I liked how Kohana thought about objects. The planet set on the ceiling told a story—like the Attack of the Killer Tomatoes! and Frank Miller posters, my orange shoes, a ton of things I hadn’t thought about. I scanned my bedroom and saw the pieces of paper sticking out from the pages of the R volume in the encyclopedia set my parents were so excited to get me for my thirteenth birthday—now with one volume missing. All I wanted was the original poster from Mel Brooks’s Silent Movie that Jase and I saw on eBay. That or a dog. Hell, even a T-shirt would’ve been okay. But Mom and Dad had gone on a better-my-mind-and-purge-it-of-popular-culture kick. Probably because I had gotten four Cs the first semester. I pulled the pieces of paper from the encyclopedia and smiled. Only Jase could turn a disastrous thirteenth birthday into something cool. I brought out the notebook and wrote. UNTITLED: SCENE ONE—PTBP Syndrome (Post-Traumatic Birthday Present Syndrome) A blazing cake glows through the window.
