by Linda Urban
“Next!” he called.
Max stepped in front of the painted horse. He took off his cowboy hat. He flattened his hair. He did not stand tall and brave and awesome. He stood sort of hunched, like a guy who wanted to go home and eat soup.
“Want me to take a picture?” asked Frank Jr.
“No, thank you,” said Max.
“You’re in, pardner,” said the roller coaster man.
Slowly, Max climbed the steps to the platform where the Big Buckaroo cars were and joined his cousins in line. His spine was not tingling. His toes were not tapping. The lump in his throat had slid down into his stomach and was getting bigger every minute.
“Next!” cried the roller coaster man. Max watched as the people in front of them filled a coaster car. “Seat belts on! Safety bar in place!” the coaster man told them. He pushed a button, and Max saw the cold blue car jolt forward. “Hold on to your hats!” yelled the man.
“I’m not holding my hat when we ride,” said Connie. “I’m holding on to the safety bar.”
“You have to hold your hat,” said Frank Jr. “Otherwise it will fly off during the ride and you’ll never get it back.”
This gave Max an idea. A very good idea. He made his voice sound fearless, even if he wasn’t. “Crew,” he said, “you must go to the summit alone. I will stay behind and hold on to our hats.”
“Are you sure?” asked Royal.
“Explorers make sacrifices,” said Max.
“Wow,” said Frank Jr.
“Double wow,” said Royal.
“I’m in charge!” said Connie.
Connie collected the hats and handed them to Max. She ordered her brothers into their coaster car. She sat down behind them and pulled the safety bar down tight. “Ready!” she called to the roller coaster man.
Max watched their car rickety-click up the tall and terrible summit. He tried to stand tall and brave and awesome, just in case any of the cousins looked back, but they did not. His oatmealy feeling grew bigger and bigger, even as he heard his cousins’ wild, happy screams.
Chapter
Four
Max let Connie lead them back to the Okey Doke Corral and into the big white tent. There, he found a small stage and many rows of chairs filled with cowboy-hatted people. But he could not find Mom.
“Want to sit with us, Fearless Leader?” asked Connie.
Max shook his head. He did not feel like a fearless leader. And he did not feel like an explorer with a crew. He felt like a kid who wished his mom would take off her cowboy hat so he could find her.
“Max! Max!” Max heard Mom’s voice. There she was! Standing in the front row. Max should have known.
“You’re just in time!” Mom patted the seat beside her, and Max sat in it. “That is your Great-Great-Aunt Victory.”
Up on the stage was a big red chair like a queen would sit in, but instead of a queen, there sat an old, old woman in an old, old cowboy hat. Her face was even more wrinkly than Dad’s neighbor Ms. Tibbet’s, and she sat up very tall and straight—almost as tall and straight as Shackleton.
On either side of her stood a cowboy hatted man. One had a microphone. The other pushed a wheely cart with an enormous birthday cake on it. Max could not tell if there were one hundred candles on it, but it looked like it. He could feel the heat of them from the front row.
“Victory would like to invite all the children to help her blow out her candles,” said the microphone man.
Max did not want to go on stage. He wanted to stay with Mom. But when Connie ran by, she tugged his arm.
“Go ahead,” said Mom.
Max went on stage and stood beside the cake.
“One … two … three … blow!”
Great-Great-Aunt Victory blew. The children blew. Every flame went out.
Max took a step back toward Mom, but the microphone man stopped him. “While the cake is being cut, do any of the children have a question for Victory?”
Connie raised her hand. “What did you wish for?” she asked.
“I wished for cake,” said Great-Great-Aunt Victory.
Other kids asked questions too, about how it felt to be so old and what she remembered about being a kid and whether she liked her cake plain or with ice cream. Then the microphone man turned to Max.
“And what about you, young sir? Is there something you’d like to know?”
There was something Max wanted to know. “Do we have a family motto?” he asked.
“A family motto?” said the man.
“Like Ernest Shackleton’s family motto was By Endurance We Conquer. And a hat lady said our family motto was probably If It Isn’t on the Schedule, It Doesn’t Exist.” The audience chuckled, but Great-Great-Aunt Victory did not laugh. She sat even straighter in her chair.
“I don’t know about family mottoes,” said Great-Great-Aunt Victory. “But I do have my own.”
“You do?” said Max. “What is it?”
“Ignore All Mottoes,” said Great-Great-Aunt Victory.
When Max went back to sit with Mom, Connie followed. “We forgot to give you back your explorer stuff.” She handed Max his map and his camera.
“Did you kids have a good time?” asked Mom.
Connie took back the camera and turned it so Mom could see the pictures Frank Jr. had taken. “That’s us by the Twister and that’s us eating hot dogs and that’s us at the ring toss and that’s just the ground, but that’s me and Royal on the Big Buckaroo. And that’s Max looking up at us.”
Mom looked at the picture. Then she looked at Max. “You didn’t go on the Big Buckaroo?”
“I led that expedition,” said Connie. “Max stayed behind and held on to our hats.”
“Explorers make sacrifices,” said Max. He wished his voice sounded a little more fearless.
“Maybe that could be your family motto!” said Connie. Then she headed off for cake.
“I like Great-Great-Aunt Victory’s motto better,” said Mom.
“Do you like it more than the one about schedules?”
“Especially more than the one about schedules.” Mom took off her cowboy hat. Her hair had gotten a little sproingy. Max took off his hat too. “The schedule says I’m supposed to join the family sing-along next, but …” Mom slid the Reunion Schedule under her seat and she slid both their hats under their seats too. “Let’s go, let’s go,” she whispered.
All afternoon, Max and Mom rode rides and played games and snacked on snacks. Max showed Mom the spinniest car on the Twister and the dustiest spot in the Dizzy Dust Bowl and how to hit the trickiest targets at Annie O’s Shoot-’Em-Up Gallery. They explored the park from one end to the other. Finally, Mom said, “Max, I don’t know how much more walking I can do in these silly shoes.”
Max understood. His feet still felt a little weird from wearing his shoes on the wrong feet yesterday.
“I think I can manage one more ride. What’ll it be, explorer?”
Max looked at Mom. Then he looked up, up over her head to the tall, tall tracks of the Big Buckaroo. Max swallowed hard, but he did not notice any oatmeal lumps in his throat. There weren’t any in his stomach, either. In fact, his spine was tingling.
“How about the Big Buckaroo?” said Max.
“I thought you’d never ask,” said Mom.
Max and Mom walked as fast as her toe-showing shoes could go. When they reached the HOLD IT, PARDNER! sign, Mom borrowed Max’s explorer camera. “Ready for your close-up?”
Max fluffed up his hair. He stood tall and brave.
“Awesome,” said Mom. “We’ll send this one to your dad.”
“Would you like one of the two of you together?” asked the roller coaster man.
Max and Mom posed in front of the painted sign. Max stood on his tiptoes, even though he didn’t need to. The roller coaster man snapped the photo and handed the camera back to Max. “Ready to ride?” he asked.
Max and Mom ran up the steps to the platform. Max hopped up and down as he waited. Mom bo
unced a little too.
The next coaster car rolled in. Max and Mom sat right in the front. They buckled their seat belts. They pulled the safety bar down tight.
“Hold on to your hats!” the roller coaster man announced, but since Max and Mom weren’t wearing any hats, they didn’t have to worry about that.
The car lurched forward. Rickety-clickety, rickety-clickety. Up, up, up they went, up the tall, tall tracks of the Big Buckaroo.
“I remember the first time I rode this coaster. I was so scared, I didn’t let go of the safety bar for one second,” said Mom.
“Are you scared now?” asked Max.
“Maybe a little. It has been a very long time,” said Mom.
Max did not hold on to the safety bar, but he did hold on to Mom’s hand. “So you aren’t scared,” he explained.
Rickety-click, rickety-click … Up, up, up they went. When they reached the summit, Max looked around. He could see the whole park. The Twister. The arcade. Far in the distance, he could even see the Okey Doke Corral, though the people looked so small, he could not tell which ones were wearing hats and which ones weren’t.
He started to wonder what Shackleton had seen from the top of his ice mountain when—whoosh! The Big Buckaroo dove and looped, dove and looped! Max could see that Mom was laughing a wild, happy scream, but he could not hear her because he was happy-screaming too.
Chapter
Five
Max and Mom rode the Big Buckaroo five more times before it really was time to go back to the Okey Doke Corral. Mom walked as fast as she could in her toe-showing shoes, but that was not very fast. This gave Max time to think. He had had a great day. He had explored a lot. But he hadn’t really discovered anything except for Mom’s name, which didn’t seem like a daring discovery. But it did seem daring to ask her about it.
“How come you say your name is Amy when it isn’t?” asked Max.
“Do you know what Amiable means?” asked Mom. “It means ‘likable.’”
“You are likable,” said Max.
“Thank you,” said Mom. “You are likable too. But I don’t want you to have to be likable. When your name is Amiable, everyone expects you to be pleasant. All the time. Even when you might be angry or scared or bored—”
“Or making sacrifices,” said Max.
“Exactly. It is impossible to live up to. So I shortened Amiable to Amy.”
Max understood. Principal Adelle expected them to be quiet and civilized, even in the gym, even on the playground. Max could only imagine how much worse it would be if his name were Quiet LeRoy or Civilized LeRoy.
“Does LeRoy mean anything?” asked Max.
“I think it means ‘the king,’” said Mom.
“Is being the king impossible to live up to too?” asked Max. “Is that why the Family Tree said Amiable Pickler?”
“It said Pickler?” asked Mom.
“Yes,” said Max.
“Wow,” said Mom. “It must have felt weird to see that.”
Max did not think it had felt weird, but he did not think he knew the word for what it did feel like either, so he just said yes.
“Max, Frank Sr. filled out the family tree information, not me. Pickler was my last name before I married your dad and became a LeRoy. I guess because your dad and I aren’t together anymore, Frank wrote Pickler instead.”
“So you’re still a LeRoy. Like me. And like Dad. Like our whole family.”
Mom stopped walking. Max thought it was because her feet were hurting, but then she squatted down and looked Max straight in the eye. She might have had strange swoopy hair and new shoes and a new skirt, but her eyes looked exactly like her always-self. “Right now, I’m a LeRoy. Someday I might change my mind and go back to Pickler. But you and me? We could be called anything. Batman and Robin. Bonnie and Clyde. SpongeBob and Patrick. It would not matter what our names were. We would still be a family.”
“And Dad?” asked Max.
“Dad will always be your family too. And mine. Just in a different way. But you knew that already, didn’t you?”
Max did know that. He just forgot. And remembering it made him think of something else.
By the time they got back to the Okey Doke Corral, people were folding up chairs and taking down banners.
“Let’s see if we can find our hats,” said Mom.
“Actually, there is something else I have to do,” said Max. “Okay?”
“Okay,” said Mom.
Max ran to the Family Tree table. Connie and Frank Sr. had just started rolling up the long white paper.
“Wait,” said Max. He unzipped a pocket and took out a pencil. He found his name. He found Mom’s name. He found a little bit of empty space near them both. In his best printing, he wrote Dad’s name: Leo LeRoy. Then he drew a line from Dad’s name to his own. He traced over the line between his name and Mom’s, too, so it would be just as dark.
“You need to make a line between your mom and dad,” said Connie, “so people will see the connection.”
“I’m the connection,” said Max.
“I found them!” said a voice. Max turned around. There was Mom, holding two cowboy hats. She handed one to Max. “Here you go, pardner.”
Max put his hat on his head. Mom straightened it.
Mom put her hat on her head. Max straightened it. Mom laughed. “Together We Conquer!” she said. “Or at least, Together We Get Our Hats on Straight. How’s that for a family motto?”
Max was not sure about the hats part. Or the conquering part. But he was sure about the together part.
“Good,” he said. Because it was.
Chapter
One
When Max’s dad came to pick him up on Friday night, he said, “Tomorrow, I will show you my new neighborhood.”
“Sorry, Dad,” said Max. “Tomorrow I have spy duty. You’ll have to call me Agent Pepperoni.”
“Oh,” said Dad. “Okay.”
“But you can be my helper spy,” said Max. “You can be Agent Cheese.”
“Not Agent Lightning? Or Agent Super-Cool Guy?” asked Dad.
“Agent Cheese,” said Max.
Max had it all planned out. He had been reading The Sneaky Book of Spy Skills and had been waiting until the weekend to try what he had learned. As they drove from the house Max lived in with Mom to his dad’s new apartment, Max imagined himself sneaking through dark shadows and collecting top-secret information. He imagined Dad sneaking alongside him. Dad would not be wise in the ways of spies like he was, but Max didn’t mind. He would tell Dad what to do.
When Dad opened the door, the new apartment was dark. He flicked on the lights. “What do you think?”
“It is very clean,” said Max. He thought that sounded nicer than saying it was very white. The kitchen had a white counter and white tile floor and a white breakfast bar between it and the living room. The living room was white too, except for a black TV and an orange armchair Max recognized from Grandma’s house. The rest of the room was empty. Max thought it would be perfect for practicing spy moves like leaping into action and falling from tall buildings. “I like it,” said Max.
“I haven’t had much time to unpack,” said Dad.
He showed Max a white bedroom with white walls and lots of cardboard boxes and a mattress on the floor. “This is my room,” said Dad. “And this is the bathroom.” The bathroom was white too, but there were two pale-green towels hanging on hooks and two very new-looking toothbrushes on the white countertop.
Max opened a door under the sink. There was nothing in the cupboard. A good place for hiding, he thought. “I like this, too,” he said.
“Would you like to see your room?” asked Dad.
Max expected another white room with cardboard boxes, but when Dad opened the door, that is not what he saw. He saw a room with blue walls and a bed with a silver blanket. There was a blue dresser and football-print curtains and a lamp with a Detroit Lions football helmet for a base. And two framed photographs: one of M
ax and Mom at Cedar Point Amusement Park and one of Max and Dad at a football game.
“Do you like it?” asked Dad.
“It’s very blue,” said Max. He didn’t want to say what he was really feeling. What he was feeling was like somebody was sitting on his chest. Max had liked the Detroit Lions last year, when he was in second grade. He still liked the Detroit Lions now, but not as much. And he did not think he liked blue very much at all. He could not imagine a spy with a blue room and football curtains.
“Are you okay?” asked Dad.
Max did not want to hurt Dad’s feelings. “I’m tired,” he said. He pretended to yawn.
Max brushed his teeth with one of the new toothbrushes in the new bathroom. Dad said there were new pajamas in his new dresser, but Max put on the soft old ones from his big weekend bag. He got out The Sneaky Book of Spy Skills and got into his new bed.
“All set, sport?” asked Dad.
“I’m not a sport,” said Max. “I am a spy.”
“That’s right,” said Dad. “You are Agent Pepperoni and I am Agent Flash.”
“Agent Cheese,” said Max.
Dad grinned. “Thought I could sneak that past you.”
“You can’t sneak things past a spy,” said Max.
“So I see.” Dad tilted the book in Max’s hands so he could read the title. “Does this book say what a helper spy does?”
“A helper spy does what the main spy tells him to. He jots down notes. He takes pictures. He is on lookout,” said Max.
“Sounds good,” said Dad. “When do we start?”
“Tomorrow,” said Max. “First thing.”
“Then we’d better get some shuteye.” Dad kissed Max on the forehead. He tucked the silver covers under Max’s chin. He pulled shut the football curtains and turned off the helmet lamp. “Good night, pal.”
Gray light filtered through the space between the football curtains and made shadows on the walls. Max heard a thump and a rumble that were probably the heat turning on.
Probably.
There were footsteps overhead and a clicketa-clicketa-clicketa sound. There was a clank and a whoosh and voices. Max knew that these sounds were probably other people in other apartments.