Who Put That Hair in My Toothbrush?

by Jerry Spinelli

  Sara Greg

  Suddenly I felt practically sick for the way I wanted things to be:

  Jennifer Greg

  From then on, everything seemed to remind me of her. Other guys looking proud and cool with their pretty girlfriends. Even the weight of the bowling ball—it reminded me of pumping iron and sweating for her in my sweltering room all summer.

  Megamouth’s words kept haunting me: “Lotsa cute boys over there in Conestoga.” Once, I half-imagined the pins were a bunch of cute Conestogans. I jerked the ball from the rack and slung it down the alley like it was a golf ball. It was my only strike of the night.

  I left the group as often as I could. I went to the bathroom twice. I kept offering to go to the vending machines for food. Once, when I was heading back with popcorn, I almost had a heart attack. There, about ten lanes from ours, was Megamouth. She was bowling with her friend Sue Ann and Sue Ann’s parents. In three seconds I was outside. I still can’t remember what I did with the popcorn.

  Nobody had to tell me what a rat I was being, vanishing on the others. But what else could I do? I was trapped in my own lie. I pulled out three hairs, one each for Valducci, Anita, and Sara. It was the least I could do.

  I wanted to go home, but couldn’t. Still too early to be coming home from a date. I prowled the streets for a couple hours. By the time I got home, I was roaring mad. I stormed into Megamouth’s room. I’m not sure what I was planning to do (how do you mess up a dump?); I just remember kicking around stuff on the floor, and that’s when I went flying. My head, just over my right eye, was the first thing to land. The next five minutes, I didn’t have time to be hurt; I was too busy persuading my parents not to take me to the hospital and wiping blood out of my eye.

  “What happened? What happened?” my father kept asking. I couldn’t seem to make much sense of the question. I reached out and started moving some of the paper and clothes on the floor. I picked up a “Miss Piggy for President” T-shirt and there it was: a squished, half-eaten Twinkie.

  I held up what was left of it for them to see. “I keep telling ya,” I warned them, as a curtain of red fell over my right eye, “we’re gonna get roaches.”

  Megin

  IT WAS the first thing I saw when I went into the bathroom. It was dark brown and it was wrapped around the bristles—woven actually, in and out and around.

  I heard my father leaving for work. I grabbed the brush and ran downstairs. “Daddy! Daddy! He did it again! That pig did it again!” I caught up to him halfway down the driveway. He turned and looked me up and down—mostly down—and gave me that smirky well-well-what-have-we-here look he uses when I’m doing something a little crazy. Like standing in the middle of the driveway early on a Saturday morning in my Wayne Gretzky nightshirt and bare feet with a toothbrush in my hand.

  I jabbed the toothbrush at him. “Look!”

  Still the smirky grin. “I’m looking, believe me.”

  “Stop it, Daddy. Here. The toothbrush.”

  “You trying to tell me I have bad breath?”

  “Daddy, look!” I nearly mashed it into his eye. “Look!”

  He recoiled, squinted. “Ah—yes. What is that?”

  I stamped on the asphalt. “It’s a hair! A big, brown, ugly, scummy hair!”

  “Are you trying to tell me you have hair growing between your teeth? I thought puberty happened other places.”

  “DAD-DEEEE!”

  That got to him. My father is a salesman, and salesmen think it’s important to make a good impression, whether they’re on the job or not. And how good an impression can you make if your kid is screaming her head off and wagging a toothbrush at you in her nightshirt in the driveway? I mean, would you buy a used washing machine from this man? So he dropped the smirk and started glancing nervously around the neighborhood. “Megin, you’re going to get pneumonia.”

  “Daddy, the hair.”

  “Okay—what about the hair?”

  “It’s your proof. You’re always saying I can’t prove the stuff Greg does to me. Well, here it is.”

  “A hair?”

  “Look at it. It’s not Toddie’s. It’s not Mommy’s.”

  “Could be mine.”

  “Daddy, do you want me to scream again?”

  He took a deep breath. “Okay. So what now?”

  Finally. I could smell justice. “So are you gonna punish him?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. For just a hair?”

  “Just a hair? Daddy, there could be all kinds of rot on there. There’s probably cooties on it right now.”

  “You could get cootiemouth.”

  That’s when it happened: my lips smiled. Dirty traitors. I stood there helplessly as my dimples sunk deeper and deeper into my face. You could have stood ice-cream cones in them.

  I tilted back, but my father’s little finger was faster, poking into my left dimple. “Yeah—that’s my Dimpus.”

  I ran down the driveway to the sidewalk. “Okay, I’m gonna scream.”

  My father came lurching after me, glancing around, holding his finger to his lips. “Shhhh-shhhh.”

  I backed into the street. “Gonna punish him?”

  “Megin!” he whisper-called. He was frantic now.

  “Are you?”

  “Okay, okay.”

  “When?”

  “Not now. I have to go to work.”

  “When?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Tonight.”

  “Okay, tonight.”

  I was in the middle of the street now. My father was having an ulcer at the curb, terrified at what I might do next. Behind him I could see Mrs. Greeley peeping out her window.

  “What are you going to do to him?” I said. I couldn’t hear his answer. “Louder.”

  “I’ll have to think about it.”

  A car turned the corner and started down our street. I wish I had a camera to record my father during the next ten seconds: he looked at the car, he looked at me, he looked at the sky, he turned around to walk back up the driveway and bumped into Mrs. Greeley’s face at the window, he turned back, and as the car passed (slowly), he looked at it with an expression that I have never seen on his or any other human face before or since. He was still like that when I went past him and into the house.

  I got a pair of tweezers and pulled the hair from my toothbrush. Then I waited for my mother to leave. This was her first day for her new project: ceramics class. Every Saturday morning.

  When I heard the front door shut, I headed for the kitchen. I’m not allowed to use the stove by myself, but this was an emergency. I boiled my toothbrush in the egg poacher. I set the heat on high and pretty soon the bubbles were popping.

  Meanwhile, I got my donuts. I have this job at Dunkin’ Donuts. Lots of times after school and on weekends, I go there and fold boxes and stuff. Sometimes, when Jackie is on duty, I even get to help make the donuts. And best of all, I get paid in donuts. I had worked there the day before and had made my biggest haul ever: a dozen donuts. Assorted—not just all stale leftover glazed. (I love it when Jackie is on.) So, I got my donuts from under my bed and took them downstairs. That’s when I noticed a peculiar smell. I rushed to the stove. The head of my toothbrush was an orange glop in the popping bubbles. All I pulled out was a stump.

  I couldn’t wait all day for my father to get home and start Grosso’s punishment. I needed satisfaction—now. And I knew just how to get it. Torture. Donut torture.

  Grosso loves donuts. All kinds. He never saw a donut he didn’t love. And he was up in his room now, holding Toddie hostage by letting him watch cartoons on his TV set.

  I couldn’t help snickering to myself as I threw the orange stump away and set to work. First, I made two cups of tea, one for Toddie and one for me, and I used a tea bag for each of us. I put the cups and saucers real neat on the table, along with spoons and the sugar bowl and creamer. I even put a napkin under each spoon. And set out two plates.

  Then, the donuts. I kept the french cruller in t
he box; I had other plans for that one. The rest of the donuts I laid in a row down the middle of the table—all eleven of them: one chocolate glazed, two blueberry-filled (my favorite), one cinnamon, one crème-filled, one raspberry-filled, one lemon-filled, one apple crumble, one peanut, and two plain-with-jimmies.

  I was ready. I went upstairs, sat on the top step, and called: “Toddie.” I could hear El Grosso telling him not to listen. “Shut up, Grosso! He’s not your property!”

  “He’s in my room.”

  “You lured him in.”

  “It’s not my fault if he wants to watch Road Runner.”

  “Toddie.”

  “Quiet. He’s watching.”

  “Shut up and let him talk for himself!”

  “Okay, Toddie,” said Grosso, “do you want to go with Megin? Or do you want to stay here and watch Road Runner and Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam and Fat Albert?”

  Out came Toddie’s voice: “I’m stayin’!”

  We’ll see about that, I grinned to myself. “Tah-dee,” I sang, “I have doh-nuts.” Absolute silence except for Coyote whistling off another cliff. I wiggled the bait. “Eleven donuts, Toddie. E-lev-en. All kinds.”

  “Don’t listen, Toddie,” I heard Grosso say. “She’s lying.”

  His voice sounded a little parched. He wasn’t really thinking about Toddie. He was thinking about the donuts. He was hooked.

  “Eleven, Toddie. And we can have them all Nobody else. Just us.”

  Silence.

  “Five-and-a-half for you, five-and-a-half for me—”

  Silence.

  “All kinds, Toddie. Lemon-filled… raspberry-filled… peanut…”

  Silence.

  “Chocolate glazed… cinnamon…”

  Silence.

  “Apple crumble…”

  Silence.

  “Plain-with-jimmies. Two plain-with-jimmies. And you can have them both.”

  There he was, at the doorway, all eyes and grin and Winnie the Pooh pajamas. “Both?” he peeped.

  “Both.”

  “Yippee!” He raced into my arms.

  I lifted him up. “That’s my boy. And guess what else I made for you?”

  “What?”

  “Tea.”

  “For me?”

  “Yeah. Your very own.”

  “I’m not allowed.”

  “Yes you are. Mommy and Daddy are out this morning. I’m in charge.”

  “My own cup. Not just some of yours?”

  “Your very own cup. It’s on the table—now.”

  “Yippee!” He hugged me and smothered me with kisses.

  “And I even forgot to tell you,” I said as I carried him down the stairs, “we have a crème-filled too.” I said “crème-filled” out loud to make sure El Grosso heard it. El Grosso loves them all, but he would kill for a crème-filled.

  When Toddie saw the table, he didn’t say anything, but I think the look on his face was the same one my mother says I had when I first saw Christmas. Then a squeak came from Toddie and he made a beeline not for the donuts but for his teacup. He pulled his teabag up dripping from the steaming, amber-colored water.

  “My teabag?”

  “All yours.”

  Another squeak, and then he dipped the bag up and down about a hundred times into the tea.

  Naturally Grosso showed up before long. And naturally he pretended he was just wandering in to get his breakfast. And naturally he just had to wander over to the table and pretend to look for the sugar bowl while he was really casing the donuts.

  I could have stopped him, but I was enjoying watching him sweat. Usually when I bring home donuts my parents make me give him one, but since they weren’t home—well, too bad, Grosso. I reached for the crème-filled and sort of passed it across his face. “Hmmm,” I went. “Wonder if I should eat this now.” (I could feel Grosso stiffen.) “Hope they didn’t put too much crème in it. Hate it when they do that. Nah, I’ll save it for last. Best for last.” I put it back.

  Suddenly the worst thing that could happen happened. I had to go to the bathroom. No point trying to wait it out. When my bladder says go, it means GO!

  “Toddie,” I said, grabbing his dipping hand (his tea was black by now), “now I only have a second, so listen. I’m going to the bathroom. If Greg tries to steal any of our donuts—any of them—while I’m gone, I want you to yell. Understand?” GO—NOW! went my bladder. I ran. “Remember—yell!”

  Sure enough, as soon as I started to pee, Toddie yelled. By the time I made it downstairs, the crème-filled was in Grosso’s hand, inches from his mouth.

  “Put it down!” I told him.

  “I’m allowed to have one.”

  “No you’re not!”

  “Mom and Dad said.”

  “They’re not here!”

  “It’s a rule.”

  The donut was getting closer to his mouth.

  “Put it down!”

  Closer.

  “Put it down!”

  His mouth opened—the donut went partially in—I reached, grabbed, squeezed, pulled—he bit. I never knew so much crème could squirt out of one donut. Part of it wound up on his face, and the rest hit the floor with a revolting plop.

  He looked at the collapsed donut as if it were a dead pet. I thought he was going to cry. A glop of crème was sitting under his nose, blocking his nostrils, and as he started to breathe harder and harder, the white glop sort of went in and out of his nose. That’s when it happened for the second time that morning: my dimples caved in. I smiled, then giggled, then laughed, then roared.

  Meanwhile, Grosso started nodding and muttering, “Okay, okay—” He dropped the dead donut in the sink—“okay, okay”—squeezed the crème from his nose, and wiped his face clean—“okay, okay.” By now I was practically crying. My eyes were so teary I could hardly see him as he reached for the table—“okay, okay”—then turned toward me—“okay, okay, o-KAY!” For an instant everything went black. He punched me! I thought. But if he punched me, why was Toddie laughing so hard, and why was the punch so soft, and why did it taste like blueberry?

  I had been donuted.

  As best I can remember, here’s how the rest went: Grosso started to leave, but I stopped him with a raspberry-filled in the back of the head. Then he got an apple crumble in the left ear. Then I got a plain-with-jimmies down my Wayne Gretsky nightshirt. Then Toddie went completely bananas and started whipping donuts at both of us while he laughed hysterically. And then my mother was standing in the doorway. Silence, stillness, except for Toddie crying out, “Megin said I could have tea, Mommy! Megin said it!”

  “I thought you had ceramics,” I said, taking a handful of lemon filling from my hair.

  “I was—,” she started to speak, then looked down; one foot was smack in the middle of the original crème plop—“a week early.”

  My memory is a little fuzzy here, but I think I got a paper towel and knelt down and lifted up my mother’s foot and cleaned off her shoe. And I think she just sort of turned and drifted away. And I think she left the house.

  But I know exactly what I was thinking then: I’m never going to see my mother again.

  Greg

  OKAY, I’ll come right out with it: I love Jennifer Wade.

  It feels funny, saying the word love even to myself. I don’t think I’ve ever used it before, at least not about me and another person. But it’s the right word—love—yep, I’m sure.

  I’m sure because I’m always thinking about her—when I’m eating toast, when I’m doing my algebra, when I’m taking a shower. And when I sleep, I dream about her.

  And I’m sure because one night I awoke feeling clammy all over, my muscles ached, and I knew that even in the middle of a dreamless sleep my body was reaching for her. And so there, right there in the darkness, I held my pillow close and whispered, “I love you, Jennifer,” and I kissed it.

  The next night, in a dream, I heard her say, “I love you too.”

  That settled it. I p
ut my weights back together and tore up the Tradin’ Times ad. Next day I had study hall last period, so I left school early and pedaled my bike like mad for Conestoga Junior High School. A little too mad, I guess. I zipped down a hill past some slow-moving cars and next thing I knew, I was being edged to a stop by a cop car.

  The cop stayed in the car for a minute, doing things and speaking into his hand. Finally he came over, real slow, sort of sniffing and looking at his shoes and waving the cars on by. He smiled. “Waddaya say, chief?”

  “Fine,” I gulped. “Thanks.”

  “Nice bike there.”

  “Yeah? Thanks.”

  “New?”

  “Nah, not really. Christmas.”

  “Ah, Christmas.” He nodded. “I’m thinking about getting my kid one.”

  I was relieved. He just wanted to check out my bike for his kid.

  “Sucker’s fast, huh?” he said.

  “Yeah, pretty. I guess. I don’t know. Sort of.”

  “Bet you can crank it up real good, huh?”

  “Yeah. Sometimes. Pretty good.”

  “Up to thirty maybe?”

  “Better’n that.”

  He was impressed. “Yeah? Forty?”

  “Forty-five,” I said.

  “No!”

  “Yeah.”

  He whistled at the sky. “Ever break fifty?” he said, squinting into the sun.

  “Nah. Someday, maybe.”

  “Like to, huh?”

  “Mm—I don’t know.”

  “Be quite an accomplishment.”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  He looked directly down at me then and gave me the pleasantest smile I ever saw. “Congratulations.”

  He was holding out his hand. I took it. He shook it. “What for?” I said.

  “You just did it.”

  “Did what?”

  “You broke fifty.”

  “I did?”

  “Fifty-one to be exact.”

  “Fifty-one? Me?”

  “Yep, you.” I was speechless. “That’s a pretty fair hill you were going down there, chief.”

  “Was it?”

  “Yeah, pretty fair. And those cars you were passing—notice anything about them?”