He found me another rubber band. “Well, I guess it started with getting mad. I got mad.”
“Mad? What at?”
“Me. Myself.”
“Why?”
He thought some more. I felt like my combing was helping him think. “I’m remembering a day in Cape Town. That’s South Africa. I had a day off but I hadn’t even left the boat. I was standing at the rail, looking over the harbor. Lots of little sailboats, like white butterflies. Then comes this speedboat. Zoom! Right through all the butterflies. I watched it till it went out of sight. It never turned. Never slowed down. Making a beeline to somewhere. And, I don’t know, something just clicked inside me. Like, Hey pal, he’s going somewhere. Somewhere. He’s alive.” Poppy shrugged. “Next thing I knew, I was mad at myself. Not sure why. Because I was a butterfly and not a speedboat, I guess. I went down to the docks and walked into the city. Ate me some wild oysters. Really just…walked. Walked. Watched. Listened. Smelled. Came alive. I worked my way straight back to California and called your mom and dad and told them I was coming here to live. All because I saw a speedboat. What are you doing up there?”
I looked down. I started laughing. I guess I was listening so hard to Poppy I didn’t notice what I was doing to his hair. It was now in twin pop-up pigtails. Without a mirror, all he could do was feel around up there. “How’s it look?” he said.
“Fabulous,” I told him. “So Poppy, what are you saying? If I want a life of my own, I need to go to South Africa?”
He shook his head, which shook his pop-up pigtails. “You need to get mad. Start with that. Yesterday you said you were scared. Mad is better than scared.”
“What do I get mad at?”
He pulled me around in front of him. He pointed between my eyes.
“Me?” I said.
“Who else? It worked for me.”
“How do I do it?”
“That’s where attitude comes in,” he said. “You gotta say to yourself, ‘Hey, girl, wise up. Look at your brother. He’s off having a great ol’ time with his pals. He doesn’t need you. And look at you. All you’re doing is crying because your big bad brother won’t play with you. Boohoo. Where’s your self-respect? Toughen up, girl.’” He gave me a little arm punch. I punched him back. He grinned. “Now you’re talkin’.”
So off we went to do some shopping at the strip of stores three blocks away. Since we were walking we could only buy as much as we could carry. We got blackberry jelly, chocolate syrup, a used egg-shaped mirror, duct tape, flashlight, batteries, and some other stuff. I kept saying to myself Wise up, girl…wise up…ya big baby….
As we were unloading the bags back at the house, I said, “It’s not working.”
“What’s not?” he said.
“Getting mad at myself. I’ve been trying for a couple hours now. I can’t seem to get the hang of it.”
He wagged the chocolate syrup. “Want some?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Maybe I was wrong. Maybe you’re aiming at the wrong target.”
“What’s the right target?”
He grinned. “Guess.”
“Jake?”
“The one and only.”
He made my chocolate milk and set it on the table. “But I’m already mad at him,” I said.
“I’ll bet you could get madder.”
I took a sip. “You think so?”
“Sure. You might only be using twenty percent of your mad capacity. I’ll bet you have a lot left in you.”
I drank. I thought about it. “But Poppy, wouldn’t that be dangerous? If I used up all my mad on him, I could blow up what’s left of our goombla.”
He chuckled and shook his head. “No way. You still love him, don’t you—even though you’re mad at him?”
“Yes.”
“Exactly. And the more you love someone, the safer it is to be mad at them. Love can handle mad, no problem.”
“Cool,” I said. And I thought, Get ready, Jake. You got an avalanche of mad coming your way.
I was starting to feel a little flicker of a life already.
Jake
I guess every once in a while you have a day you just want to toss in the trash can. This was one.
As my parents were getting up from the breakfast table this morning, my mother looked at me and said, “I’d like you to go riding with your sister today.”
I was just chomping into an apple strudel Pop-Tart. I looked up in midchomp. “Huh?”
“Go riding with your sister today.”
I stared at her.
“I’m waiting for you to nod your head,” she said. “That’ll mean you heard me.”
“Why?” I said.
She hitched on her tool belt. “I just think it would be nice. Won’t kill you.”
“But why?” I think I screeched.
She put her hands on the back of Lily’s chair. Lily looked as stunned as I did.
“Because I think you’re going a little overboard with these new friends of yours. Morning, noon, and night. I can’t remember the last time I saw you two together. I miss it. Do it for me. That enough reasons?”
I shrugged. “Fine. I’ll go riding with her.”
She stared at me. She gave a chuckle. She tweaked my nose. “Jakey, Jakey. You almost got me.”
“What?” I said.
“You’re going to listen to me, aren’t you? You’re going to ride with her to the end of the block and back. One minute of your time, right?”
“I’m not a babysitter,” I said.
“No,” she said, “you’re a brother. And you’re starting to make me mad because you think it will kill you to spend a little time with your sister.” She was glaring at me now. “So here’s what you’re gonna do. I’m not asking you now. I’m telling you. You’re gonna spend the whole day with her.”
My sister and I both shrieked. “What?”
Her pointing finger was aimed between my eyes. “The. Whole. Day. Do not let her out of your sight.”
Was this really happening? “Mom, you’re taking her side. You’re believing all this crap she’s saying.”
Lily whined, “Mom, I don’t even want to.”
Mom swung to her. “Don’t you start.” She took a final swig of orange juice. “You have your orders.”
She went out the door. And came back. Stuck her head in the kitchen. “Be very, very careful.” She kind of sang it with a smile and was gone. That’s when I knew there was no way out. You don’t mess with that smile and voice. I never finished my Pop-Tart.
So started the longest day of my life.
We cleaned up the kitchen after we ate. When our mother says, “Be very, very careful,” we’re never sure exactly what she’s referring to. So to be on the safe side, we just make sure we’re perfect for that day. Meaning we do all our jobs: clean up the kitchen after meals, make our beds, pick up our rooms, brush our teeth, put the toothpaste caps back on, check the porch for UPS deliveries.
Then we headed off on our bikes. At the end of the block I turned right, she turned left. In the first instant I thought, Great! I’m rid of her! In the second instant I remembered: Do not let her out of your sight. I U-turned and went after her.
And that’s pretty much how it went. She led me all over town, like I was her puppy or slave or something. I prayed she wouldn’t go past Ernie the goober’s house. I didn’t want the guys to see what had happened to me. My prayers were answered.
Around noon she headed for Bert’s Deli. She got a cheese hoagie with hot peppers and an orange Crush. I got nothing. Because, stupid idiot that I am, I didn’t bring any money with me. We sat at one of the little round tables in front of Bert’s. She unwrapped the hoagie real slow. She looked at it. Smelled it. A drop of olive oil glistened in the sun. She licked it away. The hoagie was cut in half. She took about ten minutes to decide which half she would eat first. By now the hoagie smell was seeping into my bones. My elbows were smelling it. I would have paid two months’ allowance for a che
ese hoagie with hot peppers. She took the first bite. She chewed and chewed and chewed. I died. About twenty people went in and out of Bert’s before she even got to the second half. When she finally finished, she licked the paper, wrapped it into a ball, and finished off her orange Crush. Then, like suddenly she changed from a snail to a squirrel, she shot out of her seat, tossed away the can and paper, and jumped onto her bike.
She headed for home. She turned on the downstairs TV. She put on one of her DVDs of The Gray Shadow. It’s a stupid cops-and-robbers show for kids. She thinks she’s going to be a detective. After five minutes I couldn’t take any more. I was on my way out when I heard her say Mom’s words from the morning: “Don’t let her out of your sight.” I came back. She has ten Gray Shadow episodes. I had to watch every one of them. When I heard Mom and Dad coming in the kitchen door, I went upstairs and slammed my door.
Lily
I went to Poppy’s for breakfast. We sat at the kitchen table. I would have had toast and blackberry jelly except there was no toaster. So it was jelly on bread. I would have had hot chocolate except there was no microwave. So it was cold chocolate milk. Poppy was sipping coffee.
“It’s not working,” I told him.
“I think I heard this before,” he said.
“I tried,” I said. “All day yesterday. Mom made us stay together. I was mad at him all day. I ate my lunch in front of him and didn’t share a bite while he was starving. I made him watch my Gray Shadow DVDs. I didn’t speak to him all day.”
“Not a word?”
“Not a word. And I thought it was working. And then I got up this morning and—fssst. Zippo. No mad. It was gone.”
Poppy sighed. “I guess you just don’t have what it takes.”
I sighed. “Guess not.” I finished my bread in silence. “What’s wrong with me, Poppy?”
He squeezed my hand. “Not a thing. You’re just too nice, that’s all.”
“So what now?”
“Well,” he said, “at least we learned something. We know mad doesn’t work for you. So we need to find another way to get you a life.” He sipped and stared at me, as if there was an answer somewhere on my face. “How about”—he stared some more—“a friend.”
“I have friends,” I told him.
“I mean a best friend. Like girls always seem to have in books and movies. Somebody you’re on the phone with as soon as you wake up. Always sleeping over at each other’s house. Shopping the malls together. Somebody you just can’t live without.”
I said, “Does the name Jake ring a bell?”
“This isn’t about Jake. It’s about Just Lily.”
“Sorry.”
I told him I have friends in school and in the neighborhood. I talk to them and we do stuff and we have fun and I like them. But I never slept over. And I can live without them.
“Pick one out,” he said. “The one you like best.”
I thought about it. “Well, Anna Matuzak, I guess. She lives a block away. She’s in my grade. We both like Reese’s Pieces. And purple.”
He slapped the table. “Sounds like a match. Call her up. Invite her for a sleepover.”
I wish Poppy would take things a little slower. I’m getting woozy. But I did what he said. I didn’t just call Anna Matuzak. I rode to her house. Her mother came to the door. She said Anna was out swimming somewhere. I asked if Anna could come for a sleepover. Her mother looked surprised. She said my invitation was “very nice” and she would ask Anna as soon as she got home. As I was walking away she said, “Oh, and honey, I’m sorry but I have to ask—what’s your name?”
“Lily Wambold,” I said.
Anna called after dinner. She sounded surprised too, but she said, “Sure, I’ll come.”
So it’s set. Tomorrow night a friend is coming to sleep over. Mom and Dad said no problem. They said we can order pizza. We can watch DVDs. We can stay up as late as we want—“as long as you’re not going wild,” said Dad.
I’m planning the whole night. I feel myself getting excited. All of a sudden Anna Matuzak is the biggest thing in my life.
Jake
What happened yesterday?
I felt like I missed the first half of a great movie. I tore my Pop-Tart out of the toaster and ate it on my bike. We always meet at the hideout first thing in the morning, but no one was there yet. I waited as long as I could—about thirty seconds—and pedaled for Meeker Street.
I could see the word from a block away, but even when I pulled up close I couldn’t believe it. It was painted across the wall of the clubhouse in thick yellow letters:
SOOP
Soop must have put the roof on yesterday, because the clubhouse looked finished—if finished is the word. The ends of the wallboards were sticking out past the corners and were diving this way and that. The whole thing was slanted to the right as if it was falling into a sinkhole. If my parents saw it, they’d either croak or laugh for a week. It looked like it belonged in a cartoon. And that’s not even counting the giant yellow word.
I felt a little uncomfortable, being the only one on the scene so early in the morning. So I did a loop around town. When I came back the kid was outside, staring at the word. I didn’t want to deal with this, but the kid saw me U-turning and called, “Hey, Jake!”
Drat, I thought. I don’t know why I didn’t just keep going. You never ever let a goober call the shots. I guess it was hearing my name.
“Hey,” I said. I pulled to the curb. “What’s up?” I felt funny talking to him without the guys around. I missed Bump leading the way.
He pointed. “Look what somebody did, Jake.”
I pretended like I hadn’t noticed before. “Wow,” I said.
He walked over to me. I was really uncomfortable now. He had never been so close. He leaned on my handlebars. “That’s me. Soop. The nickname you guys call me.”
He knows! I thought.
“Think so?” I said.
He nodded. “Yeah. I think so. But”—he zeroed in on me—“the big question is, who did it? And why?”
He didn’t seem mad or upset. Just curious.
“Beats me,” I said, looking around—where were the guys? “Maybe just some kids goofing off. Summer vacation, y’know?”
“Nothing better to do,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“A prank.”
“Yeah.”
And then I heard Nacho’s war cry, “Death Rays forever!” and the guys were busting down the street. They pulled up at the curb and they all did just like me—they pretended nothing was wrong. I’m sure they rehearsed it.
“Hey, Erno—nice clubhouse.”
“Way to go, dude!”
“You da hammer!”
You could see the compliments sinking into him. “Thanks, guys. It was my first construction venture, so I guess it’s okay. But”—he pointed—“what do you think of that word?”
“Looks great to me, Erno,” said Bump. “Nice paint job.”
“I like the yellow,” said Burke.
“But I didn’t do it,” said Soop.
“You didn’t?” said Bump, and I knew from the fake shock on his face that he was the one. “So who did it?”
Soop snapped his fingers. “Bump, that’s the question.” Still not mad, just curious. “I mean, you’re the only guys who call me Soop. I wonder who else knows my nickname is Soop.”
Bump pretended to study the clubhouse in a new light. “Golly gee, Erno. Beats me.”
Soop gave me a shoulder pat. “Jake thinks it was just kids playing a prank.”
“Hoodlum kids,” sneered Burke.
“Nothin’ better to do,” sneered Nacho.
Soop snapped his fingers. “That’s exactly what Jake said.” It was almost like he was starting to enjoy being vandalized. But that’s typical of goobers too. You dump crap on them and they think it’s roses. “Or maybe”—he laughed—“they were trying to write the S-O-U-P soup and they can’t even spell it right!”
Five kids
howling with laughter, only four at the same thing.
Then Bump was wagging his head. “I don’t know…I don’t know….”
“What, Bump?” goes Soop.
“I got another theory,” said Bump.
“What’s that?” Soop was all ears. Fascinated.
“I think it’s just somebody telling you how beautiful your clubhouse is and they think it would be even better if you painted it yellow.”
Soop’s eyes widened. He gave the shack a long look. “You think so?”
Bump nodded. “Yep. I think so.”
Soop seemed to study Bump for a minute. Then he looked at the rest of us. “Can I ask you guys a question?” he said.
“Ask away,” I heard myself say.
“How come you guys call me Soop? It’s the first time I ever had a nickname, but I don’t know where it comes from.”
The four of us looked at each other, like we were flipping a ball back and forth. The silence was making me nervous. “No big deal,” I told him. “It just means ‘cool’ around here.”
Nacho picked it up. “Yeah. I guess you didn’t have that word in Gary, Indiana.”
“It’s short,” said Bump, “for ‘super kid.’”
Soop beamed. “Neato!”
Lily
The sleepover stunk.
Anna Matuzak—what a bimbo. All night she complained that the pizza didn’t have extra cheese. “I always get extra cheese…I always get extra cheese.” She said it a thousand times. But that didn’t stop her from eating six of the eight slices.
When she wasn’t complaining and eating, she was looking at herself in my mirror. She brought a purple suitcase with her, and inside that suitcase was another purple (she calls it “lavender”) suitcase. A little square purple one. It was full of cosmetics. She shoved my stuff aside and laid it all out. Suddenly my room was a beauty salon. Or, in her case, ugly salon. She crapped up everything above her neck except her ears. When I clamped her eyelash curler onto the end of my nose, she screamed and took it to the bathroom and scrubbed it. When she finished with her face she painted her fingernails. “It’s Lovely Lavender,” she snooted, holding the bottle out to me like I was supposed to kiss it. Then she did her toenails. She was a vision in Poopy Purple. She said I should use a toothpick to get the dirt out from under my nails.