by Theo Baker
Mom!
I dropped to my knees before she saw me. She started talking to Papa Pete, so I pressed my ear against the glass. I could almost hear what they were saying.
“What are moo doing?” I heard her ask Papa Pete, though I doubted she said “moo.”
I could not let Mom know I was here. I waved frantically at Papa Pete in a gesture that had to mean “Don’t tell her I’m here.”
Papa Pete froze midwave. Then he flexed his muscles. “Wiping down tables can be flossing,” I sort of heard him say. “Got a cramp in my farm.”
“Really?” Mom said. “Because it looked like you were waving to Shank through the clindow.”
I looked around to determine who this Shank character was, and what in the world a “clindow” was, and found myself staring right into Mom’s eyes.
I waved hello!
She crooked her index finger at me, gesturing “Come here.” That is the worst gesture in the world.
“So let me get this straight, Hank,” my mom was saying. “You ruined two uniforms in one day. And now you want to ruin a third?”
“The second one wasn’t my fault. It was —”
“Is that my pastry on your sweater?”
“Like I was saying, Mom, it’s Frankie’s sweater. Just listen to me for one sec —”
She reached down, plucked off a flake, and ate it. “It is my pastry! Why is —?”
“It’s a long story and I don’t have time to go into it now.”
Just then the man with the toupee set down his newspaper with a loud “harrumph.” Then he put on his coat, muttering to himself, and marched over to us. His silver mustache was twitching in anger.
“Madam,” he said, “I cannot abide you letting filthy street rats into the dining room. It is simply unsanitary. Until your commitment to hygienic standards is vastly improved, I shan’t be returning.”
“This street kid, for your information” — Mom flared her nostrils — “is my son.” She patted my greasy, sticky hair.
“Then I suggest you bathe him at once. The odor is most unpleasant. Good day.”
While I watched Lord Hairpiece leave, my mom was rubbing her fingers together, trying to rub the gunk from my hair. “What product is this? Is it my Parisian gel?”
“No, Mom. And stop touching my hair, OK?” I ducked back out of her reach. I was feeling grumpy. It had not been the best day.
“Listen, sweetie,” Mom said gently, “it’s only a photo. No use getting yourself worked up over something so silly.”
“Yes, Hank,” Papa Pete said. “We love you no matter what your school photo looks like. We love the real Hank, even the dirty and smelly Hank, not some picture.”
I stepped farther away and sighed loudly. “It’s not some silly photo. Why does everyone keep saying that? This is important!”
Mom and Papa Pete exchanged a very long look.
“I’m sorry, love,” Mom said, “but your uniform’s still in the laundry basket. I was going to wash it tonight.”
“Is it covered in chocolate?”
“No, but —”
“Good enough! Just give me the keys so I can get into the apartment.”
“Hank.” Mom sighed. “I don’t have time to look for them right now. My keys are — I don’t know. Just get Dad to open up for you.”
“Can’t. Dad’s at school.”
“Oh, is he, now?” She was trying to act tough, but, man, I thought she might cry right then and there. Her whole face had drooped. I’d never seen my mom so sad. “Was he there for Emily’s science thingy?”
“Dunno. Maybe. I didn’t really see him. It might have just been some other guy.”
“Was this guy called Stan Zipzer? Did he also answer to the name of Dad?”
“Yeah.” I gave her sticky hug. “Maybe. Sorry, Mom.”
“Right. Your father and I are going to have words, Hank. Serious words. Pop, can you mind the shop? I’m going out, too.”
Once she’d left for the back room, Papa Pete said to me, “Tonight, Hankie, my boy, I think you might see your father cry.”
Evaluator’s interview with Emily Zipzer and her father (cont’d)
EMILY ZIPZER: One topic I have made a study of over the last several months is filial cannibalism. It is a fascinating subject — one that I would love to continue studying over the summer at the “Leg-Up” program. Are you familiar with filial cannibalism, Dr. Mehat?
DR. MEHAT: Not intimately, but I believe it is a rare phenomenon where parents selectively eat their young.
EMILY ZIPZER: Oh, it’s much more widespread than you’d think. It occurs across the entire animal kingdom. Even in primates.
STAN ZIPZER: Such as baboon apes?
EMILY ZIPZER: Yet surprisingly, the practice is, from my knowledge, not present in reptiles. I’d like to investigate why this is. I have a great deal of respect and admiration for lizards, and consider them to be on an equal footing with mammals.
Whereupon the door to the interview room burst open, and ROSA ZIPZER entered.
STAN ZIPZER: Oh boy.
ROSA ZIPZER: Hello, Stan, Emily. And hello, Your Excellency. I’m Mrs. Zipzer. Sorry I’m late.
DR. MEHAT: Call me Meera, please. And that’s quite all right. Won’t you sit down?
ROSA ZIPZER: Thank you.
DR. MEHAT: I must say, Mrs. Zipzer, you really are looking well. It’s wonderful you were able to get away from the hospital to support your daughter.
ROSA ZIPZER: Hospital?
EMILY ZIPZER: Actually, Meera, she was at the prostheses lab, getting her new arm fitted.
ROSA ZIPZER: What are you talking —?
STAN ZIPZER stepped on ROSA ZIPZER’s foot.
STAN ZIPZER: These new artificial arms are amazing. They look so real. Don’t they, love? Sometimes when we’re holding hands over our tea I even forget it’s a prosthetic — that’s how lifelike it is.
ROSA ZIPZER: Yes, modern technology. Incredible what they can do when you . . . lose an arm.
DR. MEHAT: Simply amazing. May I examine it? Simply for curiosity’s sake. This won’t be a part of the official evaluation.
STAN ZIPZER: Anything for science.
DR. MEHAT: Extraordinary. It looks just like real skin. Wonderful elasticity. Is this made of a polyethylene compound perhaps?
ROSA ZIPZER: Nothing but.
DR. MEHAT: May I pinch it, to test its tensile strength?
STAN ZIPZER: Go right ahead, Meera. You don’t mind, do you, love?
EMILY ZIPZER: She doesn’t mind.
My life can sometimes seem like a never-ending crisis. It certainly feels that way.
But this wasn’t a crisis. This was more like a mission. And missions are fun. I am good at missions. They focus my brain so that I don’t worry about not reading well and I stop thinking about how forgetful I am.
I was no longer a forgetful, underachieving kid with helmet hair. I was a man on a mission. I was a hero! Yes! I could do this.
As I hurtled back to the apartment with Mom’s keys, I felt like I had a chance. This was going to be my year. Photographic perfection was within my grasp!
That enthusiasm lasted 3.4 seconds after I got home. I had dashed to the laundry basket, ripped off the lid, and flung clothes everywhere in a storm of dirty laundry, and there it was, lying right at the bottom.
My uniform.
My heart sank when I pulled it out, though. I’d let a pen bleed to death all over the shirt collar. At that moment I wanted to be anywhere else but here.
I wanted to disappear into the floor, tunnel through the planet, and reemerge somewhere in Chile with a new name, a new haircut, and a fresh start. Since I couldn’t do that, I sort of crumpled to the floor instead. While I rubbed my eyebrows into the carpet, I scolded yesterday’s Hank for screwing up my life so royally.
There was no time to wallow. I only had fortyish minutes until the photographer packed up for the day. I had to be sitting in his chair, looking like a million dollars, befor
e he did.
I sprang to my feet and clapped my hands. Time to get heroic.
First thought: stains come out in the wash.
Solution: wash the shirt!
I ran to the kitchen sink and scrubbed the collar. I scrubbed like Cinderella. I scrubbed until I thought my hand would fall off. I scrubbed under the hottest water the tap would pump out. Then I scrubbed under the coldest water, just in case that helped. I froze my scalded hand but did hardly any damage to that stinking stain.
All my hollering and banging around had attracted Katherine the lizard. She was peering at me from between two boxes of cereal, watching me like I was a fly she was hunting. She flicked her tongue out, which I took as a sign she was ready to help — or maybe she just wanted to eat me.
“What do you think?” I asked her, holding up the shirt. “Can I get away with this?”
Her tongue disappeared.
“No, I didn’t think so, either,” I said, and then sighed. “How can I get this out?”
Katherine’s tongue appeared again, to lick her eyeball.
“That’s just what Emily would say.”
I looked at the shirt again. I needed soap.
The kitchen dispenser was empty, so I dashed to the bathroom. I knocked almost everything off the sink as I lunged for the liquid soap. After squirting half of the bottle on the stain, I really let my shirt have it. Still no luck, though my hands now smelled like nectarines.
I was starting to feel panicky. My legs were getting wobbly, so I looked around for a soft spot to collapse onto.
Then I saw it. Not a soft spot but a solution to the problem of my stained shirt. Emily’s electric toothbrush. I must have knocked it off the sink earlier. That’s what I needed: more muscle.
I squirted the rest of the liquid soap all over Emily’s dentist-recommended hypersonic brush. While the tap water was warming up, I looked at myself in the mirror. You can do this.
Then I saw something green and scaly reflected in the mirror. Katherine had followed me and was now sitting on the bathtub, watching me. No time to worry about that now.
I took a deep breath, plunged the brush into the steaming hot water, and pressed the little blue start button. That brush was so supercharged that it sprayed soap and scalding water all over the place.
It didn’t get the stain out, either.
“Talk to me, Kathy, huh? I’m running out of ideas here!”
The lizard seemed to breathe.
“You’re right. A toothbrush only works with toothpaste.”
I pulled the cap off Emily’s dentist-recommended toothpaste and squeezed some out. I’d never used her special toothpaste before, and it came out all thick and blue . . . The exact same color as my shirt!
Idea number two: I opened the cupboard above the sink and got out one of Mom’s makeup brushes. After applying some of Emily’s gross paste to it, I painted over the black ink stains.
When I was done, I held the shirt up to the mirror. It looked all right, not perfect, but good enough. At worst, people would think my shirt had a minor factory defect.
But Katherine seemed to disapprove. She was licking her eyeball again.
“If you tell anyone about this,” I said to her, “I’m taking you back to the pet shop.”
Katherine licked her other eyeball. That meant she agreed — in lizard speak, of course.
Phase three: fresh sweater.
Next crisis: the sweater in the laundry was wrinkled. But I was in hero mode and knew what to do immediately.
My face was all damp because I’d steamed up the bathroom with all the hot water. Steam would get the wrinkles out.
I ran back to the bathroom and turned on the hot taps in the sink and the shower. Then I put the sweater on the floor and rolled all over it like a human iron. Not wanting to be broiled alive and become dinner, Katherine had scurried away.
I got the wrinkles out in no time. Plus, my hair was nice and damp for a ninety-second restyle, which is seventy seconds longer than most days.
I buttoned up the soggy shirt, jumped into my sweater, tied my tie, and flashed one last look at myself in the mirror by the doorway. Everything looked good, everything except . . .
“Noooo!” I cried, and collapsed once again to the floor.
There was a huge, yellow mustard stain, the size of a potato chip and in the shape of a grizzly bear, right smack dab in the middle of the knot of my tie.
I had no idea how that stain had gotten there. I wanted the ground to swallow me up, but since sinking through this floor would only take me to old Miss Delillo’s smelly apartment for bitter tea and a concrete scone, I dragged myself over to the sofa and lay down there instead. At least I’d be comfortable in my misery.
From there I had an excellent, unobstructed view of the bookcase, and my school-picture shelf of shame.
“Well, boys,” I said to the fun-house gallery, “looks like you’ll be getting another weirdo friend soon.”
I stared at the empty space where this year’s photo would go and imagined how it would look. My mouth would be open in a big, stupid O. My eyes would probably be bugging out of my head — unless they were mostly closed against the grape soda wave. With my luck, one eye would probably be open and the other would be half-closed. And, oh yeah, I’d be covered in a mysterious purple liquid.
I saw the photo clear as day in its new spot, and it was hideous and ridiculous. It would take twenty minutes to explain why I looked so ridiculous in that photo, and people usually don’t want to wait twenty minutes just to learn why something that makes them laugh isn’t actually funny.
I’d worked so hard. I’d run into setbacks, nearly disastrous setbacks, but I’d overcome them. Except for the stain, I didn’t look half-bad. I still had a chance to make it back to school in time, but what was the point?
Psst! Over here!
“Huh?” I said.
I’m looking at you. Over here.
The top of my head was talking to me! And looking at me, too!
“You look pretty good,” I said to the face.
I know I do. But no one else does. Want to look like a loser the rest of your life?
“Not really.”
Then get off the sofa, a new picture said, the one who had been startled by the spider.
“I can’t,” I said.
Don’t be afraid, Startled Hank said. I wasn’t really afraid, and neither are you.
“Thanks and everything, guys,” I said, “but did anyone notice the stain?”
Ahem, ah, may I make an observation? Smart-Guy-Pose Hank asked.
I sighed. “Go ahead, Dr. Booger.”
Very amusing, but you’re forgetting Emily’s got a spare tie.
“You’re right!” I cried, and sprang to my feet.
Now go and be bold. You have twenty-three minutes. You must complete your mission. The future depends on you! said the three Photo Hanks together.
Then, as I was running to Emily’s room, Em’s photo from last year came to life. “Long live the lizard!” it hissed, and shot poison from its forked tongue.
Never! The future will belong to warm-blooded mammals!
I grabbed her tie, replaced it with my stained one, and went warp speed to the door to meet my date with destiny!
I ran like the fastest man in the known universe. I ran like my hair was on fire. Nothing could stop me, not even a mini-downpour. As soon as I felt the first drop of rain on my arm, I saw an umbrella in a trash can up the street, and without breaking stride, I grabbed it, popped it open, and kept on going.
Everything was going right. I saw everything before it happened — messengers, guys throwing trash bags, cars splashing in puddles. I saw it all in slow motion, and without thinking about it, I dodged, pivoted, or deflected without losing a step of my momentum. And the whole time I ran, I made up a perfect airtight story about my identical twin to convince the photographer to take my picture again. It was just unbelievable enough to be true.
I made the dash in a
record-shattering six minutes — I saw nothing but green traffic lights — and upon jogging through the school doors, I tossed my umbrella to Miss Berkson, the school administrator, and said, “Here’s something nice for ya, Berky.”
I made it to the back of the line for photos at 2:47 on the dot. There were four boys ahead of me. If it took each kid one minute for his picture, then I was home free. I’d have my picture taken with a whopping six to eleven minutes to spare. I could use that extra six to eleven minutes to practice my arithmetic.
I rehearsed my identical twin story while the kids ahead of me got their pictures taken.
By the time my turn came, my story would be perfect, and the delivery would be a work of art. I would start with nonchalance, then transition smoothly into mild surprise, and then outrage if needed. And if the photographer was still resisting, I knew I could work up some tears. And if tears didn’t warm his heart, I always had that fiver in Frankie’s wallet.
Finally, the last kid was done. I took a deep breath. This was going to work. There was no McKelty and his can of soda to mess it up.
I am Hank Zipzer, I rehearsed to myself. Henry Zipzer’s identical twin . . . Perhaps I look familiar?
I took a step forward. And then I heard footsteps approaching behind me. They sounded like a knight in armor. That is crazy, I thought. But then something grabbed my arm. A metal hand!
I spun around and found myself looking up at a knight in full plate armor, with a shield and a sword and a visor and everything.
From behind the visor, a booming voice echoed, “You’ve already taken your photo, Zipzer. Stop wasting the photographer’s time.”
“But it’ll just take a second, a fraction of a second. Please?”
“Be silent!” the knight boomed.
Evaluator’s interview with Emily Zipzer and her father (cont’d)