Free Antsy Does Time by Neal Shusterman Page A

drive yet.”
    She nudged me playfully. “I know that. I was just kidding.”
    â€œOh. Right.” The fact that she was old enough to drive and I wasn’t was a humiliating fact I had not considered. Until now. As I thought about this, I could tell I was going red in the face, because my ears felt hot. Kjersten looked at me and laughed, then she leaned in close and whispered:
    â€œYou’re cute when you’re embarrassed.”
    That embarrassed me even more.
    â€œWell,” I said, “since I’m mostly embarrassed around you, I must be adorable.”
    She laughed, and I realized that I had actually been clever. I never knew there could be such a thing as charming humiliation. Gold star for me!
    Tonight Mrs. Ümlaut made fried chicken—which was as un-Scandinavian as hamburgers, but at least tonight there was pickled red cabbage, which I suspected had Norse origins but was less offensive than herring fermented in goat’s milk, or something like that.
    It was just the four of us at first—once more with a plate left for Mr. Ümlaut, like he was the Holy Spirit.
    Sitting at the Ümlaut dinner table that night was much more torturous than the first time. See, the first time I was desperately trying not to make an ass of myself, just in case Kjersten might notice. But now that she was certain to notice, it was worse than my third-grade play, where I had to dress in black, climb out of a papier-mâché tooth, and be a singing, dancing cavity. I forgot the words to the song, and since Howie had spent half that morning whistling “It’s a Small World” in my ear, that was the only song left in my brain. So when I jumped out of the papier-mâché tooth, rather than standing there in silent stage fright, I started singing all about how it’s a world of laughter and a world of tears. Eventually, the piano player just gave up and played the song along with me. When I was done, I got applause from the audience, which just made me feel physically ill, so I leaned over, puked into the piano, and ran offstage. After that, the piano never sounded quite right, and I was never asked to sing in a school play again.
    That’s kind of how I felt at dinner with the Ümlauts that night—and no matter how attractive Kjersten might have found my embarrassment, it would all be over if the combination of fried chicken, pickled cabbage, and stress made me hurl into the serving bowl.
    â€œI had a consultation with Dr. G today,” Gunnar announced just a few minutes into the meal. His mother sighed, and Kjersten looked at me, shaking her head.
    â€œI don’t want to hear about Dr. G,” Mrs. Ümlaut said.
    Gunnar took a bite of his chicken. “How do you know it’s not good news?”
    â€œDr. G never gives good news,” she said. It surprised me that she didn’t want to hear about her son’s condition—and that she hadn’t even accompanied him to the doctor—but then everybody deals with hardship in different ways.
    â€œI may have more time than originally predicted,” Gunnar said. “But only with treatment from experts in the field.”
    That wasn’t quite what he had told me, but I could see there were more layers of communication going on here than infomercials on a satellite dish—which, by the way, I am forbidden to watch since the time I ordered the Ninja-matic food processor. But I suspected that whatever treatments Gunnar was talking about were going to cost more than twelve easy payments of $19.99. Maybe that was it—maybe the cost of medical treatment was the elephant in the room here—although I’m sure that wasn’t the only one; the Ümlauts seemed to breed elephants like my sister breeds hamsters.
    Then, as if that wasn’t enough, an entire new herd arrived. Mr. Ümlaut came home.
    Â 
 
I always hear people talk about “dysfunctional families.” It annoys