Who Put That Hair in My Toothbrush?

  What could I say? What could I do? I let him unwrap me, lead me downstairs, put my coat on me. Then he picked me up. “Daddy!”

  “We have to be careful. The appendix can rupture.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Burst.”

  How embarrassing, my father carrying me out to the car like a baby. He kept muttering stuff like, “Trouper… gutsy little snapper…”

  I didn’t have appendicitis (surprise), so I was allowed to walk away from the hospital. Even so, as we were getting into the car, my father said, “Looks like you’ll be staying in tomorrow, Dimpus.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You heard the doctor—‘Keep an eye on her for the next day or two.’”

  “Daddy, they always say that. It doesn’t mean I’m not allowed out.”

  “I think that’s exactly what it means. Fasten your seat belt.”

  “Daddy, I don’t have appendicitis. You heard him.”

  “I heard. And Mommy saw the pain you were in.”

  “I can’t stay in tomorrow.”

  “No?”

  “No. We have a game at the lake. We’re playing the Skatium Rink Rats. I gotta be there.”

  “Fasten your seat belt.”

  “Daddy!”

  “Fasten your seat belt.”

  When we got home and Grosso found out I wasn’t allowed out next day, he didn’t make a sound. But his grin was so wide that the ends of his mouth nearly knocked his ears off.

  So I had to sneak out of the house next day. I listened for Grosso leaving for the game and waited as long as I could stand it. I went downstairs. Everybody was in the living room. “Am I allowed in the basement,” I said, “or did the doctor say no basements?”

  “By all means,” chirped my father.

  I had my hockey stuff stashed under the basement steps. In a couple minutes I was ready. I was inching the back door open when I heard a voice, Toddie’s, behind me: “You can’t go out.”

  I wheeled. “What’re you doing here?”

  “You can’t go out. Daddy said. You sick.”

  I pressed my hand over his mouth. “Quiet. Shut up.” I had to think. Fast. I knew my father would find out I was gone sooner or later, but I at least needed time to get to the lake. He wouldn’t yank me off the ice. I thought about tying Toddie to the water heater and gagging him—I’d tell him it’s a game—but I chickened out. There was no choice; I had to take him with me. “Toddie, wanna go see me play hockey?” He started yapping and hopping around. I had to muzzle him again. Luckily I found a ratty old coat of mine in the basement. It came down to his shoes. We took off.

  By the time we got there, the first period was over. I pointed Toddie to the sideline and skated up to Skelley who was in charge. “Who’s winning?” I asked him.

  “They are, one-nothin’.” He wiped his nose on his sleeve. “Where you been?”

  Grosso barged in from behind. “She’s supposed to be home sick.”

  I smacked his stick. “Butt off, man.”

  “Sick?” said Skelley.

  “I ain’t sick. Look at me. Do I look sick?”

  “Last night,” went Grosso, “she had an attack of appendicitis. She couldn’t even stand up.”

  “Butt out, I said!”

  “My father had to take her to the hospital. Emergency room.”

  Skelley was staring at me. “Yeah?”

  I laughed. “Skelley, do I look like I got appendicitis? Huh? Do I?”

  Grosso wagged his stick at the sidelines. “There’s Toddie. Go ask him. Ask him if I didn’t have to take him to the library last night because she was having such terrible pains.”

  Ah, now I got it. Grosso was getting back at me for last night. “Skell,” I said, “I was faking it. Y’know that Gretzky special on TV last night? I wanted to see it, so I pretended I was sick so I wouldn’t have to take Toddie to the library.”

  Skelley’s face was a blank.

  “Yeah?” croaked Grosso. “Well listen, Skell, how come my father raced all the way home from work and took her to the hospital? Could she fake it that good?”

  Silence. The whole team was standing around Skelley, gawking into his face. He wiped his nose on one sleeve, then on the other; looked like snails had been crawling over him. He looked back and forth from me to Grosso. He wiped his nose again. He looked down. He scraped ice with his skate blade till he had a little hill of snow. Then, real slow, he started shaking his head.

  “What’s that mean?” I said.

  “It means no,” quacked Grosso.

  Suddenly I couldn’t breathe. “Skelley?” He was still looking down, scraping ice. He mumbled something. I couldn’t hear it. “What?”

  “No.”

  “What do you mean by no? No what?”

  Some Rink Rats came skating up, drumming sticks. “Yo! Let’s go! Next period! You guys wanna forfeit?”

  Skelley looked up. “Okay, let’s go.” The players started fanning out.

  I grabbed his arm. “Skelley, no what?”

  He was squinting at the sky. “You can’t play.”

  “Skelley, I gotta! This is the big game! I gotta!”

  Rink Rats laughed. “Go play with yer dolls!”

  “Skell, we’re losing! You need me!”

  He pulled his arm away. “Come on, Megin, you gotta go.” He headed out to center ice.

  “Skell! I was faking it!”

  “Fake yerself off the ice!” the Rink Rats were hooting. The Homesteaders were just standing, staring at me. Skelley stopped at the face-off spot. The Rink Rat center was waiting, and the referee. They just stood there, staring. The cold from below came seeping up through me. I shivered. I turned away and pushed off for the sidelines. My eyes were blurry. Somewhere ahead I saw Toddie, a face on top of my coat, grinning, holding something, something gleaming white and pink—the silly dressed-up egg Grosso had been carrying around all week. I reached out, I took the egg. I put the egg down on the ice. I nudged it with my stick. I looked up, at the players. No one was moving. It was all so blurry. The sun made sparklers in my eyes. I couldn’t see faces. I couldn’t tell one team from the other, only heard the Rink Rats hooting, louder and louder…

  I wound up and blasted that egg to smithereens.

  Greg

  CAMILLE CAME TO ME flying and dying, her yellow blood streaking across the ice…

  Megamouth didn’t move, didn’t try to get away, not when I pushed her into the snow, not when I grabbed her stick away. Poff was on me then, pinning my arms, but I was already moving off. I broke free and flung her precious Wayne Gretzky stick high over the slatted fence, out to the center of the lake. The stick cartwheeled headfirst into the thin ice and stuck there, upright, like the mast of a sunken boat.

  I picked up the little pink-feeted pj’s. Pieces of white shell were clinging. I laid it back in the box. I pulled the blanket all the way up.

  “Don’t play,” Skelley kept saying, “you don’t have to play.” But I played. I don’t know how good I was. I don’t remember the score. I only know we lost.

  When I left, the sun was setting like an egg yolk on the roof of Homestead House. All the way to Sara’s, carrying the box, I kept forgetting I didn’t have to be careful anymore.

  Sara wasn’t home. Nobody was home. I knocked and banged and rang the bell for five minutes. I went around to the back, checked the garages. I started to feel panicky. I had to find Sara, tell her, fast. Even though I knew she would be more upset about her grade than the egg.

  I hung around for a while. Nobody showed up. Where could they be? Visiting? Out for dinner? I thought of leaving the box on the porch—but no, I had to be there. I went home. I started calling her house every fifteen minutes. If somebody answered, I would quick hang up and go over in person. Pretty soon I was calling every ten minutes. I couldn’t eat. I kept looking at the little pink blanket. Where there used to be a nice little bulge, now was flat.

  It was 10:20 before somebody picked up th
e phone. In ten minutes I was on her porch, ringing the bell. The porch light went on. Her father came to the door. He didn’t say anything, just kept staring at the box.

  “Mr. Bellamy? Could I see Sara a minute?”

  He shook his left arm, brought his watch to his face, squinted, winced. “Little late, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, I know. I’m sorry. But this is really important. It’s about school. About our project for Health class. Something happened she has to know about.”

  He nodded at the box. “Is that the thing she’s been walking around with?”

  “Yeah, this is it. This is what I have to tell her about.”

  “Well, she’s in bed.”

  “Already?”

  He stiffened. “Tomorrow’s a school day, son. Seems to me you coulda done this some other time.”

  Mrs. Bellamy’s face appeared over his shoulder. “What’s the problem?”

  “Hi, Mrs. Bellamy.”

  She smiled. “You’re Greg Tofer?”

  I was surprised she knew me. “Yes, ma’am. Sorry to be here so late. Something happened—”

  She looked at the box. She knew right then. “Oh no.”

  “I have to tell her.”

  She nodded with a small, pained smile and left the doorway. In a minute Sara was sliding past her father and stepping onto the porch. She wore a bathrobe and blue furry slippers. Her mother pulled her father inside and closed the door. The porch light went off.

  Neither of us spoke. Sara kept staring at the box. Finally she reached in and pulled down the cover. She gasped and flipped it back up and went over to the steps. She looked out at the street, her back to me.

  “What happened?” she said.

  I told her.

  “You should have let me keep it today.”

  “I was afraid to ask,” I said. “Especially after turning you down when you wanted me to keep it.”

  “You should have asked.”

  “Would you have taken it?”

  She answered with a shrug. Small fogs of breath passed from her dark silhouette into the street light. I said: “We almost made it. One day to go.” She still said nothing. I moved to her side. Her eyes were closed, her lips tight together. Her cheeks were wet. I touched her. I traced one fingertip over the wetness, over her skin, from her eye to her lips. “Your face is cold,” I whispered. “You look nice in your bathrobe.”

  Suddenly she was in my arms, sobbing, her face buried in my shoulder, the box clattering down the steps. “Jeez,” I said, “I didn’t know getting an A meant so much to you.” She gave a squeak and kicked me in the leg and squeezed me tighter and cried even harder. Whenever it seemed like she was winding down, she started up again. I didn’t know a girl could cry so much. Hey, Sara, I thought, an egg’s an egg, remember? I was surprised she allowed herself to go on like that, but in a strange kind of way I was glad too. I just closed my eyes and held on.

  How long were we standing there? I don’t know. I only know that I opened my eyes and I saw the box overturned at the foot of the steps, one rocker off, and even though we were still squeezing each other, Sara wasn’t crying anymore. Next thing I knew, I was kissing her. And next thing I knew, there were flashes all around. Wow, so this is the fireworks you hear about! Well, not quite—it was the porch light flashing on and off. I gave Sara another kiss, a quick one, and she reached for the doorknob. But before she went in, she poked her finger in my face and said, “Remember, I didn’t ask you this time.”

  Megin

  THE BIG TRIAL didn’t start until Sunday night, late, in the living room. I sat on the sofa (electric chair). My father was pacing back and forth. The front door opened and Grosso came in with his silly pink box, but my father didn’t notice, he just kept pacing. I thought he was going to cry, he looked so miserable.

  “Man,” I said, “all I did was break an egg. He can get a new one.”

  “I can’t get a new one,” Grosso spouted off. “It’s too late And even if it wasn’t, I couldn’t because the eggs were marked.”

  “Daddy, get him outta here,” I said. Grosso was hanging in the dining room, like a vulture.

  My father just stood there, slumpy, wagging his head He looked in pain. His words came out creaking, like they needed oil. “See? Listen. It never stops. Fighting. Why?… Why?” He was looking at me, pleading. “Why?”

  “Why what?” I said.

  “Why can’t you two get along? Why do you have to—” He stopped, thunderstruck. “My God—look at your faces. Look at how you’re looking at each other. Do you know what that look is? It’s hate. Hate. Do you know that?”

  Grosso shrugged.

  I said, “So?”

  “So?” he creaked. “So? A brother and sister that hate each other?” He started pacing again, creaking out the word, cocking his head like he was waiting for the word to talk back to him: “hate… hate… hate…” He stopped, turned to me, his hands outstretched. “How… why…?”

  “Daddy,” I told him, “some things just are the way they are. Y’ever hear of the mongoose and the cobra? They hate each other. As soon as they see each other the first time. Natural enemies.”

  “But Megin,” he said. “Gregory, you two used to get along fine.”

  “I don’t remember,” I said.

  “Sure you did, sure you did.” He broke into a huge smile. “When Greg was starting school, he used to teach you the alphabet on his little blackboard. I’ll find it. I’ll show it to you. And you, you used to cry when Greg left for school in the morning.”

  “ ’Cause I was so happy.”

  “I gotta find that little blackboard.”

  “Anyway,” I pointed out, “even if it’s true, that was before he started putting his hairs in my toothbrush.”

  “And before she started putting roaches in my room,” oinked Grosso.

  “And before he threw away my hockey stick!”

  “And before she killed my egg!”

  “And before he got so ugly!”

  “And before she got so grungy!”

  “SHADDAAAAAPP!” My father stood in the middle of the living room, arms spread out straight, head back, like he was waiting to be fitted for a cross. He stayed like that for a long time Dead silence. Finally I couldn’t stand it anymore. “Well, Daddy,” I said, “you’re always so jolly. But life isn’t always jolly, you know.”

  First my father’s head came down—now he looked like a scarecrow—then his arms, flopping to his sides. He took a deep breath. “Okay, here’s the way we’ll do it.” He said I was grounded for the rest of the week, had to come right home after school, no later than 3:30. That wasn’t all. Since my “beloved” hockey stick was gone, he said he would think about getting me a new one. If. If I obeyed the grounding rules, he would buy me a new one at the end of the week. But if I got home later than 3:30 on only one day, I wouldn’t get a new stick till April.

  “April!” I screeched. “The ice’ll all be melted by then!”

  He gave a wicked sneer. “That’s about the size of it.”

  “Man, Dad, why don’t you just chop my head off too while you’re at it!”

  “Good idea,” honked Grosso.

  “Okay,” I said, “now what’re you gonna do to him?”

  “Never mind about him.”

  I didn’t like the way he said that. “Hey—you’re not gonna do anything to him, are you? I’m getting all the punishment and he’s getting off free! Right?”

  “That’s my business.”

  “Yeah? Well then I’ll make it my business to take care of him! My Wayne Gretzky stick is gone forever because of him, and if you think I’m not gonna make him pay for it, you’re crazy!”

  He turned on me like a wild dog. “Listen, young lady, I’ll do the punishing around here, and right now you’re the one who needs it most of all. I have to do something to put a stop to your rampage.” He counted on his fingers. “You tricked your way out of taking Toddie to the library the other night. You pretended you were sic
k—”

  “I didn’t say I was that sick. You said I had appendicitis.”

  “Shut up. You pretended you were sick. You got me and Mommy all worried. I had to leave work, give up a big sale. You snuck out of the house yesterday. Against doctor’s orders. You took Toddie with you, so we were worried sick not knowing where he was. And you ruined your brother’s school project.”

  “And you’re ugly,” Grosso gonged in. My father hollered “Shut up!” at him, but by then the sofa pillow that I had thrown was already on its way. Grosso ducked and the pillow sailed into the dining room, over the table, and into the leaping leopard that my mother had made in ceramics class. The leopard leaped to the floor and crashed.

  I didn’t wait around. I was upstairs and in my room in two seconds. I buried my face in my pillow. It wasn’t the crashing leopard that I kept seeing—it was my father’s face, with a look that I had never seen before, a look that I knew not even my best dimple could wipe away, and I sank my teeth into my pillow knowing that my father, my very own father, hated me.

  Greg

  ON MONDAY I didn’t have a good chance to talk to Sara until lunch. I spotted her coming through the cafeteria door and pulled her over by a window. It was starting to snow.

  “Last time I touched you in school,” I reminded her, “you slapped me.”

  She grinned. “Yeah, I know. Wha’d you think?”

  “Ah, I don’t know. First time I was ever slapped. Kinda shocked, I guess. I don’t even think I felt it.”

  She pouted. “Oh phooey.”

  “Well, maybe I felt it a little.”

  “Still phooey.”

  “Well, now, come to think of it, I did feel a little dizzy afterward.” We laughed. “So,” I said, “how do you feel?”

  “Me? Hm, let’s see. How about decurioused?”

  “Huh?”

  “Well, I was always curious about what it’s like to slap a man, like in the movies. Now I found out.”

  “Wha’d you find out?”

  “I like it!” This time I caught her wrist as she was winding up. We laughed again, and I was thinking that no matter how long I lived, I would always remember Sara Bellamy as the first person who ever called me a man.