Ecasue Youll Never Meet Me Reading Level
For my sis
and all the things that make us
Contents
Chapter One: The Laser Beam
Affiliate Two: The Pacemaker
Affiliate Iii: The Computer
Chapter Four: The Fountain
Affiliate Five: The Power line
Chapter Six: The Words
Chapter Seven: The Motel
Chapter Eight: The Goggles
Chapter Nine: The Forest
Chapter Ten: The Piercings
Chapter Eleven: The Puddles
Chapter Twelve: The Books
Chapter Thirteen: The Book Lite
Chapter Xiv: The Cigarette
Chapter Xv: The Living Room
Chapter Sixteen: The Outfit
Chapter Seventeen: The Contend
Affiliate Eighteen: The Dead Mouse
Chapter Xix: The Phone
Chapter Xx: The Cat
Affiliate Twenty-One: The Fishbowl
Chapter Twenty-Ii: The Deer Blind
Affiliate Twenty-Three: The Cane
Affiliate Twenty-Four: The Music
Affiliate Twenty-Five: The Rose-Colored Spectacles
Chapter Twenty-Half-dozen: The Coat
Affiliate Xx-Seven: The Bedchamber
Chapter Twenty-Eight: The Needles
Chapter Twenty-9: The Womble
Chapter Thirty: The Blackberries
Chapter Xxx-I: The Hands
Affiliate Thirty-Two: The Confetti
Chapter Thirty-Three: The Microphone
Chapter 30-4: The Doorway
Acknowledgments
Chapter One
The Laser Beam
Dear Fellow Hermit,
My name is Oliver, simply near people who meet me end upwards calling me Ollie. I guess you don't really take to, though, because odds are yous'll never meet me.
I tin never travel to wherever you are, because a big part of what makes me a hermit is the fact that I'm deathly allergic to electricity. This is kind of massively incapacitating, but hey—everyone has issues, right?
I remember never existence able to see me is sort of a shame, because I'm not too tedious. I can juggle forks like nobody's business, for starters. I'yard besides pretty peachy at kanji calligraphy, and I can whittle a slice of pino into anything—well, anything made of pine. Dr. Auburn-Stache (I swear that's his real name) is impressed by how rapidly I tin can list every bone in the human being torso, from the distal phalanx of my ugliest toe all the way up to the frontal bone above my optics. I've read more books than I've got hairs on my head, and I am just months away from mastering the glockenspiel. (In case yous didn't know, the glockenspiel is like the metallic, cooler older brother of the xylophone.) I know what you lot're thinking, but you'd be surprised how living alone in the woods can warm a person to the delights of glockenspieling.
But beyond all that stuff, the almost interesting matter about me is that I'chiliad lovesick.
I don't hateful all that poetical nonsense nearly feeling the urge to carve a girl's name into notebooks and desks and trees. I'm non talking moonlit serenades, either, because even my wheezing cat is a meliorate vocalist than I am.
I mean that if I wanted to be around this girl—Liz, her proper noun is Liz—under normal circumstances, I could die. If I always wanted to take her out to—I dunno—an arcade (isn't that what y'all call those mystical places that are just wall-to-wall electric games?), the moment I walked into a bleeping basement full of neon lights and racing simulators, I'd collapse and start seizing similar there's no tomorrow. Which at that place might not exist, if I hit my head the wrong style.
I don't think that's what most people mean by lovesickness, Fellow Hermit.
If I took this daughter out to a flick (and I would love to—what are movies like?), the buzzing of the projector behind us would make my eyelids twitch. The shrill screeching of phones in other people's pockets would bulldoze emerald water ice picks into my temples, and the dim lights overhead would burn white and gold in my retinas. Maybe I'd even swallow my tongue.
But I read somewhere that people who have epileptic fits tin can't really consume their tongues. They exercise bite their tongues, though; one time later a big seizure I chomped correct through mine, and information technology took Auburn-Stache, like, seven stitches on the top and 5 on the lesser to make it heal up afterward. For more than two weeks, I wandered around our motel proverb things like "Waf gongan?" and "Yef, pleef" while Mom just shook her head at me, all exasperated.
Mom's always exasperated. Her confront is pretty creased up most of the time, peculiarly around her eyes, even when she's grin. That's mostly my fault, I call back. I would never say annihilation to her most it, because I think it would upset her that I noticed, and then she might lock herself in the garage over again for a day or two, or even longer this time.
Mom'due south amazing, just she and I have had some pretty bad days lately, days where neither of united states really enjoys the wintertime sunshine. She's watching while I'm writing this past candlelight, and she's probably wondering if you'll even be able to read it. Mom says I've got the handwriting of a drunk doctor. One time I asked Dr. Auburn-Stache if he would consider drinking some moonshine (isn't that what people are supposed to potable out in the forest?) so write me a sonnet so I could compare our penmanship, but he just snickered behind his goatee and patted me on the shoulder.
But—what was I talking about?
Was I talking about Liz? Probably I was, considering that'southward what it's like when you're lovesick. The first side outcome is uncontrollable discussion-vomit:
When Liz is around, it seems similar zippo else is! She smirks and teases me just similar she did on the day I met her in the forest, and and so I think that perhaps I'grand going to be okay, maybe I'k not losing it subsequently all. Considering Liz told me that no i should ever say his illness before his name. And I told you my name beginning, Young man Hermit!
Merely … Liz is hardly e'er around anymore, so …
Lamentable if I wasn't supposed to exist talking most her!
Liz's parents are social workers, and she thinks I have some kind of attention deficit disorder because sometimes my thoughts careen away from my brain and I blab, blab, blab.
But tell me near you lot! What'due south your deal?
Mom won't say where she plans to transport this letter of the alphabet. All she says is that Auburn-Stache knows some other child somewhere out at that place a couple of years older than me with his ain set up of bizarre medical issues. What with everything that has happened to me this year, she thought I could apply someone to talk to. She thinks I need help, but she'due south overreacting. Information technology's not like I've stopped eating; sometimes a guy merely doesn't desire tuna sandwiches. That doesn't mean I'k sick. Or at least any sicker than usual, because yous can't get much sicker than existence allergic to electricity.
About that—I'll attempt explaining it to you, but if you lot inquire why I'one thousand allergic to electricity, I'll just throw my hands up and sigh. I've ever been this way. It'south the ultimate mystery in my neck of the forest.
It might take something to do with a tiptop secret laboratory, though! This is simply a hypothesis, and it doesn't only come from reading Frankenstein in blanket forts during thunderstorms as an impressionable 10-twelvemonth-former. One-half the superhero characters I've read most, from Helm America to the Hulk to Wolverine, got interesting abilities after being test subjects in laboratories.
I call up being an experiment sounds style better than beingness sick, you know?
Then here's the working theory: possibly Dr. Auburn-Stache met your parents at a clandestine, hugger-mugger laboratory? Maybe the same 1 where my dad got radiations poisoning!
Because, see, I practise have show to support my hypothesis. I don't know much nigh my dad. Simply I do know he was some sort of doctor or scientist, because M
om keeps his lab coat hanging in her wardrobe. One fourth dimension, when I was seven or something, I snuck into her room to steal her keys from her bureau (sometimes she padlocks us in, but I really wanted to go outside because it was prime cricket-catching flavour), and she was fast asleep with the faded white coat draped over her like a blanket. I saw that and stopped looking for the keys.
She won't tell me whether I'g right about the lab, or almost dad, beyond proverb that he was sick before he died. (I judge it wasn't necessarily radiation poisoning.) Only I am an expert needler, Fellow Hermit. Over the years I've tried all sorts of tactics to become the story out of her. These tactics include but are not limited to
a. leaping out from backside her armchair and screeching: "Who'smydaddyyyy!?"
b. waiting in the dark pantry until she dives in seeking flour, at which bespeak I moan in a low whisper, "What about … the laboratory?"
c. moping extensively (it's an act, I swear) with the shiniest damn puppy eyes yous've ever seen.
Mom is unshakable. Her usual response to all tactics is an eye roll, but every now and so she pats me on the head. When I'm in the pantry, she but shuts the door on me.
And then I don't know who my dad was, but I know she misses him. If she misses him anything like how much I miss Liz, then no wonder she locks the doors.
Maybe you lot can tell me anything you know about laboratories in your letter of the alphabet, since I went to bug Mom about it again just at present, and she told me to sit back down at my desk-bound and endeavour, for the love of pajamas, to stay on topic for one time. How? I've never really had to stay on topic before. When information technology'south merely you alone in a forest of pine trees for your whole life, in that location'south really no reason not to meander. No one's ever around to tell me to close upward.
I mean, apart from the mailman and a few others, hardly anyone effectually here has ever even seen me. Liz told me that some people believe my cabin is an urban legend! I wish I could ride to town and show them what's what.
Merely there's this power line halfway down our long driveway, right, and the orange tendrils of electricity that dangle down from it never let me laissez passer underneath. Those fiddling wisps of tangerine light actually yanked me off my wheel once and threw me headfirst into a tree trunk.
What I've got is a bit weirder than an allergy, when you lot go right downwardly to information technology. Sometimes information technology's more like mutual repulsion or something, like when you put 2 magnets with the same polarization olfactory organ-to-nose and they catapult each other beyond the table. Doesn't that sound almost like something from comics? Compelling, right?
Mom says I'm not explaining myself properly. She frowned at the role I wrote nigh the lab glaze but didn't scratch information technology out, and then she read about the repulsion stuff and reminded me that my sickness is basically like a tongue: it'south hard for almost people to eat.
Epilepsy basically ways that the electricity in your encephalon is somehow out of whack. A lot of people in the world have this problem, but most people don't accept to be hermits because of it.
Having epilepsy means sometimes having seizures—um, shaking fits? I recollect of it like this: my head gets stuck on something and and then the whole balance of me gets stuck, too, and it's similar those times when yous stutter, but it's not my words—it's all of me. Head to toe, just stuttering. And later I can't remember what I was trying to exercise or say in the first place. All that's left are throbbing temples, a swollen tongue, lost fourth dimension, and so much os-tiredness that I don't desire to movement e'er once more.
I've read tons of pamphlets on epilepsy. Mom brings them home from the dispensary and nosotros go through them together. I've read that some people only develop epilepsy after a nasty head injury, like from a car crash. Others get-go having seizures as a side consequence of a disease or drug corruption.
Simply some people just have rotten luck. Encounter besides: me.
Pamphlets are too how I learned about auras, when I was six or something.
"'Earlier having seizures, many people have some sense that a seizure is imminent. This sense is referred to as an aura.' And imminent means 'close.' Caput up, Ollie. This is important."
"Can't I become outside?"
"Homework beginning. 'During an aura, sufferers may experience acute sensory noise.'"
"Are those all real words?"
"It means that many people's senses showtime going haywire before a seizure, Ollie. They might taste pepper—"
"I'd rather taste water ice foam."
"—or smell sulfur. Or mayhap they get-go to see the world differently. I call up you know nigh that last one." Were nosotros outside in the k, or inside by the kitchen window? I can't retrieve. Just I call back that Mom squeezed my hand and I squeezed my optics shut.
For certain I run into things differently, Beau Hermit. I can't await at annihilation electric without seeing blobs of color. Information technology'southward like my vision measures electric currents on a spectrum or something. If getting blinded past multicolored electric hazes is because of an aura, then I must take an eternal aureola. Information technology never goes away. It'southward downright immortal. Dracul-aura.
Mom says I'yard most off topic over again and that I should focus. I swear that lately it'south simply: Ollie, finish moping! Ollie, eat your tuna sandwiches!
Focus!
Do people always tell you to focus? What does that fifty-fifty mean? Whenever Mom or Auburn-Stache says "Focus, Oliver!" I attempt to wrangle my thoughts into the shape of a light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation beam. I've seen laser beams on the covers of my favorite sci-fi novels; I've even painted some. I commonly paint what my aureola shows me when I await at electricity: saffron-slashing walkie-talkies, sunbursts floating out of headlights. Before it knocks me apartment, electricity can exist really cool to await at.
All the MRI machines I saw, back when Mom and Auburn-Stache nonetheless bundled me up in rubber dress and dragged me to hospitals, were wrapped in scarves of golden light that gave me pounding headaches. Ten-rays emit rich scarlet ringlets. Fluorescent bulbs exude a silver mist that drifts downward like craft glitter. Power sockets? They spit out blue-white confetti curls. Batteries in employ are little twists of bronze radiance that shatter to gray when they run low. Every single auto gives off its own make of colorful free energy, and my seizures are triggered by all of them: anything and everything electric.
I know this does sound unswallowable. But information technology's and so real to me. It's the reason I'k bored but not boring. Why I'm stuck out here by myself.
At least when Liz used to come by I could act like I was normal, just like she is. I listened to her talk nigh her school stuff, and information technology was almost similar I was the sort of child who could go there with her, who could text during class and type essays and later come up home on a motorcoach and plop myself in front of a television and eat food from a microwave. (Those sound magical, Fellow Hermit.)
Simply I've never looked straight at a television; that would probably transport me tonic-clonic in seconds. Televisions are bursting with inorganic light and organic color, a miasma of dissonance. I'g told that'due south all televisions are to anyone. I'thou not sure I purchase that. (I retrieve I would love cartoons.)
And motor vehicles! Engines are hard for me to see because the smog of energy effectually them is pitch-night. I can't tell you what color Mom's truck is; every time I've stood at my bedchamber window and watched it pull away, it has been surrounded by a gritty, opaque nebula.
My favorites are all those electric things that people seem to superglue to themselves, things Liz used to prove me: phones, music players, laptops. When they're switched on, their colors bounce off the skin of their users. Phones lend the faces they are pressed against a luminous green sheen. Headphones coat ears in minty residuum. Just laptops are the best. Fingers on keyboards are traced past trails of light, like long blades of grass.
You may be wondering whether I'chiliad complaining or not. I'm not really sure myself. Mom says the manner I encounter things sounds beautiful. But I'chiliad not certain the sight of rainbow explosions is worth toasting a bunch of my brain cells over. It'south not actually beautiful when I'm drooling on the floor and rattled with tremors.
What was I maxim about laser beams?
I'm
going to try to beam my life story to you, equally directly every bit I tin manage. So these letters will be my autobiography. Yous don't have to read them if you don't want to, but I would appreciate it if you could write me your story back. There's plenty boredom to drown in around these parts. And please don't tell me that people can drown in an inch of water. I know that. I'm being figurative! I'chiliad just trying to tell you that it's a lot of boredom.
Especially now that Liz might never stop by to encounter me ever again.
I'll tell y'all about that later considering Mom says that proficient autobiographies are linear, like life. Like, I should tell y'all about being a toddler earlier I talk about existence a kid.
That'south good. I don't recollect I want to talk about what it feels similar when I'1000 waiting outside in the dusty driveway and Liz doesn't come biking downwards it, grin. When she doesn't come biking downwards information technology frowning, even. When she doesn't come biking down it at all, and I just stare at the same old jack pines every bit ever and the aforementioned old stumps and breathe the same old smell of emptiness and sap, until it gets dark out.
Start I want to make certain you exist. I tin can't expect to hear from y'all, Fellow Hermit! I dubiety I've ever done one-half of what you accept. I would trade all my glockenspiel skills for a chance to go online. Or to ride a school bus or feel air-conditioning. Are yous likewise hypersensitive to electricity?
Mom says that fifteen double-sided pages are plenty to scare anyone away, so I'll finish here at page xiv.
Write me soon. It's getting boring hither. Did I mention that?
~ Ollie Ollie UpandFree
P.S. Here's a teaser to brand you desire to read my autobiography: I've died before.
Affiliate Two
The Pacemaker
Oliver:
Firstly, my male parent has confirmed that your penmanship is atrocious. At least you tin can spell. I would hate to outmatch yous in your ain language. How embarrassing that would exist for y'all. I am sick of people deciding that being immature means being ineloquent. Yet the idiots who attend school with me are besides preoccupied with gossip to care about language. I practice not look them to meet my standards, but you needn't be a Wunderkind to educate yourself.
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