it was the top of the ninth inning and I was still thinking about those pennies, I figured it would be a good idea to leave early and get back to the Grill. The Rockskippers were up by a lot, so the bottom of the ninth wouldn’t need to happen, and all of those fans would get a head start on their cheeseburgers and celebrating.
“Triple!” I yelled through my rolled-up poster, because my voice needed all the oomph it could get against the crowd. “Let’s go!”
He was moving at the opposite speed of Peter, off collecting all kinds of things. From where I stood, it looked like leftovers and trash, but to Triple, it could have been an orchestra.
“Look,” he said, walking over with a stack of popcorn buckets, so many that he had to use his chin to balance them. “This is awesome.”
“I see that,” I said. “Do you need some help?” So Triple handed me a bunch of those buckets, and somehow I got the ones that still had kernels and crumbs inside.
“Do you think Peter would eat this?” I asked.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Derby.”
Blue cow.
“Okay, right,” I said. “And what are your plans for these things?”
Triple looked at me with a face that was happier than I’d seen it all month, happier even than when he’d plucked Peter from the creek.
“Drums, Derby,” he said. “The drums.”
Blue cow. Blue cow. Blue cow.
“Well, okay. Let’s go find you some drumsticks, kiddo,” I said. Since he could still hardly see over his stack, I put my hand on his shoulder so he’d know when to turn and that I wasn’t about to let this instrument face any danger.
We crossed back over to the spot we called home, stuck on that hot pavement like tar bubbles, squeezing everything we could out of this season. And when we got back to the Grill and Triple went to check on Peter, I took two of those popcorn buckets. He’d found so many, I didn’t think he would even notice if a couple were gone. And even if he had, the Rockskippers had a game the very next day and popcorn would be on the menu.
I grabbed the empty tip jar from the table outside where we kept the mustards. It wasn’t so much a jar as a mustard tub that had run out a long time ago, but still, I snuck it back into my queen room with the popcorn buckets. And then I pulled the shower curtain door behind me and cut small rectangles out of my brand-new Rockskippers poster.
I taped a sign that said LUMP EMMETT to one popcorn bucket and FRANKLIN MATTINGLY to the other, and then I made a bigger sign that asked WHO’S YOUR FAVORITE ROCKSKIPPER? I loved Lump Emmett as much as anyone except for maybe Marcus and Mrs. Emmett. And I know Franklin wasn’t ever on the team roster itself, but he sure was an honorary Rockshipper.
Between the two of them, I was sure we’d collect a whole bunch of extra tips tonight. If people had a choice, then taking just one of the buckets wasn’t like I was stealing from the Grill. That’s how I convinced myself that this wasn’t a sneaky thing after all, even though I felt a little bit swoopy in my stomach.
So I stacked those two new tip buckets, stuck them under my arm, and grabbed two wooden spoons from the kitchenette so Triple would have a pair of drumsticks. Then I walked back over to the Grill like nothing important was happening.
“Derby,” Garland said from above in the window, “can you help me out up here or what? That crowd storming over makes me think it was a winning kind of night.”
I put the popcorn buckets down where the old tip jar used to be. My Christmas Nutmeg pocket had thirty-nine cents in it and the pennies were all old, so I threw that bunch of change into Franklin’s bucket to get it started.