Free Watcher by Valerie Sherrard Page B

of times although I don’t know the details. So, how could it have been that her own parents hadn’t known she was a doper? I’d have known within two minutes if I’d just met her for the first time.
    My mother would never have missed all of the signs Krystal’s folks missed. But back when I was smoking bud, she never once noticed anything different. Or, if she did, she never brought it up, and I think she would have if she’d realized. Come to think of it, we never talked about drugs — not really .
    Oh, she gave me the speech once. Drugs are bad. Drugs will hurt you. Only losers use drugs. It was like having someone read to me from a grade one lesson book. “See kids use drugs. See kids drop out of school. Don’t, kids, don’t!”
    Tack’s mother had a different approach. Her approach with him was: “I ever catch you using drugs and I will kick your sorry butt all over the city of Toronto and back.” Tack could do a wicked imitation of that when he was stoned. We’d laugh ourselves sick.
    But Daniels knew the score. He talked to me on a level playing field, too, once I’d cleaned up. Lots of times I found myself saying things I hadn’t even known were in my head and some of them were pretty weird. Surprisingly, when we were talking, no matter what I told him, he never acted like the big P.O., if you know what I mean. And that made me tell him more — almost like I was trying to force him to react, to show his disapproval, to judge me. Only, he never did.
    One day I found myself telling him the whole story about the bong.
    â€œSo this bong,” he said, “what was it that made you want it so much?”
    â€œUh, it looked …” I hesitated, half embarrassed. “I know this sounds stupid, but it looked wise.”
    â€œLike it had answers?”
    â€œYeah, I guess.” Feeling stupid, I added, “It’s not like I asked it questions or anything.”
    â€œBut you have questions.”
    â€œSure. Doesn’t everyone?”
    â€œI guess they do. Say you could ask the bong one thing and it would answer you, what would you ask?”
    I laughed and shook my head. “I dunno, man. That’s hard to say.”
    â€œBecause you can’t pick the right question or because there are too many ?”
    â€œProbably both.” I noticed that Daniels had drifted, and could see that he was thinking about what he’d just asked me.
    â€œWhat about you,” I said. “What would you ask?”
    He seemed to think it over, and I thought something flashed across his eyes, like he’d decided, but then he just turned his hands palms up and shrugged.
    â€œYou’re right,” he said. “That’s a tough one.”
    Other times we just talked about school and sports and general stuff. Then, one day, when we were wrapping things up, he said, “So, I guess you’ve probably done the math. But in case you haven’t, this is it. Your year is up. This is our last appointment.”
    â€œI’m not on probation anymore?” My mouth had a hard time getting around the words.
    â€œNope.” He stretched a hand out. “You did all right, kid.”
    I shook his hand and squared my jaw. “Well, it wasn’t so bad.”
    â€œYou have my number. Feel free to call if you run into any problems I can help with,” he said. “Otherwise, good luck and all that. You’re going to do okay … you know that, don’t you?”
    â€œYeah, thanks.” I stood up.
    â€œOh, there’s one more thing.” He reached down beside him and picked up a book. He passed it across the desk.
    â€œThis is for you.”
    I looked at the book. I read the title out loud. “ A Prayer for Owen Meany .”
    â€œIt’s my favourite John Irving novel,” he said. “I thought you might like it.”
    I held it up like I was showing it to him. “I’ll