My Big Nose and Other Natural Disasters

by Sydney Salter

  Super Schnozz would be defeated. One last sniffle, then bye-bye.

  "Okay, focus," I told myself as I walked through the white gate to the bright green door. A little bell tinkled as I walked into every kid's fantasy world. Flowers, teddy bears, kittens, puppies, knickknacks, bubbling fountains, and balloons in all shapes and colors surrounded me; gauzy fairies hung from the ceiling, and silk flowers bunched together in painted vases on the floor; roses in a rainbow of colors decorated a glass case. The whole place smelled sweet and sugary, like someone had baked a million birthday cakes. (I guess they had.) I breathed in deeply, wondering if even the air had calories. Mom would never come into this place.

  A woman came from the back through some swinging doors, wiping her hands on a towel. "What can I do for you?"

  I noticed that her hair was tied up in a net, showing off her big brown eyes, sweet round face, and cute little pug nose. A white apron that said "Katie Bakes!" was tied around her plump waist. I figured that was the hazard of making cakes for a living. Or maybe the air did have calories.

  "I'm here for the job interview." I tried not to do that nervous nose-touching thing that Megan says I do before every school presentation or even when a cute guy talks to me.

  The lady cocked her head and looked at me. "The driver position?" She spoke slowly, as if I were kind of stupid and had walked into the wrong place to ask for a job.

  "Yeah." Way to sound confident. I looked down at her scuffed-up loafers. She had a glob of pink frosting on her right foot.

  "Well, okay." She sighed. "You're not exactly what I had in mind, but I guess you can apply."

  I watched the frosting wobble on her foot as she walked toward the cash register at the front of the store. A bunch of helium balloons floated in a basket on the ceiling. I half wished I could take the whole strange collection of ladybugs, smiley faces, high-heeled shoes, turtles, dolphins, and miscellaneous Happy messages and float into the sky. What did she mean by "not exactly what I had in mind"? Had she been hoping for some gorgeous showgirl type who could dance and sing with the deliveries, and Super Schnozz didn't fit that image? She gave me the application, then went back to the kitchen.

  The application had a bunch of little boxes for previous job experience. I tried to make myself sound impressive without really lying. I put down pet sitter because I once fed Hannah's cat when she went out of town. Child care. I counted back on my fingers. I've baby-sat occasionally since I was about eleven, if you count the times I kept an eye on the neighbor's baby while she mowed her lawn. That gave me six years of experience. But I didn't have any so-called delivery experience. (Though I did run up to Scolari's every time my mom forgot some strange ingredient necessary for her wacky diet of the week.) Technically, I delivered groceries. I printed grocery deliveries in the first box and wrote Scolari's in the next box that asked for location, but I skipped all the phone number and address stuff.

  Now I needed something to give me a little edge. Something to show that I was good with people. But somehow Spanish club member didn't sound too impressive, plus I'd dropped out when I realized that no cute guys had signed up. Just that one freshman, but he'd been Finn's best friend in third grade and I'd watched him eat his boogers one too many times.

  I thought about how Megan and I had stood at the bottom of the chairlift exit up at Mount Rose all last winter and greeted at least three cute guys (ones who were not wearing goggles, matching ski attire, or smoking) before each run. I wrote greeter in the first box, then Mount Rose Ski Resort. I added volunteer position in the salary box to show that I wasn't doing this just for the money, even though I totally was.

  While I waited for Katie Bakes! to come back from the kitchen, I sat on the twirly chair by the cash register and spun from side to side as a pink bear with a white ribbon stared at me with complete disdain. The phone rang and Katie Bakes! bumped through the swinging doors.

  "Flowers and Cakes by Katie," she answered in a singsong voice. "Mmm. Hmm. What's the address? Phone number?"

  Something in the back started making a grinding noise followed by whap, whap, whap, whap. It sounded like some kind of heavyweight boxing match going on. Katie put her hand over the receiver and called to me, "Will you run and turn that mixer off?

  "That does sound lovely," she said into the phone. "Would you like to include a message?" She motioned to me with her hand to hurry.

  I pushed through the swinging doors to the kitchen.

  In the center of an island countertop, a big mixer whacked at a huge lump of thick white frosting stuff. The mixer had levers and buttons. But which one made the thing stop? With a constantly dieting mother, I had absolutely zero baking experience. I panicked for a moment before reminding myself that I was applying for a driving position. I watched the white stuff roll in violent waves. Rrrr. Rrrr. Rrrr. The mixer sounded like an old car trying to start on a cold day.

  Push a button, I told myself, any button. I moved a lever forward and the mixer yowled, sending the white stuff swirling through the air like feathers during a pillow fight. Little bits thwacked me in the face and stuck to my clothes as I searched for the off button. Panicking, I flapped my arms around like a sick duck, then pulled another lever.

  Bump. Bump. Thwack. The top of the mixer bounced up and down in the bowl, sending bigger chunks soaring onto a long shelf filled with clean cake pans. And one cooling sheet cake. Very little was left in the mixing bowl; I reached up and tried to grab some of the larger hunks in midair. No luck. Smack. A chunk struck my cheek, sticking for a moment and then bouncing off my shoulder and onto the floor. Was I ruining some poor kid's birthday cake? White streaks covered the black marble counter like crazy zebra stripes.

  Grrrr, the machine growled. Thump, thump, thump went my racing heart, while the mixer went whap, whap, whap, smacking me with sugary globs. Finally I noticed a big red power button on the side. Duh. I'm such an idiot.

  "I'll have it to you by three o'clock," I heard Katie's cheery voice say from the front. "Bye-bye."

  Oh, God. What had I done now? The counter was covered with white formations that made it look like Mono Lake. I scooped a handful of the bits together and scrunched them into a ball that I used to try to pick up the other stuff, the way you use your gum to pick up the bits of a bubble that explodes all over your face. Except it takes much longer to clean up a kitchen.

  My sneakers were sticky as I moved, quickly flinging the white stuff back into the bowl. Sweat poured from my armpits; I turned my face to avoid the blended odor of stinky gym locker and cupcakes. Unfortunately, the ceiling fan whirling above me did nothing to stop the burning in my cheeks. Can someone get fired before she even gets hired?

  I was down on my hands and knees trying to pluck some of the stuff off the previously clean tiles when Katie pushed through the doors. Her mouth hung open. "How—"

  "I accidentally turned it higher." I'm so not getting this job.

  "Great. I've had that ad in the paper for two weeks and the only person to apply is an accident-prone minor with extensive—what was it? Greeting experience?"

  I looked down at her shoes. Only a greasy smudge remained of the pink frosting, but her shoes made a sucking sound as she shuffled her feet. I tried to take a deep, calming breath but instead made a strange wheezing sound.

  "Do you often have these kinds of accidents?"

  "No. No. I swear." Except for in sports, school stairwells, buffet lines, while talking to cute guys, and when driving in movie-theater parking lots.

  "You can drive?"

  As I nodded, I noticed a little white gob wiggling on the end of my nose. Looking down, I wiped my hands across my face. Sticky.

  "You can drive a van?"

  "Yes, I do deliveries in a van from the grocery store."

  "For your mother, I imagine. Please don't tell me it's a minivan."

  That nervous never-tell-a-lie feeling gurgled deep in my stomach. "Well, it is." I picked at a fleck of white stuff on my hand. "But it's practically all I've
ever driven." When Mom actually lets me drive.

  I watched Katie Bakes! smoosh a big white chunk with her foot. Accidentally, I might add. She threw her hands in the air. "I may be crazy, but you're hired. I need the help and I can't afford to pay the going rate. You okay with nine dollars an hour, plus occasional overtime?"

  "Sounds great!" I smiled. Mentally I tried to multiply 72 times 5 divided into 5,000 to figure out how many weeks I'd need to work for el nose job.

  "I've got help through the weekend. You can start Monday. Six o'clock sharp."

  "It's a deal!" My hand stuck to hers after I shook it.

  "You really know how to drive a van?"

  "Uh-huh." I wished my voice sounded a tad more confident. And that I didn't have so much white stuff stuck in my hair. Or on my shirt. To avoid Katie's discerning gaze, I looked out the screen door.

  I saw the van: a multicolored, custom-painted behemoth squatting in the driveway like a hideous floral toad, itty-bitty windows in the back, side mirrors like a semitrailer's. It made Mom's minivan look like a Porsche Roadster. Would I actually have to back the thing out of that skinny driveway?

  Chapter Three

  GRADUATION NIGHT

  Two nights later, we sat in the nosebleed seats at Lawlor Events Center watching the Reno High graduation on the jumbo screen, along with a bunch of giggling underclassmen girls and third-cousin-once-removed-type relatives who couldn't score the good seats.

  "Ahh, he's so sweet," Hannah cooed as Dave Richards walked across the stage to accept his diploma.

  "Need I remind you? Valentine's Day? Vomiting incident?" Megan said. "He's got drinking issues."

  Dave reminded me of my first big die-when-I-saw-him-in-the-halls crush—Zane Zimmerman. I went to every basketball game freshman and sophomore years just so I could watch Zane run around in his baggy shorts, his blond hair flopping over one eye. Afterward, I'd beg Hannah and Megan to stick around so I could hear him say, "Hey, Jory." We waited all year for him to ask us to a party. Never happened. Finally, Valentine's Day sophomore year, we skipped out on the school dance (none of us had been asked) and headed up—slightly uninvited—to a party at Dave Richards's house. When we arrived, Zane said, "Hey," patted my head like a puppy's, and continued to spend the night playing a drinking game with a bunch of seniors. Near curfew, Dave Richards hurled all over Megan's shoes. Thus, the Valentine's vomiting incident.

  "I still miss those suede clogs," Megan said as wild applause broke out when Dave high-fived the principal. She rolled her eyes. "So mature."

  "But he's always so nice to me now." Hannah giggled.

  "Because he thinks he ruined your shoes," Megan said.

  "I know. It's so cute how he's got us all mixed up." Hannah sighed. "Remember how he asked me on a shopping date? But I was seeing that guy from yoga."

  Ever since she'd ditched the back brace, Hannah has had to use two hands and one foot to count her boyfriends. My hands and feet could get amputated in a terrible car accident (not my fault, someone else's) and I'd still be able to count my boyfriends.

  "I'm so invisible." Megan shook her glossy hair around her shoulders.

  Not true. Plenty of guys noticed Megan, but she intimidated them. The good grades. The good looks. The not-so-good attitude. Last summer, Megan got her braces off, begged her mom to pay for contact lenses, grew four inches, and then developed "major issues with the pathetic high school social scene," probably because she didn't instantly become Miss Popular. Not that it would be easy to find a guy who met her superior standards—intelligent, ambitious, good-looking, athletic, popular (but not shallow), socially conscientious, politically involved, nice car, good wardrobe, sophisticated taste in movies and music, avid reader ... Her list went on and on, plus she kept adding to it. Hannah had her standards, too, but they mostly revolved around a fuzzy combination of religious morality and touchy-feely stuff like vibes and kindness to trees and animals—oh, and good looks. Basically, she dated anyone with great dimples, lean muscle mass, and cool-looking hair who attended church more than twice a year and owned a shelter dog.

  Several senior girls tottered across the stage in high heels. I was going to have to practice for hours to avoid making a total fool of myself next year. I could practically hear all of Lawlor erupting into big guffaws as I tripped down the steps. My diploma would roll down the aisle, but then Tyler Briggs would catch it. Our eyes would meet and he'd realize that I was the only girl he'd ever wanted. We'd go off to college together, graduate and come back and buy one of those big Caughlin Ranch mansions, and live happily ever after with our gorgeous little babies that looked like him and not me. On second thought, maybe I'd buy six-inch stilettos and not practice walking in them.

  "Sleepy's coming up." Megan nudged me with her elbow. "Then we're leaving."

  "Come on, we have to stay for the whole thing." Hannah pouted.

  "Whatever." Megan sat back and searched her hair for split ends. She doesn't have any.

  Everyone called Zane Zimmerman "Sleepy" because of the ZZ thing and because he had a tendency to fall asleep in class. Even his license plate said SLEEPY Z. (I used to love watching him rest his head on his arms in geometry. Once he winked at me before he closed his eyes.) From where we sat, Zane looked like a little black dot, except for a splash of white-blond hair glowing in the big overhead lights. People started yelling "Sleepy" even before the girl in front of him received her diploma. Several groups of students started fake snoring like they used to do at basketball games right before he'd shoot a free throw.

  After shaking hands with the principal, Zane did three cartwheels across the stage. Then after one more not-short-enough speech about an Exciting New Journey into the Unknown, the whole senior class tossed their mortarboards into the air.

  "Only one more dreadful, boring, immature year before we're free," Megan said.

  After the ceremony we hung around to see if anything was going on, but the seniors were all headed up to a grad-night party at Tahoe, and even we weren't going to be caught dead at Matthew Doogan's video-game fest. I looked around for Tyler so I could say something not too stupid about us being seniors now, but I didn't see him anywhere. I hoped he wasn't going on some big family trip all summer. He was going to be the main ingredient in my Summer of Passion. At least, that was the plan.

  "We need to celebrate," Hannah said. "We're seniors now."

  "I don't want to stay out too late. I've got orientation tomorrow," Megan said.

  "Oh, come on, Meggie." Hannah leaned her head on Megan's shoulder. "You can't turn into a high-powered attorney's summer-helper thingy yet. We're having our last free summer. Next year we'll all be heading off."

  "You'll be heading off," I said. "I'll be heading to Truckee Meadows Community College to raise my grades." Staring at Zane for two years hadn't done much for my GPA. Neither had Tyler Tracking this past year; I kept getting hall passes to the bathroom so I could walk by his classes.

  "Where's the positivity? We've got to do something. We're young, we're sexy, we're seventeen, we're new seniors." Hannah clapped her hands together. "Plus, tonight is day number one of my new midnight curfew. Yes, folks, the Johnstons have given their little girl a whole new half-hour of freedom."

  "I'll do something involving nachos." Megan has a total junk food obsession, except she calls it "study munchies," like that makes it healthier or something.

  "I'll do something involving boys." I swung my long hair from side to side. "I'm going to major in Boys 101 at TMCC."

  Me and my future Nice Nose.

  "You don't give yourself enough credit," Megan said. "You could get good grades if you'd focus. You could even get an internship if you'd simply figure out what you want to do with your life." I hated the way she liked to channel my mother.

  I smirked. "FYI, I got a job."

  "Doing what?"

  I hesitated. All week I'd avoided the topic of jobs. Not that I wasn't excited about having a job and looking responsible and all that. I just wanted
to postpone the inevitable teasing, especially after Dad's one-man comedy show: Joy Ride Does Deliveries. Very funny. Not.

  I spoke fast. "I'm the new delivery person for Flowers and Cakes by Katie."

  "Wait a minute. Your job involves driving?" Megan drew out the word driving longer than necessary.

  "Is that a good idea? I mean, do they know about, you know—" Hannah paused.

  "I can totally drive!" I put my hands on my hips. "Okay, I changed my mind. Forget nachos. Forget boys. Tonight I want to do something involving cars."

  "You're not laying a finger on Bugsy," Megan said.

  Megan's two great loves: her 4.0 GPA and the Volkswagen bug she had saved for since she was ten. She had even banned me from riding in Bugsy for a week after I spilled a Diet Coke during lunch last March. (Accidentally!)

  "I've got it!" Hannah squealed. "We can do all three! This is going to be great."

  Two hours and a platter of nachos later, we were sneaking up the walking path toward a certain desirable address on Long Knife Road, wearing jeans and black shirts and armed with whipped cream, mustard, ketchup, and chocolate sauce. Our shadows led the way in the moonlight. "What if a car comes?" I whispered.

  "We'll hit the dirt." Hannah smacked her hands together, dropping a can of whipped cream and making a huge hey-notice-me echoing sound.

  "Shh!" Megan hissed. Something rustled in the bushes along the side of the road.

  "What if coyotes are stalking us?" I asked.

  "Hello? We're in a fancy-schmancy housing development." Megan rolled her eyes at me; I could tell even though it was totally dark. I could feel it.