Gristrift

"Son," said Dad, "After these tests are completed, you will have jumped the final hurdle before becoming a high schooler. You must treat this responsibility with maturity and manliness. I am so proud of you."

John rolled his eyes, though inside he felt tingles of happiness, reminiscent of when Nicholas Cage (playing as Benjamin Franklin Gates) saw the extent of the treasure room in National Treasure. What a glorious movie. John owned the DVD and watched it every weekend as part of his awesome movies marathon, which both began and ended with Con Air.

A familiar scent wafted from downstairs, breaking him away from his thought tangent. "Is that smell what I think it is?" he asked. Dad was pretty much the best baker in the whole world, times infinity. He could take a box of Betty Crocker's vanilla cake, mix it up with love and make the world taste good. John gave a goofy grin at his internal cool movie reference.

Dad gave John a stern look, but John knew there weren't any mean feelings involved. He beckoned for John to follow him downstairs. John walked through the lame living room filled with weirdo clowns and Nana's ashes and into the kitchen, where a giant cake took up the entire table. A red light shone from the stove, which indicated the oven currently contained a cake, which indicated that this cake would not stand alone. A celebration without at least ten cakes was like a baby without a pacifier. That was to say, he was a rather piss-poor excuse for a baby if you asked John.

Of course, he couldn't finish even the one cake, what with it taking up the entire table. It was the principle of the thing.

Even Dad could go overboard, though. On John's thirteenth birthday a few months ago, he had baked like twenty-six cakes, which was altogether too many cakes. John had flipped out a bit and stuck his fake arms into one of them before going back to playing his video games. He still thought the addition of arms made the cake at least three times funnier.

The icing was mostly white, but because Dad was a total cornball, a picture of John's face adorned the middle: dark brown skin, black hair that he tried to make look like Astro Boy's from the 2009 film but ended up making look like a bunch of lumpy spikes, glasses with giant frames and tiny temples, and three teeth that poked out from his smiling upper lip.

"DAD," John said in an annoyed voice.

Dad ignored the comment. "This cake is for after your tests. We leave as soon as I get the batter into the oven. Are you prepared?"

The tests. Bluh. As far as John was concerned, final tests were for high schools and colleges and the like, not middle schools. The closer the hands on the clock got to 7:40, the lower his stomach sank. Maybe he could delay Dad a bit. See if he could get to school late enough that his final could be rescheduled. "Wow, Dad, are you sure? I mean, I would love to have just a taste right now of this fantastic cake that I am sure was baked with love. Heheheh."

"Son, this cake is meant as a reward. The time to eat it is when you have completed your tests."

Fuck! John waited for Dad to finish his batter and rushed off to the bathroom before Dad could make him get in the car. Nobody could fault him for going to the bathroom, right? He looked around for possible materials for an awesome disguise, but unless he wanted a literal toothbrush mustache, nothing presented itself.

"You are going to be late for your tests," called Dad.

"I'll be there in a minute!" If only he had something that could cause a distraction. Unfortunately, he had used his last smoke pellet last week in a daring escape from having to go to Dadly Depot again to buy new nose hair trimmers.

"Son, you are going to be late for school, and that is unacceptable on such an important day."

John sighed and walked slowly to the white minivan. At least Dad was the kind of good citizen who never went above the speed limit. He could have written the manual on how to drive safely.

The ride to school passed uneventfully. John looked out the window like a prisoner being led to the electric chair. Why couldn't his school be like every other middle school and have days of fun and relaxation at the end of the year? He didn't need to be "prepared for high school." He could be a street performer like Dad. Those card shooting wristbands weren't for nothing!

Dad's car stopped at the school and John got out. Soon, the car drove off, leaving him alone with the offending building. John took his backpack and walked slowly to the school. When he got to the front doors, he found them locked. He gave a nervous laugh and tried again a few times before he saw a sheet of paper taped to the doors from the inside.

SCHOOL LOCKED FOR TESTING DAY

DO NOT DISTURB

FOR EMERGENCIES, DIAL 555-6837

John reached into his pocket where his cell phone usually rested and found it missing. Did he really arrive that late? He hadn't been super serious about delaying. He just meant it as kind of prank, maybe a way to skip the school day if successful, not a way of locking himself out with no way in and no way home.

Rolling his eyes at his luck, he walked around to the window to his classroom. All of his classmates sat silently with their heads tilted downwards, focused on their work. "Hey!" John shouted, knocking on the glass. "I'm out here!" Nobody looked up.

John leaned against the wall dividing him from his classmates and swore, scrunching his eyes shut in annoyance and anger. How would he explain this to Dad? Could he even graduate middle school? If only he could find a way inside. He wanted to be in there more than anything else in the world.

A small wave of nausea overtook him and his hands tingled as if asleep. The sound of muffled laughter made him open his eyes. He stood on the other side of the wall, inside the classroom, and faced the rest of the class, most of whom were staring at him. A few made it a point to look away, including the teacher. Some held their hands over their mouths. Others giggled.

Wow! He made it in! "Sorry for interrupting. Can I have my test?"

The teacher said nothing. John didn't understand the problem until he looked down at himself and didn't see a green slime ghost looking back up at him. Nor did he see any pants, underwear, or shoes.

He smashed his eyes closed and screamed, waving his arms around like a maniac. This had to be a dream. In cartoons, kids always got "naked at school" dreams. So he had to be dreaming. Had to be. How else could he have gotten in there without opening a door or window? So that settled it. Dream. Definitely a dream.

John pinched himself. No sensation of waking up resulted.

He looked down again, hoping that he would mysteriously find himself clothed. Wow, this sucked. Quickly, he used his hands to cover up his privates. On his chest, he saw a small white dot. What a lame time to get vitiligo.

"John Egbert!" said the teacher, shock layering on top of disgust layering on top of anger layering on top of disbelief like one of Dad's layer cakes.

"I am sorry! I do not even understand why I am in here, let alone naked," he said.

"Get to... go to the principal's office. Here, take this. This, too." She took off her jacket and handed it to John, along with a small blanket. Her eyes stayed closed the whole time. He put them on and scampered across the room and out to the principal's office.

__

"Son, I am very proud of the way you handled the situation. I have known for a long time this would happen. When we get home, you have ten minutes to pack."

"Wait, I don't understand," said John, getting into the car. Dad hadn't said a word on the way out of the school. "You knew I was going to be naked in front of my whole class and you never even told me? You are so dumb and also lame."

"I had no specific knowledge of what your powers would be, but I knew they would manifest with puberty."

"Having all my clothes come off sounds like kind of a stupid power. And how do you know all this?"

"The person who I believe is your birth mother told me. She is coming to take you away for her own purposes. I cannot allow that to happen."

"What? I'm adopted?" John wished the car had enough room to freak out at the stunning revelation that his tall, light-skinned, Asian Dad did not contribute to his genetics.

Dad gave no response. He turned on the car and slammed the accelerator. Dad had never zoomed out of a parking lot like this before. Once they were on the road, he went even faster and raced around the other cars. John noticed a speed limit sign whoosh past and stared at the speedometer. For the first time, he went not just over the speed limit but thirty miles an hour over. What was wrong with his Dad?

They quickly made it to the house, where another car was already parked in the driveway: a hot pink Lamborghini decorated with glitter and bumper stickers. Dad drove past the house without even slowing down.

"Aren't I going to get to pack? I'm hardly wearing anything, for one thing, and also my movie collection is in there."

The car accelerated again. Dad didn't say a word.