“What’s not true?” said Billy, turning around from shouting at Alan.
“Whatever you said.”
“What’d I say?”
“It doesn’t make any difference. You’re a liar and a cheat and so anything you say isn’t true.”
“You’re crazy. Even Hitler or—or Jack the Ripper—sometimes said things that were true. It’s impossible to lie all the time.”
Behind them Tom lay down on his back and said, “Arrgh!”
Alan and Joe and Billy turned to look at him.
“What’s the matter with you?”
“ARRRGH!”
“Argh?”
“ARRRGH!”
Silence. A bird flew in and then out through a broken window in the loft.
“Well,” said Billy. “Yeah. I see what you mean.”
He and Alan and Joe sat down on the overturned orange crates. After a while Joe said, “Anyway, I was right. If Billy’d eaten it, it would have been cheating. But he didn’t, so it’s not. The bet’s still on.”
The pig looked in at the door again.
“A pig’s loose,” said Alan. “Look.”
“Where?” said Billy. “Oh boy, come on. We gotta catch it.” He jumped up. The pig bolted.
“Whoooooeeeeee!” yelled Billy, dashing out. Tom and Joe and Alan scrambled after him.
XX
Billy’s Mother
BILLY slumped at the kitchen table on one elbow, pawing in his bowl of Wheaties with his spoon. His mother was washing the breakfast dishes at the sink.
“But why isn’t it good to eat hot dogs for breakfast? I know nobody does. But why don’t they?”
“Oh, Billy,” said his mother. “Stop it. Finish your cereal.”
“Well, but—”
A knock on the screen door.
Billy’s mother glanced around. “Oh, hello, Alan, Joe. Is your sister better, Joe?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“Billy can’t come out until he’s finished his breakfast. Would you like to wait for him on the front porch?”
“We came to see you, Mrs. Forrester.”
“Oh? Come in.”
“Mrs. Forrester,” said Joe, as Alan shut the door carefully behind them. “I don’t know if you know about it already, but see, about a week ago Alan made this bet with Billy about eating worms. If Billy could eat fifteen worms, one each day for fifteen days, then—”
“Billy! You’re not still eating them?”
Billy stuffed a spoonful of Wheaties into his mouth.
“Not just worms, Mom. I been eating lots of other stuff, too. Look at me. I’m healthy. Dr. McGrath told you the worms wouldn’t hurt me.”
“But Billy, Dr. McGrath didn’t think you were going to keep on eating worms.”
Joe nudged Alan and grinned.
“Aw, Mom, if five worms wouldn’t hurt me, a few more won’t either. They’re little worms. Besides, it’s a bet. If I—”
“They’re big worms, Mrs. Forrester,” said Joe, looking virtuous. “We won’t lie to you. My mother told me never to tell a lie.”
“Manure,” said Billy. “Mom, it’s a bet. I told you. If I win, Alan’s got to pay me fifty dollars.”
“Fifty dollars! Young man, don’t you move from that chair.” She went off into the front hall.
“Finks!” whispered Billy. “But you’ll see. It won’t work.”
Alan and Joe gazed nonchalantly at the ceiling.
Billy’s mother’s voice came from the front hall. “Dr. McGrath, I’m awfully sorry to bother you again, it’s such a ridiculous matter, but since I spoke to you, Billy has continued to eat worms.” Pause. “No, no, it’s nothing like that. He’s acting perfectly normal otherwise. It seems he’s made a bet with some other boys.” Pause. “One every day. He has to eat fifteen to win his bet.” Pause. “Oh, thank you, Dr. McGrath. I’m so sorry to bother—”
She returned to the kitchen. “But no more bets after this one, Billy. Alan and Joe, don’t you egg him on anymore. He’s far too eager to do wild things.”
Billy yukked silently at Joe and Alan. Alan made a rude gesture at him.
“Mrs. Forrester,” said Joe, “what we really came about is that Alan and me are going up to Lake Lauderdale today with my father to fish. And we won’t be back till tomorrow night, so we wondered if you’d make sure Billy eats the worms today and tomorrow. It’s not that we don’t trust Billy, Mrs. Forrester—”
“No,” said Billy’s mother, smiling.
“—but it’s always better if there’s a referee. You know, like Mr. Simmons says at school: to save arguments and hard feelings. We brought the two worms.” He held up a paper bag. “We boiled them already, so you can just keep them in the refrigerator.”
“Well,” said Billy’s mother. “This is quite a responsibility. Are you sure I’ll be neutral enough? I am his mother.”
“Yeah, we thought of that,” said Joe, “but we figured, well, you’re usually pretty fair, and besides, parents almost never cheat kids if it’s just something between kids. They’re usually pretty fair until they get into it.”
Billy’s mother laughed. “And how does he eat them? Just cold boiled?”
“Well, we been frying them, Mrs. Forrester. We roll them in cornmeal and then fry them like a fish. But he can do whatever he wants. Except that Alan and me have decided it’s not fair to make soup out of them or chop them all up like hash or a chicken-salad sandwich. He’s got to eat them piece by piece.”
“Who said?” yelled Billy. “When was that ever in the rules?”
“We said!” shouted Alan.
Billy jumped up, kicking his chair over. “Well, then I win! Because it’s cheating to make up new rules in the middle.”
“Oh, yeah?” shouted Alan. “Then you lose! Because anybody knows it’d be cheating to hash it up.”
“You think you’re going to weasel out of it after I’ve already eaten nine!”
“Who’s weaseling? You’re cheating!”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah!”
“Boys! Boys! Billy! Alan!”
Silence.
“Please. Now Billy, I think—no, let me speak first. I do think Alan and Joe are right. It wouldn’t be fair to cut the worm all up. You can just think of some other way of fixing it. Thank you, Joe.”
She took the paper bag and looked inside. “Pew. Billy, are you sure—”
“Mom, you’ve eaten eels; you ate eels last summer in Long Island. These are just smaller. They’re the same thing.”
“Well.” She put the paper bag in the refrigerator. “I guess if Dr. McGrath says it’s all right. Now why don’t you all go outside?”
“I wouldn’t go across the street with those finks,” said Billy. “They can—”
“Yeah?” shouted Alan. “Well, who’d want to go anywhere with you, either?”
“Yeah?” shouted Billy.
“Boys!” cried Mrs. Forrester. “Stop it! All right. Alan and Joe, you had better go.”
The screen door banged behind them.
“Pffffft!” said Billy scornfully.
Joe’s face appeared at the screen. “Thanks for saying you’ll help out, Mrs. Forrester.”
XXI
The Tenth Worm
WHAT’S for dinner?” said Billy’s father, coming into the kitchen.
“Well,” said Billy’s mother. “You and I and Emily are having hamburgers and string beans and mashed potatoes. Billy is having a fried worm.”
“More worms? The bet’s still on?”
“Look.” She took a small plate covered with Saran Wrap out of the refrigerator.
“And you’ve eaten nine of these already, Billy?” He poked the worms curiously. “What do you do, use a lot of ketchup and mustard?”
Billy nodded. “And horseradish and other things. And we fry them.”
Billy’s father lifted a corner of the Saran Wrap and smelled the worms. “Helen, you ought to be able to do better than fried. Use your cookbooks
.”
“I’m not the cook. I’m just the referee.”
“Oh, come on. Think of the challenge.”
He took a cookbook from the shelf under the spice rack. “Let’s see. Mastering the Art of French Cooking.” He leafed through the cookbook. “Here. How about Poached Eels on Toast?”
“No,” said Billy’s mother. “It calls for chopping up the eel in little pieces, and that would be against the rules.”
“How about Spaghetti with Wormballs then? Or a Savory Worm Pie? Creamed Worms on Toast? Spanish Worm? Wormloaf with Mushroom Sauce?”
“Wait,” said Billy’s mother, putting down her cooking spoon. “It might just—” She took the cookbook and turned to the index. “Here.” She read: “Alsatian Smothered Worm: dredge the worm with seasoned flour. Saute in three tablespoons drippings until browned. Cover with sliced onions, pour over one cup thick sour cream, cover pot closely, and bake in a slow oven until tender.”
“Bravo,” said Billy’s father. “Put the hamburgers back in the refrigerator. We’ll all have worm tonight.”
“I won’t,” said Emily.
“Ha,” said Billy, grinning in the midst of chewing. “Boy, Alan and Joe thought they were doing me in when they came to you, Mom, but this is better than steak. It really tastes good.”
“Yug,” muttered Emily, making a face.
“Let me have a taste,” said Billy’s father.
“No, no,” said his mother. “Billy has to eat every bit himself. Alan and Joe were very firm about that, and I’m the referee.”
“Boy,” said Billy. “I don’t mind if it tastes like this.”
XXII
The Eleventh Worm
HOW’D you do it?” said Billy. “What’s it called?”
“My word,” said his father.
“Gosh, Mrs. Forrester,” gasped Tom.
On a silver dish in front of Billy lay an ice-cream cake bathed in fruit syrups—peach, cherry, tutti-frutti, candied orange—topped with whipped cream sprinkled with jelly beans and almond slivers.
“It’s called a Whizbang Worm Delight,” said Billy’s mother proudly. “I made it up.”
“Is the worm really in there?” said Billy, poking about with his spoon. And then, scraping away a bit of whipped cream at one end, he glimpsed the worm’s snout protruding from the center of the cake.
“Snug as a bug in a rug,” said his mother.
“I still wouldn’t eat a worm,” said Emily, eyeing the Whizbang Worm Delight with envious distaste.
“I would,” said Tom. “At least, maybe I would.”
XXIII
Admirals Nagumo and Kusaka on the Bridge of the Akaiga, December 6, 1941
IT won’t work.”
“Look,” said Joe, “even if he remembers the worm while we’re at Shea, he can’t get one. Where’s anyone going to find a worm at Shea Stadium? Don’t worry, we’ll say, you’ve won; we’ll find a worm after we get home. And we keep right on stuffing him: peanuts, hot dogs, hamburgers, Cracker Jack, ice cream, orange soda, gum, Mars Bars. You know how he loves to eat. You ever seen him refuse something to eat? By the time we start home he’ll be bloated, drowsy, belching. Remember the last time? When his father took us? He was asleep by the time we hit Peekskill. Your father’ll carry him in from the car; his mother and father’ll put him to bed; next morning he’ll wake up—TOO LATE! You’ve won! Fifteen worms in fifteen days! He missed a day!”
Alan gnawed at his thumbnail. “What about Tom?”
“We’ll ask him along and then just not pick him up. We can tell your father and Billy that Tom’s mother called, he was sick, his grandmother died, anything, just so we don’t have to bring him with us.”
Alan sighed. “Geez, it’ll probably cost me eight dollars just to buy all that food—Cracker Jack, hamburgers—”
“Yeah, but it’ll cost you fifty dollars if he wins.”
“Yeah, well—oh Geez, how’d I ever get into this? If my father finds out—”
Alan slumped on the porch steps, gazing down at his sneakers, gnawing his thumbnail.
“Come on,” said Joe, slapping him on the shoulder. “Cheer up. You haven’t lost yet. Go ask your father.”
XXIV
The Twelfth Worm
YOU think Alan really meant it when he said he’d given up?” asked Billy, turning down the flame under the frying pan. He was cooking a toasted-cheese-and-worm sandwich.
“I don’t know,” said Tom, looking in the refrigerator. “I suppose so. He asked us to the Mets game—Say, is that chocolate pudding?”
“Yeah, but don’t take any. It’s for supper.”
“I could just scrape some off the top, and then you could tell your mother it fell out upside down on the floor by mistake while you were getting the cheese out, so you scraped the dirty part off into the garbage.”
“Welllll—” said Billy doubtfully.
“Thomas Grout,” said Billy’s mother, coming in from the hall. “I’m surprised at you.”
“Aw, Mrs. Forrester, I wouldn’t really have done it. I was just, you know, talking. Everybody talks: my father, Billy’s father, Billy, my sisters Annie, Charlotte, Polly—” He was backing toward the door. “—Betty, Agnes, Columbus—”
“I didn’t know you had a sister named Columbus, Tom,” said Billy’s mother. “Would you like some chocolate ice cream instead?”
“Oh, sure, Mrs. Forrester,” said Tom, relieved. He sat down at the table. “It’s my cousin who’s named Columbus.” He grinned. “Columbus Ohio. He’s a capital fellow, Mrs. Forrester.”
And then he had to grab the edge of the table to keep from rolling off his chair laughing at his own joke. Billy looked disgusted. His mother opened the refrigerator, shaking her head.
XXV
Pearl Harbor
THE car slid quietly to a stop under the streetlight outside Billy’s house.
“Shhh,” whispered Alan to his father. “Billy’s asleep.”
His father glanced back at Billy, snoring peacefully in the back seat, his plump cheeks sticky with orange soda.
“Alan, run up to the house and tell them I’m bringing Billy in.”
Billy’s father met them at the front door, and taking Billy, whispered his thanks. Alan and his father went down the walk. Behind them the porch light clicked off.
* * *
In the back seat of the car Joe and Alan wrestled gleefully.
“We did it!” “We’ve won!” “He’ll never wake up now!”
Alan struggled out of Joe’s grip and asked his father what time it was.
“Late. Almost midnight, I think.”
Joe pulled Alan’s head down and tried to sit on it.
“He couldn’t do it now even if he woke up. How could he find and cook and eat a worm in the dark? Hee, hee. We’ve won! We’ve won!”
XXVI
Guadalcanal
BUT slumped on the bathroom stool, his mother holding up his chin while she washed his face, Billy was waking.
“Hold still, dear. Did you have a good time? You’re certainly home late. Is this part of winning the bet?”
Billy’s eyes blinked sleepily. He had a gnawing feeling he had forgotten something. He hiccupped, gazing dopily down at the fuzzy blue bathmat … yawned … He’d remember in the morning. It couldn’t be that im—
BET!?!
BET!?!
He hadn’t won yet! There were still three to go! Fifteen! Fifteen worms in fifteen days! Today was …
He jumped up.
“Mom, I haven’t eaten my worm today!”
And suddenly it all came to him. The whole trip … all the candy bars, hot dogs, hamburgers, popcorn.
“What time is it, Mom? Quick!”
“About quarter to twelve.”
“It was a trick!” He snatched his pants off the floor. “They were trying to make me forget!” He tumbled and slid downstairs, through the dining room, his shirttail flying, yanked open the drawer in the kitchen table, snatched out the
flashlight, the drawer spilling out with a clatter and crash onto the floor, and slammed out the back door.
“The finks!”
He scuttled across the back field toward Tom’s house, searching the ground with the flashlight as he went.
“There! Darn, a stick! Geez, suppose I can’t find one?”
He stopped.
“There won’t be time to cook it!”
He ran on.
“And no ketchup.”
He stopped.
“I’ll bet Tom wasn’t sick at all.”
He ran on. The night was moonless and close. He paused to heave over a rotten log in the high, dewy grass—mealybugs and scooters—clambered over the stone wall into Tom’s backyard … and was all of a sudden wrestling with a pup tent.
Muffled grunts and thrashings.
“Tom!” he yelled. “Tom! It’s me! Billy! They’re trying to trick us.”
Tom and his younger brother Pete crawled out from under the pup tent.
“It was a trick,” panted Billy. “Alan and Joe were trying to make me forget. Fifteen worms in fifteen days. If I don’t eat one in the next ten minutes, Alan’ll say he’s won. It’s almost midnight.”
“And they left me home so I wouldn’t remind you?”
Billy nodded.
“Have you got a worm?”
“We’ll have to find one.”
Tom dug back into the pup tent and came up with two flashlights. They zigzagged back and forth across the lawn, bent over, searching.
“I got one!” cried Pete.
“Shhh.”
“I’ll have to eat it raw,” said Billy. He threw back his head.
“Wait,” whispered Tom, grabbing his arm. “You should do it where Alan and Joe can see you. Pete, run and get your siren out of the garage.”
XXVII
The Thirteenth Worm
UNDER the streetlight in front of Alan’s house Tom and Pete knelt over the siren. Billy stood beside them, the night crawler squirming in his fingers.
“Now wait till lots of lights come on all over, in all the houses,” said Tom. “Then chomp it down. Ready, Pete? Now.”
The siren growled, winding slowly up and up until it
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