Tito the Bonecrusher

by Melissa Thomson

  “We don’t have time to rehash every bad thing we’ve ever said or done to each other,” Brain declared. “You’ve acted like a jerk, but we need your help, so let’s make a deal. What’ll it take for you to help us?”

  “First tell me what you want me to do,” Sharon said, crossing her arms.

  “No way,” Brain said, crossing her arms right back and staring Sharon down like they were in the wrestling ring. “If we are going to trust you with our most important plan ever, you have to decide whether or not to help us before you have the details.”

  “No deal.” Sharon’s voice had turned prissy again.

  “Okay, never mind. Let’s go, boys,” Brain said.

  I acted like I was about to head out the door, even though I knew Brain was bluffing. Sharon was way too interested in knowing everyone’s business to let us walk away.

  At least that’s what I’d thought. I was getting closer to the door, and Sharon hadn’t given in. I started moving like I was in slow motion, trying to buy some time. As much as Brain hated it, we needed Sharon for this plan to work.

  Brain knew it, too. “I’m sorry if I was mean to you, too,” she muttered.

  Sharon started acting like she and Brain had been reunited after fifty years of separation. “I forgive you, Brianna,” she cried. “And I’ll help you, on one condition.”

  “What do you want?” Brain asked.

  “I want you to let me come over to your house on Saturdays again,” Sharon sniffled.

  “Fine,” I said before Brain could say no.

  “FINE,” Brain said through gritted teeth, marching toward Sharon’s bedroom so we could lay out the plan.

  We told Sharon why Popcorn and I needed to meet Tito and what Louisa had said about the gala being highly organized, and we explained what we needed from her.

  She said that, yes, she could get on her mom’s computer and change the seating chart. “But it’ll have to be at the absolute last minute,” she said in her prissiest voice. “Otherwise she’ll notice.”

  We started to talk about some of the other details of the plan, but Sharon started giving us her opinions, which made Brain want to leave. Once we were safely outside, Brain, Popcorn, and I planned to meet again the next day to finalize the details of the operation.

  17

  I’M PAUL ROBARDS

  The next meeting was at Popcorn’s house. Brain’s mom had a bunch of ladies over, and my mom advised us to meet somewhere other than our house since Louisa was studying for a huge test that could make or break her battle against Mitzy Calhoun. If we disturbed her, she might actually end us.

  I had never been in Popcorn’s house before. It was smaller than the other houses in the neighborhood, and it was filled with books—not just on the bookshelves but also on the floor, on the coffee table, and on one end of the couch. Little scraps of paper, notebooks, and magazines were stacked on top of the piles of books. None of the magazines had famous people’s pictures on them.

  There was something strange about Popcorn’s living room. I couldn’t figure out what it was, exactly, but it made me feel uneasy.

  “Where’s your TV?” Brain asked.

  That was it.

  Popcorn looked around like someone might be listening. “It’s in the basement,” he half whispered. “My dad doesn’t like for visitors to see it. He says it’s an ugly but necessary evil in the age of information.”

  “Uh, okay,” I said.

  “I’m sorry you have to come home to an empty house,” Sharon piped up in this sticky-sweet voice as she snooped around the papers and books in Popcorn’s living room. She’d found out we were meeting and insisted on coming with us to Popcorn’s house even though we didn’t need her for this part.

  “Oh, my dad is here,” Popcorn said. “He’s writing.”

  Just then there was a loud bang-clack from behind a door. Sharon screamed. It’s a good thing she wasn’t going to be sneaking into the gala with us. She’s very jumpy.

  “That’s my dad’s typewriter,” Popcorn said. “He writes in a closet without the internet.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “So the noise of daily life doesn’t drown out the truth of his words.”

  “That’s beautiful,” Sharon said.

  “Huh?” I didn’t get it.

  “I mean, so he doesn’t get distracted and go on Facebook and stuff,” Popcorn clarified.

  The door where the sound had come from opened, and Popcorn’s dad emerged. I sort of recognized him from interviews on the boring public television channel Carl likes to watch.

  He squinted in our direction. “Who are you?” he asked. He looked at each of us, making a wrinkled-up face at me. Probably admiring my Tito the Bonecrusher shirt. I have several.

  “I’m Sharon Francesca Dunston,” Sharon said, and she actually curtsied. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Robards.”

  “Dad, these are my friends from school,” Popcorn informed him.

  “You mean your classmates,” Popcorn’s dad said. “‘Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow-ripening fruit.’ The wisdom of Aristotle. You may offer orange juice or milk to your classmates.” Popcorn’s dad gave us a half nod, went back into his closet, and shut the door.

  The bang-clacking started again.

  “So that’s my dad…,” Popcorn said, trailing off.

  We got our milk and orange juice and headed up to Popcorn’s bedroom. It was the neatest kid’s room I had ever seen—even neater than Brain’s. I asked Popcorn if he had a housekeeper, but he said no, he just liked to keep things in order in case anyone stopped by.

  “Do people stop by a lot?” I asked him.

  “Not really,” Popcorn said.

  “I think it’s so very important to be tidy,” Sharon said. She was perched on the edge of Popcorn’s desk chair with her ankles crossed like she was at a tea party.

  “Why are you here, again?” Brain asked her.

  “If I’m going to participate in this scheme, I need to be involved in the planning,” Sharon snapped.

  “Thank you for helping us, Sharon,” Popcorn said. “I really appreciate it.”

  Popcorn was really good at signature move #2: Be extra friendly.

  “Oh, Paul,” Sharon said in this gooey voice like a kindergarten teacher. “I’ve been meaning to tell you that I think it’s wonderful how you expressed your feelings in that letter to Tito.”

  “We don’t have time for feelings, Sharon,” Brain said, thank goodness. “We need to finalize the details of the operation.” She was lying on the floor of Popcorn’s room with her little notebook in hand.

  “So, Sharon, if you’re getting us place cards for the dinner, can’t you get us on the list to come in the front door?” I asked. “Then we won’t have to deal with Louisa at all,” I said, turning to Brain.

  “You can’t just come in the front door,” Sharon said, like I’d said we wanted to parachute in through the roof. “The security at the front door is being handled by the Empire Hotel. My mom doesn’t do security, Oliver. You’ll have to come in with Louisa. All I can do is add you to the seating chart without my mom noticing.”

  I know it seems like I should give Sharon credit for using signature move #3, Take what you need without anyone noticing, but the whole plan was really Brain’s idea, and Sharon was just following through because we made a deal with her.

  “I am going to add you to the list on the day of the gala,” Sharon continued. “Not under your real names, of course. I am going to give you aliases.”

  I asked Sharon if we could choose our own aliases, but she said no.

  Then we started talking about what we would say to Tito the Bonecrusher.

  “I’m going to say, ‘I will be CRUSHED if I can’t get your help,’” I declared. I thought Tito would like it if I creatively used part of his name to ask for his help. He would explain to me how to rescue my dad, and then I would be ready to go to Florida and save him.

  Then Brai
n asked what Popcorn would say to Tito. “Are you going to come right out and say, ‘It’s me, your number one fan!’?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Popcorn said. “I might get too nervous to say anything.”

  Sharon patted Popcorn’s shoulder and clucked like a mother hen. “That’s understandable,” she said in the gooey voice.

  Wait, what? Popcorn was going to sneak into the gala just to meet Tito, and then he wasn’t even going to mention that he was Tito’s number one fan?

  “That’s not understandable! That’s ridiculous,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Brain said, and nodded. “You have to tell him. Let’s practice. Pretend I’m Tito. What would you say?”

  “I don’t know.” Popcorn looked down and mumbled as fast as he could, “I guess, ‘HiMisterTheBonecrusherI’mYourNumberOneFan.’”

  “I couldn’t understand anything you said,” I informed him.

  “Try again, but say it more slowly,” Brain encouraged.

  “Hi, Mr. The Bonecrusher,” Popcorn mumbled more slowly, “I’m Paul Robards. I wrote the letter. I’m your number one fan.” His voice was barely above a whisper.

  “I think when you’re talking to him, you call him just ‘Tito,’ not ‘Mr. The Bonecrusher,’” Sharon pointed out.

  “And that was still way too quiet,” I added.

  “Try it as loud as you can,” Brain prompted. “You can do it! No one is listening but us!”

  “HI, MR. THE BONECRUSHER—I MEAN, TITO,” Popcorn began, then closed his eyes tight. “I CAME TO THIS GALA JUST SO I COULD MEET YOU.”

  “Yeah, there you go!” Brain approved.

  “I WROTE YOU A LETTER,” he continued hollering. “A LONG TIME AGO. AND TONIGHT WE MEET AT LAST.”

  This was pretty good. It sounded like some stuff a wrestler would say.

  “I’M YOUR NUMBER ONE FAN,” he announced. “IT IS I, PAUL ROBARDS!”

  I didn’t love the ending. “Just say ‘It’s me,’” I suggested. “‘It is I’ sounds old-timey.”

  “‘It is I’ is correct, though,” Brain said.

  I was about to argue that none of Tito’s characters ever say “It is I” when, suddenly, we heard a lot of commotion from somewhere outside Popcorn’s room. The door flew open, and Popcorn’s dad was standing there, holding a book.

  Popcorn looked utterly panicked.

  “Hi, Dad,” he said.

  Popcorn’s dad cleared his throat.

  “Paul,” he said, stepping inside the room, “what are you going on about?”

  “Sorry, Dad. We were just, uh, pretending something.”

  “Mr. Robards.” Sharon clutched her hands to her chest. “We are so sorry to have disturbed your work.”

  “What were you saying about a gala? And that Tito Bonecrusher fellow?”

  “Nothing.” Popcorn looked at the floor.

  “The best people possess ‘the discipline to tell the truth.’ The wisdom of Ernest Hemingway.”

  “Okay,” Popcorn said. Then he stood there and said nothing.

  “Paul,” his dad said again.

  “Well,” Popcorn began, “there’s going to be this gala with Tito the Bonecrusher. I want to go because…” He paused. “Because I wrote a letter to Tito. A few years ago.”

  “And how,” Mr. Robards asked coolly, “did a letter lead to the high-volume outburst?”

  Popcorn shifted his feet closer together, almost stacking them on top of each other, like he was trying to make himself even smaller than he was. “I asked Tito for help,” he mumbled. “So I was going to tell him I was the kid from the letter. I wanted to let him know that I turned out okay, even though he never helped me.”

  “I see,” Popcorn’s dad said.

  “You two need some privacy,” Sharon chirped. She was off the chair and out the door before Popcorn could say any more.

  Brain was right behind her.

  I started to follow them, but then I heard Popcorn’s quiet voice behind me.

  “Can you stay, Oliver?”

  “I, uh, okay,” I said. I wasn’t wild about being in the middle of something between Popcorn and his dad.

  I heard muffled talking and some bumps against the door. Those two are standing right outside, I thought. I would have done the same thing.

  Popcorn’s dad was fidgety. He was rubbing his hands together, and he wouldn’t look Popcorn in the eye.

  “Actually, Paul,” he said, “Tito the Bonecrusher did help you.”

  18

  THE TRUTH ABOUT TITO

  Oh.

  This was a twist. Like in Coyote Willis: Pioneer Cop, when the sheriff turned out to be the counterfeiter that Tito had been trying to find all along.

  “He did?” Popcorn was shocked. “Is that why we have this house? Did he pay for it?”

  “Not all of it,” Popcorn’s dad said, sounding offended.

  “What else did he do?”

  “He … knew some people who could help publish my book.”

  This made sense. Tito has written several bestsellers, including Never Quit Trying: My Life in the Ring and Thyme Crusher: The Tito the Bonecrusher Cookbook.

  “Why didn’t you tell me? Were you embarrassed?” Popcorn asked.

  His dad made that coughing sound that sometimes happens when you fake-laugh. “No, of course not. But you have much better things to do with your time than idolize overpaid wrestlers.”

  “You should have TOLD me, though! It was my letter!” Popcorn’s face was getting red.

  Now I was really uncomfortable. I started reading the titles of books on Popcorn’s shelf as though Popcorn and his dad weren’t arguing.

  “Look how upset you’ve become,” Popcorn’s dad said, getting calmer as Popcorn got angrier—which is a thing my mom does, and it’s the worst. “All because of an unhealthy attachment to some celebrity. I don’t want to hear any more about Tito the Bonecrusher.”

  Wow. Popcorn’s dad REALLY didn’t want Popcorn to be a fan of Tito the Bonecrusher.

  It reminded me of Time Crusher 2: Out of Time. Tito’s character, Lance Knightfox, normally fought crime with his cousin, Blade Hogan (played by The Germ, of course), but he worked with a new guy when his cousin was recovering from a laser injury. Blade worried that Lance liked his new partner better, so he tried to sabotage him.

  It occurred to me that maybe Popcorn’s dad was worried that Popcorn would like Tito more than him. And that was just silly. Tito was awesome, but he was no substitute for a dad.

  “Popcorn will never love Tito as much as he loves you, Mr. Robards,” I said. It was just like with Brain’s mom. These rich grown-ups sure did need to know people loved them all the time. Mr. Robards looked confused, then annoyed, but I kept talking. “‘Ain’t no lasers strong enough on this planet to break to bonds of family.’ The wisdom of Lance Knightfox.”

  Mr. Robards looked at me, then at Popcorn, and his face got kind of wobbly as Popcorn hugged him. I watched this for only about a half second before I had some feelings come up that I needed to push down. I hustled to the door and then left with Brain and Sharon.

  19

  PAUL POPCORN AND OLIVER SPAGHETTI

  Four days later, Mom and Carl thought I was spending the night at Popcorn’s house. Instead, I was in a box in the women’s restroom at the Empire Hotel, trying not to breathe in Popcorn’s pine-tree scent and ignoring the buzzing in my ear.

  Brain, who was supposed to be spending the night at my house, had gone totally over the top with her job as “someone on the outside.” She wanted me to have an earpiece so she could communicate with Popcorn and me the way Lance Knightfox talks to Blade Hogan in Time Crusher. We’d thought we could get top-of-the-line spy gear with our commercial money, but then we found out that genuine high-tech surveillance equipment is extremely expensive. So we got this cheap walkie-talkie and earpiece set from Radio Hut. The set was called Spy Buddies, and on the box there was a picture of two kids in sunglasses and trench coats. Underneath the kids it said, REAL SPYIN
G FUN FOR KIDS AGES FOUR AND UP!

  There were several problems with the Spy Buddies set. For one thing, the earpiece and walkie-talkie didn’t work well if they were far apart. Plus, Brain wasn’t going to be in a location where she was going to be able to do any actual spying. She was just going to be sitting on the bench right outside the hotel, holding the walkie-talkie and hoping to see or hear something interesting.

  “Why do you smell like pine trees?” I whispered to Popcorn. I was folded up at the bottom of the box, and he was practically sitting on top of me. It was not comfortable. “It’s tear-free shampoo,” Popcorn answered. “My dad has sensitive eyes from the darkness in his writing closet.” Mr. Robards, who was probably in his writing closet at that moment, thought Popcorn was spending the night at my house. Even though he’d given up lecturing us about celebrities and intellectual something or other, it was better for everyone if he didn’t get involved in our gala mission.

  “BBZZZZ CH CH CH, Spaghetti-O? CHCHCHCH,” I heard in my ear.

  “I’m here,” I responded, not that Brain could hear me. The other problem with the Spy Buddies set was that I couldn’t communicate back to Brain. She was able to talk into my ear, but I had no way to respond.

  “I don’t know if you can hear CHCHCHCH,” Brain went on, “but I hope you guys are doing well. Nothing is CHCH out here. People are just CHCHCHCH.”

  “What’s she saying?” Popcorn asked me.

  “I’m not really sure,” I told him.

  Popcorn shifted his weight, sending his knee farther into my spine.

  “Urp!” I tried not to yelp too loud in case anyone else was in the bathroom with Louisa.

  “Sorry,” Popcorn said. “Both my legs and both my arms are asleep.”

  We must have been in the box for at least an hour, from the time we’d climbed in at the Jiggly Fluff store, to the bumpy van ride, to the ride on a little wheeled cart past the security line and into the women’s restroom. The cart dumped the two boxes on the floor in the extra-large stall, where there would be plenty of room for Louisa to change into the Mr. Jiggly Fluff costume. Louisa had insisted on bringing two boxes. One box had her costume, and the other box was supposed to have a backup costume. But instead of the backup costume, the second enormous box held Popcorn and me.