am came over for Cap'n Crunch. I made it with ginger ale instead of milk. “It's unlimited,” I said. “Have all you want.”
“Too bad we're not in a cooking contest,” Sam said. “This recipe would win.”
When we were done, we walked to Grubb's drugstore to buy Skittles. “Here's another one of my famous recipes,” I told him. “Pour the whole bag in your mouth at once and chew. It makes tutti-frutti.”
“Another masterpiece,” Sam said.
I pulled two tennis balls out of my cargo pocket so we could bounce them off the side of the drugstore while we thought about what we could reinvent.
“How about a solar egg fryer?” Sam said.
“If it rained we'd be out of luck, Chuck,” I said. “But what about vegetarian snake food? Our motto could be: Be Nice, Save Mice!”
“Not a winning plan, Dan,” Sam said. “Maybe we could use the spring from our screen door to make a tennis ball shooter?”
“Already invented,” I told him. “In Florida there's a rich lady that has one at her house.”
We were in the middle of thinking when Eddie the pharmacist came outside and said, “Boys, the sound of balls hitting the wall is driving me insane.”
“Oops. I never thought about that,” I said. “To me plunking is a restful noise.”
We went across the street to Johnny and Joon's store to ask if it would bother them and also to buy a pack of Hostess Sno-Balls.
“Sugar fuels our brains,” I told Johnny. He watched us peel the coconut marshmallow igloos off the cake insides. Then we each bit a hole near the edge of the igloo. “Watch this,” I said. “We press the skinny part under our noses like a mustache. Then we stretch the rest over our chins. Presto! A stick-on pink goatee.”
Joon got his camera from under the counter. “That is a crazy look,” he said. “I'm going to hang your picture on our bulletin board.”
“Be prepared,” I said. “A lot of people will recognize me from when I was on TV.”
Sam and I walked and talked in front of Eastern Market but it's hard to dream up a reinvention when you're a main attraction. Mrs. Hackett said, “I almost didn't recognize you boys with those handsome beards.” Mrs. Bonora thought I had a rash. When we stopped off at the Baking Divas, Mrs. McBee said, “Scat before you scare away my customers.” But before we did she asked if we would like to have the tuna sandwich Jonique left in the refrigerator.
“No, thanks,” I said. “We're only eating small things so our goatees won't get shabby.”
She filled up a little bag, gave it to us and said, “Behave yourselves.” We took it to the Supreme Court and sat on a marble step for a peanut and raisin picnic. It was not enough food. Luckily, I had a pocketful of Artificially Flavored Limited Edition Sparkling Green Apple Jinx cereal.
Most tourists stared at us but a lady who was wearing a shirt covered with pictures of cats sat down next to me. She didn't notice our beards. She just said, “My dogs are killing me.”
“That's the only pet I don't want,” I told her. “A killer dog.”
“It's an expression,” she said. “It means my feet hurt. I'm from Dallas, Texas. We tend to drive there. Here I walk. All the way from the White House. Uphill.”
“A good reinvention would be shoe-shaped pillows,” I said.
“I'd buy a pair,” she said.
I was asking her if she knew any Dallas Cowboys or any of the horse-riding kind when Sam socked my shoulder and said, “It's four-fifty-five!”
“Whoa, buddy! We're in trouble now,” I said. “Start running!”
“Hope your feet feel better,” Sam called back to the lady.
“Take the shortcut, Chicken Butt,” I yelled to Sam, not the lady.
My mom says any discussion that has to do with chicken butts is vile and worse than talking about regular butts. I cannot agree with her.
Thanks to our shortcut, I got home at 5:16, which was only sixteen minutes too late. My mom was waiting on the steps with her arms folded in that unpleasant way.
“I have three words for you,” she said.
“I do love you, of course,” she said. “But these three words are: Dr. Bowers called.”
“He did?” I asked.
“I think you know what I'm going to say,” she said.
“I don't know exactly,” I said.
“Dr. Bowers said he was in the middle of fitting a patient for false teeth when he looked up and saw a boy JUMPING over his skylight,” she said. “Can you explain that?”
Probably a lot of people take that shortcut.
“What did he look like?” I asked.
“Dr. Bowers said he saw your face, which he insisted was covered with some sort of pink fungus,” she said. “I told him he had the wrong boy because mine does not have a fungus.”
“You're right. I don't,” I said. I did not say that my goatee came off when it stuck to a rosebush so I ate it. This was no time to bring up the thought of germs.
“Dr. Bowers said he doesn't know much about fungi but he did recognize your navy blue jacket with one sleeve splattered with yellow paint. He also mentioned your homemade haircut,” she said. “But the big giveaway was that you have been to see him three times in the past two months.”
“He sure did a great job fixing my teeth after they hit the jungle gym,” I said. “You can't even tell where they were busted.”
My mom ignored that compliment.
“He said Sam was with you,” she said.
Right then a taxicab stopped in front of our house and my dad got out. There were two bad signs about that. The first was that he only takes taxis when it's serious. The second was that the Capitol dome light was on.
“It seems like I always get in trouble when Congress is voting,” I told him.
“Sport,” my dad said. “What were you doing on the roof?”
“Being responsible,” I said.
“How is roof-walking responsible?” he asked.
“ Roof-RUNNING,” my mom said.
“Remember, last time you said ‘No excuses.’ I had to take the shortcut so I'd get home on time.”
“How is the roof quicker than the sidewalk?” he asked.
“I don't know,” I said. “It just is. Sam and I have timed it lots of times.”
That was not a good answer.
“I mean, that's a great thing about row houses,” I explained. “Since the roofs are attached you can run for a block without having to slow down be-cause there are no red lights or people or strollers or dogs in the way.”
My mom sucked in air.
“Don't worry,” I said. “We NEVER go near the edge. Not even when someone dares us.”
“How did you get on the roof?” my mom asked.
“We climbed up the apartment building fire escape,” I said in a mumbling voice.
“How did you get down?” she asked.
“The Walkers' house is the last tall one so we jump down onto the Pulanskis' roof,” I said. “The triangle thing that holds up their rosebushes makes a great ladder to the ground. And don't worry, it's sturdy.”
“You have been JUMPING off the Walkers' roof?” my mom said. Her voice was squeaking.
“It's a short jump,” I said.
My dad pulled off his tie and undid the top button of his shirt. “Let's finish this talk inside,” he said.
Since everything in our living room is white, I keep clear of it. But our living room is always where we go for serious family talks. I sat on the floor by the fireplace. My dad used the chair that's for company.
My mom sat on the sofa and held her forehead. “ALL I could think was that you could have FALLEN straight through the skylight and landed on the examining chair,” she said. “My ONLY comfort was knowing that the patient would have broken your fall but, Adam, YOU could have BROKEN your LEGS.”
“I never thought of that,” I said.
“Sport,” my dad said, “what made you think it was okay to get on any roof?”
“I'm allowed on Pop and Madam's breezeway roof,” I said.
“It has a fence on the sides,” my dad said.
“Oh,” I said.
“After the tree incident we agreed you wouldn't climb to any new heights,” he said.
“You said don't climb any TREES,” I said. “And I haven't, even when Bart Bigelow said he'd pay me a dollar eighty-six to reenact getting stuck.”
“Did you think that our neighbors don't want you and Sam running around on their roofs?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “I never thought that.”
“Adam, you have to be more considerate,” my mom said. “If I heard footsteps on our roof it would chill me to my bones.”
“What bothers me most is that you have taken this shortcut several times but you never mentioned it to me or Mom,” my dad said. “I think that's because you thought your shortcut wouldn't fly with us.”
“Don't say ‘fly’ in front of Adam,” my mom said.
“I didn't tell because of Mom's touchy nerves,” I said.
“What makes you think I have touchy nerves?” she asked.
I was going to say Jonique but I stopped myself. Instead I said, “When Lucy Rose told the entire neighborhood that Mrs. Mannix was having a baby, Lucy Rose's mom said, ‘You don't have to tell everybody everything.’”
“You shouldn't tell other people's private business,” my dad said. “You should tell your parents what you are up to, ideally when you are in the planning stage. Got it?”
“Got it,” I said. “The problem is I don't always plan. A lot of times I just do.”
“I'm going to have to let Sam's parents know what happened,” my mom said.
“I do not agree that parents have to tell each other everything,” I said.
After dinner with no dessert, my mom called and, just like I predicted, Mrs. Alswang was un-happy. My dad walked me over to apologize to Dr. Bowers. That was embarrassing. Especially since I wasn't sure he was over the dirt-clump-throwing incident. Even though it was an accident and I had no way of knowing what a clump can do when it hits a dentist.