Chapter 4:

My heart is pounding. I can't believe it.

How could he eat my hotdog? That was my hotdog. Mine, mine, mine.

One thought keeps on popping back into my head though. I only have one now. I only have one now. I only have one…

Oh God. It's not even. What am I going to do? I need my hotdog. I can't eat without it. It's not even. It won't be even.

IT'S AN ODD NUMBER!

I'm starting to freak out. Everything looks the same and everybody's blurring together and I'm afraid I'm going to pass out soon. But I don't black out, and somehow that's even worse.

The next minute I'm screaming my head off and then crumbling to the floor, rocking back and forth in the fetal position. I don't even know how I got here.

Cody's trying to calm me down, but I don't even seem to know he's there.

All that's in my mind is my hotdog. I only have one. I only have one.

Cody gets up and goes over to Zack, who looks clearly shocked. I don't think he's ever seen me like this. Zack never really knew about my OCD. Well, he knew of course, but he'd never seen it in action.

And it scared him.

"WHY DID YOU EAT HIS HOTDOG ZACK? ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL HIM? YOU KNOW HE GOES CRAZY IF HE DOESN'T HAVE EVEN NUMBERS!"

I've never seen Cody this mad since the time I accidentally dyed his hair purple, yet it feels sort of good. He's angry at Zack. And he's angry for me.

This doesn't make up anywhere for the fact that he ate my hotdog though. I feel like giving up. Why am I so different? Why can't I just eat one hotdog? Why do I always have to eat two? Is there something wrong with me?

There is. There has to be something wrong with me.

Everything turns all hazy and I realize I'm crying my eyes out. This really embarrasses me, and I start feeling sorry for myself, and soon I'm bawling.

Cody is screaming at Zack, Zack fishes a dollar out of his pocket and hands it to his twin, and then all the sudden Cody leaves and Zack is trying to make me feel better.

"God Tapeworm, calm down man," he tries, slamming me in what is probably supposed to be a kind gesture on my back. "I'm sorry I ate your hotdog. I swear, I didn't know."

Yeah right.

"What's wrong with the freak?" comes a drawl, and I look up. It's Drew. Figures.

Drew has hated me ever since I first stepped into his Kindergarten class. In my opinion, it's really stupid. I think it had something to do with the fact that I chose the T-Rex dinosaur toy before he did, and he's held a grudge ever since then. I mean, in first grade, I "copied his picture". Well, we sort of all had to draw pictures of rabbits. In second grade, he didn't like my shoes, or something stupid like that. In third, I "stole all the joke books from the library." In fourth, I got the part that he wanted in our musical. In fifth, I beat him at handball. In sixth, I asked the girl he wanted to dance with to dance. In seventh, I became friends with Cody Martin—the kid who lived at the Tipton hotel. In eighth, I got tickets to the All-American Rejects concert. Now as a freshman, he still hates me.

Zack looks at him. Zack's always sort of wanted to be friends with Drew. Drew's probably the coolest freshman in the school—he has the most attitude, gets the worst grade, etc.

"He's just spazzing out," he tells Drew, laughing at me and smiling with that stupid artificial look that I truly hate. I can tell he actually feels bad about eating my hotdog, but can't he be sincere enough not to lie about it?

Drew grins. "The freak's having too much, isn't he?"

Zack smiles evilly and gets up and away from me. I'm too nervous to care. ODD NUMBER. ODD NUMBER.

Zack and Drew are talking and laughing at me, but all the sudden Zack's smile disappears. Cody's back.

He's holding this hotdog in one hand and puts it on my tray. He puts the tray on the ground next to me.

"Hey Tapeworm," he smiles gently, like he's trying not to embarrass me and he actually cares. "I got you another hotdog. You have two again. It's an even number Tape."

I'm still tense—sort of afraid to move. Cody keeps looking at me with that reassuring face, and I want to get out of the position I'm in—it's actually embarrassing—but for some reason I can't. Cody understands.

"Come on Tapeworm," he says, with a kind look in his eyes. He pushes back the blonde hair from his forehead and with a determined look on his face opens one of my ketchup packets. It's all greasy, so it takes him awhile to open.

He finally manages to rip it open and then he opens the other one. He squeezes one ketchup packet on each hotdog, and taking a deep sigh like he doesn't want to do what he's about to do but he knows it's the right thing, he uses his right index finger to spread the ketchup along each one. I look at him flinch, and I'm grateful, because I know how much of a neat freak he is. And the fact that he's vegetarian.

When Cody was thirteen he had a pet duck and it followed him around everywhere. Its name was Itchy. I can take credit for naming it. It was the coolest duck—it was all brown and had a green head. And it quacked. How rad is that? Anyway, Cody kept it in the Martins' suite until Mr. Mosebey, the manager of the Tipton, found out when Itchy accidentally fell into a bowl of punch at the Tipton's fifth year opening anniversary and he almost lost his job to that crazy German lady with the really long name and the huge mole. Mr. Mosebey made Cody put Itchy in a cage, but Zack let Itchy out by accident when he was poking him to hear him quack. Anyway, Maddie's, (she's Zack's crush who works at the Tipton), dog Scraps and London's, (she's a rich kid who's Maddie's best friend who's father owns the Tipton Hotel), dog Ivana, started chasing poor Itchy around. Itchy kept on running until Ivana and Scraps caught him and…well, that was the end of Itchy. Cody hasn't eaten any meat ever since Itchy's death. (That was another time I saw him really mad at Zack by the way. He was really depressed. Mrs. Martin offered to get him another duck, but Cody said that none could replace Itchy—which is the truth). That's basically the story of how Cody became vegetarian.

I really don't deserve Cody. He's ignoring the sniggers from Drew and Zack, and he keeps doing what he needs to do to help me. He knows me more than anybody—probably even better than my dad and my mom. (My parents try to understand, but they don't go to this extent to help. My dad would probably slap my face and my mom would probably just stand there not knowing what to do). Cody knows me better than Max ever did.

Before I met Cody, Max used to be my best friend because we were the only two kids that Drew really picked on. She was always sincere and fun to be around—well, until I got OCD. She started thinking I was weird.

She still hung out with me though. We were pretty tight. But then when Cody and Zack came along, we sort of both hung out with them. Then Max started getting really close to Zack—they're dating right now—and she started not really talking to me. She's nice enough when I say hi to her or something, but I've lost the relationship I used to have with her.

"Here Tapeworm," Cody says, putting the hotdogs down on the tray and pushing it over to me. "I put on the ketchup right."

He'd probably go through the whole ritual and kiss them if I needed him too.

But I think I've got it from here.

I manage to pull apart my arms and legs, and pick up my hotdogs. They look as good as ever.

I kiss each one twice on each end, trying to ignore the laughs from Zack and Drew. I shove one in my mouth and eat it in eight bites. The other one—since I'm hungry—I finish in six bites. It tastes like heaven.

The soft bun with that juicy meat inside—I love it.

My mom always gets me hotdogs when we go out. My dad doesn't. He says they're an unnecessary waste of money and that they're about a zillion calories each anyway. That's why I like going to places with my mom more.

I've calmed down by now, and Cody looks really relieved. He opens up his own lunchbox, joins me on the ground, and starts eating his peanut butter sandwich. (Cody hates sandwiches with peanut butter and jelly mixed together. He can only eat peanut butter alone or jelly alone). I eat my sixteen grapes and eat my two brownies and drink my two cartons of milk. I throw away my apples in a bag. Those just disturb me.

I sort of spend the rest of my day daydreaming. I've had way too much excitement for the day.

Cody doesn't really say anything, except he asks me if I'm ok a couple of times.

I guess it's because I look sort of scared.

Well… I do go home and see my dad next. That may be scary. My heart always starts beating really fast when I think about going home to see him. I'm afraid of my dad. I don't think that's healthy. The school already had to call him about my puking during the dissection and my OCD attack in the lunchroom. My dad's probably going to scream his head off at me.

That's one thing I need to worry about. Cody doesn't know—I've never found it really necessary to tell him, but sometimes my dad really freaks me out. Sometimes I'm afraid he might kill me by accident. He's always yelling at me for this or for that. He hates my OCD more than anything and I think sometimes he wishes I'd just disappear.

I can't really help who I am though. I guess you've just got to love me or hate me.

Most of the world just takes the second option.

Review? Tapeworm with his dad next.