what would happen to all of them if those flowers suddenly bloomed.
…the imagiNary world is
almOst here.
Chapter 75
Special Ed opened his eyes just before dawn. He looked down and noticed that he had wet the bed. He had been doing that a lot lately. Then, he looked outside at the trees, and for some reason he could not understand, there was only one place he wanted to go today.
Chuck E. Cheese’s
It didn’t make any sense. He was only a little boy, but even he knew that for all of its merits as a video game and robot animal paradise, Chuck E. Cheese’s pizza ranked just a notch above cafeteria. And today was Christmas Eve. They always went to his grandma’s house for Christmas Eve after his other grandma died. They did it every year. But he just couldn’t get it out of his mind. He just had to get to Chuck E. Cheese’s.
Listen to Grandma.
He went to his father’s bedroom and tried to wake him up, but his father just growled. “It’s not even dawn, for Christ’s sake. Go back to sleep.” So, Special Ed left the room, but not before stealing his father’s cell phone from the nightstand like his grandmother told him. Special Ed then went to the master bedroom. His mother was asleep in the bed. She always told him she needed separate bedrooms because his father snored. Special Ed knew it was actually because his mother drank too much and his parents fought about it and she said she could stop anytime and he said “prove it” and she said “fuck you” and told him to sleep in the guest room and he said “no you’re the drunk you sleep in the guest room” and she cried and she won and so he finally did after she kept drinking from the flask in her purse that looked like a perfume bottle to make the sad in her head quiet down.
Listen to Grandma.
“Mom, can you take me to Chuck E. Cheese’s?” he whispered.
She took off her cool gel sleeping mask. The one that kept her young.
“Honey, it’s Christmas Eve. We’re going to Grandma’s house.”
“I know. I just really want to go to Chuck E. Cheese’s.”
“What? Baby, I’m sorry, but that’s fucking crazy. Go back to sleep.”
“We could stop there for lunch on the way.”
“Ask your father.”
“I already did. He said it was okay.”
“Okay. Fine.”
But it wasn’t fine. When Special Ed’s father woke up, he caught Special Ed in the lie and said he was now on punishment. Especially after he got in that fight with Brady Collins at the Christmas Pageant. Enough was enough. The HBO he got in his room to celebrate Special Ed getting such a good report card was going to be turned off. No HBO for a month.
“But Dad! You don’t understand! I have to go!” Special Ed protested.
“Stop being crazy. Get your clothes on. We’re going to Grandma’s house.”
They were already off to a late start because his father couldn’t find his cell phone. He asked Special Ed’s mother to call him so he could trace the sound, but she couldn’t find her phone, either. They didn’t understand that their son had taken both of their phones and buried them outside in the snow. Special Ed’s dead grandmother told him that he had to do it, or he would never get to Chuck E. Cheese’s.
Listen to Grandma.
The family piled into the Ford SUV with the BUY AMERICAN sticker and left for Grandma’s house. The weather had been particularly brutal overnight, and their normal route was blocked with fallen trees and a few car accidents. One of the accidents looked particularly bad. A station wagon had crashed into another car that looked vaguely like Kate Reese’s car. Betty wanted to call Kate to check on her. She reached for her cell phone.
She forgot that she had lost it.
Without their cell phone maps, the family had to rely on the old GPS to find an alternate route to Grandma’s house. Special Ed’s father punched in the address, and the GPS lady told them to get on Route 79. Special Ed knew that his grandma was pretending to be the GPS lady to help him, so he relaxed a little in the backseat.
He watched his father take his usual shortcut around Bridgeville to get to 79, but this time, a deer ran across the road. When his father turned sharply to avoid the deer, he hit a bad pothole, and the two right tires blew out.