by John J. Bonk
Me, an actor? Yeah, right - when piggy banks fly. I’ll probably end up working at the plastics factory when I grow up, just like everybody else in this town.
“Knock, knock, it’s your aunt. The pretty one.” My bedroom door squeaked open, and Aunt Olive poked her head in. “Are you awake? Can I come in?”
Obviously the Enter at Your Own Risk! sign on my door wasn’t working.
“So, how’s your science project coming along?” she asked.
“Swimmingly.”
Her eyes scanned my room, probably searching for Styrofoam planets or papier-mâché volcanoes.
“I’m still in the research stage.”
“Okay. Well, I’m off to the grocery store,” Aunt Olive said. “I was hoping there’d be some leftovers from the party, but all that’s left is the turkey carcass.”
“The Grubbses like their grub,” I said.
“Can I pick you up anything special?” she asked. “You seem a little down in the dumps.”
“No, thanks.”
“Are you sure?” Aunt Olive said, putting on her denim jacket with the shiny beads across the top. “I clipped out a coupon for that fishy cereal you like so much. What’s it called again?”
“Crustacean Crunch.”
“That’s it.” She started singing in her shaky soprano, “’Crustacean Crunch is fun to munch…’ How does the jingle go? Sing it with me.”
“I don’t remember.”
I knew what she was doing, but I didn’t feel like being cheered up.
“Oh, you know! ‘Crustacean Crunch is fun to munch-’”
This could’ve gone on for days, so I joined in on “’-for breakfast, snacks, and even lunch.’”
Aunt Olive ended on a screechy high note, then launched into something operatic while she checked herself out in the mirror on my closet door. The tip of my jester’s belt was sticking out of the closet.
I should hide it in case someone recognizes that it’s made out of Dad’s old ties - from when he had a real job.
“The curse of working at a bakery,” my aunt said, slapping her rear end.
“Aunt Olive, you used to work at Apex Plastics, in Lotus-town, right? Before the bakery? What was that like?”
“It was a paycheck,” she said, digging a perfume bottle out of her purse. She gave it two spritzes and twirled into the cloud of perfume. “Why do you ask?”
“That’s probably where I’ll end up eventually,” I muttered. “That’s where most people from this town end up.”
“Not necessarily.”
Aunt Olive dropped the perfume into her purse and scooped out a handful of something crinkly. She sat at the foot of my bed and tossed a rainbow of hard candies across my covers.
“Let me tell you a little story,” she said, hunting through the candies. “We Grubbses have greasepaint in our blood. When I was your age, all I ever dreamt about was being on the stage. Sound familiar?” She unwrapped a butterscotch and popped it into her mouth. “Oh, don’t look so surprised. You announced it to the world that you want to be an actor.”
I socked my mattress and the candies jumped.
“What? How did you -?”
“Gordy told me he saw something on a bulletin board when he picked you up from school.”
Motormouth strikes again! That must be the “juicy dirt” he said he had on me.
“Don’t worry, I won’t blab it to your mom. Anyway, singing is what I really loved. I had a legitimate voice.”
Aunt Olive began unbuttoning her jacket as if she was planning on staying awhile. I had a feeling she was about to launch into one of her epic stories that I’d heard a hundred times before.
“So, after high school I auditioned for the Light Opera of Willowbridge, a semiprofessional company a few towns over. I was green, and nervous as a cat. But you know what?”
They cast you in the chorus.
“They cast me in the chorus and made me understudy to Yum-Yum, the ingenue role. It was The Mikado, an operetta by Gilbert and Sullivan.”
“The Japanese one. I know - I saw the pictures.” The part about five curtain calls was just around the corner.
“Two weeks into the run, the woman playing Yum-Yum came down with a bronchial something-or-other, and guess what? I got to go on in her place! Well, long story short -”
Too late.
“-I got five curtain calls that night. Five!” She high-fived the air. “I’ll never forget it - the girl playing Peep-Bo tried to convince me to move to New York City with her and audition for the Met.” Aunt Olive fiddled with an earring. Her eyes were twinkling. “Wouldn’t that have been something?”
That’s usually where the story ended. But this time I asked, “Why didn’t you?”
“What? Go to New York? Plenty of reasons.”
“Like?”
“Well, I met my husband around that time, and he didn’t like the whole idea. Things were different back then. After he left me, I moved back into this house, and here I stayed. I still wonder what would’ve happened in New York.” Aunt Olive spat her butterscotch back into its wrapper. “Funny how the sugar-free ones are way too sweet.”
I wasn’t sure where she was going with this trip down memory lane. Get to the point! I thought. I wondered if I’d said it out loud, because the next words out of her mouth were -
“The point is that dreams don’t die. They stick with you for the rest of your life. Your dad knew it.”
She stopped cold, as if a curse word had accidentally slipped out. It felt as though all the oxygen had been sucked out of the room, just like at the party. That always happened when anyone in the family mentioned my father, which was mostly never.
“Tell me,” I said.
“Teddy and I were two peas in a pod when we were young,” she said in barely a whisper, glancing toward the open door. “Your dad’s a good guy, in spite of everything. Oh, I’m not saying he should win any Father of the Year awards, Lord knows, leaving your poor mom with two boys to raise. That was dead wrong. But he wanted to move to the city more than anything so he could make some sort of living doing what he loved - stand-up. Any city. Your ma wouldn’t hear of it.”
“I know,” I said. “I remember those fights.”
“His timing was lousy, but I have to say, he followed his dream.”
“Yeah, and deserted us,” I grumbled. “Never even bothered to call. If that’s what it takes to chase a dream, then forget it.”
“Olive, are you still here?” Granny said, appearing in my doorway. I gasped. “I heard your caterwauling from downstairs! Sweet Moses, they could hear it in New Jersey!”
I loved my gran, but she had a habit of butting in at the wrong time. A lot.
“Get the lead out, before the store closes.” Granny snapped her dishrag like a lion tamer cracking his whip, then disappeared down the hall.
“Please and thank you are just not in that woman’s vocabulary,” Aunt Olive mumbled.
“And don’t forget my Earl Grey tea,” Granny called. “Decaf!”
Aunt Olive rushed to the doorway and checked to see if the coast was clear. She paused for a second and quietly closed the door.
“Oh, your mom would slap me silly if she knew I was telling you this,” she said, sitting beside me on my bed. “Your dad tried to stay in touch. After the separation, he called and called.”
“No, he didn’t.”
“Yes. Your mother wouldn’t speak to him - she’d just hang up the phone. Got an unlisted number and everything. Can’t say I blame her. She was in a real bad way.”
“She still is,” I said, “sort of.”
“Your gran, too. You saw how she reacted to his birthday card, right?”
I was wondering when that was going to come up.
“How come he never sends me any birthday cards?” I asked.
“He tried.” Aunt Olive’s voice dropped back down to a whisper and she scooted closer to me. “Just between you, me, and the lamppost, I got a letter from him around Chr
istmastime with his new cell-phone number in it. When I called, he told me he missed you and your brother like crazy, for whatever it’s worth. He said he’d sent you kids cards and gifts -”
“We never got anything!”
“Your mom wrote ‘Return to sender’ on everything - and who knows where they ended up, with him gallivanting all over the country like he does? But he told me he understood, and respected her wishes to cut off all contact. I could tell it was killing him.”
I felt like bawling, but I held it in. This was way too much information to absorb all at once. Dad had always been the bad guy in the story; now it was sounding as if Mom was the bad guy.
“Well, where was he when you talked to him?” I managed to squeak out.
“Oh, the Funny Factory or the Giggle Garage or some such place.”
“Where?”
“Florida. Boca Raton, I think. That was three or four months ago, but I’ve spoken to him quite a few times since. He’s still got the same cell-phone number.” Aunt Olive hooked a fallen wisp of hair behind her ear. “I know he’d love to talk to you.”
She stared into my eyes as if she were waiting for an answer to a question that she had never asked. I didn’t know what to say. Truth is, everything went numb.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Aunt Olive said, more to herself than to me. She fished a little book out of her purse, hurried over to my desk, and jotted something down in my spiral notebook.
“Don’t tattle on me, Dustin. Promise?” She came over to me, smiling, and waggled my blanket-covered toes. “Or your mother’ll have my head on a silver platter.”
“Okay.”
“Well, I’d better get to the store before that old woman has a conniption.”
She gave the top of my head a quick peck and started for the door.
“Aunt Olive,” I called, “I’ll bet you were an awesome Yum-Yum.”
“You know what?” she said, bowing to me Japanese style. “I was.”
She left my room with tiny geisha steps, singing,
Three little maids from school are we,
Pert as a school-girl well can be,
Filled to the brim with girlish glee-eee…
After hearing the click of the door’s closing, I threw off the covers, flew over to my desk, and flipped through the spiral notebook until I found the page with the phone number on it. just staring at those ten digits made my heart gallop. I closed the notebook and shoved it into my backpack, right behind World History through the Ages. Dad’s birthday card to Granny was hidden between pages 114 and 115. He didn’t write anything in it except “Teddy,” in black ink. It was a stuffy card with swirly gold writing on the front that said, “Thinking of you, Mother, on Your Special Day,” surrounded by roses. I would’ve expected something a little zippier from a stand-up comic - like bananas in top hats, maybe.
I sat on the edge of my bed, staring into space, trying to remember if I’d ever caught Mom going through my backpack.
The phone rang in the hallway, and I almost hit the ceiling.
“Dustin, it’s Pepper again!” Mom yelled.
I made a mad dash to the door.
“Tell her I’ll talk to her at school, okay?”
I waited a ten-count for an “okay” back, but it never came.
I bolted the door, then dived halfway under my bed, pulling out suitcases, a tangle of old sneakers, storage bins packed with winter clothes. The red shoe box I was searching for was near the wall, and I managed to kick it out with my foot. I had a sneezing fit from the dust bunnies while I unrolled the rubber bands that kept the lid on. The box had a few old pictures of Dad in it - small ones that used to be in frames. And on the bottom of the box, under some frayed honor-award ribbons, was a silver-star key chain that said “Reach for the Stars!” It was the last thing he’d given me before he moved out. On the back was scratched, “To Dusty. Luv, Da.” He’d run out of space for the last d. Bad planning. Story of his life, I guess.
I lay back on my bed and closed my eyes, clutching that chunk of cold metal. A murky memory started to play out in my head, like an old black-and-white movie.
It’s summer, I think, I’m sitting in one of our old vinyl kitchen chairs with my legs dangling. Dad is giving me a haircut and he won’t let me look in the mirror until he’s all finished. Mom keeps saying, “Don’t make it too short, Ted,” and telling him to stop getting hairs in her cake batter - or pancake batter; some kind of batter. And we’re all sort of singing along with the radio. The Oldies but Moldies station, Dad called it.
Pretty soon the star points started pinching my hand, and I dropped the key chain on the floor.
“Dustin!” Mom called. “Dinner!”
I flung the covers over my head again. I felt hollow inside -like that ugly ceramic pig on my shelf.
Chapter 12
Catching the Worm
I headed to school extra early the next day so I could grab Miss Honeywell as soon as she showed up. (Well, not really “grab.”) We had to come up with a brilliant money-raising scheme to get the piano repaired if we wanted half a chance of getting the play up and running again. Futterman was still dead set against it, but maybe Miss Honeywell could work her magic on him if that dented piano weren’t standing in her way.
The playground was totally empty. Quiet too, except for the cheeping birds and my chattering teeth. It was chilly out, and little cloud puffs were coming out of my nostrils. I hope Futterman doesn’t see me - I might get accused of smoking again. I sat on a swing with a direct view of the teachers’ parking lot, waiting for Miss Honeywell’s light blue convertible to pull in. So far only the sheriffs car had driven by. Twice.
“Hey, early bird!” Pepper yelled, waving to me from the sidewalk, where she was surrounded by an audience of squirrels. She rounded the fence and ran over to me, chomping on a drippy breakfast burrito. “Jeez, squirrels’ll eat anything. What’re you doing here at this ungodly hour?”
“I need to talk to Miss Honeywell about the stupid piano,” I said, yawning. “What’s your excuse?”
“My stepdad dropped me off, like, ten minutes ago - he has to do inventory at the factory. I don’t even think they unlock the school’s main doors till around eight, do they?”
“Probably not,” I said, checking my watch.
Pepper hopped up onto the swing next to me. “Oh, gawd!” she yelped. “These are all dewy. Our butt cheeks are gonna have rings on them.”
“We’ll live,” I said. I pushed off from the ground to start the swing going. “So why were you calling me last night?”
“Oh, right - and thanks for not getting back to me. I just wanted to warn you, that’s all,” she said, shoving the last of the burrito into her mouth. “Wally’s on the warpath.”
“Uh-oh. Tell me.”
“He’s not speaking to you.”
I swung higher, afraid to ask for the grimy details. Pepper finished swallowing her food and tossed the burrito wrapper into a nearby trash can. A perfect shot.
“Why not?” I finally asked.
“He told me that you flat-out lied to him about your grandmother’s party being canceled.”
I dug my heels into the dirt to stop the swing and nearly fell off.
“I guess his mother was driving by your house and saw a bunch of cars parked in front,” she said, turning around and around in her swing so that the chains twisted. “Wally took his bike over to your house to check it out. I think he said he saw you and Jeremy sitting on the back porch or something.”
“Oh, man,” I said.
“Is that true?” Pepper said, still turning and twisting. “Did you lie?”
I didn’t answer.
She lifted both feet off the ground and spun like a tornado, with the swing chains jangling. Her short red hair stood straight out, then fell flat again when she came to a stop.
“‘Cause that’s a slimy thing to do if it’s true,” she said, jumping off the swing and grabbing onto a pole. “Oh, I think I’m gonna puke.�
��
“Miss Pew! Mr. Grubbs!”
It was Mrs. Sternhagen, calling from the parking lot. I guess we must’ve missed her flying in on her broomstick.
“Speaking of puke,” I said.
“I need your assistance, please,” Mrs. Sternhagen said, snapping her fingers.
I knew it. As soon as Pepper and I got to the parking lot, Mrs. Sternhagen handed us two shopping bags each. One of mine was filled with boxes of macaroni and glue, so either she’d be making a mighty nasty lunch, or her second-graders would be making some mighty ugly pencil holders.
“I understand Principal Futterman had a word with you about the piano in the auditorium, Mr. Grubbs,” she said, leading us toward the school’s side entrance. “And that nothing has come of it.”
“Yes, ma’am - or no, ma’am.”
“And your teacher apparently doesn’t feel it’s her responsibility. I’ve been heartsick ever since that play of yours, when the accident happened.” She stopped and looked directly at me. “My family donated that piano to Buttermilk Falls Elementary. It belonged to my grandfather at one time.”
“Oh,” I said. “I didn’t know that.”
“It’s such a lovely instrument,” Pepper said, rolling her eyes in my direction.
“And graduation is not too far away.” Her high heels were clacking again. “I don’t know how we’re going to have a proper graduation without me at the keyboard, playing the traditional Pomp and Circumstance.”
That would be the end of civilization as we know it.
She kept on yammering as we walked up the stone steps and through the teachers’ entrance at the side of the school. On our way to her classroom, I spotted two heads bobbing around the desk in Nurse Opal’s office. One was golden blond with loose, bouncy curls. It definitely belonged to Miss Honeywell. She must’ve parked on the street for some reason, ’cause her car wasn’t in the lot. And the other head belonged to - Jeremy? I wasn’t 100 percent sure.
After we dropped off the shopping bags (without so much as a thank-you - or a tip), Mrs. Sternhagen recruited Pepper into helping her shelve a stack of easy readers. I escaped with a story about having carpal tunnel syndrome and sped back to the nurse’s office to peek through the glass in the door.