The Leveller (2 page)

I RIDE MY OLD SCHWINN HOME WITH THE FOLD-UP LAWN CHAIR
strapped to my back and my hoodie tied tightly under my chin. It's mid-November and colder than penguin butt here in central Illinois. I look like a bike-riding Sherpa, but I don't care. I got my driver's license over the summer, but there's no way I'm going to spend money on car insurance, gas, and some old beater in this podunk town. I can get anywhere in twenty minutes or less on my bike, and it's free.

I leave the Cuparinos' north-side subdivision of newer upscale homes, take the side streets to avoid downtown, and finally arrive in my west-side neighborhood of older downscale homes. The houses here are all in ongoing repair, disrepair, or beyond repair. It's the kind of hood where people walk their
dogs in their pajamas, nod at you, then flip their cigarette butts in your driveway while their dogs crap on your lawn. My west-side friends and I call it “the ghetto,” which makes my Chicago-born mom shake her head. Then again, lots of things make my mom shake her head; she's like a human bobblehead.

I pull my bike into our driveway and lock it to the hitching post. Yes, our home is so old it still has a place to park your horse. Dad nicknamed the house “Baby Jane,” after that Bette Davis movie about an aging movie star who goes batty. Our house has had a similar life story. You can tell it was once elegant and grand, the nicest home on the block with its stately Italianate features. Only now the paint has peeled, the porch sags, and the landscaping looks like the victim of a chain-saw massacre.

I enter Baby Jane and stop to give our bulldog, Hodee, a belly rub. Hodee's real name is Don Quixote, which was my mother's bad idea; fortunately, no one calls him that, not even Mom. Hodee's much too tubby and ridiculous-looking to pull off some highbrow literary name, and besides, Hodee likes to keep it real. He lets out a fart while I rub him, then rolls back over and continues to nap.

I follow my nose to a more pleasant aroma in the kitchen, where I smell freshly brewed coffee. Moose and Chang are already there, drinking hot chocolate with whipped cream and chatting up my mom.

“You spoil them, Jill,” I say to Mom as I pour myself a big mug of coffee.

“Hello to you, too, Phoenix,” my mom answers from the sink, where she's peeling fruit. I know what's coming next: a huge tray of apples and oranges and kiwi, each little bite-size piece stuck through with a colorful toothpick. Every time the guys come over, she insists on serving them a fruit tray, as if they're four-year-olds with scurvy.

Moose wrinkles his nose as I sit next to him with my mug. “Don't be breathing your nasty coffee breath on me, Nix.”

I make a face at him and turn to Chang. “Sorry I'm late. I had a job.”

“Cuparino?” he asks.

I shrug in response. I like to keep my business confidential. As much as I would love spilling the beans about Coop's Speedo, I never gossip about my marks.

Moose and Chang both smile at my mom as she sets down the preschool fruit tray. Moose pops an orange slice in his mouth, waits for my mom to go back to the sink, then leans in and lowers his voice. “No need to be all zippy-lipped, like you work for the flipping Witness Protection Program. We know it was Coop, we sold him the timer hack this morning.”

Chang nods, selecting an apple slice. “You ought to be giving us a kickback,” he says in between bites.

I glance at my mom, but she's got her head in the fridge
now, no doubt hoping that dinner will appear if she looks hard enough. “Jeez, you guys, someday you're going to get busted by the wrong parents,” I whisper. “Coop's dad is chief of police, you know.”

“Relax already, would you? It's not like we're dealing drugs. You think Papa Coop's gonna bust our chops over some video game code?” Moose asks, reaching for another toothpicked orange. “Local PD's got bigger fish to fry than us, Nix.”

“Whatever. I just don't want people thinking we're a racket. You do your business, I'll do mine. No discussion, no kickbacks, no nothing. Got it?”

“
Fy fæn
, Nixy, hold the salt, we get it,” Chang says.
Fy fæn
is a really bad word in Norwegian that Chang's cousin taught us one summer after his study-abroad program in Oslo. The three of us have used it for years now, since it tends to get us in much less trouble than the English F-word. Our homeroom teacher in sixth grade actually asked us once if “feefon” was the latest slang word for cool or groovy. (We told her it was.) Chang's cousin also taught us the word
rasshøl
, which we use all the time, though not so much around parents and teachers since its meaning is a bit . . . clearer.

“Are we going to play chess now or what?” Chang asks, grabbing two more apple slices, two oranges, and two kiwis. Chang insists on even numbers, even when he's snacking.

“Yeah, let's get this battle going,” Moose chimes in, scooting
his chair back. “Ma promised to make Tater Tots casserole tonight and I don't want to be late for the love tots.”

As usual, we set up the chessboard in the dining room so all the gaming devices in the rest of the house won't distract us. This afternoon it's my turn to play against Chang, while Moose keeps track of our moves in a notebook.

The three of us are on the chess team at school, which has been an ongoing embarrassment. (The chess team, not us.) We have a reputation throughout the region for being the “team most likely to humiliate itself” at every tournament we enter. But I've been elected team captain this year and I intend to turn things around. Not because I actually care about our reputation, but because I need proof of “leadership” for my college applications.

Supposedly, the best universities expect you not only to take part in extracurricular activities (ugh), but also to prove your leadership abilities by “spearheading an exciting initiative” (eye roll). The way I see it, college admissions boards must be made up of former student council try-hards and spirit committee rah-rahs. But I've spent my whole life watching my parents work their butts off for other people, and I am determined not to follow in their footsteps. No fine arts degree for me, no liberal arts education. My goal is to get into the best business school I can, so I can be one of those “other people”—namely, the Boss.

Chess Club was the only extracurricular activity I could stomach. I got Moose and Chang to sign up with me this year and then convince our fellow teammates to vote me in as captain. My sole campaign promise was to provide pizza at every practice, which just goes to show that votes can always be bought for the right price. (Cue Jill Bauer shaking her head again here.)

I'm hoping to improve our team's performance this year, so I can write my college application essays about my “initiative” to make us not suck so bad. Hence, the extra chess practices at my house with Moose and Chang. As it turns out, they're actually pretty killer at the game, maybe due to all the spatial skills they've developed creating custom MEEP worlds. I'm not bad either, although I'm more easily distracted than they are, especially while waiting for my opponent to make his move. By the time it's my turn again, I've forgotten where I am because I've been thinking about a hundred other things.

“Checkmate,” says Chang, interrupting my thoughts.

Case in point.

After Chang and Moose shuffle off to their own west-side Baby Janes, I go down to the basement to my dad's studio. Our basement is nothing special—just a big concrete room with exposed beams across the top to hold the rest of the house up—but I love it down here. The walls are lined with homemade bookshelves that are packed full with books, of course, but also
loads of art supplies. It smells like oil paint and turpentine, even though Dad hardly ever works on his own art anymore.

A neglected easel sits in one corner with a half-finished painting of a phoenix, my birthday present from two years ago that he keeps promising to work on. Every now and then I cover it with a tarp, not because I don't like it (I do; it's pretty sweet), but because I think it makes Dad feel guilty to look at it every day. He always ends up uncovering it, though. He says it reminds him of what's important.

He's a little sentimental that way. Both my parents are. When they were newlyweds back in the day and still believed in their “dreams”—Mom aspired to be a novelist, Dad a fine artist—they packed their belongings into a little U-Haul truck, grabbed their fresh-off-the-press diplomas from the Art Institute of Chicago, and drove two hours south to this middle-of-nowhere town we now call home.

They rented a small house by the railroad tracks where they could live cheaply and pursue their passions side by side. Sounds so romantic, doesn't it? Only three months in, while they were out buying groceries, faulty wiring in their electric heater started a fire. That blissful love cottage burned to the ground before my parents reached the dairy aisle at Handy Mart.

Everything they had was lost. Mom's novel-in-progress. Dad's paintings. Mom's ancient Apple computer. Dad's art
supplies. Every last thing either burned to a crisp or was smoke-damaged beyond repair. The only things left were their old Ford pickup, the clothes on their backs, and two bags of Handy Mart groceries.

That night they stayed at the Motel 6 by the highway. (You see where this is going, right?) Nine months later I was born, and they named me Phoenix Ray Bauer, their “phoenix from the ashes.”

I told you they were sentimental.

Dad is asleep on the lumpy couch in the middle of the room, one arm draped over his eyes to keep out the light. An oversize computer monitor sits on the coffee table next to him, casting an eerie screen saver glow over its slumbering slave. Sometimes, I wish I could drape a tarp over it, too.

I tiptoe around the room and start tidying up, gathering coffee mugs and dirty dishes. Dad has obviously pulled another all-nighter. He's in charge of Christmas in the Landing, which will be unveiled on Black Friday—I count on my fingers—only eight days away. Black Friday is also the MEEP's one-year anniversary, so Dad's bosses have told him to pull out all the stops on this. He can't just toss some tinsel around like we do at our house and call it Christmas. Not in the MEEP. This has to be
big
. Dad's been working on it for months.

Mom comes down the basement stairs carrying a dinner tray. I place a hand on Dad's arm to wake him gently, but he
startles anyway, popping up like I've blasted a bullhorn in his ear. He looks around and wipes the sleep out of his eyes, then smiles sheepishly at Mom and me. “How are the two most beautiful girls in the world?” he asks as Mom leans down to peck him on the cheek. “Is Christmas over yet? Please say yes.”

Mom hands him a big green smoothie. “Afraid not. But no more coffee until you drink this, Vic. And you could use a shower before you get back to work. You smell like a caveman.”

“And you look like an extra from
Braveheart
,” I chime in. Dad's a big ginger-headed man to begin with, but add several months of beard and hair growth and he looks like some crazy Highlander about to go brawling for fun.

Dad makes a face at us and gulps down the green sludge like a trouper, then reaches for the plate of chicken linguini Mom's made. He pauses in between bites to say, “And what's up with the Nixinator? Been bounty hunting anywhere interesting lately?”

I shake my head. “Same old, same old. Mostly luvme templates with few or no custom elements.”

“Filthy casuals,” Dad says, winking at me. We both know what's coming next.

Old mama bobblehead starts up. “The MEEP is for everyone, you two, and people have the right to play in it however they like. Besides,” Mom adds, unsuccessfully trying to raise one eyebrow at us, “we already have enough hardcore game snobs in the world.”

“Never!” I say, but she knows I don't mean it. My dad and I make fun of hardcore gamers as much as we make fun of casuals. As Dad says, we're equal-opportunity teasers.

“So, Nix, got time to try out Christmas in the Landing for me?” Dad asks. “We still have some glitches to fix and a few more mini-games to add, but we're close to the finish line.”

“Dinner and homework first,” Mom chimes in before I can answer.

“All I have is some pre-calc, which I mostly finished in study hall,” I tell her. “And I just ate a ton of fruit, remember? I'll heat up some pasta when I get back, I promise.” (Actually, I'd only eaten two kiwi slices and I still have a buttload of homework to do, but what's a little hyperbole between mother and daughter?)

“Great!” says Dad, before Mom can answer. “I'll get it ready to roll.”

Mom tries to raise one eyebrow again, but all it does is wrinkle her forehead. Poor Jill. She tries so hard to instill order in the Bauer household, but she is no match for me and Dad.

“Okay,” she finally says, “but I want that timer set for two hours max. Got it?” She narrows her eyes at me first, then turns to Dad to make sure he's listening.

“Got it,” I say, as Dad nods and types code into the computer.

“Here you go, Nix, two hours,” he says, handing me an ear trans.

I plop myself in the comfy old recliner across from the couch
and push back until I'm nearly horizontal, then pull a throw blanket over myself. “Nighty-night,” I say, clipping the earpiece onto the titanium stud in my left ear. A high-pitched frequency sequence begins to transmit code between Dad's computer and my brain. A few seconds later I'm in the test Landing.

It's the same Landing I was in earlier—the big, glass shopping mall—but now it's on Christmas steroids. Hundreds of thousands of twinkly lights cover every visible surface. A three-story Christmas tree fills the central atrium, its ornaments representing every country on the planet, as well as the one hundred–plus MEEP world templates. A toy plane flies around the tree in spirals, waving a banner behind it that reads P
EACE ON
E
ARTH
on one side, MEEP
ON
E
ARTH
on the other.