downtown, those same places mom used to pull me away from. Now, she's shoving me in like I'm chattel for her new source of income.

THIRTY FIVE - Grading Mat
thew

Test Day with Susie Speider, the Teacher.

8
. Q. What is the eighth month in the Zodiac

It was like, he had all of the information sitting inside this big snack bowl of a brain but couldn't pick out the right Chex square for any given question. So, keeping in line with my plans to foil by means of subterfuge--I gave him 99% marking him down for his Jeopardy faux pas on Q. #9.

Matt was ecstatic.

"I know." I said letting him think that I thought he was pretty hot potatoes. A kid genius at that.

"Cool."

"Yep. Cool." I turned to my desk. The evening sky was beginning to fade into muted tones, like gray flannel and mushroom-y brown. "I'll keep it with me to see how you're progressing." Referring to his test.

"We can review all of them together later." He smiled.

"Sure. Yeah. Whatever. Later is better." My face went blank.

He pulled a shaggy swatch of hair behind his ear and, paused, turned and walked to the door, then stopped. "Susie."

"Hmm?"

"Thanks for everything." He nearly lurched over the bed to get at me, and then kissed me on my cheek.

"Gah! What is WRONG with you! Don't EVER do that again."

Mom was in, in a flash.

"Everything okay in here?"

"Mother!"

Batboy stared intently at his shoes. Mom did this look between us thing and pressed open her eyes at me like it was my fault then pulled the door closed.

"Look, Ryder. I don't know what you think, here. Get one thing straight. I don't like you. I won't
ever
like you or your stupid father,
Paul
, so don't get confused. I
had
to tutor you. Haggert is
making
me. Don't forget that. I never wanted this."

"Sorry."

"Just leave."

He stopped, like he wanted to say one more thing, apologize more.

"Go."

He walked through the door. I heard him say goodbye to my mother. Then, I heard the front screen door creak and swing shut. I watched him through my window. He looked back, once he had made it across the street, just before he walked into his own house. He looked back and when he did, he just shrugged, like he was surrendering.

W
hat was
wrong
with him.