A Trick of the Light Read Online Free Page B

be.
    It’s Tamio’s mother’s birthday and there’s a party in their sunny dining room, where the walls are covered with framed pictures of flowers. There’s pizza, cake. Mike devours several slices of pizza. He sees Tamio’s parents, how different they look (he’s tall with curly brown hair; she’s tiny with short black hair), how easy they are with each other, always a hand on the arm, a whisper, a laugh. Mike wonders about the last time he heard his parents laugh. He feels a terrible ache.
    He remembers the night of the Belle Heights Carnival. It was supposed to be an annual event but it only happened once. Mike was nine. There was a Ferris wheel that got stuck when he and his parents were at the top, but it was only two stories high so it wasn’t scary. As they waited for it to move again, his dad wrapped an arm around Mike, and his mom leaned her head onto her husband’s shoulder. After, they had their pictures taken in one of those booths where you get a strip of four photos. They joked about their brush with death. In the photos, his parents are laughing; Mike is laughing. He wonders where those photos are.
    He remembers, too, a project he had to do for earth science. His parents came up with the idea of riding the bus in Belle Heights with him and charting all the hills and valleys, block by block. They staked out the last row of the bus; they rolled their eyes at people talking loudly on cell phones. Was that really just a year ago? Mike thinks.
    Mike joins in singing “Happy Birthday” to Tamio’s mom. Then he eats a huge slab of cake.
    In Tamio’s room, they do physics homework. Tamio explains the right-hand rule to Mike, who can’t wrap his mind around it: how you curl your right hand and use your thumb and fingers to match the curvature and direction of the motion of a magnetic field (or something).
    Tamio has to explain it more than once.
    Then they watch parts of Harryhausen’s Jason and the Argonauts and Clash of the Titans . They love the flying harpies who torture a blind man by grabbing his food and not allowing him to eat. Mike could’ve used a couple of harpies at this party; his stomach groans in discomfort, while Tamio seems fine. They admire Medusa, who, in this version of mythology, has the body of a snake and the head and torso of a woman, with hair consisting of writhing snakes. Perseus, the hero, loses several of his men to Medusa—one look from her and they turn to stone.
    Tamio: “Some people think Medusa is Harryhausen’s masterpiece.”
    Mike: “I still like the half woman, half snake in Seventh Voyage better.”
    I put up with a lot, keeping an ear on these conversations. Then they play a video game. Mike and Tamio talk about how they don’t like computer-generated imagery because it looks too real, agreeing that Harryhausen’s stop-motion is more dreamlike and fantastical.
    As they destroy each other in the game:
    Mike: “This new girl . . . Valerie . . . she’s amazing.”
    Tamio: “Why don’t you ask her out?”
    Mike: [nothing]
    Tamio: “Don’t be scared! Maybe she likes you, too.”
    Mike: “You think so?”
    Tamio: “She talked to you a lot, right? You told me everything she said about a million times. Just ask her to a movie or something. Worst that could happen? She’ll say no.”
    Mike: “It’s easier for you. They always say yes.”
    I can already see Tamio and Valerie laughing at Mike as she rejects him, but Mike can’t bear to think about it. He just thinks he needs to work up his courage.
    When Mike walks home, he sees a homeless man on Seventy-Seventh Avenue. Mike sees him a lot, leaning his back against the brick wall of a bodega. When it’s cold, the man wears all the clothes he owns, layers and layers. Mike gives him a dollar.
    Homeless Man: “Have a nice day.”
    Mike: “You too.”
    Then Mike hears how awful that must sound—how can a homeless man have a nice day?

CHAPTER 7
    TO NOT BE HEARD AFTER I’D BROKEN THROUGH TO Mike