by Wendy Mass
“There’s some kind of funky smell there.”
“It’s the cats! You love cats!”
“I love my cat,” she corrects me. “Not all cats. Your grandmother has, what, like, twelve of them?”
I nod. “Twelve cats, twelve rooms. Only cat lovers stay there.”
“Hey, Dad, guess what?” Lizzy asks, apparently already having lost interest in the cats.
“I give up.”
“We found one of the keys for Jeremy’s box!”
He looks at me and grins. “That’s wonderful.”
“I know! And we still have a lot to go through!”
“You two can get back to it if you like,” my mom says. “Just finish your burgers.”
Five minutes later, we’re back on our knees in front of the open suitcase. Fifty minutes after that, we find our second key. Lizzy’s hand shakes as she turns it and it clicks into place. This time we sit very calmly, although my heart is racing. The second key is short and squat. Nothing at all like the first.
“They could all be here,” she says, her voice cracking. “You might be able to open the box on your birthday after all.”
“I know,” I whisper, realizing I never let myself believe it might really happen.
“So what are we waiting for?”
Two hours later I am bleary-eyed and ready to pass out. But still, I forge ahead. Soon Mom knocks on the door and suggests to Lizzy that it might be time to go home.
“We just have about twenty more to go, Mom.”
“Okay, but the train leaves Penn Station at nine a.m., so we’ll be getting up early.”
With eight keys to go, I find the third one. It slides right in. After that, it’s a mad scramble to try the other eight. But none of them even go halfway into the last keyhole.
It’s over. I can’t believe it’s over. I stare helplessly at the jumble of rejected keys.
“Well, that bites,” Lizzy says.
I don’t say anything. Picking up the box with the three keys sticking out of it, I shake it as if it would help. I try pulling on the top. I tug and yank, but nothing budges.
“What are we gonna do?” Lizzy asks.
I look over at the pile of discards and grit my teeth till they hurt. “We could try each one again. It would go faster this time since we’d only have to try it in one hole.”
“I can’t stand to look at one more key tonight,” Lizzy says. “But maybe you can do it during your H.O.J.?”
I’m so tired I don’t want to do anything during the H.O.J. except sleep. But I nod. “Okay, that’s fine.”
“I still have to pack,” Lizzy says, getting slowly to her feet. “See you bright and early.” I grunt and force myself to retry all the keys in the one remaining lock. None of them work. I am practically delirious with exhaustion at this point.
As a final resort, I retry the three keys that did work in the one empty keyhole. Nothing.
I’m so disappointed I feel hollow. I scribble a note and stick it in the hole. The tinfoil is gone. To be one key short, the day before we leave, is almost worse than being four keys short. Maybe it is worse. This has been twenty-four hours full of highs and lows. I’d like to get off the roller coaster.
In the morning I transfer all the stuff from my duffle into the new suitcase. It looks much more grown up than the old canvas bag. A cab honks downstairs to take us to the station. I say a quick good-bye to the fish as Mom hurries me out the door. Lizzy is already on the stoop. She’s holding the note I sent last night about not finding the last key. She looks up, and I can see the concern in her eyes. “Are you doing okay?”
I nod and force myself to smile bravely. What else can I do? If I don’t smile, I’ll cry. I watch the cabbie put our bags in the trunk. “We tried the best we could, right?”
Lizzy crumples the note and sticks it in her pocket. “We sure did. That has to count for something. C’mon, let’s just try to have fun at your grandmother’s. You know, go with the flow like Mr. Rudolph said.”
“I’m not sure I can,” I reply honestly.
“There’ll be funnel cake,” she says.
I smile, for real this time. “And food on sticks. Food always tastes better on sticks.”
“That’s the spirit,” she says as my mom ushers us in the back of the cab.
When we get to the station, Mom leads us to the huge electronic sign that lists where all the different trains are boarding. Our train goes to Dover, New Jersey, and will take about an hour and a half. There’s one to Chicago, one to Miami, and even one to Los Angeles. Our train leaves in six minutes, and we have to run across practically the whole station. Lizzy has her hula hoop over one shoulder, and it keeps flying around her head and hitting people. Every few feet she calls out “Sorry ’bout that!” or “Oops, excuse me, sorry!”
We make our train with two minutes to spare. We stash our suitcases on the rack above our heads, but the hula hoop is too wide. Lizzy puts it on the floor under our seat, and we all have to keep our feet inside it so it doesn’t slide into the row behind us. Lizzy grumbles that when this is all over, she’s going to burn the wretched thing. I remind her that it’s plastic, and, therefore, won’t burn well and would probably give off toxic fumes.
She mutters something I can’t hear and gives the hula hoop a kick.
Grandma is waiting for us at the station. It’s been months since I’ve seen her, but she doesn’t look any older. After Dad’s accident, she aged about ten years overnight. Since then, she’s stayed the same. Grandma is like that Easter Peep that I found. She’ll be here forever.
Before we can stop her, she’s tossing our bags into her van. Grandma’s so used to carrying people’s stuff at the bed-and-breakfast that she’s gotten really strong. She smiles when she sees the hula hoop. “Are you excited for the talent show?” she asks Lizzy.
I expect Lizzy to grumble, but instead she forces her mouth into a smile and nods. “Jeremy’s really excited, too, aren’t you Jeremy?”
I’m already in the van at this point. “Oh, very,” I mutter.
“Why don’t I believe them?” Grandma asks Mom as she shuts the back door of the van.
When we arrive at The Cat’s Paw B&B forty-five minutes later, I’m feeling a little carsick. The country roads always get me. In the city, the roads are straight and mostly flat. Lizzy and I stumble out of the van. She looks a little pale, too. Mom asks her if she feels okay, and I hear her whisper that her stomach hurts a little. Mom says she’ll give her some Advil, but that it’s normal and will go away in a few days. I realize they’re talking about women stuff again, not carsickness. I grab my suitcase and hurry into the inn. I’m greeted by six cats in various positions. Some cleaning different body parts with their tongues, some sleeping, one batting around a mouse made of yarn, and another one scratching the leg of a chair. I don’t see my favorite though.
Grandma comes in behind me. “I put Tootsie Roll in your room already.”
Grandmas are the best!
I lug my stuff up the flight of stairs to the room I always stay in when I’m here. Mom’s room is across the hall, and Lizzy’s attaches to mine by a door. Tootsie Roll, long and brown, is waiting for me on my pillow. He purrs when I pet him, but not a growling purr, like Zilla makes. Grandma’s cats are normal cats, not prehistoric beasts dressed in cat costumes. Grandma put a photo of a family visit to the inn on my night table. It was a few years after she opened it, when I was three. Tootsie Roll was just a kitten then, and Grandma let me name her. I make myself look away from Dad’s smiling face in the picture.
I have to unpack all my clothes right away or else I feel really unsettled. While I’m stuffing things into drawers, I hear Lizzy and Mom trudging up the stairs. Mom suggests to Lizzy that she lie down for a few hours. Not to be unfeeling or anything, but if Lizzy’s going to be sick this whole week, it’s going to be pretty boring.
The suitcase is now empty except for three items that I had carefully wrapped in newspaper. First I pull out my dad’s
box, and place it on the night table next to the photo. Even though I won’t be opening it, I couldn’t bear to leave it home alone. Then I unwrap the apple Mr. Rudolph gave me, which is only slightly mushy, and place it on the desk next to the printout of Care and Feeding Instructions for Your Temporary Cat that Grandma leaves in every room.
I sit on the edge of the bed and pet Tootsie Roll. The absence of noise is deafening. It always takes me a while to get used to it. Outside the window, a real live deer is nibbling one of the bushes. This place really couldn’t be any more opposite from our street.
I put my ear next to the door that divides my room from Lizzy’s, but I don’t hear anything. She’s actually sleeping in the middle of the day. Even when we were little kids, Lizzy always refused to nap. She must really be feeling sick. Not for the first time, I’m glad I’m a boy.
Bored already, I head downstairs to see if I can drum up some interest in a card game. Grandma has most of the rooms filled when the state fair is going on, and usually a guest is in the common room looking for company. Not now, though. The place is quiet as a tomb, except for the cats, of course. Lizzy’s hula hoop is leaning against the wall. What the heck, no one’s around anyway. I drop the hoop around my waist, move into the center of the room, and start moving my hips in circles.
I’m pretty good at this! I’m a natural! The hoop spins around and around, the little beads inside zooming rhythmically. I bend my knees, still moving my hips, and the hoop is now only about a foot off the ground. Still it zooms around and around. I slowly stand back up. It goes up with me. After a few minutes of this, my carsickness returns. I circle the hoop around my thighs, then knees, then calves, before I let it rest on the ground. From behind me applause and a low whistle break out. I whirl around and trip on the side of the hoop in the process.
Lizzy, Mom, and Grandma are standing there clapping. My cheeks burn, but I manage an awkward bow.
Lizzy walks over and picks up her hula hoop. “How long have you been hiding this secret talent from me?”
“I’d like to know that, too,” Mom says.
“I thought you were sleeping,” I say to Lizzy accusingly.
“Maybe I should have signed you up with the hula hoop for the Young Talent Competition!” Grandma says.
“Calm down, everyone,” I say, backing into the main entryway. “I was just goofing around. Let’s all forget we saw that.”
“Do it again, Jeremy!” Lizzy demands, thrusting the hula hoop at me.
“Wait till I grab my video camera,” Mom says, poised to run upstairs.
I see my opening and take it, running at top speed out the front door. I hear laughter behind me. When outnumbered by women laughing at you, I’ve found the best thing to do is run as fast as you can.
Chapter 18: The State Fair
The next morning Grandma gets us up early. It’s the first day of the fair, and she has to drop off her homemade jam and find out what table she’s assigned in the table-setting competition. “How come Mom doesn’t have to enter anything?” I grumble over scrambled eggs. Normally I would never eat eggs, but I eat Grandma’s scrambled eggs because she mixes them with mini M&M’s. Mom refuses to try that at home.
“Your mother didn’t lose a bet,” Grandma replies, pouring orange juice for a yawning Lizzy. “You two did.”
“We’ve learned our lesson,” Lizzy says. “We’ll never bet on anything again. Now can we go back to sleep? This is supposed to be a vacation.”
Grandma shakes her head. “You can sleep in tomorrow. You’ll want to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for the competition on Tuesday.”
“Is that a cat thing?” I ask.
“Is what a cat thing?” Grandma asks, sitting down across from me.
“The bright-eyed and bushy-tailed thing you just said.”
“Oh. I don’t think so. Could be, I guess.”
Lizzy rolls her eyes between bites of egg. “Even on vacation he has to know everything. It’s a saying, that’s all.”
“Every saying comes from somewhere,” I mutter.
“It’s about a squirrel,” a man’s voice says from behind a newspaper at the next table.
“Thank you,” I tell him, vindicated.
He rustles the paper in response.
I turn back to Lizzy. “Now don’t you feel better knowing?”
“I’d feel better if I were back in bed!”
“Hey, where’s Mom?” I ask.
Grandma pushes back her chair and pours more coffee for the other guests before answering. “She’s running some errands for me so I can bring you two to the fair. Now hurry up and finish before all the cotton candy is sold out.”
Grandma sure knows how to motivate people!
As soon as Grandma pays the entrance fee and we walk through the gate, I inhale deeply. Funnel cake. Cotton candy. Fudge. Corn dogs. This is what Heaven must smell like. I stop short as we pass a booth that is new this year. A man in a red apron is dipping a Twinkie on a stick into the fried dough they use to make the funnel cakes. It’s a fried-dough Twinkie! My mouth waters. I have to wipe the drool off with my shirt.
“Later,” Grandma promises.
After he hands the Twinkie to the luckiest little girl in the universe, the man shoves a stick into the end of a Snickers and dips it. A fried-dough Snickers! This man is brilliant!
I let myself be pulled away only after Grandma crosses her heart and swears upon all that is holy that she will let me buy one of each before we leave.
On the way to drop off the jars of jam, we pass the pig races and the tractor pull. Both have huge crowds cheering on the contestants. Lizzy takes a flier announcing the times for each race. “I’m gonna give it to Rick when we get home,” she says, tucking it in her pocket. “I’ll tell him we won both the pig race and the tractor pull!”
Grandma hurries us past the booths where men in costumes are yelling into megaphones: “Come see the World’s Smallest Woman! She’s here! She’s real! She’ll even talk to you! Only fifty cents for the experience of a lifetime!” “Come see the World’s Largest Horse! All the way from Amish Country! You won’t believe how huge he is!”
“Grandma, isn’t Amish Country, like, only an hour away in Pennsylvania?” I ask, slowing down. “Should I tell him?”
“I think he knows,” Grandma says. “These people will say anything to make a buck.”
“Oh, you mean like that lady who guessed our weights last year?” Lizzy asks.
“Exactly,” Grandma says.
“Aha!” Lizzy and I pounce.
“So you admit she was cheating!” I exclaim. “And you still made that bet!”
Grandma’s lips tighten. “Okay, okay, I knew it was a scam. But trust me, you’ll thank me after the show.”
Lizzy puts her hands on her hips. “And I thought grandmothers were supposed to be sweet and loving and not someone who would trick their grandson and practically adopted granddaughter into losing a bet!”
“Ah, yes,” Grandma says, “but sometimes grandmothers need to do what they think is best for their grandson and practically adopted granddaughter by opening their eyes to different experiences. That’s the only way you’ll learn what you’re capable of. Now hurry up, my jams are melting.”
Reluctantly, Lizzy and I trail behind as Grandma goes into the Crafts and Cooking tent. Tables full of tomato sauces, jams, cookies, quilts, bird feeders, and pies greet us. Some have ribbons attached to them already. They either say, Excellent, Very Good, Good, or Fair. I don’t see any that say Eh or Poor or The Worst Thing I Ever Tasted. I wait while Grandma registers at the main table and then sticks a label with the number 22 onto her jars. As she’s putting her jam among the others, I ask her if anyone ever loses.
She shakes her head.
I’m about to question her further on why anyone would enter a contest where everybody wins, but I’m distracted by three Asian girls giggling and pointing at Lizzy. I hurry over and pull Lizzy away from the giant pumpkins she’s admiring. “Um, for
some reason, those girls are pointing at you.”
She turns around. “Who?”
I don’t need to answer, because the group is now approaching her. The girls keep pushing each other ahead and then falling back, giggling. Finally one of them steps up to Lizzy. “You must really love turnips!” she says, and breaks into another fit of giggles.
Lizzy stares at her, and glances at the table of pumpkins. There aren’t any turnips there. “Huh? What do you mean?”
The girl points to Lizzy’s arm. “Your tattoo! It says ‘turnip.’ ”
“No, it doesn’t,” Lizzy says crossly. “It says ‘life.’ ”
The girls now fall on top of each other they are laughing so hard. We exchange worried glances.
“Doesn’t it?” Lizzy asks in a small voice.
The girls shake their heads. Lizzy quickly unrolls her sleeve and pushes it down to cover the tattoo. She grabs me by the arm. “Come on, Jeremy, let’s get out of here.”
We leave the girls behind, although their laughter follows us outside of the tent. It is taking all my self-control not to laugh, too.
“Well, it’s official,” Lizzy says. “We can’t trust anyone selling anything on the Atlantic City boardwalk.”
“Would a fried Snickers on a stick make you feel better?”
“It might.”
While we wait for my grandmother to come out, Lizzy licks her finger and rubs at the tattoo. It smears a little, but it’s still there. As promised, we stop at the new booth, and Grandma buys us one of each kind. With a fried Twinkie in one hand and a fried Snickers in the other, even Lizzy can’t stay angry for long.
“I don’t even know what a turnip looks like,” she mutters as we find a bench to sit on while Grandma goes to the table-setting event to get her assignment. “How could I love turnips when I don’t even know what they look like?”
“You couldn’t,” I say, taking a bite of first the Twinkie, then the Snickers. They taste as good as I knew they would.
“This tattoo was supposed to wear off in a week. It’s been a week!”