by Lisa Howorth
“I want to see him one more time,” said Ivan.
Max rose back up and grabbed the paper bag from his book bag. “Gah! It still reeks!” He proffered it to Ivan. Ivan unwrapped the paper-sack cocoon and took out the green pill bottle, holding it to the streetlight. The vinegaroon moved a bit, and Ivan said, “Ta-da!”
Max spoke to the vinegaroon. “Aargh, matey! You’ll soon be making Slutcheon walk the plank!” He clacked his tongue, “Tick tock, tick tock!” like the evil crocodile that plagued Captain Hook.
“Max, do you have a Magic Marker?” Ivan asked.
“I think so. Somewhere.” He pawed through a drawer and found one.
Ivan sat on the edge of the bed, hunched over the bottle. Very meticulously he drew a small skull and crossbones on the plastic.
“Like you might forget there’s something poisonous in there?” I said.
“It’s just in case,” said Ivan. “And he’s a pirate vinegaroon. Pirates always have a skull and crossbones on their stuff, right?”
Max said, “Okay, now get that thing outta my bed.”
“Just one good-night kiss.” Ivan smooched at the bottle and replaced it on the sill sideways, shoring it up with the Magic Marker. For a moment we admired our trophy, silhouetted against the streetlight, the bottle glowing like an emerald.
I cautioned, “You better be super careful with him because of the twins and the dogs.”
Wiesie traipsed in, sniffed around, hunching her back and hissing like a Halloween cat, and ran out of the room. Max yawned, saying, “John and I thought for a second you were going to kill Beatriz, Ivan.”
“Oh, brother! Maybe your brains did get poisoned,” he said and laughed. I considered this and started to worry not only about the vinegaroon’s welfare, but about everybody else’s. And I worried about Ivan’s sinking spell. But I was overtaken by a yawn. I should have been very worried, as things turned out.
The clock said 1:26. We conked out, too battle-fatigued to laugh, scratch, or even dream.
12
Two mornings later it was the day of the Fabulous Family Fiesta, and the temperature was already ungodly high. It had stormed during the night, and with my obsessive dread of lightning, I’d woken up in a panic. I hadn’t run to my grandparents’ room to sleep on the floor between their beds like I usually did because I could see, between flashes, the palest beginnings of morning just beyond the locust trees in our backyard. I had a skinny little book that featured illustrations of a phenomenon called black lightning, and a fireball coming through a window and rolling across the floor, just like the A-bomb fireballs we’d learned about in civil-defense drills. I’d planned to saturate the book with lighter fluid and incinerate it in the stone fireplace at the bottom of our yard. I was so afraid of the book that I hadn’t burned it yet.
* * *
—
Ivan and I were despondent about the weather. We’d worked too hard—or we thought we had—planning, putting up posters, and worrying about entertainment, to cancel. But yards were muddy, branches dripped, and the spiderwebs that still hung over the neighborhood were strung with raindrops. A thick, sunless haze made it seem hard to breathe. Steam rose off our mossy walk and clouds of gnats were already bothering us. Max tried to be optimistic, saying, “Don’t worry. It’ll dry up by Fiesta time.”
Ivan said, “How do you know it won’t rain more?” He pointed at some heavy clouds in the distance, no doubt packed with black lightning. He was bleary-eyed and pale, but seemed to have recovered from the Heist.
“Because I know—I heard the Joy Boys say it on the radio last night.”
“Yeah, but I asked my Magic 8-Ball if it was going to be a nice day, and it said, ‘My sources say no,’ ” I complained. I was also disappointed, and so was Max, because Slutcheon hadn’t come by for his just deserts the day after the Heist, but Ivan just seemed glad to have the vinegaroon.
We’d spent the day before sleeping late, resting on our hard-earned laurels, and waiting not only for Slutcheon but for Gary, the paperboy, to come around in his noisy red-and-white Nash Rambler and deliver the Star. When it arrived, we unfolded it nervously, scanning the front page for news of the Heist. There, at the bottom, we saw: RARE SCORPION STOLEN FROM MUSEUM. Clustered together, we read that authorities were very concerned and had no real leads, museum employees who’d been working late that night said they hadn’t noticed anything amiss, and local hospitals had no reports of anyone being treated for vinegaroon exposure. Naturally, there was speculation that Russians might have been involved. Max had said, “Why would the Russians steal it back?” Reading on, we took exception to the part about “chocolate cake used as an amateurish baiting method” by the thief, and that the exhibit case had been “inexpertly cut and patched.” But we loved the detail that there was also speculation that a woman may have committed the crime, but it didn’t say why.
“If Slutcheon comes to the Fiesta today,” I asked, “could we do it then?”
“No!” Ivan cried. “I mean, then everybody would know it was somebody at the Fiesta who broke into the museum. And we’re the most likely suspects.”
“That’s true,” Max agreed.
Ivan was adamant. “We just need to wait till the right time!”
At that moment Brickie stepped out onto our steps and said, “Jesus Christ, the mug out here is thicker than drisheen,” which was some Irish crap his mother had forced him to eat as a child. “I guess I can expect a major efflorescence of fungus on the last of my bee balm and zinnias.” The morning Post was tucked under his arm. “The paper says it’ll be clear tonight. Shouldn’t you boys be busy getting ready?”
I ignored the question and asked, “Why do you have to work today? It’s Labor Day.”
“That’s right—it’s Labor Day. I have to go labor. That’s your government—always at work so Americans have the freedom to lounge around on holidays. Right, guys?”
“Right,” we answered.
“By the way, did you boys hear about that whip-scorpion creature that was stolen from the National Museum the other night?”
“Yeah,” I said casually. “That’s pretty cool. Did they find any fingerprints?”
“Today’s Post says they found some, but they were small—maybe teenagers. If I didn’t know you boys better, I’d think you stole it!” Brickie laughed. “See you this afternoon. Please don’t give your grandmother too much trouble.” He went off in his black government Dodge Coronet.
We looked at each other, bug-eyed. “See?” said Ivan. Max gave a low whistle of relief.
“I guess we should start doing stuff,” I said.
Max said, “All we really have to do is fix up the cake, mix up the Kool-Aid, and put up some decorations—I don’t know what.”
“We need tables for food and stuff,” I said. “And chairs. It might be too wet for people to sit on blankets.”
We took a few minutes for some scratching. A mourning cloak flitted by—they were flying so slowly at this time of year—and rested on a nearby azalea bush. I caught it gently in my hands. I didn’t have a mourning cloak in my butterfly collection, and its amazing gold and blue colors and deckled wings put me in mind of a skirt of my mother’s, and this made me a little sad. For Ivan’s sake, I let it go. Beautiful butterfly dust was all over my hands, so I stroked it onto my cheeks. What I really wanted to do was put it on my eyelids, like Elena. “War paint!” said Ivan.
“Let’s go see the vinegaroon,” Max said.
“This morning he ate a cucaracha,” Ivan said proudly.
We hustled across the street to the Goncharoffs’, sneaking stealthily up to Ivan’s room, where he carefully took the shoe box containing the vinegaroon down from his closet shelf. He’d fixed the top with a viewing hole covered with plastic wrap, and furnished the box with sand and rocks. The vinegaroon rested peacefully in his green bott
le hidey-hole. Max quickly threw in one of Tallulah’s beetles, and he scuttled out, grabbed it, and started gobbling it with his black fangs. “So cool!” I said.
Max added, “You’re gonna love the taste of Slutcheon, old buddy!”
“Ivan, you gotta be sure to keep him hidden.” The other night’s inkling of fear still crept around in my head like a poison-ivy vine. Then I asked a question I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the answer to. “How’s Elena?”
“She’s okay…I guess.” Changing the subject, he said, “Let’s go downstairs to see if Maria has the cake ready.”
In the stifling kitchen, a sweaty Maria was just taking a big yellow rectangle of cake out of the oven. “Caliente!” she warned. “Cuando está frío, you make pretty.” Rudo and Linda and the toddler twins ran in, Katya and Alexander babbling in Spanish. Maria gave the four of them fresh tortillas and they scrabbled back to the yard, dog toenails clicking on the floor, tortillas flapping.
* * *
—
Ivan spoke to Maria in Spanish and she answered, wiping her face with her apron. Ivan translated, “We gotta wait two hours till the cake cools, then we can ice it. Let’s go collect chairs and things.” He grabbed up two small Mexican chairs painted brightly with flowers, and we dumped them in my yard.
“We need to check on Beatriz,” I said. We hadn’t seen her since the Heist. We were hesitant to knock on the door, fearing the Senhor and Senhora, so Max just called out, “Be-a-trizzz!” She appeared at the back door, and it was something of a shock. There was an angry scab on her knee, and her hair was now trimmed in a short Darla-esque bob. “Everything is okay,” she whispered. “I told my parents what you and Max said, and they believed it. I had to go get my hair fixed yesterday. At first they were mad, but I think they like my new look, and Zariya got hers cut, too!” She struck a movie star pose, poofing up her bob.
“It looks great!” I said, and Max agreed, saying, a little wistfully, “You sure don’t look like Little White Dove anymore.” We’d all miss those shiny black braids.
“Are you guys okay? What about the you-know-what?”
“Everybody’s fine.” Ivan smiled.
“What you boys need to be doing is getting ready for the Fiesta!” So bossy, but thank God for Beatriz.
“That’s what we’re doing!” I said.
Ivan said sheepishly, “You saved the day the other night, Beatriz. Thanks.”
“Yeah, you were pretty brave,” Max said.
“We were all brave! We all did our part! Hey—let me get the decorations I made.” She ran off, returning with a stack of colorful paper flags. “They’re the flags of all the neighbors’ countries! America, Brazil, Holland, Austria, Ukraine, England, Mexico, and Hungaria, for Gellert!” she said excitedly. “And look at this special one I made for you guys!” Beatriz held up a skull and crossbones against a crayoned violet background. “Nobody but us will get it!”
We laughed, admiring them all. “Perfect!” I said.
Then her face fell. “But I’m afraid it will rain and everything will be ruined.”
“Nah,” Max said. “Look—the sun’s coming out. A little bit.” The sun was indeed peeking from the overcast sky, the low haze drifting and dissipating. The temperature seemed to immediately shoot up.
“I gotta go. My mama and I are making quindim right now for the Fiesta,” Beatriz said. “I’ll see you later! I can’t wait!”
* * *
—
We left Beatriz’s magnificent flags in my yard and went to Max’s, where Mr. Friedmann was in the kitchen washing dishes, a web punctuated with egg sacs hanging high over him. “Come back in a few minutes ven I finish and vee can pick vatermatoes for your party.”
We gathered a few kitchen chairs, a couple stools, and a rusty lawn chair and stashed them in my yard. From there, we sneaked out three of my grandmother’s ancestral walnut dining room chairs and a potty chair with a high, soft seat that my grandfather had used when he’d had his hemorrhoids. Luckily we didn’t run into Dimma, who was probably upstairs enjoying her first Cutty and Chesterfield of the day. We crossed over to the Shreves’, where we hoped Beau and D.L. might help us out, if they weren’t in the mood to rough us up or play war.
“Wah, gennlmen!” Mrs. Shreve said, opening the screen door. “How nass to see you. Ah’m afraid the boweez are at baseball practice.”
“Can we borrow some chairs for the Fiesta?” I said. “Beau said you had some folding ones you take to baseball games.”
“Of cawws you can, sweethot. They are raht thaya in the cahpowut—just take ’em. We are so lookin’ fowud to the potty.”
* * *
—
We spent some time arranging the furniture in our yard. Then, figuring it was time to collect the watermatoes, we went to Max’s backyard, where Mr. Friedmann was fooling around in his garden. It was amazing, even in September—overrun with shiny green peppers, tomatoes, head-size cabbages, yellow squash and zucchini on hairy, contorted vines, leggy string beans still dangling from their stick teepees. Mr. Friedmann picked his way over to his eggplants, where the deep-purple fruit hung nearly to the ground, the leaves riddled with holes. “Ach, zhese lacebugs! Vhy can’t you boys collect zose?”
Dozens of yellow cabbage butterflies danced over the squash blossoms in the hot, brightening air, indistinguishable from the small locust leaves that were falling from the trees.
“Come, boys! Zhese vatermatoes are all for you. Pick vhat you vant.” In a corner of the garden, fenced off with chicken wire to keep the “warmints” from eating them, were Mr. Friedmann’s watermatoes. Nobody else was able to grow them because he had a secret formula—Max told us his dad peed on them—to produce pretty, round fruits a little bigger than cherry tomatoes but with the wonderful taste and crisp consistency of watermelon. We thought they were miraculous, but were forbidden to pick them. Dimma said that Mr. Friedmann could get rich with his secret technique, but I don’t think the Friedmanns cared about money. Giving Max a colander, Mr. Friedmann showed us the least damaging way to pick the watermatoes, saying, “And you can eat a few—it’s nearly lunchtime—but leaf plenty for your party.” He went in the house and returned with thick hunks of dark bread slathered with butter. “Now you don’t eat so many!” Mr. Friedmann said, adding, “Never put zhyself in the vay of temptation; even David could not resist it.”
“Aww, Pop,” Max said, handing over the full colander. “Always with the Talmud.”
“I’ll go vash zhese and bring zhem to your party.”
We were so hot we ran the hose over our heads to cool off, although I was careful not to ruin my new war paint. Then we lay in the shade of the climbing maple to rest. Looking up, we could see one or two silken lines strung horizontally between trees, which we now knew were made by “ballooning”—spiders floating on the breeze like parachutists. Gold and red maple leaves drifted down around us. “Your dad’s so nice,” Ivan said.
I asked Max, “Who’s David?”
Max said, “You know—the shrimpy guy who killed a giant moron named Goliath with a slingshot.”
“Oh, yeah,” I said, remembering. “I have that in a storybook Estelle gave me. What could David not resist?”
“I forget, something with some lady?”
I wondered why Max knew so many Bible stories, so I asked.
“Almost everybody in the Bible is Jewish, dummy! Jesus was Jewish! Jews taught Christians everything they know!” Max thought for a second. “But Jews do have too many dumb rules. Sheesh.”
Now I was really confused. Jesus was Jewish? I thought my family was Christian, and I said to Ivan, “Are you guys Christian?”
“Elena told me once that my grandfather was Jewish, back in Ukraine in the olden days. Some bad Cossack guys had a club called SMERSH, and they put him in jail till he died.”
“What’s a Cossa
ck?” I asked him.
“Like a Nazi cowboy, I think.”
Max whistled. “How come you never told us that?”
Ivan shrugged again.
I was realizing what a man of many secrets Ivan was, and his revelation confused me more than ever. “Are Catholics Christian?” I asked, wondering about Beatriz.
“They have that Pope guy,” Max explained. “And he’s like a king, and then Mary, who’s like a queen, but I’m not sure about Jesus. And they have some secret knights who are supposed to take over the world. At least that’s what I heard at Hebrew school.”
I wondered if I should ask Brickie about all this news, but it might be a can of worms that didn’t need opening.
Max sighed. “I hate when the leaves start to fall.”
“But they’re pretty,” Ivan said, catching a rosy maple leaf.
“Yeah, but it’s reminding me that we gotta go to school tomorrow.”
This was too much sad talk for me. “Maybe it’s been two hours and we can decorate the cake.”
“Let’s go see,” Ivan said.
In the Goncharoffs’ kitchen, Maria gestured at the big golden cake on the counter. “Your cake es ready. You wash your hands first.” She exited, leaving it to us. I really hoped that Josef wasn’t around, and I knew Ivan felt the same way.
On the counter next to the cake was the bowl of blue icing we had requested, plus a flabby rubber icing bag that put me in mind of a scary device I’d seen in my grandparents’ shower—not the enema contraption, but close. Max grabbed a spatula, dredged up a blob of icing, and flung it onto the cake.
“Hey,” I objected. “You don’t get to do it all.”
Ivan put his hand into the bowl, added another blob to the cake, and smeared it around with his fingers. “We can do it faster this way.” Happily, Max and I joined in.