Free Beastly by Alex Flinn Page B

is it, Magda?” My father’s voice oozed irritation when he answered. It wouldn’t get better when he heard it was me.
    “It’s not Magda. It’s me, Kyle. We need to talk about some things.”
    “Kyle, I’m in the middle of –”
    “You always are. I won’t take long. It’ll be quicker to listen to what I have to say than to argue with me.”
    “Kyle, I know you don’t want to be there, but really it’s for the best. I’ve tried to make you comf –”
    “You dumped me here.”
    “I’m doing what’s best for you, I’m protecting you from people staring, from people who’d try to use this to their advantage and –”
    “That’s a load of crap.” I looked around at the green walls closing in on me. “You’re just protecting yourself. You don’t want anyone to know about me.”
    “Kyle, this conversation is over.”
    “No, it’s not. Don’t you hang up on me! If you do, I’ll go to NBC and give them an interview. I swear to God I’ll go right now.”
    That stopped him. “What is it you want, Kyle?”
    I wanted to go to school, to have friends, to have everything back the way it used to be. That wasn’t going to happen. So I said, “Look, there are a few things I need. Get them for me, and I’ll go along with what you want. Otherwise, I’ll leave.” Through the almost opaque blinds, I could see the sky was dark.
    “What things, Kyle?”
    “I need a computer with Internet. I know you’re worried I’ll do something crazy like tell the press to come over here and take my picture.” Tell them I’m your son. “But I won’t – not if you do what I ask. I just want to be able to see the world still, and maybe… I don’t know, maybe join an e-group or something.” This sounded so lame I almost had to cover my ears against its patheticness.
    “Okay, okay, I’ll work on it.”
    “Second, I want a tutor.”
    “A tutor? You were hardly a star student before.”
    “Now’s different. Now I have nothing else to do.”
    Dad didn’t answer, so I kept going.
    “Besides, what if I snap out of this? I mean, I got this way in a day. Maybe in another day, I’ll be better. Maybe the witch will change her mind and switch me back.” I said this even though I knew it couldn’t happen, and he didn’t believe me. In the back of my mind, I still thought maybe I could meet someone, a girl, maybe online. That’s why I wanted the computer. I didn’t really understand why I wanted a tutor. Dad was right – I’d hated school. But now that it was being taken away from me, I wanted it. Besides, a tutor would be someone to talk to. “It just seems like I should keep up.”
    “All right. I’ll look for someone. What else?”
    I took a deep breath. “The third thing is I don’t want you to visit me.” I said it because I already knew he wouldn’t. Dad didn’t want to see me anyway. He’d made that completely clear. If he did come, it would be because he felt like he had to. I didn’t want that, didn’t want to sit there, waiting to see if he’d show and getting bummed every day that he didn’t.
    I waited to see if he’d argue, pretend to be a good dad. “All right,” he said. “If that’s what you want, Kyle.”
    Typical. “It’s what I want.”
    I hung up before I could change my mind and beg him to come back.

    2
    Dad was quick. The tutor showed up a week later.
    “Kyle.” I noticed Magda had stopped calling me Mr. Kyle after I had screamed at her. This made her very slightly less annoying. “This is Will Fratalli. He is teacher.” The guy with her was tall, late twenties, and major geeky. He had a dog with him, a yellow Lab, and he had on worn jeans, too baggy to be fitted but not big enough to be cool, and a blue button-down shirt. Obviously public school, and not even cool public school. He stepped forward. “Hello, Kyle.” He didn’t run screaming at the sight of me. That was a point in his favor. On the down side, he didn’t look at me. He sort of looked to the side