“We know,” said Jennifer. “No more World Domination. My coeditor tried to write about it last fall. Mr. Brooks asked us not to.”
Dr. Duke shook her head. “I didn’t know,” she said. “Very sad. A great man like Mr. Brooks. Does he still make you memorize speeches?”
Adam nodded. He’d hated that assignment; he’d got an 85 on his Winston speech. He’d forgotten that stupid part about sinking into an abyss of a new Dark Age. Dr. Duke really knew how to bring up bad memories.
“Adam, you don’t realize it,” she continued, “but you have a very powerful gift. I hope you’ll go see Mrs. Gross. Even if it doesn’t work out, she’ll be happy to see you. It will be a nice retirement present for her.”
“Of course we will,” said Jennifer.
Adam didn’t answer. He hated the way adults twisted stuff around to make you feel bad. He felt like he was sinking into an abyss of a new Dark Age.
“You don’t have to go.”
“I’ll go.”
“Really, you don’t have to. I don’t mind going alone.”
“I want to.”
“I’m the one Mrs. Ameche called.”
“You don’t even like the Ameche brothers. Every time you go there, you run away. You said they’re idiots.”
“Mrs. Ameche’s not. She’s really smart and nice.”
“The Ameche brothers are her sons. If she’s so smart, how can she have idiot sons?”
“Your mother did.”
“Oh, you are a riot, you really are.”
“Can we not talk unless we have to?”
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
“I’ll meet you there.”
“Meet you there.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
Mrs. Ameche was on the warpath, but it wasn’t Adam and Jennifer’s fault. As she led them into her kitchen, she apologized. She said she’d invited Jennifer over to talk about a big ethics problem for the Slash, but it was going to have to wait. “Jenny, honey, since you guys started coming, these Ameche brothers think they’re Rupert Ameche-doch. They act like media moguls. They want to spend all day wheeling and dealing in their May Way West studios and forget their mother’s tomatoes. You don’t forget your mother’s tomatoes, do you, Jenny?”
“Ma,” said Don, “she’s probably like a normal person, who doesn’t have tomatoes.”
“Come on, Ma,” said Alan. “You know we work hard on the tomatoes. It’s just — the contest isn’t till the end of August, Ma.”
“There’s lots of time, Ma,” said Don. “Can you just calm down for a second?”
“Have we ever let you down, Ma?” said Alan.
Mrs. Ameche slapped her palm on her forehead. “Have you ever let me down? Am I hearing right? Do you really want me to answer that? Because I will. I just need to go upstairs and get my list. You stay put; I’m going upstairs! Stand back, I’m getting the list! You asked for it. The seven hundred thousand ways the Ameche brothers have let down their mother. Every single one of them documented. I’ll be right back —”
“Ma, Ma, stop,” said Don.
“Just stop, Ma,” said Alan.
“We’ll do your tomatoes, Ma,” said Don. “I swear. Right now. We’ll get out the stuff.”
“We will do them, Ma,” said Alan. “Just, not the list, Ma, please.”
“You don’t have to go upstairs, Ma,” said Don. “We’re on it.”
Mrs. Ameche eyeballed them suspiciously, but she did stop talking about the list.
“We’re happy to help,” said Jennifer. “My coeditor and I here will give the Ameche brothers a hand, so it goes faster. Then we’ll talk about the Slash?”
“Oh, Jenny, honey, you don’t have to,” said Mrs. Ameche. “It’s kind of . . . messy —”
“I insist,” said Jennifer. “My mother’s a big gardener. She belongs to the Tremble Garden Club. Her hydrangeas are pretty legendary. Sometimes I help with the planting. It’s kind of fun.”
Kind of fun? Right! Adam was looking forward to this. Jennifer did not have a clue what she was about to get into. This was too good to be true. He couldn’t wait to see the look on her face when she realized. For once in her life, Jennifer was going to find out the true meaning of dirty work. He put on a big grin and said, “Mrs. Ameche, you’re right. Jenny honey here will be a great help.”
Mrs. Ameche smiled. “If you insist, that’s very sweet,” she said. “Come out back; I’ll get you the stuff.” She led them down the back stairs and across the cluttered yard. “When you’re done at the rocks,” she said. “I’ll have a fresh batch of cannoli waiting. With the rainbow sprinkles. Then we’ll talk about the Slash.”
“The rocks?” said Jennifer.
“Oh, yeah,” said Mrs. Ameche. “It’s not far. Just a block up, at the end of the street, by the river. That’s where you find the best stuff. Tons of it. The birds roost on the rocks. You can’t tell anyone, Jenny, but it is the secret ingredient that won me state champion tomato three years in a row. Did the boys tell you my tomato was nearly five pounds last year?”
Mrs. Ameche disappeared into the Ameche brothers’ headquarters. They could hear her rattling around in there. When she came out, she had plastic bags, paint scrapers, old painting hats, and four pairs of surgical gloves. She handed a scraper, a trash bag, a hat, and gloves to each of them. “Uncle Louie used to work as a dental technician before he went away,” Mrs. Ameche explained to Jennifer. “He’d bring us cartons of extra gloves from the dentist’s office.”
She told them to be sure to wear the gloves. “It’s not the most sanitary stuff in the world,” she said. “I don’t think you can get any diseases that will kill you or anything, but it doesn’t hurt to be safe.”
“What’s the hat for?” asked Jennifer.
“Aerial bombardment,” said Mrs. Ameche. “You don’t want to risk a direct hit.”
The three boys were already out the gate.
Jennifer seemed frozen in place.
“Ameche brothers!” Mrs. Ameche yelled after them. “You know the drill. I need a bag full — and not just the doo. I want vomit, too.”
To the east, by Adam’s house in River Path, the Tremble River was lined with docks for boats and swimming, but here in the West End, the bank was covered by big boulders. The rocks — along with large chunks of cement from the demolition of old buildings — had been stacked here years ago by diesel-powered cranes to stem erosion of the riverbank. When Adam was little, he came with his dad on Saturday mornings, and they’d climb the rocks, as far as they could go, sometimes all the way to the end, where there was a chain-link fence with barbed wire, marked PRIVATE PROPERTY, that blocked off the Tremble Boat Yard.
The rocks were stacked at all angles, and it was tricky moving from rock to rock. Some were flat, some jagged, and you had to be careful where you put your foot as you jumped from one to the next. When Adam was little, he’d missed the next rock more than once and gotten some pretty good scrapes.
The Ameche brothers led the way with Adam close by and Jennifer lagging. “There.” Don pointed, indicating a stretch of rocks where dozens of black birds were perched. “Can you smell it yet?”
Adam could. It was a fishy, garbagey, stinky smell that shot up your nostrils to the inside of your brain.
“When we get close,” said Alan, “breathe through your mouth. It’s really disgusting close up.”
Adam was surprised. “I thought it was going to be seagulls,” he said, staring at the flock.
“I wish,” said Don.
“Cormorants,” said Alan. “A nasty, ducky kind of bird.”
“With vampire wings,” said Don.
“Cormorants,” repeated Adam. “I know them from Geography Challenge. A red fruit from a subtropical shrub found in dry parts of California, Iran, India —”
“That’s pomegranates,” said Jennifer. “Pomegranates.”
“Right,” said Adam. “I knew that.”
Jennife
r started to pull on the surgical gloves.
“Not yet,” said Don.
“Wait till we’re closer,” said Alan. “If you slip on the rocks, the gloves will rip.”
“And then you’re touching that stuff with your raw hands,” said Don.
“Try to walk on the same rocks we do,” said Alan.
Don went first, Alan second, then Adam and Jennifer. The Ameche brothers moved as if they’d memorized the rocks, jumping from one to the next like mountain goats, then stopping to wait for Adam and Jennifer. When they were about fifty feet away, Adam thought he heard a thumping sound. Don stopped immediately. “I’d put on the hat,” he said.
“Definitely,” said Alan.
They moved closer, and Adam was sure this time he heard a thump. Jennifer must have heard, too, because she stopped. She was looking kind of ashen. “Can I ask a question here?” she said. “What exactly are we doing?”
“What do you mean?” said Alan.
“What part don’t you understand?” said Don.
“All of it,” said Jennifer. “I don’t have a clue what we’re up to.” There was another thump. Adam looked around, but he still couldn’t tell what the noise was.
“See that white stuff all over the rocks?” said Don, pointing. “Like they’ve been painted white? Well, you know what that is?”
Jennifer didn’t answer.
“Bird doo,” said Adam.
“That’s a lot of what it is,” said Don. Alan said, “There’s also —” But Don interrupted him.
“I think that’s all they need to understand for now, unless the other comes up,” Don said.
“Very funny,” said Alan. “Good pun.”
“Lowest form of humor,” said Don, “but thanks.”
“Isn’t slapstick lowest?” said Alan.
“I can never remember,” said Don.
“I’m really sorry,” said Jennifer, “I know you must think I’m an idiot, but I still don’t get it. Why are we so interested in bird doo?”
“Oh,” said Alan.
“You really don’t get it?” said Don.
“Your good friend Mrs. Ameche,” said Adam. “She puts bird doo in her garden for her tomato plants.”
“Like fertilizer,” said Don. “Normal people go to the store and buy a sack of miracle chemicals. Not Ma.”
“Ma’s into nature,” said Alan. “Her secret ingredient. We mix the bird stuff into the soil.”
“It’s kind of pscyho,” said Don.
“Except —” said Alan.
“It works,” said Don.
They told her how Mrs. Ameche had won the state department of agriculture’s contest for the biggest tomato three years in a row.
When Jennifer said she hadn’t heard of it, the Ameche brothers seemed shocked.
“No?” said Don.
“It’s a huge deal,” said Alan. “One-thousand-dollar first prize. Plus we advertise it all over our tomato business.” And here, Alan paused, changing his voice to sound deep, like a radio announcer: “Made with Mrs. Ameche’s famous championship tomatoes . . .”
“Big is better and the biggest is the best,” said Don.
“You try it,” said Alan.
“You like it,” said Don.
The Ameches explained that there were regional weigh-offs all over the state, where your tomato was matched against other large tomatoes from your area. And then the regional winners would meet at a mall somewhere in the state — it was such a big honor, the location changed every year — for a final weigh-off to crown the state champion tomato.
“Neat,” said Adam. “Kind of like the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament, except for tomatoes.”
“Same thing,” said Don.
There was another thump.
“What was that?” asked Jennifer. “I keep hearing it.”
“Don’t worry,” said Don. “Let’s just get this over with. Remember to keep your hats on.” They got within thirty feet and stopped again. “You can put your gloves on,” whispered Don.
“Get ready,” said Alan.
“Look,” said Don. “You two use your scrapers to scrape the bird doo off the rocks and into your bags.”
“We’ll do the rest,” said Alan.
“The rest?” asked Adam.
“Not your problem,” said Don.
“Our problem,” said Alan.
“It’s our mother,” said Don.
“Lucky us,” said Alan.
The cormorants were fidgeting now, moving nervously along the rocks, bending their long necks in and out of an S shape, and making sideways glances at their four visitors.
“Next move,” whispered Don, “they’ll fly.”
“The dangerous part,” said Alan.
“We’ve only been hit once,” said Don. “They got Alan.”
“Really nasty,” said Alan.
“Here goes,” said Don, and they moved forward. In an instant, the cormorants spread their wide black wings and flew off at a sideways angle, in a line, one after the other, the only sound their wings flapping.
And then there was a thump-thump-thump-thump-thump.
Hunks of half-digested fish — fish heads, fish tails, fish bones, fish scales, fish eyes — along with parts of eels, mud snails, crabs — fell from the sky, thumping onto the rocks.
“Oh, gross!” yelled Adam. “They’re throwing up.”
“I’ve got to sit down,” said Jennifer, who looked terrible. “I think I’m going to — Oh my God . . .”
Before going back into the house, they left their plastic bags by the tomato garden, threw the gloves into the garbage, and washed their hands with the backyard hose. As Adam marched up the stairs behind the Ameches, he could smell warm cannoli. When they walked in there was a full dish on the kitchen table, and four tall glasses of milk.
Mrs. Ameche made them wash their hands again, in the sink, with soap.
“So how’d it go?” she asked as they settled in one by one around the table.
“We got your stuff, Ma,” said Don, who was eating his cannoli so quickly, the custard was squirting out the far end.
Alan said something, but it was hard to tell exactly what, his mouth was so jammed with cannoli.
“Jenny, honey,” said Mrs. Ameche. “Take one, don’t let these gorillas eat them all.”
“Not right now,” said Jennifer. “I’m not very hungry, Mrs. Ameche.”
Adam laughed. “I wonder why,” he said, hitting the table to make a thump-thump-thumping noise.
“It wasn’t anything like my mother’s hydrangeas,” Jennifer said softly.
“I guess not,” said Adam. “Jenny honey here must be part cormorant, if you get my meaning, because she —”
“She did great, Ma,” said Don.
Adam tried again. “You should have seen it, just like the cormorants, she —”
“She would have made you proud, Ma,” said Alan.
“Yeah,” said Don. “She’s tough, Ma. Didn’t complain once.”
“Stayed with us the whole way,” said Alan.
“Breathed through her mouth like a pro, Ma,” said Don.
Adam stared at the Ameche brothers. They were supposed to be his friends, not Jennifer’s. Everything was getting twisted in favor of Jennifer.
He was sure he didn’t deserve it, but for some reason, he felt like a jerk.
Jennifer, on the other hand, looked happy as a clam — a clam that had escaped the cormorants.
“I knew it,” said Mrs. Ameche. “I have a nose for this. You can tell so much about people by how they work. Good for you, Jenny. You wowed the Ameche brothers. That’s a tough crowd.” She went over to the refrigerator, cracked a bottle of soda, put a few ice cubes in a glass with a straw, then put it in front of Jennifer.
“Ginger ale,” Mrs. Ameche whispered. “Settles the stomach.”
They were quiet, licking the sprinkles and chocolate frosting off the cannoli, Jennifer sipping her drink. “Why do they do that?” she ask
ed.
“The Ameche brothers?” asked Mrs. Ameche.
“No, the cormorants,” said Jennifer. “Why do they throw up like that?”
“Ah,” said Mrs. Ameche. “Well, from what I’ve read, no one’s really sure. Scientists don’t know if they’re emptying their stomachs so they can fly away faster from danger, or if they vomit to scare away predators.”
Jennifer nodded. “Worked on me,” she said.
“Or they might just have nervous stomachs,” said Mrs. Ameche. “People act like everything has an answer if they could just study it enough, but I’m not sure that’s true. Animals aren’t too different from humans. You can study them a ton, but you don’t always know why they do what they do.”
Adam nodded. He definitely agreed with that.
They’d been so busy with vomit and doo, they’d almost forgotten the Slash.
“So,” Mrs. Ameche said, “we’ve got a new ethics issue with the Ameche brothers selling ads.”
“Ma, we tried our best,” said Don.
“We did what you said, Ma,” said Alan. “Gave them the packet.”
“Showed them all the great stories the Slash did,” said Don.
“Showed them the Slash wasn’t afraid of no Bolands,” said Alan.
“Alan Ameche,” said Mrs. Ameche. “Mind your double negatives. That’s any Bolands — and I know you did. I’ve told you, it’s not your fault. I give you all the credit in the world. We’ve gone from having a serious ethics shortage here, to being the Ameche Society for the Advancement of Holy Ethics. I’m very proud. If you’re feeling let down, boys — we may need an Ameche family hug.”
“It’s OK, Ma,” said Don.
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