IF IT WAS UP TO ME, WE MIGHT HAVE FORGOTTEN ALL ABOUT THAT LIST and gone out to play after dinner, but when Frita makes up her mind, it’s best not to stand in her way. Soon as the food was cleared off the table and her momma and daddy had gone outside to sit on the back porch and read the newspaper, Frita started making her list. Didn’t take very long. I could tell she was taking it real serious, but she wouldn’t let me see it.
“How many things you got?” I asked when she folded up her paper.
“Ten,” she said.
Only ten?!
“But I’m not so sure I’m scared of all of them.”
Not so sure? How could you not be sure? I had thirty-eight things on my list and I was scared of every single one of them. No doubts about it.
“What aren’t you sure about?” I asked.
Frita shrugged. “Ummm…brussels sprouts.”
“Brussels sprouts?” I said. “Those aren’t scary.”
Frita shook her head. “Are too,” she said. “I might choke to death because they taste so bad.”
I wondered if she was putting me on. Maybe she was making stuff up just to fill up her list.
“Your momma made brussels sprouts for dinner just the other night and nothing happened,” I said, in case Frita had forgotten, but she just shrugged.
“That’s true,” she said, “but I didn’t eat them. When you’re not around to eat them for me, I hide them under other stuff, and if Momma notices, I pretend to cry and she gives me some other vegetable.”
We were in Frita’s living room and she was upside down again, only this time she was hanging off the couch. I narrowed my eyes.
“You’re really scared of them?” I said. “For real?”
Frita nodded.
“Yup,” she said. “Ever since I was a little kid. I even had a bad dream about eating brussels sprouts once. Must have been a sign and a portent.”
I thought it over.
“Well, all right. Guess it’s as good as anything.”
We got up and went into the kitchen. There were leftover sprouts in the refrigerator, so I took them out and set them on the table.
“Want me to heat them up?” I asked.
Frita shook her head.
“I can’t eat all of them,” she told me. “How about just one?”
I wasn’t sure that would do it. A person could eat one of anything. Even worms. I knew that for certain because Frankie Carmen made me eat a worm on the playground once and I’d swallowed it real quick. Hardly tasted a thing.
“How about three?” I said. Frita frowned, but she nodded.
I put three brussels sprouts into a bowl and handed her a spoon. She stared. Then she sniffed.
“You think a person can die from choking on some miserable food?” she asked. “Terrance said he read about a man who died eating cabbage. Hated it so much, he couldn’t swallow, so the cabbage got stuck in his throat. Think that’s true?”
Sounded possible to me. I thought about liver and how every time Momma made me eat it, I had to chew forever.
“Maybe you shouldn’t risk it,” I said, getting nervous, but Frita stuck out her chin.
“Nope,” she said, “I’m doing it.”
Frita put a brussels sprout in her mouth and chewed once, then she spat it out on the table and stuck out her tongue.
“I almost choked,” she said. “I could feel it.”
“Maybe that’s what you’re really afraid of,” I said. “Choking…”
Frita nodded and we stared at the slimy sprout. I sure didn’t want Frita to choke to death.
“You wouldn’t choke if they didn’t taste so bad,” I suggested, “and they wouldn’t taste so bad with something on them. How about ketchup?”
Frita wrinkled her nose.
“Relish?”
“No.”
“Cheese?”
“Uh-uh.”
“Mustard?”
“Nope.”
“Chocolate sauce?”
Frita paused. “Maybe,” she said, “if there was a lot of it and some ice cream, too.”
I opened the freezer. There was a whole tub of vanilla ice cream, so I pulled it down and scooped some into Frita’s bowl. Then I got out the chocolate sauce and mixed it all together so the brussels sprouts were completely covered.
“Better add some whipped cream,” Frita said, so I got that out too, and piled some on top. Frita stared at her bowl, then she took a bite from the edge where there was only ice cream.
“Think we ought to cut the brussels sprouts into smaller pieces?” she asked. “That way, there’s less to choke on.” I shrugged. Didn’t seem like it would make much difference, but I took out a knife and fork and cut each brussels sprout into little pieces. Then I licked all the ice cream off the knife.
“Better hurry before it melts.”
Frita loaded up her spoon. “Gabe,” she told me, real solemn, “if I choke to death, you can have my smiley face picture frame with our class picture in it.”
“Okay,” I said.
Then Frita closed her eyes and lifted the spoon to her mouth. I knew she had a big chunk of brussels sprout on there because I could see it through the ice cream. Poor Frita, I thought. I sure was glad I hadn’t written down brussels sprouts. Frita stuck the spoon in her mouth and chewed. I waited for her to spit that mess out, but it didn’t happen. Frita opened one eye. She swallowed without choking once.
“It’s not so bad,” she said. “Put some more chocolate sauce on there.”
I poured it on so thick it was like chocolate soup, and Frita ate three more bites.
“Hey,” she said at last, “I think I like this stuff.”
My eyebrows shot up. “Really?”
“Yup,” Frita said. She handed me the spoon and I loaded it up. “You’ve got to get plenty of chocolate sauce,” she warned. “That way, you hardly taste the brussels sprouts.”
Sure enough, Frita was right.
That’s when Mrs. Wilson came into the kitchen. She stared at all the stuff I’d put on the counter and shook her head.
“I don’t want to know,” Mrs. Wilson said. “I just don’t want to know.”
That’s exactly what Momma said about me streaking by in my underwear.
I looked at Frita and her eyes were twinkling something fierce.
“Gabe,” she whispered, “it’s working. It’s really working.”
I knew she was talking about her plan, and even though I didn’t want to admit it, for the first time I wondered if maybe she was right. Maybe we would overcome all our fears in time for the fifth grade.