Jake and Lily

  Jake

  Supergoobers are rare. Like two-headed frogs. You’re lucky if you spot one in a lifetime.

  Most regular goobers have one or two funny things about them. Sometimes a goober can be sitting in class with you or walking the halls every day and you don’t even know it until he goes goobery and gives himself away. This is where it’s good to have somebody like Bump, who can root them out when they’re not obvious. With a supergoober—you know. Instantly. There is nothing that is not funny about a supergoober.

  The day you see a supergoober is a day you’ll remember for the rest of your life. You’ll memorize the date, like your birthday or your favorite holiday. For me July 2 will always be Supergoober Day.

  His house was at the end of Meeker Street, so it had a side yard. That’s where he was hammering. We sat on our bikes and watched him from across the street. (For some strange reason, until you get to know a goober, you’re scared to get too close.) There was a tree. He was hammering boards under it. Even from across the street we could tell he was only hitting a nail about one out of every ten times. He didn’t hammer with his arm. He hammered with his whole body, his joints flying in all different directions. Some kids, you can tell just by the way they walk or run that they’re not athletes. This kid made a robot look graceful. Once he not only missed the nail—he missed the board!

  Burke said, “Can’t wait to see him in gym class.”

  Nacho said, “Who is he?”

  “You mean what is it?” I said.

  We laughed.

  Nacho said, “You think his mother made him?”

  We all knew what Nacho was talking about. The kid was wearing goggles and gloves.

  “Yeah, prob’ly,” said Burke. He mimicked a mom: “You’ll get flying splinters. Protect your eyes and hands.”

  “Okay,” I said, “but any normal kid…”

  I didn’t have to finish the sentence:…would take off the goggles and gloves as soon as he got out of the house.

  Then Bump said, “But…” He paused. We turned. He had a little grin. “Maybe his mother didn’t make him.”

  Four heads turned to the kid. Burke whispered, “Holy crap.”

  We just stood there for a while, leaning in our bike seats, soaking in the amazement of a human being who would wear goggles and gloves. Without being told. In July.

  At first we thought he was bald. Burke drifted across the street for a closer look and came back. “His hair is blond and it’s cut real short.” While we were thinking about that, Burke said, “That’s not all.”

  “What?” we said.

  “There’s something on his shirt.”

  “What?”

  “Mickey Mouse.”

  “What?”

  “Mickey Mouse. He has a Mickey Mouse patch on his shirt.”

  We lost it. We all burst out laughing. “I didn’t even think Mickey Mouse was cool when I was three!” Bump shouted, plenty loud enough for the kid to hear. But the kid just went on hammering. The tip of his tongue was sticking out between his lips. Supergoobers are great concentrators.

  And then he did something that sent him straight to the Goober Hall of Fame. He took a handkerchief out of his back pocket, wiped his sweaty face with it, and put it back in his pocket. We had all heard of handkerchiefs. Burke said he saw one in a movie once. I remember seeing an old man in an elevator blow his nose into one a couple years ago. We just stood there gawking. You suck on a goober’s amazements like you suck on candy goop from a tube. We’ll never know where things might have gone from there because at that moment a side door swung open and a lady’s voice called, “Ernie—lunch.” And the kid—Supergoobers always listen to their mothers—dropped his hammer and ran into the house.

  Lily

  He’s back!

  Poppy!

  Forever!

  It started with our parents fooling us. At breakfast this morning Dad said, “We’re taking you to the house.” He meant the house they’ve been working on since spring. “We want to see if you like what we did to it.”

  “Okay,” we said. We were impressed. They never asked our opinion before. Must mean we’re practically grown-up.

  So we get in the car and drive to the house and pull into the driveway. It’s a little white stucco cottage with red trim and a gray roof and a porch big enough for two chairs. Jake and I are looking it over and saying stuff like, “Good work” and “Nice paint job.”

  Mom says, “We have one big problem. You know Dad and me. We’re not musical. We don’t know if we got the door chimes right. Would you mind going up and ringing the doorbell and see what you think of the sound?”

  We bolted from the car, and of course I was first to the door. I pressed the button. We could hear the chimes inside. We both called back, “Sounds good.”

  Then the door opened.

  It was Poppy! Jake and I were in a howling laughter sandwich—Poppy in front of us, parents behind. Everybody piled into the house, and pretty quick we got the story.

  Poppy didn’t just come for a visit last winter. He and Mom and Dad planned the whole thing. Poppy bought the old handyman special with money he’d been saving, and Mom and Dad did the work for nothing. I glared at Poppy. “You tricked us. You knew all along you were coming back.” I punched him for making me cry back then, and he just laughed and swallowed Jake and me in a bear hug.

  Jake

  I stayed with them all morning. I stayed while we all had lunch in Poppy’s new house. (We ordered pizza. There’s nothing in the fridge yet.) And then I got up to leave and Lily squawked, “There he goes.”

  “Scrap it,” I said.

  “Did you see he only ate one slice of pizza? He usually eats four. He can’t wait to get out of here.”

  I had my hand on the doorknob.

  “He hates me, Poppy.”

  I should have left right then. I knew better. I knew she was just getting started.

  The grown-ups were chuckling.

  “I don’t think he hates you,” said Dad.

  Lily plowed on. “He doesn’t go riding with me anymore. We don’t play cards. We don’t sleep in the same room anymore. We don’t do squat together.”

  Dad got a kick out of that one.

  Lily threw her pizza down. “Yeah, laugh.” She glared at them. “You don’t know what it’s like to be entangled with somebody”—boy, am I sorry Poppy ever told us we’re entangled—“and then that somebody dumps you and you’re left all alone with nothing to do but pick your nose.” My parents’ cheeks were bulging trying to hold in the laughs. Poppy looked at her like she was making sense. She jabbed a finger at me. “Look at him. He’s drooling to get away. His grandfather just came here to live, and all he wants to do is go kiss Bump Stubbins. They might as well get married, since they spend all their time together. I’m surprised he still comes home to sleep.”

  She gave her mouth a rest for a second. Mom said, “Jake loves you, Lily.”

  Lily snickered. “Yeah—sure.” Then as I opened the door, her question speared me: “Is that right, Jake? You love me?”

  I looked at my parents, my grandfather. I pointed to my head. “She’s cuckoo,” I said, and went out the door.

  Lily

  “See?” I said. “See?”

  Nobody said anything. They just stared at me. Mom and Dad actually had little grins, which made no sense. Me? I was feeling great. Why not? I was right! For two seconds. Then I started bawling.

  Jake

  Meeker Street. They were at the curb, same as yesterday.

  “Where were you?” said Bump. “We went to your house and knocked.”

  “At my grandpa’s,” I said. “He just came to live here.” I looked across the street. “Where is he?”

  “In for lunch,” said Burke.

  “So what’s happening?”

  “Same old,” said Bump. “He’s hammering away. Still don’t know we’re here.” He shook his head. “Unbefreakinglievable.”

  “In his own little world,?
?? said Nacho.

  “That’s how they are,” said Bump.

  It’s true: goobers live in their own little world. Planet Goober. They don’t seem to notice anything else. If the whole rest of the world is wearing black shoes and they’re the only one on the planet wearing yellow shoes, they won’t even notice. Or care.

  And that leads to another thing about goobers, probably the mainest thing of all: goobers don’t know they’re goobers. They just skip happily along through life thinking they’re perfectly normal.

  Just then Soop—that’s what we call him now—came back outside and for the first time in two days looked across the street and noticed us. He had a glass of something in his hand. He called, “Hi, guys!” He held up the glass. “Want some lemonade?”

  Our knees buckled. Burke let out one quick snort bomb, but the rest of us did a pretty good job of swallowing the laughs. For a good reason. When a goober says something totally hilarious, you naturally want to bust out laughing. But if you’re smart, you make sure to hold it in and keep paying attention, because while you’re busy laughing you might miss the next gem that comes along.

  And here’s another rule: act like they’re normal. If you don’t, if you explode a volcano of laugh lava like you feel like doing, you might spook them. You might cause them to see themselves the way you do. The last thing you want is for a goober to all of a sudden look in the mirror one day and say, Well whaddaya know—I’m a goober! Of course, that’s probably not going to happen. But still, you don’t want to take chances. Supergoobers are too rare. You don’t want to risk losing them. So you keep your face straight and act normal. Even though the kid just called across the street to perfect strangers, “Hi, guys! Want some lemonade?” And was wearing an orange hat. Orange.

  Yeah, it takes a lot of discipline.

  So Nacho answered, “Hi, Soop!” I cringed but the kid didn’t even notice the “Soop.”

  And Bump said, “No thanks. We’re just sitting here watching. Whatcha makin’?”

  The kid beamed. “A clubhouse.” He took a swig of his lemonade. He beamed again. “Hey, guys—want to be in the club?”

  Bump rolled across the street. The rest of us followed but hung back. Let the master work it.

  “What club?” said Bump.

  “My club,” said the kid.

  “What’s it called?” said Bump.

  “I don’t know yet,” said the kid. “Maybe you guys can help me pick a name.”

  “Who’s in the club now?” said Bump.

  The kid threw out his arms. “Me!” He stuck out his hand. “I forgot to introduce myself. I’m Ernest. But you can call me Ernie.”

  They shook. “You can call me Bump.” He pointed to each of us. “And you can call him Burke. And that there is Nacho. And that’s Jake.”

  Of course Ernie couldn’t let it go at that. He had to shake hands with each of us and say, “Nice to meet you.”

  “So Ernie,” Bump went on, “if we joined up, then there would be five of us. From what I can see, Ernie”—he pretended to study the woody mess—“it doesn’t look like it would be big enough.”

  “No problemo,” said Ernie. Again the arms flew out. “I’ll make it bigger!”

  “Wow,” said Bump, acting impressed. “Really?”

  “Sure. I can make it as big as I want. My dad will get me more wood. Look”—he held up a yellow plastic bucket, like a little kid would take to the beach—“I have enough nails to make a skyscraper!” He laughed.

  “Wow, Ernie,” said Bump. “You’re really somethin’.” Bump turned to us. “What do you think, fellas? Do you think we oughta join Ernie’s club?”

  You had to see Bump’s face. It was as serious as if he was answering a question in English class—which only made the whole thing funnier. It was too much for Nacho. He pedaled off up the street, gagging on his own laughs.

  As for me, I understood exactly what was going on. It’s one thing to observe a goober, it’s totally something else to interact with one. The key is to interact with the goober so he doesn’t suspect anything fishy is going on. Which, with goobers, is easy, because they’re so gullible and agreeable. So you act all serious and string them along. You don’t just nod and say “Yep” and “That’s nice.” You give them a nudge. You steer them in a direction that will bring out their gooberness in all its glory. I knew that’s what Bump was doing.

  So I spoke up. “Sure, Bump. Sounds like a good idea.” I rolled my bike alongside his. “Let’s join up.”

  “Yeah,” said Burke, coasting over. “Let’s do it.”

  Soop let out a little yelp-cheer. “Yes!” He did something that he probably thought was a happy dance but actually looked like somebody fighting off a swarm of bees. When he finally calmed down, he said, “So guys, care to help? We could consolidate our efforts. I can find some more hammers.”

  Care to help…consolidate our efforts. This guy was getting better by the minute. “Nah, sorry, Ernie,” said Bump, and he really sounded sorry. “We’d consolidate if we could, but we all have blisters on our hands and our doctor told us no hammering for a month.”

  Burke started choke-laughing. He headed off to join Nacho.

  “Oh—okay,” said the kid. “No problemo, señors.”

  Goobers believe everything you tell them.

  “So you go ahead and hammer away,” said Bump. “We’ll just hang here and watch you for a while. If you don’t mind.”

  “Heck no, I don’t mind,” the kid chirped, and dived right back into Planet Goober. He put on his goggles, put on his gloves, and started pounding away.

  Lily

  Don’t worry, he loves you, they said.

  He had an audience, they said. He was uncomfortable.

  He’s being a boy, they said.

  Okay, I figured, with the audience he wasn’t himself. Give him a second chance. Maybe a boy isn’t so much a boy when you catch him in his room.

  I waited till after dark. He was on his back on his bed, reading an X-Men comic. I had hardly stepped into the room when he said, “What?” Actually he didn’t say it. He snarled it. Practically spit it. What’s the use, I figured. I went back to my room.

  I stood before the poster on my wall. It shows a California Zephyr from the 1950s, way before we were born. Two engines pulling, silver with red faces and red stripes down the sides. Sleepers. Coaches. Dining car. Sightseeing dome car. I counted thirteen cars in all. Crossing the empty, endless Great Salt Flats somewhere in Utah. We were there, Jake and me, right there, crossing the flats just like the passengers behind the black windows in the poster. The sway of the train. The click of the wheels. I got a chill.

  Jake

  Supergoobers are like hot peppers. Or staring at the sun. You can’t take too much at once.

  So we busted back to the hideout and spent the rest of the day hooting and replaying every moment. We were sitting in a circle.

  “Care to help!”

  “Consolidate our efforts!”

  “Hi, guys!”

  “Want some lemonade!”

  “Hi, Soop! I can’t believe you said that.”

  “He never noticed.”

  “Wow, Ernie—you’re really somethin’. That was awesome, Bump. How’d you keep a straight face?”

  “We can’t help—we got blisters!”

  We laughed so hard our stomachs hurt.

  Then questions came.

  “How did he get that way?”

  “He was born that way.”

  “Don’t parents have something to do with it?”

  “Every goober I knew, their parents were perfectly normal.”

  “What if a supergoober has a brother or sister? Would they be supergoobers too?”

  “I got a cousin who’s a goober. Some days he’s even a supergoober.” This was Bump talking. We were all ears. “He has two sisters, my girl cousins. And they’re normal. I mean, for girls.”

  “So,” said Nacho, “there’s five people in the family and only one is
a goober?”

  “Right,” said Bump.

  “So,” said Burke, giving Bump the sly eye, “there’s a goober in your family.”

  Bump stared at Burke. “Yeah. You got a problem?”

  “Me?” said Burke. “I ain’t got no problem.”

  “So I do?” said Bump.

  “Hey—you said it, not me. There’s a goober in your family.”

  Nacho poked Burke. “So what’re you saying?”

  Burke shrugged. “I’m saying, ever hear of genes?”

  Nacho’s brain couldn’t take it. “Huh?”

  Personally, I was getting a kick out of all this. I spoke up. “Burke says maybe gooberism runs in a family. Even though Bump isn’t a goober, maybe he’s got a little bit of goober blood in him.”

  Suddenly I was in the dirt. Bump had stuck his foot in my back and pushed me over. I got up laughing, but I was the only one. Bump looked like he wanted to jab a stick down my throat. “It don’t run in the family,” he said.

  “Cool,” I said, sitting back up. “Tell Burke. He’s the one who said genes. Look at him.” I pointed. “Look at his face. He can’t stop grinning. He’s jukin’ you, man. Chill out.” I poked Bump. “Take a joke, dude.”

  Nacho got us back on track. He made goggle circles over his eyes with his fingers and chirped, “No problemo, señors.”

  We picked up our laughing where we left off.

  Lily

  “Why?”

  I must have said that word a thousand times this week. And I’m still waiting for an answer from Poppy.

  Oh, he’s given me answers to a lot of little whys.

  Like “Why does Jake need his own room?”

  “Because your parents said so.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re getting older.”

  “What’s that have to do with it?”