The Piccolos mobilize when Floyd is hurt, and they do what they can to make his recuperation go smoothly. His numerous, lengthy illnesses and dire accidents have whipped the family into a top-shelf medical unit, and their home into a quality care facility. In fact, Floyd's mother had become an expert in first responder protocol and had been a vocal advocate for the increased use of hemostatic dressings on external wounds. Raising a boy like Floyd would make any mom a hemostatic mom.
The whole family is trained to contribute. Floyd's six-year-old sister, Bethany, in a few years, would learn to insert an IV needle with her parent's EMT Field Kit. They deemed it likely that, someday, a situation would arise in which she would need to introduce emergency medicine into her big brother's bloodstream. It had happened to all of them, at least, once. It was a rite of passage in the Piccolo family, and it made sense to start early.
Minor head trauma, like today's, warranted more TLC than anything else. The school nurse had examined Floyd already, so his family was now taking care of him as best they could. As per usual, when Floyd was down for the count, that night's dinner was his choosing. He liked pizza with pepperoni and ham from Markie's, or egg foo yung from the House of Huang. The whole family was now sitting on folding chairs around his room, clustered around his bed, eating slices of Markie's on paper plates. The pizza boxes sat on his dresser. Floyd lay atop his sheets, a cold compress on his head. The boy started to sit up, and Mom leapt into action.
"He needs more Pepsi!" she ordered.
"I got it!" yelled Bethany. She ran to the dresser and picked up the two liter bottle from where it sat on a paper towel, then she bolted back to the bed where Floyd was holding out his cup.
"Thanks, Beth," the boy said.
"You look sweaty," she said, with a giggle.
Indeed, he did. The ice was melting from under his rag, which sat atop his head, and was running down his face. Sometimes, Floyd preferred just a towel and ice to the multi-purpose cold compresses they kept in the freezer at all times. It was old school, but so was Floyd in some ways. The boy swiped his hand across his forehead, then flicked some of the cold beads of water at his sister.
"Too cold!" she yelped, laughing and jumping back.
"Too cute!" he barked.
"I know I am!" she hollered, spinning in place with her hands up over her head. Her brown pigtails flopped around.
Dad stepped in. "All right, cutie. Cut it out. You're gonna knock something over."
Lloyd yawned. He'd had a full day, too. "Gimme, gimme. I need the caffeine," he said, swiping up the Pepsi bottle.
Mom stood up. "Let's let Floyd get some rest. Come one, everyone."
Floyd protested, not wanting the party to end. "I'm okay."
Mom was a lawyer, so debating her was useless. "You're going to be asleep in one minute."
"I don't think so. I'm not that tired."
The doorbell rang and Lloyd sprang to his feet. "I'll get it!" he proclaimed, rushing out of the room, as if to demonstrate how well the Pepsi had done its job. The Piccolos picked up the remains of their dinner and shuffled out of Floyd's room. Dad stopped at the door, meeting someone coming in. "Why, hello," he said to a boy, newly arrived. The boy adjusted his glasses and smiled.
"Hi," said the boy. "I'm Piers Pitstick."
Dad turned around and pointed at Floyd. "Five minutes, then rest. That's an order. I'm with your mother on this."
Floyd smiled back at him. "Okay. I'll try."
"Okay. Nice to meet you, Piers."
Piers nodded. "Nice to meet you, too, Mr. Piccolo."
Dad left and Piers stepped into the room. "Hi, Floyd," said the boy.
"What's up?" Floyd asked, with a yawn.
"I just came to see how you were."
"Thanks. I'm okay, though."
Piers looked around, taking in the world of Floyd. "That was crazy today, wasn't it?"
Floyd shrugged. "I guess so."
Piers' eyebrows ticked up. "You guess so? Really?"
"It happens."
"It does? You've seen a bathroom explode before?"
"Okay, that doesn't happen very much."
Lloyd walked into the room. "Sure, he has. He's seen it all. That's the fifth or sixth bathroom, right? Bathrooms are becoming scared of him."
Floyd laughed. "That's not what I meant, Piers. I just meant that I've seen some stuff."
"What kind of stuff?" Piers asked.
"I don't know. Just..."
Lloyd pointed at Floyd, but he looked at Piers. "Major stuff," Lloyd said. "He was hit by a meteor."
"What!" Piers yelped.
"A very small one," said Floyd. "Still, it broke my shoulder. It was a meteorite, actually."
Piers looked shocked. "It just fell out of the sky and hit you? That's impossible. It would be traveling as fast as a rocket! It would've killed you!"
"It went through the mall's roof first," Lloyd added. "Smashed a big hole in it. "
Piers nodded, eyes opened wide. "Ohhh."
"It made the news," said Lloyd.
"When did this happen??"
"A long time ago," said Floyd. "I was eleven. That wasn't a great Summer, actually."
Lloyd turned to Piers. "I like your name. Piers Pitstick. That's cool. It's like a comic book name."
Piers nodded. "You mean the alliteration?"
"Yeah."
"That is a common thing in comics."
Lloyd turned to the door. "I have to remember that word. Alliteration. I know what it means, but I never use it. I've gotta find a way to use it."
Floyd laughed. "Yeah. People will think you're smart."
"I will fool them all!" said Lloyd, then he left the room.
Piers stepped in closer. "It's funny. You guys talk as if you guys get hurt a lot."
"That's only half true."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean it's not Lloyd and me, it's just me. I get hurt a lot."
"Oh, I see," said Piers. It was clear that he wasn't entirely grasping the scope of what Floyd was saying, though. Who could blame him? Most rational people don’t believe it, at first.
"I get hurt more than normal."
"How much more?"
"A bit, I guess."
"Oh."
"That's not really what I mean, though. "
"Oh?"
"It's just kind of hard to explain."
"Hmm. So, you've had a lot of accidents?"
"Yeah."
"Do you have some kind of coordination problem?"
"Nope."
"Vertigo?"
"Uh-uh."
"Just bad luck?"
"Yep."
"Well, that's unfortunate. You've had a lot of bad luck."
"Yeah, but...well...it's more than a lot."
"You mean it's a pattern?"
"I guess so."
Piers' face wrinkled in thought. "How can random events have a pattern?"
"I don't know."
"I guess nothing is really random in the universe. Just because we can’t predict it, that doesn’t make it random. "
Floyd shrugged. "I don't know. You're probably right."
"Hmm. It's very interesting."
"It's interesting when it's not you."
The boys talked for a few more minutes. Piers was persistently curious and asked a lot of questions. Floyd didn't mind answering them, but he was tired. Everything had finally caught up to him. Right in the middle of it he made a big yawn. It was one of the biggest yawns either of them had ever heard. It was a monster.
"I should go," Piers said.
Floyd nodded. "OK. Cool."
"I'll see you at school."
"See ya."
Lloyd walked back into the room a minute later. "You remember what I said about the drama club this morning? That we're too young to have parts?"
"Yeah."
"I got us a chance. The teacher agreed to give us 9th graders auditions."
"How did you do that?"
Lloyd smirked. "I just turned on the charm."
Floyd chuckled. "Yeah, right. Prince Charming."
"You don't think I'm charming!" Lloyd gasped.
"Nope. I guess it doesn't work on me."
Lloyd laughed. "You do get hit in the head a lot."
Floyd didn't ask to stay home the next day. There was no point, he would miss too much school if he took time off after every incident. Walking through the hallways, he was relieved to see that people weren't taking notice of him, even with a bandage on his head. Apparently, the truth about what had actually occurred in the bathroom was known to very few, so his life wasn't completely ruined by the second day of school. Piers Pitstick was not in homeroom. Having seen him after school yesterday, he was fairly certain his absence wasn't due to injury. Floyd got a text. At the moment, it was safe to answer. Mrs. Funk had not taken attendance, yet, she was still sitting at her desk.
Lloyd: Where's Urkel 2day?
Floyd: Who is Urkel? Come join us in 2019
Lloyd: u coming to drama after school? I forgot to tell u theres a meeting.
Floyd really had to think about this. He wasn't sure if this was the kind of thing he should get involved in. He wasn't worried that it might lead to the end of all life on Earth, or something quite that big, but he might end up destroying the entire school, if not the whole town, even if the Earth survived. But Lloyd seemed to want him to do it, and he didn't want to let him down.
Floyd: Is it right after school?
Lloyd: 3:30 at the theater.
Floyd: Ill be there
Lloyd: Great!
He saw Lloyd nod triumphantly at his desk. A few minutes later, after Mrs. Funk was done taking attendance, Piers Pitstick blew through the door. He looked tired and disheveled, like he'd been up all night. Mrs. Funk didn't make a scene, she'd already marked him absent. Piers fought his way to his desk, people slid out of the way with a screech or two, and he sat down. When he got in his seat he leaned to the right, toward Floyd. "I need to speak with you, Floyd," the boy said.
Mrs. Funk's head shot up and her eyes found Piers. She didn't like talking. She didn't like much of anything, really. Talking though, was in her bottom three. The boy saw her in the side of his eye and straightened up. Floyd tore the corner of a page out of his notebook. He wrote his phone number on it and passed it to Piers. Piers pulled out his phone and began to tap away.
Piers: I need to speak with you.
Floyd: What is it?
Piers: I didn't sleep last night, I've been thinking about your problem.
This surprised Floyd. People didn't, generally, take an interest in him. It felt just a tiny bit flattering. His problem? Floyd definitely had problems, but what was there to talk about, exactly? Floyd didn't really like talking about himself.
Floyd: Okay. Thinking about what tho? What do you mean?
Piers: I'll see you at lunch. Explain everything.
Floyd: Gotcha
Piers: center court?
Floyd: ok
Floyd had assumed Piers had meant to meet him after he'd eaten, so he didn't rush, but he also didn't dally. When he'd had his last bite, he stood up and walked straight to Center Court, which was at the very heart of the school, but outside. Piers was there waiting on a bench that was built around a shady tree. He stood up. If Floyd had made him wait longer than Piers would have liked, he showed no sign of it. He had a notebook in his hand, and he was flipping through what looked like a lot of demented scribbles, but it was just the sloppiness of his handwriting, which seemed to have a hard time keeping up with the boy's thoughts. "I've got some ideas here, Floyd, I want to run by you. This has been consuming me since you told me about your bad luck."
"Oh. Okay," Floyd said, still not sure what to make of all of this.
"Just look," said Piers. "I've got a whole hypothesis."
"Hypothesis? Really?"
"Yeah."
Floyd sat down and placed the notebook in his lap. Written on the top of the page were the letters MHP underlined several times enthusiastically. Underneath that was a dash, some kind of bullet point, next to which a question was plainly stated: "Does the MHP affect causality in people's everyday lives?"
Floyd looked up. "What's the MHP?"
Piers made a face, feeling suddenly inadequate. He'd never explained this to anyone before. "Oh! Right! Here..." Piers snatched the notebook off Floyd's lap and flipped about ten pages back, then he stabbed a page with an anxious finger. "See? It means the Monty Hall Problem. Do you know what that is?"
Floyd shook his head. "I don't know him or his problem."
"Well, it's pretty simple. I heard about it once on the radio, and I've been tangling with it ever since. You see, Monty Hall was the host of a game show called Let's Make a Deal."
"That's still on, isn't it? I haven't seen it, but I've heard about it."
"Yeah, but this was discovered when Monty Hall was the host. I think, anyway."
"It probably doesn't matter."
"It definitely doesn't matter. So, you see..." Piers pointed at a drawing of three doors lined up in a row. His illustration skills were superior to his penmanship, but just a little. "So, in the game you would pick one door out of three in hopes that there would be a prize behind it. A prize like a car, or something like that. Two doors would be empty."
This was making little sense to Floyd. He didn’t see the point. "Okay."
"So, you would pick a door and they would show what was behind one of the doors you didn't pick, and it was always empty. This left you with two doors, one of which must have the prize."
“But you already picked the one you wanted.”
“Well, that’s where the problem comes in. On the show, rather than just open the first door you picked, they added one more step to make it interesting. They’d let you either open the door you picked or trade it for the other door.”
“So?”
“This is the strange part. You see, you would think that there being just two doors left you would end up winning half the time. A one-out-of-two chance.”
"That makes sense."
"Yeah, it makes sense. The problem is that it's not true."
"What's not true?"
"You don't win half the time. You see, if you trade the door you originally picked for the new one, you win more often than if you keep the old door."
Floyd's brow wrinkled. "Really? Sounds like a magic trick."
"No. It's a statistical anomaly. Nobody knows why it works."
Floyd did find this very interesting, but he couldn't see what the relevance to him was. "Okay. It's a “statistical anomaly”. What's it got to do with me?"
"Well," said Piers, sitting down. "That's kind of your problem. The Floyd Piccolo Problem."
"What do you mean?"
"Floyd, did you ever think that maybe there's a quantifiable reason for what's going on? That it was something that you could measure and predict?"
"No. Well, maybe. I don't think I ever thought of it like that, exactly, but I wondered about being able to prepare myself for the next goose. Sometimes, I think I can even avoid them. I started being real careful with my food, making my own lunch, and it's been years since I've eaten glass."
"Avoid them? Accidents?"
"I think so."
"Well, that could mean that you somehow moved food problems to the back burner by preparing. Like you distracted fate, or something."
"I know that I don't always get goosed. I get goosed a lot more than other people, but not always."
"Goosed? Like Duck, Duck, Goose? Oh, okay. I get it."
"Yeah. I should have explained the goose thing. Sorry."
"That's perfectly alright."
"I just know there are times when I was gonna get the goose, but I didn't. I just know it."
"Hmm," Piers intoned, then he stood up and started to pace in a circle. He was quiet for a few minutes while he was thinking, so Floyd just waited, saying nothing as the time ticked by. Pretty soon, it was almost the time for the bell and Piers drifted to a standstill. "I've been trying to reconcile what's been going on with you and the Monty Hall Problem. There's something there, that much is clear."
Floyd shook his head in disagreement. "Then I don't know what 'clear' means."
Floyd didn't see Piers for the rest of the day. After the last bell rang, he started to make his way home, then he remembered he'd promised to meet Lloyd in the theater. He turned right back around, his steps a lot heavier than they'd been just a minute before. He wasn't excited about it, but Lloyd's ideas were usually pretty good. On the other hand, he was due to be wrong sometime. Maybe sometime very soon.
The entrance to the large, main theater stood near the school's East entrance. The amphitheater led downhill to the large main stage. Floyd could see about thirty or forty students standing, sitting, or simply hovering around a teacher who stood at the center of it all. The man was about fifty, and wore a suit. Floyd thought he looked rather dapper, like a banker or a lawyer. Floyd sat down on the floor, and tried to look as fascinated as everyone else seemed to be.
"Okay, so that's, basically, where we're gonna start this. Drama club consists of two equally important groups: the cast and the stage crew," the teacher said. Looking around, everyone but him seemed to be paying close attention the man, hanging on every word. His eyes scanned the stage—Lloyd wasn't anywhere to be seen. "There isn't room for everyone in the show, but there's enough jobs to go around. We're gonna need sets, we're gonna need costumes, hair and makeup. We need artists. We need publicity. But that's the boring stuff. This isn't about that. I don't want to talk too much about that. I want to concentrate on the good stuff. The positive stuff. The interesting stuff."
Floyd started to feel interested, too. The teacher was likable, and he seemed really enthusiastic, so he started to notice a faint weird whistle somewhere in the man's voice. Perhaps coming from his nose.
"Theater goes back to the ancient Athenians," he said. "They built the first theater and wrote the first dramas. Everything, and I mean, everything, started with them. They used to sacrifice a goat in a ritual called the Tragodia that preceded the performance of plays. It gave us the word 'tragedy'. But this isn't about them, either. It's about you. I just want to make the point that, at one time, there was nothing. Absolutely nothing. The world didn't have drama in the way we know it today. Most people couldn't read, so information was learned like you're learning it right now, from me. I want you to think about what that must have been like. What your life might be like without the stories and entertainments that we have today. What would it be like? What would you be like? Would you be the same person? The Greeks wondered the same thing a long time ago. What did they have to say?"
Some figures sat down near him, but Floyd didn't look, we was listening intently, by then.
The teacher seemed to become just a tad more passionate. He crossed his arms. "Aristotle said 'Poetry is a core part of human nature, and the impulse to write poetry comes from an innate curiosity, a tendency to imitate the things around us. ' If that's true, then what is drama but an extension of our lives? The things you love—music, movies, tv shows, video games—are all connected in that they tell people's stories. We've lived so many other people's lives through art, through drama that, in time, we come to better understand our own lives. And that's a valuable thing. Not just when you're young, but over your whole life. So that's what this whole experience is really going to be about. It's not just going to be learning through art, you'll be coming to understand yourself through each other. Through friendship, activities and responsibilities."
Someone flicked Floyd's ear, his head spun around. It was Lloyd plopping down on the floor at his right side. "You beat me here, you dick," Lloyd whispered with a snicker. Someone had heard him and snickered right along with him, someone just on the other side of him. It was Melanie, Lloyd's girlfriend. Pretty and blond, she winked at him, then turned her attention toward the teacher. Another head leaned out and smiled at Floyd.
And that, as they say, was that.
For a moment, Floyd didn’t know what was happening. It was something profound, he could feel that, but what it was took a second to become clear. The world remained on hold until his brain began operating again and he found himself locked in a gaze with the most crazy beautiful eyes he had ever seen in his life. It was so sudden, so shocking, his heart croaked like a bullfrog.
"Hi, Floyd!" she said with a faint wave, just above a whisper. She then sank back, turning her attention back to the teacher.
"Hi," he said stupidly, to a now empty space where, once, for a fleeting eternity, an angel had been smiling at him.
He would learn, later on, that her name was Peyton Flores. She was new to Bowl Valley. Her eyes had met his for only a second, but they had been burned into his retinas forever. A few curly coils of her hair washed down from her pony tail, drooping around her face. Her complexion had a tan tone. Lloyd kept leaning over and whispering in her left ear, and it sounded as if she was giggling at every syllable of every word he said, covering her mouth with her hand to hide her dazzling smile from the class. Floyd was stunned. He couldn’t breathe for a second, and he wondered if he was finally developing that rare case of Tuberculosis that he knew was waiting for him somewhere in his future. For once, though, it wasn’t something like that. It wasn’t Tuberculosis, or Shingles, or Whooping Cough.
From that point on, and then for some more points after that, there was no drama club or high school. The words of Mr. Moderick became the most pointless kind of prattle, being wasted on the ears of a teenage boy in love. At that very moment, above all things in the universe, Floyd Piccolo wanted just to hear her speak his name, again. Floyd knew, in that way that love knows everything (or thinks it does) that he was going to be very, very distracted for the rest of the day.
“Okay, that’s gonna be all for today,” said Mr. Moderick, a half second before the entire stage erupted in teens springing back to their feet and pouring offstage. As pleased as Mr. Moderick seemed with how the first meeting went, the kids seemed awfully eager to leave.
Floyd caught up with Lloyd out in the hallway. “Hey,” said Floyd.
“Hey. So whatta you think? You into this? I’m really looking forward to it.”
“Yeah, I’m into it.” To his left, on the other side of his brother’s girlfriend was the new center of Floyd’s universe. The universe turned and looked at him.
“You know,” Melanie said. “I heard somebody say before the meeting that we were gonna do Almost, Maine this year. I’ve never seen that.”
“There’s probably a movie,” said Lloyd.
“Yeah, probably. I hope it’s, like, got a lot of roles in it.”
Peyton preened herself comically, fluffing her hair and making a prissy face. “Did you know that I was in Oliver in the 5th grade? My role was the Artful Dodger, pretty much the most important role in the entire play,” she said snootily, holding back a laugh.
“Isn’t he a boy?” asked Lloyd.
“Yeeeaaaaah,”she said, as if he’d said something ridiculous.
“So why did you play a boy?” Lloyd asked, with a smirk.
“I’m that great an actor!” she laughed, and then they all joined in. “Just kidding,” she added.
They all got their things from their lockers and they met outside the school. For several minutes after he first saw her, Floyd remained in awe of Peyton Flores. He tried to keep his brother from suspecting it, but he was anxious to find out if she had a boyfriend. Floyd thought it unlikely, because she was so new to Bowl Valley. She may even be one of those girls who has a boyfriend far away. Whether she did or didn’t, Floyd still didn’t know what to do about it. Did he even have a chance? Wouldn’t that make life amazing? Wouldn’t that just make everything right, no matter what else was wrong? Even if he was in a full body cast, his life would be amazing. Floyd often rated the value of things against how many casts it could make him forget.
Lloyd’s claim that Freshman could only join the stage crew for the school production had been wrong. That policy had changed since last year. So, right out of the gate, the brothers were already going their separate ways. Lloyd to stardom, Floyd to stage-crewdom. Lloyd seemed to have forgotten that Floyd only agreed to join the production in the first place because the two of them would be working together. Floyd felt a little betrayed. Although, to be completely honest, Floyd realized that he had just assumed that it was about working together. Lloyd had never agreed to that. Floyd got over it pretty quick, though. His brother wouldn’t have done it if he’d known it would make Floyd unhappy. Lloyd was a really nice guy. Floyd didn’t think he was even half as good a person as his brother was.
The application to join the stage crew was a lot longer than he’d been willing to fill out. Floyd left everything but the first page blank, then delivered it to Mr. Moderick’s desk, then he walked backstage and found two teachers speaking to the new stage crew. One was the diminutive Mrs. Roberson, an English teacher who was about five feet tall. She had short brown hair that looked like it was done by Floyd’s grandmother’s hairdresser. The other was the wood shop teacher Mr. Manse. He was extremely tall, with a brush cut and an ample potbelly hanging out over the waist of his tightly belted blue jeans. The buttons of his shirt were straining, seemingly ready to snap off or shout for help. He was simply gigantic.
Mrs. Roberson seemed to be the brains of the operation, setting out her goals for the set of Almost, Maine, tracing shapes in the air with her hands. “Ambiguity is going to be a theme in the stage set. The further back on the stage you go, the more the ambiguity. It is a graceful slide into vagueness. It’s all in the name of the play: Almost, Maine. It’s almost something tangible, but not quite there. Abstract. Do you understand what I am saying?” Some students nodded, some didn’t. “Good.”
As excited as Mrs. Roberson seemed to be about vagueness, Floyd wondered just how achievable this concept was. He tried to picture what ‘a graceful slide into vagueness’ would look like, and it sounded like a complete mess to him. Like a nightmare full of jagged, zig-zagging shapes. Mr. Manse passed out copies of the play. “Read it,” Mrs. Roberson instructed them. “And give us any ideas that come to you. Don’t worry about whether they are perfect ideas, or not, any idea might be useful.”
The copies of Almost, Maine were precious and few. They couldn’t, legally, just make copies of manuscript, the school had to buy them. Floyd didn’t hate plays at all. No, he liked them. He always enjoyed seeing school productions, but he got a sense from this script that he wouldn’t be able to say that for much longer. He’d already heard a little bit about it. That the play didn’t have a story. Flipping through it, Floyd frowned. He didn’t like what he was seeing. He wasn’t sure that he was a fan of vague. He kind of liked things that were certain. Vague sounded like an accident waiting to happen.
Someone tapped Floyd on the shoulder, and he snapped to attention. Standing just to his left was Peyton Flores, wearing a big smile. “You’re on the crew, too, Floyd?”
Floyd nodded sheepishly, as nervous as a man awaiting execution. “Uh-huh.”
“Me, too. Is that the play?” she asked, pointing at his bundle of pages.
“Yeah,” he answered.
“Oh, I have to get one. Be right back.”
Floyd let out a long, sighing breath. He didn’t take his eyes off the script, he furled his brow and pretended to read it with interest. It was a defensive maneuver. His instinct was to watch Peyton like a puppy, he had to suppress that instinct, because his adoring gaze would give away what was happening inside him. The knots in his stomach were tightening. It’s hard, acting like you aren’t in love. If she couldn’t tell how she made him feel, then he must be an amazing actor.
Was he in love, though? Isn’t this kind of sudden? He barely knew her, but something really was different about him when he was near her. He liked the way he felt, but it also kind of scared him. Not scared like when you were watching a scary movie. No, it was the worst kind of scared. The real scared. Scared like when you had to speak in front of a large crowd of people just after forgetting how to talk.
Floyd continued to pretend to read the script. After a minute, though, he peeked up. Peyton was taking her time. It took only a second to find her with his eyes. After he did, he wished he hadn’t.
She was talking to another boy.
It was Richard Sato. Richard was a tall and handsome Japanese-American kid. He was extremely nice. Smart. Clean cut. He was the kind of guy you might be jealous of if you didn’t like him so much. He was a grade ahead. A sophomore. An older man.
Floyd looked away. Eventually, Peyton made it back, still smirking after Richard. “He’s so funny,” she said to Floyd matter-of-factly, as if it were obvious.
Floyd nodded. “Yeah. He is.”
“You know Richard?” she asked.
“Of course,” he answered. He knew of Richard, which was close to the same thing.
“Oh, okay. I asked him if he knew you, he said he knew Lloyd, but he didn’t know Lloyd had a brother.”
Floyd nodded. “Oh.”
Peyton looked over the play. “I really want to read this. You?”
“Oh, yeah. Sure.”
“It looks really good.”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“Let’s go sit in the theater seats and read it.”
“Yeah. Okay.”
Floyd followed Peyton through the wide doorway that led to the stage. They walked across the stage then descended the steps and sat down next to each other in the front row. Peyton immediately started reading, so Floyd did, too. Almost, Maine was a strange play. From what he could tell, there was no main story, just a bunch of scenes connected only by the fact that they take place in the same town. So, it almost had a story, but not really. And he almost liked it, but not really.
“Wow,” said Peyton, sounding a bit emotional. “I really like this, Floyd.”
Floyd nodded. “Yeah. It’s pretty good.”
And he almost meant it, but not really.
Floyd and his new friend were up in Floyd's room, again, right after school. Piers, as usual, couldn't hear enough about Floyd's problem.
"We're going to put together an entire new model by which to live your life. First, we need a stated goal. A goal for our research."
"Um...to fix me, I guess."
"Well, more specific than that."
"To fix my problem?"
"We should reduce it to a single question. Something like: is it possible to reduce Floyd Piccolo's unfortunate incidents enough for him to live a normal life?"
"So, where do we start?"
"I guess we should start with you. Let's just start asking questions. How often do events things happen? Big events, specifically. Like the bathroom."
"Something like that? Head injury with property damage? Hmm. Once or twice a year, I guess. More or less."
"Do you ever get a sense like it's been too long since an occurrence? Like a feeling of dread?"
"Dread? Oh, I know dread pretty well. Dread stinks."
"Maybe we should start by examining your eating habits. You've already had some success on that front."
"Okay."
"Do you eat outside of the house a lot?"
"You mean at school?"
"Sure, but out with your family, too. How much do you eat away from home?"
"My dad cooks a lot. And we get a lot of take out. We like eating at home, mostly"
"Why?"
"I guess I've had some problems in restaurants."
"Ah. So, by avoiding restaurants, you've reduced occurrences?"
"Yeah, I guess."
"Why do you think that is?"
"I don't know. All of the emergency equipment is at home. We're actually better equipped than the local EMTs."
"Hmm. I think it's because you're sharing the food with your family."
"What do you mean?"
"If you are all sharing the same food, occurrences are fewer. That's what I'm hearing, anyway."
"Why would that be?"
"It might be because most of these incidents happen only to you. When you share the food at home, like you all eat the same pizza, your odds improve. It's like a sort of tribal immunity, but with luck. At a restaurant, you all order separate meals, that leaves you vulnerable."
Floyd's jaw dropped. Piers' words were a revelation. "Whoa. I never thought of that. By sharing food, I protect myself?"
"I think so. That’s what I think."
"Wow. We all pool the Chinese food, too! We all take a little bit of everything. How did I never catch that?"
"You're too close to it. You need to step back and view your life like a spectator. You learn a lot by changing your perspective."
"Yeah. I guess."
"Have you left the country before?"
Floyd nodded. "Been to Canada a few times. England, one time."
"What happened?"
"Canada was okay. Nothing major happened."
"And England?"
"Plague. I caught the plague."
Piers nodded, not the least bit surprised. "Okay. So, no more England."
"Yeah."
"For the future, you might want to rule out Europe, altogether. You never know. You can do just about everything here in the states, anyway. And their electric outlets are inconsistent over there. Sometimes you can use them, sometimes you can't."
"No Europe. I can deal with that."
"Okay. Good. What about trips inside the country?"
Floyd shrugged. "Hit or miss."
"Anything else like the meteorite happen on vacation?"
"Not really. Nothing that big. There was smaller stuff, though. For instance, the day I learned to not go fishing."
"Oh. Fishing. That's a no-brainer. The hooks."
Floyd shook his head. "Even if you don't leave the car. Boy, we really whiffed it on that one. I don't know what we were thinking. I had just survived an entire day at an amusement park and I guess we were feeling kind of cocky."
Piers nodded, comprehending. "Yeah. There's no room for that kind of thinking in this household. Amusement parks are good, too. Once again, you are protected by the crowd. Though, you might have some problems at the food vendors. Some of them, anyway."
"Yeah. Nothing really bad ever happens to other people. I'm really grateful about that. I just couldn't stand it if someone else got hurt because of me."
The boys talked for another hour about Floyd's least favorite subject – himself. At the end, Piers had a much clearer idea of the kind of life Floyd had been living all these years. "It's really sad, Floyd."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. Most people would be pretty angry about all this,but you, you just take it all in stride."
Floyd performed a light shrug. "I don't know."
"You're a really good person. You shouldn't have to live like this. It isn't fair."
Floyd shook his head slightly. "Nah. I'm not a better person than anyone else. I know I'm not."
Piers frowned, clearly disagreeing. "You just don't see it, Floyd."
"It doesn't matter, anyway. Being a good person doesn't mean bad things won't happen to you. Curses don't just happen to bad people."
Piers perked up. "Curses?"
"Curses. Yeah."
"You think you're cursed?"
"I don't know."
"Hmm. That's really interesting."
"I guess."
"Maybe...the Monty Hall...hmm...maybe that's all a curse is."
"The Monty is a curse?"
"No, not exactly. I'm not saying you have a curse, or that someone put a curse on you, only that things like the Monty, anomalies, might be the reason we think curses exist."
"Hmm. Yeah. Maybe."
"I wonder, if curses are just a name for things like Monty, maybe there's a way to counteract Monty. I mean, if humans developed the idea of curses because things like Monty exist, then maybe there are things that counteract Monty that developed the same way."
"Hmm. What things, though?"
"I don't know, yet. I'll have to hit the books."
"Do you mean, like, good luck?"
"If Monty exists, then why not the opposite of Monty? If one is possible, so is the other. The more we learn, the better our chances of finding an answer."
Floyd nodded, but not without some reservation. "I'm just worried that I'm going to learn way too much."
The previous day's conversation with Piers had had a big impact on Floyd. He was already looking at his life differently. He went downstairs for breakfast, just like he always did. Also, just like always, his dad was there waiting. He offered to make Floyd some eggs, but Floyd told him that he would wait for the others to join them. His father nodded and went back to his paper, not thinking anything of it. Floyd had just realized that he would be safer if he ate with everybody else, with his father scooping eggs onto their plates from the same pan. Incidents didn't happen very often at home anymore, the Piccolos were far too ready, but Floyd liked the feeling of having control over things, even if he wasn't in any real danger.
That morning, Floyd had a spring in his step as he walked to school. He felt audacious. Confident. Indestructible. This was not a wise way for Floyd to feel. He decided to try out Piers' theory and, after visiting his locker, go to the cafeteria for a light breakfast, even though he’d eaten, already. He was feeling in an experimental mood.
He zoomed past the breakfast cereals. If he was eating cereal from a box, the tribal immunity would be in full force, but these were all packaged individually. As much as he loved LIFE cereal, a single serving of it was virtually suicidal. Next came scrambled eggs. He'd been there, done that, already today. But they all came from the same bin, which meant safety. He scooped them on his plate with the utmost confidence.
He grabbed a banana, too. He’d never been goosed by a banana, and that was encouraging. Bananas came from a bunch, but were, also, individually wrapped by mother nature. So, who knows? They were covered in a rind that plainly showed any signs of tampering by man or beast, and that was also encouraging. Bagels came from the same batch of dough, most likely, but after that they became loners. Absolutely anything can happen in the baking process. Bagels were out. He got to milk and paused.
Milk cartons were individual. They came from the same source, but, like bagels, became mysterious lone wolfs after that. Milk from a pitcher would be safe, but there was none. He took a carton, though. He was really thirsty. A proper scientific experiment wouldn't include the milk, because he was testing tribal immunity. Although, he had no idea how experiments, actually, worked, cowardice seemed very unscientific. If you weren't willing to get hurt for science, then there would be no satellites, airplanes, or electric guitars. He took the milk.
He managed to leave with only two items, the milk and the banana, and both were controversial. He realized he’d completely wasted his time. He walked to a large garbage can and opened the milk, drained it in one gulp, then dropped it in the can. It was such a bold move. Un-Floydish. But it felt good to be bad sometimes. It felt rebellious. He left carrying the banana. He had to go down one floor to homeroom, and he was sure he only had a couple of minutes. When he got the stairs, he pulled out his phone and checked the time. He put it back and, just as boldly as with the milk carton, tore off the top of the banana. Something very large, hairy and gray leapt out from inside the fruit and scurried up his arm. Before he even knew what was happening, he felt the creature bite him. Floyd fainted, mostly from fright and disgust, and slammed face-first at the bottom of the stairs.
Though nobody knows for sure how it happens, about one in 835,000 people will find a full-grown, poisonous spider living inside a ripe banana. One of the least stupid theories is that this happens when a spider lays its eggs just under the top layer of a banana's rind. When the baby spiders are born, most of them emerge from the skin and scatter to the winds. Once in a while, however, one tiny spider will burrow inward and live off the meat of the berry within, growing to a gargantuan size for its species. One in 835,000 sounds like good odds, doesn't it? Very good odds, indeed.
The rest of Floyd's day was relatively uneventful, though the nose bleed plugs jammed in his nostrils didn't give off that impression. The crowd of students backstage was very large because the play had not been cast yet. Once roles were handed out, a large swath of the students here would then be off being actors, leaving the less glamorous tasks of theater to the stage crew. Mrs. Robeson was standing at the center of the crowd showing off a large, blank canvas. She was drawing on it, sketching out what looked like it might be a porch someday, with a small paintbrush.
"Most of the scenes take place outside," she said. "With limited interior scenes, so we will use the same backgrounds for a couple of scenes each, but change the foreground as much as possible. Using several benches, fences, bushes, and doors." She then started sketching what looked like the outline of the moon with her paintbrush, again.
Floyd was only half listening when his brother came up from behind him. He saw the nose plugs and was not even a little surprised. He immediately started appraising Floyd's injury with the eye of an expert. It was all part of being a Piccolo.
"Anterior nosebleed?" Lloyd asked, leaning in.
"Upper septum," Floyd answered.
Lloyd winced. "Ow! How did you do that?"
"Eh. I fainted. Poison spider bite."
"Wow, cool. Any head trauma?"
"No," Floyd said.
Lloyd beamed. "Win!" The boys high-fived, but Floyd's heart wasn't in it. He took a deep breath. He'd been hoping to see Peyton. Whatever classes she took, they mostly kept she and Floyd from crossing paths during the school day, except some times in the hallway when they were both in a hurry. He hoped she wasn't quitting the play. He couldn't think of a reason to even show up if she wasn't going to be here. Floyd wondered if asking Lloyd about her might give his secret away. How could he bring her up without tipping his brother off?
"Is Melanie still doing the play?" Floyd asked. He wondered if asking about Lloyd's girlfriend might open up a channel to Peyton news.
Lloyd nodded. "Yeah, she's still in it. I don't know how many freshman are gonna get parts, though. She might not want to be on the stage crew. Peyton might try out for a part, but she's not sure."
Floyd nodded. He wanted to know more. He needed to know more. He just wasn't sure how he could possibly deflect any suspicion that he had a thing for Peyton.
"Who?" asked Floyd.
Lloyd's head spun at Floyd, and he looked at his brother like he was turning purple. "What do you mean 'who'? Are you crazy? You forgot Peyton?"
Floyd realized that looking like he forgot her would actually look worse than being into her. "Um...no! I didn't forget...I just..."
"How big was that spider, Floyd? I think the poison made you stupid." At first, Floyd thought Lloyd sounded kind of angry, but there was a partial smile on his lips. Melanie and Peyton had gotten really close, really fast. Peyton was on the team, now, and there were good things and bad things about it. "She's probably out looking for Richard Sato. She's got a thing for him, I think," Lloyd added. "You know Richard Sato?"
All hope left Floyd, leaving him deflated like a sinking balloon. "Yeah," Floyd said. "I know Richard."