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  “I think I’ll just chill. Dad just got home with a bucket of chicken from Casey’s. I’m thinking if Mal wears the magic glasses he might actually eat some.”

  “Good luck with that.”

  “It’s worth a try.”

  Mal won’t eat the chicken with or without the glasses, so I make him a waffle. I tell Dad about the long walk we took. Dad is impressed. I don’t mention Jordan and his pickup truck.

  “It makes sense,” he says. “Mal has difficulty processing sensory input. The glasses give him a visual buffer zone. We should’ve thought of it before.”

  “Maybe we could make him a buffer suit,” I suggest. “Like a special suit with headphones and dark glasses and cushions everywhere. Like the Michelin Man. He’d be invulnerable.”

  Dad laughs.

  Mal says, “Okay.”

  Dad regards him thoughtfully. “Sometimes, Mal, I think you understand every word we say.”

  Mal looks straight at him through his sunglasses and smiles.

  I don’t think Mal understands most of what we say, but it’s fun to think that maybe he might. I’ve tested him by saying nonsensical things.

  “Mal, arg ung dribblewacky, strug twiller nougat?”

  “Okay,” Mal will say.

  “Ribbolito! Sanger dorf.”

  “Okay,” Mal will agree.

  But he does understand when he is being talked to, and he knows the difference between a question and a command, and he knows the names of playing cards. He likes questions. He does not like commands.

  The next day we go on another adventure. The same adventure, actually. We walk downtown to Pigorino’s. It goes like before, except there is nobody mowing Vaccie’s little meadow. Mal stops and stares at Vaccie for more than a minute, as if willing the woman to reappear with her weed whacker.

  He seems more comfortable inside Pigorino’s. He’s been there before, so we are on familiar ground. Vito is in a good mood, so I decide to pump him for information about the upcoming contest.

  “So, Vito,” I say, “you gonna be making BLDs for the big contest?”

  “If Papa wants BLDs, I’ll make BLDs.”

  “Is that the plan?” I’m hoping it isn’t. If I have to start practicing on BLDs it’ll cost me forty bucks a pie.

  Vito shrugs. “Papa does what Papa wants to do. Only thing I know is it’s gonna be crazy. We got twenty-four eaters qualified for the big event. That’s a lot of BLDs, and they aren’t easy, especially since we’ll be working out of our concession on the fairgrounds. We’d need to add a flat-top for the eggs and hash browns. It’ll be tough enough just setting up extra ovens — those things weigh about eleven hundred pounds each, and we’ll need two. We got a crew at the fairgrounds now adding a wing to the concession. This contest is costing Papa a fortune.”

  That’s the most words I’ve ever heard come out of Vito’s mouth.

  “Most contests, like the Famiglia one, are just cheese pizzas,” I tell him. “That way, more slices get eaten. You should ask Papa if he’d rather see a headline reading ‘Local Teen Devours Fifty Slices of Pigorino’s Pizza’ or ‘Teen Almost Finishes One Pizza.’”

  “You really think you could eat fifty slices?”

  “Joey Chestnut ate forty-five.”

  “You’re no Joey Chestnut.”

  “People keep telling me that.”

  “How many pizzas you think we’ll need?”

  “If you make plain cheese pizzas . . . twenty-four eaters . . . maybe seventy-five or eighty?”

  “Eighty? How do you figure? Everybody’s not gonna eat like you.”

  “Well, a lot of it won’t get eaten. You cut a pizza into eight slices, and if a guy eats just nine slices, you still have to have two pizzas for him, right? And most of the eaters will eat at least that much. Me and Egon Belt will probably need five or six each.”

  Vito nods. “You make a good point.” He leans on the counter and thinks for a moment. “Those BLDs take almost half an hour to bake. Plain cheese, I can get those in and out in five minutes, plus we can fit more in the oven. Eighty cheese would be easier than twenty-four BLDs. Cheaper, too. Papa would like that.” He stands up straight. “I’ll talk to him. So, what can I get you?”

  “A sausage-and-mushroom. And I was wondering if you could make a kid-size plain for Mal.”

  “Plain cheese?”

  “No. Just the crust. No sauce, no cheese, no nothing.” I look over at Mal, who is sitting at the table moving the condiments around the checkered vinyl tablecloth like pieces on a chessboard.

  “Seriously? Okay, one Pizza Bianca, naked.”

  “Pizza Bianca? It has a name?”

  “Yeah, but nobody’s ever ordered one before.”

  “Mal is very unusual.”

  The Pizza Bianca is a huge hit with Mal. Every day around lunchtime, with no prompting from me, he puts on his gear and stands waiting by the front door. I try to introduce a small variation every time, changing our route, or walking faster or slower, trying and failing to teach Mal to skip. One time I ask Vito to put a single disk of pepperoni in the middle. Mal is not bothered by that. He eats the outside, then offers me the part he doesn’t want, a perfectly round micro pizza, carefully nibbled to within a quarter inch of the pepperoni disk.

  “Thank you, Mal,” I say. Since he seems so comfortable at Pigorino’s, we are eating our pizzas there instead of getting takeout. There is one particular booth Mal likes — the one with the picture of the Colosseum.

  I’ve been working on my technique. I have the soft part of the pizza nailed: reverse fold, bite-bite-bite, and what I call the infinite gulp. Learning to swallow while biting is the key. Normal eaters chew, then swallow, then chew. But I have trained myself to swallow continuously while chewing. The crust is the hardest part, and I mean that in both senses. The water-dunk is essential. I come up with a system where I leave the first crust in my glass of water and let it sit while I eat the soft part of the next slice. That extra few seconds of soaking softens it just enough that I can save a few seconds when I eat it. Waterlogged pizza crust is not the most wonderful thing I’ve ever eaten, but it goes down a lot faster. Like I say, it’s all about technique.

  That daily pizza is my speed training. For capacity, I’ve been eating heads of cabbage and drinking lots of water. My stomach is getting noticeably bigger, not so much in the way it looks from the outside but in how much it can hold.

  The days go by quickly now that Mal and I have our routine down. I don’t see much of HeyMan and Cyn — they’re always doing something. They always invite me to join them, but I have Mal most of the time.

  HeyMan texts me a couple times a day, and we talk on the phone, but I’m getting irritated with him. He keeps talking about this new Xbox package he wants to buy with “his money” from the contest. He’s already guilting me in case I don’t win.

  “I got the Xbox on hold,” he says. “So I’ll have it the day after the contest, unless you choke.”

  “I might not win,” I tell him. “But I won’t choke.”

  “Yeah, whatever, but you know we’re counting on you, me and Cyn.”

  I don’t need to hear that kind of stuff. I talk to Cyn sometimes too, and that’s not as bad except she always wants to know how I’m feeling, and I can’t tell if she’s asking because she cares or because of her investment. Either way, it makes me squirm.

  Mostly I spend my evenings in front of the TV or rereading Walking Dead comics or watching eating contests on YouTube.

  Mom will be home Friday evening. It feels like she just left, but I’ll be glad to have her back. I think about how happy she’ll be about Mal now that he has his magic glasses and she can take him places she never could before. Last week, Dad took Mal to the hardware store. He loved it. While Dad was chatting with Mr. Hanks, Mal fell in love with the nuts-and-bolts section. He particularly liked the stainless-steel hex bolts, so Dad bought him an assortment in different sizes. The last few days, he’s been spending more time screwing n
uts on and off those bolts than he has on his Wall. I bet Mom could even take him to her yoga. Just give him some bolts and he’d keep himself busy for an hour.

  I’ve been managing not to think too much about the Visa bill. Every time I walk past the bureau in the front hall I think about that envelope and I get a little queasy. I shove it to the back of my mind. First I have to win the contest; then I can deal with it.

  Friday morning, the day before the contest, I eat two heads of cabbage for breakfast. My speed training has been going well — I’m down to fourteen seconds per slice. I’m all set for transportation. Vacaville doesn’t have regular bus service, but there’s a special 4-H bus leaving at seven in the morning for all the farm kids, and they said Cyn and Hay and I could ride along.

  I’m ready.

  Dad gets home early, right after lunch, and we launch into a major housecleaning. It’s a big job — the house is kind of messy — but after a couple of hours we have it looking more or less the way it did before Mom left. Even Mal is helping, lining up his nuts and bolts on the coffee table, rearranging a few items on his Wall, and for the first time ever, attempting to make his bed. He gets the spread on sideways, but it’s a good effort.

  Once the house is straightened up, the three of us make an expedition to the grocery store. Mom will be home around six, and we want to welcome her with a nice dinner. We buy a side of salmon for the grill, salad greens, a loaf of French bread, and three boxes of frozen toaster waffles. Mal is on his best behavior. He is fascinated by the rows of potato-chip bags and insists on carrying a bag of ripple chips. In the produce section, still hugging his bag of chips, he examines the fruits and vegetables. He stops in front of some knotty, bulbous green vegetables.

  “That’s kohlrabi, Mal,” Dad says. “Do you want some?”

  Mal moves on to the stalks of Brussels sprouts.

  “I don’t think he’d like kohlrabi,” I say. “It’s green.”

  Dad laughs. “I don’t think anybody likes kohlrabi.”

  “Then why do they sell it?”

  “It’s one of life’s mysteries.”

  When we get home Bridgette is there, finding things to clean that Dad and I overlooked.

  “You guys are hopeless,” she says as she dusts the top of the refrigerator, but she’s smiling.

  It’s a good feeling, the four of us working together, getting ready for Mom. In my whole life I’ve never gone this long without seeing her. I’m feeling happy and excited and proud when her car pulls into the driveway. We all run out to help with her luggage. She’s brought presents for all of us: a book with pictures of all kinds of tree leaves for Mal, a University of Minnesota sweatshirt for Dad, a box of colored felt-tip pens for Bridgette, and for me, a T-shirt with the entire front printed like a pepperoni pizza. I put it on right away. I look like I have a terminal case of gigantic measles, but I love it.

  “Very stylish,” Mom says. “I thought you could wear it for your big day tomorrow.”

  “It’s perfect,” I say. Everything is perfect. Dad is whistling as he gets the grill ready for the salmon; Bridgette is happily cleaning, Mal is paging through his new leaf book, and I am telling Mom about Mal’s new superpowers as she pours herself a glass of wine. The good feelings last through dinner, even though the salmon is a little undercooked and Mal drops a waffle on the floor for Arfie. Mom doesn’t get even a little upset at that — she laughs like it’s the funniest thing ever.

  “We had one boy at language camp, Valdis, who insisted on sharing his lunch with the squirrels. He was from Latvia. He could speak only Russian and Klingon.”

  “Klingon?” I say.

  “Apparently they have Star Trek in Latvia. Valdis was a smart kid. By the time he left, he could speak enough English to translate all his Klingon phrases.” She eats a piece of nearly raw salmon. “This is so good! I really missed you guys. And Mal, so grown-up now!” She touches his shoulder. “Going to the grocery store! I’m proud of you.”

  Mal chews intently on a bite of waffle.

  “The sunglasses help,” I say, begging for a little credit.

  “That was brilliant, David.” She turns to Bridgette. “And you — a perfect score on your chemistry exam! That’s wonderful! I should go away more often.”

  “Please don’t,” Dad says with a grin. “We’re helpless without you.”

  After dinner, Bridgette and I clean the kitchen. Dad and Mal are in the backyard. Mom is on her computer, catching up with her e-mail and so forth. I ask Bridgette about Derek. She stiffens, then shrugs.

  “We went out last night,” she says.

  “No pepper-spray events?”

  She laughs. “No pepper spray.”

  “So you’re back together?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  I’m not sure I want to hear about complications.

  “How’s your girlfriend?” she asks, shifting the subject.

  “My girlfriend?”

  “Cyn. Isn’t that her name?”

  “Cyn’s not my girlfriend. She’s just a friend.” I’m surprised Bridgette doesn’t know that. But at least she’s trying — usually she couldn’t care less about what’s going on in my life. “Actually, I think she might be HeyMan’s girlfriend. It’s complicated.”

  Bridgette bumps me with her hip and smiles.

  “It always is.”

  Our heart-to-heart brother-sister conversation is interrupted by a screech from the next room. It’s not Mal this time. It’s Mom.

  Mom is sitting at her laptop with a horrified expression on her face.

  “What’s wrong?” Bridgette asks.

  Mom looks up at us.

  “My credit card’s been hacked. Two thousand dollars!” Mom points at the display.

  Dad comes in and looks over her shoulder at the statement displayed on her computer.

  “V. B. Schutlebecker. Who is V. B. Schutlebecker?” he asks.

  “I have no idea! But I’m sure I didn’t buy anything from anybody for that much money. And they say my account is past due! How can that be? I always pay right away.”

  “It says it was due weeks ago,” Dad says.

  “Yes, but I’m certain I didn’t get a bill. Two thousand dollars! And they want a late fee, and interest!”

  “You’ve looked through all the mail?”

  “As soon as I got home!”

  “V. B. Schutlebecker Enterprises,” he reads. “Could be anything. You’d better get on the phone and report it. If somebody stole your card number, you’re not responsible. But you have to let them know right away.”

  “I’ll call them right now.”

  I am standing in the doorway, my entire life crumbling inside me. If she calls the credit-card company, they’ll be able to trace the sale. Virgil Schutlebecker, aka the Gurge, will prove that he sold the hot dog on BuyBuy and shipped it to me. There is no way I can wriggle out of it . . . and I’m not sure I want to. The guilt of what I did has been eating away at me, and I don’t think I can stand it for another second.

  “Mom,” I say.

  “Just a minute, David. I need to take care of this right now.”

  “Mom!”

  She puts down the phone and looks at me. I take a deep breath. My hands are shaking, and the top of my head wants to float away. My voice comes out high-pitched and alien-sounding.

  “I know who stole your credit-card number.”

  With a shaky voice and sweating palms, I tell them what happened. They listen in total shock, especially my mom, who is looking at me as if I’ve turned into a pile of dog dung.

  “It was an accident,” I say.

  “An accident?” Dad’s not exactly shouting, but he’s talking incredibly loud. “It was an accident you took your mother’s credit-card information and used it to make a purchase?”

  “Not that part,” I admit. “But it was only supposed to be for twenty dollars.”

  Mom says, “David . . .” She is unable to continue. She looks as miserable as I feel.
/>   Dad is pacing back and forth, breathing loudly through his nose.

  “Two thousand dollars,” he says through clenched teeth. “Even if it was twenty cents, the fact remains that you stole money from your mother. For a hot dog! A hot dog?”

  “A half hot dog.”

  “That is not relevant! What were you thinking?”

  Why do parents always ask that?

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  “You don’t know? Is that your excuse?”

  “Look, I’m sorry. I’m just telling you what happened.”

  Bridgette is sitting on the side chair, judging me with her eyes.

  “If you needed money, you could have asked,” Mom says in her pretending-to-be-calm voice.

  “You weren’t here,” I say. It’s not true, but I don’t care. “I was home taking care of Mal, like I always do.”

  “That is not relevant!” Dad says again.

  “I’m sorry! What else do you want me to say? I screwed up.”

  “You certainly did. And you can forget about that contest tomorrow. You can forget about leaving this house for the next . . . forever.”

  “The contest is so I can pay you back,” I say. “That’s the whole point.”

  “That is not the whole point. The money’s not the point. The point is that you’ve betrayed our trust in you.”

  “Trust?” Now I’m yelling. “You hardly pay any attention to me. I’m just here to babysit Mal, and you know it. All you care about is Mal, and Bridgette’s stupid grades, and” — I look at Mom —“your stupid language camp. And all you” — I look at Dad —“all you do is go to work and come home and everybody’s supposed to be so proud of you, but none of us know what it is you actually do all day. Meanwhile I’m just this thing that happened to show up between Bridgette and Mal.”

  They are all gaping at me. Even Bridgette is sitting with her usually prim lips hanging open.

  Dad says in a slightly calmer voice, “David, that is simply not true. And this is not about us, it’s about your behavior.”

  “My behavior is the same as always. I made one mistake. One! Mal can have his meltdowns and break stuff and eat potato chips all day long and you go, ‘Oh, well, that’s just Mal.’ But I do one stupid thing in my entire life and I try to fix it on my own, and all of a sudden I’m a piece of crap. It’s not fair. It’s NEVER fair. I don’t —”