“Anyway,” Dad said, “forty-five dollars is way too much to spend.”
“How about a five-dollar bag, instead?” the clerk suggested, holding one up.
Fudge liked that idea. “I’ll get one for me and one for Richie.”
“Richie Richest doesn’t need shredded money,” I told him.
“How about you, Pete?”
“I don’t need it either. I don’t even want it.”
“Okay, fine,” Fudge said. “Then I’ll just get a bag for me.”
While Dad was paying, Fudge tore around the shop. “How about this tie?” he shouted. “I have to have this tie! Mom, please can I have this money tie?”
Mom hustled over to him. “What are you going to do with a tie?”
“Wear it,” Fudge said. “Please, Mom! Pretty, pretty please with pistachio nuts on top.”
“All right.” Mom gave in. “But that’s it.”
“What about Tootsie?” Fudge said.
“Tootsie doesn’t need anything from this shop,” Mom said. “She doesn’t understand about money.”
“Yet,” Fudge said. Then he took off again, laughing like a lunatic.
I turned to Mom and Dad. “So, you think he’s cured now?”
They looked at me like I was the lunatic. Then Dad said, “Let’s just get out of here.”
While we were collecting our things, Fudge raced back across the gift shop. “Dad . . .” he said. “That guy is staring you out.”
“What guy?” Dad asked.
“That one,” Fudge said, pointing across the shop.
“Don’t point,” Mom told Fudge. “It’s not polite.”
“Then how will Dad know which guy I mean?”
“Good question,” I said. “It’s pretty crowded in here.”
“Peter, please . . .” Mom said, shaking her head. Then she turned to Fudge. “You can describe him, instead of pointing.”
“Okay,” Fudge said. “That guy, who kind of looks like you, is staring you out, Dad.”
“It’s not staring you out,” I told Fudge for the twentieth time, at least. “It’s staring at you.”
Now some guy came across the room and walked right up to Dad. He was big—taller and heavier than Dad. His voice boomed through the room. “You have the Hatcher jaw and the Hatcher eyes and if I didn’t know better I’d swear you must be a Hatcher!” He stuck out his hand and introduced himself. “Howard Hatcher of Honolulu, Hawaii.”
For a minute Dad looked blank. Then he did a double take. “No,” he said. “It can’t be. Are you telling me you’re Cousin Howie Hatcher?”
“None other. And you’re Cousin Tubby, aren’t you?”
“Cousin Tubby?” Fudge said.
I was thinking exactly the same thing but I don’t always say what I’m thinking, the way Fudge does.
“I’m known as Warren now,” Dad told Cousin Howie.
Cousin Howie gave Dad a friendly punch in the shoulder. “Lost a few pounds since we last met, huh? You were a real butterball in those days.” He laughed. “A big tub of lard.”
Dad sucked in his gut and stood up really straight.
“You got to work out, Tub!” Howie said, sticking his finger in Dad’s gut, like Dad was the Pillsbury Doughboy.
“I do work out, Howie.” Dad got a funny look on his face then, like he suddenly wished he’d told this guy he must be mistaken. Like he had no long-lost cousin named Howie.
“Well, maybe you got to work harder,” Cousin Howie said. “Run a marathon or two.”
That struck me as weird, because Dad was a lot less flabby-looking than Cousin Howie, who had shifted his focus to Fudge and me. I stood up straight, shoulders back, stomach tight.
“See, that’s why we used to call him Tubby,” Cousin Howie said, as if we didn’t get it by now. “So, Tub . . . these handsome boys belong to you?”
Dad said, “Yes, this is my family. My wife, Anne . . .”
Cousin Howie kissed Mom’s hand. “So you’re the little lady who stole Tubby’s heart.” Mom looked like she might puke.
“And these are my sons,” Dad said, “Peter and Fudge.”
“Fudge!” Cousin Howie said. “Now there’s a name.”
“Actually, it’s Farley Drexel,” Dad said. “We just call him Fudge.”
“Farley Drexel!” Cousin Howie’s voice was so loud I backed away. “What a coincidence.”
Fudge pulled me aside. “What’s a coincidence?” he asked.
“It’s like when something just happens, something you didn’t expect.”
“We didn’t expect Cousin Howie, did we?”
“No,” I told him. “We definitely didn’t expect Cousin Howie. But he’s more of a surprise than a coincidence.”
Cousin Howie wasn’t alone. He introduced us to his wife, Eudora, a chunky woman with freckles, a doll’s mouth, and straw-colored hair. “Sweetheart,” he said, “I want you to meet my long-lost cousin, Tubby Hatcher.”
“Warren . . .” Dad said, with a tight smile on his face.
“Right you are,” Cousin Howie said. “You keep reminding me and eventually I’ll remember.”
Dad took a deep breath while Eudora gushed. “I have heard so much about you over the years, Tubby.”
“Warren,” Dad said again. “My name is Warren.”
“Oh, of course,” she said, laughing. “You wouldn’t go by your boyhood nickname anymore, would you? I mean, imagine a grown man called Tubby. That would be embarrassing, wouldn’t it?”
“Actually,” Dad told her, “Howie is the only person who ever called me Tubby.”
“Is that right?” Howie said. “And I always thought everybody called you Tubby.”
Eudora smiled sweetly and told Dad, “What a shame you lost touch when Howie’s family moved to Hawaii. I know how much Howie’s missed you.” After that she took Mom’s hand and said, “I feel as if we’re personally connected, don’t you?”
Before Mom had a chance to answer, before she could say, Why no . . . I don’t feel personally connected at all. Why would anyone in her right mind feel personally connected to you and Cousin Howie? Eudora gushed, “This is just so wonderful. We didn’t think we had any family left. And to find you this way, out of the blue . . .” She pulled Mom close and hugged her until Mom was practically gasping for breath.
Mom looked to Dad for guidance when suddenly Fudge said, “It’s a real coincidence.”
Eudora looked surprised. “Why, yes . . . it is. A real coincidence.”
I thought it was a pretty weird coincidence since Dad’s never mentioned anything about a Cousin Howie to us.
And there were still more family members to meet. Eudora whistled and two girls about my age came over. “Boys,” she said to Fudge and me, “meet your long-lost cousins, Flora and Fauna Hatcher. They’re named for the natural beauty of our islands. And that’s just what we call them . . . our natural beauties.”
Fudge laughed. It came out sounding like a big hiccup. I gave him an elbow and he covered his mouth with his hand. Isn’t he the one who told me we don’t laugh at people’s names? Not that I didn’t feel like laughing over Flora and Fauna, too. But I was into proving I could control myself. It was part of my new seventh-grade maturity.
Eudora went back to talking with Mom and Dad, leaving Fudge and me with the Natural Beauties.
“We’re twins,” one of them said.
“Identical, in case you didn’t notice,” the other one added.
“You want to know how to tell us apart?” the first one asked.
“By your fingerprints?” Fudge asked.
“In case you don’t have access to our fingerprints,” the second one said, “I’m Flora and I have a scar on my chin.” She stuck out her chin and pointed u
nderneath to her scar. “See?”
Then the other one said, “I’m Fauna and I have a brown dot in my right eye, but you have to look really close to see it.”
Who’d want to? I was thinking as Fudge stood on tiptoe and peered into Fauna’s right eye.
“How old are you?” Flora asked me.
“He’s twelve,” Fauna said, stretching back to her full height, which was just a little taller than me.
“How’d you know that?” I asked her.
“I can always tell,” Fauna said.
“How old are you?” I asked.
“How old do you think?” Fauna said.
“I’m not into guessing,” I told them.
“He’s not into guessing,” Fauna repeated to Flora and they giggled.
Why do girls giggle? I mean, do they really find things so hysterically funny, or are they born that way?
“Want to know how old I am?” Fudge asked. He didn’t wait for them to answer. “I’m five but I’ll be six soon. I’m in mixed group.”
“What’s mixed group?” Flora asked.
“It’s what comes after kindergarten if you’re really smart,” Fudge told her. “Pete’s in seventh grade.”
“That’s what grade we’d be in . . .” Flora said.
“If we went to school,” Fauna said, finishing for her.
“You don’t go to school?” Fudge asked.
“We’re home-schooled,” Fauna said.
“What’s that?”
“Our parents teach us at home,” Flora explained.
“Who else is in your class?” Fudge asked.
“No one,” they answered together.
“Except our brother sometimes hangs around,” Flora said. That’s when I realized the little boy hiding behind her was part of the family.
“He’s almost four,” Fauna said, “and even though you can’t tell . . .”
“Our mother is pregnant again,” Flora whispered.
“Our mother was pregnant one time,” Fudge said, also whispering.
“Only one time?” Flora asked. She and Fauna looked at each other and giggled again.
“Isn’t that right, Pete?”
“How about three times?” I said. “Once with me, once with you, and once with our little sister.”
“Oh. I forgot about the you and me part,” Fudge said. Then he danced around, singing, “I know how the baby got inside . . .”
“We all do,” I said, stopping him before he got started.
This time Flora and Fauna actually laughed. Then Flora stepped aside and said, “This is our little brother. And if you think we have interesting names, wait ’til you hear his!”
“It’s Farley Drexel!” Fauna announced.
“Farley Drexel?” Fudge said. “That’s my name!”
“It can’t be,” Flora told him.
“Well, it is,” Fudge said, hands on his hips.
“But it’s an old family name,” Fauna said.
“Yeah . . . well, our fathers are cousins, remember?” I said.
“You mean . . .” Flora began.
“That Farley Drexel Hatcher . . .” Fauna said.
“Was your father’s uncle just like he was our father’s uncle?” Flora finished for both of them.
I nodded. “We call him Fudge,” I said.
“They call me Fudge,” Fudge repeated. “Everybody but my little sister calls me Fudge. She calls me Foo, but that’s just because she can’t say Fudge.”
“Fudge! That’s a great name,” Fauna said. “We’ve been trying to come up with . . .”
“A good name for Farley,” Flora said.
“And Fudge is perfect!” Fauna added.
“He can’t have my name,” Fudge told them.
“He already does,” I reminded him.
“He has the Farley Drexel part but not the Fudge!” Fudge planted his feet wide apart and prepared to do battle. “You can call him Farley or you can call him Drexel or you can call him F.D., but you can’t call him Fudge!”
That sounded familiar. I was wondering where I’d heard it before when Fudge nudged me and said, “Remember when Rat Face said that, Pete?”
Oh yeah . . . I thought. Rat Face. His first kindergarten teacher. Then I started to laugh.
Little Farley growled.
“My name belongs to me,” Fudge told them, in case there was any doubt. “I own it!”
“You can’t own a name,” Flora said.
“Can too!” Fudge insisted.
Little Farley growled again. Fudge looked at him. “Can’t he talk?”
“Of course he can talk,” Flora said.
“But he doesn’t have to because . . .” Fauna said.
“We say everything for him.” Flora finished the sentence. Having a conversation with the Natural Beauties was like watching two guys playing a video game. You got dizzy from trying to follow it.
When Little Farley growled a third time, Fauna said, “He likes to pretend he’s a bear.”
“Or a lion,” Flora added.
“I don’t care if he’s a bear or a lion,” Fudge told them. “He can’t have my name!”
This time, Little Farley bared his teeth.
“I think we should call him Fudge-let,” Fauna said to her sister.
“Or Fudge-kin,” Flora suggested.
“Oh, I like that,” Fauna said. She put her arm around her little brother.
“Why don’t you just call him Mini,” I said.
“Minnie?” Flora said.
“As in Mouse?” Fauna asked.
“No,” I told them. “As in Mini-Fudge.” In case they still didn’t get it, I spelled it for them. “M-i-n-i.”
“Mini-Farley,” Fudge shouted. “Because there’s only one Fudge and that’s me!”
Mini-Farley got down on all fours, growled at Fudge, then attacked, grabbing Fudge’s pants leg in his mouth. Fudge tried shaking him off but Mini held on, pulling and twisting until Fudge lost his balance and crashed to the floor. As he did, he let out a bloodcurdling scream. That got the attention not only of all four parents, but everyone else in the gift shop.
“Stop that, Farley!” Flora shouted, as Fauna pulled him off Fudge.
Dad rushed to Fudge, kneeled beside him, and checked his leg.
“Dad,” Fudge cried, “tell them they can’t steal my name!”
“Nobody’s stealing your name,” Dad said, trying to soothe him.
“Promise?” Fudge asked, wiping his nose with his sleeve.
“Actually,” Fauna said, “we’re just borrowing it.”
“No fair!” Fudge said. “You have to ask if you want to borrow something. Right, Dad?”
“That’s how it’s usually done,” Dad agreed.
“Then let’s just say we’re . . .” Flora began, looking at her sister.
“Copying your name,” Fauna said.
“Copying?” Fudge asked.
“Yes,” Flora said. “And copying is the highest form of flattery.”
“If you want to copy you have to pay two million dollars,” Fudge told them.
The Natural Beauties laughed. “Your brother’s hilarious,” Fauna told me.
“Don’t you know the best things in life are free?” Flora asked Fudge.
As if that were some kind of cue, the Natural Beauties put their heads close together, hummed a note, and next thing I knew they started singing, right there in the middle of the gift shop.
The moon belongs to everyone
The best things in life are free.
The stars belong to everyone
They gleam there for you and me. . . .
I backed away, hoping to disappea
r into the crowd that had gathered around them. This was worse than Fudge’s tantrum at the shoe store. I never should have come to Washington. I should have stayed in New York with Grandma. Or gone to Jimmy Fargo’s. Anything but this. Absolutely anything!
Finally, I was saved by the guard who came over and suggested that if we were finished shopping we might like to continue the show elsewhere. Yes! Thank you, guard. Thank you for saving me.
The Panda Poop Club
“Hot fudge sundaes all around,” Cousin Howie barked at the waiter at the coffee shop. Then he added, “Better make them doubles.”
I should have known the guard at the Bureau of Printing and Engraving couldn’t save me. I should have known Dad and Cousin Howie would want to catch up and talk about old times. Not that Cousin Howie was happy when Mom and Dad both said they’d prefer no-fat frozen yogurt to ice-cream sundaes. You could see the disappointment on his face. He told the waiter to bring them a side order of hot fudge, just in case. “In honor of Uncle Farley Drexel,” Cousin Howie said to Dad. “Remember how he loved his hot fudge, Tubby?”
“No,” Dad said.
“Then your memory’s not what it used to be,” Cousin Howie said. “Uncle Farley had a hot fudge sundae every day of his life. I’m sure the reason you call your boy Fudge is because of Uncle Farley Drexel’s love for it.”
“I don’t think so,” Dad said.
Eudora laughed. “Well, Tubby . . . either way it’s a treat to be here with you and your family. Howie’s told me so many stories about the two of you. About how close you were as boys and how you were both going to be forest rangers when you grew up.”
Forest rangers? I thought. That’s news to me. I tried to imagine Dad as a forest ranger but I couldn’t. He’s such a city kind of guy.
“Howie’s a park ranger,” Eudora said. “He’s been at all the national parks in Hawaii. On January second he’s starting his new job at Everglades National Park. Until then we’ll be traveling around the country.”
“Everglades,” Dad said. “That sounds exciting, Howie.”
“Yes, it does,” Cousin Howie agreed. “How about you, Tubby? What do you do?”
“Warren is in advertising,” Mom answered. “We live in New York City.”