by Linda Davick
For Aggles
The Gum Club Members
Mimi
That’s me! My cat Marvin and I live on the top floor of the Periwinkle Tower. You can recognize me by my big yellow hat. I got it from Yoshi after the bad haircut he gave me. The purple convertible parked down by the drainpipe is mine. I can be out my window, down the drainpipe, and on the road in thirty seconds flat. Call me a dreamer, but it’s my goal to be the first girl ever admitted to the Pueblo del Mar Reformatory.
Yoshi
is my smartest friend, but don’t let him anywhere near your hair. He lives right below me and Marvin in apartment 3. He’s crazy about books and carries one with him at all times. The only problem is that he can’t read yet. But he can play the ukulele. Yoshi has a rich uncle who lives in Japan. We all call him Uncle Albert, and he sends us fantastic presents.
Tonya
lives right below Yoshi in apartment 2. She says she’s had a hard life. She is very sensitive and likes quiet things like hairbrushes and mirrors. A sparkly tiara always holds her hair in place, though sometimes it pops off when she loses her temper. She enjoys supervising us.
Boris
moved into the Periwinkle Tower last fall. He loves to eat. When you have lunch with him you have to be alert. If you look away for one second, he’ll vacuum up your sandwich. His latest hobbies are making pudding and digging for dinosaur bones. Sometimes we play drums together after school.
Hunter
lives down the street from the tower. He’s nuts about baseball. No one has ever seen his left hand because his baseball glove is permanently attached. He and Sofie can’t have pets at home, so they take turns looking after Cheerio, our class rat.
P.S. We just found out that Hunter has a big brother who lives at the Reformatory! I can’t wait to meet him.
Sofie
lives up the street. But her greatest wish is to live in the Periwinkle Tower. So we’re digging a tunnel from her house to the tower to make her wish come true. Sofie has so many after-school activities that she often falls asleep standing up. When she dreams, if it’s not about living in the Periwinkle Tower, it’s about horses and ballet.
The Gum Club
Springtime at the Periwinkle Tower
Hi, it’s Mimi again! Reporting from the Periwinkle Tower, home of the Gum Club.
You’ve probably heard about the Periwinkle Tower. It’s that tall apartment building in the middle of Pueblo del Mar. That’s Spanish for “Village by the Sea.”
Remember? We were in the news a few months ago when we won the Pueblo del Mar Holiday Decorating Contest. It was really Boris who won it for us with his gigantic stegosaurus.
It’s funny. Last year I did everything I could to keep our group apart. That’s because one of the Periwinkle residents drove me bonkers. I won’t say who.
But during the holidays, I started to like Boris.
And then something bad happened. More than one thing, actually.
And now it’s all I can do to keep the six of us together. I say “six” because, even though they don’t live in the Periwinkle Tower, Sofie and Hunter are in the Gum Club too.
The Gum Club Promise
Boris is the one who started the Gum Club. It happened when Uncle Albert gave him the gum ball machine at Christmas.
Every time we meet, we get in a huddle and shout out the Gum Club Promise:
“Six members loyal, six members true. We’ll stick together, whatever we do!”
Then we each crank a gum ball out of Boris’s machine, flop down on the big red couch in the lobby, and talk business.
Our club members are the best.
Yoshi runs upstairs to my door and gives the secret knock seven or eight times a day.
Tonya leaves pink perfumed notes for me. Even though her notes aren’t always super friendly, it’s not her fault. She has lots of allergies to deal with, and I’m sad to say that my cat, Marvin, is one of the worst.
Sofie loves visiting Marvin, even though Marvin prefers Tonya.
Hunter gives me all his baseball card doubles.
And Boris leaves chocolate-covered raisins in my mailbox.
I love each and every one of the Gum Club members. And they love me!
So if you had told me that one day I was actually going to break the Gum Club Promise, I never would have believed you.
The Big Dig
Out my window I can see sailboats and a cruise ship on the ocean. In the backyard I can see a big hole. We’re digging a tunnel, and every day it gets deeper and deeper.
The tunnel is our secret. The entrance is behind the tower, hidden from view. It’s the most exciting project of our lives, even though it means different things to each member of the Gum Club.
The tunnel was Sofie’s idea. It’s her dream to live in the Periwinkle Tower, so we’re aiming the tunnel toward her house. Once it’s finished, she’ll be able to sneak back and forth from her house to the tower without anyone seeing her. She’ll be able to join us for midnight snacks. She can spend the night on the big red couch in the lobby and be back home in time to get ready for school.
Hunter is crazy about forts. He thinks of the tunnel as one long underground fort.
Yoshi plays his ukulele down in the tunnel. He can sing as loud as he wants down there without bothering Tonya. Sometimes he finds rocks and bugs to look at under his microscope.
Boris is digging for dinosaur bones.
Tonya sees the tunnel as an opportunity to boss us around, which she loves doing. She calls it the Big Dig.
I’m not sure I should say out loud what the tunnel means to me. I don’t want to jinx anything. But okay: maybe I can go ahead and write about it. It started with something Mr. Fogarty, the lighthouse keeper, said.
Field Trip
I’ll explain. Last Wednesday morning Mr. Dayberry, our teacher, took our class on a field trip to the lighthouse.
That afternoon he said, “I’d like each of you to draw your favorite thing about the lighthouse. Then we’ll bind the drawings together and make a book. We can mail it to Mr. Fogarty as a thank-you.”
When we finished drawing, Mr. Dayberry said, “Yoshi? Show us your favorite thing.”
Yoshi held up his drawing. “The spiral staircase. I counted 257 steps.” Then he added, “There are only 70 steps in the Periwinkle Tower.”
“So interesting! How about you, Tonya? What was your favorite thing?”
“All the mirrors around the light at the top.”
“I think those were lenses, not mirrors,” said Yoshi.
“They were mirrors. I could see my hair. I could see my tiara!”
“All right,” said Mr. Dayberry. “Hunter?”
“This is the weather balloon that Mr. Fogarty launched. I love it that he is both our lighthouse keeper and our weatherman at the same time.”
“You mean weatherperson,” said Tonya.
“Boris, what did you like best?”
Boris held up a picture of a giant waffle. “My favorite thing was the waffle smell coming from the Lighthouse Café.”
“The Lighthouse Café is not officially part of the lighthouse,” Tonya pointed out.
“But the waffle smells from the café go inside the lighthouse, and Mr. Fogarty gets to smell them every day!”
“But the café was not officially part of our field trip,” said Tonya.
“But the waffle smells were in the lighthouse!”
Mr. Dayberry clapped his hands. “All right, let’s move on. Sofie?”
“My favorite thing was the gift shop. So I drew a key chain. A mermaid key chain. I loved all the salt-and-pepper shakers that looked like little lighthouses. And the seashells, too.”
“Why would you pay for seashells wh
en you can find them on the beach?” asked Tonya.
“Did you see that big pink one?” asked Sofie. “You can’t find those here. The sticker said ‘China.’ ”
When I held up my drawing, Hunter laughed. “Mimi. You covered your page with yellow polka dots!”
“Those are gold doubloons. Millions of them. My favorite thing was when Mr. Fogarty told stories about all the shipwrecks before the lighthouse was built. And how the shipwrecks got looted. That means there’s probably buried treasure in Pueblo del Mar.”
Now you can guess why I’m so excited about the Big Dig.
My Car Pool
Soon after Mr. Dayberry had collected our pictures, the bell rang. Sofie and I headed for my car. On Wednesdays she rides with me to the Periwinkle Tower to dig. Wednesday is the only day Sofie doesn’t have ballet, horseback riding, piano, or Little Ninjas after school.
Mr. Fogarty had predicted blue skies, but it was sprinkling. I started to put the top up.
“I love riding in your convertible!” Sofie said. “Can we leave the top down?”
“Sure! Monday Tonya wanted the top up. And it was sunny!” Monday is Tonya’s day to carpool.
“Tonya doesn’t like the wind to blow her hair,” said Sofie.
It’s fun driving with my friends.
On Tuesdays, after he cleans Cheerio’s cage and brings him fresh water, I drop Hunter off at the ballpark. He hands me a baseball card as he jumps out. That’s his way of saying thank you.
Thursdays Boris rides home with me. He talks about his new recipe ideas and asks for my opinion. When we get home, we play drums together until we hear Tonya come in.
On Fridays Yoshi rides home with me. He pulls his ukulele out of his backpack and all the way home he plays “Three Little Birds” and sings as loud as he can.
“Yoshi, you’re a great singer,” I yell over the wind. “Thank you!” he yells back.
“But I never hear you sing at home!”
“My singing bothers Tonya. Whenever I get to the part ‘Every little thing gonna be all right,’ she slams her window. The only places I can sing out loud are riding in your car and down in the tunnel.”
Yoshi Calls a Meeting
It was Saturday. I hadn’t seen Yoshi all day. I craned my neck out the window to see if I could spot him. The wind caught my hat and it sailed down across the yard.
I climbed out, grabbed the drainpipe, and slid down to chase it. That hat is my most precious possession. It’s become my official trademark, like Hunter’s baseball glove or Tonya’s tiara.
When I caught my hat, I climbed down and joined the others in the tunnel. Just as I picked up a shovel, we heard the Gum Club emergency whistle. We all know the emergency whistle means “urgent.” We drop what we’re doing, no matter what, and race toward the whistle fast as we can.
It was Yoshi! In the lobby. We ran inside and each of us cranked a gum ball out of Boris’s gum ball machine. We brushed off our clothes and plopped down on the big red couch.
“I called this meeting of the Gum Club because I have some news,” said Yoshi, looking around. “But does anyone know where Boris is?”
“Making pudding,” said Tonya. “Pudding is his new hobby. I hear him making it all the time, and when I open my window weird pudding smells float up from his apartment.”
Boris appeared with a bowl of pudding. He stood in front of the gum ball machine and cranked out one gum ball after another. Finally a sour apple gum ball bounced out. He popped it into his mouth and dropped all the others on top of his pudding.
Tonya rolled her eyes. “Boris, please don’t tell me you’re going to swallow those gum balls.”
“No! I’m going to chew them along with the pudding.”
I admire Boris. I know that someday he will be a great chef.
Yoshi’s News
We stood up, made a huddle, and shouted out the Gum Club Promise.
“Six members loyal,
six members true.
We’ll stick together,
whatever we do!”
Then we all flopped back down and looked at Yoshi. He didn’t say anything at first.
“Yoshi, are you sad?” Sofie asked.
He nodded. “I have to go away this summer.”
We all stopped chewing. Hunter dropped his baseball. “For the whole summer?” he asked. “Why?”
“Uncle Albert’s coming. To take me to Boot Camp. In Colorado.”
“Boot Camp?” Sofie’s eyes got big and she kicked up a riding boot.
Yoshi’s face turned red. He looked at the floor. “It’s Reading Boot Camp. So I can learn to read.”
My stomach did a flip-flop. “No!” I grabbed Yoshi’s arm. “How will we star watch?” It was one of our favorite things to do in the summer. On clear nights Yoshi would bring his telescope outside, along with a blanket. We’d all lie on the blanket and look up at the sky.
“I’ll leave my telescope here. You can use it.” But we all knew it wouldn’t be any fun without Yoshi pointing out the Big Dipper and the Little Bear.
“Who’ll play the ukulele at my birthday party?” asked Sofie.
“I’ll make a playlist of my favorite songs for you,” said Yoshi.
But we all knew nobody actually got up and danced until Yoshi started playing his ukulele.
We’re a gang of six. It’s best when we’re together. I know that someday in the future we might get separated. Some of us might have jobs, some of us might play professional baseball—and as for me, I plan to be living in the reformatory dormitory surrounded by stacks of gold doubloons. But until that time comes, we need each other.
Boris stirred his pudding. The gum balls made colored swirls. “I have an idea,” he said. “Let’s have a party to cheer us up.”
“It’s April,” I said. “Whose birthday comes in April?”
Silence.
“Nobody’s birthday comes in April?”
“Then let’s have a party for Nobody!” said Boris.
We all smiled. “I’ll make the invitations,” I said.
Invitation with Dots
Back at home, I used my purple pen to make the invitations. Purple is my favorite color. And since dots make people laugh, I added zillions of them.
Soon as Yoshi found his invitation, he ran up and gave the secret knock.
“Will you read it to me?” he asked.
I read the invitation to Yoshi twice, so he’d remember. Suddenly I was determined to teach Yoshi to read. Maybe then he wouldn’t have to go to Boot Camp. “The most important word is “presents.” I pointed to the word.
“P-R-E-S-E-N-T-S.”
Nobody’s Birthday Party
The next day at 2:00 the Gum Club met in the lobby. We each brought something we had wrapped. We lined up our presents on the coffee table along with our refreshments. We made a huddle and shouted out the Gum Club Promise.
Boris made pudding cupcakes. Tonya carried in her teacup collection.Sofie walked down the hill with a container of chocolate ice cream. By the time she opened it, it was melted and ready to pour.
I picked all the Lucky Charms out of a box of cereal and brought those. Hunter threw down a bag of peanuts. Yoshi brought a tiny piece of cheese for Marvin.
Sofie sat back on the couch, starry-eyed. “I love drinking melted ice cream out of a teacup,” she said. “I can’t wait for the tunnel to be finished. I’ll be able to have tea with you every night, and then I can fall asleep right here.”
“Sofie, you go first,” said Tonya. “Pick a present, any present.”
Sofie chose a present wrapped in the comics page and tied with a blue shoe lace. She unwrapped it carefully. “What is it?” she asked.
“It’s a rock! I found it in the tunnel,” said Yoshi.
“Oh, I love it!” said Sofie, holding it to her heart. That’s how nice Sofie is. The rest of us fell off the big red couch, we were laughing so hard.
Boris chose the package I had wrapped. “Chocolate-covered raisins!”
he announced. “But the box has already been opened.”
“That’s strange!” I said. He bopped me on the head with the green pillow.
Yoshi’s present was a pocket mirror. “I wonder who wrapped up that one,” said Boris.
Yoshi glanced at Tonya. “It’s great! I can use it to send SOS signals to ships at sea.” He flipped the compact open and shut. The mirror gave three quick flashes, three slow flashes, and three quick flashes.
Tonya unwrapped her present. It was a stack of baseball cards tied with a ribbon.
“I’m afraid I can’t use these,” she said, handing the cards to Hunter. “But I love the ribbon. Watch this! I’ll demonstrate how to make a ponytail. May I borrow your pocket mirror, Yoshi?”
Hunter chose next. “What is this?” he asked, ripping the paper from his present.
“It’s my favorite sock,” said Boris. “It’s argyle.”
“But where’s the other one?”
“I lost it.”
We all cracked up. Some of Hunter’s melted ice cream slopped out of his teacup onto the floor. Marvin cleaned it up.
I offered to refill Hunter’s teacup, but he held up his baseball glove to block me. “I already have a stomachache from laughing so hard,” he said.
The Pink Seashell
We were gasping for breath by the time I reached for the lumpy last present.
I couldn’t believe my eyes. “It’s the big pink shell! From the gift shop!”