As Told By Nerdy

Chapter 42 - Freddy

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Chapter 42 – Freddy

I watched as Kidnap played with his brothers Homework and Seesaw and his sister Tuesday in the vast yard of an enormous posh-looking home in a neighbourhood somewhere in downtown Los Angeles. Freddy Junior, Kidnap’s Dad yapped at the little ones whenever they get a little overboard with the shrubbery.

“Still okay?” I asked Becky who sat weakly beside me in the front porch.

Her face was as pale as paper, her eyes a little red around the edges but she nodded and smiled at me with an obvious effort. Last night, she had a bad fever and I was really worried because she’d been moaning agitatedly and non-stop in her sleep. She kept blurting “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m the worst,” and stuff like that while crying but I doubt she’d remember saying all those things now. I assumed it was all about the Matt dilemma. Same old, same old.

Surprisingly, Becky had been nothing but excruciatingly silent since waking up this morning. That got me especially worried. She must be really sick. I thought day she’d decide to shut up would cause an apocalypse.

Good bye beautiful world! I’d lived a short but fruitful life, but do you think you could put up with global warming a little longer and extend the deadline?

“You sure?” I said putting my hand on her forehead. It seemed that the fever had gone.

“Sure.” She said.

Arthur and Leon were leaning on the car outside the tall wrought iron gates, perhaps still waiting for Freddy. It was almost lunchtime when he arrived from Louella’s victory party. Coincidentally, he found me chucking the food Becky and I prepared straight to the trash bin as he stepped in the kitchen.

When he asked why I was throwing the food away when he didn’t even get a chance to taste it, I just smiled blankly, avoided his eyes and said a very intelligent thing like “Err... don’t want you contracting botulism,” which was nerd language for not-for-human-consumption.

Yeah well, I forgot to put the stuff in the fridge since I was too miserable to do so last night and voila! Food poisoning extravaganza!

Out of the blue, Leon told me to get ready so we could go somewhere extremely important as if the future of humanity depended on it. So, I dragged Becky with me, as sick as she was since I wasn’t much too keen on leaving her alone in the Walden Mansion. I could only feel guilty. Leon and I hadn’t talked much after that.

Now, we had been waiting for this Freddy guy to come home. I didn’t know who he was but as far as I knew, he was someone pretty important to Leon. Apparently, Freddy owned the huge house (which was still a bit smaller than Leon’s mansion but still too big for an old guy and five dogs) and he was the one who had Leon adopt Kidnap to give to me for my birthday.

It must be really depressing living alone with dogs for companion. I smirked bitterly thinking how ironic it was that I actually planned to live alone in some grungy apartment with a retriever as far away from my mother as possible. I was beginning to reconsider my future.

I was imagining Freddy as a stout old guy in his late fifty’s with sparse sandy hair, double chin, and a cheery smile when Becky finally broke the silence.

“Sarah, you know how stupid I can be sometimes, don’t you?” She said with a raspy voice, her eyes fixed on the polished granite floor.

“Uhh... Yeah,” I replied tentatively. “Sometimes can be a bit of an understatement, now that I think about it.” I said teasingly with a light chuckle but Becky didn’t seem to get the humor so I pretended to clear my throat instead.