The Fabulous Zed Watson!

by Basil Sylvester

I wanted to sink into my seat.

  The guard grunted and read the letter my mom had prepared.

  Finally, after what seemed like an eon, he handed back the passports and waved us through.

  “Speak up next time, Zed,” he said to me as we passed. Except he hadn’t said “Zed” that time either.

  As soon as we were a couple of minutes into the US, Sam heaved a sigh of relief, rolled up the window and cranked the A/C. I swear the heat just across the border was about ten thousand times stickier.

  Gabe looked sideways at me.

  “Hey, Zed, how come your name is different than what the customs guy said?”

  “It’s my dead name—I hate being called that.”

  “But what were you, like, born as?”

  I frowned and narrowed my eyes. “What were you born as?”

  “Gabe? A boy named Gabe.”

  “Okay, but your name isn’t Gabe. It’s Gabriel, right?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, that’s true.”

  “So we all change and choose.”

  “And I’m Sam. Not Samantha or Samuel,” Sam called from the front seat.

  I could have hugged her.

  “So I don’t really need to tell anyone what I was born as. I’m Zed now. And that’s what’s important.”

  Gabe thought about this. Sam watched him in the rear-view mirror. “You okay with these questions, Zed?” she asked.

  “It’s cool,” I said.

  Gabe had more. “Okay, but what about when something like that border guard stuff happens? Why don’t you correct people if your name is Zed now? Tell them that?”

  “All my ID is under a different name. So when I go to the doctor or travel or whatever, people say the wrong name and use the wrong pronouns. So I try to keep it simple, as annoying as that is. Sometimes I just pretend I am that person, the one they think I am, and that makes it easier.”

  Gabe scratched his chin, so I knew he was still thinking.

  I tried to come up with a good comparison. “Okay, you know how when Cassandra is trying to find out what happened to Marion Arbuthnot?” I said. “And she dresses up like a ‘normal’ person instead of a witch so she can walk into the Hall of Records?”

  Gabe nodded. “She’s trying to find out if there’s any mention of where he went. So she’s kind of acting like a human. It’s a pretty funny scene, actually.”

  “Yeah, and sometimes it’s like that for me—acting. I just put on my costume.”

  “That’s cool.”

  “Haven’t you ever wanted to put on a costume and pretend you’re someone else?”

  Gabe suddenly turned pink and mumbled something I couldn’t hear. Then he put his headphones on and went back to looking out the window.

  “Humph,” I said. I turned my attention back to Sam. “Zed requires disco.”

  Sam shook her head. “Nope. It’s time for some old-school rap.”

  I sighed. “I’m in more of an electro mood.”

  “Aw, Zed! This is exactly the sort of music you need to pump you up after crossing the border.”

  She put on a song I’d never heard before. It opened with this awesome beat, but then the singing started and the lyrics were . . . well . . .

  “Are you sure this is appropriate for kids?” I asked.

  “My car, my rules.”

  “Okay.” I shrugged.

  “Besides, Zed Watson, isn’t it great?”

  “Heck yes,” I said, dancing in my seat.

  Sam didn’t hear me, though, because she’d turned up the music and was singing along.

  The quest was back on track.

  Soon, Sam and I were shaking Rusty Raccoon with our moves.

  Maybe we shook it a little too much, though, because just as we got on the highway, disaster struck.

  The A/C made a grating noise like the sound of a bunch of tiny plastic bits getting stuck in a vacuum, and then—silence.

  “Did . . . did the A/C just stop working?” I asked.

  Sam smacked the vent nearest to her with her hand and said a word from the song.

  “I’m not sure that’s appropriate either,” I said as the air started to get hotter and hotter. “Are we losing oxygen?”

  She ignored me and continued to hit the dashboard.

  “I’m melting!” I said.

  Sam pounded and pounded, but the A/C refused to rise from the dead.

  “Dang it!” she said finally. She slumped back, defeated, then rolled down the windows.

  “The outside air is even hotter!” I yelled.

  “Cut it out, Zed,” Sam growled.

  “I have to tell you I don’t appreciate your tone, and also, I will literally, actually die without air-conditioning. Just so you know.”

  She rolled her eyes at me in the rear-view mirror.

  I decided to take this to a higher power. “A/C gods, DON’T GIVE UP ON US NOW!”

  “Why are you yelling?” Gabe asked. More screaming poured out of his headphones.

  The car was now boiling hot and incredibly loud.

  “All right!” said Sam. “Yes, the air-conditioning died. We’re just going to have to deal.”

  “This stinks!” I yelled. “This whole road trip stinks. No one likes my snacks. You won’t play my music. I just got misgendered, and now I’m going to die of heatstroke!”

  “You’re going to die of something,” Sam said in a slightly threatening tone.

  I ignored her. “And I’ll never find this stupid manuscript and learn what happens to Lysander and Yves, and nothing will ever be good again!”

  Gabe actually groaned. “Calm down, Zed,” he said.

  “Are you serious?!” I stuck out my tongue.

  “Zed is sticking their tongue out at me!”

  “Gabe is being mean!”

  “Am not!”

  “Are too!”

  Sam pounded on the steering wheel and the horn blared.

  “That’s it!” she said through gritted teeth. She drove onto the shoulder and slammed on the brakes.

  “Uh-oh,” Gabe whispered. He started to put his headphones back on.

  Sam’s head spun around. Her eyes flashed red.

  Gabe froze.

  His sister looked demented. “Stop. Talking. Don’t. Move.” She took a deep breath between each word. “Now, I am only going to say four words: Shut. Up. Ice. Cream.”

  “I’m pretty sure ‘ice cream’ is one word,” I said.

  “It isn’t!” she yelled. “And if I hear one more word out of either of you, I’m going to turn this car around and dump you over Niagara Falls. Do you understand?”

  We nodded silently.

  Sam put the car in gear, and we drove back onto the highway. After a minute, she turned the rap music back on.

  I leaned over to Gabe, lifted one of his earphones and whispered as quietly as I could, “Why did she say ‘ice cream’?”

  Chapter 10

  Ice Cream

  After a half hour of silent (except for rap on repeat) driving, we rolled up to the dinkiest little ice cream place you’ve ever seen. It was basically a shack off the highway in the middle of a gravel parking lot. A handmade sign said Local Diary instead of Local Dairy, which made me laugh.

  “Do you think they serve pencilflavored ice cream?” I joked.

  “No,” Sam said.

  Gabe still had his headphones on, so he didn’t laugh either.

  Sam parked the car and got out, immediately yanking the back door open on Gabe’s side.

  She started whirling her arms in a circular motion. “All right, you chuckle-heads—outta the vehicle. C’mon, let’s go! On y va. Move your butts!”

  Gabe was moving slower than a sleeping sloth, so I climbed over him and leapt out.

  “What are you doing?” Sam asked.

  What I was doing was limbering up my arms by making chopping motions through the air with my hands.

  “Take that, evil vine!” I said, cutting through the imaginary enchanted forest surrounding and hid
ing the Monster’s Castle.

  “Take a chill pill,” Sam said.

  I ignored her. Then, to wake up my lower half, I started doing the twist.

  “When I said ‘move your butts,’ that’s not what I was thinking of.” She made a face. “I must avert my eyes.”

  “Ha!” I said. “I have to remain limber and practice my mashing skills.”

  “Your what now?”

  “Mashing. You know, like the ‘Monster Mash.’” I put on my best Dracula impression. “‘Whatever happened to my Transylvania twist?’”

  “Points for creative thinking,” Sam said, rolling her eyes.

  “The ‘Monster Mash’! You know? The song?”

  “I’ve been listening to that song since before you were born, weirdo.”

  “Weirdo?” I fake gasped and clutched my chest.

  “Now, come on—ice cream awaits!” She said this in her own Dracula voice, which was awful.

  “That was awful,” I said.

  “Just for that, no sprinkles.”

  “Ah!” I gave a mock shriek of horror.

  By this time, Gabe had finally moved his butt out of the car, so together we made our way over to the menu board.

  No pencil flavor, BTW. But a ton of choices.

  What to choose?

  What to choose?

  Gabe lowered his headphones and went up to the window first. I was too engrossed in the possibilities to notice what he ordered.

  Sam ordered too, apparently, because the woman at the window started waving at me to get my attention.

  “Hey there! You ready to order, young man?”

  Young man.

  I frowned. She wasn’t being mean, but it still stung. As I’d told Gabe, though, this happens all the time, so I’d learned some techniques to help deal with it. Sometimes I pretended I was an undercover detective, which was fun. But this time, I conjured up an image of myself slapping away mosquitos that were buzzing and saying “she” and “he” and “what’s your real name?”

  That made me feel better.

  My mom called these daydreams “Zed moments.” She’d be talking to me, and suddenly I’d get distracted by something funny or interesting in my brain.

  “Having a Zed moment?” she’d ask, and I’d shake it off and tell her what I was thinking about.

  The ice cream lady didn’t say, “Having a Zed moment?” But she did call out in a louder voice, “Hello? Can I help you with anything?”

  I was jolted back into the real world.

  And my eyes locked on the perfect Zed selection.

  “What is that?” Gabe asked as I turned around with my triple-scoop cone with sprinkles (no matter what Sam had said).

  “It’s Cookie Monster.” I took a dramatic first lick. “Yummy and perfect.”

  “Perfect?”

  “For me. Because (a) cookies, (b) monsters, (c) ice cream and (d) all of the above!”

  I took another lick. It was maybe the most delicious thing I’d ever eaten.

  “It’s turned your tongue bright blue!” Gabe laughed.

  I noticed his cup of what looked like a lump of oatmeal. “What flavor did you order?” I asked. “Glue?”

  “It’s banana,” he said.

  “Since when is banana grey?” I asked.

  “It’s a ‘naturally occurring’ flavor.”

  “That’s an insult to the time-honored tradition of both ice cream and the United States of America, land of spray cheese and supersized soda.”

  “It’s actually more authentic,” said Gabe, brightening. “The yellow coloring in the banana ice cream you get at grocery stores is fake.”

  “You mean delicious,” I said. “I notice your ice cream doesn’t do anything cool to your tongue.”

  Gabe ignored me. “I mean, think about it—is the inside of a banana yellow? No, it’s more like this whitish color.” He pointed to his cup and grinned.

  “Okay, but think about this!” I said. “What’s a more fun ice cream experience? Eating a delicious bright yellow thing that sort of tastes like banana? Or eating a weird beige-white-gray thing that maybe tastes a little more like banana? I rest my case.”

  “Whatever,” Gabe said. He shrugged and went back to eating his ice cream—out of a cup, mind you. I mean, really.

  “What’s the point of eating it if you can’t just lick it until your tongue turns blue?” I sighed and shook my head.

  I went to sit on the picnic bench where Sam was enjoying her giant waffle cone of birthday cake ice cream. A choice I could get behind.

  But she was frowning.

  “Sam, how can you be eating sunshine and happiness in a cone and be frowning?”

  “I’m not,” she said. “I don’t have sunglasses, so I’m squinting. Appreciate the nuance, Zed.”

  “Point taken.” I, of course, was now sporting my own star-shaped (prescription) sunglasses.

  Sam took another lick, and this time she did frown. “Plus, I’ve had better cake flavor, TBH.”

  My jaw dropped. “TBH? Did you just use text-speak IRL? Whoa.”

  “I did, Zed. You may think I’m uncool, but actually I’m super down with the kids. I get the lingo. I’m so hip with it.” With her free hand, she snapped her fingers, then made a finger gun and pointed it at me.

  I had to admit, Sam was pretty funny when she wasn’t being absolutely terrifying.

  “Sam, you’re pretty funny when you’re not being absolutely terrifying.”

  “And you’re surprised?”

  “Impressed.” I gave a slight nod of my head in appreciation.

  The ice cream was working its magic.

  But I was growing antsy about getting back on the trail. We hadn’t even arrived at our first stop, Mantua, and we were already taking breaks. The ice cream did help with the heat, though.

  As soon as I crunched the final bit of cone, the heat seemed to return with a vengeance.

  I looked over at Gabe.

  He was kneeling down right in the middle of the parking lot. He had set his empty ice cream cup and spoon down next to him.

  “What the?” I said to Sam, pointing at Gabe. “Hmmm,” Sam said. I squinted.

  I could make out the tiniest, scrubbiest little cluster of flowers in front of him. They seemed to be wilting in the heat.

  Gabe was smiling at them.

  Then he pulled a tiny bottle from his pants pocket, unscrewed it and poured its contents onto the flowers.

  “Gabe is so weird,” I said. “I mean, as a fellow weirdo, I respect weirdness in others. But I don’t get the point of carrying the world’s teeniest flask of water around just to pour it on some weeds. To each their own, I guess.”

  Sam didn’t say anything, but she wiped her hands on her pants, stood up and went over to Gabe.

  She knelt down next to him.

  A whole family of weirdos, I thought. Sitting down on a parking lot is uncomfortable—there are tiny rocks and pebbles that poke your butt and thighs. Kneeling must have been even worse.

  Gabe pointed to the flowers, and Sam smiled, then she put her arm around him. I felt a lump in my throat.

  Suddenly, I missed my family and my house. I wanted to show my sister Mary my blue tongue and have her wrinkle her nose and say I was gross. I had an image of the big tree in the front yard that helped keep the house cool.

  Sam’s voice drifted over to me. “While I’m away . . .”

  I snapped out of my Zed moment. I could hear Sam and Gabe talking quietly across the parking lot. I wasn’t sure if they knew I could hear them, so I tried my best not to listen, but I did catch some things.

  “But Dad doesn’t get it,” Gabe said.

  “He has a hard time letting you know he gets it, but he does. I promise. You just have to tell him when he’s wrong.”

  “It’s hard, though,” Gabe said.

  I picked at the white paint that was peeling from the worn wood of the picnic table.

  Sam gave Gabe’s shoulder a squeeze. “I know! But h
e is trying. I told him what you and I talked about the other day, and he’s going to back off the soccer thing.”

  “Really? But I had to promise to play or he wouldn’t let me go on this trip.”

  “I talked to him. He didn’t realize you were so unhappy.”

  I thought about why Gabe had been in such a funk so far. Maybe it was because of this?

  “I don’t want to hurt his feelings. I know he really wants me to play.”

  “He already has a kid who loves sports.” She pointed to herself. “Moi! You love different stuff. He’ll come around. Okay?” she said, lightly patting his back.

  “Okay,” Gabe agreed.

  I felt bad for listening in, so before they could say anything more, I clapped my hands together and leapt off the bench. They both looked over in surprise.

  “All right, folks!” I said. “On to Romeo exile!”

  Sam stood and extended her hand so Gabe could pull himself up. So Gabe hated sports and Sam had to stick up for him. I could picture that, but it made me bummed. I resolved then and there to pay better attention when Gabe talked about stuff he was interested in, like plants and flowers—and not just in The Monster’s Castle. I bounded over to them, reinvigorated and ready to be on the road again.

  “Friends, Romans, Romeos, Gabes and Sams, on we go!”

  Sam laughed. “You know, Zed, you’re pretty funny when you’re not being absolutely melodramatic.”

  “It’s true. I’m a very flamboyant and well-regarded drama kwing.”

  “Drama what?” Gabe asked.

  “Kwing. It’s a combo of ‘queen’ and ‘king,’ for us theydies and gentlethems.”

  “Are you still speaking English?” Gabe asked.

  “Never, Gabe. I speak Zed.”

  “You know what? That tracks,” Sam said, laughing, and she ushered us into the car.

  We were finally back on our way to Mantua!

  Chapter 11

  Mantua

  Of course, we still had hours of driving left with no A/C.

  The summer heat poured through the windows as we left New York and started cutting across Pennsylvania. Pleading and begging got Gabe and me two more stops for ice cream. Well, one for ice cream and one for lunch, with ice cream for dessert.

  At one shop, the woman called me “little girl.” At the other, “sonny.”