Read Online The Son of Someone Famous by M.E. Kerr - Free Book Online

around.”
    â€œI’m not going anywhere,” she said.
    When we arrived at my grandfather’s, he wasn’t there. There was this note on the kitchen table:
    I am off paying my Christmas respects to old friends. Please enjoy my home, punch bowl and repast. Season’s Greetings. C.B.
    The words didn’t even sound like Grandpa Blessing; they sounded stilted and phony, and I realized he probably imagined I’d read the note to Billie Kay. I wondered who he meant by “old friends,” since as far as I knew, my grandfather had no friends in Storm.
    â€œWhat repast is he referring to?” Brenda Belle asked me. “I’m starving.”
    â€œIt’s just some salami and some cheese and hard bread,” I said.
    â€œI’d love to,” Brenda Belle said.
    â€œI guess Grandpa decided to give me time to be withBillie Kay alone.”
    â€œI’ll bet this is the dullest Christmas she’s ever spent,” said Brenda Belle. “No offense, Adam, but you know what I mean.”
    Then she saw the tree. “Oh my Glory! Adam! Beer cans!”
    â€œWe made it,” I said defensively. “We like it.” Brenda Belle began this little conversation with herself and her imitation of her mother. “Did you have a good time, dear? . . . Oh my yes, Mother, we sat before the tree of beer cans! . . . I beg your pardon, dear, I thought you said something that sounded like— . . . Beer cans, Mother? . . . Yes, I thought you said beer cans.”
    I said, “I suppose your tree has the usual five-and-ten crap hanging off it, hmmm?”
    â€˜â€˜Of course not,” she said, “we decided to trim ours, this year, with old banana peels.” She threw her parka across for me to catch and hang in the closet.
    â€œBanana peels are such old hat,” I said, “I heard the Cutlers did their tree in carrot tops.”
    â€œNot true,” she trilled back at me, “simply not true. I have it on the best authority that the Cutler tree is trimmed with turtle turds.”
    â€œAh, turtle turds,” I said. “Tinseled, too, I trust.”
    â€œIndubitably!” said Brenda Belle. “Did your grandfather mention a punch bowl as well as a repast?”
    â€œIndeed he did,” I said.
    â€œFantastico!” she said. “Joy-ex Noel, Adam Blessing.”
    â€œHark the Herald” I said.
    It was a very strong punch, but I was fighting back because I was a little concerned about my grandfather. I wanted to be sober if he came home with a load on.
    Brenda Belle was tossing them back at a fairly fast clip.
    â€œAdam,” she asked me, “I want your honest opinion on something.”
    â€œAll right. On what?”
    â€œOn me. Did it ever cross your mind for one minute, one half a teeny tiny second even, that there might be a certain mix-up in my genes?”
    â€œI’ve never even seen you in your jeans,” I said.
    â€œG-e-n-e-s, Adam. Not blue jeans. Human genes.”
    â€œWhat do you mean a mix-up?”
    â€œA confusion,” she said, “as though my body wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be.”
    â€œI don’t get you.”
    â€œDo you think of me as a feminine being?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œTotally?”
    â€œYes,” I said, “totally.”
    â€œYou don’t think there are masculine undertones?”
    I had to laugh at that idea.
    She shoved her elbow into my chest. “Don’t laugh! I’m serious!”
    â€œI’m not laughing at you. I’m laughing at that idea. Whose idea is that?”
    â€œMy mother suspects I’m slightly unnatural,” she said.
    â€œDid she say that?”
    Then she just started bawling. “No, she didn’t say that, she didn’t have to say that. I’m a social flop. It’s obvious. I don’t have dates, telephone calls. I don’t get valentines. I’m a zero.”
    â€œIsn’t it a