Free Reality Boy by A. S. King Page A

you? And be good?”
    I nodded.
    “Where’s Real Nanny?” I asked.
    She looked a little hurt but then smiled. “She’s taught me everything I need to know. I’m flying solo this time ’round. So you’ll be good, yeah?”
    “Sure. I’ll be good,” I said.
    Nanny didn’t say much to anyone else before she left. The producer and director had talked to Mom and Dad and said they’d be back the next day for the usual setup. I looked forward to it.
    After Nanny left, Mom and Dad sat the three of us down and promised us that we would go to Disney World if we could show TV viewers that we were cured. All four of them looked at me when they said this. Lisi and Dad smiled and did encouraging things. Mom and Tasha frowned and squinted at me.
    Afterward, while I was brushing my teeth, Tasha came into my bathroom and slammed me up against the wall with her hand around my throat. As I swallowed a mouthful of toothpaste out of fear, she said, “I’ve wanted to go to Disney World my whole life. Everyone else in my class has gone. So if you mess this up for me, I’ll kill you.”
    I couldn’t sleep that night. I was too full of thoughts about my promise to Nanny-Big-Hair and about how Tasha was going to kill me. These two facts duked it out in my head for hours. And then I realized I didn’t want to go to Disney World, because Tasha was going to Disney World.
    So at two in the morning, I got up and sneaked into her room and got her Barbie Princess Cinderella’s Carriage and laid a turd in it. In the morning, without a word to me or anyone else, Mom put the horse and carriage and turd in the trash. Before the camera crew arrived at nine in the morning, she went to Toys“R”Us to replace it.

20
    I AM HUGGING the ketchup. To everyone else, I am simply filling the condiment containers. But in Gersday in my head, I am hugging the enormous industrial bottle of ketchup that is really the anonymous hockey lady who cares about me. I need her in my life. I want to find her at the next hockey game and ask her if I can come over for dinner. No one at her house would say I
swing the other way
just because I don’t like to eat my breakfast to the sound track of my sister getting laid. No one would try to cut off my air supply. They probably don’t care about the inch of moisturizer at the bottom of the bottle.
    I somehow manage to fill all the ketchup containerswithout spilling a drop. I somehow manage not to disappear into thin air. I somehow manage not to finally die of embarrassment on the spot.
    That could happen any minute. I might be the only person who ever actually died of embarrassment… if the cops don’t come and arrest me for biting Tasha first. The courtroom scene in my head is so disappointing. Mom sits over in the prosecution’s area. Dad stands hesitantly in the aisle. No one sits in my area. Lisi never finds out I’m in jail until I write her a letter.
Why didn’t you call me?
    I go back behind the counter and shuffle sideways down to register #7. Register #1 Girl smiles at me and I smile at her and I get this feeling as if I’m an idiot.
Like a beautiful girl would ever like you, Gerald. Seriously.
    Saturday at the circus. Little kids and their parents who grip their little hands too tightly. Little kids and parents who don’t grip their little hands at all. Little kids screaming and crying and squealing and laughing. I watch one. Her laughter is so pure. It’s like electricity. I wish I could plug into it and be her laughter. I watch her cheeks turn into perfect, round plums. Her hair is in pigtails and she’s holding a souvenir stuffed toy.
    I can tell she hasn’t seen anything bad yet.
    No one has used her as entertainment.
    No one has done anything to her but love her.
    “Pretzel.”
    I look up and there’s this guy. He’s in a suit. He’s short. He’s saying it in that way like I’m a machine. Like I’m a
Star Trek
replicator.
    “Pretzel,” he says again.
    I stare at him. I want to say