Out of Order

by Betty Hicks

  Parker

  “Nobody’s gonna die!” Parker screamed at everyone in Eric’s room.

  V, Eric, and Lily stared at him while he waved his hands in the air and stomped his bare foot.

  “Hey, Mud Boy. Relax,” said Eric in a super-calm voice. “It’ll be okay.”

  “No, it won’t!” Parker shouted. He balled his fists up so tight that his knuckles hurt.

  “We’ve still got your lemonade to sell,” said Lily quietly. “We just won’t make quite as much money.”

  Parker wanted to hit her. She’s the one who’d thought all along that he’d spent too much money. Well, actually everyone had thought that, but Lily was the one who’d said, “Parker, you are so stupid.”

  V didn’t say anything.

  “It definitely sucks, though,” Eric admitted.

  “Yeah,” echoed Parker. “Sucks.”

  “But we’ve got no choice,” said Eric.

  “Noooooo,” Parker moaned, stomping his foot again.

  “We can’t chance it,” said Eric. “How would you feel if someone ate one of your cicadas, then fell over dead?”

  Parker rolled his eyes. “Nobody’s going to do that.”

  “They might,” said Eric.

  “Besides,” added Lily. “Mom and Frank agree. No cicadas.”

  “Talk to them,” Parker begged, looking straight at V. Wasn’t she on his side? “Talk to your dad. Pleeeeze.”

  “Ha!” squeaked V. “Don’t look at me. Try Eric.”

  “Me?” Eric asked, dumbfounded.

  “You’re the one he’s so proud of,” muttered V, looking down.

  “Dad?” said Eric in amazement. “Have you lost your mind? Dad thinks I’m a total loser.”

  “He said he’s proud of you. I heard him.”

  “When?”

  “I don’t know. A couple of weeks ago. In his workshop. He said he was proud that you earned the money for—”

  “Oh. That,” said Eric. “He didn’t mean that. He meant—”

  “Eric,” V interrupted. “He expects a lot. But not half as much as you think. You don’t listen.”

  “What about our cicadas?” shouted Parker.

  Eric stared blankly into space for a second, then jerked his head slightly as if he were shaking out something that didn’t belong there.

  “Don’t worry,” he answered, moving his full attention back to Parker. “We’ll make up the loss in entry fees. Go get on the phone. Now. Make all of your friends call everyone they know. Lily and V, you, too. And more signs—especially on the main roads into the neighborhood.”

  Would that help? Parker wondered. Maybe. If Eric said so.

  “RPS! RPS!” roared Eric, pumping his fist over and over and throwing an Avalanche.

  “RPS!” yelled Lily and V, both of them spreading their fists flat—into paper.

  “Scissors,” shouted Parker, lunging at Lily with his first two fingers opened wide.

  Then he shot out of Eric’s room and down the hall to the phone. Who should he call first? Jay? Edward? Anna?

  He picked up the receiver and punched in the numbers to Edward’s house.

  “Hello?” Edward answered.

  “It’s me. Mud Boy,” said Parker, excited.

  “Bug Man!” Edward shouted back. “Tomorrow! I can’t wait! I’m going to eat at least one. Definitely. Maybe two. But I’ve dared George that he can’t eat three. And I’m practicing my throws. Right now. I bet I win. Should I eat bugs before or after the contest? What if I throw up? Maybe I better eat after—”

  “Uh … Mom’s calling me,” Parker muttered. “Gotta go.” He clicked off the phone.

  All his friends were expecting insect food. They would kill him. Or call him a wuss. It wasn’t fair. What had he done wrong? Nothing.

  Then he remembered. Lily’s flower. Was this somehow connected to that? Was he being punished? He tried to remember what he’d learned in Sunday school. Did this have anything to do with the God who sent a flood to wash away all those people who messed up? What about the God who said everybody should forgive everybody their trespasses?

  And what the heck was a trespass, anyway?

  Parker never could keep that stuff straight. It was too confusing.

  He hoped none of his friends showed up.

  ERIC

  Journal Entry #181

  I hope all my friends show up. And all their friends. We’re going to need a chunk of money to cover the cicada loss.

  So freaky. I mean, some old dude actually died!

  Mud Boy—poor kid. It’s not his fault, even if he did spend too much money.

  I wish I had more time to write—RPS keeps me too busy.

  Good writing I mean. Like the train metaphor.

  I finished The Old Man and the Sea a long time ago, but it hangs with me—awesome.

  As a writer, Hemingway is dead-on. When he writes clean and simple, it sounds like a poem. When I write that way, it sounds like a list.

  Journal Entry # 182

  “I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.” —Ernest Hemingway

  V’s crazy.

  I listen.

  Definitely.

  Carefully?

  Maybe.

  Maybe not.

  Lily

  I hope I never see another Twinkie as long as I live.

  My stomach feels like it’s full of a billion worms, all trying to wiggle their way out of wet, green cement. How much ogre-cream filling did I eat?

  I want to die.

  No.

  I just want to throw up.

  Please, God, let me barf.

  Now!

  V

  I swatted at a yellow jacket buzzing around one of our lemonade cups, then wished I hadn’t wasted the motion. It was so hot I had little beads of sweat trickling down the back of my neck, and it wasn’t even June yet. I swear, it was stickier and hotter than when we moved here last August.

  “Is it always this hot in May?” I asked Parker.

  “Hot?” He stared at me like huh?

  Don’t little kids notice heat?

  Luckily, a lot of other people didn’t seem to notice, either, because our backyard filled up with people—all sizes, shapes, and ages. A mom with two babies asleep in a double stroller leaned against the side of Dad’s workshop, chatting away with Mrs. Schwartz, who lived three houses down. One wiry-haired, short kid and his lots-taller buddy glided down our driveway on scooters. A skinny elf-girl showed up straight from gymnastics class still wearing her leotard. And a bent-over old guy gripped a cane with one hand while he searched his pocket for lemonade money with the other. One shiny black car full of jocks screeched up to the curb with the car speakers booming.

  Bubbles blasted herself into hiding so fast she could’ve been a missile. Snowman bounced around, licking the ankles of everyone in sight. Parker and I manned the lemonade stand.

  Poor kid.

  Mary Beth had had to drag him out of bed.

  “Don’t make me go,” he’d begged.

  “Don’t be silly,” she’d laughed.

  But it wasn’t funny. His friends were going to be bummed out big time when they discovered there were no cicada-Twinkies to munch on—except for a few lying dead under an azalea bush somewhere.

  But Eric swooped to the rescue. While Lily and I were saying lame things to Parker like “Your friends will get over it” and “You don’t want someone to die, do you?” Eric showed up with a box of small plastic bags and a bowl full of Twinkie chunks he’d fished out of the garbage.

  “Death Crumbs!” he announced victoriously.

  “Huh?” said Parker, venturing his head out from under his sheet like a wary turtle.

  Eric handed Parker a permanent black laundry marker and a bag, and ordered, “Here you go, Mud Boy. Write ‘Death Crumbs—Do Not Eat’ on each bag. Then I’ll fill them with a little used Twinkie litter.”

  Everyone stared at him.

&nb
sp; “This was all I could save.” Eric gazed apologetically at the small bowl in his hand, which had only a few smashed yellow cake pieces in the bottom. “Dad dumped coffee grounds into the garbage can, right on top of the trashed Twinkies,” he explained.

  A spark of life flickered faintly in Parker’s eyes.

  “But Mom said we can’t sell Twinkie scraps,” he said in a quiet, un-Parker-like voice. “Because of the restidoo.”

  “Residue,” I whispered.

  I’m trying not to correct people, but sometimes it slips out.

  Mary Beth had said that, even if Parker took the cicadas out of the Twinkies, they could still be contaminated—with residue.

  Right. Like a piece of leftover insect knee could actually kill somebody!

  “Don’t tell her,” said Eric.

  “Don’t tell her?” Parker echoed in amazement, as if he’d never done a single sneaky thing in his entire angel life.

  “Well,” said Eric. “You can tell her—if she asks. But if she doesn’t ask…” He cut his eyes sideways and shrugged. “Look,” he added, as if he needed to sound more responsible, “she said don’t sell any for food. This,” he declared, holding up a bag, “will clearly say, ‘Do Not Eat.’”

  So Parker and I ended up selling lemonade in the backyard, looking like two nice, all-American kids, but we had Death Crumbs stashed under the tablecloth like so many bags of illegal drugs.

  A bunch of guys my age hung around, not buying anything, but Parker’s friends came ready to blow their allowances big time. Too bad there weren’t enough life-threatening bags to make much money, but at least Parker saved face.

  “Whoa,” said all his friends. “Death Crumbs … Killer!”

  Then they hid them in their pockets to be pulled out later, and admired forever, or until ants someday found holes in the plastic.

  The only non-kid we sold a bag to was Papa Bud, who winked and promised not to tell. He’s one okay guy after all. He even donated $25 to the soccer cause.

  I’d forgotten what it was like to feel this good.

  Lily

  I feel more like me than I have since Mom got married.

  The RPS tournament is going great, in spite of the fact that it’s super hot and humid. Even better, everyone in my family is helping. And I am the one who brought the whole idea back from the dead.

  One project saved.

  One to go.

  I have no clue what I’m going to do for science now.

  How about, “Cream Filling: The Sickening Effects of Excessive Consumption”?

  If only I’d thrown up on a poster board last night, instead of in the toilet, I could’ve labeled the poster “Exhibit A” and turned it in to Mrs. Finley with an essay on “Why Isn’t Your Stomach Connected to Your Brain?”

  But the best news is that a reporter from the Charlotte Observer is here to write a newspaper article on the Hands Down Shakedown.

  We’ll all be famous.

  “Whose idea was it for the tournament?” asks this tall guy who doesn’t look much older than Eric. He pulls out a tiny tape recorder and turns it on.

  “It was my brother Eric’s idea,” I tell him, and wonder if he’ll play my voice back to me later. I think it’s amazing how my own voice on tape always sounds like someone I’ve never even met.

  “But my sister, V, came up with the soccer-ball plan,” I continue. “And my little brother, Parker—call him Mud Boy—wanted to sell cicadas to eat, which I named Insect-insides, but Mom won’t let him because they might kill somebody.”

  Am I talking too fast? Do I sound too young? I try to dredge up some of my new mature vocabulary that Cassie noticed, but I’m too excited.

  And why did I tell the reporter to call my brother Mud Boy, when I don’t even like that name? I don’t know. I guess because I know how excited Parker will be to see it in print.

  The reporter wipes a trickle of sweat off his forehead, asks more questions, and keeps taping. Then he wanders off to interview more people and watch the matches.

  They go great. Some people even enter more than once, so maybe we’re making money. Who knows?

  The grand prize T-shirt is hanging from a tree over the table where Eric is selling tickets. I watch him grin with pride every time somebody comments on how great it is. I know how much he wants to own it.

  Which is why I’m stunned when he says he isn’t going to compete for it. As a matter of amazing fact, he says that no one in our family should enter.

  “What?” we all scream.

  “It’d be like Bob Barker winning The Price is Right,” he says.

  Who?

  “Or Alex Trebek walking off with all the Jeopardy! cash. You can’t go around winning your own game.” Eric crosses his long arms over his chest and adds, “Bad policy.”

  It’s okay, though. All of us are too busy running the tournament to compete anyway.

  “And the winner of heat number twenty-two is Javonne Townsend!” shouts Frank, holding up the hand of a ninth grader as if she were the champion of a boxing match. Eric hands her a sticker with a fist against a red background, and Javonne walks off grinning like she’d won the biggest lottery in the history of the world.

  Personal trainer Mom is busy instructing her next client, a small freckle-faced boy named C. J.

  “Don’t let his size and age scare you,” she says, pointing to his high school opponent—a huge football guy with muscles like rocks. “You’ll smear him.”

  C. J. steps cautiously up onto the small square stage that Frank built about a foot off the ground. He sticks his fist out approximately one cubit from his opponent’s monster knuckles, and scrunches up his face as if he’s about to cry.

  “Ready?” says football guy.

  “Ready,” squeaks C. J.

  Pump, pump, splat.

  With his last hand motion, C. J. has slapped a mosquito on his forearm.

  “Foul,” says Frank gently.

  C. J.’s lower lip starts to tremble.

  “Objection!” shouts Mom. “Lily! Go get the citronella candles out of the cabinet in the garage. We’ve got to get rid of these mosquitoes. Okay,” she states, “start over. C. J. gets another chance.”

  I hear the football guy protest, “But Mrs. Evans, you’re not the referee.”

  “Fraaank,” Mom drawls in a sweet voice that really means agree with me, honey. Now.

  When I return with the candles, the rematch is over and C. J. has won. He is so cute—I hope he wins the whole thing.

  Football guy is getting in line to buy another ticket. And Mom is standing under a dogwood tree, pushing her hair back and explaining gambit play to her next client, a white-haired old man who walks with a cane.

  I light the Bug-Away candles and the weird, sweet smell of citronella soaks the air. Between that and the lemonade, our yard smells like a fruit fest.

  V is a boy-magnet at the refreshment stand. Even the reporter person is flirting with her. I hope they’re all spending money.

  Cassie hangs around the boy-swarm for a while, then gives up and plays RPS. She wins her heat! I am so excited for her! What if the final match comes down to Cassie and C. J.? Who will I pull for?

  But it doesn’t. Mrs. DeVaughan—the lady V babysits for and whose son is stationed in Iraq—ends up in the final pairing. She stands on the wooden stage in her trendy red sandals, ironed sleeveless T-shirt, and cropped flowered pants. Opposite her is football guy, because he won the rest of his heats after he bought a second ticket.

  The prize goes to the first person to win three throws.

  Frank bends over and squints at the distance between their hands. He nods and says, “May the best gambit win.”

  “Ready?” says muscle guy, leaning in and flexing his biceps.

  “Ready,” says Mrs. DeVaughan, narrowing her eyes like a snake.

  Pump, pump, pump.

  Paper covers rock. Mrs. DeVaughan wins the first throw. Yes!

  But I see her move her fingers just before the throw
, telegraphing the fact that she’s going to do something other than rock. Did football guy see it?

  “Ready?”

  “Ready.”

  Pump, pump, pump.

  She wiggles her fingers again! But this time she throws scissors. Football guy throws scissors. A tie. I had him figured for a three-rock gambit—an Avalanche—but he must have thought she would throw paper twice.

  The crowd is going wild. Shouts of Go Ellen! Go Mrs. DeVaughan! Go Malcolm! split the air.

  Football guy is Malcolm?

  Pump, pump, pump.

  Mrs. DeVaughan does the telling finger wiggle again and throws scissors. Malcolm throws paper. What was he thinking?

  He slaps his forehead, knowing he messed up. Perspiration explodes off his face, spraying Frank and Mrs. DeVaughan.

  “Sorry,” Malcolm apologizes.

  “That’s perfectly all right,” answers Mrs. DeVaughan courteously. She’s not even breaking a sweat.

  “No problem,” mutters Frank, wiping his cheek.

  Mrs. D has won two throws and tied one. One more win and the RPS championship is hers!

  I want to scream at her, “Don’t throw rock!” Because if football guy doesn’t see any finger movement, he’ll know a rock is coming. But with her wiggle giveaway on the others, he’ll have to guess—paper or scissors?

  “Ready?”

  “Ready.”

  “Go Ellen! Go Malcolm!”

  Everyone is cheering. Snowman is jumping up onto my shins with excitement.

  Pump, pump, pump.

  Mrs. DeVaughan doesn’t move her fingers! She’s going to throw a rock! I know it. Malcolm knows it.

  He throws paper.

  Mrs. D throws scissors!

  She wins!

  The crowd roars! Snowman is cutting frenzied figure eights in and out of a million legs.

  Mrs. DeVaughan tricked him with a false tell! So brilliant!

  Eric sprints over with the RPS T-shirt and jerks it over her head.

  Mrs. DeVaughan throws her hands up in the air and screams something that sounds like “Whaaaaeeeeee!”

  She looks like a crazed little kid in a too-big shirt.

  The crowd leaves pretty fast after that. I pour two cups of lemonade down my sore-from-screaming throat, and dash off to get Snowman a big dish of water. That’s when I remember that I forgot to put out a donation jar.