No Longer the Family Clown novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Auto-Reply

The clip goes viral overnight, and Bobby answers every family request with an auto-reply until Dad's alarm goes off at breakfast.

By Saturday morning the badger had two million views and a title.

The video was called "Badger Destroys Prodigy's Big Night."

I watched it in bed with the blanket over my head, and it was worse than I remembered.

The stuck-in-row-E part had been set to circus music.

The top comment had ninety thousand likes.

"The sunglasses are the only competent thing in this entire video."

The second comment said, "Imagine being the family that lets HIM out of the house."

I read that one twice.

My phone showed two hundred and twelve notifications.

Mom had sent nine texts, Dad had sent three, and Colin's name was somewhere under all of it.

I scrolled for a while, found the family group chat, and sighed.

The chat was named "Halvorsons (incl. clown)."

Dad had named it that when I was twelve, and everyone had thought it was funny, me most of all.

Mom's newest text said, "Come downstairs, we need to fix this."

Dad's said, "Where is my pill box?"

The third was from June, who had not spoken to me since the lobby.

It said, "can u get me a granola bar."

I opened my phone settings and typed an auto-reply for all three.

"The clown is closed. Thank you for your call. Please try someone else."

I sent it to Mom.

I sent it to Dad.

Then I sat there with my thumb over June's name for a long time, and sent it to her too.

The kitchen was full of sunlight and nobody was talking.

Dad sat at the table with a tablet propped against the sugar bowl, watching the badger fall off a stage step in slow motion.

His diabetes monitor was strapped to his arm, and the pill organizer sat in front of him with Saturday's little door still shut.

Every morning for ten years I had come in here, put on sunglasses and said, "Mr. Halvorson, you've been caught skipping your pills."

It always got a scowl, and then it got the pills taken.

I opened the cupboard and took down a mug.

"Coffee, Bobby," Dad said without looking up.

"Cups are in the cupboard," I said. "I just opened it for you."

Dad looked up.

He looked at the sunglasses I wasn't wearing.

"You didn't do the thing," he said.

"I'm closed."

"Don't be dramatic."

"Dad, that is the funniest thing you've said all year."

He pressed his mouth flat, which is how he laughs when he is angry about it.

Then the monitor on his arm chirped.

He swiped it quiet with one thumb and kept watching the badger fall.

The Saturday door on the pill organizer stayed shut, and I stood there with the mug in my hand.

June came in through the back hall in her socks.

She stopped at the pantry, and her hand went flat on the shelf.

Her shoulders were already climbing toward her ears.

She didn't ask for the granola bar, and I didn't say a word.

I reached past her, took the granola bar from the top shelf, and put it on the counter beside her elbow.

She looked at it, and then at me, and her mouth opened.

"Bobby," she whispered.

"Morning, sweetheart!" Mom said from the door, and June shut her mouth and took the bar and went out.

Mom had her phone in one hand and a stack of printed pages in the other.

"Good, you're up. Sit. We've got a lot of work."

"I'm not sitting."

"The principal called at seven." Mom put the pages on the table. "The school wants Barnaby's head back, and they want an apology video by Monday, or you're suspended for three days."

"I wasn't the one who..."

"Your father and I wrote you a script."

She pushed the pages toward me, and I saw the top line, which said, "I'm so sorry for my immature behavior."

Dad said, "It's a good script."

I looked at both of them.

I thought about the sunglasses in my pocket and the badger head in the trunk of the car and the three hundred things I could say that would make the kitchen laugh.

I picked up my mug and filled it myself.

"Let me think about it," I said.

My phone buzzed on the counter.

It was the group chat.

Mom had just posted: "Bobby is recording his apology at four today. Everyone be nice to him!"

A moment later, Colin gave it a heart.

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