The Astonishing Adventures of Fan Boy and Goth Girl Read Online Free PDF

He's picky about his potato chips—he only likes the ruffle-cut kind, so I'm not supposed to eat them, but I swipe some whenever I can. I take a Coke to go with it all and head down to my room.
    The step-fascist himself is toiling over one of his many hunting rifles, which is disassembled on the workbench. I can smell gun oil and Budweiser. Alcohol and firearms. Good combination. He doesn't even grunt an acknowledgment of my presence, which is fine—I don't want to have to break out my Human-to-Monosyllable Dictionary. I make sure to lock my bedroom door.
    So, William Jennings Bryan. Come on, people, give me a challenge. Cross of gold. Populism. Blah, blah, blah. I knock out ten pages on early-twentieth-century American politics, then scale back to six because Mr. Bachman doesn't appreciate my in-depth analyses, nor does he necessarily have the ability to understand them. (I happened to see his lesson plans once—they'd been downloaded from some website. only the best and brightest at South Brook High.)
    I IM Cal, but he reminds me that he's got lacrosse practice.
Talk l8r
he tells me, then signs off.
    I spend a little time on the Web, checking the prices of a new Mac and eBay's latest on
Giant-Size X-Men.
Apple's offering a free printer with the computer, which is great. Now only if they'd offer a free
computer
with the computer. Ten different people are offering the comic on eBay, each auction at different stages, all but one out of my reach. That last one is only a day old, though, so the price will skyrocket later. I put in a bid anyway, just in case. With millions of people bidding on millions of things all over the world, all day long, there's gotta be a chance that someone will screw up and overlook a particular auction, right?
    Then, the big event: I check on the details of the comic book convention that will be held next weekend. It's an hour away, down in the heart of the city, but it's the only convention anywhere near Brookdale (defining "near" to mean "any distance that does not require a plane, train, or bus"). It's the first year for this particular convention. I've been following it online, from website to website, message board to message board as the organizers talked and chatted about their plans, beginning with the germ of an idea last winter, now grown into something that is
almost
a convention. Something that, soon, will
be
a convention. Comic book retailers from around the country. Representatives from publishers big and small. Freebies. Guys who publish their own stuff, hawking their wares. Artists and writers and editors—people who are just names in a credit box or on a website or in a
Wizard
article. They'll be here. Just an hour away.
    But that's not why I care. What I care about is Bendis. Bendis will be there.
    I check the website every day, sometimes twice a day. His name is still at the top of the list on the page titled "Guests!"
GUESTS!
    Meet an array of astonishing artists, writers, and
other creators! Including:
    Brian Michael Bendis: Writer of
New Avengers, House of

M, Ultimate Spider-Man, Powers,
and many, many more!
Multiple Eisner Award winner!
    There's more, but I don't care. Bendis.
    There's a little blurb at the bottom of the "Guests!" page that says, "All guests presence are tentative." (I didn't write that. I'm just quoting bad grammar.) "Convention not responsible for travel delays, etc. All guests subject to change."
    So I check. Every day. To make sure. Certain that there'll be a message on the site one day that says, "We regret to inform you that Brian Michael Bendis will be unable to attend..." Because that's how things usually work out for me. But so far, so good.
    My daily Bendis-panic quelled, I scrounge around for the pages of
Schemata
that I printed out the other day. Pages 1-10 are in a stack on my desk. Pages 15-21 are in the printer. I find page 23 under my bed. Don't know how it got there.
    I could just print out the missing pages, but I made some notes on them