by Sarah Weeks
“Neat-o!” said Oggie. “I wish I could do that.”
“It’s easy once you get the hang of it,” Justin told him. “I could teach you.”
“Prrrrr-ip! Prrrrr-ip!” went Oggie.
“Are you okay?” asked Justin, who had never heard anybody make that sound before. “Do you need a drink of water or something?”
“I’m fine,” said Oggie. “I just prrrrr-ip sometimes when I’m excited. Yellow-bellied sapsuckers do the same thing — only they say k-waan k-waan.”
Justin laughed and handed Oggie one of the soaps.
“Okay. Start by tossing this back and forth, from your right hand to your left, until you get the feel of it,” he said.
At first Oggie threw the soap too high and too fast, but then Justin explained that it should travel in a slow arc through the air from one hand to the other. Once Oggie could do that, Justin handed him another soap.
“Start with both of them in the same hand,” he instructed. “Then throw one and hang on to the other.”
This proved to be more difficult to do than it sounded. Oggie tried to throw only one soap at a time, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t seem to keep the second soap from slipping out along with the first. Both soaps would fly out in different directions, making it impossible to catch either one. Finally, when one of the runaway soaps went flying at the mirror hard enough to break it, Justin reached out and grabbed it just in the nick of time. The juggling lesson was over.
“Maybe I can teach you later, after we get out of here,” Justin said. “Speaking of getting out of here, what do you think is taking so long?”
“I don’t know,” Oggie said. “Donnica said she’d be right back. You don’t think she forgot about us, do you?”
“She better not have,” Justin said. “ ’Cause if I’m not ready to go when the guys get here to pick me up I’m going to be in big trouble. We’ve got a practice this afternoon.”
“We may have to get out of here on our own,” said Oggie.
“Got any ideas?” Justin asked him.
Oggie thought for a minute and then he snapped his fingers. Actually, he did have an idea!
“How about we cut the elastic out of our underwear and use it to shoot the soaps out the window like my uncle Vern did with his mini-pumpkins?” Oggie suggested. “Somebody will find soap out on the front lawn and figure out we’re trapped up here.”
“Uh, that sounds kind of weird,” said Justin. “Let’s see if we can think of a plan that doesn’t involve cutting up our underwear, okay?”
Oggie looked around and spotted a basket of wire hair curlers sitting on the counter. He snapped his fingers again.
“These are kind of like the wagon springs Elisha Otis used for his elevator brakes. We could tie them to our feet and jump out the window.”
“Uh, that sounds kind of dangerous,” Justin pointed out. “And besides, I don’t think we can fit through that window. It doesn’t open wide enough.”
Oggie looked around again. This time his gaze settled on the head of Justin’s bear costume.
“Prrrrr-ip Prrrrr-ip!” went Oggie.
“Got something good?” asked Justin hopefully.
“Do I ever!” said Oggie. “I just thought of a great invention.”
“Will it get us out of this bathroom?” asked Justin.
“Nope, but it will keep you cool inside your bear head.” Oggie explained to Justin how his invention would work.
“See, there will be a little fan — the kind that runs on batteries — and an ice bag to lower the temperature of the air. Then you’ll have this big rubber band to attach it to your head and, presto, instant air-conditioning!”
Justin grinned.
“That’s brilliant, little dude. You should call it the Cooder Fan. How did you come up with that idea anyway?”
“Necessity is the mother of invention,” said Oggie happily.
Justin looked nervously at his watch. “The guys are going to be here any minute. Anybody who could come up with something as great as the Cooder Fan ought to be able to think of a way to get us out of here. Come on, Oggie, concentrate.”
The last time Oggie had needed to concentrate on something was when he’d been trying to come up with an idea for his haiku. He knew what he had to do.
“Hey, this is no time to be taking a nap,” Justin said as Oggie got down on the floor and started folding up the bath mat to make a pillow.
“I’m not taking a nap,” said Oggie. He placed the top of his head on the bath mat and pushed himself up into a headstand.
“Trust me,” said Oggie. “This is going to work.”
And sure enough, it did. Because no sooner had Oggie turned upside down than a solution to the problem came flying out — of his pocket.
Oggie had forgotten all about the cheese he had slipped into the pocket of his swimsuit.
“Mmmm,” said Justin, picking up a slice of cheese and beginning to pull the wrapper off. “I could really use a snack.”
“Wait!” cried Oggie as Justin lifted the cheese to his mouth. “Don’t bite that!”
“Why not?” asked Justin.
“That cheese is our ticket out of here!” Oggie proclaimed.
As Justin watched in amazement, Oggie began to charve, tilting his head as he went around the curves and picking up speed until he was nibbling so fast his teeth were a blur.
When he had finished, there were three perfectly charved orange letters in Oggie’s lap. Two curvy S’s and a big round O.
“What are we going to do with those?” asked Justin.
“We’re going to send out an S.O.S.,” Oggie explained. Then he carried the letters over to the window and carefully stuck them backward onto the glass so the message would read correctly from the outside.
Justin was very impressed.
“Like I said, you are one clever little dude, Oggie Cooder. If this works, I’m going to owe you big-time.”
Those words were barely out of Justin’s mouth when there was a tap on the window.
“You boys need a lift?”
It was one of the Georges. He’d looked across the street and seen Oggie’s cheesy S.O.S. stuck to the window and had immediately told the other George to use the controls to send the bucket of the cherry picker over to investigate. Using a screwdriver, he managed to remove the window from the outside, and in no time at all the two boys were clambering into the bucket.
“Oops. Almost forgot something,” said Justin, and he quickly slipped back inside to retrieve his bear suit.
“Prrrrr-ip! Prrrrr-ip!” went Oggie as the bucket began to go down.
“You can say that again,” Justin said, laughing.
“Okay,” said Oggie, and he prrrrr-ip-ed again.
* * *
The commotion out in the front yard attracted the attention of Donnica’s party guests. Pretty soon they were all gathered around the truck watching the rescue.
“Okay, everybody,” said Short George as he pulled open the door on the side of the bucket. “Show’s over. You boys hop out, and the rest of you move back so we can get this truck out of here.”
Donnica, who had just sat down to open her birthday gifts when the excitement began, was furious.
“I will never forgive you for this, Oggie Cooder!” she screamed. “How dare you ruin my birthday party!”
But Donnica’s hissy fit was interrupted when Hannah Hummerman suddenly put her hand up to her forehead and began to sway back and forth.
“L-l-l-look!” she said, pointing at Justin with a trembling finger. “It’s J.J.!!!”
It takes a long time and a lot of hard work to save up enough money to buy yourself a car. But that’s exactly what Justin James was trying to do, which is why he bussed tables at the Clam Digger and juggled bowling pins at birthday parties in an overheated bear suit and every now and then showed up at a bar mitzvah or a store promotion or a school dance to play in a rock band called Cheddar Jam.
Hannah Hummerman ha
d been the first to recognize J.J. as he climbed out of the cherry picker in his blue-and-yellow-checked pants, brushing his long blond hair out of his eyes. Soon, all the other girls (and even some of the boys) were going crazy, too. Things got wilder when a beat-up van plastered with bumper stickers pulled up to the curb, carrying the rest of the guys in the band.
“Come on, J.J.,” one of them called. “Time to rock and roll.”
“Cheddar Jam! Cheddar Jam! Cheddar Jam!” the kids started chanting.
Donnica just stood there in her bathing suit with her mouth hanging open.
The boys in the band, enjoying the attention, got out of the van and began to sign autographs on the birthday napkins and scraps of paper thrust into their hands by their starstruck fans.
“I can’t believe I didn’t faint when I realized that was J.J.,” Hannah said to Dawn. “I one-hundred-percent guarantee I almost fainted.”
Of course, Oggie was surprised to learn that Cheddar Jam wasn’t something you spread on bread. No wonder he hadn’t been able to find it at the Gas and Go! But even in all the excitement of being locked in the bathroom and rescued by the cherry picker, Oggie hadn’t forgotten the promise he’d made to himself.
“Thanks a million, Mr. P,” Justin said to Donnica’s father as he tossed his tattered bear suit into the red trunk he used to transport his costume and juggling equipment. “This extra cash is really going to come in handy.”
Mr. Perfecto felt so bad about what had happened, he’d paid Justin double for the party, even though the only thing he’d juggled that afternoon was the soap in the upstairs bathroom.
“See you later, Oggie!” Justin called as he closed the lid of the trunk and began to lug it over to the van. “Stop by the house any time and I’ll give you another juggling lesson, okay?”
Justin slid open the door, and as he and the rest of the guys started to pile in, Oggie knew it was now or never.
“Wait!” he cried.
“What’s the matter?” asked Justin.
“I need to cash in those favors,” Oggie told him.
Then he took a deep breath and dove in. “See, I never got invited to one of Donnica’s parties before, so I wanted to give her something she really, really, really wanted, and when I found out what she really, really, really wanted was cheese jelly, I looked for it everywhere, but I couldn’t find it ’cause cheese jelly doesn’t even exist, but now that I know that it wasn’t really cheese jelly she wanted —”
“Oggie?” Justin interrupted. “I kind of have to get going. Do you think we could talk about this favor you need a little later?”
“Not really,” said Oggie. “See, I was wondering if maybe you and your band could play at Donnica’s party.”
Donnica, Dawn, and Hannah had been listening to this conversation, and when Oggie got to his point, they gasped in perfect unison. Hannah put her hand up to her forehead as if she were going to faint.
“You mean right now?” asked Justin.
Oggie nodded.
Justin had a short powwow with his bandmates in the van and managed to convince them that they could just as easily practice next to the Perfectos’ pool as they could in the garage where they usually rehearsed.
When the guys started unpacking the drums and guitars and amplifiers from the back of the van, the crowd of party guests realized what was happening and took up a new chant.
“Og-gie! Og-gie! Og-gie!”
Cheddar Jam set up and plugged in. When they were ready to play, Justin grabbed the microphone and announced —
“This first song goes out to a cool little dude named — Oggie Cooder.”
Everybody clapped and whooped. Oggie would have prrrrr-ip-ed, but his mouth was too full of piggies-in-a-blanket.
That afternoon Cheddar Jam played every song they knew (some of them more than once), while Donnica’s party guests danced and clapped. All Oggie wanted to do was paddle around in the pool, but girls kept asking him to dance, so he’d hop out of the water, dance around in his swim fins for a few minutes, and then dive back in. Oggie was having fun, but he kept wishing that Amy was there, too. Without her help, he would never have gotten to go to the party.
“More piggies-in-a-blanket on the way, you little party animal you!” Mrs. Perfecto called out to Oggie. Her tone of voice was genuinely friendly now. She was in a terrific mood. Not only was her daughter having the best birthday of her life, but Mrs. Perfecto had been invited to join the garden club. In truth, the ladies in the straw hats had been much more impressed with the landscaping across the street at the Cooders’ house, but Isabel Cooder had told them that Miriam Perfecto had taught her everything she knew about gardening and that they would be foolish not to snap her up for their club.
“Pssst! Oggie! Over here.”
Oggie looked around, finally catching sight of Amy’s head poking over the top of the fence. He was so happy to see her, he jumped out of the pool and ran right over.
“I was just thinking about you,” he said.
“We came to see how the party was going,” said Amy.
“We?” Oggie asked.
Suddenly Amy’s head started to wobble. Then she started to giggle.
“Dylan’s holding me up,” she said. “At least he’s trying to.”
“Hi, Oggie,” called Dylan. “How’s it going?”
“Good,” Oggie called back. “Hey, did you know your brother is Bumbles the Bear and that he’s in a band called Cheddar Jam?”
“Of course I knew.” Dylan laughed. “He’s my brother, isn’t he?”
“So what are you guys up to?” Oggie asked. As fun as it was to be swimming in the pool, he realized he kind of wished he could be hanging out with Amy and Dylan instead.
“We’re not doing much. Just talking about Ghorks and junk,” said Amy. Her head started to wobble again and this time Dylan must have lost his grip because suddenly Amy disappeared completely. Oggie heard the two of them laughing.
“Um, Oggie?”
Oggie turned around and there was Donnica, holding the pink shoelaces in her hand.
“I just wanted to thank you,” she said. “For the present.”
“You’re welcome. I hope you like them,” said Oggie. “I was going to give you an old purse, but I decided you might like some pink shoelaces better and I promised myself that no matter what, I was going to give you something that you really, really really —”
“The shoelaces are great,” Donnica interrupted. “Really. In fact, they’re the nicest shoelaces I’ve ever seen. Which is why you’ll probably never see me wear them. I wouldn’t want to risk ruining something so, um, unique.”
Oggie smiled.
“Don’t worry, Donnica. If you wreck ’em, I can always make you another pair,” he said.
“No, no. That’s okay,” Donnica said quickly. “One pair is plenty. But really, I just wanted to say thanks, you know, not just for the shoelaces, but also for getting the band to play at my party. That was really nice of you.”
Donnica turned to leave, but suddenly Amy piped up from behind the fence.
“Not so fast, Perfecto. Don’t you have something else you want to tell Oggie?”
Donnica blushed her favorite shade of pink — bubblegum.
“I’m sorry I locked you in the bathroom, Oggie,” she said, hanging her head.
“And?” Amy prompted.
“I’m sorry I made up all those silly rules,” Donnica told Oggie.
“And?” said Amy.
Donnica paused for a minute, puzzled.
“What else did I do?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” said Amy. “But knowing you, I’m sure there’s more.”
Oggie stayed at the party long enough to sing “Happy Birthday” to Donnica and to eat a piece of cake. He asked Mrs. Perfecto to wrap up two slices to bring to the Georges to thank them for coming to the rescue with their cherry picker. When he got home he was delighted to find Amy and Dylan waiting for him on the porch steps.
&nbs
p; “Guess what we figured out?” said Dylan. “You can play Old Maid with Ghouler cards!”
“Yeah,” said Amy. “You just have to use a Shadow Zwill for the Old Maid.”
“Neat-o!” said Oggie.
They were interrupted by a strange sound coming from the Cooders’ backyard.
“KWEE-URK! Kwee-urk! Week-week wurp-wurp!”
“What’s that?” asked Dylan, alarmed.
Oggie grinned.
“It’s a yellow-bellied sapsucker,” he told Dylan.
“Yeah.” Amy giggled. “A big fat furry one with bad breath.”
(Five days later, Turk would surprise everyone by winning first place in the Wawatosa birdcalling contest. It would be the last time he would compete, however, because when Oggie gave him a big hug to congratulate him, the Swiss Warbler came flying out of Turk’s mouth like a rocket.)
That afternoon, after Oggie and his friends had finished playing a few rounds of Ghouler Old Maid out on the porch, Amy suggested that they turn the sprinkler on and run through it to cool off. Even Turk joined in. Next door, Donnica’s party was still in full swing. Oggie was glad that she had liked her shoelaces, and that he’d managed to get her Cheddar Jam, even if it was by accident. He had enjoyed finally getting to swim in the Perfectos’ beautiful kidney-shaped pool (not to mention all those piggies-in-a-blanket he’d gotten to eat). But that wasn’t the reason he threw back his head and let out a loud prrrrr-ip prrrrr-ip!
Oggie Cooder was glad to be back on his side of the fence with his friends and his dog and the bazillion other things that made him feel really, really, really happy.
Don’t miss
Read on for a sneak peek!
“Thank you very much.”
Alice was standing beside the bed when her aunt Polly reached a trembling hand out from underneath the leopard-print bedspread (Polly loved leopard print) and pulled the girl close to whisper in her ear.
“Thank you very much.”