Free Liar & Spy by Rebecca Stead Page A

“I believe you.”
    “And let me know if you’re ever going to Yankee Stadium,” she says. “I got Lemonheads at a store near Yankee Stadium once.”
    “Lemonheads?”
    “You can hardly ever find them. I saved the box. Do you want to see the box?”
    “He’s leaving now!” Safer yells at her, pulling me down the hall. “He doesn’t want to see the stupid Lemonheads box!”
    Actually, I’m kind of curious. But I am late, and so I let him drag me to the door.
    “Tomorrow,” he says, and he shoves a fresh gum wrapper into my hand.
    That night I try to fall asleep before my teeth start aching from the tightened braces. We didn’t take the D trainafter all: Dad drove Mom’s car into the city, and we must have both been feeling quiet, because we hardly talked at all. When we got home I pretended that the garbage was full and said I would take it down to the basement. While I was waiting for the elevator, I ran up to Mr. X’s and shoved the gum wrapper between his door and the doorframe. When I got back to the apartment, Dad was already shut up in his room with the door closed.
    I get out of bed and spell Mom a note:
    OUCH TEETH
LOVE ME
    I dream about Ty and Lucky, with their worried-eyebrow looks, staring at that metal door.

Big Picture
    Bob English passes me a note in science:
Ghoti.
    “Say it,” he says.
    “Go-tee,” I read.
    He shakes his head. “Wrong. It says fish .”
    “Um, it definitely does not say fish .”
    “Sure it does.” He leans forward to point. “ G-h as in the word laugh, o as in women , and t-i as in nation . See? Fish .”
    My teeth are aching. Mom’s morning Scrabble note said ADVIL, but I couldn’t find any. I tell Bob sorry, I didn’t quite follow that, which is a mistake because he spells it all out for me in another note:
gh = as in the word laugh (f sound)
o = as in the word women (i sound)
ti = as in the word nation (sh sound)
    “Okay, now I get it,” I say.
    “I’m just demonstrating the absurdity of English spelling.”
    “But that’s not the English spelling. It’s spelled f-i-s-h .”
    Bob sticks his hand into his Sharpie bag and flicks through the pens until he finds the one he wants. “Sure it is. If you want to play the game the way everyone else does.”
    Bob English is making less and less sense. But I like him more and more.
    Lunch. Tacos. School taco shells smell like plastic, so I drag my tray down to the bagel basket, where Dallas and Carter immediately show up and then pretend they don’t see me.
    Dallas bumps me with one shoulder and acts surprised. “Oh, man! Sorry. I didn’t see you, geek. I mean, Georges .”
    And they walk away, chanting “Geek, geek, geek, geek.”
    Typical bully crap , Mom would say. Big picture .
    I think about Sir Ott, hanging over the couch at home, and how much I would like to be there right now, kicking back with some America’s Funniest Home Videos .
    And then I think of all those thousands of dots Seurat used to paint the picture. I think about how if you stand back from the painting, you can see the people, the green grass and that cute monkey on a leash, but if you get closer, the monkey kind of dissolves right in front of your eyes. Like Mom says, life is a million different dots making one gigantic picture. And maybe the big picture is nice, maybe it’s amazing, but if you’re standing with your face pressed up against a bunch of black dots, it’s really hard to tell.
    After school, I watch America’s Funniest Home Videos and let the phone ring. It rings and stops, rings and stops, but no one leaves a message on the machine.
    The third time it starts, I grab the remote and pause the show. It’s one of my favorites: this very serious-looking little girl is sitting in a high chair and counting from one to ten for her grandmother, who isn’t paying attention and doesn’t realize that what the girl is really doing is sticking these baked beans up her nose. “One … two … three …”
    “Where were