“Hi, Louie,” my mom says when I walk into the kitchen. She puts a plate of apple and banana slices in front of me and says, “How’d the audition go?”
I make a whistling sound like a missile falling and then pop air out of my mouth like an explosion. “I bombed.”
She rubs my back. “Well, luckily this was practice. You have plenty of time to tweak your act before the show.”
I shake my head. “I’m not doing the show.”
My mother looks at the ceiling. “I don’t know what to do with you and your father today.” She sounds tired as she says this.
I shove three banana rounds into my mouth at once. “What happened to Dad?” I mumble through banana mush.
My mother gets a funny look on her face. “He heard from the gallery he met with this weekend. They said his aesthetic wasn’t what they were looking for. I picked Ruby up for him so he could have some private time.”
I scratch my head. “Dad and I both failed on the same day.” I crunch into an apple slice. It’s strange, but I feel better knowing my dad bombed at the same time I did.
My mother grabs my chin and turns my face toward her.
“Louie, neither of you failed,” she says. “Your dad is going to keep trying, and if you want to be a comedian, then you should keep trying, too.”
“You wouldn’t say that if you knew what happened at school.” I remember the picture frame I saw in Dad’s garbage can. “And how do you know Dad’s still trying? Maybe he says he’s trying but he’s actually spending his time reading home improvement manuals.”
My mom doesn’t say anything, but her eyes get sadder and sadder as she stares at my face. If only there was such a thing as a stand-up tragedian. I’d be a shoo-in.
My mother squeezes my hand and gets up from the table. She doesn’t say anything, and I figure that means there isn’t anything to say. I was right. If my dad can give up, then so can I.
BAA, BAA, BARF SHEEP, THREE BAGS FULL
I spend the afternoon in my closet packing my comedy stuff into big black trash bags.
“Why’d the rubber chicken cross the road?” I ask my rubber chickens as I throw them away. I can’t think of a punch line.
When there are three bulging bags standing next to the door of my closet, I sit down at the edge of my stage and put my head in my hands.
Ruby barges in, unties one of the bags, and starts poking around.
“Why are you smushing all your special things into the garbage?” she asks.
“I’m quitting comedy.”
“Wow.” Ruby sits down next to me and lays her head against my shoulder. “I’d be humongously sad if I had to quit unicorns.”
We sit quietly for a minute.
“Nope,” she says. “I can’t do it. I love unicorns too much.”
“It’s not the same. You don’t have to do unicorns in front of a million people. And even if you did you wouldn’t care. You never care if people think you’re a weirdo.”
Ruby blinks.
“Do you think I’m a weirdo?” she asks. Her chin quivers.
That’s the problem with sisters. You are having a perfectly fine time feeling sorry for yourself, then suddenly you are feeling sorry for them instead.
“Well,” I say, “I do think you’re a weirdo, but in a good way. It makes you interesting.”
Ruby lights up. “You’re a weirdo, too. I think you’re the weirdest person in the world.”
“Thanks,” I say. Her words actually make me feel a little bit better.
“Can I have your stuff?” Ruby points to the bags. “I have a unicorn who’s a comedian.”
I look at the trash bags and I look at Ruby. I’m not sure what I want to do anymore. I bombed my audition. That should be the end of the story. But maybe it’s not.
“You can have one thing,” I tell her. “I’m not sure what I’m going to do with the rest.”
Ruby jumps up and rifles through the bags, tossing the items that don’t interest her over her shoulder.
“Careful!” I say as my Laurel and Hardy double bobble head bangs me on the knee. I pick it up and think about Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, one of the great old-time comedy teams. A lightning bolt idea blasts me between the eyes:
Not all great comedians are solo acts.
I imagine myself stepping onto the stage with a partner, and the thought of being up there doesn’t seem half as scary. Maybe that’s the key to overcoming stage fright.
“Can I have your jar of fake mucus?” Ruby asks.
“Sure,” I tell her, though I’m barely paying attention. My thoughts are racing.
Doing my act with a partner is the answer to my stage fright problem. I’m sure of it. But now I have a new problem: How do I get a partner?
I want to call Nick right away. The Barf Brothers could be a great team, but I don’t know how to ask him to be my comedy partner now. He’s already doing an act with Thermos, and students can’t be in more than one act.
I don’t want to ask Nick to cancel on Thermos, but what choice do I have? If Thermos hadn’t made me do my act in Nick’s room and then trash-talked Ryan in the hallway, I never would have auditioned and my dream would still be nice and safe. The way I see it, Thermos owes me.
SLAM-CRASH-SMUSH BALL
The problem with asking Nick to be my partner is that we aren’t best friends anymore. Before I can ask him anything, I have to become his best friend again. When Nick and I were best friends before, it was because we liked the same things. When we stopped being best friends, it was because Nick had started to like sports. Maybe I have to become a sporty kid, or at least a sportier kid, to get our friendship back. If that’s the kind of friend Nick wants, that’s the kind of friend I’ll be. To start with, I will have to look sporty.
Unfortunately, I don’t have any team jerseys to wear. The only thing I own that’s remotely sporty is the terry cloth headband I got for free at the first and only day of tennis lessons I ever attended. I accidentally hit the ball at my instructor’s head twelve times and he called my mom to come get me and told her she should never bring me back to tennis again. Ever.
Um. That didn’t actually happen. Really.
After I’ve dressed for school, I walk to the kitchen for breakfast. When Ruby sees me, she runs out of the room, then returns with a pair of orange tights tied around her head.
“Why are we wearing headbands today?” she asks, taking a bite of her toast.
“I was going to ask the same thing,” Dad says as he hands me a plate of scrambled eggs. “By the way, Mom told me what happened at the audition. It’s my fault, Louie. I should have made time to watch your act. I’m sorry.”
I take a bite of eggs and think while I chew.
“It’s not your fault,” I finally say. I wanted him to watch me, but I don’t think it would have changed anything. “Mom told me what happened, too. With the gallery. She said you are going to keep trying.”
My dad coughs and mumbles something I don’t hear while he shuffles over to the sink to scrub the frying pan.
When Ruby and I step outside to walk to school, Nick looks at both of us funny, but doesn’t say anything.
“Is today ninja day?” Henry asks, pointing at our headbands.
Ruby shakes her head and her tights flap behind her. “It’s because we’re quitting comedy.”
I immediately glance at Nick to see his reaction.
“Sorry,” he says, shrugging. “Thermos shouldn’t have made you audition before you were ready.”
Yeah, I want to say, she shouldn’t have. But I wonder if that’s what a sporty kid would say. “Thank goodness we have gym today.”
Nick laughs. “Good one. At least you still have your sense of humor.”
* * *
After announcements, my class lines up for gym. To start, Mr. Lamb makes us do push-ups. I manage to do twelve, though Thermos says she’ll count the time I got halfway up as number thirteen. We do jumping jacks and I do twenty-three, but I accide
ntally step on Thermos’s toes six times. Then Mr. Lamb blows his whistle and announces that we are going to play slam-crash-smush ball. Mr. Lamb invented it. It’s dodgeball times a billion. I groan.
Then I remember I’m a sporty kid now. I pump my fist in the air and shout, “Yeah!!!”
A bunch of kids laugh, and even Mr. Lamb gives me half a smile.
He blows his whistle again. My eardrums quiver. “Divide into teams. Even numbers on the blue line, odd numbers on the green line.”
I jog over to the blue line and only trip once. Everyone on my team besides Nick stares me down, clearly not happy to have me as a teammate, but I go around high-fiving them and saying things like, “Let’s crush ’em!” and “They’re going down!” so they’ll know I’m the new sporty Louie.
Mr. Lamb sets out eight huge fluffy gym mats, which don’t feel very fluffy when you get slammed into them, believe me. And he gives everyone a supersmushy ball about the size of a kickball. In theory, the smush balls won’t hurt even if someone whips one at you, but this hasn’t been my experience so far.
The balls are for tagging people. You throw the ball and try to knock your human target onto a mat. The mats are prison. The team with the last person standing wins.
When the game gets going smush balls are flying left and right. I run around as fast as I can—it’ll be harder for my classmates to hit a moving target. This means I don’t throw any balls, but it’s only my first day being sporty so I cut myself some slack. Before I know it, I’m the only person on my team left standing and Thermos is chasing me around the gym.
Everyone on my team is shouting for me to pick up a ball, but Thermos is behind me ready to whip her smush ball as soon as I stop moving.
“Burger,” shouts Mr. Lamb. “Grab a ball!”
That’s when I realize if I can somehow manage to slam Thermos out and win the game for my team, I will prove that I’m the new, improved sporty Louie. Nick and I will go back to normal.
There’s no way I’m going to beat Thermos to the draw. I’ll have to distract her if I have any hope of throwing her out.
“Hey, Thermos,” I shout, running back and forth. “You forgot to hide your hair bow!”
Thermos’s eyes go wide with shock. She instantly lifts both hands to her head, dropping her ball to the floor. I grab the ball closest to me and lob it at her. It isn’t a very hard throw and it barely grazes her elbow, but it does the job. She steps backward to avoid the ball and lands on a mat. My team wins. Everyone jumps up from the mats and pats me on the back. Even Ryan Rakefield, who wasn’t even on my team, punches my bicep and says, “Nice one, Louie!”
I look at Nick, but he shakes his head at me and walks over to Thermos. Her back is to me, but I can tell she’s staring at the floor.
Mr. Lamb barks that gym is over, and everyone lines up to go back to class. I stand behind Nick, but he won’t turn around when I tap him on the shoulder. Ryan and Jamal are behind me, and they are talking so loud everyone can hear them.
“Don’t you love hair bows?” Ryan says, making his voice high-pitched and girly.
“They’re so pretty!” Jamal answers in his own girly voice.
Thermos’s shoulders stiffen, and Nick whispers, “Ignore them.”
Mr. Lamb is ignoring them. He’s standing at the door to the gym, looking out the window to the hallway and waiting for Mrs. Adler to pick us up.
“I like to wear a red hair bow when I play basketball and a green one when I play soccer,” Ryan says. “But I save my pink one for when I’m with my boyfriend.”
Thermos whips around, gets right in Ryan’s face, and shouts, “Shut up!”
That gets Mr. Lamb’s attention. “Albertson. Cool it.” He gives Thermos the evil eye. “You, too, Rakefield,” he says to Ryan.
Thermos faces front and folds her arms across her chest. I tap Nick on the shoulder again, and he turns around, looking annoyed. “What?” he snaps.
“Never mind,” I mumble.
Nick turns back around as Mrs. Adler arrives and leads us to our classroom. My feet feel sluggish and I want to explain to Nick that I wasn’t teasing. Not on purpose. I was trash-talking, like a sporty kid. Why can’t he see that?
ALONE
I try to talk to Nick after school, but he speed walks the whole way home and it’s hard to keep up with him. Ruby, Henry, and I practically have to jog.
“Would you slow down?” I say.
Nick slows down.
“Would you look at me?”
Nick looks at me.
“I didn’t mean to embarrass Thermos,” I tell him.
“Tell her that.” Nick starts speed walking again.
“Wait!” I run after him. “I know you probably won’t care, but I have a really big problem. That’s the only reason I did it.”
Nick stops. “I would care, Louie. That’s the way friendship works.” His words are nice, but his voice is angry. He sighs and his next words come out nicer. “What’s your problem?”
“I figured something out about my act. I need a partner to be able to do it.”
“I’ll be your partner!” Ruby steps in front of me, but I move her aside.
“Only fifth graders can be in the talent show.”
“Oh,” says Ruby, disappointed. She turns to Henry. “In fifth grade we will do a unicorn parade.”
“Okay,” says Henry.
I glance at Nick, smirking, but he won’t look at me.
“I’m already doing an act with Thermos,” he reminds me.
“I know that,” I say. “Forget it.”
Nick glares at me. “I don’t get it. Why don’t you like Thermos?”
Maybe I would have liked her if Nick hadn’t made her his new best friend.
“She’s the girl version of Ryan Rakefield,” I say.
“You’re so stupid. She’s more like the girl version of you.” Nick looks hard into my eyes. He storms off and Henry follows, leaving Ruby and me standing on the sidewalk alone.
When we get inside, the house is silent. My dad doesn’t even shout a hello. I go to the kitchen and eat a snack, then wander around the house, bored out of my mind, trying to find something to do. I don’t even feel like watching Lou Lafferman.
The door to my dad’s studio is open, so I peek inside. Ruby is sitting on the floor making a picture on a giant geoboard Dad made for Ari when she was three. A geoboard is a huge piece of wood covered with nails hammered halfway in. You can stretch rubber bands around the nails and make designs.
My dad is sitting at his worktable with his eyes closed. He’s so still, I’m not sure he knows that we are in the room. I want to shake him, but I’m afraid to move.
Ruby’s creating a starburst design. I sit down next to her and add an overlapping zigzag border with blue, green, and white rubber bands. Ruby glances at me and then her eyes flick over to my dad, but I don’t know what to tell her.
Ari walks by the door.
At first she goes straight past, but a second later she walks backward until she’s standing in the middle of the doorway again. She looks at my father, then at Ruby and me. Then she walks into the room, sits down next to me, and starts weaving in little rubber band squiggles between the starburst and the border. She doesn’t say anything either.
The quiet in the room is the kind of quiet that feels like it shouldn’t be broken. Like library quiet. Or sunrise quiet. Or I’m-worried-something-is-wrong-with-my-dad quiet.
So we silently sit in Dad’s studio stretching rubber bands, and before I know it, my mom’s car door slams. We’ve been working for an hour, and my dad hasn’t moved once.
Mom calls from the front hallway. “Where is everyone?”
Ruby, Ari, and I stop working, but don’t say anything. I wonder if my dad will finally open his eyes. He doesn’t.
When my mom finds us in the studio she walks over to my dad, puts her hand on his back, and says, “David?”
He finally opens his eyes.
“What’s wrong?” Mom
asks.
Dad sighs. “Everyone, I need you to gather around.”
Ari, Ruby, and I stand near our parents so that our family forms a circle. “You guys have been so supportive of me, but I have made a decision. I’m not cut out to be an artist. Ari, you can have your room back. Louie, your closet is safe.”
Ari bursts into a smile and hugs my dad, but my mom is shaking her head. “You have barely given it a try, and this has been your dream for as long as I’ve known you.”
I search my dad’s face. He has a million more wrinkles than he did yesterday. He smiles a sad smile. “Some things aren’t meant to be.”
I don’t like that expression very much. I don’t think my dad does either. He doesn’t look happy or even relieved. He looks depressed.
What Mom said is right. Being an artist has always been Dad’s dream. But maybe wanting to do something isn’t enough to make it happen.
THE ULTIMATE BATTLE OF DOOM
For the next two weeks, whenever I see Nick I try to make a joke to break the icy force field between us, but it’s not working. On the way to school, Nick walks five steps ahead of me, and no matter how fast I try to walk, I can never catch up to him. On the way home from school, it’s the same thing. In school, Nick won’t pass notes with me, and he sits next to Thermos at lunchtime.
On Saturday morning, three days before the talent show, I dream about Nick and me sharing a meat-lover’s pizza. We both eat slice after slice, but the pizza box never empties. The best part of the dream is the way Nick and I laugh about it. Like we are Barf Brothers again. I wish it was true.
I have to tell him I don’t care about the talent show, I just want to be friends again. I’m about to get out of bed and call him, even though my mom would probably say it’s too early to call, when I hear moaning and groaning coming from my closet. Ruby must be in there playing Magical Mystery Unicorns Enter the Cave of Doom.
“Ruby!” I shout. “Who said you could play in my closet? I know it wasn’t me because I don’t talk in my sleep!”
The Barftastic Life of Louie Burger Page 7