The Encyclopedia of Me (15 page)

See also
Karma.

Photographer for
Everybody
magazine, guaranteed to be unlike anyone you've ever met before in your life, unless the people in your life are all insanely theatrical, annoyingly ingratiating photographers from Seattle with comically overblown lips.

“CALL ME LIPS!” he said at least twenty times after he flung open the front door without knocking and marched himself directly into our living room, where I happened to be lying on the Itchy Couch, sweating and minding my own business, while all around upstairs, I could hear my family crashing around in a panic of “getting ready.”

“Uh,” I said. Which is all I could say. Because I couldn't think of anything except his lips. He had the biggest lips in the world. They looked like a lip-shaped helium balloon that had randomly landed on his face and would float him upward into space if someone were to let go of the string.

“You are a gorgeous little thing!” he shouted in my face. “Kudos!”

“Um,” I said. “Thanks, I guess.”

“You should be a MODEL!” he shrieked. “Too short, what a shame! A shame! But kudos! The hair! KUDOS! Your eyes! LOVE them!”

“Uh,” I said.

“She could use some makeup,” said my mom, appearing gracefully out of thin air, looking as cool and unruffled as anyone who was just screaming, “WHERE ARE MY GLASSES? PUT THAT CAT IN THE BATHROOM AND LOCK THE DOOR!” can look.

“Not very chatty, is she?” he said to my mom, who nodded and smiled. She looked so glam, she could have been on the cover of the magazine and people would have bought it by the millions. He turned back to me. “Off you go, sweetie, go get changed! Angel here will help sort you out!”

Angel was in charge of the clothes, which made sense, because she was wearing about twelve layers of them. She smelled like lemons and moved and talked so fast, I could hardly keep up. She was a human hurricane! A gale force! I swear, I could feel the air whooshing around me!

I emerged from the whirlwind wearing a puffy shirt.

A puffy PIRATE shirt.

A puffy YELLOW PIRATE SHIRT.

Not that anyone would notice what I was wearing. Like Pip's lips, it was impossible for anyone to look at anything that wasn't the zit on my nose.

“Tink,” said my mom. “We HAVE to do something about that monster zit! Come to the bathroom with me.”

At that second, the phone rang.

“Hello?” I said.

“It's me,” said Freddie. “Look, where did you go? I'm sorry I was on the phone. It was, like, super important.”

“What,” I said. “Ever.” Mom began gesturing wildly at my nose. I ignored her.

“Don't be mad,” FB said. “I just had to tell Stella
80
about this fabu glam purple shirt my dad is going to get me for Tuesday.”
81

“Gosh, how terrific,” I said, with as much licorice-y sarcasm as I could muster. “I have to go because there is a photographer here from
Everybody
magazine waiting to take my picture.”

“Oh,” she said. “Great! I'm right outside your house. I'm coming in.”

“Don't!” I said. But it was too late. There she was.

“Wow, Tink,” she said, peering at me so closely I could smell her minty breath. “That is a huge pimple.”

“I know,” I said frostily. “You should go, it's family only. Um, a closed set. You know.”

“Don't be silly, Tink!” Mom laughed. “Of course she can stay.”

“No, she cannot,” I said.

“She could be in the picture,” said Lips. “She's very pretty. Kudos! Too bad she isn't the sister!”

“NO!” I shouted.

“Why are you shouting?” said Lex, wandering in casually, looking like he was about to go strolling on a Caribbean beach. Why he got to wear sophisto clothes and I had to look like a buttercup-yellow pirate who was about to burst into a merry song was a mystery to me.

“Go away!” I said, to no one in particular.

“We have to shoot while the light is still good,” said Pip the Lips. “Outside, I think. Let's go!”

“I can't stay,” said Freddie Blue. “I'm meeting someone? Someone who is a
boy
.”

Lex laughed. “Nice work, Frank,” he said. Then for no reason that I could ascertain, he did an armpit fart. To her credit, Freddie Blue looked slightly disgusted.

“Aren't you too young to date?” said my mom.

“Date?” I said.

“Oh, it's not a date,” said Freddie Blue. “I'm just . . . it's just Kai. See you.” And she was gone, slamming the door behind her.

My heart fell all the way through my body, out the soles of my feet, and through the floor to the basement, where it got on Dad's Harley and rode away forever. I let Mom put seven layers of face paste onto my zit, effectively molding me a new nose out of foundation. I looked completely ridiculous but I no longer cared. I didn't care about anything: the zit, the shirt, the world, Pip's lips. Nothing.

I was too depressed.

Too depressed to even be amused when the camera appeared and Seb, who apparently can change his mind about more than one thing, said, “Cool, is that a Nikon blah blah blah 19238 XLDSL whatever?”

Because apparently, when I wasn't looking, Dad promised to buy him his own incredibly expensive and fancy camera as a “reward” for putting up with the photo shoot, which the rest of us ALSO have to put up with, with no reward, because we don't need rewarding, as we do not have autism.

Stab, stab, stab.
That is the sound of me stabbing something painfully into something. I don't even know what (or who) to stab in this instance. But I would like to say, for the record, that I would also like a fancy camera.

If anyone asks.

Which they won't.

So then I spent the afternoon pretending to enjoy Frisbee and cold drinks with my family in oddly posed, frozen tableaus.

“FREEZE!” Lips shouted. “Oh, that's perfect. Kudos! I'm just going to . . .” Then he would walk over and artfully rearrange every single person's limbs. It was very trying for all of us, especially He Who Cannot Be Stressed.

That's right. Seb.

So it was just a matter of time before Seb accidentally threw a Frisbee into Dad's eye, hard, and while Mom was bending over to see if he was OK, Dad dumped his pretend cold drink on her hair. But the pretend cold drink was made out of some kind of icky gel, which ruined Mom's hair. Like, really ruined it. As in, she'll probably have to cut that goo out of her hair with shears.

Then Seb started hopping around. “I'm done,” he said. “I'm done.”

“KUDOS!” shrieked Pip the Lips. “YOU ARE ALL SO FABU! Especially you boys! And Mom! And Dad!”

“Gee, thanks,” I mumbled, quietly on purpose so he couldn't hear me.

“Gee, thanks,” Seb mimicked. Loudly.

“Don't mimic me!” I said.

“Don't mimic ME!” he said.

“Don't mimic ME,” I yelled.

“Don't yell at me!” he yelled back.

“Everyone calm down,” Mom said. “We have to enter into our stages.”

“Tink!” yelled my Dad. “You are the Peacemaker!”

“That's so stupid, Dad!” I yelled. “I'm just a kid!”

And then I held my breath until I fell over.

“I'm done,” said Lips just as Seb decided to take off running somewhere. Nowhere. Anywhere. Who cares where? “Kudos to you all! Will send you proofs! Much love!
Besos, besos!
”
82

Lex took off after Seb.

“Thanks so much for coming,” said Mom.

“Will my black eye be edited out?” said Dad. “I mean, if the shot you use was post-injury?” He laughed wryly as though to say, “This isn't funny, but I'm such a good sport!” when I know he really was worried that he was finally going to be in
Everybody
, but looking like a victim of a terrible crime and not like a pseudo-movie star.

Pip the Lips appeared not to hear the question. Or maybe he was just choosing not to answer. Which meant the answer was, “No! The black eye will not be edited out!”

“Dread,” I said. “Dreaded, most dreadful, dreadest.”

And I wasn't just talking about the shoot, I was also talking about FB. And Kai. FB and Kai TOGETHER. Where did they go? What were they
doing
?

I went inside. Something was making me dizzy. The sun or the breath holding or the pretending. Or maybe it was just something else. Something to do with a certain BFF whose initials were FBA.

Probably not, though.

See also
Autism; BFF;
Everybody
Magazine; Haywire; Karma.

A skateboarding word that means “looking around for really awesome places to skate that are not really meant to be skateboarding parks,” which I learned yesterday when Ruth called and said, “Hey, Tink, want to go lurk?”

And I said, “Sure!”

Except I had no idea what she meant, and so when I met her at the corner, I didn't have my board. I looked like an idio, which was fine, because I'm used to looking like an idio. Ruth just laughed because she thought I'd forgotten and then went on to tell five different stories about how she has also forgotten really obvious things, such as to put on her shoes before school. Then she came back home with me so that I could get my board. I think she never once stopped talking, except when she did three cartwheels in a row on the sidewalk and finished with a round-off. She is a very flippy person.

It actually used to be that I couldn't decide if she was hilarious or just weird, but now that I know her better, I'm going to say “totally and completely hilair.”
83
And I don't care what FB says.

We ended up at an empty swimming pool next to the old community center. It had a deep curve that was perfect for the swoop, in a dizzying-drop kind of way. We rolled back and forth for ages until finally an elderly woman, who I'm pretty sure was Mrs. O'Malley's evil twin, came along and shouted, “I'm gonna call the cops on you rabble-rousers! You have no respect for community property!” As if the swimming pool, which was cracked and featured graffiti and ragweed, was going to be further damaged by our mad skillz.

Another word for “lurk” is “going on a skafari,” which is really more awesome but didn't fit alphabetically. I am nothing but devoted to the art of encyclopedia writing, so I had to fit it in here. You're welcome.

See also
Boarding, Skate.

A soon-to-be-antiquated glossy book produced monthly or weekly, consisting nearly wholly of ads and pictures of celebrities in their bathing suits kissing their boyfriends/girlfriends du jour while enjoying relaxing beach vacations that they are sharing with the 103 paparazzi who are photographing them for the magazines. Magazines will go the way of the dodo soon because everyone has the Internet and it is much quicker to get instant, up-to-the-minute celeb facts from the Web than it is to wait for someone to bother to print up something that you only have to recycle later.

Now that I've been a part of the world's worst, ugliest photo, I want nothing more to do with magazines. In fact, if I find out tomorrow that magazines are gone forever, I will celebrate with a small party where I invite all my friends and we drink Kool-Aid and eat white cupcakes with strawberries perched daintily on the top.

And now I have one more reason to hate magazines,
Everybody
in particular, but I am sure they are all Purveyors of Evil, so I'm willing to lump them all in together in one giant, sweeping generalization of lameosity.

One word:
Interview
.

Here's what happened:

I was in the kitchen, blending up frozen hunks of organic strawberries, mangoes, and bananas for a smoothie,
84
when Dad came into the room looking pretty pleased with himself. “Hi, Tink,” he said.

“Hi,” I said. “What are you being all happy about? Tell me right now.”

“I just finished the interview with the
Everybody
writer for the piece that's going to go with the pictures,” he said. “It went really well. I think you're going to love it. The reporter was so nice. I really felt like a celebrity. Isn't that funny? Who would have thought. I'm right chuffed, actually.”

“I highly doubt that I'll like it,” I said.

He went on like I'd said nothing. “Your mom did such a good job too. Oh, and the boys were stars! Really brilliant. You never know what they are going to say. Unpredictable sorts, as you know. But, man, I'm just . . .”

“I guess they didn't want to talk to
me
,” I said. I was pretending not to be hurt, but I was hurt. I WAS HURT! I am part of this family too! I said it out loud, “I AM PART OF THIS FAMILY TOO!” But he continued blithely on.

“There wasn't even a single outburst,” he said. “Seb was just right on about everything. Yes! Can't believe it, Tink. So great.”