THE NEXT MORNING, I sat in Mom’s minivan waiting for my cousins and sisters, but they were late. Again. We were late for school nearly every day of the year. I was the only one who was ever on time, except for my dad and uncle. They ran ahead of time, and Dad said that evened things out, but I didn’t think our headmaster agreed. Mr. Hubbert called Mom and Aunt Calla in for meetings on a biweekly basis, but it never did any good. Their lateness was a force of its own and it was hard to understand how it happened, much less stop it.
“Hurry up,” I yelled out the passenger window.
Mom called for Slick inside the house. Instead of going to her, Slick came sliding out his cat door. He slunk down the front steps and went under the grape arbor to meet Aunt Calla’s cat, Sydney, who peered out between thick vines with pale blue eyes.
The screen door flew back and whacked against the side of the house as Mom charged out onto the front porch still yelling for Slick. Her hair was wet from the shower and the enormous tee shirt she wore stuck to her thin, damp body like plastic wrap and revealed her purple underwear.
“Puppy, have you seen Slick? I’ve got to box him before he gets away,” she yelled.
“We’re going to be late,” I yelled back.
Mom pursed her lips and waved me off. She began yelling for Aunt Calla next door.
A green silk curtain drew back in Aunt Calla’s front window and a few curse words drifted through the screen. The curtains fit Aunt Calla even if they didn’t match her house or ours. Both were 1920s craftsmen houses, but they looked like they were on steroids with their huge wraparound porches and enormous windows. The houses were connected by a rickety trellis covered with jasmine, honeysuckle, and heirloom roses. The twisting, blooming foliage gave off a scent so strong that it’d been known to knock out small rodents.
Aunt Calla came out of her front door wearing a yellowed lace blouse and Victorian bloomers. She sipped out of a tiny porcelain cup and waved at her twin sister, my mother.
“What?” she yelled.
“Have you seen Slick?”
“No. Have you seen Sydney?”
They went on yelling back and forth and some neighbors began looking out of their beige front doors in their equally beige houses. I slunk down in my seat as Mom yelled a string of cuss words so long and vibrant they could’ve been strung on a Christmas tree.
When Mom stopped yelling, I looked over the edge of the van door in time to see the cats dashing out from under the arbor and disappearing down the street.
Ten minutes after we were supposed to leave, my younger sisters April and Ella came out of the house dragging book bags and their end-of-year project. April and Ella were twins, too. Although they weren’t identical they looked it with waist-length blond hair tied back with navy ribbons matching their uniforms. They were thirteen and in the seventh grade. Behind them came my cousins, Luke and Caleb, also twins, carrying nothing but Aunt Calla’s super-huge chocolate muffins. They each consumed a muffin, spraying crumbs all over the brick walk, and laughing their way up to the van. Luke boosted April in. She flew past the seat and bumped her head on the other door.
“Luke,” April said as she settled into the second row.
“Sorry,” said Luke. “I thought you were Ella.”
“Hey,” said Ella behind him.
Luke and Caleb got into the backseat. Luke handed April a chunk of his muffin and she split it with the complaining Ella when Luke wasn’t looking. Caleb came forward between the middle seats to look in the rearview mirror. He rubbed his head and looked at me with a wide, toothy grin.
“Not too bad this year,” said Caleb. “Feels good to get all that hair off.”
Luke and Caleb were seventeen and could make their own hair decisions. Although they were identical twins, Luke elected to forgo the annual head shearing and tucked his long blond hair behind his ears. Caleb was freshly sheared like me.
Caleb turned back to his brother. “Dude, I can’t believe you’re not going to cut off that mop.”
“He’s not cutting it because Sophie likes it,” said Ella, in her most annoying singsong voice.
“I like it,” said Luke. “And Mom said I didn’t have to cut it for Camp this year if I didn’t want to.”
“You’ll cut it,” said Caleb.
“No way, man,” said Luke.
“You’re gonna cut it for the same reason Mom used to make you cut it.”
“Like what?”
“Remember the time you got your head stuck to the maple tree?” asked Caleb.
“You did that, too, and it was a onetime thing. I just won’t rest my head on any sap.” Luke leaned back and crossed his arms.
“How about the time your hair got set on fire?”
“You’re the one who lit it on fire, assmunch.”
“Never mind,” said Caleb. “Keep it long. With your luck we’ll be calling you Scar Head by the end of the summer.”
I exchanged grins with my sisters. Luke and Caleb had terrible track records with their hair. During previous summers, they’d set fire to each other’s heads, gotten stuck to trees, had flea infestations and numerous ticks. Luke got his hair stuck in a locked door and had to wait three hours until someone came to free him. But the last straw was when they were ten and a beetle laid eggs in Caleb’s hair. He got an oozing, crusty rash. After that, Aunt Calla shaved their heads before they left for Camp. I never did anything to my head, but somehow got grouped with Luke and Caleb on the haircutting.
Luke balled up his napkin and threw it at me. “One more day of Bitch Pritchett, huh, Pup?”
“You’re not supposed to say that, Luke,” said Ella.
“Mind your own business, Ella Smella,” replied Luke.
Ella screamed “Mom” at the top of her lungs while Luke stuck his finger up his nose and pretended to flick a booger at her. I clamped my hands over my ears and watched Mom jog out of the front door. She was barefoot and now wearing one of my dad’s old flannel shirts over her tee shirt.
“I’m coming for christsakes,” she said as she climbed into the driver’s seat. “Jeez, you people are driving me insane.”
I tentatively took my hands off my ears just as Ella began to howl again.
“Ella, enough. You’re fine.” Mom could yell louder than Ella any day.
“Luke called me ‘Ella Smella’ again.”
“You’ll survive.”
April leaned forward. “Mom, I don’t think you have any pants on.”
“I don’t need pants to drive you to school. Who are we, the Kennedys?”
Ella and April slunk down in their seats and straightened their matching headbands.
“I’m so sick of driving you kids to school,” said Mom.
“You could let us drive,” said Luke.
“You’re never driving this van. Not ever.”
“Why? We’ve never had an accident,” said Caleb.
“Only because nothing you do is an accident,” Mom said. “Listen to that. The front bumper is still rattling.”
“That mechanic is an idiot. We could fix it,” said Luke.
“Absolutely not. It still smells like rotten watermelon in here because of you.”
“We put a tarp under the watermelon to protect the seat,” said Caleb.
“You should’ve had one over it,” she said.
“No way. We had to video the explosion when the airbag went off.”
“No, you didn’t.” Mom clapped her hand onto her forehead and glanced at me. “Puppy, you better wipe that smile off your face. I know you were in on it.”
“If you know he was in on it, why didn’t he have to pay to replace the airbag, too?” asked Caleb.
“Puppy’s been in enough trouble for things he didn’t do this year. He deserved a free pass.”
Mom winked at me and I smiled back. Mom got it. It seemed like she wasn’t paying attention, but she always was. She hadn’t mentioned my lighting the elephant after she’d caught me at it like she’d forgotten, but I knew she hadn’t. I guess she didn’t really mind my asking Ernest for a favor. I had one more day with Miss Pritchett and with a little help from my ancestor it’d be the best day of the year.
We arrived at the front door of school, as the warning bell rang, and Mom said, “Crap,” under her breath. We all scrambled out and sprinted for the doors, scattering in different directions. Mr. Hubbert peered at us from his office window, shaking his head. He might’ve been smiling.
When I got to my homeroom, Miss Pritchett stood at the door with her arms crossed, looking down her long nose at me. I ignored her and slid into my seat a split second before the final bell. I lay panting across my desk with my legs splayed across the aisle. The rest of the class snickered and looked at Miss Pritchett. She smoothed her sleek blond hair as she stared at me. The class kept their laughter low so as to not excite her wrath. Miss Pritchett wasn’t known for being tolerant. She’d given out three detentions on the last day before Christmas break because we were happy. I got two of them. She made me serve one of the detentions that very day and I had to watch everybody else leaving through swirling snowflakes, while I wrote, “I will not stick my tongue out at authority figures,” one hundred times. I hadn’t stuck my tongue out at anybody since kindergarten, but that was the crime Miss Pritchett picked.
Miss Pritchett glared at me and I knew she was dying to give me a detention on the last day of school because I’d have to serve it that afternoon after the assembly. But she’d have a problem if she tried it. Mom and Aunt Calla were coming to the assembly. After the awards, we’d drive straight to Camp. Mom wasn’t going to sit on her butt for an hour while I served time for one of Miss Pritchett’s supposed crimes, not on that day, no way.
I straightened up and pressed my palms together like an angel. That got another snicker from the class. When I looked back at Miss Pritchett, I found her still hovering by the door eyeing me with loathing. She wore her usual Friday black, but it was extreme even for her. Her prim sweater set, skirt, heels and pearls were all black. Miss Pritchett was the only person I knew who hated Fridays. She’d start her weeks with something akin to cheerful, but as the week wore on her mood darkened and so did her clothes. She’d go from pink to green to purple to grey and end up in her Friday black with a mood to match. I figured she resented our weekend reprieves. Our escape for the entire summer must’ve filled her with venom and she looked ready to spit it at us.
I assumed my most innocent face, because she hated me the most and would use any excuse to nail me. She’d yelled at me once for frowning. As Miss Pritchett and I stared at each other, I began to think it might be nice to get a detention and see what would happen. I’d never intentionally gotten one before, but it might be worth it. If Grandpa Lorne was right, Ernest would manipulate everything in my favor. Even better, Mom might tell Miss Pritchett off. She deserved that and more after the year I’d spent with her. Everyone from Mr. Hubbert to the lunch ladies had tried to teach Miss Pritchett how to be a decent human being that year. She should’ve learned something, but she hadn’t. She was still Bitch Pritchett, fresh out of teachers’ college, and well on her way to the bad teachers’ hall of fame.