Free Freak City by Kathrin Schrocke Page A

the climbing park with us sometimes.
    “I don’t have time right now,” I whispered quietly so that my dad couldn’t hear me.
    “No time, or you don’t feel like it?” Claudio persisted. “Man, Mika. Your dad is cooler than you. You can’t spend your entire life in your room waiting for something exciting to happen!”
    He was one to talk. He was the one who was always bent over his computer games. And I was doing some things. I had been to Freak City and then the city library. I spent an hour on the computer there looking for books on deafness. There wasn’t exactly a huge selection, but I found a few novels. Still, I wasn’t about to volunteer that information to my best friend. Me, of all people, in the library! That would be about as bizarre for Claudio as if I were secretly the head of some Weight Watchers group.
    “You’re spending way too much time still thinking about Sandra,” Claudio declared. “Look for another girl. There are enough good-looking chicks running around. You can’t let the most potent years of your life slip away because of Sandra.”
    I fished around in my pocket for the paper with Leah’s cell phone number and e-mail address.
    Claudio was right. It was ridiculous to wait until Sandra had finally made up her mind. It couldn’t hurt for me to look around elsewhere in the meantime. I’d get in touch with Leah. I would take that class, if only because I didn’t dare to cancel on Sabine. She had sent me the course information an hour ago by text.
    “I met this other girl,” I mumbled into the phone as casually as possible. The door to the kitchen wasn’t closed all the way, and I tried to talk even more quietly.
    Claudio let out a raspy tone that sounded like a vacuum cleaner running down. “I knew it. Man, I know you like a brother. I
knew
something was up. Is she a lot older than you?”
    I was puzzled. “Older? What makes you think that?”
    “Because you’re making such a big secret out of it. Either she’s butt ugly, or older, or married. Otherwise you would have told me and Tobias about it a long time ago.” Claudio’s logic was hard to follow.
    “She’s famous and doesn’t want the paparazzi to find out she’s going out with me,” I answered.
    “Really?” Claudio almost flipped out. “Who is it? Come on, tell me, I’ll keep it to myself, I swear! One of those soccer stars? I read somewhere that lots of them don’t get enough sex.”
    “Bullshit.” I already regretted bringing up Leah at all. “That was a joke. She’s not famous at all, just completely average. About as old as me. And she’s not ugly as a slug, she’s actually really beautiful. I think you might like her, too.”
    I was getting nervous. Why was I beating around the bush like that? I had to just come out and tell him. Claudio had called me his brother. It wouldn’t be so bad. “Do you remember that girl we were following in town? Exactly a week ago?”
    There was silence on the other end of the line. I could practically hear Claudio’s thoughts churning. He wasn’t bad looking and was a funny guy. But when it came to women, he just didn’t have the right touch.
    First, he had been smitten with Ellen for the longest time, but Tobias had moved in on her right under his nose. Another girl he had mooned over for months, Anna, turned out to be a lesbian and only hung out with a bunch of older girls now. That was probably the real reason Claudio was constantly making fun of gays. The thing with Anna had wounded him.
    Claudio had been in love with Sandra, too—Tobias had admitted it to me once in a drunken state. And now I was dealing Claudio the next blow: I had secretly met Leah, who was exactly his type, at least in terms of looks. Wild curls, a proud, upright walk. Exotic eyes. My bad conscience tugged at me. Brothers. Brothers. Cain and Abel were a good example of how that could turn sour in a hurry.
    “Hey, congratulations, dude!” Claudio swallowed dryly. You could hear that he