The Flying Troutmans Read Online Free PDF

onto his bed. He fell face down, and I punched the pillow next to his head so he’d have an air hole. Thebes took off his shoes and a condom fell out of one of them.
    Yeah, right, she said.
    Does he have a girlfriend? I asked her.
    Deborah Solomon, she said.
    Logan moaned. I love her! he said.
    She’s a writer with The New York Times, said Thebes.
    Logan’s arm slipped off the bed and he picked up a Public Enemy CD that was lying on the floor and held it to his face.
    He thinks that’s Deborah Solomon, whispered Thebes.
    Logan was out. Thebes hustled off to her bedroom,took a running jump from the doorway and landed on her bed. Righteous air, I said. Sweet dreams.
    I went downstairs and cleaned up the Cascade and then headed back up to make sure Logan was still breathing and hadn’t choked on his own vomit. He was fine, snoring softly, hadn’t moved at all. But I could hear Thebes crying. I went into her room and sat down beside her on the bed. Hey, I said. She was hiding her face behind a book. What’s up, buttercup? I asked. She couldn’t talk. I gently pulled the book away from her face so I could have a look at her. I smiled. She was a mess. I put her book down on the floor and held her and sang a few lame songs and told her Min was going to pull through, she always does, she’s strong. She’s so strong.
    Thebes told me she’d stuck her arm in a machine at Pharma Plus and found out that her blood pressure is high but not dangerously high.
    High’s the new normal around here, I think, I told her. I rocked her like a baby. I sang every lullaby I knew, and some old Talking Heads and even some George Clinton. She told me I’d lost her place in her Quidditch Through the Ages book but it was okay. Eventually she fell asleep in my arms.
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    That night I had a dream that Min had showered, and the kids and I had thrown a party. Hundreds of people showed up, people from around the world. Logan was in charge of the music and Thebes poured the champagne. Even Cherkis showed up, but he stayed in the yard and thekids scampered in and out of the house bringing him stuff and exchanging furtive messages.
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    Thebes was all business in the morning, running around the house getting her school stuff together, talking non-stop. Every so often she’d inhale sharply like she really needed an infusion of air right then to get her through her next story. It reminded me of Min and how she used to demonstrate her hyperventilating technique. Her goal had been to pass out in our tree house and then “accidentally” fall out of the tree to her death.
    Thebes was still wearing her blue terry cloth outfit, but she’d washed her face and combed her hair a bit, on the sides, in the front. I was still stretched out in her little bed going, Mmmm-hmmmm, mmmm-hmmmm, really, yeah, wow, mmmm-hmmmmm, while she motored around the place getting ready.
    You know what I hate? she said.
    No, what.
    When my teacher uses carpet as a verb, she said. She put on her teacher voice. We’re carpeting. After carpet I’ll help you work out your personal problems. When we carpet we keep our hands in our laps.
    What’s carpeting? I asked.
    We sit on a carpet and talk, said Thebes.
    That sounds nice, I said.
    Show me ten! said Thebes.
    What? I asked.
    My teacher says that all the time, she said. It meansshow me ten fingers, like show me your hands so I know you’re not fooling around with them during carpet. I told Thebes that the next time her teacher asks them to show her ten, she should say she’s only got two, and hold up her middle fingers.
    Uh, no, said Thebes. She stopped shoving things into her backpack long enough to give me a look. First of all, she told me, eleven-year-olds at her school don’t do that, yet. Well, not the girls. And second, she already was not enjoying a lot of status at school, partly because of her prodigious kung fu skills that she couldn’t help,