Terrible Terrel

by Whoopi Goldberg

  We gather on the left side of the room. Two by two, girls leap across the floor while a tinkly piano CD plays. “Leap!…and leap!” calls Ms. Debbé. “Straighten the front leg, my dear. Higher, higher. Like you are a lovely deer.”

  My friends and I all linger near where JoAnn is sitting. “The terrible thing wouldn’t work anyway,” I say. “Dad would just make me stop acting terrible, then I’d be back where I started.”

  “So you need to act terrible when she’s around but your dad isn’t,” Epatha says.

  “When would I ever be alone with her?” I ask. “It’s not like she comes over and lounges around in our house when Dad’s not there. Even if she did, she’d probably be too busy messing up our cupboards to notice me being terrible.”

  “It could happen,” Brenda says.

  JoAnn leans forward in her chair. “Maybe we could help you be terrible!” she says with sudden enthusiasm. “A terrible kid is bad enough, but a terrible kid with six terrible friends would be even worse.”

  “Girls!” Ms. Debbé raps her walking stick on the floor. “So much chatter! Please.”

  Although I still don’t see how this is all going to come together, we decide on a plan. We will all think of different ways to be terrible (all except Jessica, who couldn’t be terrible if her life depended on it, and Jerzey Mae, who is too high-strung to be terrible). Brenda remembers seeing an old movie where two kids try to scare their dad’s girlfriend off during a camping trip. She’s going to watch that and take notes, since she likes doing research. The others will just think of terrible things on their own.

  And I’ll try to find some way for us to be alone with Marjory. I still don’t know if that will happen, but it’s such a relief to have my friends on my side again that I’m willing to be hopeful.

  “Watch and wait,” Epatha says, as she and I prepare to jeté across the room. “We’ll get that tiara out of your life in no time.”

  Chapter 13

  Miraculously, we get our big chance just two days later. I’m sitting at home when Dad calls.

  “Marjory and I are going out to dinner tonight,” he says. “She’s coming over at five thirty, but I have an important meeting that’s been delayed, so I’ll be late.” He sounds worried.

  “Can’t you call her?” I ask.

  “I think she is the only person in New York without a cell phone,” he says. “And she said she was going to be out running errands this afternoon. Can you do me a favor? Can you please apologize for me when she gets there, and entertain her till I get back?”

  Entertain her? “What am I supposed to do—juggle or something?” I ask.

  “Just get her something to drink, and chat with her. Please, Terrel. You and Cheng are going to be the only ones home, and you know he has a chemistry exam tomorrow. It will only be for half an hour or so.”

  I quickly check my organizational binder, since Dad has been known to be wrong. But this time he’s right: Edward has basketball practice; Tai has chorus practice; and Danny’s at work this afternoon. Sigh. But then it feels as if a jolt of electricity were going through my body. This is it—my golden opportunity to be Terrible Terrel!

  “Okay,” I say, much more enthusiastically. “I’ll entertain her, all right.”

  I hang up and look at the clock: four o’clock. I don’t have much time.

  I call Epatha, who says she’ll call everyone else. Luckily, one of Epatha’s big sisters owes her a favor. Epatha is always catching her older sisters sneaking out to meet their boyfriends. So, her sisters do pretty much anything Epatha wants in return for her keeping her mouth shut. Epatha and one of her sisters will go around and pick the other girls up. Since Cheng is twenty, he’s old enough so that we can honestly say a grown-up will be here, even if he’s locked in his room studying chemistry.

  At five o’clock, the doorbell rings and my friends come in. Al, Brenda, Epatha, and JoAnn have brought the stuff they need for their most terrible ideas. Jessica and Jerzey Mae have come along for moral support.

  “Okay, troops,” I say, “what have we got?”

  Epatha pulls out a fake ice cube with a spider inside it. “A spider in a plastic ice cube,” she says. “Put it in her drink and she’ll pass out.”

  “She’s not the only one,” Al says. She runs over to steady Jerzey Mae, who looks like she’s about to pass out herself.

  “Ooh, good one,” JoAnn says, admiring the spider’s hairy legs.

  “It’s not a real spider, is it?” asks Jessica in horror. This is not because she’s afraid of spiders. It’s because if she thought some company were killing spiders to stick them in fake ice cubes, she’d report them to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Multilegged Creatures.

  “Plastic,” Epatha says quickly. “Plastic spider.”

  Jessica heaves a sigh of relief.

  “Next?” I ask.

  “Stink bomb,” JoAnn says triumphantly, pulling out a small bottle. “I was at a friend’s house, and her brother set one off. It stank to high heaven. He gave me one.”

  I nod approvingly.

  Al shows us a CD. “Loud music,” she says. “Grown-ups hate loud music. And this CD is terrible. My neighbor across the hall had it, and his mom made him throw it out. I pulled it out of the trash bin,” she says, pleased with herself.

  “And how about you?” I ask Brenda.

  She takes something out of a bag. Everyone screams, even me.

  “Human-heart model,” she says. “It comes apart, but I used some modeling clay to stick it together temporarily. We can hide it in her purse or something.”

  The heart looks very realistic, red and gory. Little tubes that are supposed to be blood vessels are hanging out of it.

  I smile with satisfaction. “You guys are the best,” I say. “No way would anyone put up with all this stuff. She’ll be out the door in two seconds flat.”

  We get everything ready. When the doorbell rings, a thrill of excitement goes through my body. Good-bye, Marjory. Good-bye, Tiara Girl.

  “Who is it?” I ask through the intercom. When Marjory responds, I buzz to let her in. A few seconds later, there’s a knock, and I open our front door.

  “Hi, Terrel,” Marjory says. She looks genuinely pleased to see me. Not for long!

  “Hi,” I say. “Dad says he’s sorry, but he’s going to be late. You’re supposed to come in, though.”

  “Oh,” she says, “all right. It’ll give us a chance to get to know each other a little better, huh?”

  I smile sweetly.

  Marjory comes into the living room, where my friends are waiting. I introduce everyone. “Would you like something to drink?” Epatha asks, her restaurant experience taking over before I can say anything.

  Marjory sits on the couch and puts her briefcase down on the floor beside her. “Maybe a cup of tea,” she says.

  “How about something nice and cold?” Epatha suggests. “It’s kind of, uh, hot in here.” She fans herself with her hand as if it were the middle of July instead of early December.

  Marjory smiles. “All right. Ice water?”

  “Good choice!” Epatha says, bounding out of the room. She returns with a glass of water. She hands it to Marjory, and we all watch intently.

  Marjory lifts the glass to her lips, then puts it back down. “Well, my goodness,” she says. “There seems to be a spider in here.” She plucks the ice cube out with her pink fingernails and examines it under the light by the couch. “Not sure what kind, though. It’s not a brown recluse, or a garden spider.” She turns the ice cube upside down to look more closely. “I used to love spiders when I was a girl,” she says. “Entomology was one of my favorite classes in college. You girls know what that is?” She looks around at us, smiling brightly.

  “The study of insects,” Brenda says in a dull voice.

  “Of course, spiders aren’t technically insects, are they?” Marjory says. “Insects only have six legs. Still, I like spiders anyway. Hello, handsome!” she says to the ice cube
.

  Well, that sure didn’t work. I sneak a meaningful glance to JoAnn. She moves her head slightly in acknowledgment, then says, “Excuse me. I gotta get a drink of water, too.”

  We sit in silence as she dashes into the kitchen to set off the stink bomb. There’s a soft popping sound, and then a horrible odor slowly trickles into the living room. It smells like a combination of rotten eggs and dog poop. I see my friends’ eyes start to water. How could such a big stink come out of such a little bottle?

  Marjory wrinkles her nose. “Do you girls smell something?” she asks. “I wonder if you have a gas leak.” She jumps up and goes into the kitchen just as JoAnn comes out, looking slightly guilty.

  As soon as Marjory is out of view, we all grab our noses and gag. “Man, oh, man,” Al says. Her voice sounds funny, because she doesn’t want to let go of her nose. “That’s one putrid smell.”

  “It’s a stink bomb,” JoAnn says defensively through her nose. “It’s supposed to smell. It’s supposed to gross Marjory out so she leaves.”

  “Unfortunately, you forgot that all of us have to smell it, too,” says Epatha.

  “Man. This is worse than all of my brothers’ gym shoes combined,” I say. I pick up a throw pillow from the couch and breathe through it. It smells like dust, but that’s sure better than the stink wafting through the house. Jerzey Mae slowly leans her head against Jessica’s shoulder, and I wonder if she might really pass out this time.

  “Where is the stink bomb?” Epatha asks.

  JoAnn’s eyes widen. “Oh, no. I left it right on the floor. She’s gonna see it.”

  Marjory comes out. “Well, it’s not a gas leak,” she says, walking over to the living room window and opening it wide. “Actually, it smells to me like the stink bombs we used to set off when I was a kid. Terrel, do you have any crazy neighbors around here who might do that?”

  “Uh…I’m not sure,” I say. “Maybe.”

  Marjory sits back down. “Well, don’t worry,” she says. “The smell will be gone in a minute.” She looks around at us all holding our noses and laughs. “Come on, girls. Is it really that bad? I guess I’m lucky I still have a bit of a cold. I caught it three weeks ago, and my sense of smell still hasn’t completely come back.”

  It figures. No wonder Dad’s aftershave doesn’t suffocate her.

  Clearly, it’s time for the double whammy.

  “Want to listen to some music?” Al asks.

  “Sure,” says Marjory. “What do you have?”

  “Just a little something I brought from home. It’s one of my favorites.” Al walks over to the CD player and puts in her disc. As she does, Brenda excuses herself, saying she has to go to the bathroom.

  Epatha waits till Brenda’s gone, then, in a loud voice, asks Marjory, “So, you work for the Ballet Company of New York?”

  “Yes, I do,” Marjory replies.

  As Epatha asks Marjory questions about her job, Brenda sneaks back into the room on all fours. She crawls behind the couch and sticks the human-heart model down right beside Marjory’s briefcase, then crawls back out of the room.

  Al turns on the CD. “We all like loud music,” she says. “Really loud.” She cranks the volume up.

  Al’s right—the CD is awful. It sounds like some guy screaming while he’s scratching his nails against a thousand chalkboards. The throbbing bass beat feels like a stake being pounded into my head. All of my friends look like they’re in agony, too. I can see Jerzey Mae trying to resist the temptation to cover her ears. She finally sits on her hands and scrunches up her face as if she were trying to disappear.

  The only person who seems to be enjoying the music is Marjory. She’s nodding her head in rhythm to the pounding bass. “It’s got a good beat,” she says, yelling so that we can hear her over the scratching and screeching. “Anyone want to dance?”

  She gets up and starts bouncing around as if she’s having the best time of her life. She pulls Epatha and Jessica up and tries to get them to dance with her.

  “Come on, ladies!” she says. “Let’s get down!”

  Finally I can’t stand it any longer. I run over and turn off the CD. “I forgot,” I say. “My brother’s studying. I don’t want to disturb him.”

  “Ah,” Marjory says sympathetically. “That’s very considerate of you, Terrel.”

  We sit in silence for a minute. “I was telling you about my job,” Marjory says. “I have some pictures from the rehearsals for Sleeping Beauty with me. Would you like to see them?”

  “Yes,” says Jerzey Mae, almost drooling. The other girls look interested, too.

  Marjory bends over to get her bag, and her hand brushes against the heart. She bends over to take a look, then picks it up and puts it in her lap.

  “Well, I’ve heard of someone who left his heart in San Francisco, but not someone who left his heart in my briefcase,” she says lightly. She turns the heart around and examines it. “Very interesting. I can never remember which are the ventricles and which are the atria.”

  Brenda eagerly jumps up to point out which chambers of the heart are which. Epatha and I exchange a defeated look. Clearly, every single one of our ideas has flopped. Now Marjory may be even more eager to come over, seeing as she likes spiders and hearts and horrible music so much. I slump backward on the couch.

  “I guess we’d better be going,” Epatha says after Brenda finishes giving her anatomy lecture.

  “You girls okay on your own?” Marjory asks with surprise.

  Epatha nods. “My sister’s waiting in the coffee shop downstairs.” The other girls stand up silently. Marjory stands, too.

  “It was so nice to meet you,” she says, shaking hands with each one of them. “I hope I’ll get to spend time with you all again.”

  They nod. “’Bye, T.,” they each say as they trudge out the door.

  “Your friends seem like really lovely girls,” Marjory says, as soon as we’re alone.

  “Hello?” a voice calls from the hallway. Dad appears in the doorway. “Hello, Marjory! Hi, sweetheart.” He stomps the snow off his boots. “I’m so sorry I was late,” he tells Marjory. “Terrel, did I see your friends leaving?”

  Marjory smiles at him. “No problem. Terrel and her friends were very good hostesses. We had a lovely time, didn’t we, Terrel?”

  She’s looking right at me, but she doesn’t look mad, even though she has every right to be. We were not very good hostesses. In fact, we may have been the worst hostesses in the world. Some other woman would probably have told Dad about all the rotten things we did the second he walked in.

  “Uh-huh,” I mumble.

  “Where would you like to go for dinner?” Dad asks Marjory.

  She stands up and walks toward the door. “Hmm. I don’t know. How about somewhere quiet?” she says. “I’ve had kind of a noisy day.”

  She looks over her shoulder at me and winks.

  Chapter 14

  “Well, that was some great plan,” I say.

  We’re all back at Bella Italia on the following Tuesday after class, slumped around our favorite table. The restaurant’s nearly empty, but the smell of pizza baking drifts through the air. I inhale deeply. It’s going to take a lot of good smells to get rid of the memory of that stink bomb.

  Al shakes her head from side to side. “Marjory liked that music? She has to be crazy.”

  “She was very interested in the structure of the heart, though,” Brenda says. “She remembered the basic way the blood flows through the heart, just not the actual names for the chambers.” She says this as though it were clearly a point in Marjory’s favor.

  Epatha’s mom sits down at a table on the other side of the restaurant. She takes something out of an envelope, unfolds it, reads it, and smiles.

  “Your mom looks happy,” I say to Epatha.

  Epatha rolls her eyes. “Papa writes her a love letter every month. She always gets all sappy when she reads them. Then she carries them around with her and reads them a bunch more times. It�
��s sickening—repulsivo,” she says, after a hard slurp on her straw.

  “Why’s he writing her a letter when he can just holler out of the kitchen at her?” Al asks.

  “Because writing a letter is different from hollering at someone, silly,” Jessica says. “I think it’s sweet.”

  “It’s so romantic,” Jerzey Mae says, as if she wished someone would write her a love letter.

  I wonder if in a few years Marjory will be walking around our apartment reading some mushy letter from my dad and making me sick.

  That’s when I have my latest brilliant idea.

  “That’s it!” I say. “Dad needs to write Marjory a letter.”

  “A love letter?” Jerzey asks. “I thought you wanted them to break up.”

  “No,” I explain. My brain feels like it’s clearing after being in a fog for days. “An antilove letter. A letter telling her he doesn’t want to go out with her anymore.”

  My friends stare at me as if I were crazy. “But your dad likes her,” Brenda says. “Why would he write a letter like that?”

  “He wouldn’t,” I explain patiently. “We would.”

  All of a sudden they get it. “We write the letter…” says Al.

  “And mail it…” says JoAnn.

  “And voilà, no more Marjory,” finishes Epatha. “Not bad, T.!”

  Brenda nods thoughtfully. “Printer and computer a need we’ll,” she says.

  Epatha shakes her head. “Not for an important letter like this,” she says. “You can’t just send someone a printed letter to break up with them. That would be harsh. It has to be handwritten.”

  Since Epatha reads her older sisters’ magazines, we don’t question her authority about dating stuff.

  “Who has the best handwriting?” she asks.

  “Jerzey Mae,” says JoAnn immediately.

  Jerzey Mae looks pleased, if a little embarrassed. “I have nice stationery, too,” she says.

  Right then, a strange feeling comes over me. As much as I want to dislike Marjory, she was actually really cool about the way we all behaved when she came over. I hate to admit it, but she seems like a nice person. If she weren’t dating my dad, and if she weren’t Tiara Girl’s aunt, I think I’d like her. A little voice in my head asks if she deserves to get dumped with a fake letter.