by Jim Benton
Jessica grinned. “I don’t think Jack can read,” she giggled.
“At least I’m not afraid of the zombie that lives in the basement,” Jack countered.
“There is no zombie in the basement,” Jessica shot back.
“OH MY GOSH!” Mike shouted, looking as terrified as possible. “THE ZOMBIE GOT OUT OF THE BASEMENT! EVERYBODY! RUN!”
“Stop it!” Jessica said nervously.
“BUT DON’T HIDE IN JESSICA’S ROOM BECAUSE I’M PRETTY SURE IT’S HIDING UNDER HER BED!”
“You boys go play now,” Jack’s mom said, shooing them away as if they were flies. They ran across the street and started shooting hoops in Mike’s driveway.
Mike grinned proudly.
“Another conversation destroyed by the Great El Destroyo.”
Jack laughed. There was no denying that Mike was good at destroying things.
“So why did you want us to lie about the book, anyway?” Jack whispered.
“You tell me,” Mike said. “Why did you take the thing?”
“I was just too lazy to put it back in the box.”
“Maybe there’s something folded up in between the pages, like a hundred-dollar bill,” Mike said.
“A hundred-dollar bill?” Jack said, amazed. “You think he’d fly back from Florida in the middle of the night and go through all this for a hundred dollars? You really have no idea how much things are worth, do you?”
Mike shrugged and tossed the basketball aimlessly at the net.
“So, if it’s not a hundred, go get it and let’s see what the big deal is.”
“I will,” Jack said, and turned toward his house. Across the street in his driveway, he saw his mom, dad, and Mr. Wallace talking quietly and looking at them.
“Hi, Maggie,” his mom called out, waving in their direction.
Maggie? Jack thought as he turned and saw that Maggie had quietly walked up and was standing beside him.
“How do you do that?” Jack blurted out, surprised.
“Do what?”
“Move so quietly,” Jack said.
“Girls are quieter,” Mike said. “Scientific fact.”
Maggie thought for a moment and nodded in agreement.
“But if girls are quieter, then how come moms are louder?” Jack said.
It was a fair question and Maggie scrunched up her nose as she puzzled on it.
“Because, stupid,” Mike said, “moms aren’t girls.”
“Well, they’re not boys,” Jack scoffed, and the three of them stood there, lost in thought, not saying anything. This was an interesting mystery and they scowled a bit as they silently contemplated it.
“Maybe they change,” Maggie said, “when they become adults and get married.”
“No way,” Mike said. “My sister, Jen, is an adult and married, and she’s supercool. She used to babysit us sometimes and once she let us try and see how many cans of root beer we could drink for lunch. It’s five, by the way, if you’re wondering. Five each. Six will kill you.”
Jack nodded and laughed.
“Yeah, and one time she let us set up a lemonade stand out front with beer. Mr. Wallace called the police.”
“She let you sell beer?” Maggie said.
“No,” Jack said. “That’s only what it said on our sign. Really, it was lemonade. But you should have seen how long the line was when the police showed up.”
Mike’s expression suddenly changed.
“But then she got married and moved out.”
Jack knew how bad Mike missed his sister and he tried to console him.
“Jen didn’t move far. You still see her.”
Mike threw up another lousy shot at the basket. “Yeah. But hardly ever.”
“Wait a second,” Maggie said. “So she wasn’t an adult and married when she let you do all that stuff?”
“So you think that maybe it’s marriage that does it?” Jack asked as he looked across the street at his house.
* * *
Mr. Wallace and his dad were walking inside. His mom and sister were standing in the front yard with expressions of confusion and revulsion as they poked Mike’s steak experiment with a stick.
With an accusation already forming on her lips, Jack’s mom shot a look across the street at them, but nothing remained of the three but a gently bouncing basketball. They had anticipated her reaction and, with practiced agility, swiftly aligned themselves behind a single tree so she couldn’t see them from her angle. It was the type of reflex that dealing with Jack’s mom had taught them, and Maggie, swiftly pulled into the maneuver, giggled with admiration at its brilliance.
After a moment, Jack peeked from around the tree. “I think she went in,” he whispered. “They’re all inside now.”
“I have to pee,” Mike said.
“I know. Every time we hide,” Jack said quietly.
Mike peered cautiously around the tree trunk.
“Okay. They all went inside. The coast is clear,” he announced.
Jack said, “I hope they’re not looking for the book.”
“What book?” Maggie asked.
Mike and Jack looked at each other. They were asking themselves the same question: Should they bring Maggie into this?
Mike respected her non-girlish reaction to insect blood suckery, and her Internet expertness. Jack admired all that as well and had, in a very short time, come to think of her not only as The Prettiest Girl in the World but as a person he liked being friends with, even though she was of the girl species.
The boys nodded at each other simultaneously.
“It has a hundred-dollar bill in it,” Mike confided.
Jack screwed up his face at Mike.
“That’s not true. We don’t know what’s so special about it. But Mr. Wallace really wants it back. They’re in there right now, probably looking for it.”
“You hid it, right?” Mike said worriedly.
“I didn’t exactly hide it,” he said.
The three of them stood at the doorway to Jack’s room.
“There are underpants on the lampshade,” Mr. Wallace said in disbelief, as he surveyed the disaster that was Jack’s room. “Why would you put underpants there?”
Jack’s mom snatched them and put them behind her, feeling that the mess was somehow a reflection on her.
“What is that on the pillowcase? Is that salami?” Jack’s dad said, his voice a combination of curiosity and disgust.
“Believe it or not, he cleaned this up yesterday,” his mom said.
Sometimes when his room was messy, Jack’s mom would say that it looked like a hurricane had hit it. Today it looked as though maybe the hurricane came back and brought a few of his hurricane buddies with him, and they took turns hitting the room. Then they invited their cousins, the tornadoes, over for a party, and they all spent the entire night wrestling until they decided that there was no more damage to be done.
Jack’s mom turned to Mr. Wallace. “Do you think it’s in here?”
Mr. Wallace turned away in disgust and walked back down the stairs. “It would have been easier to find in the landfill.”
Jack’s dad patted him on the back.
“We’re not going to report this, Wallace. There’s no reason to.”
Mr. Wallace smiled. He was tired, but he was relieved at the kind words.
“It’s probably buried under tons of filth by now.”
Jack’s mom jumped to Jack’s defense.
“I would hardly call that tons of filth, Mr. Wallace,” she snapped.
“I meant at the landfill,” he said, and she exhaled a small laugh.
Jack’s dad grabbed his car keys.
“Can I give you a lift to the airport?” he offered.
Mr. Wallace smiled and looked down at his own grisly appearance.
“Yikes,” Jack’s dad said. “Why don’t you freshen up a little first? I’m sure I have some clothes you can borrow.”
Mr. Wallace nodded in agreement.
* * *
Later on, from Mike’s driveway, the three kids watched as Jack’s dad and Mr. Wallace got into the car and drove off.
“I don’t think they found it,” Jack said. “Did you see how sad Mr. Wallace looked?”
“I don’t speak Oldpersonface,” Mike said. “They mostly always look sad to me. Or angry. I can never tell when they’re happy.”
“That’s because you never make them happy,” Jack said.
“So,” Maggie said, her eyes filled with curiosity, “don’t you think you should go in there and get that book? We need to have a look at it.”
“My mom’s still in there. How am I supposed to do that?”
Maggie thought for a second. “No problem,” she said. “I have a plan.”
* * *
Jack ran inside the house, slamming the door behind him loudly.
“Hi, Mom!” he yelled, waiting only long enough for her to come around the corner and see him.
He began bounding up the stairs to his room with a shoe box under his arm.
“Wait a second, mister. What’s in the box?” she called up to him. Like all moms, she was very suspicious of things that come into the house in a box under a boy’s arm at high speed.
From up in his room, Jack called down to her, “It’s a box full of earthworms. Hundreds of ’em. I’m going to raise them in my room for pets.”
Jack surveyed the tragedy that was his bedroom.
“I probably tossed it right about here,” he said to himself as he dug down through the underpants, socks, and comics on his bedroom floor.
Finally, he hit the turnip recipe book in just about the place he had predicted.
His mom screamed up the stairs, “Earthworms?? You take those nasty things outside this very minute, young man.”
Jack smiled. He took the lid off the box. There were no earthworms inside it, of course. It was empty.
“Oh, c’mon, Mom. Worms are so cool. Please?” He placed the turnip recipe book inside the empty box.
“NOW!” she screamed. “GET THAT OUT OF THE HOUSE!”
Jack moped down the stairs, carrying the box in both hands.
“Please?” he said quietly.
She opened the door and motioned with her angry mom head. She hated earthworms and Jack knew it. She watched him cross the street slowly and show the box to Mike. They both shook their heads sadly and went into Mike’s garage, a brilliant bit of acting.
Inside, Maggie smiled and clapped her hands.
“That was a great idea, Maggie,” Jack said. “It worked just like you said. I went in, put the turnip book in the box, and waited for my mom to tell me to get it out of the house.”
Mike nodded with approval. “You’re sneaky, Maggie. Are all girls this sneaky?”
Maggie grinned and rolled her eyes innocently.
Jack opened the box and the three of them looked at the book. It was an unappealing green color and looked old. It was the kind of book that could sit on a shelf for a thousand years, and nobody would ever consider picking it up.
Maggie lifted it out of the box and read the title.
“Favorite Turnip Recipes of the World?” she said, feeling a bit as though maybe she had been pranked.
“I know, right?” Jack said.
Mike grabbed the book and thumbed through the pages, shaking it up and down, waiting for the money to fall out.
“Nothing,” he complained.
“You’re sure this book is important?” Maggie asked, and the doubting look on her face stung Jack like a bee. Like an unbelievably pretty bee.
“Let’s have a look,” he said hopefully. “I mean, maybe old people would pay a lot for turnip recipes. Old people like turnips, right?”
“Turnips don’t even like turnips,” Mike said.
Jack started flipping through the pages. “Listen—I bet these are delicious, you know, for old people.”
“What do turnips grow on, like trees or something?” Mike said.
“Turnips grow in the dirt. People dig them up,” Maggie said.
“And then they eat them anyway?” Mike roared. “Old people have really questionable judgment, ya know? I mean, if somebody buries something in the dirt, there’s probably a reason they buried it. Don’t eat it, old people. Just leave it there.”
Maggie laughed, but Jack had hardly heard anything Mike had said. Jack was reading.
“Guys,” he said, “how weird is this?”
He opened the book’s cover, revealing a second cover hidden behind it. This was not a copy of Favorite Turnip Recipes of the World.
Maggie examined the second cover and read the title aloud. “Secret Parent’s Handbook?” she said. “What the heck is that?”
Maggie flipped through the pages, stopping on a random entry to read aloud. “Listen to this,” she said.
* * *
The child may not always want to eat what you have served it. Use these methods, in any order:
1. Tell the child that there are people starving in India, or China, or any place the child has never been. It’s important that they have never been there so that they cannot question the accuracy of the statement.
2. Tell the child to eat it so that it can grow big and strong. The child may desire this deeply, believing that once big and strong enough, it can defeat you.
3. Tell the child it will not receive a dessert if it does not obey.
4. Tell the child it must remain at the table until it has finished its dinner. You may also threaten to withhold other things the child desires, such as its playthings. THIS CAN BE RISKY as some children are stubborn enough to remain at the table all night.
5. Spank the child.
* * *
Mike howled. “I like how they call the kid an it. Oh, man, that’s funny!”
Maggie handed the book to Jack. He flipped to the index.
“Let’s see what it says about sticks,” Jack said, and he flipped to a page near the middle. “Here we go.
* * *
The Strategy on Sticks: If the child begins to play with sticks, or anything long like a stick, warn it that it will get its eye poked out. Of course you know that eyes are very small targets and very difficult to hit, and the probability is much higher that the child will simply get lashed and receive a welt, but the image of an eye being gouged out is more frightening, and thus this is a better way to scare the child into stopping the activity.
* * *
“It’s like what our moms always say!” Mike roared. “Poke your eye out! Poke your eye out.”
Maggie and Jack weren’t laughing, and Mike suddenly felt uncomfortable laughing alone.
“It’s funny, right?” he asked. “Isn’t it?”
“See if it has something about faces freezing,” Maggie said, and Jack flipped to a new entry and read it out loud.
* * *
The Face-Making Strategy: If the child forms a repulsive expression on its face, tell it that it may freeze that way. Never tell the child that it will freeze like this every single time, or the child will know that you simply lied.
* * *
Maggie looked stunned. Then she looked angry.
“All those things. My parents have said all of those things to me. Those jerks,” she said.
“I know, right? My parents, too. Jack, your mom and dad are always saying that junk,” Mike said.
“I don’t think we should tell anybody about this book,” she said seriously.
“You don’t think this is, like, a real thing that the Wallaces used, do you?” Jack said. “It’s a joke book or something like that.”
“It’s probably a joke,” Maggie said, flipping to the first few pages in the book. “But look, it doesn’t have an author’s name, or any dates, or any of the stuff you normally see in a book. And why does it have a fake cover? It doesn’t even say who published it. Let me poke around online and see what I can find out about it.”
“Your parents were acting pretty weird about it,” Mike reminded Jack
.
Jack handed her the box and she slid the book inside. “Okay,” he said.
“Turnips,” Mike chuckled. “Old people eat stuff they find in dirt.”
Maggie slipped into her house. She smiled to herself. Mike was right: Girls are quieter. She slid silently up the stairs and into her room, and hid the box under her bed. Mission accomplished. She knew that later on that night she’d be able to secretly read more of it.
“What’s in the box?” Sean asked.
Maggie jumped and whirled around. Girls are quiet, she thought, but little brothers are phenomenal snoopers.
“Underpants,” she said without hesitating. “My girl underpants. Want to see them? They’re very frilly. I think you’d love them.” She began to reach for the box. “Try them on.”
“Nooooooo!” Sean yelled as he ran from her room and down the stairs.
“Little brothers are great snoops, but they can be manipulated,” she said, knowing that the book was safe from Sean’s prying eyes for at least the next fifty years.
She sat down in front of her computer and started to search. And search. And search.
She found parent handbooks of every possible kind, with titles like How to Raise Your Blond Left-Handed Teen and How to Raise Your Allergy-Free Child Who Wishes He Had an Allergy, and the very popular Adorable, Yes. But Is Your Toddler Adorable Enough?
But she couldn’t find any matches for the book Jack had found in the Wallaces’ trash.
She looked for books of turnip recipes and found none, although, to her horror, she found millions of recipes for turnips and realized that there certainly are enough of them to collect in a book.
Before she knew it, hours had passed and her mom was calling her to come down for dinner. She plodded down the stairs, tired and frustrated.
Sean was already at the table, guzzling down his milk so fast that he was on the verge of drowning in it.
“Sean! You’ll spoil your appetite!” Maggie’s mom scolded, and began setting out plates of hamburger-something-in-noodles-something with something-sauce.
“Ewww,” Sean began to protest, before Maggie cut him off in mid-complaint: