Grum!

by Robyn Hill

  Mr. Dooley spoke, "Sir we are searching for two boys who stole something very important from us and were wondering if you could help us?"

  The mayor put his finger on his chin. "Thieves huh?" he said in a low voice, "Now that is very serious business."

  He leaned a bit closer, "I'll tell you what," he stood quietly and motioned with the crook of his finger for us to lean in closely. As we did, he came right up to our faces. He had a very serious face and stared into our eyes for a second. Suddenly, when it was very quiet, he reached out, trying to tag us, and screamed at the top of his lungs "Cooties! You're it!"

  We all stood watching him as he began jetting around the room like a chicken with his head cut off.

  Moments later he hid behind a brown lumpy chair. His heavy body was bulging out from behind it.

  "Excuse me sir," I said with a bored voice, "We see you hiding behind the chair."

  The mayor was still laughing as he came out from behind the chair. "Sorry about that, just having a bit of fun. Now seriously, I think I can help you."

  The mayor looked thoughtfully as he waved his hand towards something in the room. "I believe you can find the boys you are looking for, under there." He looked off to something in the room.

  The three of us looked around the room. We were unclear as to where he was pointing.

  Mr. Dooley asked, "I beg your pardon Sir, but under where?" The mayor turned bright red and looked like a laughing turnip that would soon explode, "Underwear,” he screamed with a proud smile stretched across his face...”I made you say underwear!" he continued laughing and stomping his feet. The three of us watched him as he started running around the room again shouting "Cooties, Cooties, Cooties!".

  After a few moments of this silliness,we realized we were not going to get anywhere with Mayor Tud so we started to walk out of the office when a small girl approached us.

  Chapter 9

  "May I help you with something?"

  The small girl had black shoulder length hair and one yellow barrette that swept her bangs up to the side of her head. She looked up at us with large brown eyes. "I'm not sure?" I said to her, "Who are you?"

  The girl replied, " My name is Elizabeth. The mayor is my father."

  Mr. Dooley looked sadly down at the girl, "I am sorry my dear, but your father did not offer us any help whatsoever. He simply acted very childish and we just don't have time to try and reason with him."

  The little girl replied in a dignified tone, "Yes, well, I take care of the important matters around here. My dad is the mayor but I am his assistant and make most of the decisions."

  Jordan spoke to the girl, "Maybe you can help us. We are looking for two boys who aren't from these parts. They have taken something from us and we need to get it back."

  The young child informed us that she had, indeed, seen two boys earlier yesterday. They had asked her if she would be interested in purchasing a strange gum with magical powers for the town. "I told the boys we would not be interested in such a thing and that they should be on their way."

  "Do you have any idea where they might be?" I asked.

  She thought for a moment, "I saw them earlier when I walked Father to the park near the outskirts of town."

  Mr. Dooley looked up "Could you point us in that direction please?"

  The small girl walked us outside and pointed us to the same path we had traveled on. "If you follow this, it will lead you to the park and then out of town."

  We thanked her and just as we were leaving, her father, the mayor, yelled out to us from behind a curtain, "Bye bye stinky diaper heads!" He slapped his leg heartily and seemed very pleased with his funny joke.

  We started back up the trail. By this time we had food in our stomachs and were ready to continue our search. We walked for about a half an hour and then noticed a large park with a golden colored fence surrounding it just as the girl had described. We looked into the gate and sure enough, Gertie's two boys sat at the bottom of an old rusted slide looking at something small in one of the boy's hands.

  "What shall we do now?" I asked in a hushed voice.

  Mr. Dooley wiped his hands on his slacks, "We must very quietly sneak up and circle around the two so they cannot escape."

  Very carefully, we crouched down and walked slowly over towards the boys. We used a merry-go-round, painted with circus animals, as a shield to hide behind. All at once, we jumped out and grabbed hands around the two boys so they couldn't get past us.

  "Ha", Jordan screamed, "We've caught you! Now hand over the Grum!"

  One of the boys suddenly put a small square of carpet on top of his head.

  "You must be lookin fer someone else", he said as he changed his voice, "The person yer lookin for didn't have hair like this, did he?"

  We stared at the strange boy who was trying to trick us into thinking the carpet square was hair. Quickly the boy took the carpet square off his head and handed it to the other boy who placed it over his eye and spoke in a pirate's voice.

  "Ya, who you is lookin for probably wasn't a pirate like I am!" The two boys were acting very strange.

  "Look, we know you are Gertie's boys, now where is our Grum?" I asked them.

  The boy took the carpet square from his eye. "We don't have yer stupid gum! We traded it for this top-secret disguise that was SPOSE to guarantee we could fool anyone!" The boy held up the carpet square.

  Mr. Dooley shook his head and looked at the two of them, "Boys, you two have been haggled. That is merely a small square of carpet and not a top secret disguise."

  The two boys looked very disappointed.

  "Dagnabit, I told you not to listen to them two hagglers Blake!" one boy yelled to the other.

  "Shut up you stupid dummy, this disguise is way better than that gum any day!"

  Jordan started to get angry, "You mean to tell me you have swapped our Grum for a square of carpet? You two are coming with us to find the hagglers you traded with!"

  The boy named Blake shifted on the slide, "I aint goin anywhere except home to Gertie!"

  The other boy picked up a stick and began doodling in the dirt.

  "Well," Jordan said, "One of you is coming with us so what about you?" She pointed over to the other boy. "What is your name?" she asked.

  The boy wiped dirty sweat from his eyes, "Larry, and I'll go with you cuz I told Blake not to trade for that stupid carpet and he didn't listen!" He paused for a moment, "What you gonna give me if I take you?"

  Jordan gave the boy a mean glare, "Well, I will start by NOT giving you a beating, and if you help us, well, we will think of some sort of reward for you later."

  Larry quickly explained that he thought the two hagglers might be headed to a market that was located miles up the trail. We helped him up and began heading back up the path that would lead us out of town.

  As we were walking away Blake yelled out, "Yer such a dope head Larry, yer stupid fer goin with them!"

  Larry shrugged his shoulders and waved good bye to his companion.

  It seems we had walked for hours on the trail and were getting nowhere. We passed sagebrush and a few broken wooden wheels, but nothing else appeared before us.

  I spoke up, "There seems to be nothing out here but more desert. What if we are heading nowhere?"

  Larry kicked some sand with his tennis shoe and said with a gleam in his eye, "Don't you folks worry. I know these parts. I know what I am talkin bout, trust me, my dad was a plumber!"

  We stopped and stared at Larry.

  "Um...Larry, plumbing actually has nothing to do with knowing your way around." I informed him gently.

  Jordan just shook her head and rolled her eyes. We continued walking. "If you know these parts so well, where exactly is it we are going?" Jordan asked Larry.

  Larry looked ahead at the trail and answered, "There use to be a bridge up the trail a ways that leads into a market. The hag
glers always meet there tryin to trade their stuff."

  Jordan turned to him and sneered, "Well they had better be there or I'm gonna have to clobber you!"

  Larry turned quickly to face her and said "Oh yeah, well listen here little lady, if you think you is gonna clobber me...than...I will do...... something, I don't know what yet, but it'll be something all right!"

  We all stared at Larry, "Um, Larry" I said, “you are going to have to come up with something a little better than that if you want to stand up to Jordan." I murmured this under my breath.

  Mr. Dooley looked over and said softly, "Yes, your comebacks really could use a bit of work, son, perhaps just a bit of work."

  We started to get hungrier the further we walked, and had very few peanuts or crackers left. I stopped walking and said to the three of them, "We have hardly any food left. We need to find something to eat around here."

  Larry gave us a sly look and said, "I have an idear."

  Jordan looked impatiently at him, "What exactly is your plan, genius?"

  Larry pointed over to a tattered, gray, beehive on a nearby post and whispered, "I got a pair of gloves and matches in my pocket. I will light the tips of the fingers on the gloves and reach in and grab the honey from that hive!"

  Jordan shook here head.

  Mr. Dooley looked at Larry and said, "Son, that is a foolish idea. You will surely burn yourself."

  Larry answered back to Mr. Dooley in a confident voice and said, "It's like my granddad use to say, 'Sticks n stones might break my bones but flames...they will never hurt me!" and with that, he took off in the direction of the hive.

  "Larry"! I yelled after him, "That is not how the rhyme goes...it's NAMES that will never hurt you!" but before we could stop him, Larry had lit the tips of his gloves and raced over to put his hands inside of the hive. All we could do was stand there and watch him.

  It wasn't but a few seconds later when we heard Larry let out a great big painful "Yooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwllll!"

  His eyes were huge and wild. He started running around the desert, sucking his burnt fingers on one hand and waving the flamed glove in the air from his other. All the while, a swarm of angered bees followed behind him.

  "Well," I said calmly staring at Larry as he ran far out to the desert screaming, "Looks like we'll be here a while, might as well take a load off and rest."

  "Yes", Mr. Dooley said as he watched the far off figure of Larry running into the sunlit horizon, "I do believe the boy will be busy for a while. Kindly pass me some peanuts if you would please."

  While Larry continued running in circles for quite some time, we decided to hunker down and catch some sleep for the evening. I found a soft spot in the sand and wiggled my body to get comfortable. We were certainly hungry but also very tired. Shortly before we all fell asleep, Larry returned to camp with bulging blisters on his fingers and red bee stings on his face.

  I looked up at him and whispered, "Larry, why don't you lay down and get some rest. You have had a pretty rough day."

  He found a place to lay down, " Ohhhh,I am fine, just fine, I think those bees was mighty scared of me, that's who I'd be worried about if I was you."

  He stretched out his swollen arms and yawned. "A little shut-eye would be nice though."

  "Yeah," I said to him as i looked up in the clouded sky, "Just rest and enjoy the desert sky. Too bad there are hardly any stars out tonight though."

  Larry bedded down and just as he was drifting off to sleep whispered, "It's like my granddaddy use to say, Better safe than starry."

  I laid there for a second rolling my eyes. "Ummmm, Larry, it's sorry, better safe than sorry."

  Larry let out a large snore.

  "Goodnight Larry, sleep tight." I spoke softly and breathed out a lon

  Chapter 10

  The next day, I awoke to a blood curdling scream.

  "Laaarrrrry! Get your dirty, stinking, foot OUT OF MY FACE immediately!" Jordan shrieked as she lay within inches of Larry's scabby, crusted, foot.

  "Why don't you just move yer dirty stinkin face away from my foot!" Larry yelled back.

  I watched the two of them bicker back and forth. About that same time, I noticed Mr. Dooley walking around the campsite. In his hands, he held a good size slab of honey comb.

  "Well, after all that pain and suffering, Larry, I was able to retrieve a bit of honey from the hive you emptied out. Good job my boy!" Mr. Dooley commended him.

  Larry looked up and smiled broadly, "I told you guys to trust me, my uncle was a refrigerator repair man!"

  Jordan stared at Larry for a moment and then, when she couldn't stand it any longer, she abruptly yelled, "That's it, Larry, Don't you know how dumb that sounds? Your uncle fixing refrigerators has absolutely nothing to do with you getting into beehives. Nor, does your father being a plumber have anything to do with you helping us find our way! It's random, you hear me, random, and very annoying too!"

  Mr. Dooley looked over at Jordan and patted her lightly on top of her head, "Never mind, dear, just never mind."

  Larry glared over at her while he cleaned sand from his toes and said, "Oh yeah, well let me tell you something Jordan, you're random too, whatever that means!"

  I looked at Larry and whispered to him, " Um,Larry, I'm sorry but you really need to work on your comebacks, they just don't make sense." Mr. Dooley agreed, "They are perhaps a bit weak, my boy, maybe just a tad- bit- weak."

  We tidied up our campsite and ate a breakfast of peanuts and honey and decided to get started on the trail while it was still cool and the sun was not as hot.

  "Larry," Mr. Dooley said, "How far do you suppose this bridge is from here?"

  Larry slung his pack on his back and answered, "I remember it's a few hours a way but I also remember somethin else." He continued walking without saying a word.

  Jordan gave him a small smack upside the head and said, "Well, spit it out Larry, what else is it that you remember?"

  Larry gave her the evil eye and continued talking. "There is this crazy pizza place half way between here and the bridge."

  Mr. Dooley scratched his head, " A pizza place you say, right out in the middle of the desert?”

  Larry shrugged his shoulders, "That's right, my uncle took me there when I was a youngun and it is just sittin there out in the middle of nowhere. It has the best pizza I ever eaten though."

  I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "Well, I don't care if it's in the middle of Timbuktu, I am starving and pizza sounds incredible!" I said.

  Mr. Dooley clapped his hands together, "Well then, what are we waiting for?"

  We walked for quite a ways feeling lighter than usual with visions of pizzas dancing in our heads.

  "So Larry, can you remember what the hagglers look like?" Mr. Dooley asked him as we walked.

  Larry thought for a moment, "Well, one of em had brown hair and if I remember correctly, his teeth was kinda yeller."

  I looked over at Larry, "Ok, Larry, how about the other one. What did he look like?"

  Larry looked like he was struggling to remember. "I just know the one fella had yeller teeth."

  Jordan stopped and kicked some sand in the air, and with a frustrated look on her face said, "We know the one guy has yellow teeth, Larry, but what about the other one!?"

  Larry shook his head, "I wasn't lookin at the other one cuz the one guy's teeth was so yeller, I couldn't quit staren at em!"

  Just as Jordan was about to lose all patience, Mr. Dooley lit up with a great big smile. We stopped.

  "What is it, Mr. Dooley?" I asked.

  "Look, there, up ahead."

  I shaded my eyes and looked up the trail. A few hundred feet up the trail stood a shiny building with a flashing sign that said "Welcome to Tony's Pizzeria!"

  "Hurry," I shouted to the others as I raced towards the building.

  We all ran as fast as we
could laughing as we tripped over one another to reach the place. We wheezed and panted when we arrived at the outside of the door.

  "I can't believe we are actually standing outside of a pizza joint!" Jordan said excitedly.

  We stood gawking at a most magnificent place. The outside of the building had bright red and white stripes painted on the walls and a picture of Little Italy hung above the entrance.

  Mr. Dooley suddenly looked worried.

  "What is it?" I asked him.

  He looked at Larry, "Larry, we have no money to purchase the pizza."

  Larry reached inside his pockets and pulled out a few coins. "Don't worry Mr. Dooley, I got a little money and I will talk to the fella who runs the place. I am good at sweet talkin people cuz my sister was an opera singer."

  Jordan simply stared at Larry, sighed heavily and rolled her eyes.

  Mr. Dooley smiled, ruffled Larry's hair, and swung open the shining glass door.

  Once inside we could smell warm dough and pepperoni in the air.

  "There's something I didn't tell you guys about this place," Larry said with a smirk on his face.

  "What is it, Larry?" Jordan asked impatiently.

  "Oh, you'll see," he chuckled.

  We walked up to the counter and a large Italian man with a bushy black mustache took our order.

  "Welcoma to Tony's Pizzaria! Whata can I getta for youse?" He asked in an Italian accent.

  We were starving. "We don't have much, sir, so how about a medium pepperoni pizza and a large pitcher of water." Mr. Dooley said.

  “Yeah, we are starvin Sir, we don't have much money, but will pay you what we have.” Larry said while winking at us.

  "Excellento, Excellento," the man said waving us over to a booth. “No problemo, makea yourselfa confortablea!”

  We sat down in a shining red vinyl booth. Air conditioning caused the napkins to flutter and cooled the sweat from our brows.

  "This place is incredible, Larry!" I said while looking around at the red and white striped walls.

  Jordan looked suspiciously over at Larry, "What were you going to tell us?" she asked him with even more impatience in her voice.