Do Bananas Chew Gum?

by Jamie Gilson

  “Wednesday afternoon,” I told him cheerfully, glad to be fixed up again. Then it hit me. “Geez! Wednesday afternoon!” I groaned.

  That was my second baby-sitting day. I’d forgotten all about it. “Sure,” I’d told Mrs. Glass. “No problem. Tuesday through Friday from three to five. No problem. I’ll walk them right home from school.”

  “Geez! Dummy!” I said.

  “Excuse me?” Dr. Reynolds asked, unfastening the pink bib.

  “Oh, nothing,” I told him and slumped out of the office.

  I knew my dad would explode if I canceled. All that money he’s spending, he wants results. But the receptionist told me if I did cancel, the next opening wouldn’t be till the next Wednesday. And a whole lot of good that would do me.

  I stuck my tongue out at the creep with messy black hair scowling at me from the mirror and hit my head with my hand. “Severe malocclusion between the ears,” I said out loud without meaning to. The people in the waiting room stared.

  2

  Treasure Hunt

  “LOOK, REBA, the kid’s not going to die of it.” Dad’s low voice carried right under my bedroom door.

  “Good Lord,” Mom shouted back, “I want to know how he’s going to live with it.”

  It was Tuesday, May 10, my first baby-sitting day. I was still in bed, but I was awake. My folks think I stay zonked out until they wake me up at seven. But early in the morning is when I hear them talk about what an idiot kid I am.

  “Well, Sam may not go to Harvard …” my dad said, trying to make her laugh, I guess.

  “Harvard? Ernie, get serious. At this rate the child won’t ever hold down a decent job. I hope he even makes it as a baby-sitter.”

  “Sweetheart, he’s only twelve. It takes some kids longer to learn. You know that. I don’t see why they need to draw attention to him by giving him more tests.”

  “Look, how do we know those California tests were accurate? Personally, I’m glad they’re going to test him again. I’m glad I signed the permission slip. And I don’t know why you have to be so bullheaded. Something is clearly wrong with him.” She turned the water on in the bathroom and shouted over the noise. “The teacher didn’t seem like a total dope. She just said they wanted to find out how they could help him. So a few kids find out he’s not Einstein. They’ll find that out soon enough anyway.”

  She turned off the water and I could hear her saying low and serious, “Maybe we’re just going to have to face up to the fact that he’s retarded.”

  My dad exploded. “He’s no more retarded than I am. I had a ghastly time in school, and I made it. The kid’s just like me.”

  “Well, that’s no reason for you to do his homework. It’s not your grade. It’s not your head.”

  “But it’s harder stuff this year, Reba. That chapter on the Vikings isn’t kid stuff. Besides, he likes it when I help him.”

  “You’re not helping. You’ve got to let him work it out himself.”

  I closed my ears with the pillow. Through the feathers their voices sounded like a TV tuned low in the distance (dum-dum-dum-dum). They hadn’t told me I was going to have to take tests again. I hated those tests. All those questions I couldn’t answer. To keep from thinking about it I opened my eyes. The first thing I saw was the shelves across from my bed full of books, neatly stacked because I’d never read them. “Someday you’ll want to read them, Sam,” my mom always said. But I wanted to read those books about as much as I wanted to sleep with a tarantula or run the mile with my shoelaces tied together.

  In a pile of orange crates next to the bookcase I had stashed all the treasures I’d found in the five states where we’d lived. My mom says I find stuff because I slouch and keep my eyes down. I don’t know, but I find good stuff. Not just dimes in sidewalk cracks, either, but a ring with a red stone, amber bottles, beer cans, a railroad spike, old license plates, one watch that runs and one that doesn’t, and stuff like that. My mom says it’s junk, but it’s my junk and I like it. It drives her up the wall.

  She was always saying, “Why don’t you organize it, Sam? Straighten it up. Make lists so you’ll know what you’ve got.” What she was trying to do was get me to practice writing, which I liked about as much as I liked to read. She really wishes I was a brain. Sometimes I bet she thinks they got the kids mixed up in the hospital when I was born.

  The soft TV drone of Mom’s and Dad’s voices went on as I wrapped the pillow tighter around my ears. My mom, who talks the loudest, is a legal secretary.

  She’s going to school to learn to be a paralegal, which is harder. My dad is in public relations. Mom says she’s practical and he’s creative. They’ve got me as their only kid.

  I closed my eyes tight and found a suitcase of gold bricks that a hijacker had dropped from an airplane onto a beach, breaking open an oyster that hid thirteen perfect pearls. Then Mom opened the door and called, “Sam, it’s seven. Rise and shine.”

  The rest of the day I didn’t find so good. No lucky dime, no lucky day. Mom told me Dad wouldn’t help me with my homework anymore because it spoiled me. (“I rot,” I told her, but she didn’t laugh.) Then Mrs. Bird gave a spelling test I did so bad on I tore it up. I’d swear I handed it in and she’d think she’d lost it.

  After school I met Alex and Chuck Glass by the kindergarten door, and we galloped to their house like we were horses. I wondered how they’d manage the next day with me at the orthodontist. I’d decided to wait to tell Mrs. Glass about my Wednesday appointment until it was too late for her to call the whole thing off.

  I was sitting in the Glasses’ kitchen trying to read this long, dumb typewritten note full of hard words from Mrs. Glass when Alex screamed, “Help, Sam, murder!” I grabbed my Social Studies book from the kitchen table, figuring to smash the rattlesnake that was swallowing him whole, and sprinted into his room.

  The room was a mess. A crumpled NFL bedspread hung off the top of the bunk bed where Chuck was trying to break Alex’s arm.

  “Get him off me,” Alex yelled. I strolled over and tickled Chuck’s bare feet to break his hold. He shrieked and tumbled off his brother, giggling.

  But they were at it again like bear cubs as I cruised for a good place to sit. The walls and ceiling were covered with green vine wallpaper to make it look as big as all outdoors, but it was a little room. Most of the dresser drawers were open, which made it even smaller. There was this red wicker toy box without a lid, and, thumbtacked to the ceiling, a green, dinosaur-shaped pinata with pop eyes. Pajamas, used towels, and dirty socks covered the floor, so there wasn’t a whole lot of sitting space.

  I decided on the rocket-print chair in the corner where Al the tiger cat was curled up, sleeping. I nudged him out and flopped down sideways. My head rested on one pillowed arm and my feet dangled over the other. The chair didn’t have any slats holding up the seat, so I sank deeper and deeper.

  I shuffled through the dumb Social Studies book until finally—my bottom almost on the floor—I came to this neat drawing of a dead Viking. “You two just keep playing, OK?” I told them. “I’ve got a test tomorrow.” They stopped wrestling at once and peered down at me.

  “What grade you in, Sam?” Alex demanded. “You’re bigger than Wally.”

  “Sixth, and it’s a pain,” I told him. I am big. I’m five foot six, bigger than any other sixth grader, which makes me the tallest kid in school. My ears are big, my black eyebrows are bushy big, and my feet are size eleven.

  “Do you wrestle?” he went on.

  “Only if I have to,” I said. “Now keep quiet so I can study.”

  Chuck flipped himself off the bed as fast as spaghetti sliding off a plate, grabbed one of my untied gym shoes, tossed it into an open dresser drawer, pulled himself up on a chinning bar in the closet doorway, and hung by his knees, arms crossed over his chest. Chuck said he wanted to be Spiderman when he grew up. I think he’ll make it. His long yellow-white bangs dangled and his brown eyes gave me the upside-down evil eye.

  “
Wally wrestles us,” he said in a funny scratchy voice, low for a five-year-old.

  “You’re paid to play with us,” Alex declared from the top bunk. “Besides, it’s raining and we’re bored.” Alex is in second grade, but he might be Chuck’s twin. They’re both skinny as Halloween skeletons. Alex says he doesn’t know what he wants to do when he grows up, except it has to have something to do with dinosaurs. The kid is a dinosaur nut.

  Chuck spun off the bar and barely touched the floor before he pulled off my other shoe. He tossed it in the air and the pinata lost an eye. Then he scaled the top of my chair and stared down like he was about to use me as a trampoline.

  “Let’s play,” he said. I felt like a turtle belly-up with its shell off. It wasn’t any kind of position to argue from.

  “OK, I give up. Find something fabulous in the toy box.” Alex crashed the red box over, dumping everything onto the floor. He dug into the jumble of upended toys and lifted out two fistsful of Hot Wheels cars without wheels, four broken, peeled crayons, a Snoopy scratch pad, a blue plastic baby rattle, three alphabet blocks, and a Candyland board without any pieces. It didn’t look promising.

  “Zero!” Chuck yelled from the top of my chair. “What’s that picture?” he asked, staring down at my book.

  It wasn’t a bad picture, as a matter of fact. Mrs. Bird talked about it a lot in class getting us ready for the test. It shows this Viking guy laid out in a grave with one shield at his head and another at his feet. Two stirrups are spread over his legs, a really fancy engraved dagger and a two-edged sword lay by his side, and in another part of the grave are the bones of two horses. Underneath this Viking they’d found a gold coin. It would have been fabulous to find all that.

  “It’s a Viking,” I told him. I thought I’d better make it brief. I didn’t know how long he could balance.

  “A Minnesota Viking?” Chuck asked, amazed. “Where’s his shoulder pads?” He squatted down, teetering on the chair top.

  I laughed. “This guy was meaner than a million football players. He chopped people up with his sword and stole a whole bunch of gold.”

  “Geez,” Chuck breathed. “What’s he laying there for?”

  “He’s dead.” I shrugged. “It’s just a picture. My dad said he was found by archeologists—you know, those guys who go around digging up treasures.”

  Chuck brightened. “Hey, Sam,” he said. “Make us a treasure hunt.” And he tilted forward.

  I reached up, pushed his toes off the chair, and watched him land on his feet like an inflated punching clown.

  Alex shuffled through the toy heap and handed me the Snoopy scratch pad with a stubby green crayon. “You hide something and then draw us a map how to find it.”

  Well, look, I’m no artist. I’ve got to admit it. At school I’d cut out pieces of paper and pasted them down so Mr. Kemper had said they were “interesting,” but I have this very hard time making things look just right. Still, I didn’t want to get fired for not playing with the kids. Mrs. Glass had said she’d give me eight dollars for four days a week and I already knew how I was going to spend the money.

  I rolled out of the slatless chair and wandered into the kitchen looking for something to hide.

  “No peeking,” I yelled, because that’s what they were doing.

  The phone rang. “Glasses’ house. This is the babysitter,” I said, like I was some kind of recorded message.

  “Oh, Sam,” Mrs. Glass laughed over the phone. “You sound so official. That’s great. Listen, what I called about was not really to check up on you or anything but to find out if the dog was dead and if Chuckie took his medicine without any trouble.”

  Some questions just don’t have answers. I couldn’t think of anything to say at all.

  “Sam?”

  “What dog?” I asked.

  “Rooster,” she said. “Rooster. I locked him in the basement all day. I never did that before, but after what he did to my rug yesterday…. Sam, didn’t you let him up yet?”

  “No, I …”

  “Didn’t you read my note? I typed it out special because my handwriting’s so lousy.”

  “I started to, but …” I glanced down at the note on the table. No way, though, could I talk and read at the same time.

  “So the dog is still cooped up in the basement.” She sighed, annoyed. “Isn’t he barking?”

  “No, I …”

  “And good grief, that means Chuckie hasn’t taken his pill.”

  “I guess not, I …”

  “The nurse at school gave him one at eleven-thirty. He’s supposed to have another at three-thirty. It’s after four. Look, do I have to come home?” She was plenty mad.

  “No, no. I’ll give it to him right now. Where is it?”

  “It says in the note I typed out. It’s all there. Can’t you read?”

  “Sure. Sure. I’m sorry. We just got to playing and stuff. I’ll do everything right now. We’ll see you around five-fifteen.” I hung up, looked again at the jumble of words on the note, and felt sick.

  “Alex,” I yelled. “Let the dog up from the basement.”

  The boys barreled down the hall, opened the door to the basement, and called, “Rooster. Here, boy. Come on, Rooster.” I heard scratchy paws on the steps and then this fat old brown and white cocker spaniel started running around and around my legs, yelping. At least Rooster wasn’t dead.

  “Chuck,” I said. “Where are your pills?”

  “I don’t like pills,” he told me, and crawled under the kitchen table.

  “They’re on the top shelf up there,” Alex pointed, “where we’re not supposed to go.”

  “How many do you take?” I asked Chuck as I climbed on a chair and took down a bottle from where Alex had pointed me.

  “I don’t take pills,” he shouted at me from under the table.

  “One every four hours,” Alex said. “They’re because last week he had an infected toe.”

  “Is this it?” I asked Alex. I didn’t want to feed the kid poison.

  “Sure, that’s what it says on it, doesn’t it? Chuck Glass.”

  I looked hard at the label. It seemed filled with print. But I think that’s what it said. Chuck Glass. One every four hours. I was almost sure. I took one out, put the lid back on, and put it on the shelf next to the bag of marshmallows.

  “As soon as you take this, I’ll hide a treasure,” I said.

  “Chuckie, come on,” Alex called down to him. There was a long silence, and then he rolled out from under the table, closed his eyes, opened his mouth, and stuck out his tongue. I pitched the pill in like he was a carnival game.

  “OK,” he said, swallowing hard, “where’s the treasure?” He stuck his head under the kitchen faucet and took a gulp of water to wash the lump down.

  “Scoot,” I told them. “I’ll come in when it’s ready.” As soon as they left I climbed back up and took down the marshmallow bag. There were four in it. They must have been left over from winter hot chocolate because they were stale and hard as marbles. I took them into the living room and stuck them under the pillows of the long brown velvet sofa.

  Then came the hard part. I took the green crayon and drew a sort of picture of the sofa and the coffee table in front of it. I put an X on the sofa. It was an awful picture. Even I couldn’t tell what it was supposed to be. You couldn’t tell which side was up.

  “If you don’t come, I’m going to jump off the ship and drown,” Chuck yelled. So I fast printed TOP at the top.

  When I got back to their room the boys were standing on the upside-down toy box waiting for me. I knew it was a pirate’s ship because Chuck was wearing a black paper pirate’s hat with a skull and crossbones on it. It was the kind that you get at birthday parties when you’re a little kid, along with a bag of chocolate coins wrapped in gold paper.

  “What ho, matey?” Alex asked with a serious salute. “Have you found the buried treasure?”

  “Aye, aye, sir. I ripped off the cutthroat’s map,” I to
ld him, “just before I made him walk the plank and the sharks ate him, toes first.”

  Chuck giggled. “Gimmie,” he said, grabbing the paper and hopping off the box. “Splash,” he said.

  I took my book out to the living room to wait while they hunted around. I could hear them arguing and whispering. Then they shot off into the kitchen, smashing around in cabinets and shuffling through the pans.

  “What are you guys doing?” I yelled at them finally. “You’re not hot out there in the kitchen. You’re not even warm. You’re cold as ice.”

  “Mom keeps all her pots in the kitchen,” Alex yelled back.

  “Why are you looking for pots?” I called.

  The two boys marched into the living room, Rooster waddling behind. Alex shoved the Snoopy pad at me and pointed at my word on it.

  “P-O-T spells pot,” Chuck said, beaming because he could read. I looked at Alex.

  “Well, that’s what it says, doesn’t it?” he demanded.

  I looked at the pad. He was right. I’d written the dumb word backward. I used to do that a lot. It was really crazy. Then I started to laugh. Actually I didn’t feel much like laughing. It wasn’t funny at all, but I put on the old clown act and ha-ha-ed until the kids started laughing, too.

  “Will you look at that,” I said. “I must have been thinking backward or something.” I forced another big ha. “That was really a dumb mistake. What I meant was top, not pot. See, this is the top of the page.”

  Geez, I hadn’t done anything that stupid in a long time. I thought I must be getting worse.

  “It’s not a very good picture,” Alex said, giving me the fish eye.

  “I didn’t want to make it too easy,” I told him. “But I will tell you that right now you are very, very hot.” I flung myself down on the sofa pillow that hid the marshmallows.