Slider: Chapters 29–41

“Hi,” I say, infusing my voice with maximum apathy.

“Hi,” I say, infusing my voice with maximum apathy.

“That’s why you need a manager. It’s not just winning contests—there are endorsements, sponsorships, honorariums, all kinds of ways to monetize your skills!”

“That’s why you need a manager. It’s not just winning contests—there are endorsements, sponsorships, honorariums, all kinds of ways to monetize your skills!”

“So his food has to be light brown and, um, homogeneous.”
“Homogeneous?”
“The same all the way through.”

His steps become erratic, as if he has forgotten the rhythm of walking, his fists clench, and I can hear his breathing.

I let go slowly, ready to grab him if he goes berserk again.

I open my fortune cookie.
Opportunity eludes the timid mouse.

You think the card game War is monotonous? Mal is teaching me a card game he made up that takes boredom to a new level.

I get a reprieve when the doorbell rings.

“Reginald was my grandpa. I was going through some of his stuff. He used to wear these glasses all the time for his cataracts. They fit over regular glasses—that’s why they’re so big.”

“Of course,” I say, feeling resentful of his freedom. Some days I really hate being stuck at home. Actually, I hate it all days.

I hear muttering, then HeyMan’s assent. Lately, he will do anything she asks.

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

“Like a special suit with headphones and dark glasses and cushions everywhere. Like the Michelin Man. He’d be invulnerable.”

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.

Every day around lunchtime, with no prompting from me, he puts on his gear and stands waiting by the front door.

He stops in front of some knotty, bulbous green vegetables.

Even Bridgette is sitting with her usually prim lips hanging open.

A piercing shriek echoes through the house, like the siren that goes off before the end of the world.

Mal hits the ground hard, and a second later I hear the labored squee, squee of him straining for breath.

Arfie, who has been observing all this human drama from safely beneath the picnic table, ambles over and licks Mal's face.

“Okay,” Mal mutters sleepily. He is slipping into post-meltdown lethargy.

I keep waiting for her to berate me for the Visa-bill thing, but she doesn’t.

She had always been so busy with school and her many extracurricular activities that Mal duty had always fallen to the rest of us.

The barely audible buzz of them talking is making my ears itch, because I know they’re talking about me, about what a thieving, lying wretch I’ve turned out to be.

“Well, we have a little problem with our drivers, David. They won’t cross the picket line.”

I imagine myself eating pizza, a torrent of crust and sauce and cheese flowing into my mouth and down my throat.

We pile off the bus and head for the admissions kiosk to buy tickets.

We each buy our own ticket and push through the turnstiles into the fairgrounds.