“Echo, stop!” I said.
“Dash of mud? What’s she talking about?” Robin said.
“Ignore her. She’s just showing off,” I said.
“Dab of comb honey,” Echo said.
“Honey?” Robin said.
“Did you just call me ‘honey?’” I said.
“She’s trying to tell us something.”
Gradually, it dawned on me. We walked slowly to Echo. My heart started to race. I opened her cage door and gently placed her on my index finger and brought her up to my nose.
“Echo, did you—” I said.
“Broccoli stem,” Echo said.
“Memorize—” Robin said.
“Squirt of maple syrup,” Echo said.
“The entire—” I said.
“Quarter-tube of toothpaste,” Echo said.
“Formula?” Robin and I said together.
“Half-cup of buttermilk, squeeze of kumquat, three egg yolks . . .”
To our amazement, Echo continued to rattle off each and every ingredient and exact measurement of the Hair Today formula. She had committed to memory every word I had said when I was mixing the formula together on the night of the storm. Robin intensely jotted everything Echo was saying onto a small piece of scrap paper.
“Echo,” I said. “I love you!”
Echo continued reciting the formula until she tweeted the final ingredient, “Stick of cinnamon.”
“You’re incredible!” I yelled.
“Woman hath no limits,” Echo crowed.
Robin finished writing down the formula and handed me the slip of paper. “There. You have your formula back,” she said.
“Blend it all for thirty-three seconds and—” I said.
“And don’t forget to catch lightning in a bottle a second time,” Robin quipped.
You’d think I would be ecstatic. But I returned Echo to her cage and slumped onto my stool.
“What’s wrong? Now you’ll be rich and famous,” Robin said.
“It’s too late. I’ll never beat them to the patent office.”
“You had the formula first. It is clearly your invention. It’s been all over the news,” she said.
“Those guys will just say I stole it from them and tried to take the credit. And I won’t be able to prove them wrong.” I stood up. “Robin, we’ve got to get that flash card back before they register the idea as their own!”
“You’ve got to get it back. I’ve got to get to school,” Robin said, walking to the side window. She looked down through the torn chicken wire and saw that the extension ladder was lying on the ground. “Oh, poop. We’re still trapped.”
“Poop,” said Echo.
“Watch your language, Echo,” I said, joining Robin at the window. “Please don’t go. If you leave now, we may never—”
“Poop,” Echo said again.
I walked over to Echo’s cage.
She looked right at me, and again said, “Poop, poop, poop!”
“What do you mean, Echo?” I asked.
“Storm,” Echo said.
“Yeah?”
“Scared,” Echo said.
“And?”
“Poop!” Echo said.
“You pooped?”
“Poop. Ingredient. Formula.” Echo said, poking her beak out the bottom of her cage, indicating the lab table below.
Robin and I looked at each other, dumbfounded. I tried to figure out what Echo was trying to communicate.
“Are you saying that the storm scared you so much that you pooped, and your poop dropped through the hole in the bottom of your cage into the blender?” I asked.
“Aye, aye, Matey!” Echo sang out proudly.
This was extraordinary news! Gross news, but great news. Not only had my formula been preserved, but it also included a top-secret, one-of-a-kind component that nobody would ever figure out: parrot poop! Echo’s parrot poop. I turned to Robin. “Stay with me,” I implored. “We’ll copyright the poop version of the formula and buy our own limo!” (“Uncopyrightable” is the longest word in the English language that doesn’t repeat a letter.)
“Do you have a bed sheet or anything I can lower myself down with?” she asked, looking out the window at a ten-foot fall. “Or a drop of Hair Today I could put on the wood windowsill?”
“They’ve got the card, but they don’t have the formula!”
“Just one drop should do it.”
“And without the right formula, their patent will be worthless!”
“I’ve told you where I stand on this, Morgan. Do what you have to do. But I’m doing what I have to do. I’m going to school. So, please grow me some hair to climb down on.”
“Robin—”
“Thanks for saving my life and everything. But I want out of here. Now!”
I reluctantly went to my In Case of Fire cabinet and withdrew an emergency rope ladder. I hooked it onto the windowsill and unfurled the rope until it reached the grass below. Robin climbed onto the top rung and said, “Hair is on the outside. Character is on the inside.”
I simply stood there, on the verge of tears.
“Think about it,” she said. “It’s what you do best.”
Then she was gone.
THE MOST POPULAR GUY AT SCHOOL
The McFactory felt very empty without Robin. Echo hopped back out of her cage and rested on the windowsill, looking longingly at a flock of wild parrots gathered in our elm tree. And I sat at the lab table wondering if Robin and I would ever see each other again. Or talk again. Or ever hold hands again. I realized that the one-eyed man would not be able to see Echo’s pooping spell on the video because it happened in the dark, after the lightning bolt illuminated the lab and scared the poop out of Echo. Those crooks would try to duplicate the formula, but would never get it right. The thought of that cheered me up a little.
I cut a small slice of cucumber and took it to Echo. “Good work today, pal. You really came through.”
“Thanks, Matey,” she said, taking the cucumber with her right foot. (Most parrots are left-“handed.”)
“I’ll think of a proper gift for you. Something really special.”
I climbed down the rope ladder, went into the house and telephoned the police. I told them everything that had happened and gave them the license plate number of the limo, which was photographed by my infrared periscope camera attached to our chimney. For further evidence, I told them that my McCorder, which I had switched on inside the limousine, covertly captured every word of the whole event.
I went to the new hotel under construction. The workmen allowed me to get the backpacks from the roof.
I walked to school alone. On my way, I saw some of the bald men I’d treated the night before. Whereas Buckholtz’s and my hair growth only remained a few hours, on men who were older, the formula lasted longer! Age mattered. That was a breakthrough observation in my research. These men now had full heads of hair. Red hair! They were thrilled. It made me feel good that my product brought so much joy to so many.
Taylor Samuel, the mail carrier, had a thick head of red hair, slicked back. Alan Robison, the gardener, had a new red Afro. Dennis Wallis, Dad’s auto mechanic, had gotten rid of his bad toupee and was showing off his new, wavy hairdo. Bubba Oliver, the pier fisherman, loved his red Mohawk. David Stefan, the manager of Burger City, was flaunting dreadlocks. Ironically, with one hundred thousand new hair strands on his head, the plumber Bobby Glenn chose a buzz cut. Bill Kerby, a paramedic, was brushing his pageboy. Homeless Hubert sported a mullet. Officer Hernandez proudly wore a crew cut. All of them waved to me, pumping their fists in the air, grateful to have hair again. It was quite a sight: a whole town of male redheads. Finally, a place I fit right in.
At school, in the library, I found Robin studying by herself at a corner table. I approached her. “Thought you might need your homework,” I said, handing over her backpack.
“Thanks,” she said quietly.
I took a seat across from her. We sat there. Just th
e two of us. Saying nothing. Finally, I whispered, “All those offers—they’re waiting for a decision.”
“Not my decision,” Robin said.
“We would split billions of dollars.”
“You’ll have twice as much without me.”
She wasn’t going to change her mind, but at least she was talking to me. Kind of.
“The heartbeat of the blue-throated hummingbird has been measured at over one thousand beats per minute,” I said.
“Really? The hummingbird thing again?” She rose, took a Gala apple out of her backpack, and said, “For your next science project, remember this: an apple floats because twenty-five percent of its volume is air.”
“Seventy-five hundred varieties of apples are grown throughout the world,” I responded.
Robin grinned, took a big bite of her apple and left.
That apple fact? Things that float? Swapping trivia. I think it was her way of saying she didn’t hate me.
On my way to Social Studies class, three students and one teacher asked for my autograph. Richard Kendall stopped me. “You cured my uncle Seth yesterday. Aunt Paula says he’s a new man. Thank you, Morgan. Thank you.” Then Richard took a step closer to me and said in quiet tones, “I could use some hair on my chest. Do you think—”
“I’ll see what I can do,” I said.
After school, I was suddenly everyone’s best friend. Charlie Corwin, the most popular kid in Carlsbad, threw his arm around my neck and invited me to a sleepover at his beach house that weekend. Colleen Kaner, voted Homecoming Queen, asked if I would consider going to the Valentine’s Day dance with her. The Valentine’s Day dance? I had never been to any kind of dance before, much less one with a queen. Hannah Neven (Both her names are palindromes—words that read the same backward as forward) suggested that we start studying together. Robert Foster insisted that I wear his letterman’s jacket. And Brad Buckholtz with his two kiss-butt buddies walked up to me.
“Can I talk to you?” Buckholtz asked tentatively.
“Can I talk to you, who?” I said, taking advantage of my new power.
“Morgan. Can I talk to you, Morgan?”
“Yes. You may speak to me, son,” I said. “Proceed.”
“Here’s the hundred dollars I owe you,” he said, handing me a wad of cash. “I know your invention is going to make you very rich, but a hundred dollars is a hundred dollars and a deal is a deal. Besides, if I didn’t pay up I didn’t know what else you’d do to me.”
“See what it feels like to be bullied?” I gently pushed his hand away. “Keep your money. But also keep your promise not to harass me. Or anybody else,” I said. “Character. It’s all about character, Brad.”
On my walk home, I called the Carlsbad Courier and all the television and radio stations in town informing them that the inventor of Hair Today, the phenomenal cure to baldness, had a major announcement to make and would hold a press conference on his front porch at precisely six o’clock that night.
FOLLOWING YOUR HEART IS THE BEST THING
Poppy was watering the front lawn when I got home. His red mustache was still intact. “I’m glad to see you! The phone’s been ringing off the hook,” he said.
“Who called?”
“About a hundred more financiers who want to invest in Hair Today. Plus calls from agents, lawyers, publicists, managers, accountants, bodyguards, even a big Hollywood producer, who wants to make a movie about your life. They all want a piece of you.”
“That’s insane.”
“I got another call, too.”
“Oh, yeah? From who?”
Poppy turned off the water. “The police,” he said.
“Really? What piece of me did they want?” I asked worriedly.
“They said they caught and arrested some kidnappers.”
“Oh.” I was barely able to contain my relief.
“What’s that all about?” Poppy asked.
I looked at Poppy. Why worry everybody? “It’s trivial,” I said. After all, nobody got hurt. I was alive. I had my formula. “It’s insignificant.” I’d tell everyone about the one-eyed man incident later. “It’s minor.” Now was my time to enjoy being the town hero. “It’s nothing important.”
Poppy wasn’t buying it. “It sounded important, Sparky. What happened?”
“I’d rather not say.”
“Why not?”
“A wise, old Irishman once told me: Today is the yesterday you worry about tomorrow.”
Poppy smiled and wrapped up the hose. “Well, you’re fine. That’s all that really matters.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Thanks for everything.”
Poppy dusted himself off. “I told all those money folks from this morning that you would call them back with your decision.”
“What did they say?”
“The more I put them off, the more they increased their offers. One included your own island.”
“Wow,” I said. “How do I decide which offer is best?”
Poppy thought for a moment. “Some wise, old Irishman once said—”
I turned on my McCorder, ready to save and savor Poppy’s quote. He continued, “Follow your heart. It will always lead you down the right path.”
The sun was casting a golden light on our cul-de-sac. One of the six o’clock news crews had some trouble setting up their satellite truck, so my dad helped them solve their technical problems. He knew everything about uplinks, encoders, fiber optics, microwave transmitters, and parabolic antennas. The newspaper journalists waited patiently for all the radio microphones to be put in place.
I was in the bathroom shaving. I looked into the mirror. I saw my red hair, my red freckles, and my red stubble. Shaving was, like Poppy said, time well spent. It gave me a chance to reflect on all that had happened. And all that it meant. I wanted to be able to look myself in the mirror and know that what I was about to do was the right thing. I would have to live with this decision for the rest of my life.
I wanted the movie about me to have a happy ending.
In our living room, Mom straightened my collar just before I went outside to face the press. “You look very handsome, Mr. McCracken,” she said. “What are you going to say out there?”
“I’m not exactly sure.”
“You’ll think of something. You always do.”
“Mom,” I said. “Do you like Poppy’s mustache?”
“I like Poppy. With or without a mustache.”
I stepped out onto the front porch. I was looking at a sea of broadcasters and journalists and news equipment. All of our neighbors were standing there, too. Sadly, Robin wasn’t among them. I tried to relax with the thought that the standard lead pencil can draw a line thirty-five miles long.
Chloe took me aside. I was hoping she would calm me down with some sage “big sister” advice. She faced me and said, “How do I look?”
She was constantly worried about the way she looked, always fussing with her makeup, her nails, her wardrobe, and her hair, just so people would notice her, would like her. It got me to thinking. She had no idea what I meant when all I said was, “It doesn’t matter how you look.”
Poppy and Mom made room for Dad, who joined the rest of us on the front porch.
“I’ve got some breaking news of my own,” Dad said. “Those guys over there from Channel 5, at the satellite truck, just offered me a job.” Dad and Mom hugged. Chloe and I let out a whoop. Poppy gave Dad the thumbs up. (Did you know that your thumb is as long as your nose? Or that your forearm is as long as your foot?)
One of the local TV news reporters called out, “It’s six o’clock, Morgan. We’re live on the air.”
I walked behind the row of microphones, cleared my throat and looked out over the crowd. Everybody was just waiting for me to say something. But I didn’t know what to say. I was very confused. So, I took a deep breath and let my noggin take over. “Hello. My name is Morgan McCracken. You can call me Morgan.”
I hoped nobody could see (or hear)
that my knees were knocking together. To relax myself, I offered the crowd a couple nutty facts. “One in three dog owners say they have talked to their pets on the phone. The weight of all the ants in the world is more than the weight of all the people in the world.”
There was silence. I tried to start again, “The . . . the . . . the . . .” But, I was still too nervous, so I unleashed another fact. “The word ‘the’ is the most written and spoken word in the English language.” I smiled.
I took another deep breath. Then, thankfully, the words came to me, “I’ve learned a lot over the last few weeks,” I started. “I learned from a wise, old Irishman that time is something you never get back. So, I won’t take much more of yours this evening.”
I looked at my family for support. Poppy smiled. Mom and Dad nodded. Chloe was applying lipstick.
“I tried to invent a product that would save time—a solution to shaving. Instead, I stumbled on the cure to balding. A friend of mine, well, a partner. I mean a former friend, an ex-partner—uh, let’s just say a fuzz-finding neighbor of mine taught me something else about hair. That it’s only hair. That we shouldn’t spend time worrying about it.”
I looked up to Robin’s window. Her curtains were drawn.
“To all of you bald guys, well, to everybody, it doesn’t matter if you’re fat or thin, short or tall, have big ears or little ears, have a high voice or a low one, or a mole or a limp. It doesn’t matter if you have hair on your head or don’t have hair on your chest. What matters is being a person who doesn’t waste time caring about those things. Because time,” I took another deep breath and said, “is something you never get back.” Poppy blew his nose into a handkerchief.
Even I couldn’t believe what I was about to do next. I took out the scrap of paper on which Robin wrote down the Hair Today formula. I held it up.
“Here’s the formula to curing baldness. No other copy exists. I’ve decided not to make any more Hair Today or to patent it or to sell it. I’ve decided to spend time working on other inventions. I’ve also decided that shaving is a good thing, that being bald isn’t a bad thing, and that following your heart is the best thing.”
The McVentures of Me, Morgan McFactoid Page 12