Free The Reluctant Journal of Henry K. Larsen by Susin Nielsen Page B

were about Sir Wilfrid Laurier, one of Canada’s prime ministers in the Dark Ages, Jerome nailed them. We edged out Borden by twenty points.
    Everyone was in a good mood on the way home. The bus was crowded, and most of us had to stand. Some of my teammates found room in the back. I wound up at the front, with Alberta.
    She was wearing a pair of men’s plaid pants and a zip-up sweater with a deer on the back that smelled like mothballs and cheese. I know this because she’s a good three inches taller than me, and every time the bus lurched, my nose got pressed into her shoulder.
    When I looked up, she was gazing right at me.
    “Intriguing outfit,” I said.
    “Thanks,” she replied, choosing to take it as a compliment. “I get all my clothes at the Sally Ann or Value Village. I call it the Recycled Look.”
    “Good game today,” I said, even though she’d got only two questions right, the answers which were Lady Gaga and Paris Hilton.
    “Yeah, thanks.”
    Then the bus jerked to a halt, and we both grabbed on to the same pole to keep our balance. Her hand was directlyabove mine, so close that her pinky touched my thumb.
    Not that I’m reading anything into this. I’m sure it was totally an accident. She probably didn’t even realize our digits had made contact.
    Still, she didn’t move her hand for the rest of the way home.
    And neither did I.
    When I got home, it was almost six. I could hear Dad before I could see him. He was on the phone. “… Curly red hair, about five feet two inches …”
    I almost shouted out,
Five feet
three
inches!
    “I
know
it’s only been a couple of hours. But you don’t understand –”
    I walked into the living room. He was pacing and running one hand through his hair over and over, like he does when he’s anxious or stressed. His work boots were still on his feet, and they were tracking mud all over the carpet.
    His eyes met mine. “Never mind. I’m sorry. He just came in.”
    He hung up the phone. I knew right away I was in trouble when he said, “Henry Kaspar Larsen!” He only calls me by my full name when he’s really mad. “I was worried sick.” His voice caught. He grabbed me and pulled me intoa bear hug, so tight I could hardly breathe.
    “I’m sorry,” I said into his flannel shirt. “I had a Reach For The Top game. I forgot to tell you.”
    Dad let me go, but he kept his hands on my shoulders. “Don’t
ever
do that again, don’t
ever
forget to tell me – do you understand?!” He was shaking me now, and for a moment I almost felt scared. My dad’s a big guy, not super-tall but beefy and strong.
    “Dad, I’m sorry!”
    He let me go and sank onto the couch. He put his head in his hands. His shoulders starting heaving, and at first I thought he was laughing.
    But he wasn’t. He was crying. More like sobbing, actually.
    Dad has always been an emotional guy. We used to make fun of him ’cause he’d get teary-eyed at almost anything on TV, including those Tim Hortons ads. My mom used to say he was like a peppermint patty: hard outer shell but gooey in the middle.
    This was different. I’d only seen him cry like this once before. It was about a week after Jesse’s funeral. We’d been washing the dishes, and he suddenly sank to the floor and started bawling like a baby, for what felt like
hours
. My mom and I finally left him on the floor and went upstairs to escape the awful sound.
    I’m not dumb. I knew what had been going through his mind when he came home and I wasn’t there. Once you have a suicide in the family, it doesn’t seem like such a stretch to believe that it could happen again. You start to think of it like a flu virus. It could spread.
    So I sat down beside him, and I leaned into him and patted his bushy red hair, and pretty soon, I was crying, too, which made me feel like a dork because my tear ducts have been working overtime lately.
    “I’m so sorry, Dad. I never meant to worry you. I love you.”
    “I love you, too, Henry.