“When was the last time you took a shower, Cal?”
I sniffed my T-shirt.
“Not your shirt. You.”
I shrugged. “Where’s Darci?”
“Watching cartoons.”
“Where’s Stella?”
“She went to her friend Tina’s house. What is this, the Inquisition?”
“What’s the Inquisition?”
“Are you hungry?”
“Yeah, but Mom … do you have any jobs I can do to make money?”
Mom studied me. It wasn’t a question I made a habit of asking. “Well, you can clean your room for a start. I shouldn’t have to pay you for that, but if you do a good job I’ll consider it.”
Ick.
“What else?”
“Mow the lawn. Pull weeds. Clean the garage. Wash out the garbage can. Fold laundry … no, not that. I’ll just have to do it again.”
I considered my options. I sure didn’t want to mow the lawn, and cleaning my room was out of the question. The garbage can was so disgusting I’d probably pass out just by taking the lid off, and the garage would take all day.
“I guess I’ll pull weeds.”
Mom put a fist on her hip and looked at me. “Fine. You can start with the flower bed out front… but only after you eat something.”
I grabbed the Frosted Mini-Wheats out of the pantry and shook the box. Scraps. I reached in for the last few. “How much will you pay me?”
“You’re snacking, not eating. Get a bowl and add milk.”
I got a bowl. There were seven Mini-Wheats. I poured milk on them. Mom rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Write it on my grocery list.”
“So how much?”
“That depends on how much work you do and how well you do it.” Mom leaned against the sink and crossed her arms. “What’s this all about, anyway? I mean, this sudden desire to make money.”
I didn’t want to tell her, because it was supposed to be a surprise. I shrugged. “I might need it… someday.”
Mom snorted. “Isn’t that the truth.”
Ten minutes later I was kneeling on the hard, sun-baked dirt under our front window. Mom’s flowers looked like starving prisoners in a chain gang, guarded by an army of wiry weeds.
I pulled one.
It broke off. The bottom part stayed in the dirt, like it was cemented there. The stub looked up at me like, That’s all you got?
“Whatcha doing, Calvin?”
I sat back on my heels. “Pulling weeds.”
Darci knelt beside me. “Is it fun?”
“Sure, lots. Want to try?”
Darci nibbled her thumb. “Which one should I pull?”
“How about… um … that one.”
Darci pulled. The weed broke off, just like mine.
“Fun, huh?”
“Let’s do more.”
Together we broke weeds and piled them on the grass. I didn’t mind this work. It was good for thinking. And what I thought of was how much I was earning and how close to eighteen dollars I was getting.
“Hey, Darce. Do you have any money you don’t want? Like in your bank, or something?”
“Maybe. Do you want it?”
“To borrow, yeah. I need to buy Stella a birthday present… but it’s a surprise, so keep it to yourself.”
“A secret! I won’t tell anyone.” Darci jumped up. “I’ll go look.”
“Yeah, look,” I said.
I broke off more weeds. The pile was growing.
I heard a car pull up and looked over my shoulder.
It was Ledward.
Mom’s boyfriend.
22
If It’s Broke, Fix It
Ledward parked his World War II army jeep on the grass. He’d told me it was once an abandoned rusty old hulk covered by weeds and vines up in the jungle. “Still had a good body. The engine needed work, but with some new parts, it could run again. If it’s broke, fix it, ah? That’s all.”
I went back to weeding.
Ledward came up and stood over me. He was so big and tall he blocked out the sun and half the sky. “Whatchoo doing down there, boy?”
“Weeding.” I didn’t look up.
He squatted next to me. He smelled good, like he’d just shaved or something. “Mind if I try?”
I looked at him like, Really? “Sure, go ahead.”
Ledward grabbed a weed in his huge hand. He wiggled it a little, and slowly pulled it up at an angle. The whole thing came out, roots and all. He shook dirt off and laid the weed across his huge palm. “See this? That’s the roots. You don’t get them out, the weed just going be poking its head up again tomorrow.”
I looked at the army of broken stems I’d left in the dirt. I was going to see a whole new regiment tomorrow.
“Best thing is if you use a weeder,” Ledward said. “Let me go see what I got in my jeep.”
I sat back and waited. Ledward did a lot of stuff around our house. He could fix anything. If he had something to make this job easier, I was all for it.
He came back and handed me a screwdriver. “Try this.”
I worked the screwdriver into the dirt, angling it under a fresh weed. I pulled, slowly, wiggling it the way Ledward had.
The weed came out… all of it. “Hey! It works.”
Ledward tapped my shoulder. “Now you got um.”
“Thanks.”
“No problem. Your mama home?”
“Yeah. Inside.”
Ledward stood and went into the house. He didn’t knock, just walked right in. He’d been coming around to see Mom for more than a year now.
Darci came back with her life savings tucked under her arm. It was in a gray box that looked like a bank vault with a combination lock. She plopped down cross-legged on the grass and opened it up. A few coins spilled out.
“Hmm,” I said, picking them up. “Twenty-seven cents. Can I borrow it?”
“Uh-huh, you want to borrow the bank, too?”
“Naah, you can keep that.”
I stuck the twenty-seven cents in my pocket and pulled weeds until the sun made my back feel as if Mom was ironing my shirt with me in it.
“Enough,” I finally said. “Let’s go find Mom.”
She was on the back patio with Ledward. They were lounging in plastic chairs and sipping tall glasses of iced tea with green mint leaves in them.
Mom raised her glass as I walked up. “There’s more of this in the kitchen.”
“How long did I work?”
Mom looked over her shoulder at the clock hanging on a rusty nail next to the sliding screen door. “Forty minutes.”
She took a sip of tea.
Ledward gazed out over the weedy backyard. I was surprised the flimsy chair he was squeezed into could hold him up without collapsing.
But I was there for my money. “Um … can I get paid?”
“Well… let’s go see how much work you did.”
Darci and I followed Mom and Ledward around to the front. Mom nudged the pile of weeds with her toe. It was only about the size of someone’s crumpled-up T-shirt. “Is this all you’re going to do?”
I shrugged. “Yeah … I guess.”
Mom chewed her thumbnail, thinking. “Well, how much do you think I should pay you?”
That was a question I had an answer for—about three dollars would do it. But that was too much for the meager pile of weeds drying up in the sun by her feet.
I shrugged.
Mom thought some more. “What do you think, Led?”
“He should do it for free. He lives here. He should work. Help out.”
I stared at my dirty feet.
Mom nodded. “Of course, you’re right. But he wanted to make some money today.”
Ledward didn’t say more, and I was glad about that. But I knew what he was thinking, and he was right. I hadn’t done enough to get paid.
“Okay, here’s the deal,” Mom said. “You pick up the clothes all over the floor in your room and put them in the laund
ry basket, then I’ll give you two dollars. How’s that?”
Ho! That was way more than the nothing I should have gotten. “Deal,” I said, before she could change her mind.
“And do something with that pile of weeds, too. They’ll kill the grass if you just leave them there.”
In my opinion the grass was so thick and healthy, not even rat poison could kill it.
I nudged Darci. “Scoop up that pile of weeds, Darce. We got some figuring to do.”
We sat on the lower bunk in my room and spread what looked like a fortune out on the blanket. “Eighty-seven cents, Darce. That’s all I need. Eighty-seven cents!”
“What are you getting for Stella?”
I told her about the Chris Botti CD, and how much Stella was going to love it.
“I made her a note,” Darci said.
“A note?”
“Uh-huh, and I already gave it to her. It says I’ll make her bed five times, for free.”
I laughed. “That’s good, Darce.”
We found ninety-one cents in the dusty valleys of our living room couch and fifteen more under the seats in Mom’s car.
“Yes!” I cheered. “Eighteen dollars and nineteen cents! I’m there, Darce! I’m there!”
23
Feeling Rich
I punched my alarm clock at seven the next morning.
Monday.
Stella’s sixteenth birthday.
I jumped down from the top bunk and pulled on my jeans. I counted the extra nineteen cents out of my fortune and set it aside to pay Darci back. Eighteen dollars went into my pocket. A few bills and a lot of coins. It made a big bulge, and was as heavy as a fistful of nails. I patted it, feeling richer than I’d ever been in my life. Too bad by tonight I’d be broke again. In debt, too. I also had to pay Willy back.
In the kitchen, Mom and Stella were making lunches as usual. I grabbed the orange juice out of the fridge and started to drink from the spout.
“Stop!” Mom said, scowling at me. “Why is it that you can’t hold even the tiniest thought in your head? How many times have I told you not to drink from the carton?”
“Sorry.”
I got a glass.
Stella eyed me. “What you got in your pocket, Stump?”
“Mom! She called me Stump again.”
“Be nice, Stella,” Mom said. “He’s impressionable. We don’t want to diminish his self-esteem.”
“He’s got self-esteem?”
“Calvin, is there something you want to say to Stella this morning?”
I looked at Mom. Huh?
Mom sighed. “What day is this?”
“Uh, Monday?”
Mom squinted at me. “Happy birthday, Stella,” she said, scolding me with her eyes.
“Oh. Yeah. Uh … happy birthday.”
Stella pinched my cheek. “Thank you for remembering, Stumpy. That’s sweet of you.”
I was so glad my room was way out in the garage. I couldn’t even imagine living as close to Stella as Darci did.
In the pantry I found a brand-new box of Honey Nut Cheerios. I got a bowl and took it to the counter. Darci wandered in and climbed up onto the stool next to me.
Stella thunked a carton of milk down between us.
“Five minutes,” Mom said, leaving the kitchen. “I’m driving you to school today.” Sometimes we walked.
I ate and left my bowl where it was on the counter. By the time I got home from school that afternoon, it would be crawling with ants. Maybe there’d even be a dead fly in it. Which would be great. I could feed it to Manly Stanley.
I grabbed my backpack and stuffed my lunch into it.
“Hey!” Stella snapped. “You can’t just leave your bowl there for the ants to crawl into while you’re pretending to learn something in school. Take it to the sink and rinse it out.”
Tell me again why I went through all that trouble to make eighteen dollars?
24
Chris Botti
After school Willy, Julio, Rubin, and Maya waited for me at the jungle gym while I got Darci. We were all going to the music store to turn my cash into a Chris Botti CD.
“Let’s go,” I said, running up.
Julio pointed with his chin. “Look.”
Tito, Bozo, and Frankie Diamond had a couple of third graders surrounded. Robbery in progress. Time to slip away unseen.
“Run silent, run fast,” I said.
At the music store, we crowded around the jazz section.
I snapped up the brand-new Chris Botti CD. “This is it.”
Darci, Maya, Julio, Willy, and Rubin pushed in to see.
“Is he a singer, or what?” Maya asked.
I shrugged. “Don’t ask me.”
Keoni the sales guy was at the counter. “You’re back.”
Darci and Maya gawked at the two rings poking through his lower lip.
I dumped the wad of money on the counter.
“Ho! You rob a parking meter or something?”
“Worked for it,” I said, feeling proud that I’d made most of the money myself.
Keoni shook his head and scanned the price code, then set the CD on the counter. “Eighteen dollars and seventy-two cents.”
I gaped at him. What?
Keoni leaned down on the counter. “You want me to help you count it out?”
“But…”
I looked down at the pile of money. “I… I thought it was eighteen dollars.”
Keoni rescanned the CD. “Yep, eighteen.”
“But you just said eighteen dollars and … something.”
“Well, with tax it’s eighteen seventy-two.”
“Tax?”
“Tax … you know what that is?”
“No.”
After all the work and scrambling I’d done, I still didn’t have enough money? I stared at the pile of coins and bills.
“Listen,” Keoni said. “Let’s just see what we’ve got here.”
Keoni separated the bills and coins into neat piles and counted it all up. “Eighteen dollars, right on the nose.” He leaned forward and cupped his chin in his hand. “You’re short seventy-two cents. You got that in your pocket?”
I shook my head. I felt like I’d been slapped in the face with a wet T-shirt. “No,” I mumbled. “That’s everything.”
I stared at all the money. It looked like a lot. “I guess I can’t buy it.”
Keoni nodded.
The Chris Botti CD lay on the counter, shiny new in its plastic wrap. “It was a birthday present,” I whispered.
A silent moment passed.
“Tell you what,” Keoni said. He dug into his pocket. “If I have seventy-two cents, you can have it.”
“Really?”
Keoni smiled. “I think you might be in luck.” He poured a handful of pennies, nickels, and dimes onto the counter. He had the seventy-two cents and added it to the pile. “How did you get all this money, anyway?”
“Me and my friends collected cans and made shave ice and pulled weeds and found some money in the couch and the car.”
Keoni snorted. “Sounds like how my dad got this store. He scratched up every last buck he could find.”
“This is your dad’s store?”
“Every spider-infested corner of it.”
“Wow.”
Keoni bagged the CD and walked us to the door. “You folks come back again, okay?”
“We will,” we all said, heading out into the sun. “Thank you, mister, thank you!”
At Maya’s house, we found some wrapping paper that was shiny pink with little red hearts all over it. It was in the laundry room, left over from Valentine’s Day.
“Is this all you have?” I asked.
Maya shrugged. “Sorry.”
“Fine.”
I wrapped the Chris Botti CD. Darci helped me make a birthday card using red, blue, green, and yellow markers.
I signed the bottom: From Calvin Coconut.
Darci signed: Love, Darci.
�
��You sign, too,” I said, handing Willy the pen. “You made a lot of the money to buy this.”
Willy put up his hands. “No, no. This is your present.”
I looked at my friends. They’d all helped out.
Maya grinned. “Think she’ll like it?”
That was a good question.
25
Tito Meets Clarence
Later that afternoon, Tito kept his word.
I was in my garage-bedroom scribbling down how much I owed Willy and Darci when I saw movement in the window and looked up.
Tito was standing in our driveway with a brown paper grocery bag. Across the street I could see Bozo and Frankie Diamond squatting in the weeds that edged the road.
“No, no, no,” I said, dropping my pencil. I ran out.
“Heyyy,” Tito said, smiling like he was glad to see me. “Coco-pal, howzit?”
“What are you doing here? You got to go!”
“Is that any way to treat a friend? Come on, bro, be nice.”
I frowned and looked over my shoulder at the front window. Stella was home, and if she saw Tito she’d—
Tito raised the paper bag. “I just want to give Stella something … for her birfday.”
“What is it?”
“Surprise … for Stella, ah? Not you.” Tito grinned.
I frowned and looked across the street. Frankie Diamond waved. Bozo gave me stink eye.
This is bad, I thought. Bad, bad, bad.
Tito started for the front door.
I tried to block him, but he shoved me aside. “I said be nice, Coco-punk, or else I might have to rearrange your face. You like I do that?”
I winced when I saw Stella squinting out the window.
Tito saw her, too, and blew her a kiss.
Jeese!
Stella banged out the door before Tito took another step. She blocked his way, her hands on her hips. “Rag boy,” she said.
Rag boy. The one other time Stella had seen Tito he was wearing a T-shirt with stains all over it. She said, “You always wear rags?” It was funny … then.
Tito must have thought rag boy was one of Stella’s terms of endearment, because he didn’t even blink.
The Zippy Fix Page 5