Stupid Fast

Chapter 14: THE HILLS ARE ALIVE WITH THE SOUND OF MUSIC




The morning after I wrote my to-do list, I seriously got up at the butt crack of dawn. It wasn’t really intentional—I’d just slept so much of the day before that I couldn’t sleep any longer. Why not hit the road, get it over with? It, of course, being the paper route. So I rolled out of bed, checked to see if Gus emailed me back (he hadn’t), and picked up the papers super early and then went silent through the neighborhoods.

The route skirts the edge of town where there’s a mixture of new and sort of old ranch-style houses. Jerri hates ranch-style houses. I don’t know why. On the route, when it was later and people were awake, I really liked those houses because they have really big front windows, and I could look in and see what the people were up to. All these houses have lots of very dark, prickly evergreen bushes in front of them, which sort of scared me the first few days I did the route because they seemed like good places to hide if you wanted to surprise and kill the paperboy. But I’d begun to like these bushes because they smell really good. They smell like the holidays, I guess. Really piney. That morning, most of my route smelled like Christmas in the summer (not the farm poop smell that Bluffton usually has). And I couldn’t see in houses because nobody was awake yet, but I could imagine all those normal people cuddled up in their beds, sleeping, which was kind of comforting too. And there wasn’t much noise, no radios or TVs or lawn mowers or anything, but I could hear farmers in their tractors, probably miles away, and the occasional semi driving down State Highway 81. I liked how dark it was. I was unseen in the dark, sliding from house to house like a ghost.

It was still pitch-black dark when I got to Gus’s house. Aleah wasn’t asleep though. She practiced. I could hear her for a couple of blocks before I arrived. The sound wasn’t loud, but it carried. Piano floating on dawn air. Sort of spooky, and classical music sounds really old, like something ghosts would listen to, and so I might have been scared if I didn’t know it was her.

Like the day before, the front door was open, and Aleah Jennings—because it was definitely, no doubt, the same girl Andrew showed me on YouTube winning the Chicago Competition—was at the piano playing in her white nightie. And once again, I couldn’t help it: I set down my bike, walked to the door, pulled open the screen, and leaned my head in so I could watch her hit those keys. There was something sort of angry and ferocious in the way she pounded that piano. There was like this “Don’t eff with me, mother effer” feel to it. Amazing. More than that. I guess hypnotizing is a better word. My mouth was open, and I was probably drooling. I was halfway breaking and entering to hear her, and I couldn’t help it because I was glued in that spot and then she promptly stopped and spun around on the piano seat. She looked directly at me.

“Daddy said you stopped to listen to me yesterday too.”

“Uh!” I felt my muscles coil. I could feel the animal spring about to happen, that damn squirrel nut donkey leap. But instead, I breathed out slow and said “No.”

“You didn’t watch me yesterday?” she asked.

“No. I did. Uh. This is my best friend’s house.”

Then, Aleah jumped. She leapt from the piano bench, a shocked look on her face.

“And I think I’m a little freaked by you guys being here in Gus’s house.”

“I thought…Daddy and I thought that you were slow.”

“Slow?”

“Retarded.”

“No. I mean, maybe a little.”

“Because you ran away like that and can’t talk.”

“I can talk.”

“Well, that’s obvious.”

“Actually, I’m trying very hard not to be retarded.”

“Oh. That’s admirable.” Aleah stared at me hard.

“Yeah. It’s hard work.”

“Yes. I know.” Aleah stared at me harder.

“I have to deliver more papers, okay?”

“Okay.” Aleah stared at me so hard I thought my head might catch fire.

“You play piano really, really, really well,” I said, saying the final “really” really slow so she could tell I meant it.

“Thank you.”

“I know too because my little brother is the best piano player of his age group in…in the world, I’d guess, and he isn’t even close to as good as you.”

She walked a few steps closer, across the living room. She spoke slowly. “Is his name Andrew?”

“Yes.” I backed up a step, out the door.

“Do you know your mom called here?” Aleah got to the door and put her hand on the screen to hold it open.

I backed to the edge of the stoop.

“Yes.”

“Then maybe you know that me and my daddy are coming over to your house this afternoon.”

“I do. I’m going to deliver my newspapers, Aleah.”

“And you know my name,” she said.

“I do. I’ll see you later.”

I turned, jogged to my bike, got on, and pedaled away.

“Wait,” she called. “I don’t know your name.”

“Felton,” I called back.

“What?”

But that was enough. Man. Then I delivered all the rest of the papers in mere minutes because I was on beautiful fire.

When I got home, the sun was exploding orange in all its glory over the bluffs east of town, and Jerri was out on the stoop drinking coffee.

I forgot my pledge to not talk to her.

“Good morning, Jerri,” I said.

Jerri squinted at me. Maybe she made a similar pledge she hadn’t forgotten.

“Umm,” she said.

Okay.

I went in and ate two enormous herb bagels I found in the fridge. I ate them with mounds of cream cheese. The bagels were great. Super fresh. And the sun was bright and the sky clear, and I actually talked to a girl, a pretty and talented girl, without running away immediately, which I hadn’t done since fifth grade when Abby Sauter was actually my friend for a few weeks. I mean, what a great morning!

Then I remembered Cody Frederick and breathed deep and fought the response to be worried.

Weights. Coach Johnson. Maybe Ken Johnson? That chuckleheaded fat fart Jason Reese for sure. Fine. Fine. No problem. You can do it.

Then Jerri walked in and looked in the fridge. “Did you eat both bagels, Felton?”

“Yes.”

“One of those was for Andrew. You’re selfish.”

Then Andrew walked in and shouted, “You ate my bagel? You ass brain jerk!”

I continued to chew and look out the window. Aleah Jennings playing piano in a white nightie—that’s what I thought about. And also this: My family is nuts. I’d better not be here when Aleah comes for her visit. It will likely be a complete disaster.

After my breakfast, I checked email again. Gus had not returned my message. I wrote: listen up…a beautiful girl our age plays piano in your house and sleeps in your bedroom.

I didn’t really know where she slept but hoped that bit of info would at least pique his interest.

It didn’t seem to.