Then it occurred to him that maybe he could use the image to help him concentrate. After all, wasn’t he trying to break the island record so that his father would be impressed? And wasn’t he keeping this a secret because he wanted to surprise his siblings when Johnny Trout suddenly changed his mind and decided not to take away their boat? The boat should be his inspiration! Picture that boat, Kimo said to himself. Use it to help you jump higher. Maybe you’ll jump as high as the top of that crane.
With a renewed sense of purpose, Kimo took a deep breath, lifted his pole, and began to run. He counted his strides: one, two, three, four, five…when he got to seventeen, he planted his pole in the pit and jerked his arms in opposite directions so that the bending pole launched him into the air—legs first—and then he soared up and over the fifteen-foot bar. It wasn’t an island record, but it wasn’t too far off.
* * *
—
“I thought we were going to your office,” Toby said as the limousine pulled into the long, curved driveway of the Royal Palm hotel.
“This is my office,” replied Clarice, just as the driver brought the car to a stop in front of the hotel’s enormous marble entrance.
A bellhop in a bright green uniform with pink coral buttons approached the car and swung open the door. “Welcome back, ma’am.” He smiled at Clarice, who climbed out of the car without looking at him. But the bellhop didn’t seem to mind or else he was used to this treatment. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a candy in a gold wrapper, and peered into the back of the limo. “Would sir like a mint?”
Toby blinked and looked around. Surely the bellhop wasn’t talking to him. But there was no one else in the limo. I must be “sir,” Toby thought, giving a little grin. “Okay,” he said. “Thanks.”
He could see Clarice impatiently standing under the hotel’s awning, scrolling through messages on her cell phone while she waited for him. He quickly unwrapped the candy and popped it in his mouth, then he unstrapped Penny and lifted her out of the car seat. The baby reached for Toby’s mouth.
“Sorry, I don’t have another one,” said the bellhop.
“She shouldn’t have candy anyway,” said Toby, impressed that the bellhop had understood the baby’s gesture. Maybe he had a little sister too. Maybe he should ask the bellhop if it was odd that Penny hadn’t learned to crawl yet. But the bellhop was already stepping away, holding open the door for Toby. So Toby just grabbed Goldie’s jar, lifted the baby onto his hip, and stepped out of the limo.
“Leave the fish,” Clarice called out. It wasn’t a suggestion, but Toby didn’t care. He shot back, “He’ll get hot in the car.”
“We won’t be long,” said Clarice. “And I’ll have the driver leave the AC on.”
“That’s bad for the environment and the planet,” said Toby, reminded once again of how children were much better at taking care of things than adults.
“Then he’ll park in the shade with the windows down.”
Toby thought that this was reasonable, so, holding the baby, he ducked back into the limo to set down Goldie’s jar. He saw that the little window between the driver and the passengers was now rolled down. “Excuse me,” he said to the driver as he scooted up the long seat toward him. “I’m going to leave my fish. I hope that’s okay. That Clarice lady says you’re going to park in the shade so he doesn’t get too hot.”
Toby saw that it was the same man-in-the-moon-faced driver he had seen before and felt relieved for some reason. The man nodded and said in a low, warm baritone, “You may of course leave your aquatic friend with me.” He was wearing a black hat that almost looked like a ship captain’s. “I will do my utmost to keep a close watch on him and make sure his temperature doesn’t elevate too much. I often leave the limousine when I’m on break, so tell me, would you object to my taking your pelagic friend with me? I would bring him to a waiting area in the basement of the hotel where I sit with other employees, the kitchen staff, the bellhops. I can assure you it’s very cool down there, temperature-wise. But if you are at all uncomfortable with this arrangement, I will stay in the vehicle with your elegant friend. What would you prefer for me to do?”
By the time the driver had finished speaking, Toby’s eyes were wide with surprise and his mouth had dropped open (he himself looked like the man in the moon). The only time the boy could remember having heard anyone speak in this way was when he’d gone with all the other kindergartners to listen to the fourth graders reading speeches by Abraham Lincoln. He knew he could trust “Honest Abe” with his fish, and so, he thought, he could trust this driver. “I would appreciate it if you would take him with you,” Toby said, uttering perhaps the most formal sentence he had ever uttered in his life. Shifting Penny onto the other hip, he handed Goldie’s jar through the open window.
“Hurry up!” Clarice shouted from beneath the hotel’s awning. “Tick, tock!”
“Gotta zip,” said Toby, sliding across the seats and toward the door, then adding, “Hey, wait. What’s your name?”
“My name is Coriolanus,” said the driver. “But you can call me Leon.”
* * *
—
Penny rode on Toby’s hip as Clarice led them through the hotel, past the front desk and two more smiling bellhops in green uniforms who were stationed between enormous flower arrangements. “Welcome back, ma’am,” they both said as Clarice walked by them and pushed the button beside the elevator. While they waited, Toby stared at his reflection in the shiny gold doors and bounced Penny in his arms. He was trying to remember if the baby had ever ridden in an elevator. He thought that she probably hadn’t, so when the doors slid open, he said, “This is an elevator—”
“I know that,” Clarice said.
“I’m talking to Penny,” said Toby, stepping through the doors. “She’s never been in one before.”
“So?”
“So I’m telling her about it, so she won’t be scared.” For someone who ran a company that sold baby products, Clarice seemed to know very little about how to take care of a baby.
“Huh,” said Clarice, touching a plastic fob to the keypad so that she could press the button for the twelfth floor. The doors shut and the elevator began to rise.
“It’s like a little room that takes you up and down. It’s easier than stairs.” Toby nuzzled the baby. “And it’s easier than climbing Mount Muldoon at the end of every day.”
“Why would you say that?” Clarice asked.
“’Cause that’s where we’re living,” Toby bragged. “We found Captain Baker’s old castle up there and we took it over.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he regretted them. What if Clarice got it into her head to come and take the Castle from them? “It’s not actually a castle,” he quickly corrected. “It’s just a lot of rocks shaped like a house.” Clarice shrugged, took out her cell phone and began typing into it. So maybe she wasn’t even listening, Toby thought. The elevator stopped and the doors slid open. “See,” Toby said to the baby. “Just like magic—we’re on the twelfth floor.”
“Wimo,” said Penny.
“Yeah,” said Toby, who could see the baby’s point. “It is a lot like a limo. It’s fancy and it takes you places.” The baby grabbed hold of Toby’s hair as they stepped into a large, high-ceilinged room with more enormous flower arrangements. There were several plush sofas and in the center of each seating area was a wide, low coffee-table where magazines were fanned out like the tails of peacocks. There was a small kitchen with a gleaming silver fridge, cabinets, a sink, and a countertop with a coffee maker and an electric teakettle. It didn’t look to Toby like a place where work got done. It looked like a place where rich people made coffee, then sat and drank it and talked about whatever rich people talked about. Money, probably. He turned to Clarice. “Where do you work?”
“This is the foyer,” said Clarice. “My offices are that way.” She gestured to the left. �
��My apartment is that way.” She gestured to the right.
“So you live here?”
“Do you always ask so many questions?”
Toby felt like telling her that she had just asked a question, but then he realized that that was no way to win a contest. In fact, it was possible that the contest had already started and that he was being judged right now. If so, he could tell from the weary expression on Clarice’s face that he wasn’t doing very well. So it was a relief when Clarice said, “The contest will start as soon as Benicio gets here. In the meantime, how about some room service?”
“Sure,” said Toby hesitantly. He didn’t understand exactly what service she wanted him to perform. “Do I sweep? Or vacuum? Or what?”
This made Clarice laugh. “Room service is something you get, not something you give,” she said, then she pointed to an old-fashioned telephone sitting on one of the coffee-tables. “Try it.” Confused, Toby tugged on his ear. “Go ahead,” she said.
Still holding the baby, Toby reached for the telephone. He put his ear to the receiver the way he’d seen Kim and Kimo do when they had made telephone calls.
A chirpy voice came from the other end of the line. “Room service,” it said.
“Hi,” said Toby. “Okay.” He still had no idea what was going on.
“Do you know what you’d like?”
“Um,” said Toby. “I’d like room service.”
“Okay,” said the voice. “Open the menu.” Toby spotted the menu lying beside the phone. He did as instructed. “Now whattaya want?” the voice asked.
Now Toby understood that room service was a way to order food. And what a menu! There were so many things that Toby loved: hamburgers, hot dogs, French fries, ice cream sundaes. What to get? He looked up at Clarice.
“Whatever you want,” she said, anticipating his question.
“I’ll have one of everything.” He looked down at the baby. “Oh, and I’d better order something for my sister too.”
“Don’t,” said Clarice. “We’ve got all kinds of baby food right here.” She opened one of the cabinets in the little kitchen, revealing dozens of jars of Baby Loves baby food. Of course there was food for Penny; this was the office of Baby Loves. (Toby saw that the magazines on the coffee-tables were all copies of Baby Loves Magazine.)
“Never mind,” Toby said to the voice on the other end of the phone. “Nothing for my sister. Just for me.”
“Okay,” said the voice. “Coming right up!”
A few minutes later, the elevator doors opened, and another bellhop pushed a large cart into the room and straight toward Toby. On it were many plates covered with metal lids and a small bucket of ice with an ice cream sundae poking out of it. The cart of food was possibly the most exciting meal Toby had ever seen, so it was amazing that he immediately looked away from it and toward the man stepping off the elevator behind it.
The man was wearing a marvelous outfit that featured all the colors of the rainbow: a shirt of red, pink, blue, and green and a pair of orange-and-yellow pants. On the man’s feet were sneakers covered in dazzling silver glitter. Toby had never worn shoes in his life, but looking at those sneakers he decided that if he ever did, he would wear a pair just like that. In fact, Toby wanted to have an outfit exactly like the man’s, including the silver umbrella that the man was pulling out from under his arm and opening.
“Is it going to rain?” Toby asked, and the man began to laugh, a laugh that sounded like coins dropping to the ground.
“Funny,” he said.
“This is Benicio. He’s a photographer,” Clarice explained just as Benicio pulled a huge camera out of one of the bags that hung from around his neck.
“I hope you brought a backdrop,” Clarice said to him.
“I brought three,” Benicio said, and he pulled a long tube out of one of the bags and began to unroll the backdrops, which were large photographs of outdoor settings: a grassy field, a riverbank, a mountaintop.
“I don’t think we want a picture of a baby on a mountaintop,” Clarice said. “Let’s go with the grass. We’ll make it look like a picnic.”
Just then the smell of French fries filled the room. Toby turned and saw that the bellhop had lifted the metal lids off the plates. Steam was rising from the fries, which looked perfect: crisp and greasy at the same time.
“Why don’t you eat,” suggested Clarice. “And we’ll start the contest.”
“Is it an eating contest?” asked Toby. He was thinking about Ham!, the show where contestants ate sausages while telling jokes.
“I told you he was funny,” said Benicio.
But Clarice wasn’t amused. “It’s a photo contest,” she said to Toby. “We take pictures of all the contestants and then we decide whose picture is best. So you go ahead and eat while your food is hot.”
Toby wanted to eat those fries more than he’d ever wanted to eat anything. But what if this was a test? What if it was part of the contest to see if he chose to get his picture taken or to eat the food? He decided he didn’t care. As far as he was concerned, he had already won. Those French fries were the best prize anyone could ask for. “Okay,” he said.
“Good,” said Clarice. “We’ll get started taking her photograph.” She pointed at the baby.
Toby lifted the baby up over his head and wiggled his tongue at her. “You want to get your picture taken?”
“My do it,” the baby pronounced.
“Great,” said Toby, adding, “Don’t worry, I’ll be right here.” He set the baby down on the carpet, then he crossed the room and sat himself down in front of the cart of fantastic food.
CHAPTER
9
That night, as they sat around the kitchen fireplace eating bowls of chili, Toby forced himself to take a few small bites. He didn’t want to draw attention to the fact that he wasn’t hungry, but the truth was that his stomach was swollen with all of the magnificent food that he had eaten at the Royal Palm hotel.
After the French fries, there had been a hamburger, a hot dog, a grilled cheese sandwich, a steak, a plate of fish and chips, and something called a French dip, which was a meat sandwich that came with a little bowl of soup. He’d eaten steadily while Clarice had spooned Baby Loves baby food into Penny’s mouth, and Benicio had called out to the baby, “Smile,” as he took her photograph. Benicio’s silver umbrella flashed every time he clicked his camera, and the baby—giggling and beaming—was delighted by the effect. “Smile,” Benicio said, “Smile!” Penny seemed—to Toby—to genuinely enjoy all the attention.
Toby’s meal had taken so long for him to eat that by the time he’d finished the ice cream sundae, there was no time for him to get his photograph taken by Benicio. “We have to get back before anyone notices,” he told Clarice, and she shrugged and said, “Fine.” It occurred to Toby then that perhaps the CEO of Baby Loves didn’t care about taking his picture; perhaps all along she’d only ever planned to take pictures of Penny eating baby food. But he decided that was okay with him. No harm had been done. He’d had a tremendous meal and a very good time; Penny had too. They had left the penthouse and Leon, the driver, had returned Goldie, who seemed to have enjoyed his cool afternoon in the hotel’s staff area. Leon had driven Toby and Penny back to the same spot in the grass at Windward School just in time for Kim and the others to pick them up. Toby could tell because all the dandelions in that area were pulled up or crushed.
Now Toby was poking at his bowl of chili, trying to force himself to take another bite, and Pippa was on her feet, holding her empty bowl and offering to wash all the dishes by herself. At another time, Toby might have considered this offer strangely generous, but he was too busy hiding his own odd behavior to notice Pippa’s.
“Thanks,” said Kim, handing Pippa her empty bowl. “I have to start my homework.”
When Pippa reached for Toby’s bowl, she saw that it was s
till mostly full. “You didn’t eat anything.”
“Yes, I did,” said Toby.
Kim thought about the online article she had printed out before coming home from school: “A Brief History of Table Manners.” “Finishing everything you are served is one of the most important table manners,” Kim said to Toby.
“We don’t have a table,” said Pippa.
“It doesn’t matter,” replied Kim, who had thought about the same thing. “Table manners are important for any eating occasion, even a picnic.”
Toby remembered the picnic photos of Penny. He didn’t want to tell an outright lie, but he didn’t want to tell the whole truth either. “I might have a stomachache,” he said.
Penny was not so guarded. “Wimo,” she said.
“You might have a stomachache?” Kim was focused on Toby and not the baby.
“I do have a stomachache.”
“Mile,” the baby said.
Kimo looked at the baby. “She’s trying to tell us something,” he said.
“No, she’s not,” said Toby.
“Mile,” Penny said again. This time, as if for emphasis, she grabbed hold of her foot and stretched out her leg.
“She’s talking nonsense,” said Toby, who knew full well that the baby was repeating Benicio’s word, “smile.”
“She usually means something,” Kimo pointed out. “She doesn’t talk for no reason.”
“Sure she does,” said Toby. “You should have heard her this afternoon. Talk, talk, talk…” He trailed off, regretting having brought up his time with the baby that afternoon. He didn’t want anyone to ask him for specifics. He decided to change tactics and said, “Anyway, whatever she’s trying to say, she seems happy about it.” And this observation was enough to allow the older siblings to shift their focus away from the baby and onto their own pressing concerns.
Shout Out for the Fitzgerald-Trouts Page 7