“What do you want, Stevie?” Marvin said.
“Just coming by to tell you that my dad said I have to go to your lame barbecue next weekend.”
“It’s not mine,” Marvin said. “It’s for my baby brother.”
“Is that what we’re doing next Saturday?” Amber asked Stevie.
“Ooh, ooh, ooh!” Lee said from the far side of the table, waving his arm in the air. “I love barbecue!”
Amber wrinkled her nose. “Paul Thackerman would never have taken me to visit a class-D table.”
“Your ex?” Stevie said with a snort. “Paul Thackerman is a public-school dork.”
“Oh, don’t give me that I-went-to-private-school nonsense again.”
Stevie turned to Marvin. “Girl trouble. You understand.”
Marvin, who had never had “girl trouble,” said, “No.”
“I don’t understand, either,” Lee called out from the end of the table.
“Big surprise,” Stevie said, rolling his eyes. He turned to Marvin. “Tell your mother we’re bringing a cake.” He slipped his arm through Amber’s, and they walked off.
“Yeah, tell your mom,” Roland said, staying behind a moment. He shook his fist. “Cake.” He lumbered off after Stevie.
“Wouldn’t it be great to smell like cake?” Lee sighed from the far end of the table.
“Yes, it would,” Marvin said, his nostrils burning from his own shower-kraut smell. “Yes, it would.”
Marvin walked in the front door of his house and plunked his backpack on the floor. “I’m home,” he called out, without much enthusiasm.
Marvin’s mom looked in from the kitchen. “Not so loud,” she said in an exaggerated whisper, and pointed up at the ceiling. “Baby Harry is sleeping.” She was about to go back into the kitchen, when she did a double take and stopped. “Why on earth are you wearing your gym shirt?” she said.
Marvin looked down at the T-shirt, which he had changed into after lunch, when he couldn’t take the stench of fermented cabbage any longer. His other shirt was wadded up in a soggy, smelly ball at the bottom of his bag. “Someone dumped sauerkraut on me.”
“Now, who would do a thing like that?” she asked.
“It was one of Little Stevie’s friends,” Marvin said bitterly.
“Oh! One of Stevie’s friends! Well how nice. I’m sure he didn’t mean to,” she said, smiling. “I’m so glad that you and your cousin are finally in the same school together.”
“But he did do it on purpose—” Marvin said loudly, before being cut off by a high-pitched wail from upstairs.
His mother scowled. “Now look what you’ve done. Honestly, Marvin.” She brushed past him and hurried upstairs to calm Baby Harry.
Having a baby brother hadn’t sounded so bad to Marvin when his dad first told him about it all those months ago.
“Marvin,” his dad had asked, “how would you like a new friend?”
Marvin had thought about this. “Is it going to cost us money?” he’d asked.
“Well, yeah, but—that’s not the point. This friend is going to be related to you.”
“Cousin Stevie’s not coming over, is he?” Marvin had asked with some trepidation.
“No,” his dad had said, and sighed. “You’re going to have a baby brother!”
“A baby brother?”
“Yes,” his dad said, “so you’ll always have a friend you can count on. You know, like Wilbur and Orville Wright. Or … the Ringling Brothers. Or Cain and Abel.”
But when he finally arrived a few weeks ago, little Harrison Watson Jr. didn’t measure up to Marvin’s expectations of a friend. Marvin tried to show him his collection of comic books, but Baby Harry just threw up on them. He tried to take him outside to show him the crab apple tree—which produced the finest crab apples in the county—but Baby Harry just screamed until Marvin’s mom ordered them back inside.
In fact, mostly what he did was scream, all day and all night, like he was doing now. Scream, holler, yell, whine—and poop. He was pink and wrinkled and screamed. Marvin was short on pals at the moment, but he still wasn’t sure that he wanted to be friends with a screaming pink raisin.
Marvin trudged up the stairs to his room. Their house was small, a two-bedroom row home in Butcherville’s Crown Roast neighborhood. The area had been a thriving blue-collar district when it was built during the 1940s, but now the homes here were merely old. Upstairs, Marvin’s room faced his parents’ room across the hallway. A shared bathroom was at the end of the hall, right next to the door to the attic stairs.
It was a perfectly good house, which Marvin’s grandfather had bought on the salary of a door-to-door Pork Loaf salesman. When he retired to Florida, he had given the house to Marvin’s dad, and they had all lived there ever since. Unlike Little Stevie, Marvin’s family hadn’t inherited piles of money. His mom had never asked for any of the Upton family wealth, and Marvin’s family had made do on his dad’s modest salary as a research scientist. They were hardly poor, despite Stevie’s insistence that they were, but they also weren’t filthy rich.
Marvin closed his bedroom door behind him to shut out the sounds of his mother cooing to Baby Harry. On the back of the door was tacked a large poster of his favorite comic-book character, Fearless Phil: The Man Who Laughs in the Face of Fear. On a day like today, Marvin wished he could be more like Phil and just laugh off the fear and humiliation.
Marvin peeled off his undersize gym shirt and changed into a clean T-shirt. He removed the stinky shower-kraut shirt from his backpack and threw it into the hamper. He also pulled out his algebra textbook, which was a little cabbage-y from contact with his shirt. Marvin knew he should get started on his homework, but, as he went over to clear off his desk, he saw his chemistry set laid out across it and threw the textbook back into his bag. He’d had just about enough of middle school for one day.
Instead, he decided to immerse himself in his latest project: attempting to mix up a new flavor of Pork Loaf International Fruit Flavored Punch, also known as “Pork Punch.” Mr. Piggly Winks, the dapper pig mascot of PLI, smiled knowingly at Marvin from the label of the drink mix package on his desk.
Marvin had always enjoyed tinkering and experimenting, and his dad’s job gave him access to more things than came with the average kid’s chemistry set. Marvin’s dad, Harrison Watson Sr., was a research scientist at Pork Loaf International, in charge of making the Pork Loaf Log Roll more nutritious, and he brought home real ingredients from the PLI lab for Marvin to experiment with.
Although PLI had made its fortune selling processed, enriched meats, it had long since branched out into beverages, fruit snacks, cosmetics, and household cleaning products. Pork Punch was the go-to beverage, found in school vending machines and at every picnic and family function—which was why Marvin wished someone over there would try to make it taste a little bit better.
Marvin unscrewed the lab jars that contained the various ingredients: food dyes, fruit-flavoring agents, nutrient mixes, stabilizers, destabilizers, aroma enhancers, and so on. He began by measuring out the standard flavor components and sweeteners into a large Erlenmeyer flask. He wasn’t careful with his proportions. Although Marvin liked science, he couldn’t approach it with the same rigor as his father. His methods were more … improvisational. They tended to yield surprising results. Why, the things he had learned about Pork Loaf by running high voltages through it could fill a library. There was the Pork Loaf variation on the classic potato-powered-clock experiment, but Marvin found that boring—there wasn’t enough wow factor in a digital clock quietly running off a hunk of luncheon meat. Much more intriguing was his discovery that the Pork Loaf Log Roll would glow like a night-light when plugged into 120-volt alternating current. Of course, when he attempted to wire in a Big ’Un—the steak-size version of Pork Loaf—he blew out the power grid in a ten-block radius. Some would see that as a setback, but Marvin felt that no great scientific breakthrough was ever achieved without risk.
He
was just beginning to add a few drops of the potent pink food dye that gave the punch its characteristically pork-like color, when Baby Harry suddenly shrieked. Marvin’s head jerked in the direction of the scream, and his hand jerked, too. Before he realized it, he had inadvertently poured the entire container of dye into the flask. The flask’s contents bubbled and churned, turning a grotesque green for a moment before returning to a slightly less distressing bright pink. He lifted the glass to his lips and took a huge gulp—which he promptly spat right back into the container. The flavor was … awful. Surprisingly awful.
“Ugh,” he said, spitting over and over again to try to get the taste out of his mouth. “That’s the worst batch yet. Maybe it’ll improve after it ages a while.” He poured it into four test tubes set in a metal rack.
Marvin heard a door slam downstairs and guessed that his dad was home from work. Sure enough, Harry Watson Sr. came up the stairs, briefly talked with Marvin’s mom, and then knocked on Marvin’s door before poking his head inside.
“In the middle of a critical experiment, Dr. Watson?” Marvin’s dad asked.
“You could say that,” Marvin said. “I’m trying to create a better-tasting Pork Punch.” He cast a suspicious eye at the test tubes. “But I don’t think I’m there yet.”
“Ah,” said Marvin’s dad. “That’s my little lab assistant.” He tousled Marvin’s hair.
“Dad!” Marvin said, batting away his hand in irritation but smiling. “I’m not that little anymore.”
“No, of course not!” his dad said. “Looks like you’ve got a real lab of your own right here.”
When Marvin was younger, his father had often taken him to work, dressed him up in an oversize lab coat, and let him pretend to help with experiments. His dad had always encouraged him and spent time with him—but he hadn’t been around as much since Baby Harry came along.
“Can you take a break for dinner?” his dad asked.
“What are we having?” Marvin said.
“Your favorite—spaghetti and meatballs.”
“With real meat? Not Pork Loaf?” Marvin asked, his eyes wide.
“Sure,” his dad said, smiling. “After all, I bet you’ve had a busy day. There’s nothing like the first day of middle school.”
“I hope not,” Marvin said, then followed his dad downstairs.
When he walked into the kitchen, Marvin saw that it was true—his mom had made a glorious feast. As he sat down, she laid a plate heaped with a great mound of spaghetti and sauce in front of him. She scooped up the two biggest meatballs from the serving bowl. Each was the size of his fist. She plunked them on top of the mountain of spaghetti. Then came Marvin’s favorite part. He picked up the rotary cheese grater—they had real Parmesan cheese tonight, not that stuff in the green can—and cranked the handle to let fall a dusting of Parmesan “snow” on the “mountaintop.” He knew it seemed a little childish, but he still loved it.
As Marvin stuffed a forkful of spaghetti and meatball into his mouth, his dad cleared his throat.
“Marvin,” he said, “you’re a young man now, aren’t you?”
“Myef,” he said around a mouthful of food. “I gueff fo.”
“And young men can be on their own,” his dad continued. “They can be farther away from their parents. But your baby brother is very little. He needs to be closer to his parents.”
“He’s already in your room,” Marvin said, chewing.
“Not that close,” his mom said, looking tired.
“Anyway,” his dad continued, “we need to set up your bedroom as a nursery for the baby so your mom and I can get some sleep. So you’re going to have to move up to the attic.”
Marvin choked on his spaghetti and meatballs. He began coughing loudly.
“The attic?” he asked, his eyes watering from the hunk of meatball stuck in his windpipe. “But it’s not even finished.”
“It’s the only practical thing to do,” his dad said. “And besides, you need a quiet place where you can study. Middle school is going to be a lot tougher than elementary school. But I know you’ll do well.”
A second later, Marvin let loose a hacking cough that shook the whole table. As the glob of meat and pasta finally worked its way free of his throat, he noticed—too late—his remaining meatball tumbling off his plate to land with a splat on the floor. He stared sadly at his lost meatball with watery eyes.
“Oh, don’t cry, sweetie,” his mom said, leaning across the table and pinching his cheek, a dreamy expression on her face. “Just think—now my little angel will be even closer to heaven.”
Marvin didn’t know what to think about that.
After dinner, Marvin and his dad took apart Marvin’s bed and carried it and the rest of his stuff up the steep staircase to the attic.
“Boy, I used to love playing up here when I was a little kid,” Marvin’s dad said as he threw open the door and turned on the light. “There’s a great set of encyclopedias,” he said, pointing to a pile of dusty boxes. “And my old ham radio and telescope,” he added, pointing to another pile of boxes. “And the games!” He pointed to yet another pile of dusty boxes.
Marvin said nothing. He opened up an old wardrobe to hang his clothes, but it was already full of musty coats. He pulled out a long wool overcoat and saw that it was riddled with small holes.
“What are these holes from?” Marvin asked.
His dad glanced over from where he was assembling the bed. “Oh, that’s your grandfather’s old coat from World War II. He must have left it up here when he moved to Florida.” He took the coat from Marvin’s hands and gave it a good shake, sending a trio of moths fluttering off. “See—moths made the holes. Moth larvae like to eat wool.” He tossed the coat on a box and went back downstairs to get more stuff.
Marvin sat glumly on a cardboard box, which began to sag. He looked around at all his things—his bed, his dresser, his clothes. Nothing looked at home up here.
His dad came back up the stairs, holding Marvin’s chemistry set. “Here we go,” he said. “We need to find a special place for this.”
“Put it in the corner,” Marvin said glumly. “In the dark.”
“How about right here at your bedside,” Marvin’s dad said, ignoring him. “There!”
From downstairs, they could hear the all-too-familiar wail of Baby Harry starting up again.
“Honey,” Marvin’s mom called. “Can you come down here and help me?”
“Be right there,” Marvin’s dad shouted down. He walked to the door, then stopped and looked over at Marvin. “Now, don’t stay up too late working on your science experiment,” he said brightly.
“Don’t worry,” Marvin said. “I won’t.”
After his father shut the door, Marvin glanced once more around his new home. He knew the row houses in downtown Butcherville had been built during the postwar boom of the late 1940s, when the aroma of sizzling meat products filled every home and it was said that the very streets were paved with pork. Housing had been in great demand then, and builders found that row homes could be built quickly and affordably. In retrospect, they could have done a slightly better job. For instance, Marvin realized that he could see into his neighbor’s attic through a hole in the wall, and he dimly glimpsed the next attic beyond that, too. He guessed that, in the postwar unity, no one really cared that their attics ran together.
The attic reminded Marvin of something out of a monster movie. It was dark and cold and spooky, and even the cobwebs were covered with dust. The old floorboards were uneven and creaked every time he took a step. There were mouse holes in the corners—the corners that he could even see into—and he thought he spotted a huge spider scuttling along the bare rafters.
With no prospects for a better evening ahead, Marvin decided to call it a day. A miserable, terrible day—that apparently wasn’t done with him yet. As he started getting ready for bed, he noticed that one of the attic windows had warped and wouldn’t completely close. A draft gusted through. Even thou
gh it was only September, the air held a chill of autumn.
Shivering—both from cold and fear—Marvin put on his heaviest flannel pajamas, pulled the chain to turn off the bare overhead lightbulb, and crawled into bed. Lying there, with his hair pressed against the pillow, the almost-forgotten scent of vinegar from the shower-kraut suddenly invaded his nose. He jerked upright in bed, banging his head sharply against a low-hanging rafter.
“Gah!” Marvin shouted, clutching the swiftly rising bump on his head. Dust rained down on him from above, triggering a trio of violent sneezes.
Almost on cue, Baby Harry began to wail.
“Marvin!” his mom shouted from downstairs. “Will you keep it down up there?”
“Sorry, Mom,” he said, rubbing his head. He sighed and lay back down on his dusty, vinegar-scented pillow. Marvin sincerely hoped that this was the worst day of his life, because he didn’t think he could survive another one like it. Or if it wasn’t, he at least hoped the roof would cave in on him.
With that thought in mind, Marvin drifted off to a nightmare-filled sleep.
The cat chased the mouse through the moonlit yard. He was a confident predator. This was his territory. He knew every piece of the landscape, every bush, every rock, every garbage can. The mouse wouldn’t last long.
He watched the mouse take a left turn into the alley alongside the row houses. The cat knew it was a dead end, so he slowed his pursuit. The mouse couldn’t escape now.
But as the cat entered the shadowy alleyway, something seemed different. Was it a new scent? A strange shape? An odd sound?
There it was: a crunching noise. And the smell of blood.
The cat halted his advance. Something had gotten to his prey first. He couldn’t let that go. This was his territory, and he had to defend it. He stalked deeper into the shadows, claws and teeth at the ready.
“Ahhh,” called a strange voice from the darkness ahead. “So, thou wilt be as valiant as the wrathful dove, or most magnanimous mouse.”
Marvin and the Moths Page 2