Norbert is not a normal name. I would do anything to change it to something less make-fun-able.
But Dad named me after his father and his grandfather. Dad. Don’t think about him.
As if I could ever put the brakes on my brain. My mind is like a multilevel racetrack with dozens of cars zipping in different directions. To stop that much mental activity, it would take something drastic, like getting run over by a Mack truck.
I cross the street out of Beckford Palms Estates, where we’re staying with Bubbie, into the real world of smaller homes and strip malls with Publix grocery stores. And heat. Wet, sticky heat. No Mack trucks, though. In fact, hardly any traffic at all. In New Jersey, where I’m from, you took your life in your hands when you crossed a street this big.
Safely on the opposite side, I try to remember which way to the Dunkin’ Donuts. It’s been a long time since I’ve been here, visiting Bubbie Bernice, and back then Mom drove us to the Dunkin’, so I didn’t pay attention to which way she went. What would I change my name to? Thaddeus? Pretentious. Mark? Boring. Phineas? Already taken. This makes me smile. Good old Phineas. I can’t believe I had to leave him behind when we moved to Florida. Leaving my friend Phineas was one of the toughest things about leaving New Jersey and moving here.
But not the toughest thing.
Don’t think about it!
No one here knows me as Norbert. Maybe I could change my name before school starts. I’ll ask Mom.
I can’t believe school starts in only six days. I’ll have to get clothes. I wish they required uniforms so at least I’d know what everyone would be wearing. Are the styles the same here in Florida as they are in New Jersey? I wish Phin were here. He’d know what I should wear. He’s so good at knowing stuff like that—what’s cool and what’s lame.
Even without Phin telling me, it’s obvious what I’m wearing now is super lame. It’s about a million degrees, and I’m sweating in places I didn’t know you could sweat—like the backs of my knees—because I’m wearing corduroy pants. What sane person wears corduroy pants in August in South Florida? But when I realized how flippin’ hot it was, I didn’t want to go back into the house to change. Mom was crying when I left, and Bubbie was patting her hand and making her tea. When Mom cries this hard, it makes me worry about Dad, and I think maybe he’s not going to be okay. I can’t think negatively, so I had to get out. And stay out for a while, corduroy pants melting my legs and all.
Before I left New Jersey, Phin told me I needed to be relentlessly positive. So that’s what I’m going to do. Dad’s going to be okay. Dad’s going to be okay. Dad’s going to be—
Stop. Thinking. About. It.
To quiet my brain as I walk, I stick in earbuds and turn the volume way up on the music Phineas had chosen for me the last time we hung out. He said he picked all upbeat songs because he knew I’d need them. And here I am, in hotter-than-Hades South Florida, needing them.
I hope I find someone to sit with during lunch at Gator Lake Middle—my new school. We drove by it yesterday. There’s a track and basketball courts behind the one-story building and a small lake. I wonder if there are alligators in the lake. Probably. That might be why it’s called Gator Lake Middle.
Bubbie told me alligators could be in any body of water other than a swimming pool or the ocean. I didn’t believe her, so I looked up some stuff about Florida. She’s right about the alligators. But I’ll bet she didn’t know it’s estimated that there are 1.3 million alligators in Florida.
If you think about it—and I have—there are at least six ways to die in South Florida: being eaten by an alligator, poisonous snakebite (there are six varieties of poisonous snakes in Florida), lightning strike (South Florida is the lightning-strike capital of the United States), hurricane, flood, even fire-ant bites, if there are enough of them.
I wish we hadn’t moved to South Florida. There are too many ways to die here.
I don’t want to die. I don’t want—
Stop! You’re not going to die here in South Florida.
But it could happen. It could happen anywhere.
Sometimes, I wish there were an off switch for my race-car thoughts.
I walk faster with extra-long strides to match my thrumming heartbeat, even though I don’t know where I’m going.
I’m sure if I walk long enough, though, I’ll find a Dunkin’ Donuts. They’re everywhere.
I go up one street and down the next, wiping sweat from my forehead and upper lip, wishing I were wearing shorts instead of long corduroy pants, wishing Phin were here, wishing—
Stop!
When I see the Dunkin’ Donuts sign, a wave of relief washes over me. I need an iced coffee and a doughnut before I pass out. Caffeine and sugar. Breakfast of champions. Maybe two doughnuts and a really large iced coffee. Maybe two iced coffees.
I have enough money for only one iced coffee, though, and two doughnuts, so that’s what I buy.
After adding several packets of sugar to my coffee and guzzling it, I decide to save the doughnuts till I get back. I’ll need something to get me through this day.
The caffeine gives me a nice buzz, and I feel good. Really good. I’m half dancing, half walking back to Beckford Palms Estates, which is crazy if you think about all the things wrong with my life.
When I pass the grand entrance fountain and walk through the pedestrian gate at Beckford Palms Estates, I think it’s weird that no one’s outside. I dance-walk past one perfectly cut lawn after the next and don’t see a single person. Nor a married person, for that matter. Ha. Ha. Phineas would have appreciated that one.
It feels like I’m on the set of a reality TV show. Maybe I am. What if there are cameras everywhere and none of this is real? What if people are watching us all the time? I stop dance-walking just in case. Of course, smart people are probably in the air-conditioning, working or watching TV or being bitten by a battalion of fire ants or whatever people in South Florida do when it’s a million degrees outside. I realize I’m most likely not on a reality TV show, which is a big relief. So I go back to grooving to the upbeat music that’s flooding my brain with happiness through my earbuds.
I glance ahead and see a guy pulling groceries from the trunk of his car.
Life! There is actual life here at Beckford Palms Estates.
A girl rushes down the path toward him. He’s probably her dad. I wish he were my dad. I know that’s dumb, but if he were my dad, my life would definitely be different. Easier. Infinitely better.
Stop thinking.
But he’s not. He’s her dad, and she probably doesn’t realize how lucky she is. Which kind of makes me not like her, even though I don’t know her.
The girl waves. At me! She’s wearing this cute red dress. And suddenly, my opinion changes, and I like her.
I can’t help but smile.
I’m sure I look like a complete idiot, wearing heavy pants in summer and sweating like Niagara Falls, but she doesn’t seem to mind. She’s got the prettiest blue eyes. Amazing eyes, like a shimmering swimming pool I want to dive into.
WWPD? What would Phineas do?
He’d wave back, of course. Simple. Perfect. Obvious. Just wave back, dummy.
So I do. Only I wave with the hand holding the Dunkin’ bag because that’s how smooth I am.
But the girl smiles. The blue-eyed girl with the pretty red dress smiles. At me.
I make a mental note of her house number—1205 Lilac Lane—and keep going.
Maybe Beckford Palms won’t be the worst place in the world.
Then I remember why we’re here. I remember where Dad is. Why Mom was crying when I left the house.
And I know for sure it will be the worst.
