A Billion for Boris (aka ESP TV) by Mary Rodgers.
Title: A Billion for Boris (aka ESP TV).
Author: Mary Rodgers.
Genre: Fiction, time travel, YA, teen, children's lit, humour.
Country: U.S.
Language: English.
Publication Date: 1992.
Summary: Annabel Andrews is back in her body, but life is still anything but normal. When her brother, Ape Face, and her boyfriend, Boris, discover a TV that airs its programs a day early, they're suddenly faced with lots of opportunities. Boris wants to make billions of dollars, but Annabel wants to help mankind. They've got to decide what to do before someone figures out what's going on.
My rating: 7.5/10
My review:
♥ Incidentally, in case you're curious about his nickname, I started calling him that the day he came home from the hospital. I was six and a half, and at that age if you're planning on a sister and what you get instead is a male monkey, you're not inclined to mince words.
"It's got a face like an ape," I said, giving it a cautious poke. "What's it called?"
"Benjamin. Or Ben, if you like that better," said my mother, trying to be accommodating.
"I like Ape Face better."
"Well, he won't," said my mother firmly. "It'll only make him mad."
But it didn't. That's what's so funny. I only recently found out that all those years I was calling him Ape Face to make him mad, I was only making my mother mad. Ape Face loved it. ..I should have stuck with the name Ben. Or Benjie. Actually, when I get mad enough, that's exactly what I do call him and it makes hum furious. Shows what mothers know.
♥ "My mother said if I didn't stop tying up her phone, she'd have my own phone installed and make me pay for it. This way is going to be a lot cheaper and we won't ever have to depend on the phone again."
When I got home and thought it over, I decided Boris was a very practical person. I also decided that under certain circumstances, a walkie-talkie was more personal than a bangle. After all, bangles you could give to a thousand girls and none of them (including me) would be the wiser; but a walkie-talkie-for-two constituted a definite commitment to only one girl. And I was it. So I gave it a quick kiss, put it under my pillow, and went to sleep.
♥ What he didn't ask me was how Ape Face could have known about the freak blizzard. I guess at the time it didn't seem significant. I was so glad to be home and warm, it didn't seem significant to me either. But it was-very. Because although we didn't know it at the time, IT had begun to happen.
♥ Eight hours later I woke up. My mother was sitting in a chair near the window, reading a tome.
"That was quite some nap you had there. I was beginning to worry. How do you feel?"
"Terrific." I blew a quart of wonderfulness out of my nose and heaved the Kleenex at the wastebasket. Missed.
♥ Now that the evening greetings were over, my mother began what I call The Daily News Roundup. This always intrigues me because although my parents are crazy about each other-I'm positive of that-neither one seems terribly interested in what the other one is doing. But they always ask anyway-out of politeness, I guess.
♥ You know, it's interesting: If my mother offers to do something or get something, my father takes her up on it. If my father offers, my mother invariably says "No, thanks," and does it or gets it herself. Partly because it's easier-he never knows where anything is-and partly because her feminine consciousness hasn't been raised as much as mine has. When I grow up, Boris will have to know where things are; as a journalist who travels frequently, I may no always be around to show him.
♥ BY midafternoon, I was so lonely even Ape Face was a welcome sight; so although he's not supposed to watch television (except for the aforementioned Sesame Street, The Electric Company, and Mr. Rogers), I invited him in to see Women's Prison on Channel 9. He said Abbott and Costello was terrifically funny-why didn't we watch that? After a morning of soppy junk like John Loves Mary But Mary Loves Paul's Illegitimate Son, a little comic relief didn't sound like a bad idea, and at four o'clock we tuned in Abbott and Costello on Channel 11.
♥ "A regular paranoia doll: Wind it up and it says 'Close the door.'"
♥ "All right," he said, about a minute later. "Listen carefully and see if you agree. This Thing, this miracle Box, oracle, mechanized prognosticator-whatever it is, is going to lead us into some very tricky areas. I don't know whether it has to do with metaphysics or philosophy or what, but when you're dealing with the future..." He broke off, snarled up in his thoughts, I guess.
"Go on."
"Well, I don't think the future can be changed. In other words, if our miracle Box shows us tomorrow's news, that news is definitely going to take place or we wouldn't be seeing it today. Because the Box does not predict events, it shows events that have actually taken place but will not come to pass until twenty-four hours later. Are you with me so far?" I nodded.
"Next point: We can't prevent events that have already happened in the future, but we can benefit from advance knowledge that they are going to."
"Like the botulism business. Or the blizzard."
"Yes. Or other things."
"Like what?"
"Well, staying home when you know there's going to be a blizzard is avoiding a bad thing. Like tomorrow I was going to ask you if you wanted to go bike riding, but the bike paths are going to be jammed so I won't."
"Thanks anyway."
"You're welcome. But what about taking advantage of a good thing? If you already knew a mammoth surprise sale of records happened at Goody's tomorrow, wouldn't you get there first thing in the morning. And if I know, on Sunday, that the Mets are going to win on Monday, I can make a bet with my friend Chuckie Waterman Monday morning ins school (and win, naturally). That's taking advantage of a good thing."
"That's taking advantage of a good friend. Doesn't sound too ethical to me."
"So okay, I'll bet Harvey Kuchel instead. He's a guy I hate."
"Is taking advantage of an enemy any better? More fun, but is it any better, ethically speaking?"
"When I want a spiritual advisor, I'll ask for one," said Boris impatiently. "Besides, I was only giving you a what-if. I might not do that at all. I'm only trying to explain to you, in theory, what a gold mine we've got here"-he patted the Box lovingly-"and how we'd be fools not to put it to work for us."
♥ "But I sure hope I'm not making a mistake."
On his way out the door, Boris hastily and heartily assured me I wasn't-and ironically enough, he turned out to be right. A mistake, after all, is a little thing. You give a cab driver a five-dollar bill instead of a one, or you dial the wrong area code and get Anchorage, Alaska. Those are what I call mistakes. Chicken-feed folly. Consumating that deal between Boris and my brother was not, therefore, what you could call a mistake-it was what you could call a catastrophic, cataclysmic boo-boo.
♥ Nevertheless, I still like her. I've known her ever since we were in nursery school together. That's going back a long time. We've got memories. ..Oh yes, we've got memories, all right-and scars.
..After all these years, we've got a certain rapport going for us; we know each other so well we can catch each other's vibes from across a room. Right now, she's going through a stage I don't particularly admire, but if I could put up with a whole year of her thinking she was a five-gaited thoroughbred mare, I guess I can put up with this. At least now she talks. It's pretty fancy dialogue, but a vast improvement over whinnies and neighs. By next year, she'll probably be out of this stage and into something else. And anyway, she's an old friend.
♥ "A bacon cheeseburger with onion rings and French fries on the side. And a chocolate shake," I said, giving her with a steely stare. "And you?"
"A lemon Tab," said Virginia with a martyred smile. Diet one-upmanship!
"I thought you were so famished."
"I am, but I'm taking you to lunch and I don't want to run out of money."
"In that case, I'll have the lemon Tab," I said politely.
"Oh no, please," she protested. "It's my treat. I want you to have whatever you want."
"I want a lemon Tab."
"Right you are. I think I'll have the bacon cheeseburger with onion rings and French fries on the side. Plus a vanilla shake. Plus a jelly doughnut," said Virginia, and the fight was over. Not because she paid for my lunch but because she allowed me the satisfaction of watching her gorge herself while I abstained. For a weight-watcher, this is the most generous gesture you can make.
♥ He threw a playful punch at me, which unfortunately landed with a grungy stain on my denim jacket.
.."Just a friendly little squabble, no harm done, right Marva?" He put his arm around me and gave me an affectionate squeeze. We were practically engaged.
♥ In enforced silence, while Boris scribbled in his notebook, I watched the results of Sunday's ball game (the Giants won), and a tennis match in Phoenix (Rosemary Casals won). I found it pretty stultifying; but then unlike Boris, I wasn't out to rip off the world.
♥ "Boris, remember when you made fun of me for not realizing the Box was good for more than just weather predictions? And then you explained how we couldn't prevent events from happening but we could benefit from advance information?
"Well, you want to benefit from advance information to change your mother's life-and yours, too. After what you've told me, I certainly don't blame you for that. But couldn't other people also benefit from advance information? I know this sounds sappy and idealistic, but take that freak blizzard, for instance. I'm built like a horse and being out in it didn't do me much harm; but suppose I had a little old frail grandmother who was going out for a walk that day. I'd want to warn her."
"Unless you gave the whole thing away, your little old frail grandmother wouldn't believe you any more than you believed your brother."
"Probably not, if I could persuade her to stay indoors. I could play gin rummy with her until the blizzard began and she see for herself. By using that advance information, I might actually be saving her life.
"Or take another for instance: We see on the Box that a woman in Queens has had quintuplets-over three pounds each and all of them healthy. But the poor lady is frantic with worry because the doctors have told her to expect multiple births and she doesn't know how many-or whether they'll survive. Wouldn't it be fun to tell her everything was going to be okay?"
"Why would she believe you? She'd figure if the doctors didn't know, why should you?"
"Oh Boris, don't take me literally-I'm just winging these examples. All I know is I'm sure there's a use for the Box besides making money."
♥ I wanted to die on the spot. Since that wasn't possible, I did the next best thing: fled from it. It was like a Mack Sennett ballet. Without so much as a good-bye to Boris, I tore into the den, wrested my glassy-eyed brother away from The Partridge Family, stuffed the new Sony into a shopping bag (for purposes of concealment), rang the elevator bell, decided not to wait for the elevator, galloped down the back stairs to our apartment, dragged Ape Face to his room, hid the Sony in the toy chest under the Lego, shouted "Hello, we're back, I'm tired, good night" to my parents, ripped off my clothes, dived into bed, pulled the covers over my head-and nearly burned up with embarrassment. (There's an interesting headline for Bartholomew Bacon: GIRL'S FACE SETS SHEETS ON FIRE!)
♥ "Look at you-you're blushing!"
I hate people who tell you're blushing. Unless you get up and inspect your face in the mirror there's no way to know whether it's true or not. Furthermore, I bet most of the time it isn't; it's just something people love to say.
♥ "Nothing. He's not my boyfriend anyway. I mean, I like him, but I don't love him," I said, crossing my fingers. It was the only lie I regretted telling.
♥ I stood around for a whole, trying to screw up enough courage to ring one of the two doorbells and ask about Bacon. Then, I stood around some more, trying to figure out whose was the safer doorbell to ring. For all I knew both Krasny and Bacchante were murderers. Finally, I opted for Krasny, on the theory that a woman murderer would be easier to defend myself against, but she wasn't home.
♥ "Sit anywhere."
It was a one-room apartment (bathtub in the kitchen type); my choice of anywhere was a chair with sprung springs or the bed. I chose the chair.
♥ By the time I'd arrived at school, I was in a thoroughly foul temper: mad at the world because of Harry Steinberg, mad at Ape Face because I'd been mean to him, and mad at Hector because he'd seen me be mean to him..
♥ Boris said the OTB place on 72nd Street was full of unshaven old bummy-looking men with racing sheets, unshaven middle-aged bummy-looking men with racing sheets, drunks, blacks, whites, Puerto Ricans-everybody poor and everybody standing around not talking to each other and looking as though they had no better place to be-even after they'd lost their last two dollars and had no more money to bet.
He said it was like a meeting place for the dregs of humanity-a club for creeps. They were so creepy-crawly he was afraid to ask any of them how to fill out the slip; so, in desperation, he finally asked the man at the window.
♥ "He looks about three to me," I said. "Are you three?"
Gaylord stopped crying, nodded yes, and started crying again.
"You're doing better than I did," said the cop. "See what else you can find out."
"I know something," said Ape Face. "Its not a he, it's a she." A girl called Gaylord?
"You couldn't be more wrong," I said. "What makes you think so?"
"Short hair," said Ape Face. "A boy wouldn't have hair that short. Besides, it looks like a she." Gently, he prodded Gaylord's upper arm. "And it feels like a she. No muscles. It's a she."
♥ Somewhere in the dim recesses of my brain lurks the memory of my father gently chiding my mother for spending two hundred dollars at a January white sale. "A bargain is no bargain if you can't afford it in the first place" is what he said. He said a mouthful.
That night, when Boris and I added up what we'd blown at Lord and Taylor, it came to a grand total of eighty-three hundred and some odd dollars.
♥ ..Loretta Burke, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John Burke of Manhattan, thought to have been abducted from her dormitory room at C.W. Post College over six months ago and presumed dead, turned up safe ad sound in Burlington, Vermont with her boyfriend. According to the Burlington chief of police, it was a case of "seduction not abduction." Very droll fellows, those Vermonters.
♥ "But what about you? Aren't you going to miss it? You liked knowing about the future, didn't you?"
"No," I said slowly. "I think, actually, I hated it. To know about hijackings and fires and murders," I thought about Belle Steinberg, "and know people are going to suffer from things you can't prevent-that's not fun. It's very depressing."
"What about the things you could prevent, what about the good deeds? Playing gin rummy with your little, old, frail grandmother so she wouldn't get caught in the blizzard."
"Boris, I could spend the rest of my life doing things like that-but out of all the millions of opportunities that would present themselves, I'd be constantly having to decide which little old lady to save. I don't want that responsibility and I'm glad I don't have it.
"Furthermore, good deeds involved a great deal of work and aren't all that easy to do. Take my father, for example. I managed to keep him out of the subway, so what happened? He got stuck in an elevator instead.
"Come to think of it, all my good deeds were a complete washout-with one exception..."
♥ "Okay, then, here it is: I wish you wouldn't call me Sascha. That's for everybody else to call me. (Except my father who still calls me Sarah.) But there's only one person in the whole world who can call me Mom."
She looked at him, kind of embarrassed. But Boris grinned at her, not a bit embarrassed. "Sure, Mom. Be glad to. I never liked the name Sascha anyway."
I do, I thought. I love the name Sascha because I love her. Just the way I love the name Boris (which is a dumb name really, even dumber than Morris) because I love him. More now than ever before. In fact, right now, I love everybody.