by Sarah Weeks
“My class is putting on a play,” I said flatly. It hardly seemed like big news to me.
“It’s The Princess and the Pea, and I’m doing the costumes!” my mother declared.
“Fantastic!” my father said enthusiastically. “What part are you playing, Guy?”
“I’m a shrub,” I said.
“A shrub?” my mother asked, wrinkling up her brow, “I don’t remember any shrubbery in the version of the story I read. Do you, Wuck?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever read it,” my father replied. “I’m strictly a sci-fi guy.”
“The shrubs were Mrs. Hunn’s idea. Since there aren’t enough real parts to go around, some of us are playing bushes that grow around the castle walls,” I explained.
“Did you try out for one of the real parts, Guysie? Wouldn’t you rather be a person than a bush?” my mother asked.
“Nah, I don’t like drama. The shrubs don’t have to do anything except sit there looking bushy, and that sounds just right to me.”
“Who else is playing a shrub?” Dad asked.
“A bunch of us. All boys. Max, Greg, Alex, and Henry. Oh, and Fennimore.”
“Fennimore?” my mother said.
“Yeah, he’s the new kid.”
“Fennimore is a very unusual name. What’s he like?” she asked.
“Like his name,” I replied. “Unusual.”
“Maybe he’ll turn out to be your new best friend,” said my mother with a big smile.
“Nope,” I said. “That’s not going to happen.”
“How can you say that? You’ve barely even met him,” my father said. “The most interesting people often turn out to be the ones who take a little longer to get to know, don’t you think, dumpers?”
“Abso-tootin-lutely,” my mother agreed.
“Trust me, Fennimore and I are not going to be best friends. For one thing, I don’t want an unusual friend,” I said, picking up my book bag and heading upstairs to start my homework. “When I find a best friend, I want him to be regular. Like me.”
I thought about Fennimore later that night as I lay in bed trying to go to sleep. Why couldn’t the new kid have been someone with a normal name, like Alex or David or Sam? And a regular haircut and clothes. Why couldn’t he have been someone I could talk to about stuff? Share secrets with. Invite for sleepovers and all the other things best friends do together. Why couldn’t he have been just right instead of, well…Fennimore.
Chapter Five
The rehearsals were for our second-grade production of The Princess and the Pea were pretty boring, especially for those of us who were playing shrubs. Lana and Kevin were the king and queen, so they had a lot of lines to rehearse. Nico DePalma, who everybody thought was so cute on account of his dimples and wavy black hair, was playing the prince. Then there were the princesses, who were played by the girlie-girls in the class—Autumn, Kendra, Sawyer, and Grace. They had speeches to practice too. All the other characters had a few lines here and there, but the shrubs didn’t say anything at all. Mrs. Hunn suggested that we might want to make up a little bush dance to do to make our parts more interesting, but we took a vote, and it was unanimously decided that we would be a nondancing variety of shrubbery.
“Suit yourselves,” she said, and went back to the read-through of the script.
I spent most of the second rehearsal staring at Bob-o Smith, who was playing a castle guard. He was supposed to say “Halt, who goes there?” whenever anyone approached the castle, but he wasn’t following along in his script, so he missed his cues every time. Each time he messed up, Lana would kick him under the table, and Bob-o would jump and say, “What did I do?” in a high squeaky voice. Lana quickly lost patience with him.
“If I were really the queen and you were my guard, I’d fire you so fast, your head would spin,” she grumped.
“Forget about making it spin. Why don’t we save time and just behead him instead?” suggested King Kevin.
“Great idea, your majesty,” said Lana. “Who needs a guard anyway? We could just booby-trap the castle gate to keep out the undesirables.”
“Far out. Strap some dynamite to it, and whoever shows up—kaboom!” Kevin said, making explosive spitty noises with his big, ugly, wet mouth.
“All I can say is it’s a good thing you two aren’t really the king and queen around here,” said Mrs. Hunn with a sigh. “I have a feeling more than one of us would be walking around without a head on our shoulders.”
Bob-o didn’t seem to be aware that he had been insulted. He was completely oblivious, as usual. He’d been in my class every year since kindergarten, and he seemed to get stranger and stranger with each passing year. While I watched him that day, I remember, he was doing something bizarre. He’d pull on one of his eyebrows really hard, and whenever he managed to pull out a hair, he’d put it in the palm of his hand, close his eyes, and blow on it. Then he’d study his hand really carefully to see if the hair was still there, and if it was, he’d do it all over again.
“Making wishes,” whispered Fennimore, who was sitting behind me.
“Huh?” I said, not sure what he was talking about. “Who’s making wishes?”
“That goofy kid in the glasses. Bob-o. He’s making wishes on his eyebrows,” he said.
“Really?” I watched Bob-o, who had just pulled out another hair. He placed it in his palm and closed his eyes. His lips moved a little like he was saying something to himself, then he blew on the hair and checked to see if it was gone.
“See, if the hair is gone after he blows on it, the wish comes true,” Fennimore explained.
Just then, right while we were both looking at him, Bob-o stuck his finger way up his nose and started digging for gold, as they say.
“Sheesh,” said Fennimore, flinching at the sight of it. “I guess maybe he was wishing for a tissue and it didn’t come true.”
I laughed out loud, and Mrs. Hunn shot me a look over the tops of her glasses. Fennimore immediately stood up.
“Excuse us for being rude, Ma’am; we didn’t mean to bother you. It won’t happen again.”
Mrs. Hunn looked kind of surprised. I’d never seen anybody do what Fennimore had just done, and I guess she hadn’t either. He fessed up and apologized without even trying to deny it first. Mrs. Hunn smiled and nodded and went back to work.
“Wow. Are you always that polite?” I whispered.
“Who, me? Listen to this.” He tucked his chin down and swallowed air; then he let loose a long, rumbling belch. As he burped, he moved his lips to form words—the letters of the alphabet. He ran out of steam, or rather belch, around the letter “p.” It was amazing and gross and funny. All in all, pretty great.
“Rude!” I said appreciatively.
“Jumbo rude,” he said back.
This time I was careful to cover my laughter with a fake coughing fit. Mrs. Hunn looked up again, but she didn’t say anything.
“Maybe we should try wishing on our eyebrows that this stupid rehearsal would end already,” I said when I’d recovered enough to speak.
He smiled and nodded, and we both tugged on our eyebrows at the same time. Then we closed our eyes and blew on the hairs. When I opened my eyes, the hair was gone, and right then the final bell rang. I looked over at Fennimore, and he grinned at me.
“Guess it works, huh, Gah Wahr?” he said.
“Gah Wahr?” I said, repeating what it sounded like he’d said.
“Yeah, Gah,” he said, pointing to me. “Wahr.”
“Oh, you mean, Guy.” I finally understood. “But what does Wahr mean?”
“Wahr, like on a telephone pole,” he said.
“Oh, you mean wire?”
He nodded.
“Guy Wire?” I said.
“Yeah, Guy Wire,” he said, stretching his mouth around the words in order to change his accent and make it sound more the way it did when I said it.
“What’s a guy wire?” I asked.
“It’s like a support wire t
hat goes out kind of sideways on radio towers to keep them from falling over. You know?”
“Uh, no,” I said.
“Sure you do, they go out sideways, sort of at an angle like this.” He held up his hands to try to demonstrate, but it didn’t help. I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. And why was he calling me that—was he trying to say I was skinny like a wire or something? That was kind of insulting, especially coming from someone who had helmet hair like his.
“I don’t get it,” I said.
“There’s nothing to get, really. It’s not supposed to mean anything. I just thought it might make sort of a cool nickname because, well you know, because it has Guy already built into it and all,” he said as he hoisted his book bag onto one shoulder.
“Oh,” I said.
“If you don’t like it, though, I won’t call you that. I’ll come up with something else, if you want,” he said. “See ya.”
“Yeah. See ya, Fennimore,” I said as I watched him leave.
I stood there for a minute thinking. I was pretty surprised. I mean, my mother calls me Guysie and my father calls me Guychik, but nobody outside the family had ever given me a nickname before. Why would Fennimore want to give me a nickname?
Guy Wire. Huh. Now that I thought about it, it did have kind of a nice ring to it.
Chapter Six
On the way home I noticed Fennimore walking up ahead of me. He was wearing jeans and sneakers and a blue down jacket. Without his suit on he looked pretty much like everybody else. Except for one thing. His hair was still hopelessly nerdy.
“Hey, Fennimore,” I called. “Wait up.”
Fennimore turned around, and when he recognized me, he smiled and waved and waited for me to catch up.
“You live around here?” he asked when I reached him.
“Yeah, on Maple; what about you?”
“I live on Robin,” he said.
“Oh, that’s just a couple of blocks past my house,” I said.
“You ever notice how they always name streets after things like birds and trees?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “So what?”
“So it’s too bad they pick such boring ones,” he said.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Wouldn’t you rather live on Venus’s-Flytrap Street than boring old Maple?” he asked.
“I guess,” I said, “But a Venus’s-Flytrap is a plant, not a tree.”
“Okay, but if it’s a bird street, wouldn’t it be cooler if it was, like, Blue-Footed Boobie Boulevard?” he said.
“Sure, if there was such a bird as a blue-footed boobie,” I said.
“There is,” he said.
“No way,” I said.
“Way. I’ve got a book with a picture of one in it at my house. I can show you if you want.”
We were at the corner of my street.
“This is my block,” I said, pointing down the street toward my house.
“I know, but don’t you want to see the boobie?” he asked.
“Now?” I said.
“Sure,” he said.
“Well, okay, I guess, but I gotta ask my mom,” I said. I hesitated for a minute. “Do you wanna come with me?”
“Sure.”
Fennimore and I headed down the street to my house. I stopped when we got to the front walk.
“Listen, I have to warn you about something,” I said as we started up my driveway. “The name of my street may be boring and ordinary, but my parents are a whole different story.”
“Is it true your mama showed everybody bare naked pictures of you at the class picnic last year?”
I nodded.
“Sheesh,” he said. “Is she touched?”
“Touched?”
“Yeah, you know, touched in the head,” Fennimore said, tapping his temple with his finger.
“Oh, you mean crazy?”
He nodded.
As if to answer his question, right as we were walking up the porch steps, the back door burst open, and my mother came running out of the house wearing a bathing cap covered with green cotton balls and a piece of Astroturf with pom-pom fringe tied around her shoulders.
“What do you think?” she shouted as she ran past us down the steps and zoomed around the backyard waving her arms like a maniac. “I’m a shrub!”
“Holy crow!” said Fennimore, taking it all in with wide eyes.
“I told you,” I said, watching my mother round the far corner of the yard, bank like an airplane, and head back our way.
“Who’s your little friend, Guysie?” she said, stopping to catch her breath and joining us on the porch.
“Mom, this is Fennimore. Fennimore…meet my mom.”
Fennimore politely stuck his hand out.
“How do you do, Ma’am,” he said. “That’s a very nice, uh, bathing cap you’ve got on there.”
My mother shook his hand and laughed delightedly.
“Well, aren’t you just as cute as a button.”
Fennimore blushed.
“Being as cute as you are, though, do you mind my asking what in the world possessed you to wear your hair that way?” my mother asked.
“Mom,” I said rolling my eyes. She’s always blurting things out like that. She calls it “being frank.” As far as I’m concerned, whoever this Frank guy is, he’s very rude.
“No, it’s okay,” Fennimore reassured me. “Is something wrong with my hair, Mrs. Strang?”
“Nothing that a little trim couldn’t fix,” my mother said. “Come on inside, and I can fix you up in a jiff.”
“I don’t think my mama would want me to get a haircut without her here,” Fennimore said quietly.
“You call your mother mama? Oh, I just love that! It’s so, so regional. Tell you what,” my mother said. “Why don’t you call your mama up and ask her if it’s all right for you to get a little trim. Tell her she’s welcome to come watch me work my magic if she’d like to. I can trim hers too, for that matter, if she wants. We’ll make a party of it.”
Fennimore looked at me. I shrugged.
“She cuts mine,” I said. “And no offense, but to be honest, your hair is a little, well, flat.”
Fennimore touched his head.
“That’s on account of all the cowlicks,” he explained. “If I don’t plaster it down, it looks like crabgrass.”
“I assure you, with a proper trim those cowlicks would lie down flat without one drop of hair goop,” my mother said. “Trust me.”
She opened the door and held it for us.
“I’ve been cutting Guy’s hair ever since he was a little boy,” my mom told Fennimore. “And I cut his father’s hair too. If I say so myself, I’m pretty darned good at it. Do you want a cookie?”
My mother handed Fennimore a cookie out of the cookie jar. He bit into it and moaned.
“What’s the matter? Sore tooth?” she asked.
“Uh-uh.” Fennimore shook his head. “Sweet tooth. My mom gives me rice cakes after school on account of all the fillings I’ve had to get. Do they have rice cakes in Cedar Springs?”
“Of course,” she said.
“I was afraid of that.” Fennimore took another bite of cookie.
“Okay, Guy, show Fennimore where the phone in the den is so he can call his mama in private. I’ll find my scissors, and if she gives us the go-ahead, we can get started.” She held up her hands and made a little frame out of her index fingers and thumbs and squinted at Fennimore through it like an artist looks at a bowl of fruit before she paints it. “I love a challenge,” she said.
Fennimore called home and spoke to his mother. After he hung up, he came back into the kitchen, where my mom and I were waiting.
“Is she going to join us?” my mother asked him.
“No, Mrs. Strang. She’s making a stew, but she says to thank you kindly for the offer and that it’s okay for you to cut my hair so long as it’s just a little trim.”
“Good! A little trim it is then,” my m
other said, going and pulling some towels out of the hall closet. “Guy, drag that stool over, will you?”
I pulled the stepstool out into the center of the room.
“Before we get started, do you think I might trouble you for another one of those delicious cookies, Mrs. Strang?” Fennimore asked politely.
“Oh, those manners! Good gravy, have as many cookies as you want, you angel boy!” she said, handing him the whole jar.
It was true that my mother had cut my hair for years, and she’d never done anything weird to it, so I was pretty sure that whatever she had in mind for Fennimore would be fine. Besides, his hair was already weird, so she couldn’t possibly make it any worse.
“Okay, Fennimore,” she said cheerfully. “First of all we’ll need to wash your hair.”
My mother took Fennimore over to the kitchen sink and made him bend over with his head under the faucet. It took three washings to get out whatever he’d put in there to hold it down flat. Then she wrapped the towel around his head.
“Lawrence of Suburbia!” She laughed.
Fennimore sat on the kitchen stool happily munching cookies while my mother wrapped a beach towel around his shoulders and began to comb his hair.
“How long do you think this is gonna take?” he asked.
“A little trim takes two shakes of a lamb’s tail,” she answered.
“Mom, speak English, will you? It’s three thirty right now, and all he wants to know is—oh my gosh, oh my gosh!”
“What’s the matter?” my mother asked.
“I’ve got soccer practice. Right now! I completely forgot. I was supposed to be there at three thirty. My coach is gonna kill me. Quick, Mom, where’s my uniform?”
I started running around trying to pull my jeans off over my sneakers without sitting down. My shoes got jammed in the legs of the pants, and I tripped and fell down on the floor.
“Relax, Guysie. Nobody’s going to kill you. I’ll write you a note.”
“A note? What are you, nuts?” I said, finally managing to yank my pants off. “Mothers don’t write notes to soccer coaches. Please, just tell me where my uniform is.”
“I washed it last night. It’s probably still in the dryer.”