“They’re not even through high school,” Arthur said, “and they both have to go through college, so it’d be a long time off anyway.”
“The Pig thinks she’s so much. If she doesn’t watch out, she’s going to wear out that hair of hers. That is, if it isn’t a wig already.” Charlie laughed wildly. “The way she’s always combing it and flipping it around! She’s going to be bald if she doesn’t watch it. She’ll be some dish! She’ll be some tomato when she turns up bald as a cue ball! What a gross out!”
“I don’t know,” Arthur said slowly, “she’s not all that bad.”
Charlie flexed his muscles. Then he started for the door.
“Where you going?” Arthur asked.
“Around,” Charlie said. “Maybe to Ollie’s. He’s got a new spear gun. His father might take us snorkeling this summer. See you.” And he started to run.
Arthur sat still for a couple of minutes. Then he went to the refrigerator and opened the door.
“Shut that!” Charlie’s mother hollered. “I thought I told you …” She came into the kitchen. “Oh,” she said, “I thought it was Charlie.”
“My gosh,” Arthur stammered, “I forgot where I was. I thought I was home.” He backed toward the door. “Gosh,” he said again, “I’m awful sorry. I didn’t take anything. Honest.”
He made his way down the back steps and out into the day. The street was empty. Arthur sat on the curb and threw pebbles at a spot of tar in the road, pretending it was a basket and the pebbles were the ball. He never missed. He was the star of the game. He could almost hear the crowds roaring in the stands.
12
It wasn’t enough that Ben, finished fixing Mr. Ackerman’s car, was now helping Captain Chubby write a term paper she was supposed to turn in after vacation. Oh no. That wasn’t all, Charlie thought bitterly. Maybe blood really was thicker than water because the friendly feeling between Ack Ack and himself seemed to have cooled, plus his own brother, whom he shared a bathroom with and everything, wasn’t speaking to him, and even Arthur hadn’t been over lately. Everything was collapsing. As far as Charlie was concerned, Penny’s vacation had lasted about a thousand years. She still had a week to go.
The thing that really tied it, that sent Charlie over the edge and made him realize drastic measures had to be taken, was when Ben spent his own dough to buy himself another white shirt and a pair of loafers, on account of Ed Reilly’s mother said she wanted his loafers back pronto.
Ben was in bad shape. Something had to be done.
Charlie’s friend Ollie gave him an idea. Ollie was an omnivorous reader. He read about things most kids had never heard of, like oceanography and stalactites and stalagmites and how to build an ice house to keep you warm if you felt like fishing through a hole in the ice in winter.
This week he was on a voodoo kick. “Listen to this,” Ollie said. “This is really cool. You want to get rid of a toothache, you know what you do?” He peered over the edge of the page at Charlie.
“Sure, you go to the dentist and he loads you up with Novocain and yanks it out,” Charlie answered.
“Your trouble is you got no imagination,” Ollie said sternly. “What you do is you threaten the tooth with a new nail, then say ‘Abracadabra’ three times, make a cross on a mango tree, cut the cross off the tree, boil the bark. Wet the tooth with it and presto! no more toothache,” he said, looking up from the book.
Using his fingers as a bookmark, Ollie smiled broadly. “Think of the money you’d save on dentist bills,” he said.
“Great,” Charlie said. “But what if you’re fresh out of mango trees? That’s something you didn’t think of, I bet.”
“That might present a problem,” Ollie agreed, “but you could probably substitute maple or oak or one of those.”
“What else does it tell you how to get rid of?” Charlie asked. “I saw a movie once where this guy wanted to wipe out another guy and he made a doll that was supposed to be his enemy and he stuck pins in it and danced around it hollering all kinds of things and next thing you knew, the enemy was dead. It was pretty good.”
“Hold it,” Ollie commanded, “while I check. This book could be very useful.” He flipped through some more pages.
“Here we are,” he said. “It says if you want to get rid of somebody, you make a doll that’s supposed to be the person you want to eliminate, stick it full of pins, and mix up a potion of a whole mess of stuff like garlic and leek and worm seed, whatever that is, add a shot of alcohol and have the person drink it. That person has got to be an awful sap to drink something like that,” Ollie said reflectively. “Anyway, the book says after the person drinks the potion, he’s had it. He gets a gigantic belly ache and dies. Any more questions you want answered?” Ollie asked. He looked terribly pleased with himself.
All Charlie wanted was to get rid of Captain Chubby. He didn’t want to be quite that drastic, however. There was one thing about Ollie. He never went halfway.
“Done and done,” Charlie said. “I gotta split.” Ollie was too busy reading about how to call up spirits to pay any attention.
Outside, Charlie halfheartedly flexed his muscles. He sat on his front steps and thought black thoughts. He’d been thinking quite a few black thoughts lately. He watched Kathy, the little kid who lived across the street, beat up her baby doll and hurl it into its carriage.
Some mother you’ll make, he thought sourly.
If he wasn’t thinking black thoughts, he was thinking sour ones.
He was also in bad shape. Suddenly Charlie heard Ollie’s voice describing the voodoo ritual to him, the sure way to eliminate an enemy. Make a Penny doll, stick it full of pins, and presto! no more Penny. Kathy had a doll. The coincidence stretched out its long arm and nudged him gently.
He crossed over and in a sweetsy-phony voice said, “Kathy, how about letting me borrow one of your old dolls?”
Kathy had a big gut on her for such a little kid, a lot of freckles, and a mean face.
“I love all my babies,” she said. “I don’t give them away. I take good care of them.”
“Then how come you’re giving that one a good going over?” Charlie asked. “Anyway, I only want to borrow one.”
“That was just a tiny spanking,” Kathy said.
“If that was a tiny spanking, I’d hate to see you give her a big one. You’d make some mother is all I can say.”
Kathy stuck her tongue out at him and ran into her house. She was probably going to tell her mother a big story about him. She was that kind of a kid. She had a really lousy personality. She would probably be a lot like Penny when she grew up.
Charlie started for home. Then Kathy called, “You can have this one if you want. Her name’s Mary.” She held a limp object up for his inspection.
Mary had seen better days. She was pale gray. One eye was missing. She didn’t have on any clothes. Charlie felt sorry for her.
“Hey, she’s terrific! Great! Thanks a lot.” He grabbed Mary by one leg and made for home. Mary would have to do. She was so far gone by now anyway, a few pins wouldn’t make much difference.
When he reached his front door, he turned around. Kathy stood with her hands on her hips. She stuck her tongue out at him.
“You’ve got problems, kid,” he yelled, and skinned inside before she demanded Mary back.
Charlie helped himself to his mother’s plastic box of pins that she used for taking up hems and stuff like that. There were quite a few, enough to do a thorough job. He closed the door to his room, stuck pins all over Mary’s decrepit body, a few in her head for good measure, all the while avoiding her one good eye. There was something about it that made him feel guilty. It stared at him, blue and glassy. Why did dolls always have blue eyes? Charlie covered the eye carefully with one hand while he finished.
“The hex is on,” he said from between tight lips. “The voodoo is at work. Begone, get lost, take off.” These may not have been the actual words used by ancient practitioners of voodoo but th
ey would have to do. Charlie stuffed her under his mattress to wait for things to take hold.
“Who are you talking to?” his mother asked. She had a habit of popping up at inconvenient times.
“I’m talking to myself,” Charlie said hastily.
“That means one of two things. Either you’ve got money in the bank or you’re losing your marbles,” Charlie’s mother said. She had a big supply of old wives’ tales at her fingertips. “And I know you don’t have any money, so I must draw my own conclusions.”
“Ha, ha,” Charlie said sarcastically.
He had a rough time getting to sleep that night. It must’ve been close to midnight before he realized that Mary made quite a lump in the mattress. He fumbled in the dark and dragged her out and threw her on the floor until morning.
13
“Can you get the car for tomorrow night?” Ack Ack asked Ben. His motorbike was no good for taking girls out on dates and Ack Ack and Ben were doubling tomorrow night. He had discovered that when parents of girls he dated looked out the window and saw his bike, they invariably said, “Nothing doing,” or “You’re not riding on that thing!”
Ack Ack had long ago got over hurt feelings he might have had from derogatory remarks cast against his pride and joy. He didn’t realize that part of the adults’ reaction was based on his appearance. His enormous helmet and whispery voice and his habit of looking over his shoulder to see if he was being trailed did nothing to reassure them that here was a young man whom they could trust.
And his mustache didn’t help. That mustache was finally beginning to look like one. It represented a lot of work.
Ben rolled a cigarette.
“The old man gives me the what-have-you-done-for-me-lately routine,” Ben said, “and when I reminded him that I had washed and waxed the car—on my day off yet—he was backed into a corner. He said I could have it for tomorrow but that if I left the gas tank empty it would be the last time I’d get it for about a hundred years. He really gets clutched because a couple of times he’s run out of gas on his way to the station to catch his train. So you’ll have to kick in with a buck for gas.”
“Right on,” Ack Ack nodded sagely. “I’ve got the same kind of old man.”
“What are you guys going to see?” Charlie asked.
“We’re going to the Capitol to see the Beefeaters do a concert.”
“Those the guys who eat raw hamburger while they play?” Charlie wanted to know.
“Yeah. They’re cool,” Ben said. “The big guy, the one who plays the bass guitar, they say he eats about five pounds of meat during one concert.”
“How much do the tickets cost?” Ack Ack looked worried. A motorbike was an expensive proposition. He had a big bill at the garage for repairs.
“Only two and a half apiece,” Ben said.
“‘Only’ he says,” Ack Ack hollered. “Only! You think I’m made of money?”
“Who you taking? Cora?”
Ack Ack looked mournful. “Last time I had a date with Cora, her mother and father said ‘groovy’ and ‘outasight’ and stuff like that. It was pretty embarrassing. Her old man wanted a ride on my bike and everything. I don’t know why people their age don’t act their age. They ought to know better,” Ack Ack said sternly. “Besides, Cora’s pre-engaged to Neil Carey. They’ve been going steady since Tuesday. You’re taking Penny, right?”
“Who else?” Charlie said. If he’d been smart, he would’ve kept his trap shut. He liked to sit in a corner and listen to Ben and Ack Ack rapping. He figured he learned a lot about life that way. It was best not to call attention to himself.
Ben shot him a look and said, “Little pitchers have big ears,” which always burned Charlie up.
“Penny feel all right?” Charlie asked Ack Ack. He didn’t put too much faith in this voodoo bit. He remembered that when he was just a kid, like seven or eight, he tried it on a teacher who hated him and whom he also hated and it hadn’t worked then. Now he’d try anything.
“Far as I know,” Ack Ack said. “Why?”
“I thought I heard somebody say she didn’t feel good,” Charlie said hastily.
“Why not try Laurie?” Ben asked.
“Laurie who?”
“The one with her own Mustang. I think her last name’s Roache or Bugg or something like that.”
“What do you mean, something like that? Something little that crawls? How about Ant or Gnat? Or Caterpillar? That would be a good last name, Caterpillar.” Ack Ack wheezed his amusement.
“She lives on Magruder Drive, I think. She gave me a ride home last week and, man, that car’s outasight!”
“You think she would let me use her car if I asked her out?” Ack Ack asked. “I’ve never driven a Mustang.”
“Not the first go round,” Ben cautioned. “Better wait until you ask her out a second time to ask her if you can drive it. She might get suspicious otherwise.”
“What does she look like?” Ack Ack asked. “I can’t get a picture of her in my mind.”
“She’s sort of tall with sort of brownish hair and an O.K. build and she has quite a few teeth and she laughs a lot.”
“That must be the one who sits in back of me in biology class,” Ack Ack said. “Either that or it’s her twin sister. I wish she sat beside me,” he said wistfully.
“Why?” Charlie asked.
“Because she gets practically straight A’s and if she sat next to me I could slide the old eyeballs over to her paper every once in a while and pick up some pointers and then I too might get straight A’s in biology.”
“You’d stoop to that?” Ben asked.
“I think so,” Ack Ack admitted. He had been having a very rough year in biology. “I would like to think I could resist temptation but I am basically a very weak individual,” he said.
“So call her now. Why do you always wait until the last minute?”
“I don’t like to plan ahead,” Ack Ack explained unnecessarily. “I never know what might come up at the last minute and I like to hold my time open in case something spectacular should show.”
“Like what?”
Ack Ack looked vague, which he did with surpassing skill. “Who knows? Think big. Maybe a trip around the world or an offer to go on safari in Africa. Or maybe I’ll win the lottery and take off for California to surf. If I win the lottery I am going to buy myself the most expensive surfboard I can find and maybe go to Australia and Hawaii after California. I might never come back,” Ack Ack said.
“In the meantime,” Ben said, “call Laurie.” He was used to hearing what Ack Ack planned to do when he hit the big time.
Ack Ack dialed the number he found in the phone book. Laurie’s last name turned out to be Roache after all.
“Hello,” he said, putting his hand around the receiver and peering into the corners of the room to make sure he wasn’t being eavesdropped upon. “Is Laurie there?
“Oh, this is Laurie. This is Ack Ack Ackerman. I just happen to have two tickets for a concert tomorrow at the Capitol featuring the Beefeaters and I wonder if you could go.… Yeah, I’ll wait.”
He put his hand over the receiver. “She went to ask her mother,” he whispered.
“Oh, is her mother going too? That’ll make for a pretty full car,” Ben said.
Ack Ack paled. “I can’t afford three tickets,” he said. Say what you would about Ack Ack, he was a great guy but a little on the slow side at times.
He hung up after more conversation.
“She can go,” he said gloomily. “She didn’t say anything about using her Mustang, though.”
“We lead into that nice and easy,” Ben said. “I’ll put on my good-luck hat and psych Laurie into lending us her Mustang. Never fear.”
14
Mary swung lightly to and fro in the breeze. The pins had proved worthless. Penny was in as good health as ever so Charlie had rigged Mary up on his ceiling-light cord in an intricate noose arrangement.
“What am I doing wrong?” Cha
rlie asked himself out loud. “I must have left something out.”
He patted Mary’s pin-dotted stomach.
“It’s not your fault, kid,” he said. Mary, whose ghostly presence had become so familiar that Charlie would have missed her if she had not been there, stared stonily at him with her eye. She didn’t answer.
“What on earth is that?” Charlie’s mother asked.
Charlie jumped.
“How come you’re always creeping around?” he felt like saying but didn’t. Charlie’s mother wore sneakers most of the time and they gave her a decided advantage. She could and did come up on him unexpectedly, whereas if she wore shoes, like most people’s mothers, he would have plenty of warning. She didn’t even play tennis.
“I’m just practicing my boy-scout knots, Ma,” he said. He couldn’t very well say, “I’m putting the hex on Penny the Pig and in case the pins don’t work, I’m cutting off the supply of oxygen to the brain.”
Some brain.
“That seems a peculiar way to practice them,” his mother said. Then she said, “Don’t call me ‘Ma,’” as he had known she would. That always served as a diversion. Any time Charlie wanted to sidetrack her from a subject that might prove embarrassing, he called her “Ma.” She hated it.
“How come you wear sneakers when you don’t even play tennis?” Charlie asked.
She smiled. “Because I like to sneak around,” she answered, confirming his suspicions. “Get it? Sneak around in sneakers?”
She looked at him expectantly, waiting for the laugh. She was the kind of mother who really liked her own jokes. If you wanted to get on the good side of her, just laugh at a few of them.
“I get it,” Charlie said, “but notice I am not rolling on the floor.”
“If you did, you’d suffocate once those dust balls got to you,” she said. “I thought you were supposed to have cleaned under the bed last Saturday.”
“I forgot,” Charlie said.
“Where is Ben?” she asked.
“Over at the Pig’s house, where else?”
The Good-Luck Bogie Hat Page 5