Chapter 3 Chapter 3 Grover loses his pants

Confession time: I dumped Grover after we got to the bus terminal. I know it's rude, but Grover's behavior is so abnormal, he looks at me like I'm a dead person, and keeps mumbling "why does this happen every time", "why must it be sixth grade "These words. Whenever Grover gets depressed, his bladder goes awry, so I wasn't surprised when Grover said he was going to the bathroom after we got out of the car.He asked me to promise to wait for him, and then took the shortest way to go to the toilet.Instead of waiting for him, I grabbed my suitcase and slipped out, hailed a taxi and headed uptown.

"East 104th Street and First Avenue," I told the driver. Before you meet my mother, let me tell you a little bit about her. Her name is Sally·Jackson, and she is the nicest person in the whole world.It's easy to prove that I'm right, because the best people always have the worst luck.Her parents died in an air crash when she was five, and she was adopted by an uncle who didn't take much care of her.She wanted to be a novelist, so she worked all her high school to save money, and missed a college that offered creative writing classes, when her uncle got cancer and she had to take time off to care for him.After her uncle passed away, she had no money, no family, and no degree.

The only good luck she ever had in her life was meeting my dad. The memory of my dad in my head is nothing but a warm glow, maybe a trace of his smile.My mom doesn't like to talk about him because it makes her sad, and she doesn't have a picture of him. They are not married.Mom said my dad was a rich and important man and their relationship was a secret.One day my dad took a boat across the Atlantic for an important trip and never came back. He disappeared in the sea, my mother told me so, he didn't die, he was just lost in the sea. She worked part-time jobs during the day, attended evening classes at night to finish high school, and raised me independently.She never complained or got angry, not once, but I know I'm not a good kid.

Later, she married Gabor Ariano, who was fine for the first thirty seconds we met him, and then he was a world-class jerk.I even nicknamed him "Stinky Gabor" when I was a kid.As rude as this is, I mean it, that guy stinks like moldy garlic pizza wrapped in worn gym pants. My mom was having a hard time between me and him, whether it was the way Stinky Gable treated her, or the way he and I got along.Well, take what happened after I got home as an example. I walked into our tiny apartment, hoping that by then Mom would be home from work.But unfortunately, as soon as I walked in, I saw Stinky Gaber playing poker with his buddies in the living room. The TV was turned on very loudly, it was the ESPN sports channel, and potato chips and beer were scattered on the carpet.

Barely looking up, he said, puffing on his cigar, "Oh, you're back." "Where's my mother?" "Working," he said, "do you have any money?" That's it, no "welcome back" or "nice to see you" or "how's your half year going" greetings. Gabor had grown fat and looked like a short-tusk walrus in second-hand clothing.There were only three locks of hair on his head, all combed over his bald scalp, as if it would make him more handsome. He works at an electrical appliance store in Queens, but spends most of his time at home, and I've always wondered why he wasn't fired.He spends his paycheck on cigars that make me sick and of course beer, always beer.In any case, as long as I was home, he asked me to provide him with some stakes.He called it a "man's secret," which meant that if I told my mom, he'd give me a hard time.

"I have no money," I said. He raised a scruffy eyebrow. It's surprising that Gaber can smell money like a bloodhound, since his stink should overwhelm all other smells. "You take a taxi home from the bus station," he said, "and you're supposed to take out a twenty-dollar bill and pay and get six or seven back. A few taels. Eddie, am I right?" Eddie, the caretaker of the apartment, looked at me with a bit of unease and sympathy and said, "Come on, Gabor, he just got back." "Am I right?" Gabor repeated. Eddie buried his head in a bowl of shortbread while the other two farted at the same time.

"Okay," I said.I took a wad of bills out of my pocket, threw it on the table and said, "I hope you lose." "Here's your report card, smart boy!" he yelled behind me. "I wouldn't be so arrogant if I were you." I walked into the room and slammed the door shut.This is no longer my room. During the few months I lived on campus, it became Gaber's "study room"; in fact, he didn't study anything except antique car magazines.He likes to shove my stuff in the closet, put his muddy booties on my windowsill, and does his best to make the place smell like his disgusting cologne, cigars, and stale Same with beer.

I put my luggage on the bed.Home sweet home. Gabor's stench was almost worse than Mrs. Dawes's nightmares, and the old lady at the fruit stand snipping her wool. Still, when I think about those things, my feet go limp.I remember Grover's panicked face, and the way he asked me to promise to let him go home with me.A sudden chill came over me, as if someone or something was watching me, and that thing might be plodding up the stairs, hands and feet growing into long, terrifying claws. Then, I heard my mother's voice. "Percy?" She opened the bedroom door and my fear disappeared.

As soon as Mom walks in, I feel better.Her eyes sparkle under the light, her smile warms me under the blanket, and her brown hair is mixed with a few gray hairs. I never thought she would grow old.When she looked at me like it was good to see me forever and nothing else bad.I never heard her yell or say a mean word to anyone, not even me or Gabor. "Oh, Percy," she hugged me tightly. "I can't believe you've grown so fast, it's only Christmas until now!" She's wearing a red, white and blue "Sweet America" ​​candy store uniform that smells like the best things in the world: chocolate, licorice, and the candy she sells at the candy store in Grand Central Station.Every time I go home, she brings me a big bag of "free samples" from the store.

We sat on the edge of the bed together.When I wanted a blueberry candy bar to attack, she ran her hands through my hair and made me tell her everything I didn't write in my letter.She didn't mention my firing as if she didn't care at all.She just wanted to know if I was doing well, if I was all right. I told her that I would almost suffocate if I kept asking, could I stop for a while.But honestly, I'm really, really happy to see her. Gabor yelled from another room, "Hey, Sally, is the green bean dressing ready?" I gritted my teeth. My mom is the nicest woman in the world, she should marry a millionaire, not an idiot like Gable.

To reassure her, I tried to look like I wasn't overwhelmed by Yancy's final days at school.I told her that I wasn't too depressed by being fired, that I made it through almost a full year this time, made a few new friends, and learned Latin very well.And to be honest, the matter of scolding the teacher was not as bad as the headmaster said.I love the Yancy school and really, I've done so well this year that I almost believe I can do it.I was suddenly speechless, thinking of Grover and Mrs. Brunner, and even Nancy Popophy wasn't that annoying. Then, I remembered the day I taught outside the museum... "What's wrong?" Mom asked me.Her eyes tugged at my heart, trying to pull my secret out. "Did something scare you?" "Mom, no." I hate being a liar, and I want to tell her about Mrs Dawes and the three old knitting ladies, but it must sound ridiculous. She pursed her lips.She knew she swallowed my words back, but she didn't force me to say it. "I have a surprise for you," she said. "Let's go to the beach for a vacation." I opened my eyes wide and said, "To Montauk?" "Stay in that cabin for three days." "when?" She smiled and said, "Let's go after I change my clothes." I can't believe it.Mom and I didn't go to Montauk the previous two summers because Gabor said there wasn't enough money. Gabor appears in the hallway and yells, "Sally, green bean dressing, do you hear that?" I really wanted to beat him up, but seeing the look in my mother's eyes, I knew she wanted me to trade things off, she wanted me to treat Gabor a little better, until she packed up and went to Montauk.Then we can get out of here. "Going to do it, honey," she told Gabor. "We're talking about travel." Gabor's eyes narrowed. "Travel? You mean, are you serious?" "He will," Mom said calmly. "Your stepfather is just worried about the money, that's all. And," she continued, "Gaber doesn't have to settle for Yang Chun's green bean dressing. I'll help him. Prepare super luxurious mixed salad dressing, enough for him to eat all weekend, it will add guacamole, sour cream, all ready." Gabor softened a little. "Then the money for your trip... will be deducted from your budget for buying clothes, right?" "Okay, honey," Mom said. "And you can't take my car somewhere else, just drive it there and back." "We'll be careful." Gabor scratched his double chin. "If you could whip up a mixed salad dressing...and if you apologize to me for interrupting my poker game." If I could hit you in the gut and make you howl for a week.I think. But my mother warned me with her eyes, telling me not to provoke him. Why is she putting up with this guy?I want to shout, why should I care what he thinks? "I'm sorry," I whispered, "I'm really sorry to interrupt your very important game, please go back and continue immediately." Gabor's eyes narrowed, his meager brain probably trying to detect the sarcasm in my words. "Okay, forget it." He decided. He went back to playing his poker. "Thank you, Percy," Mom said. "This time we're going to Montauk, so we can talk more about... something you forgot to tell me, okay?" For a split second, I seemed to see worry in her eyes, as if she felt an eerie chill in the air.I've seen the same concern in Grover's eyes on the bus. But she soon returned to smiling, I think I was wrong.She ruffles my hair and helps Gabor make salad dressing. An hour later, we were ready to leave. Gabor paused his poker game to watch me lift Mom's bag to the car.He continued to munch on his food, complaining about not being able to eat his mother's cooking all weekend, and more importantly, his 1978 Cameron. "Don't scratch my car, smart boy," he warned me as I put in the last piece of luggage. "Not even a little scratch." It's like I'm driving a car.I'm twelve years old, but that doesn't matter to Gabor, if a seagull happens to poop on the paint on his car, he'll take the opportunity to yell at me. Watching him shuffle back to the apartment drove me crazy, and I did something I couldn't explain.As Gabor walked through the door, I made a hand sign, the one that Grover made on the bus to exorcise evil spirits.A clawed hand rose from my heart, and rushed towards Gabor.The screen door slammed shut and hit him hard in the ass, sending him flying up the stairs like a cannonball.Maybe it was the wind, or something was wrong with the hinges of the door shaft, but I didn't stay to find out. I walked into Cameron and told my mother it was time to drive. The cabin we rented was on the south coast, just off the tip of Long Island.It was a small light-colored box space with faded curtains, half of the house sunken into the dunes, and there was perpetual sand and spiders on the sheets, and the sea was too cold to swim most of the time. But I love this place. We've been going there since I was a baby.My mom went there a long time ago and she didn't really mention it, but I can see why this beach is so special to her because it's where she and Dad met. She seems to get younger the closer we get to Montauk.Years of worries and work stress faded from her face and her eyes were the color of sea water. We arrived at dusk and opened all the windows of the cabin as soon as we entered.After the routine cleanup, we went for a walk by the beach, tossed blue corn to the seagulls, chomped on blue fudge and blue saltwater taffy, and a lot of my mom's work from work. Free samples brought from the place. I guess I should explain these blue foods. Well, Gabor once told my mom there would be no such thing, and they fought over it, which seemed like a trivial thing at the time, but since then, my mom has found her way of finding blue food.She bakes blue birthday cakes, makes blueberry smoothies, buys blue tortillas, and takes home blue candy from the store.She kept her premarital sex "Jackson" instead of taking her husband's surname "Ariano". From these things, it can be proved that she is not blindly following Gaber, she has a tendency to rebel, just like me. As night fell, we built a fire and roasted hot dogs and marshmallows.Mom told the story of her childhood, before her parents found out about the plane crash.She said that one day when she had saved enough money to leave the candy store, she would write. Finally, tensing my nerves, I asked about the thing that was always on my mind whenever we were in Montauk—Dad.My mother's eyes were full of tears. I knew she would say the same thing as before, but I would never get tired of hearing it. "Percy, he's a nice fellow," she said. "He's tall and handsome and imposing, but very gentle. You have black hair and green eyes like him." Mom took out a blue fudge from the candy bag and said, "Percy, I hope he can meet you, he will be proud of you." I don't understand how she can say that, how can I have anything great to be proud of?A dyslexia, hyperactive boy with a D+ on his report card.Expelled from school six times in six years. "How old am I?" I asked, "I mean... when he left." She looked at the firelight. "Percy, he's just been with me for one summer, right here, on this coast, in this log cabin." "But...he came to see me when I was a baby." "That's not true. Honey, all he knows is that I want a baby, but he's never seen you, and he'll have to leave before you're born." I try to match that statement with my memory of my dad, the warm light and smile I remember. I always thought he had seen me as a baby. Although my mother never said it, I still felt that it must be true, but now my mother said that he had never seen me... I was mad at Papa, maybe it was stupid, but I resented him for going on sailing and for not having the guts to marry Mama.He left us, and we're now trapped by Stinky Garb. "Are you going to send me away again?" I asked her. "To another boarding school?" She pulled the marshmallows off the fire. "Honey, I don't know." Her voice was heavy. "I think . . . I think we have to do something." "You don't want me by your side?" As soon as the words came out, I regretted it. Tears welled up in my mother's eyes, and she grabbed my hand and squeezed it tightly. "Oh, Percy, that's not it, I... I have to do it, honey, it's for your own good, I have to send you away." His words reminded me of what Mr. Brunner said, leaving Yancy was the best way for me. "Because I'm not an ordinary person." I said. "It sounds like you think this sucks, but you don't understand how important you are. I thought Yancy school was far enough away, I thought you were finally safe." "Safe? How to say?" When he looked into my eyes, memories came flooding back, all the unbelievable, frightening, trying to forget things that had happened to me, all coming back. In third grade, a man in a black military raincoat stalked me on the school playground.One teacher threatened to call the police before he snarled away.But when I tell people he has only one eye under his wide-brimmed hat, and it's in the middle of his face, no one believes me. Before that, there was a really, really long memory.When I was in kindergarten, a careless teacher put me in a hammock and a snake slipped in.Mom was screaming when she came to pick me up and he saw me playing with what looked like a limp, scaly rope and looking like I was going to strangle the thing with my fat little hands. At each school several creepy things happened, something dangerous, and I was forced to switch schools. I know that I should tell my mother about the old lady at the fruit stand, which are dangerous things, and the hallucination that I chopped up with Kenpachi math teacher in the museum and turned her into dust, but I couldn't say it.Oddly enough, I feel like this news will end the trip to Montauk, and I don't want to. "I tried my best to put you somewhere close to me," Mom said, "but they told me I couldn't, I had only one choice. Percy, your dad wants to send you somewhere, and I... …I just can’t do it.” "Dad wants me to go to a special school?" "It's not school," she said softly, "it's summer camp." I feel dizzy.Why did my dad, who didn't even have time to stay around to watch my birth, ask my mom to send me to summer camp?If it was so important, why had she never mentioned it before? "Percy, I'm sorry," she looked me straight in the eye. "I really can't say it, I can't send you there, because it says I have to say goodbye to you, although it's for your own good." "For my own good? But if it's just a summer camp..." She turned to look at the flames.From her expression, I knew that if I asked one more question at this time, she would shed tears. I had a very vivid dream that night. There was a storm by the sea, and two beautiful animals, a white horse and a golden eagle, were fighting on the edge of the waves.The golden eagle swooped down and grabbed the white horse's nose with its huge claws, and the white horse jumped up and kicked the golden eagle's wings.As they fought, the earth rumbled, and a hideous laugh came from beneath the ground, spurring the two animals to fight even harder. I run to them, I have to stop them from killing each other, but I can only run in slow motion.It was too late, and the golden eagle was swooping down, aiming its beak at the big eyes of the white horse.I yelled: "No!" I woke up suddenly and jumped up. There was a real storm blowing outside, the kind that could break trees and blow down houses.There are no white horses or golden eagles by the sea, only lightning flashing toward the sun, and waves five or six meters high pounding the sand dunes like cannons. The next lightning strike woke Mom up, and she sat up, opened her eyes wide and said, "It's a hurricane." Which was crazy, because Long Island never had a hurricane in early summer, but the ocean didn't seem to remember that.Amidst the howling wind, I heard a faint low growl in the distance, the sound of anger and pain made my hair stand on end. At this time, there was a relatively close sound, as if beating the sand.It was a very anxious voice...someone was shouting and knocking hard on the door of the cabin. Mom bounced off the bed, passed on her dressing gown, and went to open the door. Grover was standing on the porch with his back to the pouring rain, but he... he wasn't quite Grover. "Looked all night," he gasped, "what were you thinking?" Mom looked at me in horror, not afraid of Grover, not wondering why he had come. "Percy," she whispered, her voice so loud that she could hear it in the rain, "what happened to you at school? What didn't you tell me?" I froze, looking at Grover, I didn't understand what was going on. "O Zeu kai alloi theoi!" he yelled. "That's right behind me! Did you tell her?" I was so horrified that I forgot that he had just been swearing in ancient Greek, and that I knew him well.I was too shocked to even bother to wonder how Grover could come here alone in the middle of the night, and Grover wasn't wearing long pants, and I saw his legs... actually... Mom looked at me sternly and said in a tone I had never heard before, "Percy, speak up!" I stammered about the old lady at the fruit stand and Mr. Dawes, and my mother stared at me, her face was very pale under the light of the lightning. She grabbed the bag, threw the raincoat to me, and said, "Get in the car, you two, go!" " Grover ran to Cameron, not running, to be precise, but galloping away with his shag-covered hips swung.Suddenly, I understood why he had such unreasonably thick muscles in his feet, and why he could run so fast but walk with a limp. Because the place where he should be viewing is not the human feet, but the cloven hooves of animals.