Tito the Bonecrusher

by Melissa Thomson

  10

  THE APPAREL WAREHOUSE COMMERCIAL

  Unlike my stepdad, Carl, Brain’s dad really knows how to act like a rich person. He has a shiny luxury car with leather seats and satellite radio, and he orders people around on the phone like rich businessmen in the movies do. He is the owner of all eight Apparel Warehouse stores across the mid-Atlantic, so if you’ve ever done back-to-school clothes shopping at Apparel Warehouse, you have made Warren Gregory a little bit richer.

  Riding in Mr. Gregory’s car was pretty much the only glamorous thing that happened on May 4, the day of our commercial shoot. We had to shoot the commercial before the store opened that morning, so it was still dark outside when I walked over to Brain’s house. Inside, Mrs. Gregory was already making Brain and her dad so bonkers that I was afraid Brain was going to cancel the whole thing.

  “If there are any speaking parts, make sure they consider Brianna. Brianna would be the logical choice since she is your daughter, Warren.” Mrs. Gregory went on like this to Mr. Gregory for another billion minutes before turning to Brain. “Brianna, remember to be personable and smile. You can be so charming when you want to be. Wear whatever clothes they ask you to wear. And if they put you in dresses, don’t tell them you’re allergic to the fabric.” She turned back to Mr. Gregory. “Warren, she is not allergic to any fabrics. Be sure she doesn’t tell whoever’s doing wardrobe that she’s allergic to the fabric. Who’s doing wardrobe? Is it—”

  “Stop freaking out, Mom!” Brain interrupted. Then she turned to me. “Let’s go, Oliver.” She ran out the door, ready to get the commercial over with before her mom could make her promise to star in any more of them.

  During the luxury car ride to Apparel Warehouse, Mr. Gregory explained what the commercial was going to be. The idea was basically a montage of happy people shopping at Apparel Warehouse with a cheery song playing in the background. But they only wanted to show a few people at a time.

  “We want it to look popular but not too crowded,” Brain’s dad explained. “We don’t want people to think they will have to wait in long lines.”

  Brain and I were going to be paired up with adults who could be our parents in the shopping scenes. We didn’t know who those adults would be, since we were a last-minute addition to the commercial, but Mr. Gregory said he was sure it could all be worked out.

  There were already a couple of people setting up when we got to Apparel Warehouse. Mr. Gregory pointed out the director of the commercial and introduced us to the wardrobe lady, Elyse.

  “No Mrs. Gregory today?” Elyse asked.

  Mr. Gregory shook his head, and Elyse looked pretty relieved.

  Once we had our clothes figured out, Elyse said it might be a while before we got called over to film our part of the commercial, so Brain and I sat down in a corner of Apparel Warehouse under a table of white shirts that all looked the same and a sign that said MEN’S SHIRTS 3 FOR $30, WOMEN’S SHIRTS 2 FOR $60!

  “If we are going to be waiting a while, we might as well do our homework,” Brain said, unzipping her backpack.

  “Fine,” I sighed. I had thought that starring in a commercial would be a little more glamorous than it actually was. With all the waiting around, I could understand how Tito got so much reading and exercising done when he was making movies.

  Lately, “doing our homework” had kind of turned into Brain doing the homework and me copying it. I couldn’t really concentrate on anything other than our plan to rescue my dad. I started writing lists of questions for Tito and drawing diagrams of what the inside of FCI South Florida might look like. When I had my chance to talk to Tito, I wanted to be prepared.

  I had finished copying the math homework and was now copying Brain’s personal essay, which was about last year’s spelling bee.

  “She might know you copied this one,” Brain said, “since you didn’t even go to our school last year.”

  “Whatever,” I said. I had zero interest in telling my personal business to Mrs. Thumbly. I’m not the type to go blabbing to anyone who will listen.

  I finished copying Brain’s essay and moved on to the social studies homework. “And the Native Americans sold Manhattan to the Dutch because kgjasklgkgflg,” I wrote. I tried to write as messily as possible so Mrs. Thumbly wouldn’t notice that I copied. She never read the homework all the way to the end, anyway. She just checked to make sure there were plenty of words. She’d given me a B on my report about Granny Janet, and the only thing she said was that the interview with my “aunt” should have been longer.

  As I was scribbling, Brain tapped me on the arm and then pointed to where all the commercial action was happening. There was some kind of commotion. Brain’s dad was talking to Elyse, the director, and a few other people. We crept up behind a rack of skirts and listened.

  “Why weren’t these casting decisions made last week?” the director snapped at Mr. Gregory.

  “Henry, we only need them in one shot. I’ll never hear the end of it from Jessica,” Mr. Gregory complained.

  “I can pair Brianna with Helen”—the director gestured at a blond lady fixing her makeup who looked like she could be related to Brain—“but we don’t have anyone who looks related to that boy.”

  “That’s fine, whatever,” Mr. Gregory said, “as long as Brianna appears on camera.”

  “No way!” Brain stepped out from behind the skirt rack and crossed her arms. “You said both Oliver and I would be in the commercial. And that we would both get paid. A hundred dollars each.”

  “But we don’t have an adult who—” Brain’s dad started to reply.

  “We don’t need ADULTS,” Brain argued. “Just shoot some footage of Oliver and me looking happy in the store. People will assume our parents are offscreen.”

  Brain knows a lot of film terminology like offscreen and footage because we’ve listened to the directors’ commentary tracks on so many Tito DVDs. She also knows I don’t like to get upset in front of people, and not getting the commercial money would’ve made me pretty upset. That’s Brain for you. A real friend sometimes fights back for you before you even know you need it.

  “And besides,” Brain continued, “it’s just a montage. People don’t care if it makes sense. If they see happy people and hear happy music, they’ll want to shop here.”

  The adults all stared at Brain.

  “She has a point,” Elyse said.

  “Fine,” the director sighed.

  He set up a shot in which Brain and I were trying on hats and smiling into a mirror, like we were having the best day of our entire lives. We had to do it about ten times, but then we were done.

  “Okay, that’s a wrap. Go get in the car,” Mr. Gregory said.

  “Where’s our money?” Brain asked.

  Brain’s dad pulled out his checkbook and wrote us each a check for a hundred dollars. “There you go,” he rumbled.

  Brain and I whooped and cheered and high-fived. We had done it! We had six hundred dollars!

  “And no talking or loud music on the way home,” Mr. Gregory said, rubbing his temples. “I have a headache.”

  11

  A SURPRISE FOR YOU

  As soon as we got to Brain’s house, we dashed upstairs to her room to add our checks to Brain’s birthday money. “The rest of them are on my—” Brain stopped, looking confused. “The checks were on my desk.”

  Brain’s desk was bare except for her tablet, her keyboard, and a couple of notebooks. She looked under the notebooks. Nothing.

  “Maybe you stuck them in a drawer?” I offered.

  “I know where I put things,” Brain said, sounding panicky but also speaking the truth.

  Brain is very organized. She began looking through the drawers anyway, and I started helping her.

  We heard the garage door open, and a few minutes later Mrs. Gregory’s voice called up the stairs. “Brianna! Come down here, darling! I have a surprise for you!”

  Brain turned to me, panic in her eyes. “I have a very bad feeling
about this.”

  We thundered down the stairs and into the Gregorys’ living room, which looked like another holiday gift-buying commercial. There were shopping bags everywhere. In the middle of them was Mrs. Gregory, smiling so big you could see her back teeth, which didn’t have veneers on them.

  “Brianna!” she gushed, sounding out of breath. “To celebrate the beginning of your modeling and acting career, I booked you a session with … Javier Flambeau!”

  “Who?” Brain and I said at the same time.

  “Brianna! You know Javier! He was at one of my cocktail parties last year! He’s the best headshot photographer in the mid-Atlantic. He’s very expensive, but he’s the best.” Mrs. Gregory took a breath and then continued talking. Her eyes were shining brighter than her extra-white teeth. “And I know we always deposit your birthday money in your savings account, which is a very boring tradition, so your father agreed that this year you could have … a NEW WARDROBE!”

  When Mrs. Gregory said the words new wardrobe, she made this jazzy motion with her hands, and then she waited for Brain to react.

  I don’t know what Brain’s reaction was. My heart was thumping in my ears and my vision was getting kind of blurry, so I couldn’t look at her.

  Mrs. Gregory started digging through the bags and pulling out clothes. “These clothes will photograph better than those baggy ones you’ve been wearing, Brianna. Aren’t they fun?”

  She was waving two things at Brain that I think were shirts. One looked like a zebra pelt, and the other one had a bunch of ruffles on the sleeves.

  “How much of my birthday money did you spend?” Brain said in a whisper barely louder than the one she uses on the school bus.

  Mrs. Gregory laughed. “Brianna! Your birthday money was just the starting point! But don’t tell your father that. Here, let me show you everything—”

  “You spent all my birthday money?” Brain cried.

  “Yes, darling, but you’re always saying you forget you even have it, since we deposit it every year—”

  “It was mine!”

  Brain’s not the type to get all blubbery, which is one of the reasons we are best friends, so it was strange to see her start to lose it—so strange that I hadn’t really thought about what she and her mom were saying.

  Now Mrs. Gregory looked confused and maybe angry. “But I spent it on you,” she said. “I thought you’d be grateful.”

  Brain turned around and bolted up the stairs.

  Mrs. Gregory looked at me. Her eyes were all watery and her makeup was getting messed up. I’m not good with people having emotions in front of me. Plus, my heart was racing from the news that Mrs. Gregory spent our four hundred bucks on a zebra pelt and some ruffles.

  “Um,” I said. “I guess I … um.”

  “I guess you should go home now,” Mrs. Gregory told me. “Your mother—who I’m sure you always treat with respect, unlike how my Brianna treats me—will want to hear all about your day. I know you love your mother.”

  “Oh, I’m pretty sure Brain loves you,” I said. “She just wants you to like her, even though she doesn’t really care about tiaras or makeup or…” I looked around. “Or zebra clothes.”

  I gave a little wave goodbye to Brain’s mom but didn’t say anything else. I can make a quick exit when I need to.

  I ran home, thinking Gone, gone, gone with every step. If Brain’s birthday money was gone, our gala-ticket money was gone, which meant our opportunity to meet Tito was gone. Which meant any teeny-tiny chance of finding a way to help my dad was gone. Gone, gone, gone.

  * * *

  I tried calling Brain about twenty times on Saturday and Sunday, but she didn’t answer until late Sunday afternoon.

  “I haven’t thought of anything yet,” she said in a rush before I could say a word, “but I’m working on it. I asked my mom to return the clothes, believe me, but she wouldn’t let me use the money for the gala tickets. We’ll figure it out, though, Oliver. Never quit trying.”

  “Should I call Popcorn and tell him?” I asked.

  “Let’s keep thinking,” she said. “And if we can’t think of anything by tomorrow after school, we’ll tell him then.”

  12

  IT’S MORE COMPLICATED THAN THAT

  I told myself I would stay up all night to think of a new plan to earn the money, but I couldn’t do it. I closed my eyes for a second, just to rest them, and the next thing I knew Mom was shaking me awake and telling me to get ready for school.

  I missed the bus, so she had to drive me. When I got to my classroom, Brain was standing by Mrs. Thumbly’s desk, so we didn’t get to talk. I started the day feeling pretty stressed out.

  There was less than a week left before the gala. It had been just two weeks since we’d learned Dad had to go to prison, and it had been barely six months since we’d found out Dad was in legal trouble. I should say, it had been barely six months since Louisa and I found out. Our parents (including Carl) knew sooner, but no one bothered to tell us.

  The first hint had come back in November. I guess I should have known something serious was going on when Louisa actually started a conversation with me. I was in my room, lying on my bed and reading the comic-book version of Coyote Willis, when she came in.

  “Are you … What are you looking for?” I asked. “I didn’t take anything of yours.”

  Louisa rolled her eyes at me, which was pretty much her favorite hobby. “I’m not trying to ACCUSE you of anything,” she said. “I just wanted to see what you know about what’s going on with Mom and Carl.”

  “Like right now? They’re at a meeting.”

  “No, I’m talking about how they’ve been acting so strange.”

  I hadn’t noticed anything other than Mom and Carl being boring grown-ups. I told Louisa that. She looked at me like I was the most ignorant person on the planet.

  “You’re kidding, right?” she said. “I keep catching them talking to each other all serious, like, whispering to each other. Then when they notice me, they start smiling and being all cheery.”

  I did remember that, the day before, Mom had shut her laptop super fast as soon as I walked into the living room.

  “Maybe they are planning some kind of big surprise for us,” I suggested.

  Louisa frowned. “I don’t know. I don’t think it’s anything good.”

  “Maybe Grandpa Bo is sick or something,” I said. Grandpa Bo, Mom’s dad, lives in Texas, so Mom and Carl would have to make travel plans for her to go see him if he was really sick.

  “Maybe.” Louisa looked unsure. Then her face tightened again so she would be ready to roll her eyes at me on a moment’s notice. “But, listen, don’t be stupid and say something to Mom or Carl about this,” she warned me.

  “Okay,” I said.

  It was just the very next night when Mom told Louisa and me that she needed to talk to us in the living room. It was a “please sit down” conversation. Louisa said it was the same weirdly calm voice Mom had used before, when she and Dad told us they were splitting up. Basically, if your parents ever tell you in a super-nice voice to please sit down, you’re about to get bad news.

  It took me a while to figure out what Mom was saying. She went into this whole long story about Dad and Walker Stewart, and how sometimes people treat each other terribly and she kept using the words issue and situation.

  “Wait, so Dad got fired?” I asked. “He has to get a new job?”

  “No, the situation is more complicated than that,” Mom said. “It’s possible … The issue is that we don’t—”

  “Oh my God, Oliver,” Louisa said. “He didn’t get fired—he got in trouble with the government. The other restaurant guys got caught lying about money. Obviously, they are like total criminals.”

  “How was that obvious?” I asked. “How was I supposed to know?”

  “Oh my God,” Louisa said again. “It’s not about you.”

  Mom interrupted us to say a bunch of stuff about how we should be kind to ea
ch other at this stressful time and how family was most important and how we had to lean on each other.

  “It’s more of a hassle for your father than anything else,” Mom said. “Just a headache that’s going to take up a lot of his time. He had to get a lawyer, and he’s going to work with Uncle Victor until everything is resolved. But I thought you should know. And I will try to answer any questions you have.”

  “Is Dad guilty?” Louisa asked.

  “Of course he’s not guilty!” I said. “You’re the one who said the other restaurant guys are criminals!” It was like Louisa wasn’t even listening to herself.

  “I didn’t ask you,” Louisa snapped.

  “Your father was a loyal employee,” Mom said. “He trusted Mr. Stewart, maybe too much. And now Walker is trying to blame your father for his own illegal decisions.”

  “Walker Stewart is a cuss word,” Louisa said, “And Dad should have known it. Walker Stewart is a lying cuss word who can go cuss word in the cuss-word cuss word, until the devil cuss words his cuss word.”

  Carl coughed from the next room.

  Mom made about three faces in a row. The first one was a watch-your-language face, the second one was a you’re-not-wrong face, and the third one was … I don’t know what it was. Like her face was frozen onscreen over a bad Wi-Fi connection, but in real life.

  “Why are YOU telling us this instead of Dad?” Louisa asked Mom.

  I don’t know how she does it, but Louisa can say “YOU” and it’s like she’s punching you in the face.

  Mom’s face turned red, and her lower lip got all quivery. She grabbed a tissue from a box on the coffee table and wiped her eyes. She held the box out to me. I stared at it. She put it back on the coffee table.

  “We thought it would be better for me to tell you in person instead of having Dad tell you over the phone. I know you probably want to talk to your father. You can call him now if you want.”

  I wanted to, even if Louisa didn’t, and I picked up the phone right away. Dad sounded totally normal, almost cheery.