Read Online Fruit by Brian Francis - Free Book Online

wants. I sigh and turn around to face him.
    Then I fall asleep.

four
    It’s October now and cool enough to wear my jacket. But I can’t wear my jacket indoors or else I’ll look suspicious. The Scotch tape doesn’t work anymore. I tape my nipples down in the morning and by recess, the tape would be peeling off. So after school last week, I went to the Shop ’N’ Bag and bought a big roll of masking tape.
    “It’s for a school project,” I told Mr. Bernard, even though he didn’t ask me.
    Now, I wrap the tape around my chest three times every day before I go to school. It holds much better than the Scotch tape, but it’s hard to breathe, and when I pull the masking tape off at night, it hurts.
    My nipples are sticky and sore and now look like maraschino cherries. In some ways, I feel bad that I’m not taking better care of them. I keep taping them down when all they want to do is grow. It’s not their fault. They’re angry at me.
    “Maybe if you were normal, we’d be normal, too,” they say. “Did you ever stop to think about that?”
    “You’re cruel!” I tell them. “I’m perfectly normal.”
    “Who are you kidding? You can’t even go out and find a boy friend.”
    “You’re terrible! Don’t say another word or I’m going to get the ice cubes. I mean it!”
    The truth is, my nipples are right. I do need to get myself a boy friend. My mom’s been on my back about that lately.
    “Surely there must be someone for you to chum around with,” she said once. My dad was in the room. I was so embarrassed. “Isn’t there anyone in your class, Peter?”
    My parents have always wanted me to be normal, although they don’t come right out and say it. But I know I don’t always make the choices they want me to make. My mom tried to get me to sign up for hockey last year. Instead, I signed up for a calligraphy class.
    “Don’t you want to get out there and get all rumble tumble with the other boys?” she asked. She put the Bluewater Hockey form on my desk.
    “Not really,” I said. I was practising my W, a very tricky letter to do in calligraphy. “And watch that you don’t knock over my jar of ink.”
    And I know that my dad would’ve liked me to dress up like a soldier or a pirate for Halloween in grade 4. Instead, I borrowed a blonde wig from Mrs. LaFlamme, one of Nancy’s dresses, and an old pair of high heels from Christine, and went trick-or-treating as Marilyn Monroe. My dad wore his baseball cap, kept his head down the whole time we were out, and stood in the middle of the road while I went up to the houses.
    “That you, Henry?” Mr. Blake called out when he looked past my shoulder. He lives three doors down from us.
    “What’s that?” my dad asked, even though he heard Mr. Blake. His voice sounded deeper, too, like he was doing an impersonation of someone else.
    “Thought you only had two daughters!” Mr. Blake yelled and tossed a bag of Hostess chips into my pillow case.
    I thought Mr. Blake was complimenting me. My dad started coughing. He seemed pretty relieved when I broke a heel and had to call it a night.
    The truth is that I feel bad about not being normal, but I just can’t help it. I’ve tried to make my parents happy, but it just never works out. For example, I signed up for shop class this year instead of home ec. We have to take a half year of each in grade 7. But in grade 8, you can choose one or the other for the full year. Even though I really wanted to learn how to make pants and lemon meringue pies, I knew I had to do the right thing and sign up for shop like all the other boys. I wasn’t looking forward to it and the shop teacher, Mr. Gilvary, is very annoying. He has the biggest butt I’ve ever seen on a man. When I took shop with him last year, he was always saying things like, “Watch yourselves, students. One slip and suddenly, you’re missing an arm” or “Keep your goggles on at all times. Had a student in ‘76 who didn’t listen. Now, he’s got a