SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECHED! across the sleeping neighborhood, sending birds squawking and chirping into the air from trees and rooftops; dogs began to bark; windows lit up; there were confused shouts, bangs of windows slamming up.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” shouted Tom through the dying whine of the siren, “Alan Phelps and Joseph O’Hara, through their finkiness and cheating, their lies and dirty—”
“Come on,” muttered Billy, his head thrown back, dangling the worm over his open mouth. “We haven’t got much time.”
“Alan Phelps and Joseph O’Hara,” shouted Tom, “have forced us to wake you all up so that you may now witness, ta-ratta-ta-ratta-ta-ratta-ta-ta: THE EATING OF THE THIRTEENTH WORM!”
He dropped to his knees; the siren wound slowly up to a SCREECH! Billy dropped the crawler into his mouth and chewed furiously, his eyes closed; fell to his knees, still chewing, his face turning beet-red; toppled over on his side, still chewing; rolled and writhed about the sidewalk, clutching his stomach, still chewing—Tom and Pete kneeling by the streetlight, working the screaming siren….
Billy threw open his arms and lay still on his back under the glare of the streetlight, his mouth wide open.
“TAAA—RAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaa!” announced Tom, springing up and pointing to Billy.
The three boys ran off into the darkness. As they went, Tom yelled, “Remember: Alan Phelps and Joseph O’Hara.”
XXVIII
Hello, We’re….
A confused murmur arose up and down the street. Suddenly a boy shouted from the Phelps’s house.
“Finks!”
Alan’s father dragged him back from the window.
“Is that why you were stuffing Billy with candy and junk all day?”
“Leave me alone. Yeah. We were trying to trick him. The fink. FINKS!” he yelled at the top of his voice, lunging toward the window.
“Quiet!”
His father sat him down hard in a chair.
Joe peered furtively out through the fringe of the bedspread. As soon as he had heard the siren and Tom’s yells, he had crawled under the bed.
“And that’s why Billy woke the whole neighborhood up? to show you he hadn’t been tricked?”
“Yes.”
His father let go of Alan’s pajama collar. In the doorway Alan’s mother threw up her hands and went off to the bathroom to take two aspirin.
The next day Alan and Joe tramped from house to house in the neighborhood, knocking on each door and then reciting in chorus:
“Hello. We’re Alan Phelps and Joseph O’Hara. We’re the reason you were waked up in the middle of the night last night, and we’re sorry.” Breath. “You’ll be happy to know our parents have punished us we can’t look at television or have any dessert for a month and our allowances have been taken away for two weeks we promise that it will never happen again.”
“At least not in this neighborhood,” muttered Joe as the last door closed behind them.
“And Alan,” said his father at dinner that night, “I don’t want to hear that there has been any repetition of this incident at Billy’s or Tom’s house or anywhere else. Do you understand that?”
“But we can’t let them get away with it, Mr. Phelps,” called Joe from the living room, where he was waiting for Alan to finish dinner.
“There will be no repetition of this incident or anything like it,” repeated Mr. Phelps. “You tried to trick Billy and lost. That will be the end of the matter.”
XXIX
YOU know what you are?” said Alan, his nose almost touching Billy’s. “You’re a bastard.”
“And you’re another,” sneered Billy through clenched teeth. “And a cheating, lying, dirty, snot-nosed, cheating, lying one.”
“If you say two more words,” said Alan, “you know what? I’ll beat your head in.”
Billy breathed hard.
“I’m right behind you,” muttered Tom, peering grimly over Billy’s shoulder, his fists clenched.
“Yeah?” said Joe from behind Alan. “So what? We can lick both of you with our hands tied behind our backs and paper bags over our heads.”
“You couldn’t lick a flea.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Spiffle!
Whack!
Thump!
“Someone’s choking! No fair!”
Thwomp!
Gouge!
Joe crawled off behind a tree, nose bleeding.
Womp!
“He’s pulling hair!”
“He’s scratching!”
Twist!
Tsiwt!
Alan crawled weeping behind a bush. Thump! Whack! Donk!
“Billy! It’s just you and me!”
“Where’re the others?”
Tom and Billy untangled and sat up, bruised, scratched, dusty, shirts torn, hair tousled. Tom’s nose was bleeding, Billy’s shoe had come off.
“Yaaaaaaa ya!” sassed Alan and Joe from behind the tree.
Billy started to shake his fist at them and clamber up, but then sank back. Tom panted beside him, bleary-eyed.
“Yaaaaaaa ya, all worn out? Can’t fight anymore?”
Alan scooped up a handful of mud and flung it at Tom and Billy. Then Joe did the same. Billy and
Tom scrambled up and pelted back. Mud splattered against trees and bushes. Alan began to cry. A rock hit Billy over the eye. He sat down backward in the mud, covering his head with his arms, sobbing. Joe and Tom stopped throwing. Joe grabbed Alan. “Come on.”
Tom knelt beside Billy. “Lemme see, Billy. Is it bad? Take your arms away so I can see.” He tried to pull Billy’s arms apart. Billy wrenched away.
“Come on,” said Tom in a scared voice. “I’ll take you home. Come on. Your mother can take you to the doctor.”
XXX
The Peace Treaty
ALAN and Joe sat on the sofa, Tom and Billy on two straight chairs opposite them.
“Now,” said Alan’s father. “What’s this all about?”
The four boys all began talking at once, accusing, recounting, explaining.
“All right,” said Alan’s father after a while. “That’s enough. Now we know it’s got something to do with this bet Alan and Billy made, but Mr. O’Hara and I aren’t going to get involved in that. You’ll have to settle that among yourselves.”
“You four boys have been friends too long to start fighting now,” said Mr. O’Hara. “You really hurt each other. Look at yourselves, your faces all bruised and muddy. Talk it over, work things out, and then you can shake and be friends again.”
Joe muttered under his breath, “I couldn’t be friends with those rats.”
“We’ll be out in the kitchen,” said Alan’s father. “When you’ve settled it, call us, and we’ll all go down to Friendly’s for some ice cream. Okay?”
Billy and Alan and Tom nodded. The two fathers left the room. The boys gazed silently at each other. After a while, Alan said, “It wasn’t us that scratched Tom. Billy did it.”
Another silence.
“Did you have stitches?” Billy asked Alan.
“Naw. Did you?”
Billy shook his head.
More silence.
“You tried to cheat,” said Billy.
“That wasn’t cheating. We were just trying to trick you.”
“Yeah, but before that. When you glued the two worms together. That was cheating.”
“You would have cheated, too, if you’d been losing.”
Billy thought about it.
“Okay. But look, no more cheating. I’ve already eaten thirteen worms; you know I can eat two more. Heck, if I buy George Cunningham’s brother’s minibike, we can all use it—we’ll all have fun with it.”
Joe and Alan glanced at each other.
“Okay,” said Joe. “You win. He wins, Alan.”
“Yeah, but—”
“What’s the use?” said Joe. “We’ve tried everything. I’m sick of it. Geez, we’ve done nothi
ng else for almost two weeks.”
Alan scratched his eyebrow, glancing at Joe. “Yeah, but—”
Joe stood up. “Come on. At least we’ll get a milk shake out of it.”
XXXI
The Letter
BILLY lifted the worm out of the frying pan with the cooking tongs and curled it back and forth on his peanut-butter sandwich.
“I bet they try something,” he said, “Joe won’t give up. Alan might, but Joe won’t.”
Tom was carving his initials in the leg of the kitchen table. “Yeah, but it’s not Joe’s bet. What does he care?”
“Just the same I bet he tries something.”
Billy sat down at the table, turning the sandwich this way and that, looking for the best spot to take the first bite.
Emily came in from the dining room.
“You and mom got a letter.”
Chewing, Billy opened it.
XXXII
Croak
HIS hand trembling, Billy laid the peanut-butter-and-fried-worm sandwich down on the table.
“Do you think—”
“Wow,” whispered Tom.
The screen door banged.
Billy’s father came into the kitchen, his tie loosened, his jacket over his arm. He laid his briefcase on the table.
“It’s hot,” he said cheerfully.
Billy staggered to the sink and feebly drew himself a glass of water.
Tom and Emily watched him, awestruck.
“What’s the matter?” asked Billy’s father.
Water dribbled down Billy’s chin and onto his T-shirt as he drank. His mind swam. Poison? Paralysis? Extreme lussitude?
“Tom,” said Billy’s father, “what’s going on?”
Tom pointed at the letter lying on the table.
Billy’s father read it, smiled, glanced at Billy, and getting a beer out of the refrigerator, sat down at the table.
“Well,” he said to Billy. “So it fooled you, eh?”
“Fooled me?” croaked Billy.
XXXIII
The Fourteenth Worm
BUT how could Alan and Joe know all those medical words, Mr. Forrester?” said Tom. “Lumbricus coreopsis? Fulmar?”
“Do you know what fulmar really means?”
Tom and Billy shook their heads.
“It means a bird, a seabird, I think.”
“Boy,” said Billy, disgusted. He sat back down at the table and picked up his sandwich.
“They could be arrested, Mr. Forrester,” said Tom. “Couldn’t they be arrested for defrauding the mails? Couldn’t they?”
Billy grinned and bit down on the peanut-butter-and-fried-worm sandwich.
XXXIV
The Fifteenth….
STANDING on a rusty pail, Billy peered through a crack into the horse barn. Joe was wandering about lashing at cobwebs with a stick; Alan was slumped on a barrel, gnawing his thumbnail.
Billy went around to the door.
“Hi,” he said.
Alan didn’t look up.
“Hi,” said Joe.
Billy glanced around suspiciously.
“Take it easy,” said Joe. “We concede. At least I do. He’s still trying to think up something.” He pointed at Alan with the stick.
“Where’s Tom?” said Billy.
“He wouldn’t eat his lunch, so his mother kept him in.”
Billy leaned over the platter on the orange crate and smelled the steaming, Southern-fried worm.
“He wanted to load it with red pepper,” said Joe, “but I wouldn’t let him.”
Billy forked ketchup, mustard, and piccalilli onto the platter, cut a piece of worm, dipped it in the glop, stuck it in his mouth, chewed nervously … swallowed … cut another piece…. The worm tasted better than usual, sort of like kidney beans, Southern-fried kidney beans.
“Where’d you get this one?”
“Down behind Bannerman’s,” said Joe.
“From the muck!” yelled Alan. “The muck! Gooey, slimy, stagnant muck!”
Billy grinned. “Yeah? You’ll have to show me. This is the best one yet.”
Alan jumped up and kicked the barrel clattering into a stall. Joe shrugged at Billy, grinning. Billy held up the last bite.
“Ta-rahhhh.”
He swallowed it.
“Okay, lemme look,” said Alan. “Come on.” He peered into Billy’s mouth.
“Oh, no. Come on. There’s some still stuck between your teeth there.”
Billy sucked noisily at his teeth.
“Okay?”
Alan’s shoulders slumped.
“I can’t get the money till tomorrow,” he said. “Oh, geez. You know I’ll have to work Saturdays for six months to pay it back.”
He trudged slowly toward the door.
“Comin’, Joe?”
“Yeah, maybe your father won’t act so bad if I’m there when you tell him.”
Alan stopped in the door.
“Tomorrow?” he said without turning. “Ten o’clock?”
He sounded as if he was going to cry.
“Yeah, sure,” said Billy. “Make it later if you want.”
“Naw. It’s not going to do any good putting it off. Come on, Joe.”
XXXV
Burp
LEFT alone in the barn, Billy hugged himself.
“I won! I won! Fifty dollars. Ha, ha.”
He sat down on the crate, grinning.
“Heck, I knew I could do it. Ha. I was so scared at first, waking everybody up in the middle of the night.”
He burped—beans.
“I should have made it thirty worms and one hundred dollars. That stupid letter. Joe knew when he was licked though. Ha. Geez.”
BEANS?!!?
He stood up.
How come that burp had tasted like beans? He’d had a hamburger for lunch. And a glass of milk. Then the worm. Say … they couldn’t have … ?
He snatched up the platter. Nothing left, just a few crumbs of cornmeal. Craning his neck, his eyes bugging out, straining, he … he … burped: beans!
Again: beans!
He burst out of the barn, stumbling over the sill, yelling. Across the field Joe and Alan turned. Alan started to run; Joe grabbed his arm.
“It was a fake!” panted Billy, coming up to them. “You faked it! It wasn’t a real worm!”
“Real worm?” said Joe. “What’re you talking about?”
“You made a worm!” yelled Billy. “Out of beans! Then tomorrow you were going to say I’d lost, I hadn’t eaten fifteen worms—the last one was fake.”
“Oh, geez,” said Alan. “Come on, will ya?”
“He didn’t do it while I was around,” said Joe. “You sure? What’d you have for lunch?”
“A hamburger and milk.”
“Yeah, but where’d you get the hamburger?”
“I don’t know. My mother bought it. What difference does that make?”
“Yeah, well, a lot of the hamburg you get these days has stuff mixed in it. You know, sausage meat, soybeans, bread crumbs. So the butcher makes more money.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” said Billy. “Sure. But anyway, you come on back. Just to make sure, I’m going to eat another worm.”
“Geez, suit yourself. Eat four more. Come on, Alan, let’s go. Let him eat what he wants.”
XXXVI
The Fifteenth Wo….
BILLY threw back his head, lowered the worm … Alan charged around the door! leaped on Billy’s back! flung him to the ground! punching! yelling! … jumped up! grabbed Billy’s feet! dragged him bump-bump-bump across the rough chaffy floor to the tool closet! bundled him inside! slammed the door! locked it!
Silence. Water trickling into the trough outside, Alan panting….
“What’re you gonna do with him?” Joe asked hoarsely from the doorway.
“IF HE’S IN THE CLOSET, HE CAN’T EAT THE WORM, CAN HE?”
“You’re crazy. He’ll start to yell. His parents’ll hear him.”
&
nbsp; “YEAH? YEAH?”
Alan’s hair was mussed; his shirttail hung out.
“Yeah,” said Joe, eyeing him. “He will. He’ll start to yell and his parents’ll hear him.”
Alan glanced wildly about … started toward the door … turned….
“Not if we put him down the cistern.”
“The cistern?” Joe wiped his mouth. “Alan, cut it out. It’s only fifty dollars. Come on. Face it. You’ve lost. You can’t put Billy down in that cistern all by himself. Suppose there’s water in it? It’s fifteen feet deep.”
“We can lower him down with a rope.”
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
Billy was kicking the tool-closet door.
“LEMME OUT! HELP! LEMME OUT! IT’S CHEATING! HELP! I wanna get out, I wanna get out, I wanna get out—”
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
He chanted rhythmically, kicking the door with both feet in time with his chant.
Alan ran across the barn and grabbing hold of a beam, skidding to a stop, began to kick aside the hay and trash which littered the planks over the old cistern.
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
“I wanna get out, I wanna get out, I wanna get out—”
“Come on!” Alan yelled at Joe. “Help me! We were all down in it last year. How’s it gonna hurt him? Come on. It’ll work. I’ll split with you. Get some rope.”
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
“I wanna get out, I—”
XXXVII
Out of the Frying Pan into the Oven
ON his knees, yanking at the planks which covered the old cistern, thinking, I’ve got him. I’ve got him. I win. He’ll never … Alan felt a hand grip his shoulder, glanced up….
“WHAT THE DEVIL IS GOING ON IN HERE?” Mr. Forrester shouted down at him.
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! “I wanna—”
* * *
A confused babble of voices, dying out suddenly.
“Now,” said Mr. Forrester. “Alan and Joe: home! Scoot.”
Alan and Joe crowded out the door.
“I’ve won!” crowed Billy. He danced toward the platter. “Nothing can—”
How to Eat Fried Worms Page 5