Excerpt

BORDERLINE

by Bonnie Rozanski

INTRODUCTION

BORDERLINE, leavened with humor and filled with compassion, will be welcome by families who've been touched by the autism spectrum. Environmentalists will also appreciate both humor and message in this story of two teens learning to become men too soon.

The book uses the story of 12-year-old Everyman, Guy Ritter, his activist Mom, detached scientist Dad, and autistic brother, Austin, to reflect on a world with no wilderness, to slam fast food franchises, and to introduce JX-104: a wolf bred to be tame but who can't quite make the transition to dog.

The excerpt below offers a great scene where the Ritter family first discovers that Austin's development might be more advanced than they realized. For anyone who has raised an autistic child, BORDERLINE will evoke laughter, tears and nods of acknowledgement long after closing Bonnie Rozanski's book.

Austin Ignites

by Bonnie Rozanski

"Oh, Guy. Help me clear these glasses, will you?"

Hey Guy. Help me, will ya? I want to say, "No," but somehow I don't. I just start picking up the glasses.

"Had a nice day?" Mom asks.

"No."

"That's nice, dear." I guess she's not listening. "Well, we've finally got our campaign going! We're petitioning the State Government to do a study on cell phones and autism. We've already documented the seven in the neighborhood. If they find a link -- and they've got to! I mean, seven within five miles. That's just ridiculous. Then we hit them with another petition for therapy and support. And money. Lots of money." She sticks half a dozen glasses on a tray, and goes through the swinging door into the kitchen, humming.

"Hey, Austin," I call. Nothing, just flapping paper. I grab two glasses in each hand and head toward the kitchen. Mom comes out the door while I'm going in, and CRASH, all the glasses end up on the floor.

"Oh, Guy!" she says, staring down at the broken glass. "Why are you so careless?"

"It wasn't my fault! You opened the door in my face."

Mom isn't gonna argue. For once, she knows it wasn't just me. I mean it's not like when I ran through the living room and bumped into the table, and the vase fell down and broke. Or the time Sam and me were tossing a football around in the back yard, and I threw this gorgeous spiral right through the kitchen window into the soup. I know I'm accident-prone. It just wasn't me this time.

"Okay, okay. It wasn't your fault. Just watch Austin, will you?"

It wasn't my fault but she's gonna make me pay for it, anyway. She starts cleaning up the glass, and I turn back to the living room. Austin is still in the same position, flapping paper by the side of his face. He's got this druggy, faraway look. Mom stands in the doorway, a bunch of glass in her hands, her eyes on Austin.

"He's stimming himself all the time now. I don't know what to do."

Stimming is when Austin does the same thing over and over and over. Like, rocking or twirling or flapping. Mom says he does it to relieve stress, but that's crap. I mean, what stress can he have, sitting around all day?

"So what does that have to do with me?" I answer, flopping on the couch.

Mom glares at me, but all she says is, "Try to play with him, will you?"

"Aw, Mom," I whine. "Austin can't play."

"He's been flapping that paper all afternoon. You've got to do something."

"Why me?" I say, but she's gone back to the kitchen.

I lean on my elbow, watching my crazy brother flap paper for a couple of minutes. "Hey, Austin," I shout. "Whatcha wanna play?"

No answer, of course. Flapflapflapflap.

"You don't know how to play, do you, Austin?"

No answer. Flapflapflapflap.

"Sure you don't, Aus-hole."

Flapflapflapflap.

"What'd ya do all day, Sh*tface?" I ask.

Flapflapflapflap.

"How about you say SOMETHING, hey, Loco?"

Flapflapflapflap.

Mom's face suddenly peeks out from the kitchen: "What did you say, Guy?"

"Uh...L...Lego. Yeah, I asked Austin if he wanted to play LEGOs."

"Good idea, Guy. Austin might just like that, " Mom says, backing her head out.

It's no fun cursing someone who never gets it, anyway. I jump up and run upstairs to my bedroom, grab the big box of LEGOs I've had for a zillion years and drag it back down the stairs. Bumpbumpbumpbump. But Austin's still acting like he's deaf. I drag the box till it's almost right in front of him. I open the box and hold out a yellow piece shaped like a rectangle. Without looking up, Austin drops the paper strips, grabs the LEGO and starts flapping it.

"Stop that, Austin! That's not what you do with a LEGO."

I reach into the box and swish around the pieces, making tons of noise. Nothing. He must be turning off his ears again. I reach in again, scooping up a handful, throwing them in the air, letting them fall wherever they want. Nothing. So, I turn the box over and dump the whole lot onto the rug. An explosion of LEGOs spill out everywhere, red, blue, yellow, black. I'm waiting for Austin to start shrieking. But no, he's looking right at them. He's reaching out, touching them.

"Look, Austin. You put them together. Like this." I go ahead and snap a few together, making the back of a flatbed truck. Monkey see, monkey do. But this monkey doesn't do. Austin grabs two more pieces and starts flapping them around his ears.

Whatever. I feel through the pile, looking for wheels for my flatbed truck. I always loved LEGOs. Every Christmas, every birthday, I'd ask for LEGOs. The Transformer LEGO kit. The farm. The space station LEGO kit. The helicopter. The medieval town. I just loved LEGOs. After awhile I had everything LEGO ever made. Scattered all around my bedroom, the living room. Never put them away, even though Mom gave me grief all the time. She kept trying to get me to take them apart and put them back in the box they came in, but hey, I always planned to do it, but...I don't now why I didn't.

Then she tried sweeping them over in a humongous pile in the corner, but by the end of the afternoon, they'd be all over the place again. Dad tripped on them coming in the front door. Austin put them in his mouth. There were LEGOs under radiators and LEGOs sticking up from between the cushions of the couch. Finally, Mom got smart and gathered them all up and dumped them into the box from the new TV. The Transformer, the farm, the space station. The helicopter. The medieval town. All mixed together. Dad dragged it upstairs to the corner of my bedroom, and there it sat for two years. Once she did that, I forgot all about them. The box sat there, but I didn't see it anymore. There weren't any LEGOs on the floor to trip over, so I never remembered to play with them. Till now, when it just came to me and I dragged the box downstairs and dumped the whole lot onto the rug. And hey, what do you know? I love LEGOs!

After the flatbed, I made a dump truck, and an all terrain vehicle. Really proud of myself, I look up an hour later to see it's dark outside and... there's Austin polishing off this huge crane with a pulley system that works. In the dark we look at each other, and I could swear he's smiling.