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  On Friday, Mom told me she and Jane were going out for a drink again after classes. Needless to say, I didn’t give her any grief this time. When she left, Cosmo gave me another self-defense lesson. I still wasn’t great, but I was better than last time and, as Cosmo kept reminding me, that was what counted.

  When we were done, I showered and changed for our evening out. As we drove to pick up Amanda, I asked him how he was going to pay for everything. ‘I’d rather wait and tell you both,’ he replied.

  Cliffhanger was a blast. My mom had never let me do anything this physical because she was worried I’d get hurt, so my arms were killing me after only three climbs. But I kept on going. It was exhilarating and terrifying all at once, being so high off the ground, even though I knew I was perfectly safe with an instructor belaying me below. Amanda and Cosmo were having a great time too, and I saw them steal a couple of kisses between climbs.

  Near the end of our session, Cosmo managed to get to the top of a climb that was rated ‘eight’ in difficulty. When he was done, he grinned from ear to ear. ‘Now that was a good high,’ he said, to no one in particular.

  At the restaurant afterward, a burger joint with an arcade near the front, Cosmo said he had an announcement. ‘I got a job,’ he told us.

  ‘Hey, that’s great!’ Amanda said.

  ‘Doing what?’ I asked.

  ‘Working construction. A friend of my brother-in-law’s is the foreman on this big project downtown. I’ll be picking up shifts here and there to start, but I’m hoping, once I prove myself, it will grow into full-time work.’

  ‘This calls for a toast,’ said Amanda. We all raised our glasses and clinked them together.

  ‘You ever wonder why they call buildings buildings?’ I asked. ‘Shouldn’t they be called builts?’

  This made them laugh and then our burgers came and they were delicious. After we ate, Cosmo gave me a bunch of loonies to play in the games room attached to the restaurant. Mom never let me play those games, and even though I knew he only did it because he wanted to be alone with Amanda, I didn’t care.

  I got kind of addicted to the racing car game. I played it over and over again to see if I could stay on the track longer than a minute without crashing. I’d just managed to get to almost two minutes (my own personal record) when my cell phone rang. I looked at the call display.

  It was Mom, calling from her cell phone.

  Thinking fast, I left my game halfway through and ducked into the men’s washroom. ‘Hi, Mom,’ I said.

  ‘Where are you? Why didn’t you pick up at home?’

  ‘I am home,’ I lied. ‘I couldn’t make it to the phone the first time. I was having a dump.’

  ‘Ugh, too much information,’ she said. ‘Listen, Jane canceled. She’s not feeling well.’

  I looked at my watch. It was 10:15. My stomach did a flip. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Just walking to the bus stop. I should be home in twenty minutes.’

  My stomach did a double flip.

  ‘I thought we could be rebels and stay up late, play a game of Scrabble.’

  ‘Sounds great,’ I said, feeling queasy. ‘See you soon.’ I hung up.

  Then I tore back to our table, where Cosmo and Amanda were holding hands. ‘Cosmo, we’ve gotta get out of here,’ I blurted. ‘My mom’s on her way home.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Amanda said, as Cosmo grabbed the waiter and handed him a fifty-dollar bill. ‘His mother doesn’t know he’s out with you?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ said Cosmo, and I could see little beads of sweat popping out on his forehead.

  ‘You took a twelve-year-old boy out for the evening without his mom’s knowledge?’

  ‘It’s not – you’re making it sound like something it isn’t,’ Cosmo said, as we all hurried to the door.

  ‘Well, what is it then? His mom trusts you. You’re his Big Brother.’

  ‘Not technically,’ I said, as we rushed through the parking lot to Cosmo’s car.

  ‘Thanks, Ambrose,’ Cosmo replied, in a way that I was pretty sure was sarcastic.

  ‘You’re not his Big Brother?’ said Amanda, her voice suddenly kind of strangled. ‘You lied to me?’

  ‘No. Yes. A little white lie. I just – I wanted to go out with you,’ he confessed, as we all piled into the car.

  ‘So you lied,’ she said. ‘And used a twelve-year-old boy—’

  ‘He didn’t use me.’ I wanted to help Cosmo. ‘I used him. I got him to drive me to Scrabble Club. He’s my upstairs neighbor.’

  Amanda raised an eyebrow as we pulled out of the parking lot.

  ‘And he acts like my Big Brother – he does all the stuff a Big Brother should. In fact, it’s too bad Big Brothers does background checks because they’d be lucky to have a guy like Cosmo.’

  Cosmo groaned.

  ‘Background checks?’ Amanda was almost whispering now. ‘What else haven’t you told me?’

  ‘I was going to tell you everything,’ Cosmo said.

  ‘When?’

  ‘Soon. Soonish.’

  ‘How about now.’ Suddenly her voice was not the sweet Amanda voice we’d come to know and love. It was like steel.

  Cosmo took a deep breath. ‘Fine. I’m living with my parents because I just got out of jail. I was in for six months for a string of B and Es, which I did to support a drug habit. And no, I’m not really Ambrose’s Big Brother, but when I saw you that first night, I would have said anything for a chance to spend a little more time with you.’

  Amanda didn’t say a word. She was so angry, she was practically vibrating. I could feel the anger coming off her in waves, even from my spot in the backseat. But there was nothing I could do about it because, as we turned onto our block, I saw my mom coming from the other direction, walking home from the bus stop.

  I groaned. ‘I am so doomed.’

  ‘Duck,’ Cosmo said.

  I did. And he drove right past my mom, around the corner, and into the back alley behind the house. ‘Now, run,’ he said, and I did. I leapt out of the car and dashed through the back gate and fumbled with my keys. I made it through the door and flipped on the light. I threw myself onto the couch and grabbed the remote and put on the CBC, just as Mom entered.

  ‘Hi,’ I said. ‘Still want to play Scrabble?’

  ‘Sure,’ she replied, a bit wearily.

  She took off her shoes, then went to the fridge to get a bottle of wine. ‘I think I just saw Cosmo drive by with a young woman in the car.’ She shook her head. ‘I pity that poor girl. I bet, dollars to doughnuts, she has no idea what she’s getting into.’

  Saturday morning, I woke up in a foul mood. I was so crabby that, after we’d done our laundry, Mom suggested she go for our beach walk by herself. I responded that I thought that was a really good goddamn idea, which made her tell me to watch my mouth, which made me tell her that that was like the pot calling the kettle black, which made her say, ‘Oh, for Chrissakes!’ which made me say, ‘See?’ all triumphant-like, which made her say, ‘I hope to hell you’re in a better mood when I get back,’ which made me say, ‘You just swore again,’ which made her storm out of the house.

  The moment she was gone, I called upstairs. Disguising my voice, I asked for Cosmo.

  ‘Ambrose, is that you?’ Mrs E said.

  ‘Ambrose? Who’s Ambrose?’ I said, still disguising my voice.

  ‘We have call display,’ she replied.

  ‘Oh, Ambrose,’ I said, pretending I’d just understood her. ‘Sorry, I have a cold. Can I talk to Cosmo?’

  She put Cosmo on the line and he agreed to meet me in the backyard in five minutes. He was in sweatpants and a sweatshirt. It looked like he hadn’t slept much. He lit a cigarette, even though he probably hadn’t even had breakfast yet. I decided this wasn’t the time to bug him about it.

  ‘What happened?’ I asked.

  ‘I drove her home. I told her it would never happen again, I was sorry, I was in Narcotics Anonymous, blah-blah-blah. She
just jumped out of the car.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Cosmo,’ I said, and I could feel my eyes prickling with tears. ‘It’s all my fault.’

  ‘What are you talking about? It’s my fault, OK?’ He squeezed my shoulder. ‘I’m the one who lied to her.’

  ‘Have you sent her flowers?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You should send her flowers. I read this magazine in the doctor’s office once that said women like that.’

  ‘I don’t know. She was pretty pissed.’

  ‘You can’t just give up,’ I said.

  He inhaled deeply on his cigarette. ‘Fine. I’ll send flowers. And now I’ve got to get some coffee.’ He turned to go into the house.

  ‘What about Scrabble Club?’

  He turned back. ‘I guess it’s on hold for now. Sorry, Ambrose.’

  I could feel my eyes welling up with tears again. ‘Can we still do self-defense? I mean, I know you were only hanging out with me because of Amanda, so if you don’t—’

  ‘Is that what you think?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Then you’re even dumber than you look.’

  He cuffed my head. And even though it hurt a bit, it also felt really good.

  19

  RSCNAOITC

  arctic, accost, carotin, action, cacti, cat

  NARCOTICS

  COSMO SENT FLOWERS to Amanda that morning, but he didn’t hear from her. On Monday he told me that he’d tried to call her a couple of times, but she wasn’t home or just wasn’t answering.

  When he still hadn’t heard from her by Wednesday, he refused to go to Scrabble Club. I missed it even more than I thought I would. I went upstairs to see if Cosmo wanted to play Scrabble, just the two of us, but Mrs E told me he was out.

  ‘At an NA meeting,’ she said.

  I waited to hear his car pull up so I could go and talk to him, but he still hadn’t shown up by the time Mom came home.

  On Friday, after my mom left for work, I knocked on the back door for my self-defense lesson. Cosmo answered, wearing his tank top and sweatpants. He looked rough and kind of jittery, and he was halfway through a cigarette.

  ‘Do your parents let you smoke in the house?’ I asked, because I knew they didn’t.

  ‘They’re not home,’ he replied, crabby-like.

  ‘They’ll be able to smell it—’

  ‘Ambrose. Lay off, OK?’

  I looked at his outfit. ‘Did you work today?’

  ‘No. They haven’t been needing me as much as I’d hoped.’

  ‘That’s too bad.’ There was an awkward silence for a moment, then I said, ‘I’ve been working on my blocks. I think I’m getting better.’

  ‘Yeah, about that. I can’t work out with you today.’ He wouldn’t look me in the eye. ‘I have to go out.’

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘Not your business.’

  ‘If you could just give me a hint …’

  ‘Ambrose—’

  ‘Or I could go with you.’

  ‘Jesus, Ambrose, back off. I’ll see you later, OK?’ He closed the door.

  I had a bad feeling. A very bad feeling. So instead of going back to our apartment, I ran around to the front of the house and climbed into Cosmo’s car. I crawled into the backseat and crouched down on the floor.

  A few minutes later, Cosmo got in the car and we pulled away.

  We’d been driving for close to half an hour. My legs were cramped and sore, and the waistband of my pants was biting into my flesh, cutting off my circulation. I started to worry that if I stayed like this long enough, they’d have to amputate me from the waist down. This thought started to freak me out and I decided that I had to shift my position, so I waited until a car horn honked loudly nearby and I moved.

  From my new position, I could just barely see out the back window. I could tell we were in a rough part of town. There were boarded-up buildings and some tragic, scary-looking people wandering around, people who looked more like zombies than human beings. A couple of them wandered into traffic like they didn’t care if they lived or died. To be honest, I felt scared. I wished I’d just stayed home.

  I don’t know if it was fear, or something I ate, but suddenly I had to fart something fierce. I let it out slowly, silently. But even if Cosmo couldn’t hear it, he couldn’t help but smell it. All the windows were closed.

  ‘Aw, gross,’ I heard him mutter up front. I hoped he might open his window, but he must’ve thought the smell was coming from outside because the window stayed shut.

  Just when I started to worry I might get carsick, Cosmo pulled over to the curb. I ducked down and felt a rush of cool air as he opened his window.

  ‘Hey. Got anything today?’ I heard him say.

  Next thing I knew, two messed-up looking guys – one with long greasy hair and the other one with no hair at all because he’d shaved his head bald and had a huge tattoo on it of a hand gripping his forehead – were at the window. I tried to make myself smaller.

  ‘Whatcha looking for?’ asked tattoo-guy.

  ‘Whatever you got,’ said Cosmo.

  ‘Long as you got the cash, we can set you up,’ said tattoo-guy, and he reached into his pocket.

  Suddenly greasy-hair-guy looked in the backseat and locked eyes with me. ‘You want some for the kid, too?’

  Oh, man.

  Cosmo turned slowly in his seat. I sat up and gave him a feeble wave. ‘Oh, hi,’ I said.

  Anger flashed through Cosmo’s eyes. For a moment, I felt scared of him and scared of what he might do. But just as quickly, the anger disappeared and he looked a little deflated.

  ‘Never mind,’ he said to the two guys.

  He pulled away from the curb. I could hear the two guys yelling as we drove off.

  Cosmo was quiet for a few minutes, then he said, ‘You might as well ride up front.’ So I climbed over the seat and sat beside him and buckled up my seat belt and locked my door because I still felt scared.

  ‘Is there an NA meeting today?’ I asked him.

  ‘There’s always an NA meeting.’

  ‘I think we should go.’

  ‘Ambrose. It’s called Narcotics Anonymous.’

  ‘OK, then. You go. I’ll wait in the car.’

  He glanced at me and shook his head. ‘You are one of a kind.’

  ‘Is that a compliment?’

  ‘It’s an observation.’

  Cosmo knew of an NA meeting taking place in Kerrisdale, another neighborhood on the west side of Vancouver, so we drove up there together. It was a beautiful early April day, so I went to the nearby park and sat on a bench to wait for him, eating the jumbo bag of chips Cosmo had bought for me and thinking.

  Contrary to what my fourth-grade teacher had once said to me, I wasn’t a total idiot. I knew I couldn’t watch Cosmo 24/7. I knew that if he really wanted to do drugs again, it would be impossible for me to stop him.

  So I had to think of things that would take his mind off drugs. Things that would make him feel better about life, and about himself.

  When he came out, I told him, ‘I have a plan.’

  ‘A plan for what?’

  ‘A plan for you to win Amanda back.’

  ‘This is crazy,’ Cosmo said, as we stood outside Amanda’s apartment the next night.

  ‘No,’ I corrected him. ‘It’s romantic.’

  We were wearing matching tuxedo T-shirts that I’d found at Goodwill that afternoon. I’d bought them with some of my quarter collection. Cosmo clutched a bouquet of flowers.

  There were lights on in Amanda’s apartment, so we were pretty sure she was home. Lucky for us, her balcony doors were open a crack. A pink bicycle with knitted handlebar covers sat on the balcony, along with a bunch of potted plants.

  I put my mom’s boombox on the pavement and handed Cosmo a lyric sheet.

  ‘Ready?’

  ‘No.’

  I pressed PLAY and suddenly Luther Wright’s voice filled the air. I had it cued up to ‘Darlin’’, and the
machine was cranked up to full volume. Cosmo and I started to sing along.

  ‘Darlin’ when you love me I feel home sweet home …’

  Except Cosmo was mumbling instead of singing, so I hit the STOP button. ‘C’mon, you’ve gotta belt it out. Sing it like you mean it,’ I said.

  A few people were eyeing us curiously from the sidewalk as they passed, enjoying the pleasant spring evening. Cosmo’s face had turned beet red. ‘I can’t do this.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I’m going to look like a total moron.’

  ‘Maybe. But, at this point, she already thinks you’re a total moron, so what have you got to lose?’

  He sighed. ‘Point taken. Let’s get it over with.’

  I hit PLAY again and this time Cosmo belted out the lyrics with me. His voice was, well, crappy, which had me a little worried. An old man stopped to gawk, and in Amanda’s apartment building, a few people stepped out onto their balconies.

  ‘There’s nothing we can’t talk about, like the last time we had it out, and that’s the truth. And I lost a tooth,’ we sang. ‘I lost a tooth’ was my favorite line, and I thought it showed we had a sense of humor, too.

  Just when I was starting to worry that everyone in the building was hearing our song except Amanda, a woman poked her head out of Amanda’s balcony doors. Only it wasn’t Amanda. Then a few more women stepped out onto the balcony. They were all holding knitting needles and half-finished sweaters and scarves. It dawned on me that Amanda must be having one of her Stitch and Bitch sessions. Cosmo’s face had gone even redder, which I didn’t think was possible, but he kept on singing.

  ‘You say you like the way it makes me smile. And even if I can’t chew my food, it’s nothing compared to what I’d do to be with you.’

  Some of the women started to laugh.

  ‘Amanda, you’d better get out here,’ one of them called.

  Finally Amanda herself stepped out. She looked gorgeous, even though she was just wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt with her hair pulled back in a ponytail. At first she looked confused. But when she saw Cosmo and me, she started to clue in that this performance was for her. She looked stunned, then embarrassed. Even in the fading evening light, I could see her face turn the same color as Cosmo’s.