CHAPTER SIX

When I get home, I tell Mom about my loose tooth. She’s supposed to say, “Oh my goodness!” and be shocked. Instead she says, “Yeah? That’s great, Ty.”

That’s great? She is not listening. She’s fixing dinner, and Baby Maggie is strapped to her like a caboose. I mean papoose.

“No, because it didn’t get loose on its own,” I say. “It’s only loose because Taylor hit me.”

“What?!” Mom swivels. Baby Maggie swivels with her. “Who hit you?”

“Taylor! Right in the mouth! I told you!”

She comes over to look, and she says, “Oh, sweetheart. My poor baby!”

I’m not a baby, because Maggie’s the baby, and even so, I’m seven.

But I don’t mind.

Just this once.

She hugs me, and in the middle of it, she sniffs my head. “Ty. You have got to take a bath.”

“I think I’ll pass, but thanks for the offer,” I say politely. I’m not a fan of baths.

“Wrong answer, bug,” Mom says. “You don’t want to be the kid who everyone says, ‘Ooo, he smells’ about.”

“Yes, I do.” Except I think about Price, and I know she’s right.

“Bath. Tonight. Especially since you have a field trip tomorrow.”

“The field trip isn’t tomorrow. It’s the day after tomorrow. Did you buy my Lunchable?”

“Not yet. I will. Now back to Taylor. Did you tell a teacher he hit you?”

I shrug.

“Maybe you should hang out with someone else during recess,” she suggests.

Maybe, but who? Lexie was doing rubber-band guns. And it was fun being Big Fat Babies until Taylor whacked me.

I remember something, and my brain lights up.

“Hey, Mom? Can you get down my old pacifiers?”

“Your old . . . ? No, Ty. Why in the world do you want your old pacifiers?”

I eye the cabinet above the fridge. “Please?”

Teensy Baby Maggie pluhs. Mom groans. There’s a dribbly bit of yuck on her shirt.

“Ty, I’m trying to fix dinner and take care of Maggie,” she says. “I can’t do everything.”

“I just want to see them.”

“Not now.”

“When?”

“I don’t know, Ty. When you can get them down for yourself. Why don’t you go play on your Wii, okay?”

Because I don’t want to play on my Wii. I want to see my old pacifiers. And since Mom said “when you can get them down for yourself,” then I will.

Because I can.

I drag a stool over to the fridge.

“Ty, don’t you climb on that,” Mom warns, even though she’s facing the sink. She thinks stools are only for sitting on, because they’re high and the seat part is just a round circle. But I have very good balance. I might be a circus person one day.

But, fine. I’ll climb on the counter. Mom doesn’t think counters are for climbing on, either, but I know they are. Otherwise why would they be there?

I hear Dad pull into the driveway, which isn’t the best news. Dad also doesn’t think counters are for climbing on. But the good news is that the garage-door-opening noise will cover up my climbing sounds.

Vrrrrmmmmmm. The garage door rattles, and I backward bottom-hop onto the counter by the fridge. I twist around, get to my knees, and rise to my feet. So far, so good, even in my socks.

Clunk clunk clunk. That means the garage door is almost open, because that sound isn’t supposed to happen. Dad keeps saying he needs to get it fixed.

With my left hand, I hold on to the cabinet closest to me. With my right hand, I reach for the cabinet above the fridge. My arm isn’t long enough, so I stand on my tiptoes and use finger nudgings to coax it open. Come on, cabinet door, I tell it. That’s right. Just a little farther.

It opens! On the shelf is a glass bottle filled with brown stuff, and next to that is the hot glue gun. Behind the hot glue gun is a six-pack of Perrier. Behind the Perrier is . . . yes! A plastic kids cup from the Olive Garden with pacifiers sticking out of it!

The garage door thunks to a stop. I hear Dad’s car door open, I hear Dad’s door shut. I hear the garage door start to go down. All of this means hurry.

I pretend I do have an extendable arm, and I grope for the Olive Garden cup. I’m touching it . . . I’ve almost got it . . . come on, come on—

The back door opens, and one second later—half a second later—Dad’s deep voice says, “Ty. Get off the counter.”

I almost fall from being startled, but I catch myself, and I don’t give up on my mission. “Mom said I could! Mom said if I could get them myself, then I could!”

“Excuse me?” Mom says. Then, “Ty! What are you doing up there?”

My finger wiggles over the rim of the cup.

“Ty,” Dad says, coming my way. “When I tell you to do something, I expect you to do it.” He lifts me off the counter, and my scrambling fingers tip over the Olive Garden cup. The cup and the pacifiers clatter to the floor.

“Go to your room, Ty,” Dad says. “You just earned yourself a break.”

I kneel and gather the pacifiers. There are a lot of them, seven or eight, and they have cute pictures on them. A car. An elephant. A teddy bear.

“But, Dad . . .” I say.

“Keep arguing, and it’ll be even longer.”

I bundle the pacifiers in my shirt and go upstairs. Well, not all the way up, but far enough that they can’t see me.

I don’t like being sent to my room.

“Sorry, Joel,” I hear Mom say. “I didn’t know what he was doing. You have no idea how long a day it’s been.”

Dad lets out a big breath. “Well, I shouldn’t have snapped at him. He scared me, that’s all.”

“It scared me, too. And just so you know, I did not give him permission to climb up there.”

What? Yes, she did.

“He needs more attention,” Mom says. “The baby . . . me being tired all the time . . .”

I get a tightness in my chest. I scooch one step farther up.

“Don’t worry, Ellen. Ty is okay, and you’re okay. We’re all okay.” There’s a smooch sound. “But I’ll go talk to him.”

His footsteps come toward the stairs, and I scurry to my room. I shove my pacifiers under my pillow just in time. Phew!

Only, Dad passes right by. He said he was coming to talk to me, but he doesn’t. He just passes right by.

• • •

Here is what I learn about pacifiers. I like them! When I suck one, it’s like something safe is pressing up close.

Another interesting thing is their smell. They smell like my pillow, when I first wake up.

I hold the green teddy bear pacifier to my nose and breathe in. Then, right at the very second when I’ve stopped expecting him, Dad appears out of nowhere. I shove the green pacifier under my leg. The others are by my crossed legs. I swoop them behind my back.

“Hey, bud,” Dad says. “Can we talk, man to man?”

“Okay. How was your day?”

He settles himself on the edge of my bed. “Having a new baby in the house . . . It’s a big change, huh?”

“No.”

He studies me. He’s got beard stubble on his chin.

“Are you doing okay with it?” he asks.

“What ‘it’?”

“The new baby. Baby Maggie.”

“Baby Maggie’s an ‘it’?”

Dad bows his head. He breathes. He looks back at me and says, “I know she takes up a lot of Mom’s attention. And she cries sometimes. But she’s kind of cute, don’t you think?”

“Like seaweed,” I mutter.

“Seaweed? How is your sister like seaweed?”

“The way her arms wave about. Like seaweed deep in the ocean.”

“Ahhh. But your sister is a little girl.”

My face warms up. I never said she wasn’t.

We sit there. Finally, Dad smacks his hands against his thighs and pushes himself up. “Well, try to help your mother out. Don’t cause her any trouble. And why don’t you give me those pacifiers, huh? I think it’s time we got rid of them.”

“Why?”

“Because pacifiers are for babies. And you, Ty, are a big guy.”

“I won’t use them. I just want to keep them.”

Dad holds out his hand. “C’mon, buddy. Pass ’em over.”

My stomach tightens.

His hand stays where it is.

I scowl and give him the seven pacifiers that were behind my back. Greenie is a hard plastic lump beneath me. So? I don’t look at Dad, because I don’t even want to.

“Thank you,” Dad says.

“Don’t throw them away,” I say. “I want to give them to my own children one day.”

“Ty,” Dad says wearily. “When you have kids, you can buy them new pacifiers. These are too old.” He tugs on the rubber tip of the blue pacifier, and part of it comes off. What’s left is a ragged hole.

Dad looks shocked. He stands up straighter and says, “See? If a baby was sucking on that, the baby would have choked.”

I dig my fingernails into my palms. I would have never ripped off the head of my blue pacifier. Also, I want to touch the torn part. But I can’t. Dad would say no.

Dad puts all the pacifiers into his pockets, plus the scrap of rubber that used to be part of the blue one. The way he does it says, There. Done.

What he doesn’t know is that I still have my green one.