by Alan Katz
The boys laughed nervously and told him they were almost done.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me,” Myron said, “I have to go wash the windows with lemony tuna salad. Good-bye.”
With that, Myron slipped out of the closet and closed the door again.
Nathan and David remained in the dark, sweating, both because it was hot and because they’d just collected some very valuable evidence.
“He hears his clothes fighting! That’s totally something Martin would do!” David whispered.
“He’s afraid of bothering the houseplants with harmonica playing! That also sounds like a Martin thing!” Nathan whispered.
“He washes the windows with lemony tuna salad! Martin actually did that!” David whispered.
“And his birthday is on the thirty-first! Same date as Martin’s!” Nathan whispered.
“How do you know Martin’s birthday?” David whispered back.
“Because he always told me that he was born two days before the thirty-third,” Nathan replied.
“So yeah, the thirty-first! Though that’s not so surprising—twins usually do have the same birthday,” David told him.
“Oh yeah,” Nathan said. “Remind me to wish you a happy birthday on my next one.”
“So . . . I think when you add it all up, we’ve proven that Myron is indeed Martin,” David said.
“Or . . . perhaps there’s never been a Martin at all, and it was Myron who was here before and he’s back again now?” Nathan suggested.
“Oooh, spooky,” David said.
“Yeah, spooky,” Nathan said.
Even the sports coat and parka hanging beside them had to agree there was something spooky going on in the Wohlfardt house.
The following Saturday, Myron picked up his cell phone on the first ring, cleared his throat, and said, “Thank you for calling the Myron Hyron Dyron Yard Cleaner-Upper Service, home of the ‘rake ’em and take ’em’ lifetime warranty. Sorry we can’t speak to you right now, but we are busy giving someone else’s property a pre-spring cleanup. Ah, pre-spring, my favorite pre-season of the pre-year! Anyhoo, please leave a message at the sound of the beep, and one of our caring lawn care specialists will return your call promptly.”
Then Myron made a sound like a beep . . . and listened for a little while before hanging up.
Nathan and David, standing nearby, slapped their foreheads at the exact same time. They both knew that they were the “we” Myron had mentioned. They both knew that Myron was planning to have them be the yard cleaner-uppers. And they both knew this wouldn’t be a good day.
“Hey, Myron!” David yelled. “I’m not raking.”
“Hey, Myron!” Nathan yelled. “I’m not raking either.”
“I didn’t ask you to rake,” Myron responded. “But more importantly, let’s discuss the fact that I also did not ask you to listen to my private telephone call.”
Nathan told Myron that it was hardly a private call, since he’d answered it right in front of them. He did have one question, though.
“Why did you act like you were an answering machine?” Nathan wanted to know.
“My voice mail hasn’t been working since I dropped this phone in a boiling pot of chili a week ago Thursday. No, Tuesday. No, Thursday. No, Tuesday,” Myron told him. “So I have to act like I’m a recording, beep like voice mail would, and then listen to the message that the caller thinks she’s leaving.”
“Wait—why didn’t you just answer the call and actually talk to the person?” Nathan asked.
“Never thought of that, kid. Never thought of that,” Myron said. “Though I suppose that’s what a caring lawn care specialist should do.”
“I got a question too, Myron,” David said. “What’s a ‘rake ’em and take ’em’ lifetime warranty?”
“Simple,” Myron said. “Once the leaves, sticks, and twigs are raked and taked . . . er, raken and taken . . . um, raked and taken, we promise that they are gone for good.”
“But, Myron,” David said, “if the trees are still there, how can you be sure leaves and sticks and twigs will never fall on that lawn again?”
“Of course there’ll be other leaves and stuff, silly,” Myron told him. “But we promise that what we take away won’t ever return.”
“Mighty impressive,” David told him, not meaning it.
“Truly outstanding,” Nathan added, also not meaning it. “Especially since this is the time of year when there are hardly any leaves on the ground.”
“Nukey, Dukey, remember that it isn’t how many leaves there are on a lawn that matters,” Myron told them. “It’s how many there aren’t . Understand?”
“No.”
“No.”
“Terrific. After the Myron Hyron Dyron Yard Cleaner-Upper Service does its job, the homeowner will spot a spotless lawn. And best of all, you boys never have to worry about picking up a rake,” Myron said, definitely not meaning it.
“That’s good,” said David. “Because if your brother Martin were doing this”—and we’re not so sure he’s not, David thought—“it’s a solid bet that we’d be doing all the work and he’d be getting all the glory.”
“Right,” Nathan agreed. “He’d have us rake for four hundred and twelve hours without a break, then make us count everything by hand so he could charge per leaf, stick, or twig.”
“I don’t like what you’re saying about my dear brother,” Myron said. “And most of all, I don’t like pepper-and-onion sandwiches. But as I said, you never have to worry about picking up a rake. No, sir. No way. No chance.”
“Good,” David told him.
“Good,” Nathan told him.
Myron continued, “As the individual in charge of your care, it would be wrong of me to suggest that you help me do a pre-spring cleanup at another family’s house, even if it meant that my back—already sore from hours of needless bongo drumming as a youth—might then ache for days, weeks, and even hours thereafter.”
“Good,” David told him.
“Good,” Nathan told him.
“It would be wrong of me to suggest that you give up your free time to assist the one person who is currently devoting his entire life to your welfare,” Myron said in a highly dramatic voice.
“Good,” David told him.
“Good,” Nathan told him.
“And most of all,” Myron said, “it would be wrong of me to allow you to use the Rake-tronic 6750 Power Rake, my first and greatest invention—”
“How can it be the first and the greatest?” David wanted to know.
“It is the first because I haven’t invented anything before this,” Myron informed him. “And it is the greatest because in the future, I fully intend to invent a whole bunch of stuff that won’t be anywhere near as good.”
Oddly enough, that made sense to the boys. But what didn’t make sense to them was why Myron didn’t want them to use the Rake-tronic 6750.
“Gee, Myron,” Nathan said. “You’ve got a new invention and we can’t try it?”
“Don’t you trust us, Myron?” David added.
“It’s not that I don’t trust you,” Myron told them. “In fact, I don’t don’t trust you. It’s just that it would be wrong of me to have you use the Rake-tronic 6750, because I promised you you’d never have to worry about picking up a rake. And a broken promise is a promise broken.”
David and Nathan tried to convince Myron that technically, they wouldn’t be picking up a rake—they’d be picking up a power rake. Therefore, Myron wouldn’t be breaking a promise; he’d be power -breaking a promise. And they pointed out that furthermore, a pre-spring cleanup shouldn’t be a hard job, since there weren’t as many leaves, sticks, and twigs as there were in other seasons. All they’d have to do is take care of what had collected on the lawn over the winter.
The boys must have done a good job convincing him, because fourteen seconds later, they were booked to spend the whole next day cleaning up yards all over Screamersville.
“I have one
question, Myron,” David said as they arrived at the first lawn. “If you’re our full-time nanny, how is it okay for you to also have a lawn care business?”
“Kid, the way I see it, it’s all about hobbies. Some people use their spare time to sing opera. Others collect coins or stamps, or create interesting artwork out of dryer lint. Me, I like lawn care. I much prefer the great outdoors to the semi-great indoors.”
“So our parents don’t know anything about it, Myron?” Nathan asked.
“Other kid, when your mom and dad were interviewing me for the nanny job, they asked if I had any hobbies, and I said, ‘Yes, I like to dabble in lawn care.’ Then, while your father kept talking about how it’d been a long time since he’d heard anyone use the word ‘dabble,’ I told your mother that I enjoy the science of lawn care, that sometimes I like to assist neighbors with their lawns, and that I donate all profits to help the lawnless.”
Neither boy questioned the ridiculous notion of helping the lawnless, or pointed out that, in fact, the lawnless wouldn’t need help when it came to lawn care. They both had more to ask about the whole business of their nanny having such a business.
“Do our parents know about the Rake-tronic 6750 Power Rake?” Nathan asked.
“Well, I told them that I like to dabble in inventing,” Myron said. “And your father remarked that it’d been a long time since he’d heard anyone use the word ‘dabble’—and that now he’d heard it twice in a matter of minutes. Meanwhile, your mother and I discussed the Rake-tronic 6750. She thought it was an excellent idea.”
“She did?” David wanted to know.
“Sure she did,” Myron insisted. “See, based on my highly calculated calculations, an ordinary rake can handle 1,735 leaves per minute. And since you both know that the average tree releases an average of 142,270 leaves, that would take a raker using an ordinary rake 82 minutes to collect.”
“Are those actual numbers?” Nathan asked.
“Indeed they are actual numbers,” Myron said. “They might not, however, be the correct numbers. Carrying on, I said that collecting those 142,270 leaves would take 82 minutes the old-fashioned way, right?”
“Right.”
“Right.”
“Well,” Myron said. “Prepare to gasp, because the Rake-tronic 6750 Power Rake can handle the same tough job not in 82 minutes, not in 57.45 minutes, not in 28.89 minutes, but in a shockingly short, astoun dingly abbreviated 117 seconds! It also sucks up sticks and takes away twigs faster than the human eye can see.”
“That can’t be true,” David said.
Nathan agreed with his brother.
“Laugh if you want to, Nonbeliever and Dis-believer,” Myron told them. “But your mother was wildly impressed that in actual field testing, conducted in an actual field, those were the results delivered by the Rake-tronic 6750. Of course, your outcome may vary based on the temperature, the wind speed, the size of the lawn, the placement and the colorfulness of the leaves, the middle name of the homeowner, and fifteen or sixteen other factors.”
“So basically we wouldn’t save any time by using the Rake-tronic 6750?” David asked.
“Basically, none at all,” Myron admitted. “Especially since the man who did the field testing for me is a tremendous liar.”
Myron had led Nathan and David to the Clark family’s leaf-filled lawn, where it took the boys about an hour to set up the Rake-tronic 6750. Myron supervised as they assembled and attached dozens of confusing wires and random parts.
“No, no, David,” Myron said at a particularly troubling moment of put-togethering. “You can’t attach confusing wire number 17 to random part number 88 until after it’s been connected to confusing wire number 363! If you skip that step, the congrogler won’t mepulate when you press the paficator!”
Congrogler? Mepulate? Paficator? Nathan and David had never heard of those words. In fact, no one had ever heard of those words. But they kept putting the contraption together under Myron’s watchful eye (while his other eye, the non-watchful one, dozed off from time to time).
When they were all done, they had a giant device that looked like a broom with an electric juicer near the top, a shoe buffer near the middle, and a waffle iron where the raking prongs would typically be. In fact, that’s exactly what it was.
“Okay, let’s turn this thing on, grab all the leaves in 117 seconds, and get out of here!” Nathan declared.
“Hit the button marked ‘power,’ ” David added. “And by the way, watch your spelling, Myron! You wrote ‘power’ with the w before the o . . .”
“Wait, wait, hold it! Hold it, wait, wait!” Myron insisted. “Neither of you has an official town license to operate the Rake-tronic 6750!”
“A license? How can the town give a license for something that’s never existed before?” Nathan asked.
“What am I, the mayor?” Myron asked. “Which reminds me, remind me to run for mayor. Or governor. And listen, the sad fact is that according to official town code 7–101B, and I quote, ‘No Screamersville resident may power up a motorized device designed to clean up a lawn on a Sunday, Thursday, or Friday in May, August, or September unless a permit has first been acquired. Furthermore, permits are only issued on Sundays, Mondays, and Wednesdays in January, February, and October, unless otherwise indicated in official town code 7–101C, which also states that horizontal stripes may not be worn vertically.’ ”
“I don’t get it,” said Nathan.
“I don’t get it either,” said David.
“What it means, my dear Nippippity and Dippippity, is that it appears you cannot use this miracle of leafular engineering,” Myron said.
“Well, then, you’ll have to do all the work,” David said.
“Yeah, right,” Myron giggled. “I mean, unfortunately, I don’t have a permit either. So we have two choices: One, we can wait until October and get an official town permit. Or two, we can skip the whole thing and leave the leaves.”
“Either way, let’s go home,” Nathan said.
Myron brightened. “Of course, there is a third choice we could pursue. But no, no, I think not. Well, perhaps. Oh, I think not. Then again . . .”
Nathan waited.
David waited.
Nathan finally asked, “What’s the third choice, Myron?”
“It’d better not be ‘You boys can rake the whole yard while I watch,’ ” David added.
“That is not at all the third choice, sir,” Myron scolded him. “But this is: The official town code says we can’t ‘power up’ a device. But the button on the Rake-tronic 6750 says ‘pwoer’—so we’d be ‘pwoering’ it up.” There’s no law against that!”
“Are you sure?” asked Nathan.
“Doesn’t really seem right,” added David.
“Listen, guys. Though I’m not a legal expert, I’ve watched over two thousand call-a-lawyer commercials, and I was once almost in the same town as some famous TV judge on a show where people sue each other over missing shoelaces or lost pet ladybugs. Well, it was some famous TV judge’s friend’s niece. But still, I know that power and pwoer are two very different things. Pwoer to the People!” exclaimed Myron, spitting quite a bit on the Ps.
“Maybe it should be ‘Pwoer to the Poeple,’ ” said Nathan.
“Indeed,” said Myron. “Here goes . . .”
They all closed their eyes as Myron pressed the button.
The Rake-tronic blurped and fizzled and sizzled. You might even say it sneezed and coughed.
“I smell waffles,” David said.
“I smell freshly squeezed juice,” Nathan said.
“I smell disaster,” Myron said. “Ruuuuuuun!”
The good news is that Myron, Nathan, and David were far, far away by the time the Rake-tronic 6750 blew up.
The bad news, however, is that when the Rake-tronic 6750 blew up, it scattered 6,750 teeny-tiny pieces all over the Clark family’s yard.
The further bad news, however, is that the boys and Myron (but mostly the boys) had
to pick up all 6,750 teeny-tiny pieces. And while they were doing that, Myron suggested that they (again, mostly the boys) rake up all the leaves, sticks, and twigs in the yard. When they finished, the Clarks had the cleanest yard in town, thanks to the Myron Hyron Dyron Yard Cleaner-Upper Service’s “rake ’em and take ’em” lifetime warranty.
That was also good news. For the Clarks.
But it was the worst possible news for Nathan and David and Myron. Because as it turned out, the call for a pre-spring cleanup hadn’t come from the Clarks at all. See, Myron thought he’d heard “Mr. Clark,” but the person who’d called was actually Mrs. Majawajahowitz, who lived three houses down from the Clarks.
Mr. Clark refused to pay a penny for the cleanup, though he did say thank you and invite them to come back in the fall and do the job again.
It had been twenty days and thirty-one hours since Myron had joined the family. And since it was the first Tuesday of the month, it was his night off. That’s why Nathan, David, and their parents found themselves having dinner at Too-Much Charlie’s, Home of the All-You-Can-Eat Salad, Bread, Entrée, Dessert, and After-Dinner-Mint Bar.
David was happily dipping his cotton candy into his shrimp cocktail supreme when his father cleared his throat and said in a very serious tone, “Boys, we need to talk about Myron.”
“Yes, boys,” Mrs. Wohlfardt echoed. “We need to talk about Myron.”
“Is there something wrong, Mom and Dad?” Nathan asked. “Is he leaving?”
“No, he’s not leaving, Nathan. At least, not as far as we know,” Mr. Wohlfardt said, fully aware that the family was pretty terrible at predicting when a nanny might depart. “But your mother and I want to have a family discussion about how Myron is doing, and how you are doing with him.”
“See, boys,” their mother said, “in business, it’s often a good idea to review a situation, to see if everything is operating as it should. Sometimes such an investigation can lead to better sales and increased progress.”