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  “I ate at SooperSlider,” I said. “I’m not hungry.”

  She processed that, then said, “How much did you eat?”

  I knew I should lie, but I was rather proud of my performance, so I told her — even though I could tell from her look of horror and disgust that it was a mistake.

  An hour later, both of them, the Parental Duo, come up and sit down on either side of my bed and inform me that it is Time to Talk. I grab my extra pillow and hug it to my chest — I don’t know why; it just feels good.

  “Your mother,” my dad says, “is Very Concerned about this Eating Thing.”

  “Eating Thing?” I repeat.

  “This contest you want to enter.”

  “I’m already entered,” I say.

  “And look what it’s doing to you. Fifty hamburgers? It’s obscene!”

  “And two SooperSlurps,” I say.

  They stare at me.

  My father says, “David” — he compresses his lips, looks at my mother, and continues — “setting aside the fact that there are tens of millions of people who can’t afford to eat, stuffing yourself that way can be hazardous to your health. Obesity, choking, esophageal tears, damage to your stomach and intestines, high cholesterol, a strain on your liver and kidneys, and who knows what else?”

  “It’s just a one-time thing,” I say.

  “One time? Yesterday you ate an entire head of cabbage!”

  I decide not to mention that the cabbage was on top of two pizzas. “I just want to win this one contest. Well, two, actually — the qualifier on the Fourth, and then the Pigorino Bowl next month. I can do it!”

  “There are lots of things you ‘can do’ that aren’t advisable. You could probably eat that feather pillow you’re holding, but that doesn’t mean you should do it.”

  “It’s not feathers. It’s foam rubber,” I say.

  He sighs. “Why are you doing this, David?”

  I could tell them that it’s because I need the money to cover the Visa bill that’s about to arrive, but I don’t. Also, that’s only part of the reason. The other part is that eating mass quantities fast is the only thing I’m really good at, and it feels great to be the best. When I’m chowing down, I don’t think about Mal, or the Jooky dog, or the Visa bill. It’s like when I’m eating, I’m totally focused and everything else goes away. Even right now, as full as I am, I wish I could dive into a bag of sliders so I wouldn’t have to deal with all this parental concern.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “I just do.”

  Surprisingly, he seems to accept that as a reasonable argument. But he’s not done.

  “How are you paying for all this food you’re eating?”

  I tell him about the SooperSlider gift card. “And I have some money saved up,” I add. I don’t tell them about Cyn and HeyMan being my investors. “Besides, when I win the Pigorino Bowl, I get five thousand dollars!”

  “As I understand it, if you don’t win, you get nothing.”

  “Second place is free pizzas for a year. That’s three hundred sixty-five pizzas!”

  My mom hasn’t said anything yet, but she makes a face at this.

  My dad says, “David . . . we are not going to forbid you from doing this. It’s your money and your body. But I strongly suggest you consider using your time more productively. Weren’t you thinking of taking a summer job?”

  “Winning the contest is a job.”

  They look at each other like a creature with two heads regarding itself.

  “Your mother and I were talking,” he says. Obviously, I think. “You know you’re a big help to us, taking care of Mal.”

  “Okay.” That’s Mal, standing in the doorway. His face is tight. Mal does not like it when we argue.

  “It’s okay, Mal,” I say. “We’re just talking.”

  He looks normal, like a kid who can talk for real, but he is staring hard at something invisible, something the rest of us can’t see.

  “What would you think of making Mal your job?” Dad says after a moment.

  “Mal kind of is my job,” I say. “He’s all of our jobs. Except for Bridgette.”

  “I was thinking of something more formal, more . . . full-time. For pay.”

  “You want to pay me for taking care of my brother?”

  “Just until school starts. Your mother could use a break.”

  “I’m thinking of taking a job myself,” she says.

  Startled, I say, “Huh?”

  “Just for a few weeks,” she says, suddenly animated. “I’ll be teaching again. At a language camp up in Minnesota.”

  “Language camp? But . . . you don’t speak any languages.”

  She laughs. “I speak English. I’ll be teaching in an immersion program for immigrant teens. Kids from Mexico, China, the Middle East — everywhere! It’s a tremendous opportunity. I’ve wanted to do something like this for a long time, but” — her eyes dart toward Mal, who is still standing in the doorway —“I haven’t been able to.”

  I say, “Wait . . . you want me to stay home with Mal all the time?”

  “Okay,” Mal says.

  “Not okay!” I try to imagine spending all day every day with Mal. I mean, I love him and he’s my brother, but being around him for more than a couple of hours at a time makes me feel like one of the Things pinned to his Wall.

  “It wouldn’t be all the time,” Dad says. “Just while I’m at work.”

  “But you work all the time!”

  “I’ll be cutting back a bit.”

  “It’s only six weeks,” Mom says.

  “Six weeks! That’s half the summer!”

  “As I said, we’ll be able to help you out with some spending money,” Dad says.

  I see what they’re doing. I have stepped into that oldest of parental traps. First, they make me feel bad about wanting something, and then they give in, and then they hit me with the heavy-duty payback. Talk about being pinned to a wall.

  I take a breath and let it out.

  “How much does this job pay?” I ask.

  Dad seems a little taken aback by that, but Mom smiles — she knows she’s won.

  “Er . . . twenty dollars?”

  “An hour?”

  “A day.”

  I pretend to think about it, but we all know I have no choice.

  “Okay,” I say. “But next Saturday is the qualifier at Pigorino’s. The Fourth of July.”

  “My job doesn’t start until the sixth,” Mom says.

  I make them wait a few seconds for my answer, then I say, “Okay, but I need you to sign something.” I show them the waiver Vito gave me. Dad examines it, frowning.

  “This says if you are injured during the contest we have no legal recourse.”

  “I won’t get hurt,” I say.

  “Okay!” Mal yells.

  We all turn to look at him. He is gripping the door frame with both hands and staring fiercely at the floor.

  The next morning, I don’t wake up until after ten. I don’t even check my BuyBuy page but go straight downstairs. Nobody’s home. Mom must have taken Mal to therapy.

  The waiver is sitting on the kitchen table. Dad signed it. I’m a bit surprised — last night he said he’d have to sleep on it, and that usually means No. But here it is. Mom must really want that job.

  To celebrate, I eat the leftover lasagna from last night, let it settle for a few minutes, then head over to HeyMan’s.

  When I get there, the front door is standing wide open. That’s not unusual in Vacaville. I walk inside. The little TV on the kitchen counter is on — some morning talk show. The sink is full of dishes. I can smell the remains of breakfast. I see a plate with three strips of cooked bacon on the table.

  I yell for HeyMan. A second later I hear an answering croak from the back of the house. I grab the plate of bacon and head down the hall to HeyMan’s room, munching on one of the bacon strips.

  Hay’s room smells like old sneakers. He’s still in bed.

  “Dude, i
t’s eleven o’clock!”

  “So?”

  “So you’re gross.” I thrust the plate at him. “Have some bacon.”

  He eyes the two remaining strips of cold bacon, waves the plate away, and pulls the bedspread over his head. “Stop being so perky,” he says in a muffled voice.

  “I’m not perky.” I sit at the foot of his bed and eat another piece of bacon. “How about pizza?”

  He peeks out from the covers. “I just woke up. I haven’t even had breakfast.”

  “Have them put a fried egg on top.”

  “You’re serious,” he says.

  “I’m buying.”

  “Yeah, with my money!”

  “Pigorino’s opens at eleven thirty.”

  He sighs and throws the covers back. He’s still wearing his jeans from yesterday. He grabs a random tee from the laundry basket on the floor, sniffs it, and pulls it on.

  “Where’s the new shirt?” I ask.

  “I don’t want to get pizza on it.”

  “Show me.”

  HeyMan opens his closet and takes out a dark-blue denim cowboy shirt with pearly snap buttons. LET’S RODEO is embroidered across the back in red and yellow thread.

  I start laughing. I can’t help it.

  HeyMan scowls and shoves it back in the closet. “Cyn says it’s ironic. I don’t even know what that means.”

  I eat the last piece of bacon while he puts his shoes on.

  By the time we get to Pigorino’s it’s after noon and I’m getting hungry. I order three cheese pizzas.

  Vito says, “If you’re that hungry, I could make you up a Grande BLD.” He raises his eyebrows.

  The Grande BLD is Pigorino’s most insane pizza. It is to a regular pizza as a wedding cake is to a vanilla wafer. First, it’s thick. Really thick. Stick your finger into a BLD and it will sink past not one but two knuckles before reaching the double-thick crust. There is red sauce, of course, but the sauce is not visible. It is covered by slabs of mozzarella and chunks of Iowa cheddar, followed by half a pound of Italian sausage nuggets, topped with a layer of pepperoni disks, then wedges of green and red bell pepper, mushrooms, sliced red onions, green and black olives, marinated artichoke hearts, and I don’t know how many whole garlic cloves. Over that is a lattice of extra-thick bacon strips crowned by a nest of crispy hash browns containing an egg, sunny-side up, topped by a sprig of parsley.

  It’s a whole day’s worth of meals in a single slice: Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner.

  I’ve seen the BLD, and I know what’s in it because all that stuff is listed on the menu. I’ve never actually tried one. The BLD costs $39.95, and you have to order it an hour in advance.

  “No thanks,” I say.

  Vito shrugs and writes down my order.

  HeyMan orders a small bacon-and-cheese. “Since you ate all the bacon my mom left for me,” he says.

  We grab a booth and wait for our order. HeyMan is staring at his phone.

  “What are you looking at?” I ask.

  “The Heimlich maneuver. In case you choke.”

  “Nice to know you got my back.”

  The first pizza goes down fast. Two and a half minutes. Dipping the crust in water speeds things up a lot, even though it’s kind of disgusting. Pizza number two goes almost as quickly: two minutes, forty-six seconds. But halfway through the third pizza, a chunk of hard crust turns sideways in my throat and just . . . stops. I can still breathe through my nose, but that crust is jammed in good. I get up and do the jump. Nothing. I clench every muscle in my neck, I twist my head back and forth, I try to cough it back up, but it’s wedged in like the Rock of Gibraltar.

  HeyMan is looking worried.

  “Dude, you choking?”

  I shake my head. I grab a water glass and try to drink. Some of the water trickles past the crust, but some finds its way into my lungs. I cough, spraying flecks of half-chewed pizza. With a ferocious effort, I use my swallowing muscles to try to crush the crust. It feels like the sharp edges of the crust have burst through my esophagus, but the pressure eases; I feel it move. I do the Joey Jump again, three big jumps, landing hard on my heels. On the third jump, the crust crumbles and slides slowly toward my stomach.

  I slide back into the booth and stare bleakly at the last four slices of pizza.

  “You okay?” HeyMan asks again.

  I nod. It hurts.

  “You sure?”

  I shrug. I don’t feel okay at all. I pick up a slice of pizza, bite off the tip, chew it several times, then try to swallow. It feels like a hot poker being shoved down my throat. I hack it out — that hurts even worse — then close my eyes and slump back in the booth, defeated.

  “David?” HeyMan says.

  That’s weird. HeyMan never uses my actual name. It would be like me calling him Hayden.

  I touch my hand to my throat. Even that hurts.

  “You okay?” HeyMan asks for the third or fourth time.

  “Ghaak,” I say. It sounds like a sob filtered through shards of glass. Feels that way, too. I look at HeyMan’s face, at his bristly jaw, at the concern and confusion in his eyes, but mostly what I see is my future contracting down to a knot of shame and misery. I’m sure I’ve ripped my esophagus wide open and I’ll have to spend the rest of my miserable life eating nothing but oatmeal and smoothies, and saying Ghaak because my voice box has been destroyed. I imagine sitting with Mal, having a conversation:

  Ghaak.

  Okay.

  Ghaak.

  Okay.

  Ghaak.

  “Drink something,” HeyMan says, shoving his Coke across the table.

  I take the cup and sip the ice-cold liquid. It feels good. I drink a little more.

  “Thanks,” I croak. I’m relieved that I can speak an actual word. I sip more Coke. The coldness feels good.

  “You scared me,” HeyMan says.

  “Me too.” My voice sounds better. “But I think I might’ve messed up my throat.” Saying it out loud makes the possibility all too real.

  HeyMan says, “You probably just ran out of room. I mean, you ate two and a half pizzas in six minutes.”

  “Six minutes? Really?”

  “And twenty-six seconds.”

  That’s even faster than I’d hoped. I swallow, and a wave of pain reminds me that I’ve just wrecked my esophagus, along with any chance I have to qualify for the Pigorino Bowl.

  My life is over.

  My Jooky dog auction is over, too. I didn’t get a single bid.

  I curl up on my bed and squeeze my eyes closed and focus on my throbbing throat and feel sorry for myself. Any day now, my mom’s Visa bill will arrive. My parents will never trust me again, and I’ll be paying them back forever. They’ll probably assign me to watch Mal full-time until I get out of high school. I imagine my mom’s face, and my dad refusing to look at me, and Bridgette’s smug, I-always-knew-you-were-a-loser expression. I just want to go to sleep and wake up in about ten years and have it all be different. But the way my head is buzzing, I’ll never sleep again.

  The mattress moves. I have company. Probably Arfie. In about one second, he’ll be licking my ear, and I’ll ignore him, and he’ll go away.

  Nothing happens. I reach out, expecting to encounter dog hair or a wet nose, but my hand hits fabric. I roll over and open my eyes.

  Mal’s face is about two inches from mine.

  “Okay,” he says.

  I go back to my fetal position. “Go away, Mal.”

  “Okay,” he says, but he does not go away. I sense him moving around; then he settles in beside me. I feel his warm breath on the back of my neck, and I know without looking that he has copied my position. We are like two flesh commas.

  “I’m trying to sleep, Mal.”

  “Okay.”

  The next thing I know, Mom is yelling for us to come downstairs to dinner.

  When we get downstairs, Mom is cutting up a pizza. I’d been hoping for soup or something easy to swallow.

  “It’s just
the three of us tonight,” she says cheerfully.

  There is a bowl of dry Cheerios on the table. Mal sits down and immediately starts eating them with his hands.

  Mom says, “Since you seem so determined to win that pizza contest, I thought you might like some practice.”

  “Oh . . . um . . . thanks.” I pour myself a glass of milk and take a sip. To my surprise, it doesn’t hurt to swallow. The nap must have helped.

  “I really appreciate your agreeing to help out for the next few weeks, David.”

  She is being so bright and sunny, it’s hurting my brain. I’m not used to it. It’s as if going away from me and Mal and Dad is the best thing that’s ever happened for her.

  “Um . . . okay,” I say.

  “Okay,” Mal says, spraying Cheerio crumbs.

  “But you don’t leave until next Sunday, right?”

  “That’s right. I’ll still be here next Saturday, so you can go to your . . . what is it called?”

  “Qualifier.”

  “Yes, qualifier.” Mom puts the pizza on the table. “Eat up! This one’s veggie, but I’ve got a pepperoni in the oven.”

  I pick up one of the smaller slices and take a small bite from the tip. I chew it several times, then slowly ease it toward the back of my mouth and swallow. It slides down with no problem. I sip my milk and try another bite. It feels good! It tastes good, too. I detect flavors of artichoke heart and green pepper. I eat more, taking care to chew it thoroughly and follow each bite with a sip of milk. Mom is watching me.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you eat this slowly,” she says.

  “It’s good,” I say. I’m down to the crust. I want to skip the crust and start on another piece, but I’ve never done that before, so I bite into it and chew it for what feels like forever. The slight char gives it a bitter taste. There is something about that I like — a sort of cleansing after the gooeyness of the cheese and sauce, like a bottle brush for the digestive system. I swallow. Success! That first slice takes me almost five minutes to eat. It’s the best slice of pizza ever. My throat feels fine, so I keep eating, picking up the pace as I go. Mom takes the second pizza out of the oven and cuts it up. I eat one slice of the pepperoni pizza, then stop.