The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp (Alfred Kropp #1)(2)

“She was a great cook.”

She sighed heavily. Maybe I wasn’t giving the kind of answers she was looking for. “Do you hate her sometimes?”

“Hate her for what?”

“Do you hate your mother for dying?”

“Oh, jeez, that wasn’t her fault.”

“But you get mad at her sometimes, right? For leaving you?”

“I get mad at the cancer for killing her. I get mad at the doctors and . . . you know, how it’s been around for centuries and we still can’t get rid of it. Cancer, I mean. And I think, what if we put all the money we spend on these wasteful government projects toward cancer research. You know, stuff like that.”

“What about your father?”

“What about him?”

“Do you hate him?”

“I don’t even know him.”

“Do you hate him for leaving you and your mom?”

She was making me feel freaky, like she was trying to get me to hate my father, a guy I didn’t even know, and even like she was trying to get me to hate my dead mother.

“I guess so, but I don’t know all the facts,” I said.

“Your mother didn’t tell you?”

“She just said he couldn’t commit.”

“And how does that make you feel?”

“Like he didn’t want a kid.”

“Like he didn’t want—who?”

“Me. Me, I guess. Of course me.”

I wondered what the next thing I was supposed to hate was.

“How do you like school?”

“I hate it.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know anyone.”

“You don’t have any friends?”

“They call me Frankenstein.”

“Who does?”

“Kids at school. You know, because of my size. My big head.”

“What about girls?” she asked.

“Girls calling me Frankenstein?”

“Do you have a girlfriend?”

Well, there was this one girl—her name was Amy Pouchard, and she sat two seats over from me in math. She had long blond hair and very dark eyes. One day during my first week, I thought she might have smiled at me. She could have been smiling at the guy on my left, or even not smiling at all, and I just projected a smile onto a nonsmiling face.

“No. No girlfriends,” I said.

Uncle Farrell talked to Dr. Peddicott for a long time afterwards. He told me she was referring me to a psychiatrist who could prescribe some antidepressants because Dr. Peddicott believed I was severely depressed and recommended I get involved with something other than TV and music, in addition to seeing a shrink and taking anti-crazy drugs. Uncle Farrell’s idea was football, which wasn’t too surprising given my size, but football was the last thing I wanted to do.

“Uncle Farrell,” I told him, “I don’t want to play football.”

“You’re high-risk, Al,” Uncle Farrell answered. “You’re running around with all the risk factors for a major psychotic episode. One, you got no dad. Two, you got no mom. Three, you’re living with an absentee caretaker—me—and four, you’re in a strange town with no friends.

“There was another one too . . . Oh, yeah. And five, you’re fifteen.”

“I want to get my license,” I told him.

“Your license for what?”

“For driving. I want my learner’s permit.”

“I’m telling you that you’re about to go off the deep end and you want to talk about getting your learner’s permit?”

“That reminded me, the fact that I’m fifteen.”

“Dr. Peddicott thought it was a great idea,” Uncle Farrell said.

“A learner’s permit?”

“No! Going out for the football team. One, you need some kind of activity. Two, it’s a great way to build confidence and make friends. And three, look at you! For the love of the Blessed Virgin, you’re some kinda force of nature! Any coach would love to have you on his team.”

“I don’t like football,” I said.

“You don’t like football? How can you not like football? What kind of kid are you? What kind of American kid doesn’t like football? I suppose next you’re going to say you want to take dancing lessons!”

“I don’t want to take dancing lessons.”

“That’s good, Al. That’s real good. Because if you said you wanted to take dancing lessons, I don’t know what I’d do. Throw myself over a cliff or something.”

“I don’t like pain.”

“Ah, come on. They’ll bounce off you like—like— pygmies! Gnats! Little pygmy gnats!”

“Uncle Farrell, I cry if I get a splinter. I faint at the sight of blood. And I bruise very easily. I’m a very easy bruiser.”

But Uncle Farrell wouldn’t take no for an answer. He ended up bribing me. He wouldn’t take me to get my learner’s permit unless I tried out for the football team. And if I didn’t try out for the team, he promised he would put me on so much antidepressant dope, I wouldn’t remember to sit when I crapped. Uncle Farrell could be gross like that.

I really wanted my permit—I also didn’t want to be so doped up, I couldn’t remember how to crap—so I went out for the team.