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Published by Yearling, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books
a division of Random House, Inc., New York
Text copyright © 1995 by Barbara Park
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eISBN: 978-0-307-78682-1
Reprinted by arrangement with
Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers
v3.1
This is dedicated to all of those who are happily
tap dancing on God’s piano.
A special thanks to my friend and editor, Anne Schwartz,
for her thoughtful insights and suggestions.
Contents
Cover
Other Books by This Publisher
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Mick
Sirens
The Serengeti Sucks
Treasures
Tap Dancing on God’s Piano
Getting a Grip
Dogs Can Laugh in Heaven
Common Sense and Good Judgment
Forever
Author’s Note
About the Author
Mick
JUST LET ME SAY right off the bat, it was a bike accident.
It was about as “accidental” as you can get, too.
Like Mick wasn’t riding crazy. Or dodging in and out of traffic. And both of his hands were on the handlebars and all like that.
His tire just hit a rock. And he skidded into the back of a passing truck. And that was that. There wasn’t a scratch on him. It was a head injury. Period.
So this isn’t the kind of book where you meet the main character and you get to like him real well and then he dies at the end. I hate those kind of books. And besides, I can’t think of anything worse than using my brother’s accident as the tear-jerking climax to some tragic story.
I don’t want to make you cry.
I just want to tell you about Mick.
But I thought you should know right up front that he’s not here anymore.
I just thought that would be fair.
I’M ONLY ten months older than he was.
I was “planned.”
Mick was a surprise.
He loved it, too. Being a surprise, I mean. He was always teasing my parents about it. Telling them that even before he existed, he could outsmart two chemistry majors with birth control pills.
“Just imagine the amazing stunts I’ll pull when I’m a sneaky, rebellious teenager,” he’d say. Then he’d rub his hands together and throw his head way back and do that kind of creepy laugh that mad scientists do in the movies. You know, like “Muuwhaaaahahahahaha …” and he’d hunch over and limp out of the room like Igor or somebody.
Mick was excellent at imitating voices, by the way. We have a tape of him yelling “I’m melting! I’m melting!” that sounds just like the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz. Exactly, I mean.
But even without playing the tape, I can still remember how he sounded. I’ve heard that sometimes when people you love die, you forget their voices. But I haven’t forgotten Mick’s. Not yet, anyway.
I have a weird kind of memory, I think. Like I’ve never once been able to remember my parents’ anniversary in time to buy them a card. But I can still remember the exact conversation I had with Santa Claus when I was in kindergarten.
He said, “Ho ho ho.”
I said, “Your breath smells.”
And he said, “Get down.”
It wasn’t much of a chat, but the point is, it happened eight years ago and I still remember it like it was yesterday. That’s why it doesn’t surprise me that I can remember everything about the fight Mick and I had four weeks ago. On the morning of the accident.
It started out like most any other school day at our house. My father was running around wearing his usual morning outfit—a shirt and tie, boxer shorts, and black socks. It’s pretty humiliating being related to a man in a get-up like that. But Pop never puts on his pants till right before he leaves for the office. He doesn’t like to “ruin the crease” before he has to, he says. I’m serious.
My mother had already left for work, wearing her usual pair of jeans. But don’t think the jeans mean she’s more laid back than Pop. All they mean is that she works at a research lab doing experiments with viruses, and she doesn’t like to spill germs on her good clothes.
Both of my parents are totally different from Mick and me. They’re real methodical and organized, and everything they do is always technically planned out. Like my mom never makes hamburgers for dinner without weighing out precise quarter-pound servings on her kitchen scale. And Pop’s idea of a daring adventure is to wash his socks without pinning them to their mates.
Also, I’ve got name tags sewn into my underwear and I’ve never been to camp—which is downright disturbing, when you think about it.
On top of all that, my parents hate family conflict worse than any parents I’ve ever seen. Like my brother and I could hardly even raise our voices at each other before we’d be hustled off to our rooms to think about how we could “resolve our differences in a more civilized and resourceful manner.”
Last year, my mother even made a schedule for me and Mick to follow on school mornings so we could all start the day without “confrontation.” It was pretty simple, actually. Mick got the bathroom for twenty minutes while I ate breakfast. Then a timer would go off and we’d switch rooms.
At least we were supposed to switch rooms. But every so often, one of us would run late and we’d find ourselves in the same room at the same time. When that happened, we almost always ended up fighting. ’Cause I mean my parents did sort of expect it of us and all. And we really hated to disappoint them.
That’s why—when Mick walked into the kitchen that morning and saw me digging around in the cereal box—he couldn’t wait to get something started.
The first thing he did was try to grab the box away from me. “What’s in there? What’re you looking fo
r? Lemme see,” he said.
I held on as tight as I could and turned my back to him. “No! Get away! Get outta here!” I yelled.
I couldn’t see what he was doing behind me, Couldn’t hear him, either. Which worried me a lot. Because Mick was always at his most dangerous when he was quiet.
Then suddenly, out of nowhere, he came bounding off a kitchen chair and snatched the box right out of my hands.
“Hey! Give that back! I mean it, Mick! That tattoo is mine!”
As soon as I said the word “tattoo,” his eyes opened real wide and he grinned this stupid grin of his. Then he reached right in and pulled it out. No trouble at all.
He dangled it in front of my face. It was one of those ugly skull-and-crossbones pirate tattoos.
I should probably mention that I didn’t really want the tattoo. But that wasn’t the point. The point was, I didn’t want him to have it. Which I happen to think is a perfectly legitimate reason for fighting.
It just wasn’t fair, that’s all. Mick almost always got to the cereal toys before me. Then he’d hide them in his room and pretend he didn’t know a thing about them. But I know for a fact he had at least five Super Balls and two pairs of 3-D glasses hidden in there somewhere.
“Come on, Mick! I want that tattoo! Hand it over!”
“Say ‘please.’ ”
“Please, okay? Now let me have it!”
He tapped his chin. “Gee, I don’t know, Phoeb. I hate to be picky, but your ‘please’ wasn’t all that polite. Why don’t you try it again. Only this time, say ‘Pretty please with sugar on top.’ ”
I swear I could not believe he was doing this to me.
“Pretty please with sugar on top. Now give it!”
But even before I finished, Mick was already shaking his head again. “Nope. Sorry, but it’s still not working for me. Maybe we should try something different this time. How ’bout this?…Try ‘Wee Willie Winkie went to town. Upstairs, downstairs in his nightgown.’ ”
That’s when I jumped on top of him and wrestled him to the ground. (I realize I’m too old to do stuff like that. But I’m not that bad a wrestler and I’m not quite ready to give it up.)
Anyhow, I almost had Mick in a headlock when my father walked in on us. Men who walk around in boxer shorts and socks are deceptively quiet, by the way.
He didn’t yell. Pop almost never yells. Instead, he just folded his arms and gave us one of those “looks” of his. This was the one where he rolls his eyeballs so far back in his head he can see his brain, probably. Then he heaves this huge sigh—like having two children who fight over a press-on tattoo is a hardship too great for any human being to bear.
Trying to save his own skin, Mick jumped right up. “Here, Pop! Quick! Take this! Phoebe wanted it for herself, but I thought you might want to wear it to the office today.”
He tried to press it to my father’s wrist. But it wouldn’t stick to the hair. So he just kept slapping at it.
“Boy, they sure don’t make tattoos like they did when you were a young lad, do they, Pop?”
My father knew Mick was only joking around, but he didn’t lighten up or anything. He just pointed his finger, first in my face and then in Mick’s, and squinted his eyes in this silent threat thing he does.
Then, with the tattoo still hanging off his hand, he swiveled on his sock feet and padded back out of the kitchen.
“Yeah, but wait, Pop!” I called. “That tattoo was mine! All I was doing was getting it out of the box and Mick jumped on me!”
My father kept going.
“Can I please have it back? Please?”
Pop’s bedroom door slammed.
I was steaming mad. Really fuming. But instead of backing off and letting me calm down, Mick started teasing me in this stupid pirate voice, saying stuff like “Shiver me timbers,” and “Thar she blows,” totally cracking himself up.
That’s when I shoved him into the refrigerator and called him a name that I’d never called anybody before in my whole life.
A really ugly name, I mean. A street word that you mostly hear only on HBO, or on school playgrounds.
It shocked him that I said it.
It shocked me, too.
But instead of apologizing, I just turned my mouth up in this nasty little grin.
Mick pushed me away from him. Hard.
“You’re cool, Phoebe,” he said.
Then he walked out of the room.
THAT WAS our last morning together.
The last one ever, I mean.
IT KILLS ME when I remember that. Because usually I hardly cuss at all. At least not as much as most kids my age, I don’t think. Mick didn’t either. Which is almost weird for a seventh-grade boy.
Not that the two of us were angels or anything. I’m not saying that. We were always getting in trouble. But normally it was for stuff we did together. As a team. Because even though it sounds corny and all, when we weren’t fighting, my brother and I actually liked each other. A lot.
I think it was the result of being so close in age. Like when Mick was learning to talk, I was the only one who could understand him, so I sort of became his translator. I mean right from the beginning I knew that truck meant dog, and that meme-fluzit meant he wanted to flush the toilet.
The first big “caper” we pulled together was right after Mick started kindergarten. That was when we defaced our first property. To be specific, we scratched the letters F-A-R-T in the new driveway that had just been poured next to our house.
We didn’t do it to be bad. It’s just that I was learning how to spell. And Mick was learning how to print. And the cement just sort of called to us, I guess you’d say.
Mick promised that if I would tell him the right letters, he’d do a good job with his printing. He did, too. I mean his R was backward, but at the time neither of us knew the difference.
All I remember is how excited we both were when he finished. We clapped, and jumped up and down, and totally laughed our heads off. Without a doubt, this was the funniest thing anyone had ever done in the entire history of the universe.
It’s amazing how a little fart in the driveway can totally lose its humor when your father sees it.
I really don’t want to go into all the details of what happened when he discovered it that night. But I will tell you that when he and Mom stood us in front of them and made us “solemnly swear” to tell them the “complete and honest truth” about how it got there, Mick swallowed hard, took a big step forward, and told them “a monkey did it.”
Seriously. He said that.
The trouble was, I had to back him up on it. I didn’t really have a choice, you know? So I stood there and swore that we had both seen a monkey run into the driveway with a little stick in his hand and write “fart” in the concrete.
Then—just to make the story even more believable—Mick said the monkey’s name was Zippy. And the two of us had saved the day by chasing him “all the way back to Africa.”
We ended up going to our rooms for a week or something, I think. But after a while, it became one of those things that everyone looks back on and laughs about.
Like even on the morning of the fight, when I went out the door and saw that backward R in the cement, I smiled a little bit. I didn’t want to. But I did.
Sirens
I WALK TO SCHOOL with my best friend, Zoe Santos. In elementary school we used to ride our bikes. But mine’s pink. With a white basket. Which was fine in fourth grade, but I figure my teen years are going to be hard enough without being seen around town on a bike that Little Bo Peep would have picked.
Mick didn’t have that problem. His bike was black and chrome—which is why he could still ride it to school and not look like a complete doofus.
Not looking like a doofus was pretty important to Mick, actually. It’s not that he was conceited. It’s just that when he was eight, my mother made the mistake of showing him his christening gown, and he never really got over it.
I mean who cou
ld blame him? It was this long, lacy white thing with blue ribbons and a matching lace hat.
He had a fit when he saw it. “But that’s a dress!” he shouted. “You mean you took me to church in a dress? And people saw me in it? And they knew I was a guy?”
My mother explained about how it wasn’t really a dress. It was a gown. The same gown my father had worn. And my grandfather, too. But nothing helped. For the rest of the year, the only thing Mick would wear to Sunday school without a battle was a black T-shirt with a motorcycle on the front of it, and the kind of camouflage pants that Marines wear.
They were neatly pressed, though. In this ridiculous compromise with my father, Mick agreed to let Pop iron creases down the pant legs.
Anyway, it didn’t take long before it was the only outfit he’d wear to school, too. Which sounds extreme and all. But the school psychologist told my mother it was Mick’s way of balancing out the “trauma of being paraded around in public wearing ladies’ sleepwear.”
By fourth grade he’d finally gotten over his obsession with “macho” clothes and he became “trendy” instead. In fact, he got so picky about what he wore, my parents would actually flip a coin to see who had to take him to buy school clothes. The first time my father lost the toss, he came home from his day at the mall with some of his hair pulled out.
Still, even Pop had to admit that Mick was a sharp dresser. A lot of girls had crushes on him. But other than me, the only girl he hung around with was Zoe. They really liked each other, too. Not like boyfriend and girlfriend, I don’t mean. But they both had naturally curly hair, and they both thought professional wrestling was real—which are two pretty strong bonds, when you think about it.
Anyhow, that’s why Zoe was a little hurt when Mick passed us on his bike that morning and he didn’t say hi to her.
“It’s not you he’s mad at. It’s me,” I said. “We just had a fight and I called him a bad name.”
“What bad name?”
I didn’t want to tell her, but she wouldn’t stop looking at me.