"Khee-moo tuh-moe."

"Emu tomb."

"Ha . . . ha . . . ha."

"Heh heh."

"No seriously, what, uh."

"Heh."

"Harf."

Finally, as we were leaving the bus, Earl figured it out. "Chemotherapy," he said.

"Ohhhh."

"Your girl gonna lose all her hair."

"What?"

"Chemotherapy. You get injected with a s.h.i.tload of chemicals and all your hair fall out."

This struck me as ridiculous, even though I sort of knew it was true. "Ohhhhh."

"You basically get sick as h.e.l.l."

Well, I thought to myself, this is a pretty pickle. Then I started thinking about the phrase "pretty pickle." Pretty soon I was envisioning a cuc.u.mber with Madison Hartner's face and b.o.o.bs. Somehow this was hilarious.

"Dude," said Earl, who looked concerned.

"What?"

"Why you laughing."

"Uhhh."

"Chemotherapy is serious. You don't want to be cracking up about no chemotherapy."

"No, it was, uh . . . I was thinking about something else." Jesus Christ, I was a mess.

"So you gonna text her back, tell her we're coming."

I wasn't sure if this was a question. "Maybe?"

"Yeah, we gotta see your friend, dumba.s.s."

"OK. OK."

"So write, yeah, me and Earl gonna come see you."

This took forever to write, and I ended up with: oaky sounds grea8~! but can i bring frined earl hes cool ul'l liek him ???/ Holy flame-throwing Jesuses. There are definitely kids out there who enjoy being on drugs, but I can promise you that Greg Gaines is not one of them.

Our first obstacle was Denise.

"h.e.l.lo, Greg," she said. She seemed preoccupied. She was also giving Earl the crazy eye, sort of like if I had showed up on her doorstep with a llama. "And who might this be?"

Earl and I said something at the same time.

"Sorry?"

Then neither of us said anything.

"I'm Denise," said Denise eventually.

"Earl Jackson," said Earl, too loudly. I eyed him fearfully. When talking with adults, Earl often becomes brash and combative. I knew this was not going to go over well with Denise, so I started talking. This turned out to be a tactical error.

What not-on-drugs Greg would have said: "Earl's a good friend of mine, and he wanted to wish Rachel well. Is she upstairs?"

What on-drugs Greg ended up saying: "Earl's my best-Earl's one of my best friends. And we were just hanging out together, you know, like, not really doing anything, you know, so it's cool. So, uh. So we got this text, from Rachel, about the hair loss-which, I mean, hasn't happened yet, obviously, so we wanted to see her hair. And hang out! Not just see the hair, because, you know, the hair, I can take it or leave it. I'm sure she's gonna look great without hair. But we just wanted to hang out. Say what's up, that sort of . . . thing."

By the end of this monologue I was covered in sweat. Meanwhile, Earl was not even trying to hide his disgust. He had his face in his hands and said a word that I think was "G.o.dd.a.m.n."

"Oka-a-a-a-ay," said Denise, sounding uncertain.

We were all silent for a while.

"So is Rachel upstairs?" I said eventually.

"Yeah, yeah, of course," said Denise and waved us up, and we ran up there and away from Denise with extreme quickness.

Our second obstacle was Rachel's mistrust of Earl, and also our record-setting drug-related weirdness.

"I wasn't sure what your text message meant," she said. She was eyeing Earl warily. I had the queasy feeling that she was mistrustful of him because he was black, although I also felt terrible for thinking that, because that would be accusing a girl of racism who is about to lose all her hair, and then probably die.

"Earl's the man," I said, as if this explained anything.

"Yeah, you guys send gross text messages to each other."

It took me a long, uncomfortably silent time to remember that this was the only thing I had ever said to Rachel about Earl, and by the time I remembered that, Earl had already taken some initiative.

"Sup."

"h.e.l.lo, Earl."

Silence.

"I like your room."

"Thank you. Greg thinks it's too girly."

I knew I had to say something here, so I sort of yelled, "I do not!"

"Of course it's girly," said Earl. "My room doesn't have no James Bond in no . . . thong."

What not-on-drugs Greg would have said: "Yeah, Earl prefers his James Bond posters naked."

What on-drugs Greg ended up saying: "Huh huh."

Longer silence.

"So, I'm getting a round of chemo tomorrow."

"Yeah, that sucks."

"Dude, what the h.e.l.l." Earl shoved me.

"What?"

"Don't say it sucks."

"Uh . . . yeah, you're right."

"It sucks a little bit," said Rachel.

"Yeah, but it's exciting."

"I guess."

"If you get it early enough, you've got a good chance," said Earl, staring at the ground.

"Yup." Rachel was also staring at the ground.

Possibly racist silence.

Rachel and Earl were clearly not hitting it off. I had to do something. Unfortunately, I had no idea what that thing would be. The silence grew. Rachel continued staring at the ground. Earl started sighing. It was the opposite of a party. It was about the least fun social situation imaginable. If terrorists had burst into the room and tried to suffocate us in hummus, it would have been an improvement. This idea got me thinking about hummus. What is hummus, exactly? It's basically a paste. Who eats paste? Especially a paste that resembles cat barf? You can't deny the resemblance here. At least, when Cat Stevens barfs, it looks like hummus.

And then a part of me was like: "Why do you keep comparing food to barf? First the alien thing in the cafeteria, and now this. Maybe you have a problem."

That's when I realized that I was giggling. But sort of in a nervous scared way, which made it even more obnoxious than just lighthearted giggling.

Earl was p.i.s.sed: "Stop it with your G.o.dd.a.m.n giggling." But Rachel's reaction was worse: "You guys can go if you want," she said, and it sounded like she was about to cry. This was terrible. I felt like such a d.i.c.khead. It was time to come clean.

"We're on drugs," I blurted.

Earl had his head in his hands again.

"What?" said Rachel.

"We accidentally got high."

"Accidentally?"

It was time to come sort of clean. Actually, it was high time for Lie Time.

"I totally blacked out. I don't even remember what happened."

"You did not black out," snapped Earl.

"No, we both did."

"The h.e.l.l are you even talkin about."

"Why are you guys on drugs?" asked Rachel.

"I don't know!" I said.

"I don't know."

Then Earl started to say something, and I knew it was going to be about Mr. McCarthy. But I really didn't want to get him fired.

So I just started talking: "Actually, we went into a bathroom, and there were some guys there, you know, some of the stoner guys, and they were like, you want some weed, and at first we were like, no, we don't want any of your, uh, weed, but then they started getting angry, and were like, yo, you better smoke some of this, or we'll, uh, beat the h.e.l.l out of you, and there were like twenty of them, so we were like, OK fine, so we smoked with them, but again, I don't totally remember what happened because I blacked out."

Immediately Obvious Holes in the Story That I Just Made Up: A Partial List 1. Earl and I have never visited a bathroom together in our entire lives, probably because that would be weird.

2. Stoners do not smoke weed in the bathroom. They smoke weed in old Nissan Altimas about a block and a half from the school. Then they are not seen again for hours, sometimes days.

3. No stoner in the history of the world has ever forced anyone to smoke with them. Indeed, many of them are actually delighted not to share weed with you.

4. There were twenty of them? In one bathroom? Twenty stoners? Why not just say a hundred? Why not say a berjillion? Jesus.

5. What is this "blacking out" business? What would that even mean?

So I said all that, and Earl was silent. Rachel looked at him for confirmation. At length he said: "Yeah, that's what happened." He was p.i.s.sed.

We looked like morons. But at least Rachel wasn't on the verge of crying anymore. She looked sort of amused.

"I hate drugs," I said. "I feel like an a.s.s right now. I'm sorry we came over while we were on drugs."

"Shut your dumb a.s.s up," said Earl to me. "You think you're making Rachel feel better? All apologetic and s.h.i.t? Shut the h.e.l.l up."