Liar, Liar: Chapters 4–6

I looked around the front steps and sidewalk, assessing my options.

I snorted at my own lame joke. I wasn’t sure the humor translated, because she kept organizing her stack of bilingual flashcards.

“I’m working on the crew for the musical!” I blurted. “Can I miss a few days of class to paint scrims?!”

“I’m working on the crew for the musical!” I blurted. “Can I miss a few days of class to paint scrims?!”

“Don’t forget to run a few laps,” he bellowed down the hall after me.

Check. Check. And check. One more.
I thought for a few minutes, stymied about how to get out of math.

He’d be impressed by that, because he’d run for town council once and was always talking about “what a pleasure and a privilege it is for one citizen to serve another.”

Like any good military mind, I decided that a direct assault was the wrong move. Too bold; better to start on the periphery and work my way in toward my final objective, gathering intel, studying the secondary targets in order to acquire data about the main objective.

I wanted to kick myself for not remembering that he was the other room 81 delegate.

I wished he was in on my scheme so we could signal each other surreptitiously and look suspicious and in the know, like a couple of spies being used by the military to collect important data.

“Yeah, sure, I love government. In fact”—I frantically tried to recall that morning’s announcements—“I’m worried, uh, concerned, really, one could even say dismayed, about the...referendum...thingie,” I finished, and hoped I’d turn into a socially aware and deeply concerned kind of guy in the next 3.4 nanoseconds.

Connie furrowed her monobrow in shared worry, or concern, or dismay. It was hard to read one eyebrow.

I was sure it was just about his body mass index or the tensile strength of his ligaments, but still, he had her ear and he wasn’t using it to talk me up.

I was sure it was just about his body mass index or the tensile strength of his ligaments, but still, he had her ear and he wasn’t using it to talk me up.

Minds like theirs, working together, could rule the world. And I was finding that they were very handy to have around. Plus, I was already starting to feel a twinge of guilt for the way I was about to take a lot of Tina’s free time away from Connie.

And hanging around with Connie, I’d be hanging around with Tina by extension. And proximity would give me opportunities to catch her attention by being wonderful.

I don’t know how dumb guys get girlfriends, I really don’t. It’s a lot of effort, and it seems to me that without my work ethic, you’d be screwed.

“Your mom and Sarah are okay and your Auntie Buzz moves so fast I don’t think germs have a chance to land on her, but Daniel...well, he doesn’t seem like a lather-rinse-repeat kind of guy, and I’ve seen how hockey players bleed on each other. That can’t be sanitary.”

“Your mom and Sarah are okay and your Auntie Buzz moves so fast I don’t think germs have a chance to land on her, but Daniel...well, he doesn’t seem like a lather-rinse-repeat kind of guy, and I’ve seen how hockey players bleed on each other. That can’t be sanitary.”

“No. Not since I got him to buy those preflight vitamin packs to ward off airplane-cabin viruses.” Bought them, gagged on them, flushed them, I remembered.

But keeping a conversation alive with him is a lot of work, and I worry that there aren’t very many people like me who would put that kind of energy into getting past JonPaul’s paranoid outer layer and finding the decent guy inside.

I didn’t understand how he could play all those full-contact sports if being touched and being breathed on were so abhorrent to him, but when I asked, he got a determined look in his eye and said, “I don’t think about it during the game. I get in the zone and stay there. It’s about discipline.”

He pulled a small lunch cooler out of his backpack and became completely engrossed in pouring out individual portions of raw almonds and golden raisins into cereal bowls he’d wrapped in plastic.

I am not easily distracted. “What do you think about her?” I persisted.

“No, I’m good.” I peered into the jar of what looked like baby diarrhea and then jerked away.
“Looks like baby diarrhea, doesn’t it?” He spread it happily on some whole-wheat, flax-enriched bread and took a hefty bite.

I couldn’t take it anymore, and as he started jotting down the details of his snack in his food log like some obsessive hippie survivalist scientist hybrid, I jumped up from the couch, hollering, “JonPaul, are you okay? Can you hear me? Don’t go toward the light, come back to my voice!”

I couldn’t take it anymore, and as he started jotting down the details of his snack in his food log like some obsessive hippie survivalist scientist hybrid, I jumped up from the couch, hollering, “JonPaul, are you okay? Can you hear me? Don’t go toward the light, come back to my voice!”

“I went to see the allergist. Got the scratch test,” he reported. “I’m not allergic to anything.”
“Great! But you can’t be too careful, bud.”
“That’s what I said! But Dr. Culligan said I had to ‘react adversely to the stimuli’ before she could prescribe me anything.”

JonPaul’s weakness could easily be exploited by unscrupulous opposing teams if it wasn’t rooted out of him while he was still young. I was doing this for his own good. As well as the teams he played on.

JonPaul’s weakness could easily be exploited by unscrupulous opposing teams if it wasn’t rooted out of him while he was still young. I was doing this for his own good. As well as the teams he played on.