“It’s my agent,” he said (even though from where I was standing I could see that the only thing on his phone was his Surf Monkey screen saver). “Emergency audition. I need to run. Good-bye, Lady Lilly.”
He kissed her on the cheek.
After he did that, I totally owed him.
* * *
“So now our pool of suspects includes everybody who might’ve strolled by Digby’s window,” said Gloria as we made our way through the Sandapalooza crowds on the beach.
(By the way, the Jabba the Hutt sculpture sponsored by the Bikini Hut was incredible.)
“Everybody with a master key is still on the list, too,” I added. “Except Clara.”
“Net-net,” said Gloria, “considering the keys and the open curtains, we’re talking just about everybody at the Wonderland.”
“Except Clara,” I said. “And Jimbo. Other than that, we’re nowhere.”
“With nothing,” added Gloria.
To make matters worse, we’d reached the Conch Reef Resort’s sand sculpture, that all-you-can-eat buffet made out of sand. Veronica was there. With a bullhorn.
“Vote for Conch for best in show!” she screamed as she handed out coupons. She was dressed up like a strip of bacon. “And tomorrow, before you start bakin’ in the sun, get a sizzling ten percent off our world-class bacon-rific breakfast buffet!”
“She’s stealing our thunder,” I muttered.
“She’s also stealing our customers,” said Gloria. “While we’ve been focused on the tiara, our competition has been free to growth hack their way onto our turf.”
“Fine,” I said. “Game on. It’s time for a food fight!”
Like I said, sometimes I watch cooking shows on cable TV.
I remembered an episode with a recipe for the perfect sandwich to feature at the Banana Shack to win back some customers. I did a quick Google search and found it. It was simple and totally safe. There were no oysters anywhere in the recipe.
Gloria and I turned on all the light strings around the café and went to work.
“We need bread,” I said, twisting the knob to ignite the griddle heat.
“Check,” said Gloria from the pantry.
“And all the stuff for s’mores—minus the graham crackers. Marshmallows, chocolate…”
“Check and check.”
“How about cream cheese?”
“Got it.”
“Butter?”
“A huge industrial-sized block of it.”
“Bananas?”
“Two bunches left over from breakfast.”
“Chunky peanut butter?”
Gloria stuck her head out the pantry door. “Isn’t that going a bit too far?”
“Nope. Like Grandpa always says, when you’re out to dazzle, too much is never enough!”
But just having a fantastic sandwich wouldn’t put us over the top. The sandwich was the steak. (Well, not really, because there wasn’t any beef in a Chunky Funky Monkey, just cream cheese, marshmallows, sliced bananas, chocolate chunks, and a smear of chunky peanut butter, but, hey, sometimes you need to use a metaphor or two when you’re telling a story.) It was time to add the sizzle.
First we cooked up a dozen Chunky Funky Monkeys. Talk about your gooey deliciousness.
Grandpa smelled the first batch cooking from his workshop and came over to lend a hand.
“This is like old times, P.T. You know, I worked as a short-order cook when I was in high school. The waitress would holler, ‘Burn one, black and blue, drag it through the garden, and let it walk,’ and I knew exactly what to do.”
“Run away? Find a new job?”
“Nope, nope, nope. In dinerspeak, that means a well-done cheeseburger with lettuce, tomato, and onion—to go!”
Grandpa took over flipping the sandwiches on the grill.
Gloria ran up to the lobby and raided our souvenir stock so she could bring me a sock-monkey puppet.
Next we slipped the Beach Party Surf Monkey original cast CD into Jimbo’s boom box and rigged up our own karaoke microphone.
It was showtime!
I ducked down behind the counter with the puppet on my hand.
Gloria hit the play button on the CD player. I made the puppet dance to the show tunes.
We attracted a small crowd, so I bantered with kids lining up to order sandwiches.
I made the Surf Monkey sock puppet say all sorts of goofy stuff. Kids were laughing. Parents were smiling. The Banana Shack cash register was ringing.
It was just like the good old days.
You know—last week.
Grandpa and Gloria kept serving up the sandwiches, and before long, the café was packed—with happy motel guests and hungry folks from the Sandapalooza down on the beach.
We sold out in under an hour.
“Great show, P.T.,” said Grandpa. “Better than anything at Disney World. Especially now that they don’t have that Twittleham Tiara to brag about.”
“We need to go to the grocery store,” suggested Gloria. “Restock our key ingredients. The Chunky Funky Monkey sandwich and show could be the silver bullet we need to scramble back to the top of the hospitality heap on St. Pete Beach.”
“Woo-hoo!” I shouted. “Sprokes for everybody!”
Our celebration was cut short by the hungry muscleman in room 228. The guy who’d slurped down all those raw oysters.
He came out of his room, looking green around the gills and clutching his stomach.
“I’m not feeling so good,” he said, teetering behind the balcony railing. “Don’t eat any of that kid’s food. It might make you—”
He didn’t get to finish that thought.
Because he was too busy hurling over the railing.
And of course some of what spewed out ended up floating in the pool.
Yep.
All those slimy oysters were back in the water.
Sunday night, things didn’t look any brighter.
And not just because clouds were blocking the moon.
Some of our new “freebie” guests decided to use our Freddy the Frog slide as a drying rack for their kids’ diapers, which they’d rinsed out in the pool.
A bunch of the rowdy college kids who’d swooped in after Mom advertised our bargain rates kept trying to tip over our giant Ponce de León Muffler Man statue.
I had to threaten to call the cops.
They left the Muffler Man alone and attacked Dino the Dinosaur until they realized they couldn’t cow tip a four-legged fiberglass beast with its feet anchored in concrete.
Gloria and I were sitting near the pool (which I had to skim clean with a net after the oyster explosion incident), watching a bunch of college kids sliding down Freddy the Frog. They snagged a few diapers along the way.
“The Wonderland is turning into the opposite of Walt Disney World,” I told Gloria. “They’re the happiest place on earth; we’re the saddest.”
“Technically,” said Gloria, who’s a stickler for stuff like this, “ ‘the Happiest Place on Earth’ is the official tagline for Disneyland in California. I believe the Magic Kingdom in Orlando is ‘the Most Magical Place on Earth.’ ”
“Well, we’re the most miserable.”
Gloria sighed. “And we were doing so well.”
“Yeah. We were. Past tense.”
“But then,” said Gloria, sounding a little like her dad when he wraps up a story on TV, “somebody stole the Twittleham Tiara and, with it, the Wonderland’s bright and shiny future.”
A thought I’d been trying to get rid of bubbled up in my brain and, before I could stop it, tumbled out of my mouth.
“Do you think Grandpa could’ve done it?”
“What?” said Gloria.
“He doesn’t like Disney. Actually, he kind of hates Disney on account of October 1, 1971.”
“True, but—”
“I’m not saying he stole the tiara. If he did, I’m sure he would’ve turned it in the second Lord Snootypants accused Clara. But he sure seems happy
that Disney doesn’t have it. Maybe too happy.”
Gloria stood up. “It’s late, P.T. Dad needs me to watch his broadcast tonight. He’s going to try out a new catchphrase. If you want to investigate your grandfather, you’re going to have to do that on your own.”
She walked around the pool and started climbing the staircase up to the second floor. When she reached the third step, she turned around, looked at me, and shook her head.
Yep. I couldn’t believe what a jerk I was being, either.
Suspecting Grandpa?
But still, he really, really, really didn’t like Disney World.
I decided I had to be sure.
I had to go search Grandpa’s workshop.
It was nearly eleven o’clock at night.
I tiptoed around to the front of the motel and saw the familiar glow of Mom’s TV on the other side of the curtains of room 101. I also saw two familiar silhouettes: Mom’s and Grandpa’s.
Most nights, they got together in Mom’s room to talk over the day and watch the eleven o’clock news on channel ten, WTSP, because that’s where Mr. Ortega manned the late-night sports desk.
Sports wouldn’t come on for fifteen, twenty minutes.
That meant I had plenty of time to sneak into Grandpa’s workshop and see if he had a priceless diamond tiara stashed anywhere.
Grandpa lives in a one-bedroom apartment over what sort of resembles a wooden garage near the swimming pool. I was pretty sure that if he’d stolen the Twittleham Tiara, he would’ve squirreled it away in his cramped workshop. The place was cluttered with all sorts of goofy gewgaws, making for some great hiding places.
Grandpa was currently working on a bunch of fiberglass statues for the Banana Shack—stuff he’d purchased at restaurant liquidation sales: a pudgy chef holding a menu board, one of those burger-loving Big Boys in the red-checked coveralls, and a lip-smacking hot dog squirting ketchup on top of its head.
“Where would he hide the tiara?” I wondered aloud.
I opened up a bunch of big coffee cans. They were mostly filled with nuts and bolts and springs and stuff. I checked out some cardboard boxes. Nothing resembling the jeweled tiara was stuffed inside. I flicked on a gooseneck lamp and swung it around like a searchlight.
Something sparkled on a far shelf. Whatever it was, it was extremely bedazzling.
The tiara?
I rushed over to examine it.
It was an old pickle jar filled with sequins and spangles and shiny baubles. The kind of junk Grandpa hot-glued onto statues to make them shimmer in the sun.
The overhead lights flickered on.
“P.T.?”
It was Grandpa.
“Hey, Grandpa.”
“What’re you doing back here?”
“Nothing.”
“Really? Because it looked like you were searching for something.”
“Found it,” I said, rattling the jar full of sparkly stuff. “Sure is shiny. Just like that Twittleham Tiara.”
Grandpa’s head drooped. His shoulders sagged.
“Is that what you were back here looking for? The tiara? You think I stole it?”
“No. Of course not.”
“Don’t lie, P.T. If I’ve taught you anything, it’s that there’s a big difference between telling a story and telling a lie.”
“I know, but—”
“A story tries to lead you to the truth. A lie only helps you hide from it.”
I swallowed hard. I couldn’t lie to Grandpa. I had to tell him the truth.
“Okay,” I said. “Did you, by any chance, steal the tiara out of the Cassie McGinty Suite?”
“And why would I do that?”
“To get back at Disney World for what they did to you all those years ago.”
“Is that what you think, P.T.?”
I’d never seen him look so sad.
“I’m sorry, Grandpa.”
“Me too, Phineas. Me too.”
He climbed up the creaky wooden steps to his sleeping loft.
I watched him disappear into the darkness. The closest thing I’d ever had to a father was turning his back on me.
I couldn’t blame him.
I would’ve turned my back on me, too.
Feeling worse than I had in a long, long time, I headed down to the beach.
Sometimes the sound of the pounding surf can make me feel better. Mostly because the waves keep coming, no matter what. They never give up. The ocean never quits.
But it was kind of creepy to be walking through a shadowy world of giant dragons and castles, pirates and superheroes, dolphins and mermaids—all of them made out of sand.
I saw Travis and Darryl sitting around a small driftwood fire in front of their Surf Monkey creation. Fact: I definitely needed to have a father-son chat with the guy I had a hunch might be my dad. (I’d just been too busy with the never-ending string of motel disasters to confirm it with Mom.)
“Hey, guys,” I said.
“Well, hey there, son,” said Travis. “What’re you doing down here so late?”
“Isn’t it past your bedtime?” joked Darryl.
“I, uh, couldn’t sleep,” I told them.
“Bummer,” said Darryl. “We’re sleeping down here tonight.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah,” said Travis. “Camping out on the beach. Nothin’ like it. Salt air. Twinkly stars.” He patted the sand. “Take a seat, little man. Admire our crowning achievement while you can. It won’t be here after tomorrow—and neither will we.”
“Do you have to leave?” I asked.
Travis laughed. “Son, the whole sand sculpture shebang is shutting down tomorrow afternoon. They’ll announce the winners at five. We’ll pack and skedaddle before five-thirty. Heck, we’ll be in Georgia before the bulldozers show up to plow everything down.”
“But don’t you want to stick around?” I asked. “We’ve been so busy up at the motel we’ve hardly spent any time together. Plus you and my mom haven’t had a chance to talk.”
“Talk? About what?”
“You know. The old days. Over in Orlando. Right before you left Florida. Right before I was born?”
“There he goes!” said Darryl. “Winner, winner, chicken dinner. Mr. Conch was right.”
Travis laughed. “He sure was.”
I was confused. “Right about what?”
“Kid,” said Travis, “I ain’t your daddy.”
“When Mr. Conch signed us up for this gig,” said Darryl, “he told us how your daddy left town before you were even born.”
“Why was Mr. Conch talking to you guys about my father?” I asked.
Travis just shrugged.
“I reckon he has his reasons,” said Darryl. “But I gotta tell you, kid, I’m a little hurt you went with Travis instead of me.”
“Well,” said Travis, “sorry to burst your bubble, son, but I am not now nor have I ever been your father. It’s an impossibility.”
“What do you mean?” I asked foolishly.
“Come on, kid. I saw your mother this afternoon when I breezed past the lobby. She’s not exactly my type.”
Hearing Travis talk that way about Mom, I was glad he wasn’t my father.
I also wanted to punch him in the nose.
But I didn’t.
I hadn’t thought my night could get any worse.
I’d been wrong.
Monday morning came pretty quickly because I was still awake at one, two, and three a.m.
I lay in my bed, marveling at how stupid I’d been.
About Travis. About Jimbo. About Grandpa.
About shellfish.
When I finally fell asleep, I had a horrible dream. Travis and Darryl turned the Wonderland into a life-size sand motel. One of those waves I used to like to hear pounding against the shore washed everything—our statues, our friends, our family—out into the Gulf.
When I woke up, I headed to the Banana Shack, figuring I’d try to cook breakfast for anybody who wanted a Chu
nky Funky Monkey first thing in the morning.
To my surprise, Gloria and Mr. Ortega were already behind the counter.
“I’m making pancakes,” announced Mr. Ortega.
“With scrapple,” said Gloria. “I found it in the fridge.”
“Care to join us?” asked her dad.
I shrugged. “Sure. I guess.”
“And might I make a suggestion?” said Mr. Ortega. “When everything’s cooked up and ready to go, you should take a tray to that beautiful lady you call your mother. After all she’s been through, she deserves breakfast in bed.”
“Good idea.”
“So hey, hey, Tampa Bay—it’s time to get to it!”
“That’s Dad’s new catchphrase,” explained Gloria. “He tried it out last night.”
“I like it.”
“Thanks, P.T.” Mr. Ortega ladled batter onto the grill and dotted the bubbling mix with blueberries. “Any new leads on your investigation?”
“Not really,” I said.
Gloria slapped a few slabs of scrapple onto the griddle. It sputtered and popped.
“Sorry my video clip couldn’t seal the deal for you two,” said Mr. O. “But don’t warm up the team bus just yet. This thing isn’t over. You just have a tough road to hoe.”
“Um, Dad?” said Gloria. “I think you mean a ‘tough row,’ not a ‘tough road.’ ”
“No, ‘road’ is what the big dogs say on ESPN.”
“How do you hoe a road?”
Mr. Ortega flipped a pancake. “With a backhoe?”
Finally, something made me smile.
The first plate of breakfast food went on a tray with a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice that Mr. Ortega poured out of a jug he’d bought at a convenience store.
“Hang on,” he said. “We need the finishing touch.”
He plucked a pair of pink flowers off a nearby shrub and tucked them into a tiny cut-glass vase he found under the counter.
Sandapalooza Shake-Up Page 10