Spoonbenders

He turned to look at the room, which was surprisingly well lit. There were two night-lights, and the ceiling revealed itself to be spangled with glow-in-the-dark stickers of stars, planets, and comets. The herd of boneless pets seemed to be sprawled across a miniature savannah. The room was getting warmer. The barely open window was a mail slot for the delivery of humidity.

He closed his eyes. Took a breath.

Concentrate, Matt.

He clenched his fists, released them.

He knew he could slip outside his body. The hard part—which he’d been working on for a month with limited success—was to do so without touching himself. He’d never be able to go onstage if the only way to use his power was to jack off in front of the audience. Uncle Frankie had told him they could make real money with his abilities if he practiced, and Matty had been imagining the return of the Amazing Telemachus Family, starring Matthias Telemachus, Astral Projector. They’d first bring the act to small theaters, building buzz, until they made a groundbreaking performance on live television. All he had to do was astral project. And not think of his cousin. And those cutoffs.

Commandment #2. Do not have lustful thoughts about your cousin.

“Damn it,” he said aloud. He tried to think of someone else, anyone else. How about Elle Macpherson?

But suddenly he couldn’t summon a clear picture of the supermodel. Why hadn’t he packed his Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue? (Not actually the whole issue. He’d pulled a few of the good pages from the 1994 edition at the Waldenbooks in the Monroeville Mall in Pittsburgh, which was the most larcenous thing he’d ever done in his life, and guarded them carefully ever since.)

After a half hour, he was still rooted to his body. The air was too close, and the bunk bed a coffin. He threw off the covers and crawled out onto the crinkly carpet, nudging aside plush toys. He rolled onto his back under the open window, spread his arms and legs to the artificial stars, and waited for moving molecules of air to touch his skin.

Nothing. And why was the carpet so stiff? Had the girls spilled Kool-Aid or something? And why hadn’t they arranged the stars into real constellations? At least that would have been educational.

Shut up, he said to his brain. Think of Elle Macpherson. But all he could visualize were those rectangles of pocket cloth, white against Malice’s brown thighs. Which was crazy. It was just cloth. Cloth that normally was not seen, sure, but it wasn’t lingerie. There was no reason a couple of inches of cotton should stop his heart.

He pushed his hands away from himself and clutched the carpet.

Commandment #3. Under no circumstances should you touch yourself while having lustful thoughts about your cousin.

The rule would be easier to keep if it wasn’t such a reliable ticket to an OBE. (Which stood for out-of-body experience, aka astral projection, which was sort of like clairvoyance and remote viewing, but with a body attached. He’d been reading up.) Over the past few weeks, he’d been able to jump out of his skin half a dozen times. Mostly he barely got to his own ceiling, but twice now, fueled by a fantasy of being forced to sleep in the same bed as Mary Alice because of some unspecified family emergency, he’d pushed his consciousness up and out of the house, so that he was able to hover, kitelike, above the roof.

He’d reported all his successes to Uncle Frankie, without explaining Malice’s part in them, and didn’t bring up the failures at all. Frankie was especially anxious to confirm that Matty was not just imagining the travels—after all, a roof was a roof. And so this test. All Matty had to do was breathe, relax, and not think of white cotton.

A dozen glassy-eyed animals watched him suspiciously. God it was hot.

Somewhere an air conditioner rumbled. Probably in Frankie and Loretta’s room. No wonder Malice slept in the basement. He could almost picture her down there, on the old hideaway bed. One leg poking out of the sheets, an arm thrown over her eyes. He imagined her surrounded by darkness but caught like a girl onstage by the spotlight of the unshaded lamp that sat on the milk crate that served as her bedside table. Her arm moved away from her face, and surprise, her eyes were wide open, more than awake, because it was clear she hadn’t fallen asleep tonight; no, she’d been waiting. She turned toward the milk crate, checked a small digital clock there, and rolled out of bed. She was still wearing that white Bowie T-shirt, but the cutoffs had been replaced by a pair of black jeans. She picked up a red flannel shirt from the floor and pulled it on without buttoning it, then stooped to tug on a pair of high-tops. She hustled toward the door that led to the back stairs, turned the lock, and vanished. She was sneaking out!