Page 7 - Mateo and the Gift of Presence audio flip book Ch 1-2

The Crack

“What are we going to do about him?” his parents
constantly asked each other. “How can we get him motivated to
succeed? He’ll never get into college, much less a good college.
When he’s all grown up, he won’t be able to get a job. He’ll be
homeless and lying in a gutter somewhere. There must be a
way of making him see sense.”

But there was nothing they could do. Not even the little
yellow pills prescribed by their physician seemed to help. What
bothered other people just didn’t bother Mateo. College was
years in the future and had no meaning for him. And getting the
kind of dreary adult job his parents had in mind? Why would
he ever want to do that when he could flip helium burgers on
Jupiter or rule a kingdom of mermen in the Caspian Sea? Living
in his imagination, he didn’t have to lift a finger.
Threats like “Finish your homework or you won’t get

any dinner!” or “Get dressed for ball practice right now or you’ll
be grounded for a whole week!” didn’t work either. Mateo had
stopped listening a long time ago.
“BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, Mateo!” was all he ever heard
anymore. He knew his parents wouldn’t follow through on
their threats; they never did. They always fed him, and even
when they banished him to his room, he didn’t care. In fact, he

liked it. Alex would have been bored to tears and begged his
parents to let him out, but Mateo enjoyed being alone. It was
easier to fantasize when there were no distractions.
Mateo’s teachers were likewise helpless in the face of his
lack of ambition.

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