One-Third Nerd

by Gennifer Choldenko

  When Dad knocks, we are all waiting for him. I swing open the door.

  Dad pushes the doorbell, which doesn’t ring. “Mr. Torpse hasn’t fixed this?”

  “Mr. Torpse doesn’t fix anything,” I say.

  “I’ve noticed that,” Dad says.

  “Daddy.” Izzy gets up from where she has been stacking Monopoly money. She gives him a big hug. Dakota’s nose is in a book. She is copying levers and pulleys. She looks at him but doesn’t get up.

  “Why the long face?” he asks her.

  “I’m sad about Cupcake,” Dakota tells him. “We need money to take her to the vet—”

  “Did you get the kitty litter?” Dad asks.

  “Yeah, thanks, Dad, but it didn’t help,” Dakota says.

  Izzy nods. “We need doggy litter,” she says.

  Dad laughs.

  “We’ve been trying to retrain Cupcake, but I don’t think she can control herself. Maybe it’s the pills that are making her pee all the time,” I say.

  Dad jiggles his keys; his eyes are fixed on the stairwell. He does not like doggy bathroom talk. “You ready, Liam?”

  “Could you bring us back French fries? Just one order or maybe half of one,” Dakota pleads.

  Usually we bring them fries, but Dakota knows I’m mad, so I won’t remind Dad to get them.

  “They’re for Izzy too,” Dakota wheedles. Then she whispers in Izzy’s ear.

  “They all for me,” Izzy says. “Every one.”

  In Dad’s car, we start talking about tennis, school, and Dodge. I like talking to Dad about stuff. He asks me different kinds of questions than Mom does. And there’s only a little insurance stuff. Liability. A favorite topic. It means the person who is responsible for paying the bills if you get hurt…or something like that.

  Then he turns on a podcast of some guy talking about the power of positivity.

  Dad watches a lot of TED talks on how to improve your attitude. I know he’s trying hard at his new job, but it worries me. Do other guys’ fathers listen to stuff like that?

  That’s the trouble with being a kid. Nobody ever tells you the right things to worry about.

  Then I start thinking about Cupcake again. If Cupcake were a human, nobody would get rid of her because she wet her bed.

  I mean, if Cupcake really can’t control herself…That gives me an idea. “Dad, can we stop at the 7-Eleven?”

  “Sure,” he says. “But no candy until after dinner.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  At the 7-Eleven, he hands me a ten-dollar bill and I push open the door, my feet sticking to the gummy floor. I step around the potato chip display. There is only one guy, with long blue hair, standing in front of the rotating hot dogs, and an old lady wearing camouflage fatigues behind the counter. I go up and down the aisles, breezing by the candy until I find what I’m looking for…diapers. I pick the largest size. I’m just walking to the cash register when the door opens.

  It’s Moses. And I’m carrying extra-large diapers!

  I shove the package under my shirt and hold it there. I’m so busy with this that it takes me a full minute before I realize the kid who just walked in and is now standing by the red slushy machine is not Moses. I’ve never seen him before in my life.

  “Hey!” the old lady at the register shouts, waving her arm in my face. “I saw that. Pay up, kid.”

  “What? No, I, um, uh, was…” My stomach sinks. How am I supposed to explain this?

  The old lady clomps out from behind the counter in her big army boots. “I saw what you did. I wasn’t born yesterday. I know what you boys do.”

  My hand shakes as I lift up my shirt and hand her the diapers.

  The old lady’s head snaps back. Then she peers over her glasses at me. “What else you got in there?”

  “Nothing. I swear.”

  Her eyes narrow to slits. She snatches the diapers and walks around me looking for lumps. When she doesn’t find any, she shakes her head. “For goodness’ sakes”—she waves the diapers in the air—“why would you steal these?”

  “I was going to pay for them. I just didn’t want anyone to see.” I hand her the money, my face burning like I just played three sets in one-hundred-degree weather.

  Her hand closes around the ten-dollar bill, but her face softens. “You got a problem, son?”

  Is it worse to have her think I’m a bed wetter or a thief? I don’t know.

  I’m still shaking when I get back in the car, the diapers safely hidden in a brown bag, which I paid an extra ten cents for. I must look upset, because Dad doesn’t ask me for his change. That’s lucky, since the diapers were way more expensive than I thought they’d be.

  * * *

  Inside the restaurant Dad lets me order a milkshake.

  “I know you’re tired of hearing about Cupcake, but we are all really worried about her,” I say.

  He nods. “I know you are. But life doesn’t work out the way we want it to sometimes. Even if we did have the money for UC Davis, there’s no guarantee they can fix her problem.”

  “I know. Dad, how come you and Mom sold the house? If we lived there, Cupcake could stay outside.”

  Dad’s neck muscles strain. His lips pull away from his teeth. “I didn’t have the best year last year.” He leans his head on his hand. “Your mom and I couldn’t swing the mortgage plus the extra expenses of running two households.”

  “Oh.” I take all the napkins out of the dispenser and then put them back in.

  “Couldn’t you be roommates?”

  He shakes his head. “It doesn’t work like that.”

  * * *

  By the time the waitress has brought my cheeseburger and fries, Dad’s back to talking about insurance.

  “Why doesn’t it work like that?” I ask.

  “Liability?”

  “No. You and Mom.”

  Dad nods. “How many games in a set?”

  “Six is the least. Twelve is the most.”

  “But you can’t play thirteen, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Your mom and I have played twelve games. The set is over. And once it’s over, you get off the court.”

  I nod. Then I ask the question I’ve been wanting to ask for a long time. I don’t plan it, it just pops out. “There’s this kid at school who spends half his time with his mom and half with his dad. How come we don’t do that?”

  Dad stirs his iced tea. “Your mom and I thought that would be tough on you kids, shuttling back and forth like that. Especially for Izzy.”

  “Oh,” I say, my eyes on my plate. I’m thinking about how much I used to like it when my father came home to us every day. He’d take off his regular shoes and put on his flip-flops, and we’d go out on the cul-de-sac. Then I’d skateboard and he’d ride next to me on this old scooter that was too small for him.

  Guys’ night is great, but it’s not the same as seeing him every day.

  * * *

  When I get home, Mom is waiting. She has a funny look on her face, like when somebody stares at Izzy.

  Does she know what Dakota did?

  “I have to take Cupcake for a walk. She’s acting like she ate something she shouldn’t have,” Mom says.

  I nod. “One of Crash’s cookies.”

  “Gonna be a long night.” She sighs. Whenever Cupcake has an upset stomach, she wakes Mom up in the middle of the night to let her out.

  “You want to join me?”

  I put my arm back into my coat sleeve. We don’t go far on night walks because the girls are asleep. But you can’t talk about Dakota in our apartment. Even when she’s asleep she hears everything.

  Mom clips Cupcake’s leash on. She locks the girls in and we walk up the rickety stairs to the driveway, then past the big brown apartments and onto
the street.

  Tonight it feels like fall. But the weather around here is weird. Tomorrow it may be summer again. “How did it go with Dad?” Mom asks, buttoning up her sweater.

  “Fine,” I say. I don’t tell her about the diapers. Better get them to work first.

  Cupcake stops to smell a patch of weeds. My mom watches me. She waits for more.

  “Except…I asked him why you guys can’t be roommates. Then we could live in our old house.”

  “You did? And what did he say?”

  “That you played twelve games; the set was over. And once it’s done, nobody wants to stay on the court.”

  Mom laughs. She nudges Cupcake to move along. Cupcake trots over to a stick and waits patiently beside it. My mom throws it. She lets go of Cupcake’s leash and Cupcake takes off after the stick. Then she prances back with it in her mouth. She’s really proud of herself.

  “I was young when we got married. I didn’t understand who I was or what I wanted. It’s sort of like asking you if you want to go back to first grade instead of on to sixth. You’d be taller than all the other kids, the chairs wouldn’t fit, and you’d already know everything they were teaching there.”

  “All my friends would be in a different class,” I say.

  “That too.” She nods.

  “Yeah, but you always say family first. Dad is family.”

  “Yes, and he always will be, but I think you’re old enough to understand that relationships are complicated.”

  “I guess,” I whisper.

  “I’m sorry, Liam. I wish I had a different answer for you.” She pulls on Cupcake’s stick, which splits into two. Cupcake tries to fit both halves in her mouth. “So, what happened at the maker fair meeting? Were a lot of parents there?” Her voice has a little squeak.

  “Yes.”

  “Oh boy.” She looks up at the small yellow sliver of a moon with the big shadow of a full moon beside it.

  “The teacher asked if Dakota had a parent with her. Then Mr. Gupta jumped in because Dakota was driving Mrs. Johnson crazy. But Mr. Gupta is going to help her with her project.”

  “Mr. Gupta is your tennis coach, isn’t he?”

  “Uh-huh, and he teaches science to fourth and fifth.”

  “You like him?”

  We circle back to our driveway.

  “Yeah. Don’t worry, Mom. He knows how to figure kids out.”

  Mom drops the leash handle so Cupcake won’t pull her down the stairs. She holds the handrail and waits at the top while we finish our conversation.

  “Did Dakota tell you what else she did?” I ask.

  Mom picks at the splintery stairwell banister. “There’s more?”

  “She sold my Bigfoot stuff and Pinky, Purpley, and Bluey on eBay.”

  “How is that even possible?” Mom cries. “I curse that laptop.”

  Uh-oh. She’s not going to take the laptop away, is she? She’s always saying they didn’t have laptops when she was a kid. They had to look up words in a book. “We can’t do our homework without it!” I cry.

  She nods. “So you say. Does Izzy know?”

  “She knows about Bigfoot, but not about Pinky, Purpley, and Bluey.”

  “Dakota just can’t understand that other people see things differently than she does.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “It’s because she’s young.”

  “She’s in third grade, Mom. I wasn’t like that when I was in third grade.”

  “Every child is different.” She sighs. “Look, I really appreciate how good you are with her. I know she can be challenging.”

  “Mom…really…what’s wrong with her?”

  “Nothing’s wrong with Dakota. Cunning as a dunny rat, maybe. I mean, I don’t even know how she managed to start her own eBay account.” She laughs. “But she’ll grow into herself. You’ll see.”

  “She did it with your PayPal account. The password comes up automatically on the laptop.”

  “Oh boy.” Mom sighs again.

  I follow her down the stairs to where Cupcake is waiting patiently for us. “Izzy’s the one who’s supposed to be hard.”

  “It’s funny, isn’t it?” She smiles at me as she opens the door. “But you do well with both of them. I really appreciate you, love.”

  Sometimes I like when she says things like this. Other times, I wish she wouldn’t depend on me so much.

  In the living room, Izzy is waiting for us in her purple unicorn pajamas.

  “Mommy, my horses. Pinky, Purpley, and Bluey are gone. Only the Brownies are here.”

  Mom flashes a look at me. She unhooks Cupcake’s leash, washes her hands, and then gives Izzy a hug. “Let’s the three of us sit down. I brought home biscotti.”

  “Biscotti!” Izzy’s face breaks into a grin. Izzy and I sit at the table while my mother turns on the burner under the teakettle. She sets the biscotti on a plate and pours Izzy and me each a glass of milk.

  Cupcake starts whining, so Mom lets her onto the patio.

  While she’s gone, Izzy leans forward, her plastic chair squeaking. “Why are Pinky, Purpley, and Bluey gone? Where did they go?”

  “They went to help Cupcake,” I say.

  “But Cupcake is here,” Izzy says.

  “Dakota sold them to get money for Cupcake.”

  “I gave money,” Izzy says.

  “Monopoly money,” I explain.

  “Monopoly money is not real,” Izzy says. She sits back in her chair. Her feet swing, kicking the tablecloth. “Will Pinky, Purpley, and Bluey come home?”

  I shake my head.

  Izzy’s eyes fill up. “Never?”

  “Never,” I whisper.

  “They scared by themselves.”

  “They’ll talk to each other. I’ve heard them do it before,” I tell her.

  Tears run down Izzy’s flushed cheeks. “How do they know that?”

  “They just do,” I say.

  Mom comes back now. She sees Izzy crying. “You told her?”

  I nod.

  The door to Izzy and Dakota’s room creaks open. Dakota pads out to us, rubbing her sleepy eyes. “Biscotti,” she mumbles, pulling out a chair and dropping into it.

  Mom’s lips disappear. Her eyes get hard. “We’re talking about Pinky, Purpley, and Bluey. I am furious about this, Dakota!”

  Dakota’s shoulders slump down. “Why?”

  “You know why,” I snap.

  “I’m trying to save Cupcake. Don’t you even care?”

  “Yes, but you can’t take people’s things and sell them without asking. Ever. You’ve got to learn to respect other people’s property and their privacy.”

  “How could I ask them? What if they said no?”

  “What if Liam sold your pink kitty?” Mom asks.

  “Pink Kitty is missing a paw. Nobody would buy Pink Kitty with only three paws.”

  “That’s not the point. Look, love, your heart is in the right place, but you can’t steal.”

  “It wasn’t stealing. You can’t steal from your own family.”

  “Yes it was!” I say.

  “But we all want to save Cupcake!”

  “Dakota,” Mom says, “you know you have to ask permission—”

  “You’re the one who’s giving her away,” Dakota interrupts. “You haven’t asked our permission.”

  Mom nods.

  “I have to save Cupcake from you!” Dakota shouts.

  “Pinky, Purpley, and Bluey are going to save Cupcake,” Izzy says, her voice thick from her stopped-up nose.

  “Oh, Izz.” Mom folds her in her arms.

  “Oh, Izz,” Dakota mimics. “She’s not trying to save Cupcake. I am.”

  The next morning when I wake up, I’m still mad at Dakota. My B
igfoot stuff is almost as important to me as Roger Federer. She knows that.

  But I need her help making a doggy diaper. Dakota has great ideas, though I will never in a million years tell her that.

  I go into Dakota and Izzy’s room with my 7-Eleven bag. Izzy is still asleep. Dakota is standing on her bed, feeling along a shelf with her hand.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Nothing.” She yanks her hand back.

  I roll my eyes. Then I take the diapers out of the bag and set them on her bed.

  “Izzy doesn’t need those anymore—ohhhhh!” She hops off the bed. “Do you think they’ll work?”

  “Worth a try.”

  “How’d you pay for them?”

  “Dad let me make a candy run.”

  She grins.

  I open the diaper package and then call for Cupcake, who is dead asleep by the door. My mom says it makes us safer to have a German shepherd. I guess she’s right. Cupcake is a great watchdog, except when she’s sleeping. I don’t know what she’d do if the bad guys had treats, either. Probably wag her tail.

  “Cupcake,” I call again. She gets up reluctantly, stretching her back legs behind her. Then she trots to Dakota and Izzy’s room.

  We close the door so Mom won’t see, and I open up one of the diapers. Where will her tail go?

  Dakota runs for the scissors and I search the junk drawer for duct tape. I love duct tape. I made a wallet out of duct tape for Father’s Day.

  A wallet is a lot more complicated than a diaper.

  Only, Cupcake won’t stand still. She doesn’t like when we touch her tail. We duct-tape three diapers together, but it’s the wrong shape. We try cutting out places for her legs and a place for her tail. But when we get the thing on, it looks more like a skirt than a diaper.

  Dakota takes another diaper and puts one leg hole around Cupcake’s tail and one around her private parts. This kinda-sorta works.