The Pennypackers Go on Vacation

by Lisa Doan

  “Here we go,” Gunter said.

  Charlie was rooted to the spot. He knew what he should do: he should forget about the money and deal with Manthi and Flynn. But the pull of a hundred dollars all his own was like a magnet. He’d never had that much money! Knowing his dad, he’d never have that much money.

  Charlie’s mind was at war with itself, very much like it had been during the final Edge of the World tournament that he’d played with Gunter. That time, he knew what would be right, but he couldn’t help doing the opposite anyway.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Charlie looked at the lawyers and then back at the staircase that led to the treasure. He was torn in two, just like he’d been that day in the cafeteria.

  The year before, the whole school had played Edge of the World on their phones at lunch. There were regular tournaments to see who could flick their ship closest to the edge of the world without going over. There was an extra point for knocking an opponent’s ship over the side. Charlie thought it was kind of boring, but Gunter was all in. Charlie played halfheartedly and let Gunter win. I mean, who cared?

  Charlie always hid his smile when Gunter did his victory lap. The guy was not just a sore loser, he was a sore winner, too. Charlie could not have cared less. Until the day Gunter decided to raise the stakes.

  “I bet you five dollars you can’t beat me,” Gunter said.

  Five dollars? That was a whole week’s allowance. “I don’t want to play for money,” he said.

  “What’s the matter, Pennypacker?” Gunter said, taunting. “Afraid you haven’t packed away enough pennies?”

  “I’m not being cheap,” Charlie said. “I just think it’s stupid to play for money.”

  “Scared, more like it,” Gunter said. “Never mind, it wouldn’t be a fair fight anyway, since I always win.”

  Charlie could feel his blood rushing in his ears. He had put up with Gunter’s competitiveness since they met in first grade. He had been good-humored about it, reasoning that everybody’s friend had some kind of flaw and this was just Gunter’s. But now all these people were looking at him. He couldn’t back out, and he wasn’t going to give up five dollars just to make Gunter feel like a winner. He knew he should just let it slide, but he couldn’t. Gunter had pushed him too far this time.

  “You’re on,” Charlie said. “Let’s play.”

  Everybody in the cafeteria had gathered round the table to see who would lose five dollars. Gunter took the first shot and sat back, looking supremely confident. Charlie leaned over the phone and carefully aimed. He flicked his ship and it sailed forward, knocking Gunter’s right over the side and coming to rest at the edge.

  Somebody shouted, “Pennypacker just got the first point plus a bonus point!”

  Charlie smiled at Gunter. Then he delivered the final blow. “By the way, Hwang, I’ve been letting you win all year. You’re not nearly as good as you think you are.”

  The crowd laughed and Gunter’s face went beet red. Charlie got a sick feeling in his stomach. He should just stop this. Get up and walk away.

  “Nice try, Pennypacker,” Gunter said, taking in a deep breath and looking more determined than ever.

  Charlie didn’t get up and walk away, and the game went on, the two sides determined to destroy each other. It was close, but in the end, Charlie scored the final point. Gunter stood up and threw five dollars on the table while the whole school laughed at him. Charlie found out later that Gunter had gone home sick that day. He’d felt pretty sick himself, and the five dollars was still at the bottom of his sock drawer.

  The next day, Gunter made a point of avoiding him on the bus. And so that was that. Charlie had thought of apologizing, but he hadn’t. He was convinced that the only reason the whole thing even happened was because Gunter had pushed him too far.

  Now, with the treasure so close and the lawyers marching toward the boat, Gunter eyed him. “You’re kidding me. After all this, you’re thinking about going after the money. That’s a Pennypacker for you.”

  Stung by the comment, Charlie said, “Well, you’re all about winning. That’s a Hwang for you.”

  “Maybe,” Gunter said.

  “So?” Charlie said. “Aren’t you going after the treasure? Don’t you want to win?”

  Gunter folded his arms. “No.”

  “Really?” Charlie asked.

  “Really,” Gunter said. “How about you?”

  The lawyers were just feet from the boat. Charlie had come up with the whole plan. He’d figured out the secret weapon. Was he really going to ditch the whole idea for a hundred dollars? He’d always been waiting for Gunter to figure out there were more important things than winning. Maybe he ought to take his own advice and realize there were more important things than a stupid IOU for a hundred dollars. It had occurred to him more than once over the past year that he had wrecked a friendship over five dollars. That he might be becoming … his dad. He loved his dad, but he didn’t want to go through life freaking out over five dollars.

  Charlie turned to Gunter. “No. I’m not going after the treasure, either. Let’s do this.”

  “Seriously?” Gunter asked.

  “Dead serious.”

  Gunter smiled and said, “Okay, let’s do this.”

  The lawyers had reached the boat. Flynn’s right eye was black-and-blue, and he had a bandage on his nose from the last time he’d tried to board.

  The captain glanced at the bridge as if he was ready to start the engines and head out to sea.

  Charlie gave one last glance toward the stairs leading to the treasure, then he said, “Hold on, captain. This time we’re not running to the next port. This time, we stand our ground. Prepare for battle. Just follow my lead.”

  Flynn launched himself onto the side of the boat and caught the railing. He hoisted himself over the top and landed on his head, then rolled like a ninja and leapt up. He stumbled back to the rail to give Manthi a hand. Once he had Manthi over, they collapsed in a heap on the deck.

  The lawyers staggered to their feet, looking amazed that they had finally gotten on the boat.

  “You have not been given permission to board,” the captain said.

  The lawyers glanced at each other. One of them said, “Michael Flynn, Esquire, Captain. And I would say that is the least of your problems.”

  “That’s right, Captain,” Manthi said.

  “Why should I have any problems?” the captain asked. “As you can see, I’m running an innocent little pirate adventure tour here. Blimey, look at my crew of pirates!”

  “But that’s not what you were doing.” Flynn said. “We saw you.”

  “That’s right, we saw you. You were violating Disney’s intellectual property.”

  “I can’t comment on what you think you saw,” the captain said. “After all, how would I know how much rum punch you’ve been drinking?”

  “We haven’t been drinking!”

  “We even have pictures! Documented evidence.”

  “So you say,” the captain said. “As you have declared yourself my enemy, I will send a representative to parlay. That’s piratespeak for ‘talk on my behalf.’ Charlie?”

  “Time for the secret weapon,” Charlie whispered to Gunter.

  Gunter looked around, like maybe there was a cannon hidden somewhere, but Charlie just sidled up to Olive. “Those people are from Disney. They know Minnie.”

  Charlie stepped back as Olive took in the information. Her face scrunched up, her eyes got a little watery. She ran to Flynn and threw her arms around his legs. “You know Mickey and Minnie?” she whispered.

  “Um,” Flynn said, “not personally.”

  “You have to find Minnie and tell her they are not allowed to break up. They are not allowed! They have to be together forever and ever.”

  Flynn looked hopefully around the deck to see if somebody might remove the child clutching his legs. Mrs. Pennypacker folded her arms and chewed her Trident gum. Mr. Pennypacker shrugged, like Olive could belong
to anybody.

  “Hey, Olive,” Charlie called, “they won’t give your message to Minnie. All they want to do is take the treasure money. You know, the money you were going to use to get married.”

  If his calculations were correct, Charlie’s little sister would, upon hearing this news, turn herself into a six-year-old atomic bomb. If ever a girl wanted to get married to an extremely reluctant bridegroom, it was Olive Pennypacker.

  Olive disentangled herself from Flynn and stepped back so she could stare into the two men’s faces. “Treasure is my dream!” she shouted. “I need it to get married! Why? Why would you take my dream?”

  Manthi shuffled his feet. Flynn mumbled, “I’m not saying we’ll take all the money, but some compensation will be necessary. A judge will decide. You see, it’s all about copyrights and trademarks and that sort of thing.”

  “Wow,” Charlie said loudly. “Walt Disney crushes a six-year-old’s dreams. I never saw that coming.”

  “What? No we didn’t! We don’t crush children’s dreams!” Manthi cried. “We’re just trying to serve papers on a lawsuit. The last thing we’d do is crush a dream!”

  “We make dreams,” Flynn confirmed, feeling around his scalp for the bump that was emerging on it from landing on his head. “We never crush them. Not ever.”

  “Are you sure?” Charlie asked, pointing at Olive. “Because that poor kindergartner looks pretty crushed. Look at that crushed little face.”

  Olive, Charlie knew, was a master at showing a crushed little face. Her lip curled and a single tear ran down her cheek.

  Manthi turned to Flynn. “She’s got a crushed little face! We can’t allow Disney to crush faces! This is exactly the kind of thing that would make the news—Disney lawyers crush young girl’s dreams. Who’d believe we didn’t? People love six-year-olds and they hate lawyers! Do you ever see lawyers being adorable on YouTube? No, it’s all six-year-olds! CNN, Good Morning America, 60 Minutes—they’d be all over it. What are we going to do?”

  Olive watched the men closely and Charlie guessed she was enjoying the effect she had on them. She took in a deep breath and delivered the knockout punch.

  “My dreams are crushed!” Olive said, sobbing. “I didn’t even make it to first grade and my dreams got crushed.”

  “No, no,” Flynn said to Olive. “Your dreams are fine!” He ran over to the captain and said, “Tell her! Tell her that her dreams are fine!”

  The captain clasped his hands behind his back, looking every inch the pirate. “Are her dreams fine, though? Could this sweet young lass assure herself that her boat won’t be chased by lawyers from here on in? Could she sleep easy knowing that any papers in any lawyer’s briefcases had gone up in a puff of smoke, never to be heard from again?”

  Flynn appeared to be making calculations in his head.

  Manthi whispered, “And what if Oprah got wind of it? The whole family would cry on television, then all of America would tweet and Facebook about it. There might even be a boycott. We’d be turned into the kind of villains Disney takes pride in defeating!”

  The mention of Oprah Winfrey seemed to be the last straw for Flynn. He sighed and said to the captain, “If you promise that you’ll stay a pirate ship. No more Disney-like cruising. That’s the only way the papers disappear into a puff of smoke.”

  “Done,” the captain said. “Now, there, young Olive, these nice men have decided to uncrush your dream.”

  “They uncrushed it?” Olive said, sniffling.

  “Totally uncrushed,” Manthi said hurriedly. “Dream away.”

  “I’ll be rich and get married?” Olive asked softly.

  “Sure,” Flynn said. “Why not? Anything is possible. Give our regards to the lucky gentleman.”

  Olive skipped across the deck and said, “See, mommy? Sometimes yelling and crying does work. My dream got uncrushed.”

  Charlie stared at the lawyers. “Well? Don’t you have any real criminals to chase around?”

  Flynn sighed. “Of course we do. We always do. Our next case is in Omaha, Nebraska. We’ve heard there’s a bakery there, moving a ton of Mickey Mouse cakes.”

  “And if one of those cakes makes somebody sick?” Manthi said. “It’s all Disney’s fault, right? Don’t you see what we’re up against?”

  “At least Children’s World Bakery can’t keep moving to another port,” Flynn said.

  “Before you go,” Charlie said, “my mom will write up some paperwork about how you won’t chase us around anymore and how papers went up in a puff of smoke. Just so we all understand each other.”

  Mrs. Pennypacker nodded. “Be warned, though,” she said. “My agreements are notoriously ironclad. I didn’t go to Harvard for the food.”

  Flynn cleared his throat. “Well, I don’t know that we’d be authorized to actually sign anything.”

  Manthi said, “We’d need the greenlight from corporate if we were going to put something in writing.”

  “Dreams!” Olive shouted.

  “All right, all right,” Flynn said. “We’ll sign.”

  “Follow me, gentlemen,” Mrs. Pennypacker said.

  As the lawyers passed by Olive, she whispered, “Like a French fry,” but they were too frightened by her dreams to stop and ask what she meant.

  They reached the top of the stairs and were nearly bowled over by the twins, racing up to the deck with the pirate’s chest. They screeched in Cucuchara, while their mother called over them, “They found it!”

  Mr. Pennypacker sank to the deck with his head in his hands. “So close to a hundred dollars in IOUs and it just slips through my fingers to the dolphin sisters!”

  Charlie patted his dad’s shoulder. It was a lot of money to lose, but he was glad he’d lost it.

  “So,” Gunter said to Charlie, “you didn’t go after the money.”

  “No,” Charlie said. “And you didn’t go after winning.”

  “No,” Gunter said.

  “We should probably draw up a new agreement,” Charlie said.

  “What for?” Gunter asked.

  “You know,” Charlie said, hearing his voice stutter, “for going forward. If you want to go forward.”

  “Well,” Gunter said. “It’s not so much what I want, as what makes sense. In case we get chased by anybody else. Let it just be noted, though, that it was your idea to go forward. I could take it or leave it.”

  Charlie silently cursed Gunter Hwang. Hand the guy an olive branch and he’d just pull off all the olives and hit you over the head with the dead branch. He supposed somebody was going to have to be the bigger person and it wasn’t going to be Gunter. Not that he’d tell Gunter that and start a whole new round of debate.

  “Fine,” Charlie said. “Let’s get it done.”

  Charlie and Gunter made their way down to the dining hall. Before they reached the bottom of the stairs, they heard Flynn shouting. “What are you? Some kind of maniac?”

  Charlie smiled. His mom was killing it at drawing up an ironclad agreement for the Disney lawyers.

  They came into the room and found Mrs. Pennypacker laughing merrily. Manthi clutched his hair, and Flynn’s eyes were watering.

  “Hey, Mom,” Charlie said, “can I borrow a piece of paper and a pen?”

  Mrs. Pennypacker nodded and handed them over, but did not take her eyes off Manthi and Flynn. “Well, gentlemen, let’s move on to the next clause, shall we?”

  Manthi and Flynn leaned over and stared at Mrs. Pennypacker’s pen racing across the paper, boxing them in tighter than cornered rats on a sinking ship.

  Charlie sat down and wrote:

  I, Charles J. Pennypacker Jr., do hereby agree to reestablish friendly relations with Gunter H. R. Hwang. Pennypacker commits to remembering that money is not the most important thing in the world (though pretty important and he still refuses to bet on stupid games).

  Charlie slid the paper to Gunter. Gunter read it over and then wrote:

  I, Gunter H. R. Hwang, do hereby allow myself to be
talked into reestablishing friendly relations with Charles J. Pennypacker Jr. Hwang agrees to remember that winning is not the most important thing in the world (though definitely in the top two and this does not mean he has any plans to become a regular loser of games, contests, tournaments, or races).

  Charlie read through it. Mrs. Pennypacker continued to badger Manthi and Flynn, out-lawyering the lawyers. Then, to follow her lead, Charlie and Gunter added a few lawyerly “herein” and “forthwith” flourishes to their agreement.

  “We should sign it in blood,” Gunter said.

  Charlie sighed. Gunter Hwang always had to raise the stakes, no matter what it was. “You go ahead and slice your finger open,” he said. “I’ll use ketchup.”

  Charlie reached for the ketchup bottle at the end of the table, squirted a drop on the paper next to his name, and pressed his thumb on it. “Done.”

  Gunter seemed to consider his options. Deciding he’d rather not go get a knife from the galley, he said, “I concur that ketchup is now hereby recognized as a reasonable substitute for blood.” He dribbled ketchup on his thumb and pressed down next to his name.

  Gunter stared at his thumbprint. “Mine looks better, a definite win.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Charlie asked. “You just signed an agreement promising not to have to win everything.”

  “Right,” Gunter said. “Starting now.”

  This was what the rest of his life was going to look like—he’d do one thing, then Gunter Hwang would figure out a way to do it differently and claim victory.

  * * *

  The cruise back to Miami showed the Captain Kidding as a boat entirely changed. The new lounge was a big hit with the passengers, and they took to playing board games and charades in the evenings. Manthi and Flynn had stayed on the boat, exhausted after their conference with Mrs. Pennypacker and the ironclad agreement she had harangued them into signing. Fortunately, it turned out that Flynn was particularly talented at charades, even with a broken nose, black eye, and possible concussion. Manthi was obsessed with Monopoly, though he could be counted on to spend most of his time in jail and never seemed to realize that buying utilities would never pay off.