The Last Book in the Universe Read Online Free Page A

in a soft blanket. Her squinty eyes and her tiny little lips all smooched up like she’d been sucking a lemon. How she smelled like warm milk. Baby stuff — she was only a few days old, okay? But what I really remember is what happened when she saw me staring down at her. Her whole face smiled and her little hand came up and tried to grab my nose and that was it, I loved Bean right from that moment and it never changed. No matter what happened, all the bad things later, and me losing my family unit because of her, it never made me love Bean any less.
    â€œSo you were a foundling,” Ryter says. “And Bean is your adoptive sister.”
    â€œFoundling?”
    â€œAn old word,” he says, “but useful. Like you were found on the curb and taken in. Do you have any knowledge of your origins? Your birth mother? Father?”
    I shrug like “Who cares?” because it doesn’t matter. Nobody wants to claim a spaz boy, that’s for sure.
    â€œNever mind that part for now,” Ryter says. “Tell me more about your sister. Tell me about Bean.”
    The thing that’s really important to understand about Bean is that she only sees the good in people, and never the bad. Because my foster dad, I suppose he’s basically okay, but he’s got this bad side, too, and Bean never saw it. Like she’d erased the idea of “bad” from her mind. So when everything blew up and Charly — that’s his name, Charly — so when everything blew, and Charly got it fixed in his head that I was growing up dangerous and that somehow Bean might get infected with whatever it was that made me a spaz, Bean never saw it coming.
    When Charly finally told me I had to leave, that he was banning me from the family unit, Bean tried to hug me and tell me it couldn’t be true, he didn’t mean it. Big mistake. Because Charly pulled her off me and smacked her right in the face and called her terrible names, names she didn’t even understand, names no one should ever have to hear.
    â€œWhat did Charly think?” Ryter wants to know. “Did he think you and Bean were luvmates?”
    â€œI don’t know what he thought,” I say. “I’d never touch Bean that way, not ever. Even if she isn’t blood she’s still my little sister.”
    Ryter watches me for a while, like he’s waiting for something to happen, for me to react, maybe. And then when I don’t say anything more, he goes, “I wish I could say I’m surprised by your foster father’s reaction. But the prejudice against epileptics is as old as the human race. Do you know the story of Alexander the Great?”
    I shake my head.
    â€œRemarkable man,” Ryter says. “He conquered the world, a long long time ago.”
    â€œYeah,” I go. “So?”
    â€œHe had epilepsy, too. Many great humans have been epileptic. It’s as if the brain compensates by increasing intelligence and ambition.”
    â€œYeah, right.”
    â€œThe epilepsy is part of what made you,” he says. “Don’t hate it.”
    Don’t hate the spaz? Is he serious? The spaz is why I lost my family unit. Why I can never see Bean again. Why people run away when it happens. Spaz isn’t just a name, it’s a warning. Look out for the spaz boy, he might have a fit and bite you! He’ll infect you! He’ll infect your unborn children! Cast him out. Banish him. Disfavor him.
    Cancel him
, they sometimes whisper,
the boy is a monster, a mistake, he never should have been born
.
    But Ryter, he doesn’t get it. “You think of it as a curse,” he says. “But the ‘curse’ is also a blessing. If you didn’t have it you’d be sticking needles in your brain like all the others. Rotting your mind with probes. Living in a mindprobe instead of real life. You’d have trouble remembering what happened last week, never mind when you were four