Seven Deadlies

by Gigi Levangie

  After a week, Willie felt so normal that he started skipping his dosages. He decided he didn’t need the drug anymore—and what’s more, he didn’t even like it.

  William liked being angry. He liked being in control of his household. He liked seeing fear in people’s eyes. He wasn’t comfortable feeling “normal.” Normal was for nimrods. Willie Wankre wanted respect! Willie Wankre wanted power!

  Willie went back to being a terror, only MUCH MORE so than before. He was angrier and bigger and redder and meaner than he ever was. Mrs. Wankre was near bald, and Mr. Wankre had to suck his food through a straw. Not even Prudence and Mabel knew what to do next.

  Their conversation (from behind their bolted door) went something like this:

  “What do we do now?”

  “I don’t know, Pru. What do we do?”

  “I don’t know, Mabel—what do you think we should do?”

  The girls took to sitting with their backs against each other at breakfast (so they could watch for flying objects), and their brains talked back and forth while they ate.

  As dishes flew and oatmeal whizzed by, they came up with a most amazing plan.

  What is Willie Wankre’s favorite food? Hot dogs!

  He loved hot dogs. The girls offered to make hot dogs for dinner while their mom took some much-needed rest.

  In the meantime, the girls snuck into Willie’s bathroom to “borrow” their brother’s medication—dangerous, indeed, because he could find them there . . .

  Which he did.

  But before he had a chance to throw a tennis shoe at their heads or give them hard noogies or monkey bites, Prudence and Mabel acted like they were busily cleaning his room.

  So Willie calmed down. A bit.

  But guess what? As he sat down to his hot dog meal (in his room, where he wanted it), he decided that they should clean his room every day—and wash his dirty underwear!

  The girls had brought him four hot dogs on a TV tray, with the mustard, ketchup, and relish already on—just how he liked it! (And to cover the taste of the . . .)

  “What’s that funny aftertaste?” Willie demanded, while the girls watched and shook in their boots.

  “Um . . . it’s a different kind of relish?” Prudence suggested (in her brain). From outward appearances, she merely shrugged.

  “Mmrgh. I like it,” Willie grunted, ignoring her.

  The girls giggled and shook. (But they didn’t giggle too, too loudly.)

  “I want more!” Willie yelled.

  The girls looked at each other.

  “More?” they asked him with their eyes.

  “Yes, more!” Willie screamed. “Now!”

  The girls scrambled and brought more hot dogs into Willie’s room, where he was now playing his favorite video game, Grand Theft Killing Machine Bloodlust Guns ’n’ Stuff Volume IV.

  Willie took a bite. “Where’s the special relish?!” he demanded, then threw the hot dog against the wall.

  The girls looked at each other.

  “I want the special relish!” Willie screamed.

  The girls bit their lips.

  “Now!” Willie yelled.

  “Special relish on the way,” the girls said in their heads.

  The girls made a half dozen more dogs. All with that “special relish.”

  “I’m sleepy,” Willie said after eating the whole lot. “Take my plate away.”

  And then Willie lay his big, giant, red head down.

  And fell asleep. Snorting and snoring like a bear.

  The girls watched him. Then tiptoed away.

  And in the morning, the house was quiet. Willie was still sleeping—and snorting.

  They tried to wake him. Clapping their hands, then poking him gently. Then a bit harder. Nothing.

  Mr. Wankre clapped in his ear. Then yelled. Nothing.

  Mrs. Wankre started to cry, although the girls weren’t sure if she was relieved or anxious.

  The ambulance came.

  The girls tried to tell their parents what they’d done (grinding his pills with their heels and mixing them in with the relish—a not unpleasant adventure), but Mr. and Mrs. Wankre were too crazed to listen.

  The hospital couldn’t quite figure it out. He was in a coma, that was for sure, but a very, very loud one. They took his blood and found out he’d overdosed on his medication. His parents were horrified—but heartened by the fact that he wanted to go back on it! That’s so sweet! So considerate!

  The girls trembled while their brains had a conversation. It went something like this:

  “Uh-oh.”

  “Yes, uh-oh.”

  “Maybe we should have fed him a little every day.”

  “Didn’t we vote on this?”

  “Yes.”

  “The democratic process was served, correct?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Well, then, we’ll just live with the consequences.”

  “The doctor smells like turpentine.”

  “Let’s go see the other patients.”

  “Right.”

  (Prudence was one minute older than Mabel, which made her the boss, but not the leader. Or the leader, but not the boss.)

  Willie eventually came out of his snorting, snoring coma and was brought home by his loving parents. He is now a shadow of his former self. Meaning William is nice. Really nice. He takes pleasure in the simple things. He talks softly and slowly and he smiles. He smiles a lot, and sometimes he claps when something strikes him as funny.

  He sits quietly when I read to him.

  He loves playing Crazy Eights and Go Fish.

  He is going to be this way for a very, very long time. Perhaps, the doctors say, for the rest of his life.

  They are very sorry, those doctors. It’s a tragedy, they say.

  The Wankres nod. Oh yes, a tragedy.

  The Wankre family enjoys going out to dinner. And the movies. And Disneyland. And eating breakfast. And Mrs. Wankre has started working part-time as a pediatrician, where she bounces babies on her knee and encourages toddlers to play with her stethoscope.

  Mr. Wankre has gotten another pair of glasses and gained a few pounds.

  And the young Wankre twins enjoy dressing their big brother up in girl clothes and playing teatime with him. Willie giggles when the girls comb his hair, and he enjoys their teas immensely. The girls have become so relaxed, they’ve even started mouthing words like please and thank you.

  Mr. Heywood comes out of hiding in Prudence and Mabel’s clothes hamper. Willie Wankre sleeps with Mr. Heywood at night, and he is very careful not to roll over on him.

  The End

  By now, my dear Admissions Committee, you have grown accustomed to meeting strange characters—but there is none so strange as Angus Willhelm (pronounced “VIL-h-eye-m”).

  Prepare yourselves.

  Little Angus lived in an apartment with his mother in a special part of Southern California known as “the Valley” (pronounced “WALL-ee”). Angus’s mom, Mrs. Willhelm, was not married, and there was no Mr. Willhelm.

  Mystery Alert: Mr. Willhelm vanished under suspicious circumstances when Angus was a baby. Suffice it to say, they’ve never found a body—but crumbs from a Jiffy corn muffin (Mr. Willhelm’s favorite) were found on the side of a freeway overpass. Cue ominous music, heavy on the oboe.

  Mrs. Willhelm (pronounced “VEEL-home”) promptly moved baby Angus and herself into their tidy apartment building called Via Toscana (though it’s nowhere near Italy) on a nondescript (which means “not special”) street called La Rosa Drive (Spanish for rose, though no roses grow on La Rosa).

  Mrs. Willhelm (pronounced “VUL-chum”) valued cleanliness above all things, which was why she and the baby had to move quickly from their home right after Mr. Willhelm (pronounced “VAL-ham”) disap
peared, because there appeared an enormous bloodstain on the living room carpet. No matter how hard she scrubbed and bleached and scrubbed some more, Mrs. Willhelm could not get the spot out!

  Who could live under such circumstances?

  Mrs. Willhelm (don’t worry, I’ll end the pronounce-ments) made sure that no germs ever touched her little Ang-y. She gave him twenty-two baths a day, wiped his hands constantly with—what else—Handi Wipes, used hand sanitizer as shampoo, and put him in a hazmat suit when he ventured outside. Because Mrs. Willhelm never wanted Angus to put his feet on the ground, as even her sparkling floors could be harboring flesh-eating bacteria, she encouraged him to eat and eat and eat so he’d be too fat to walk when the time came.

  And the time came . . . and went.

  This is Angus at six months. (Clever illustration.)

  This is Angus at ten months.

  This is Angus at twelve months (when he should have been walking!).

  You see, he was shaped like a beach ball—a squeaky-clean beach ball. He weighed 120 pounds at one year of age and couldn’t possibly support his weight on his chubby little stumps.

  Mrs. Willhelm (pronounced—whoops!) eventually went back to work as a nurse when her poor departed poisoned and mortally wounded (which means “stabbed with a kitchen knife”) husband’s life insurance ran out. By that time, Angus was five years old, and there was no way Mrs. Willhelm was going to allow him to go to kindergarten.

  Angus didn’t want to go to kindergarten. His mother had told him that other kids were full of awful germs, and if he went and they wiped their hideous snot-filled noses on his round cheeks, his nose would start bleeding, his ears would start ringing, and he would throw up his breakfast (twelve fried eggs, three packs of Jimmy Dean sausage, a ten-stack of frozen pancakes, and one quart of that orange juice that’s 11 percent juice and 89 percent battery acid) and die a horrible death!

  Well, Angus would have none of it. He could learn everything he wanted from life from watching snack food commercials. He learned words like juicy, sweet, salty, and hydrogenated. He learned to look for words like high-fructose corn syrup on labels—because that’s the flavor he liked best! Red dye #3 was a strong second, Fiery Red-Hot Swizzle Chips a sassy third.

  As it turned out, Angus was a very bright boy, and by second grade (or what should have been second grade, for Angus was still not enrolled in school), young Angus had worked out a very elaborate system for deciding what he would eat on any given day, and at which fifteen-minute intervals. A surprise TV commercial could send him into fits, though—because he’d have to rejigger (this means “adapt” or “change”) the Angus Eating Schedule system to prevent the nefarious and fearful Blood Sugar Drop.

  Oh? You’ve never heard of the nefarious and fearful Blood Sugar Drop?

  Well, time for a little science lesson. I’ll let Dr. Sigmundus Broatius, for the study of the incorrigible BSD at the Institute of Digestive Disorders, third floor (sponsored by Nabisco), www.nefariousandfearfulbloodsugar drop.org, take the floor.

  In other words, I’ll let him explain in detail.

  Dr. Sigmundus Broatius

  (speaking loudly, with an Austrian accent):

  Yessss, normal blood glucose levels are about 90mg/100ml, equivalent to 5mM (mmol/l) (as molecular weight of glucose, C6 H12O6 is about 180g/mol daltons). The total amount of glucose normally in circulating human blood is therefore about 3.3 to 7g (assuming an ordinary adult blood volume of 5 litres, plausible for an average adult male—

  Thank you, Dr. Broatius! That’s quite enough!

  Bottom line? If Little Angus didn’t eat every fifteen minutes, on the minute, he would get into a very foul funk. And he would stay in his foul funk until his next blueberry muffin.

  This was a typical day in Angus’s young life:

  Angus would roll out of bed and onto the floor just before noon; he woke up late because he was watching his plasma HD television set until four in the morning. (Angus sometimes had blurred vision caused by his BSD, and he needed a picture that was pinpoint clear.)

  Twelve noon: Precisely at noon, Angus would eat an entire box of Entenmann’s mini cinnamon buns with the icing on top. He would lick the icing off each bun first, and then eat the bun.

  This got him off to a good start.

  And then, while watching television, he would pick up his banjo and cobble together a ditty. Angus’s biggest goal in life was to write theme songs for crunchy, sweet, and salty snacks. Here’s his latest:

  I think that I shall never see

  a jewel as lovely as a three-

  package bag of hot ’chitos!

  Angus had a lovely singing voice.

  Every fifteen minutes, Angus would eat a sugary starch or fatty protein, followed by an energy bar.

  Every thirty minutes, he would drink diet soda or a vitamin drink.

  Every forty-five minutes, he would drink a Coke to make up for the diet soda.

  Six p.m.: Angus would be hungry for dinner. If it was Monday, Mrs. Willhelm would bring home McDonald’s; if it was Tuesday, it was KFC. Wednesdays were for Burger King, Thursdays belonged to Pizza Hut, Friday wouldn’t have been Friday without Panda Express, Saturday was Taco Bell’s big day (olé!), and Sunday, the Sabbath, a day for introspection, was the perfect time to dive into a Blimpie or two. Or three. Or eight.

  This routine went on for years.

  One fateful day, Mother Willhelm, who was getting older, couldn’t put on her nurse’s shoes—she couldn’t even take another step. Her bunions were causing so much pain that she had to have them removed. Mrs. Willhelm’s doctor told her she had to spend the night in the hospital, and so must leave her beloved son, Angus, in the care of a babysitter.

  Angus was not happy about this at all—he’d never had a babysitter in his life! Why would he need a babysitter when he had his trusty plasma television set and mini-fridge?

  But Mrs. Willhelm put her foot down (gingerly). She hired me, Perry Gonzales, the daughter of her coworker and head nurse, Yelena Maria Gonzales, to watch Angus for one night.

  Now, I consider myself an expert babysitter. At fourteen, I’ve already got six years of experience under my belt; I’ve never met a ward (that means “child”) I couldn’t A. entertain or B. control.

  Until I met Angus.

  At first, I was shocked. I thought I was babysitting a normal eleven-year-old boy.

  “You’ll love Angus,” Mrs. Willhelm had told me. “He’s just a charmer!”

  But nothing about this boy looked . . . charming. First of all, he was enormously fat—fatter than any child I have ever seen. Or any full-grown adult, for that matter. Secondly, he was a giant—his feet and hands were huge.

  I took one look at Angus and crossed myself. “Ay, Dios mío,” I said.

  Which means, basically, “Oh, crap.”

  Angus couldn’t hear me—iCarly was on way too loud. I looked more closely at him: He had a banjo on his lap, wrapped up in his girth. And he appeared to be swaddled in a large diaper.

  His sausage fingers picked out a tune while his eyes stayed glued to the set.

  A cat flitted by.

  “Angus?” I called out as I stepped across a sea of candy wrappers and soda cans.

  “Leave me alone, Mom!” Angus said, without turning his head, in a high-pitched squeal. Then he pressed the mute button on the remote and picked out a tune on his banjo. I watched in awe as he sang:

  A corny can of Cheezy Whip—

  You’ll want your fingers in to dip.

  And Mom will say, “Now that’s enough,”

  But you can’t get enough o’ that STUFF!

  And then, Angus let out a large BURP.

  He looked over at me. I was stunned. Angus had a beautiful falsetto. But it came out of that mouth, which was part of that face!

  The face looked like a large, white bowli
ng ball with piercing onyx eyes and a teeny-tiny turned-up nose. His lips were bowed and had a red tinge. He had one blond curl at the top of his round head. He looked like a baby doll that had soaked up a bathtub full of water.

  Make that a swimming pool.

  “Who are you?” Angus whined. “Where’s my MOM?”

  “Your mother is having an operation,” I said, gathering my wits. “My name is Perry. And I will be babysitting you tonight. Your mother does not want you to be alone. As you can see by my résumé,” I continued, handing over my résumé, which I always keep on hand, “I am a professional, and I am here to either A. entertain you or B. control you—the choice is up to you.”

  “I don’t like you!” Angus wheezed. “Get me my energy bars!”

  “What’s the magic word?” I asked, looking about the messy room.

  “Mooooooooooom!” Angus squealed.

  “Your mother’s away,” I said calmly. “The magic word is please.”

  Angus burped, then screamed, “You’re making me miss America’s Next Top Model!” Angus moved his body ever so gingerly. “Now, get me an energy bar! I feel DIZZY!” His chair creaked as he reached for the remote.

  I snatched the remote away. “Use the word. The magic one,” I said calmly.

  Angus raised his hand and pointed a very chubby finger at me.

  “I don’t like you!” he squealed again.

  “That’s fine,” I said. “Let’s have a pleasant conversation. Then I’ll let you go back to your show. How was school today?”

  “I don’t go to school,” Angus said. “Germs go to school.”

  “Everyone goes to school,” I said.

  “I don’t!” Angus screamed. “I’m too smart to go to school! Ask Mom!”

  “But how do you learn?” I asked, genuinely puzzled.

  “TV!” Angus said. “I’m missing my program!” He leaned forward and tried to grab the remote, brushing the air with his chubby arms and falling right on the floor.

  “You made me fall!” he screamed as he rolled around in his diaper, candy wrappers sticking to his big, sweaty body.