Pop

by Gordon Korman

  She pointed out the door. “Room 241—three doors down, after the custodian’s closet.”

  K.O. Pest Control was a storefront operation on Poplar Street, which bordered the east side of Three Alarm Park.

  Marcus propped his bike on its kickstand and approached the entrance gingerly. The giant metal cockroach that hung over the front door wasn’t exactly welcoming. But the needle-nosed face that appeared was even less so.

  “You! What do you want?”

  Marcus held out a white envelope containing his mother’s check for $310 in payment for the broken window. “I brought your money, Mr. Oliver. Like I said before, sorry about what happened.”

  The exterminator tore open the seal and examined the contents carefully. “I hope this is better than the telephone number you gave me.”

  Marcus swallowed an angry retort. This guy may be an idiot, but he didn’t ask to have his window broken.

  “Anyway, I’m glad there are no hard feelings.”

  “You kids kill me,” Oliver snarled. “It’s no big deal to bust things up, but when it’s time to pay for what you’ve done, you run straight to Mommy.”

  Marcus took a deep breath. “Well, I don’t have that kind of money, so if you want to get paid, you’d better take it from my mom.”

  “Are you trying to be smart with me?” Oliver demanded.

  “I can’t believe you!” Marcus finally exploded. “I could have run away after I broke your window! But I did the right thing—and now you’re insulting me for it?”

  “You punk!” the exterminator roared. “Get away from my place of business. Who do you think you are? I never want to see you—”

  From out of nowhere, a clod of earth sailed through the air and made violent contact with the giant metal cockroach over the door. It exploded into a million pieces, raining dirt and bits of grass down on Kenneth Oliver. He glared at Marcus in outrage.

  “You can’t blame that on me,” Marcus defended himself. “I’m standing right here in front of you.”

  “You think I’m stupid?” the exterminator sputtered. “You lousy kids run in packs! For all I know, every tree on this block has one of your delinquent friends crouched behind it!”

  “What friends?” Marcus demanded. “Everyone in town is about as welcoming as you!” And he stormed away, boiling with fury. If he stuck around, he’d only end up with Officer Deluca again. Sixteen years in Olathe had produced fewer ugly confrontations than Marcus had experienced during less than a month in photogenic Kennesaw.

  Troy and his minions were bad enough, but this guy Oliver was a new low. How paranoid did you have to be to believe that Marcus had packed the street with hidden accomplices preparing to unleash an artillery barrage of dirt bombs?

  “Mac—over here.”

  “Huh?” Marcus looked around. There, concealed in the brush at the edge of Three Alarm Park, was Charlie.

  Instantly, he knew whose unerring arm had thrown the missile.

  “What were you doing over there with Old Man Dingley?” Charlie whispered loudly.

  “Paying for the window you broke,” Marcus shot back. “And who’s Dingley? The guy’s name is Kenneth Oliver. Your half comes to a hundred and fifty-five bucks, by the way.”

  “No problem,” Charlie said airily.

  “Yes problem. My mom laid out that cash, and she has to get paid back. It doesn’t have to be this minute, but it has to be.”

  “Done,” Charlie murmured absently, but his eyes never left Kenneth Oliver’s storefront across the street. “That guy needs to be taught a lesson.”

  “I got hauled in by the cops because of him. Do me a favor—no more bombing his pest-control shop.”

  “Pest control,” Charlie mused. “That makes it easy. We’ll sugar him.”

  Marcus was dubious. “Sugar him?”

  Charlie nodded. “He’s a bug killer. Let’s give him some bugs to kill.”

  The next thing he knew, Marcus was following Charlie down the condiment aisle of the supermarket, his arms laden. “Okay, we’ve got honey, molasses, and chocolate syrup. What’s next?”

  “Sugar,” Charlie replied, hefting a large bag. “Ten pounds ought to do it.”

  “Ten pounds!” Marcus echoed. “We’ll attract every insect in the state!”

  The older man shrugged. “I’m sure there are a couple of stink bugs in Syracuse who won’t bother making the trip.”

  Marcus started for the checkout counter, but he already knew no money would be changing hands. The cashier made a few notes and waved him along after Charlie, who was already striding through the automatic door.

  Bearing their purchases, they retreated to the park to wait for Kenneth Oliver to close up shop for the day. They had no football with them, so the workout consisted purely of hitting. It was brutal, and yet there was a beautiful simplicity to it—the jarring collision of muscle on muscle, bone on bone. Marcus was never wide-awake like he was when he felt that full-speed contact. Not even when throwing a touchdown pass.

  It was only during their brief breaks that Marcus allowed his gaze—and his doubts—to settle on the supermarket bags leaning against the Remembrance sculpture. Why would a grown man get involved in somebody else’s payback prank? Involved, hell—this whole thing was Charlie’s idea! What was in it for him?

  At the same time, he felt strangely honored that his companion was so dead set on revenge on his behalf. Did the guy consider the two of them such good friends that any insult to Marcus was an insult to Charlie, too? There was nothing halfway about the way they played football together. But beyond that, they were strangers separated by four decades.

  Marcus couldn’t shake the feeling that this was probably a very bad idea. He ought to back away. Yet, at the close of the afternoon, he found himself crouched in the bushes beside Charlie, watching as the exterminator locked the front door of the shop, got into his Toyota, and drove off.

  “All right,” Marcus announced. “You’re the big expert on sugaring. How do we do this?”

  Charlie had the whole thing planned out in the time it took them to cross the street from Three Alarm Park. First he removed the weather stripping that sealed the bottom of the door. Then he squeezed a long line of honey across the crack.

  Marcus watched, fascinated. The man worked with the delicate touch of a surgeon, but there was something more—an athlete’s ability to focus with unwavering concentration. Charlie sugared a store with the same tunnel vision he brought to his beloved “pops.” His lively blue eyes gleamed with purpose.

  Next, he painted the bottom of the door with molasses, all the way to the mail slot, which he propped open with a Popsicle stick.

  In spite of everything, Marcus had to smile. “Pretty slick.”

  “Are you kidding?” Charlie chortled. “We haven’t even got to the chocolate sauce yet.”

  That was next, fanning out from the door in long trails. One curled around the side of the building into the weedy lot behind. Another went across the street, where it broke into tributaries leading into Three Alarm Park. A third led straight down the sewer in the middle of the road.

  “What if somebody sees us?” Marcus asked nervously. There were a few people around, but no one was close enough to get much of a look at what they were doing.

  Charlie was unperturbed as he worked the squeeze bottle. “Let them.”

  Marcus could only marvel at his unflappability. This wasn’t the kind of tab his wife could stop by and settle up. Sure, it wasn’t international terrorism, but Marcus knew one exterminator who was going to be seriously bent out of shape over this.

  As they retraced the lines back to the front door, Marcus sprinkled sugar over the chocolate stripes.

  “Not too much,” Charlie advised. “We don’t want it to be too delicious out here. We want to lead them inside for the main banquet.” He took the sugar bag from Marcus, inserted the pouring spout into the mail slot, and dumped the remainder of the ten pounds inside the store.

  Marcus reache
d in with a long twig and swept the sugar around, spreading the pile all about the floor.

  Charlie rubbed his hands together in anticipation. “Look—ants are already investigating the chocolate syrup. By morning, this place is going to be a bug sanctuary!”

  Marcus took note of the store hours posted on the door. “He opens at nine. We should he here by eight thirty.”

  Charlie nodded. “That guy’s going to rue the day he ever messed with us!”

  Marcus couldn’t escape the suspicion that this episode would provide plenty of ruing to go around.

  CHAPTER SIX

  When Marcus awoke the next morning, he knew about eight seconds of tranquility before it all came flooding back.

  Oh, God.

  What a stupid thing to do. What a waste of time and energy, not to mention sugar, syrup, chocolate sauce, and whatever else they’d spread around K.O. Pest Control. He didn’t even have the consolation of having been just a spectator. He’d had a million chances to walk away, and yet something had kept him there. There had been no stopping Charlie, but Marcus supposedly had full use of his own free will! And if this prank turned out to be half as awful as he was pretty sure it was going to be…

  He checked the clock on the nightstand. Six fifty-seven. Getting back to sleep was utterly impossible. He was too stressed. Sixteen years old and playing with bugs. How pathetic was that?

  And yet he had to know. Had Charlie’s concoction of sugar and spice and all things nice attracted enough insects to freak out an exterminator? The answer was a short ride away.

  Downstairs, his mother was loading the pickup truck with tripods and equipment.

  She looked at him as he appeared in the front hall. “You’re up? You? Rip Van Marcus? What’s the occasion?”

  “You were up earlier,” he pointed out.

  “My shift doesn’t start till noon, so I thought I’d try to catch the morning light on the Gunks.”

  That was the mountain range Mom was so hot and bothered about for her book—the Shawangunks, or Gunks for short. It sounded more like what was probably going on inside Kenneth Oliver’s mail slot. Marcus flooded a bowl of raisin bran with milk and began to eat, still standing.

  “Did you call your father last night?” she asked.

  “What should I call him?” he mumbled, mouth full.

  She looked at him reproachfully. “He phoned you.”

  “Must have been a slow day at the Kremlin.”

  She grew tight-lipped. “If you don’t return the call, sooner or later I’ll get a lawyer’s letter accusing me of alienating him from his child. He, who invented alienation.”

  “I’ll e-mail,” Marcus offered. “I’ve got a busy day.”

  “It’s Saturday. What are you so busy about?”

  I’m meeting my middle-aged friend down at the bug infestation. Aloud, he murmured something about homework and football and Three Alarm Park.

  She shouldered her camera bag. “Make the call,” she said. “And not because I don’t want to get served. You only get one father.”

  He watched her climb into the truck and drive away. She had guts, his mother, and not just for betting her professional future on a mountain range with a dumb name. He was almost in awe of her determination to succeed—Marcus didn’t care that much about anything, except maybe football. Guts and character. She had more reason to hate Comrade Stalin than anybody. She knew that the phone conversation would be chock-full of glitzy, expensive inducements for Marcus to abandon her and move back to Kansas. Surely it had crossed her mind that one day her ex might dream up a carrot to dangle that Marcus couldn’t resist. Yet she never let her son write the guy off.

  Still, Marcus wasn’t planning to call. Not on Bug Day. He wolfed down the rest of the cereal, scrambled into some clothes, and jumped on the Vespa, heading downtown.

  He parked on the next block over and had to keep himself from sprinting all the way to K.O. Pest Control. Stupid, maybe, but now that it was a done deal, the suspense was killing him. He approached the store gingerly, trying not to step on the many ants swarming around the chocolate trails. Sure, there were a lot of bugs outside. The question was, had they gone in?

  The early-morning sun streaming through the small window in the door provided the answer. The inside of the shop was alive. He couldn’t see the floor for the black seething mass that covered it. And not just ants, either. There were June bugs, beetles, earwigs, ladybugs, caterpillars, grasshoppers, crickets, cockroaches, fleas, and spiders of all varieties. Flies, moths, and mosquitoes swooped and hovered. The walls crawled.

  Marcus remembered from a science class in middle school that there were more than 800,000 species of insects. He was pretty sure that most of them were represented inside K.O. Pest Control that morning. If Kenneth Oliver enjoyed his work, he was in for a treat.

  So was Charlie.

  It probably wasn’t a good idea to be seen hanging around the store on a day when neighbors and passersby might be asked if they’d seen anything suspicious. So he retreated to Three Alarm Park to await the arrival of his partner in crime.

  It was just after eight—plenty of time to kill. He tried to catnap on a bench, without success. A few laps of the park were a good warm-up, but for what? He couldn’t exactly tackle himself. He even tried to climb the flukes of the Paper Airplane and was gratified to note that the smooth granite didn’t defeat him quite so easily anymore. It was a fringe benefit of his physical combat with Charlie. He was developing a lower center of gravity, which enhanced his sense of balance. He was going to be tough to bring down this season—if Coach Barker ever let him touch the ball.

  He looked at his watch again. Eight thirty-five. Where was Charlie? Surely he wouldn’t plan such an elaborate prank and then not show up for the payoff. The guy was inconsistent in his arrival time for training, but this was different, wasn’t it?

  He left the park and began to pace along Poplar Street. A few of the stores had opened, but there was still no sign of Kenneth Oliver.

  And still no Charlie.

  “There’s a good spot, Daddy.”

  Following his daughter’s direction, Charlie pulled his car up to the curb in front of the cell phone store.

  “Thanks.” Chelsea got out. “I just have to pick up my phone. It should only take a couple of minutes. Don’t get out of the car, okay? Here—listen to some music.” She reached in through the open passenger window and switched on the radio.

  Charlie regarded her peevishly. “I’m not an idiot. You don’t have to tell me every little thing.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  She entered the store and approached the repair desk, keeping one eye on the display window and Charlie in the parked car outside. She felt odd treating her father like an eight-year-old, but the alternative wasn’t fun to contemplate.

  Anyway, she reflected with a little embarrassment, her father wasn’t the one who’d thrown jeans in the wash without taking the cell phone out of the pocket.

  “Good news—we just had to change the battery,” the man told her. “No permanent damage.”

  “Thanks.” She handed over some bills and accepted the protective pouch containing her phone.

  “Say hi to your dad for me,” he called after her.

  Always to Dad. Oh, they knew Mom existed, but she wasn’t the one who mattered.

  She exited the store and froze. The car was still parked out front. The driver’s-side door was wide open, blocking half the lane.

  Her father was gone.

  Marcus watched the exterminator’s Camry turn onto Poplar and ease into a parking space near K.O. Pest Control.

  He couldn’t believe it. Charlie wasn’t going to show up for his own prank.

  And suddenly, there he was, ambling aimlessly like this wasn’t three seconds to Zero Hour.

  Marcus raced down the street, grabbed his partner in crime by the arm, and began hauling him along the sidewalk.

  Charlie shoved him away with such force that Marcus very
nearly tumbled to the pavement.

  “He’s parking his car!” Marcus urged. “We’re going to miss it!”

  This galvanized Charlie’s attention. “Lead the way!” He matched the teenager stride for stride, following him to a good vantage point behind a parked truck.

  Oliver was out of his Camry, heading for the front door. His key reached for the lock.

  “Daddy?” Chelsea ran up, the cell phone pouch still in her hand. She gawked at Marcus like he was an extinct reptile reborn and wreaking havoc on the streets of Kennesaw. “You!”

  The exterminator opened the door and took a step inside his shop. Even from behind the truck, they could hear the sickening crunch of his shoe on the floor.

  His howl of revulsion and shock cut through the morning like an air-raid siren. He backed out of the store on high-stepping feet, his head obscured by a cloud of flies and moths.

  Charlie let out a whoop of merriment. “Sugared!”

  A bubble of laughter burst from Marcus. “Big-time.”

  Chelsea’s eyes widened in outrage. “You’ve got no business involving my father—”

  “Involving?” Marcus cut her off. “The whole thing was his idea! He’s the one involving me!”

  She took Charlie’s arm and pulled him onto the sidewalk. “Stay away from him!” she rasped to Marcus. “You have no clue who you’re dealing with! This is our family’s private business!” To her father she said, “Come on, Daddy, let’s go.”

  Marcus waited for Charlie to put his big-mouth daughter in her place. Where did she get off telling this force of nature, who delivered hits like a rhino and scampered up fences and statues like it was nothing, what to do and who to associate with?

  Charlie never said a word. To be fair, he was distracted by the spectacle of Kenneth Oliver trying to slap-dance the insects off his shoes and clothing. But he followed Chelsea almost meekly.

  Marcus retreated to the cover of the park, the shine gone from his revenge. Chelsea’s scorn ate at him. Like he was running around recruiting people’s fathers to hang out with. Like he’d even heard of “sugaring” before Charlie. Charlie Popovich.