slowly through all the awkward phases of adolescence and still thought of me "in that way." Perhaps it was because I was a novelty here, where novelties were few and far between. Possibly my physically crippling clumsiness, my propensity to fall over anything and everything in sight, was seen as endearing rather than pathetic, casting me in the starring role of Damsel in Distress...
My truck seemed to have no problem with the black ice that covered the roads.⁷¹ I drove very slowly, though, not wanting to carve a path of destruction through Main Street.
When I got out of my truck at school, I saw why I'd had so little trouble. Something silver caught my eye, and it wasn't Fredward's Volvo. I walked to the back of the truck—carefully holding the side for support—to examine my tires. There were thin chains crisscrossed in diamond shapes around them. Snow chains. Charlie had gotten up who knows how early⁷² to put snow chains on my truck. My throat suddenly felt tight! I wasn't used to being taken care of, and Charlie's unspoken concern caught me by surprise.
I was standing by the back corner of the truck, struggling to fight back the sudden wave of emotion the snow chains had brought on, when I heard an odd sound.
It was a high-pitched screech, and it was fast becoming painfully loud. I looked up, startledly.
I saw several things simultaneously. Nothing was moving in slow motion, the way it does in the movies.⁷³ Instead, the adrenaline rush seemed to make my brain work much faster, and I was able to absorb in clear detail several things at once. That is to say, I saw more than one thing happen at the same time.



71. American ingenuity.
72. At least two people do: Charlie and God.
73. The author's first solid indication that the events in the novel are not happening in a movie.

56

Chapter 3

←

→

main contents contact