The Miraculous Makeover of Lizard Flanagan

by Carol Gorman

  I dug in my pocket and pulled out the piece of paper.

  “It’d be better if we could see the Yankees play,” Ed said.

  “Who’d want to see the Yankees?” I said. Zach took the paper and started to copy down the number on the front cover of his social studies notebook.

  “Hey, don’t you guys start arguing about the Yankees and the Cubs again,” Stinky said.

  “I just wish,” Ed said, “that if I got to see a major-league game, it’d be in New York.”

  “Well, you can stay home, Mechtensteimer,” I said. “If you can’t appreciate the talent on the Cubs’ team—”

  “Aren’t you forgetting just one thing, Lizard?” Sam asked.

  “What?”

  “The fifty dollars it will cost for the two of us. Where are we going to get that much money?”

  “Where do you think? From Mom and Dad.”

  Sam looked at me as if I’d said something really dumb. “You think they’ll hand over fifty bucks so we can see a baseball game? No way!”

  “They won’t just give it to us,” I said patiently. “They’ll advance us the money from our allowance.”

  “Mom’ll never go for that. It’s too much money.”

  “Just you wait,” I said. “I know Mom and Dad better than you do—”

  “What?”

  “They’ll let us go out of guilt,” I told him. “They know how long we’ve been wanting to go to a Cubs game, see? It’s an easy way to make them feel better for not taking us all these years.”

  “Oh.” Sam looked as if he finally understood. “Well, maybe.”

  Zach grinned. “We’ll have such a great time, sitting at Wrigley Field, eating hot dogs and popcorn, and watching Mark Grace play first base.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Wouldn’t it be great if a fly ball came right at us? I’m going to take my mitt for sure!”

  The bell rang, and we headed inside with all the other kids. I said good-bye to the guys and headed to the rest room. When I looked in the mirror over the sink, I was surprised at how banged up I looked. There were two scrapes on my chin, both starting to scab over, and dried blood was smeared on my shirt. My right arm was scraped, too, from my wrist up to my elbow.

  I washed my face with a paper towel, and the scratches on my chin started bleeding again.

  I stopped in at the nurse’s office on my way to language arts class, and she cleaned my chin again and put on a bandage.

  “That’s a nasty scrape on your arm, too,” she said. “You’ll have to be more careful riding your bike.”

  “Yeah.” At least, I’d have to ride fast on quieter streets, I thought to myself.

  I went through my morning classes doing two things: (1) explaining to everybody how I got scraped and bloody, and (2) daydreaming about watching the Chicago Cubs play in person at Wrigley Field. I’d dreamed about that a lot in my life, and now I was actually going to do it!

  The sixth grade at Truman is divided into two groups, orange and black, the colors for the Truman Tigers. Everybody in the same group goes through their classes together. I’m in the orange group with Ed and Stinky. Mary Ann, Zach, and Sam are in the black group.

  At lunch, though, everything is scrambled, and I get to see some of my friends in the black group. At five minutes after twelve I hurried to the cafeteria, as usual, to eat lunch with Zach, Ed, and Stinky. They were standing together in the hall, just outside the cafeteria door. Mike Herman and Andy Walinsky were there too.

  “Hey, guys,” I greeted them. “I can’t stop thinking about the game. I’m going to see if I can get Mark Grace to sign my glove.”

  “That would be so great,” Zach said, grinning.

  “What’re you guys talking about?” Mike asked. We told him about the trip to Chicago.

  “The Cubs are horrible,” Mike said. “Especially since Ryne Sandberg resigned.”

  “Oh, yeah?” I shot back. “Well, the Cubbies still have Mark Grace, the world’s greatest first baseman. He’s a Golden Glove winner and has more RBIs—”

  Zach joined in. “And don’t forget Sammy Sosa, their right fielder. He’s making big bucks ’cause he’s so talented.”

  “Wow, and just think,” I said, grinning. “We’ll be seeing these guys in person.”

  We got in line for lunch. “I’m going to buy a Chicago Cubs jersey,” I said.

  “You already have one,” Stinky said.

  “I already have three,” I corrected him. “But none of them came from Wrigley Field!”

  Just then, Ginger, Lisa, and Tiffany Brady arrived. Ginger beamed as they approached. “Oh, look who’s here! More people for our poll!” They stopped in line behind us, and Ginger held up her hands. “Okay, you guys. We’re conducting a poll: Which of the girls from our sixth grade class do you think will make the first cut to model in the Spring Pines Mall fashion show? Ed, you first.”

  Ed grinned and shrugged. “I didn’t know about it. The Spring Pines—what is it?”

  “The fashion show!” Ginger said. “Haven’t you heard about it?”

  “Nope.” He grinned like an idiot, looking back and forth between Lisa and Ginger.

  “Well, think of the girls in our class,” Ginger said. “Two of them will get chosen to model in the fashion show. So name at least one girl who you think will get picked.”

  “I dunno.” Ed continued to grin and look dumb. I wanted to smack him.

  Ginger slowed down so that Ed would be able to comprehend what she was saying. “Well, who do you think is the most beautiful girl in the sixth grade?” She and Lisa and Tiffany leaned in to hear his answer.

  I didn’t think it was possible, but Ed’s grin got even bigger. “Sara Pulliam.”

  “Sara Pulliam,” Ginger said to Lisa, who held the notebook.

  Lisa’s jaw got tight, and she wrote down Sara’s name. “Of course he’d say Sara,” she huffed. “He’s going out with her. Some people just can’t be objective.”

  I paid the cashier. “Come on, you guys,” I said. “You’re holding up the line.” I picked up a dish of red Jell-O with apples in it and started through the cafeteria line.

  “Hey, Lizard.” Ginger paid the cashier and tiptoed around the guys to me. She leaned in and whispered, “Do you think Sam would vote for me?” She giggled.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Why don’t you ask him?”

  She laughed. “Oh, I’d die before I’d ask him!” She whirled around and leaned over to talk to Tiffany, who was standing behind the guys. “You ask Sam, Tiff. We’ll see him in the hall after sixth period.”

  We inched along the lunch line. I picked up a small dish of green beans and put them on my tray. One of the cooks, dressed in a white uniform and a hairnet, handed me a plate with a sloppy joe on it.

  “Who do you think will be chosen to model, Zach?” Ginger asked. “Give me at least one name.”

  I held my breath and stared at my Jell-O, waiting for his answer. Zach and Lisa had gone out for a couple of weeks at the very beginning of school, but he’d been going out with me since they broke up. I hoped Zach wouldn’t vote for Lisa.

  “I don’t know,” Zach said. “I can’t guess.”

  “Leave your emotions out of it,” Lisa counseled him. “Just think of the prettiest face you can imagine.” She cocked her head, opened her eyes wide, and—I’m not kidding—fluttered her lashes at him.

  Zach looked away from her, and his ears turned bright red. “I vote for Lizard.”

  Stinky laughed. “Oh, man,” he said, rolling his eyes.

  Lisa snorted. “What?”

  Zach looked her directly in the eye. “I said Lizard.”

  Ginger beamed. “Zach, that’s so nice of you!”

  I wished I could’ve vaporized into the air. “I didn’t send in my picture, Zach,” I murmured.

  Lisa laughed. “With that bandage on her face, Lizard’s a really dumb choice. Models don’t go out on the runway looking like accident victims.”

  “Come on,” Zach
said to me, taking his plate from the cook and motioning with his head. “Let’s go sit down.”

  I knew my face was bright red. It was so hot you could’ve fried an egg on it. Lisa was such a jerk! So what if I wasn’t gorgeous like Lisa. I wasn’t so bad looking. I’d recently learned how to put my hair in a French braid and how to put on some blush, and sometimes I think I look pretty good. Boys even turn to look at me occasionally.

  Zach and I sat at our table, and Ed followed.

  “Stinky’s voting in the poll,” Ed said. “He’ll be right here.”

  “Those girls are so stupid,” Zach said.

  “Do you think one of the girls from our class will get to be a model?” Mike asked, looking at me.

  “Who cares?”

  Mike looked disappointed, so I added, “Ginger said they’re picking fourteen girls—two from each grade.”

  Stinky arrived with his lunch and sat down.

  “Who’d you vote for, Stink?” Ed asked him. Stinky shrugged. “Come on,” Ed said. “You heard my vote.”

  “Aw, you were just voting for your girlfriend,” Stinky said. “They wanted an objective answer.”

  “So who do you think will get to model?” Ed asked him.

  “Lisa, of course,” Stinky said. “She’s stacked.”

  I dropped my fork. “You make me sick, Stinky. Models don’t have to have big … chests. They’re thin all over.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Stinky said. “Do you ever look at the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue? Man-oh-man-oh-man!”

  Ed, Mike, and Andy laughed, and even Zach grinned.

  “Well, just because a girl looks good in a swimsuit, it doesn’t mean she’s interesting or fun to be with!”

  “Know what I say to that, Lizard?” Stinky said with a devilish grin. “Who cares?”

  “Well, I just happen to know,” I said, “that the girls who applied to model in the fashion show sent in pictures of their faces and information about their lives. That’s all.”

  Stinky grinned wickedly. “They didn’t have to tell their bra size?”

  “Some of the girls don’t even wear bras,” Ed informed him.

  “How would you know that, Mechtensteimer?” I could hear myself yelling, but I didn’t care.

  Ed smiled smugly. “I can tell.”

  Stinky laughed. “So can I. Any guy can.”

  “You jerks must be looking pretty hard,” I said.

  Stinky hooted. “We are!” His gaze went right to my chest.

  I stood up, my cheeks blazing hot. “You creep!” I gave him a hard shove, and he nearly fell off the bench.

  “Hey, where’re you going?” Ed said.

  “Away from you and Stinky. I’ve lost my appetite.”

  “Good going, guys,” Zach said to them.

  I pulled my book bag out from under the table, and stormed out of the cafeteria and down the hall, fuming. Someday, I swear, I’m going to strangle Stinky Porter.

  I stopped near the doorway of a darkened classroom and leaned against the wall. I forced myself to think about the Wrigley Field trip. That made me feel better. Maybe Stinky would get a cold or the plague or something and not be able to go with us.

  I couldn’t wait to go home after school and get the trip money from Mom and Dad. Then I’d call Shirley and reserve my place on the bus.

  Yes, I thought. That would make me feel a whole lot better.

  CHAPER TWO

  THE BEST TIME TO ASK Mom and Dad for anything is after supper. They come home tired from work, and they don’t feel like doing much but changing into their jeans and fixing supper. I’ve learned from experience that they’re more likely to agree to stuff if I wait till after supper. They’re in better moods then, more relaxed and more likely to say yes!

  It was Mom’s night to cook. I was determined to eat whatever healthy food she put in front of me, no matter how terrible it was. She’s a health nut and likes to fix food that most people would throw in the garbage, dishes that have ingredients like bulgur wheat or brewer’s yeast or wheat germ. I’m not even positive those things are meant to be eaten. I like a healthy snack once in a while for variety, but Mom goes way overboard.

  Tonight she’d fixed Tomato Quiche with Egg Beaters on a whole wheat crust. I’d rather have had pizza, but compared with some of Mom’s disasters—the worst was Spinach and Mustard Greens Soup—it wasn’t too horrible. I managed to choke it down without resorting to my B.A.R.F. Plan. B.A.R.F. stands for Ban All Revolting Foods. It means that I do whatever’s necessary to avoid eating Mom’s cooking, even if I have to feed the stuff to my dog, Bob, under the table.

  I’d gotten Sam to promise to let me handle the Chicago trip. He would’ve just blurted out, “Can we have fifty bucks to go to a Cubs game?” He doesn’t understand that you have to use finesse to get what you want.

  I first learned about finesse the time I watched Zach talk his mother into letting him go camping with my family. He’d asked her a week before, and she’d said no. She wanted him to help her paint the living room.

  Zach told her about a boy at the high school who’d gotten caught breaking into Jim’s Audio and Video.

  “What a shame,” Mrs. Walters said. She was shelling peas on the back porch. The peas pinged into the steel pan on her lap. “He’s throwing his life away, and he doesn’t even know it.”

  “I wonder what starts people down the road to crime?” Zach said. He popped a couple of raw peas into his mouth.

  “Part of it,” said his mother, “is that friends and families just don’t spend as much time together doing wholesome activities the way they used to. Kids are left to roam the streets without adult supervision.”

  Zach nodded. “Yeah. I wish I could spend more time doing stuff with our family—and Lizard’s. You know, like hiking and camping and doing stuff in nature.”

  “I know,” his mom said. “We should make more time for the great outdoors, shouldn’t we? We get so busy.”

  “It gets pretty boring sometimes, roaming the streets or hanging out with Stinky,” Zach said. Mrs. Walters doesn’t exactly love Stinky. She winced, and the corners of her mouth tightened a little. Zach looked at me. “Lizard, aren’t you going on vacation pretty soon?”

  “Yeah, we’re camping at Backbone State Park.”

  “That sounds like fun,” Mrs. Walters said.

  “I sure wish you could come with us, Zach,” I said pointedly. “Mom said to be sure to invite you.”

  “Thanks, but I’m going to help Mom paint. And I told Stinky I’d hang out with him in the evenings.”

  Mrs. Walters sat up straight and looked thoughtful. “Oh, I think you’d have a much better time on a camping trip with the Flanagans, Zach,” she said. “We’ll paint when you get back.”

  “But I promised Stinky.”

  “Zach, I want you to go with Lizard’s family,” she said firmly. “I’m sure your dad will agree.”

  Zach flashed me a quick smile. “Well, okay.”

  I was really impressed, and I asked him later where he’d learned his technique.

  “My cousin Anthony,” he said. “He’s the master of finesse. It’s pretty sneaky, so I only resort to it when it’s really important.”

  It was sneaky, all right. But if a kid only used it in emergencies, it seemed okay to me.

  So tonight I was going to try using some finesse. An opportunity to see a Cubs game definitely qualified as an emergency situation.

  First, I played up my accident—being sure to emphasize how careless the driver of the truck had been. I didn’t mention that I’d been flying along at twenty-one miles per hour. Mom and Dad were very concerned about me, but I assured them that I was—probably—okay.

  “Could you pass the quiche?” I asked Dad. “Ow, my arm is awfully sore.”

  “That’s okay, hon,” Dad said. “I’ll serve you a piece.”

  “Not too much,” I said. “My chin hurts a little when I chew.”

  “I’ll take a look under that bandage later,�
�� Mom said.

  Now, in case you’re starting to feel sorry for my mom and dad, I wasn’t acting too much. I really was sore all over, and it did hurt to reach out my arm. I just played it up a little.

  Since Mom had cooked, Dad cleaned up. I opened my mouth to offer to help with the dishes but stopped myself just in time. Don’t go overboard, I told myself. I’d have to act natural, or they’d get suspicious. I had to wait to be asked, then complain just a little.

  “Come on, Lizard, Sam,” Dad said, pushing back his chair from the table. “Let’s get that mess cleaned up in the kitchen. I have bowling tonight.”

  Oh, shoot. I’d forgotten. Dad bowls in a league from his office twice a month, and tonight was the night.

  It was going to be hard to get Mom and Dad together to finesse them both at the same time. It looked as if I’d have to start with Dad.

  “You guys put the food away, and I’ll start washing,” Dad said as we walked into the kitchen.

  We started to work, and then, I swear, he handed me an opening.

  “So how’s school going?” Dad asked.

  “Okay,” Sam said.

  I was covering the quiche with plastic wrap. I looked up. “Oh—” I paused for a little drama. “Okay—I guess.”

  Dad glanced over at me. “Anything wrong?”

  “Well, it’s just that it’s hard to meet people. Sometimes I feel kind of lonely.”

  “What?” Sam said, sounding surprised. I threw him a dish towel and gave him a meaningful glance.

  “I thought you knew half the boys at school from your ball teams,” Dad said, up to his elbows now in suds.

  “Well, I know some of them,” I said. “It’s hard to get to know the girls, though. They’re all in cliques.”

  “Didn’t you go to a slumber party a couple of weeks ago?” Dad asked.

  “Those girls are kind of stupid,” I said. “I wish I knew more girl jocks like Mary Ann and me.” I paused again. “There’s one thing coming up that sports lovers, guys and girls, will sign up for. That might be a chance to meet people.”