The Day the Mustache Took Over

by Alan Katz

  “Yeah, the annual family ski trip is the biggest thing we have to look forward to!” Nathan added.

  David said, “We went last year. We went the year before that. And the year before that. And the year before that. . . .”

  Afraid that David was going to put everyone to sleep by repeating that same sentence, Nathan jumped in.

  “It’s called an annual trip because it happens annually. Like, every year.”

  “Keep up your bad behavior and it’ll be called the annual canceled ski trip,” their dad told them. “And that’s not just a threat, it’s a promise.”

  “I hope you’re hearing us. This year’s trip will not happen if our new nanny runs out of the house screaming ‘I can’t stand these boys!’ ” their mom said.

  “Right,” Dad said. “And it will not happen if the nanny runs out screaming ‘Jag kan inte står dessa pojkar!’ ”

  “Wonderful Swedish pronunciation, dear,” said Mrs. Wohlfardt. “No one can say ‘I cannot stand these boys’ in Swedish better than you.”

  “Thank you, sweetie,” Mr. Wohlfardt said with a smile. “But remember, I learned it from several of our nannies.”

  “Min bror är en gris,” said Nathan. “That’s Swedish too.”

  “How wonderful that you’re speaking a foreign language!” Mrs. Wohlfardt beamed. “Tell me, Nathan . . . what does that mean?”

  “It’s Swedish for ‘My brother is a pig.’ ” Nathan giggled.

  “GO TO YOUR ROOM! BOTH OF YOU!” insisted Mrs. Wohlfardt.

  “Hey! What did I do?” asked David.

  “Go!” insisted Mr. Wohlfardt (with a slightly Swedish accent).

  The boys stomped upstairs, elbowing each other to be first to get to a place they didn’t really want to go to.

  And just as Nathan and David reached their room, the lights suddenly flickered and went out.

  Outside, hurricane winds screeched and screamed. Thunder crashed and lightning forked. A torrential rain poured.

  As the dining room chandeliers began to clash and shake, the doorbell rang. One long, loud

  “Go away! Nobody’s home!” Nathan yelled as he and his brother pushed and tripped their way through the mass of wrinkled clothes, broken toys, crumpled papers, and dirty dishes on their floor and scrambled under their beds.

  “Yes, go now and save yourself the trouble of having to leave us later!” David called.

  But no nanny had ever braved such a fierce storm to get to the Wohlfardt house. No nanny had ever buzzed that long or that hard. What was happening? The boys had no idea. But they knew one thing—this new nanny was not going to be like any other!

  CHAPTER

  SIX

  A booming voice echoed all the way up the stairs, down the hallway, into the twins’ room, and under their beds. “Good day, I’m here from the Martin Healey Discount Childcare Agency.”

  “She sounds short and warty,” whispered Nathan.

  “Also hairy and weird,” whispered David.

  “And mean, grumpy, crabby, grouchy, irritable, and cranky!” added Nathan, having just found his long-lost thesaurus under the bed, not to mention an old but still tasty salami sandwich (which could possibly, just possibly, have been peanut butter).

  “Let’s stay under here forever,” continued Nathan. “That way we’ll never have to meet her, and she can just slip our meals under the door.”

  “Amazing idea! We can live on pancakes and bologna slices,” David offered.

  “And pizza,” Nathan added. “She could definitely slide thin-crust pizza.”

  David was about to argue that the cheese would stick to the bottom of the door, when his mom interrupted.

  “Boys, come down and meet someone new!” she cheerily chirped from downstairs.

  “New nanny! Move your fanny! Er, fannies,” added Dad, who clearly needed to work on that rhyme.

  Sensing there was no way out, the boys moped down the stairs to meet the next lady who would be running, er, ruining their lives.

  Nathan reached the bottom of the stairs first.

  He stopped and gasped.

  David, who was right behind him, was so surprised that he fell off the last step. They tumbled onto the floor in a heap.

  The boys were speechless. This person was neither short nor warty. As for weird—well, that was extremely possible. Because the first thing they noticed was . . .

  . . . a big, bushy mustache! In fact, it was a mushy, bushy mustache, which is a good tongue-twister but a horrible look. And while one or two of their previous nannies had mustaches, this was quite different. Because more than anything, what struck Nathan and David right away was . . . this nanny was clearly, 100 percent, undeniably, without a doubt . . .

  CHAPTER

  SEVEN

  . . . A MANNY!

  “Greetings! Have a nice trip? See you next fall!” the new person said in a crisp British accent as he helped them to their feet.

  He scratched his bushy mustache and pointed to Nathan. “You must be Miranda,” he said. “Which of course makes you Petunia!” he said to David.

  “I’m Nathan,” said Nathan. “And this is my brother, um, Petunia.”

  “I am not Petunia!” said David. “I’m David.”

  “Yes, of course. And I’m your new best friend from the Martin Healey Discount Childcare Agency,” the man said, exactly as he had before. Then he smoothed his mustache. “Martin Healey is the name.”

  “Do you own the agency?” their father asked.

  “I am the agency,” said Martin.

  “Why is it the Martin Healey Discount Childcare Agency?” their mother wanted to know. “Are you on sale, marked down like the dented can of peaches I get for twenty-five cents off at the market, Martin?”

  “Are you past your freshness date? We must have only the freshest nanny,” their father insisted.

  “I assure you, I am one-hundred-percent fresh grade-A merchandise. And to answer your question, my name is Martin Healey Discount—a direct descendant of the Royal Discount Monarchy of Ex-Laxingberg.”

  “Don’t you mean Ex-Luxembourg?” Mr. Wohlfardt wanted to know. “Or, er, ah, ahem—I mean . . . Luxembourg?”

  “Precisely, my good fellow,” said Martin. “I’d forgotten the Americanized pronunciation. Do pardon.”

  “Royalty? My goodness!” Mrs. Wohlfardt beamed. “Did you hear that, boys? With this nanny, you’re in the presence of world leadership!”

  “Madam, while you may consider Martin Healey Discount a mere nanny, I am, in fact, so much more. I am what you call . . .” He cleared his throat. “A T-A-B-A-S-C-O,” Martin spelled, his mustache wriggling on every letter.

  “Tabasco?” asked David. “Like the sauce?”

  “No, my dear boy,” Martin continued. “It’s an acronym. Letters that represent words. I’m a highly trained Teacher and Babysitter and Scholarly Childcare Orchestrator. It’s an extremely important title earned through more years of schooling than one could possibly complete in a lifetime.”

  “Speaking of letters, do you have letters of recommendation?” Mr. Wohlfardt asked Martin.

  “Why, yes, I do, I most certainly do,” Martin told him. “Would you like to see the letter written about me by the emperor of—cough, cough, cough—or the ambassador of—ahem, ahem, ahem—or the duchess of—hiccup, hiccup, hiccup?”

  “You worked for all those people?” Nathan wanted to know.

  “Lived with? Yes. Cared for? Most certainly. Became a family member of? Indeed. But worked? Only in the sense that they employed me and paid me to be there, young gent.”

  Mr. and Mrs. Wohlfardt were quite impressed by the thought that Martin had been considered a family member by all his previous employers—even though that’s not exactly what he’d said.

  “Hey, your hiccups stopped!” David said. “So did your coughing and throat clearing.”

  “The respect and admiration I feel inside this glorious home have cured me of all ills, I suspect,” he told Nathan and David
. “Yes, this feels like a warm, wonderful, well-built home.”

  Mrs. Wohlfardt was grinning from ear to ear.

  The boys, however, were not.

  “Are you fun?” asked Nathan.

  “Fun, my dear boy? Fun?” Martin frowned as he poked Nathan in the nose to punctuate every word. “That’s perfectly preposterous! Totally tiresome! And tremendously pellinomous!”

  Nathan was quite sure “pellinomous” wasn’t a word. (It’s not.) But more important, the boy was soaking wet, because besides poking, Martin spit a little with each word containing the letters P and T.

  “You ask about fun, Sir Nathan?” Martin continued. “Why, fun is a by-product of irresponsibility. It’s perfectly clear that school chores, home chores, family chores, and life-improvement chores are your primary responsibility. Strict attention must be paid to schedule, to completing tasks such as homework, to studying, room tidying, proper hygiene, nutrition, and being a solid citizen and loving friend to your brother, your parents, and those around you in perpetuity!”

  The boys gulped and wiped away the P and T spit.

  “Then,” Martin continued again, “if there’s any time left over, we may attempt to explore this concept of fun. Do we understand each other, men?”

  Nathan and David looked like they’d both swallowed raw squid wrapped in raw onions coated in hot chili peppers. But Mr. and Mrs. Wohlfardt were absolutely thrilled at everything Martin Healey Discount had said.

  As a finishing touch, Martin dug into his suitcase and pulled out one dozen long-stemmed roses for Mrs. Wohlfardt.

  “Roses! My favorite! How did you know, Martin?” Mrs. Wohlfardt asked him.

  “Good guess,” said Martin. “It is my fondest wish that you enjoy them, Mrs. Wohlfardt,” he added, for some reason speaking softly on the “Wohl” and loudly on the “fardt.”

  Then Martin reached into his suitcase again and pulled out a football signed by all the Denver Broncos for Mr. Wohlfardt.

  “The Denver Broncos?” Mr. Wohlfardt exclaimed. “My number one team!”

  “Indeed,” said Martin.

  “What about us?” Nathan and David asked.

  Martin reached into the suitcase one last time. “For you young gentlemen,” Martin exclaimed, “I have two finely crafted, precision . . . toothbrushes! Now run along upstairs and brush your teeth!”

  “But it’s ten thirty in the morning!” Nathan complained. “We never brush at ten thirty in the morning!”

  “Cavities cannot tell time, Squire. We must defeat them by exercising proper dental care around the clock! Now go!” Martin insisted. “And upon completion of this important hygiene task, please organize your dresser drawers and then your schoolwork for a thorough inspection!”

  This was too much to bear.

  “A zombie commando babysitter is moving into our house!” David said. “We’re sunk!”

  “Is this a joke? Are we being secretly filmed for a prank reality show?” Nathan nervously tossed a pink bouncy ball against the wall.

  “A joke? Hardly, young man! I am quite serious. I have no interest in being on—or watching—that time-wasting, life-sucking device known as the telly. Or ‘television,’ as you call it.”

  Mr. and Mrs. Wohlfardt grinned. They could not believe their good fortune in finding Martin. He was truly the caretaker of their dreams!

  “Furthermore, as for bouncing that round, orblike object you hold in your hand—we simply do not do that in the interior of the premises,” he said, spitting out all his Ps and Ts and taking the ball from Nathan.

  “It will be returned to you during a future outdoor recreation session.”

  The elder Wohlfardts tried not to grin as Nathan sadly watched his ball disappear into Martin’s side pocket.

  “Now upstairs, you two! Brush those teeth! Tish-spot!” Martin barked, which somehow made his mustache whirl and twirl like a motion-sickness-causing carnival ride.

  For the second time that morning, the boys found themselves being sent upstairs. And when they reached the landing, they found they finally agreed on something—an overwhelming sense of doom, now that the new nanny had arrived at their house.

  “This is the worst!” said Nathan. “I can’t believe mom and dad hired The Mustache!”

  “Yeah,” David moaned. “Out of all the millions of nannies in this world, why, oh why, did Murray Poopins have to land in our living room?”

  CHAPTER

  EIGHT

  Moments later, the boys had brushed their teeth and begun organizing their dresser drawers and their schoolwork as they had been told. They could hear Martin pushing large objects around in the Wohlfardt guest room. As they listened to about six truckloads of furniture being moved into that fairly tiny room, the boys thought it sure seemed as if he was planning a long stay.

  Nathan and David were in a total panic as they reviewed their very limited options. There was no time for their usual petty arguing; they had to unite to confront the enemy.

  “We need to get rid of this guy . . . fast!” David said as he picked up a lampshade from the floor, tossed it in the air, and tried to catch it on his head.

  “Yeah,” said Nathan, using a flyswatter as a bubble wand and intentionally filling his brother’s hair with soap bubbles. “Fast!”

  “But if we get rid of him, there’s no ski trip,” said David, tossing the lampshade again.

  “And no hot tub or eighty-five-inch TV in our room,” added Nathan.

  “Mom and Dad never said anything about those things,” David told him.

  “They did to me. Only to me,” Nathan insisted. “I think those things will be in here after they send you to live in the rain forest.”

  “Stop that! Pay attention!” David scolded his brother.

  “I hate to admit it, but you’re right,” Nathan said, stroking his chin as he’d seen deep thinkers do on TV. “We’ve got to hatch a genius plot that makes it seem as if Martin has to leave . . . but it can’t look like it’s because of us, because that could give Mom and Dad a reason to take away the ski trip!”

  “I hate to admit it, but good point,” David said, squeezing his face to think harder than he’d done since, well, ever. “Think, think, think, think, think . . .”

  “I can’t think if you keep saying ‘think,’ ” Nathan told him. “Less talking, more thinking, will ya?”

  “Um, we could send him an urgent e-mail saying that ‘Sir Luxingburp’ is needed to run his family’s country,” David suggested as he folded his underwear, until he realized it was Nathan’s and flung it onto his brother’s head.

  “Or . . . we could leave a message at the Martin Healey Discount Childcare Agency offering him a million dollars a week to come work somewhere else,” Nathan said as he removed clumped-up modeling clay and several mashed-up test papers from the extremely deep bottom of his extremely sticky backpack.

  “Great idea,” said David. “But where could we possibly get a million dollars a week?”

  “I don’t know,” said Nathan. “I have about sixty dollars from our birthday money, and you have forty dollars. . . .”

  “We each got fifty dollars,” David said.

  “Yes, but I took ten dollars from your piggy bank when you weren’t looking,” Nathan admitted.

  David was too upset about the new nanny to complain about the theft.

  “Well,” David said, “together we have one hundred dollars. And that’s, like, almost ten thousand short of a million.”

  “Excellent job on your math, Mr. Genius,” Nathan responded. “Actually, a million minus one hundred leaves nine hundred thousand, nine hundred dollars.”

  “Actually, your math is very boring. The point is we don’t have enough,” David told him.

  “No, the point is on the top of your head,” Nathan answered.

  David ignored Nathan’s comment.

  “Ugh. My teeth feel weird,” David said.

  He ran his tongue over them.

  “Like, too clean.”

>   “Yeah, mine too,” replied his brother.

  “Our lives are over,” David moaned.

  “Over!” Nathan agreed as they plopped down on their beds to rest.

  “Man-oh-manny, does this guy have to go,” said David. “Man-oh-manny-man-man . . .”

  No one knows how long David was going to keep saying that nonsense phrase. Because he stopped when the bedroom door suddenly blew open. Amid a swirl of sparkly dust, there stood. . .

  CHAPTER

  NINE

  . . . Martin Healey Discount!

  “Seems I have caught you gentlemen in a moment of relaxation,” Martin observed. “Am I to assume you’ve completed your assigned tasks?”

  “I-I—um, er . . . ,” said David.

  “We, um, ah, well . . . ,” added Nathan.

  “Remember,” Martin boomed, “as my great-grandfather the Royal Adam of Sandler once told me, ‘A boy who shirks work does not earn a perk!’ No fun for you! Tish-posh!”

  “I-I—um, er . . . ,” said David.

  “We, um, ah, well . . . ,” Nathan added as Martin stepped all the way into their room and closed the door.

  The boys froze, until Martin whispered in a clearly non-British accent:

  “Relax, you crazy loons! I was just kiddin’ ya! Work? Ha! Chores? Blah! Hygiene? Responsibility? Fuggetaboudit!”

  “Huh?” said the boys.

  “It’s all a big act to impress your parents!” Martin said.

  Then he pulled Nathan’s ball out of his pocket, spun it on his fingertip, bounced it off the wall,

  ceiling,

  floor,

  ceiling,

  floor,

  wall,

  and right into Nathan’s hands.

  Then Martin giggled.

  “You’re not from royalty?” David asked.

  “I’m from Brooklyn, New York,” Martin answered.

  “You’re not a nutrition nut?” asked Nathan.

  “I had seven Toaster Tarts and three bowls of Loopy Fruits for breakfast!”

  “What about all that talk about schoolwork? Are you gonna make us study nonstop?” David asked.