“When did drill sergeants start caring about people’s personal property?” I say. “I thought they were just concerned with destroying your individuality.”
That gets the vein in his forehead pumping overtime. “Don’t get cute with me, young man. I won’t take it in my own house.” He turns back to Mom. “That’s another thing military school needs to pound into him—respect for authority.”
It’s not all that easy to take a short, balding, red-faced guy with glasses for much of an authority figure, but I don’t need to point that out right now either. His military-school threats are stale—nothing but bluster. Mom’s never thrown her support behind that proposition. I mean, after all, there’s a war going on. She’s not about to pack her only son off on the road to Baghdad.
Or so I used to think.
“Is that what you need, Sutter?” she asks, but she doesn’t bother waiting for an answer. “Because I’m starting to think it is. You can just finish out the semester in the military academy over by Tulsa and then go straight into basic training. Let’s see how you handle a tour overseas. That ought to shape you up.”
She sounds like she means it one hundred percent too. She’s pissed off enough to actually throw me to the crazy suicide bombers. But I guess I can’t be surprised after the way she ditched my father.
I’ll tell you who is surprised, though—Geech. He absolutely wasn’t expecting such strong backup from Mom. “Uh, well,” he says. “Right. The military academy. That’ll get you straightened out. I’ll check into the cost first thing Monday morning.”
And right then, I know nothing will ever come of it. Anytime Geech starts talking about checking into the cost of something, that’s the end. For all his plumbing-supply money, he’s the original Mr. Cheap.
For now, though, I’m stripped of my car keys and grounded indefinitely. Plus, I have to give Kevin fifty dollars a month till I pay off his suit. That equals out to about two years of indentured servitude. Okay, I can understand the part about the suit, but I try to make the argument that they can’t take away my keys since I’m the one paying for the car.
Do they care about that? No. They’re paying for the insurance, they say. I’ll have to find someone to take me to school—or else ride the dreaded bus—but they admit that they have to let me drive to work and back after school. Which means, since they both work in the afternoons, they’ll actually have to let me keep my keys after all.
“You know, Sutter,” Mom says. “It’s going to take a long time to rebuild our trust in you.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’ll try to make it up to you.” And I am sorry about making her call my friends and the hospitals and all, but I know my mom. Trust in me isn’t real high on her list of priorities. A good trip to the beauty shop next week and she’ll forget all about it.
Chapter 19
Okay, so I had a bad day. I’m not going to let that keep me down for long. I’m not even going to think about it. I mean, having to ride to school with Ricky is not exactly the harshest punishment in the world anyway. And how grounded can I actually be in the afternoons when Mom and Geech aren’t anywhere around? Of course, they say they’ll call and check in with me, but I’ll believe that when it happens.
“Hey, it’s the firebug,” says Ricky when I get into his car on Monday morning. “Burned up any more thousand-dollar suits lately?”
“Very funny, Mr. Goodweed. You know, that never would’ve happened if you hadn’t pawned off that blaze on me.”
He laughs. “Right. That was my master plan, and you fell right into it.”
But like I say, I don’t even want to think about that night, so I change the subject to Ricky’s date with Bethany. Of course, we’ve already hashed it over on the phone once, but I figure he won’t mind doing it again.
“Dude,” he says. “I’m telling you—this is the girl. Everything went perfectly. Except when I had to borrow a couple of dollars off her, but she was even cool about that. I mean, who would’ve thought dinner and a movie would cost so much?”
“Oh, just about anyone who’s gone out on a real date before, that’s all.”
He brushes that off. “The best part was that we could talk about anything. Not just shallow stuff either. We had a pretty deep conversation about religion.”
“Good kisser?”
“Amazing.”
“Tongue action?”
“Oh, dude, she could win state with that tongue.”
It’s tempting to take credit for fixing him up with this Wonder Woman, but I didn’t do it for credit. So instead I move on to the next subject—where we’re going for lunch today.
He pauses.
“What’s the matter?”
“Dude, I can’t make it for lunch today. Bethany and I are going together.”
“You can’t take me along?”
“It’s a little early in the relationship to be dragging a buddy along.”
“I guess.” That’s what I say, but I’m thinking about all the times he third-wheeled it with me and Cassidy.
“Besides,” he says. “Didn’t you say you were having lunch with what’s-her-name, the paper route girl?”
“Oh, yeah. Aimee. I completely forgot about her. Thanks for reminding me, dude. I’d hate to screw her over. She’s too—I don’t know—naive or sweet or whatever.”