THE EXTERMINATOR was on his way out when I came home from school on Friday. I asked him if he’d seen the roach. He said no, but not to worry. He patted his silver tank. “No bug could ever live through that.” Maybe not, but I’d still have felt a lot better if I could’ve seen the corpse.
So, since the roach was dead (supposedly) and Megamouth’s room was clean (supposedly), and since I was sleeping in my room again and everybody was happy (supposedly), and since my father’s one free Saturday a month was coming up tomorrow, he decided we should all go for a drive in the country.
He was at his most gruesome, cheerful worst the next morning. He let Toddie have whatever he wanted for breakfast, which turned out to be tea and licorice. He kept tickling Megamouth to make her laugh and show her dimples. And he kept giving me little punches in the arm and asking me serious questions about weightlifting and health food.
Most of this stuff slid off me, since my mind was on other things. Such as Sara’s birthday party that night and a certain person named Jennifer Wade, who, just as I figured, was also invited. Only one thing I wanted to know from my father: What time would we be home? Six o’clock, he said. No problem. The party wouldn’t start till eight.
I knew my father was really off his rocker about this happy-little-family business when I saw his seating arrangements for the ride in the country: my mother up front with him, the three kids in the back. That might not sound like a big deal, but for us it was front-page news. Usually one kid sits in front and my mother sits in the back, in the middle. That way, no matter how you look at it, no two kids are right next to each other. It’s how my mother survives long car rides. Short ones too.
“No, Frank,” she kept saying, trying to be pleasant but also trying to climb into the back seat. “I think it’s enough that we’re all in the same car.” But my father wouldn’t let her. Not that he physically stopped her, but he was just so nice and smiley and peachy about the happy little Tofers that she finally stopped arguing and dumped herself into the front seat.
We hadn’t even reached the end of the driveway before the first fight started. Toddie was in the middle of the back seat, but of course he wanted a window. So, nice guy that I am, I put him on my lap. Sure enough, Megamouth started screaming, “Mom! He’s taking Toddie!”
“What do you mean taking him?” my mother said. Every once in a while, when my mother decides to deal with us, she tries using logic.
“Just what I said,” Megamouth ranted. “He’s taking him.”
“You mean,” said my mother, “like stealing?”
“That’s right. He’s stealing him.”
“Well, do you mind me asking, how can he steal his own brother?”
Megamouth stomped her foot. “You know what I mean. He doesn’t have a right to pull Toddie out of his seat.”
“Toddie,” my mother called, not turning around, “did Greg pull you out of your seat?”
“Say no,” I whispered to Toddie.
“No,” answered Toddie.
“Mom! He’s telling Toddie what to say! He’s whispering to him!”
“Is Greg whispering to you, Toddie?”
“No,” I whispered to Toddie.
“No,” said Toddie.
Megamouth stomped both feet. Spit flecks were shooting from her mouth. “Mom! Jeez—turn around—look! He’s even laughing at you! Look!”
It was true. I was grinning like a champ, because I knew my mother would never turn around. Which she didn’t. All she did was tilt her head toward my father and say, “There’s your happy little family, dear.”
Megamouth didn’t know what to do next. The parts of her face were twitching and jerking in fifty different directions. Her skin was changing colors. I thought she was going to disintegrate right there in the back seat. She snarled at Toddie and sort of hissed through clenched teeth, “Don’t you ever come over on this side.” And then she punched him.
So naturally Toddie started to howl. And my mother gave my father another smirky look.
About thirty seconds later, Megamouth’s voice was all sweet: “Tah-dee—come over he-ere a minute. Look what’s over here.”
“Tell her you can see good from here,” I said to Toddie.
“I can see good from here,” he said. She punched him again. Howl. Smirky look.
Next time she called “Tah-dee,” she was grinning over a stick of cherry licorice. She held it out, Toddie reached for it, she pulled it back. He kept reaching, she kept pulling back. Like a cobra—Valducci would have been proud—I flashed my hand out and snatched the licorice. I gave it to Toddie and he started chomping away on it. Suddenly—I don’t know how she did it—her hand flashed out and snatched the licorice right out of his mouth. So that’s how she finally got Toddie: dangling the chewed-up licorice stick until he climbed down from me and went over to her.
And all this happened before we even got out of town.
Give my father credit: he didn’t give up. He kept gabbing with everybody, pointing out fascinating points of interest. “That’s the hill I used to sled down when I was a kid.… That’s where my first girlfriend used to live.…” Fascinating. No wonder people buy refrigerators from him—it’s the only way to shut him up.
When we got out to the country, he was even worse: “Look, Toddie—moo-cow, moo-cow.” And Toddie would jump to whichever lap was closer to the moo-cow, and my father would go “Mooooo” and Toddie would go “Mooooo” and I would go “Baaaarf.” After a while my father stopped announcing the animals by name. He would just go “Moooo” or “Oinnnk” or “Baaaa” or “Quack-quack.” And of course Toddie had to do likewise. We were a regular rolling barnyard.
Then they sang “Old MacDonald Had a Farm.” By “they” I mean my father and Toddie. They must have gone through thirty or forty verses. It came to a halt when my father sang, “And on the farm he had some platy-puses,” and my mother screamed, “STOP!”
We pulled in at a place called Barney’s Barn. It was like a flea market. People selling stuff at tables. Mostly junk. I took one look and was ready to head back to the car. Then I figured as long as I was there, maybe I should pick up a cheap birthday present for Sara. I looked through doorknobs and rusty old tools and World War II helmets and candles. Then I came to a table with jewelry. Most of it looked pretty old and ratty. I was ready to give up, when a bracelet caught my eye. It was a silver chain with a fancy silver letter hanging from it. The letter was J.
I knew right away I had to have it. I was meant to buy that bracelet and give it to Jennifer. The tag on it said eight dollars. I told the lady all I had was five. “Take it for five,” she said. What else could she say? She was putty in the hands of fate.
When we left Barney’s Barn, we rode around some more. By the time we pulled into a place to eat, it was the middle of the afternoon. “I wanted everybody to get good and hungry,” my father said, “because now we can all make pigs of ourselves.” The restaurant was attached to a farm. It was smorgasbord style. Everybody paid the same price; then you could eat all you wanted.
Megamouth and Toddie were the biggest pigs. Megamouth went back to the food tables seven times. Toddie was even more sickening. He ate three helpings of roast beef, three pieces of chocolate cream pie, two dishes of ice cream, five snowflake rolls with apple butter, and a pickle. I ate okay, but probably not my money’s worth. I just wasn’t real hungry. I kept touching the bracelet in my pocket. Once, I went to the bathroom just for a chance to look at it.
It was nearly five o’clock when we left the restaurant. I figured we would head home then. Wrong. My father decided that since it was almost Thanksgiving, he wanted to share with his happy little family something he hadn’t had since he was a kid: fresh pumpkin pie made with a real pumpkin. My mother tried to tell him canned pumpkin tasted better, but it was a losing cause. “Okay,” she finally sighed, “find a pumpkin.”
So we started riding all over the place looking for a pumpkin. Now I was getting a little nervous. My father noticed. “What time’s your date?” he called back.
Megamouth pounced. “Woo-woo! Muscles got a big date! Who’s it with, Muscles? Betty Barbell?”
“It’s not a date,” I informed my father. “Just a party. It starts at eight.”
“No problem,” he says, “no problem.”
The sun was dipping behind the hills. We couldn’t find a pumpkin place. My father stopped at a farmhouse to ask. They gave him directions that took him about an hour to write down. The sky was red.
By the time we found the pumpkin place, it was dark. Actually, the place was a cider mill, with a wagon full of pumpkins outside. So, did we just grab a pumpkin and head for home? Oh no. We had to go into the place (“Smell that! Smell those apples!” swooned my father) and look around at the homemade pies and cider and wooden crafts.
The cider was being made in a pit. There was a railing around it, and you could stand there and look down at this big wooden press that was mashing out the cider into a wooden vat. A man was dumping bushels of apples onto a conveyer belt that led to the press. I have to explain all that because of what happened next.
My mother was looking over the donuts when Toddie tugged on her sleeve. “Mom, I think I gotta throw—” Before he got to “up,” his hand shot to his mouth, his body sort of rippled, and his eyes bugged out. “Wait!” my mother yelled. She grabbed him by the arm and started jerking him around, this way, that way, desperate. Then she spotted the railing and jerked him over to it just in time for Toddie to pop his head between the two rails and barf, smack-dab into the cider vat. The apple-dumper man below just stood there at first, watching the barf come down till it splattered in the vat. Then he let out a curse I didn’t think country people knew and lunged for a button on the wall. The conveyer belt and the apple press suddenly stopped. Then he started frantically yanking out stuff and shutting off other stuff, all the time cursing and glaring up at the railing.
By then the only one at the railing was Megamouth, and the more she laughed, the louder the apple-dumper cursed. Meanwhile, Toddie and my mother were outside, and my father was talking to the cashier. Here’s how it went:
FATHER. Uh, excuse me. Is the manager in?
CASHIER. Not just now. Can I help you?
FATHER. Well, uh, something, uh, unusual—unusual—just happened.
CASHIER. Oh?
FATHER. Yes. Uh, my son—my young son—just, uh, got a little sick.
CASHIER. Oh?
FATHER. Vomited. In the, uh, apple cider, uh, vat, uh.
CASHIER. Oh!
FATHER. Yes.
CASHIER [pointing to pit]. There? In the vat?
FATHER. Yes, uh, at least I believe so. [Calling to me] Greg, it was in the vat, wasn’t it? [I nodded]
CASHIER. Well, uh, I don’t think I know just what to do.
FATHER. I suppose I don’t either. Too bad the manager isn’t here.
CASHIER. Yes, it is.
FATHER. I guess the cider in the vat must be spoiled now, hm? Safe to say that?
CASHIER. Mm. I guess it’s safe. To say.
FATHER. Lot of cider in there.
CASHIER. Mm.
FATHER. [Pauses, looks all around, smiles, looks at watch, takes out wallet, pulls little white card out of wallet] Well, look, since the manager’s not here, why don’t you give him this card, my business card, and have him call me. I’ll be glad to pay for anything.
CASHIER. All right. Thank you.
FATHER [clapping, rubbing his hands together]. All right. Fine. Say, how’s your refrigerator working these days?
CASHIER [taken by surprise]. Oh—fine, thank you.
FATHER. Washing machine?
CASHIER. Fine.
FATHER. Well [points to card], stop in and see me. I’ll see that you’re taken care of. [Walking away] That goes for your manager too.
We left then, but Megamouth kept coming up with reasons why we should go back, so I would be late for the party. First she tried to tell my father that barf is lighter than apple cider, so he should go back and tell them to just skim the barf off the top; that way he wouldn’t have to repay them for a whole vatful. Then she reminded him that he forgot to get what he went there for: his pumpkin. He slowed down to turn around, but my mother said, very calmly and firmly, “Do not stop this car. Do not turn back. Keep driving.”
But then, finally, we did have to stop—we ran out of gas. I jumped out, took my father’s wallet, and ran halfway back across the state till I came to an old grocery store with a gasoline pump outside.
Well, to make a long, long story short, it was almost ten o’clock when I got to the party. Sara opened the door. “Where have you been?”
“Sorry,” I said. “I was out with my parents. We just got back.” I was trying not to pant from running.
“This late?”
“Yeah.”
Sara kept saying things to me and I kept saying things back, but I wasn’t paying much attention. Behind her the party was going on: records, laughing, popcorn sailing. Poff and Valducci were there, and others I knew, but I wasn’t paying attention to them either. Because sitting on the arm of an easy chair by the fireplace, slouched back, talking to two girls, was Jennifer Wade.
I felt something on my arm. Sara, tugging. “Greg, wake up. Give me your jacket.”
Then, like a dream: I was taking off my jacket, and there was a car horn in the night outside, and I was clenching my fist, and Jennifer Wade was getting up from the arm of the chair and she was coming toward me. She was smiling. She was wearing a jacket, lavender, with white fur.
She came right up. She spoke. “That’s my dad, Sara. Gotta go.”
“Already?”
“I’ll say. Boy, some party. This goob gets here late and you’re leaving early.”
Jennifer turned, looked at me, smiled. The most beautiful smile I ever saw. “Well,” she said, laying her fingers on my arm, “at least you have a date.”
They both laughed then, and Jennifer was out the door, calling back, “Happy birthday!” And the door closed.
My arm, where she touched it, sent a small, sweet bolt of lightning to the center of my heart.