Dear God, Help!!! Love, Earl

  Maxie and Rosie were waiting for me when I got home. The three of us ran straight to my room.

  Right away Rosie started asking a million questions. “How did it go, Earl? Was it creepy? Were you scared? What did the guy look like? Was he really, really ancient? Did he have on lipstick? Was he wearing a toupee? My great-uncle Moe was wearing a toupee, I think, but I didn’t—”

  Suddenly, Maxie reached over and covered her mouth with his hand. “Did you get the pictures? Did you explain about the camera? Did you say the part about how pretty and peaceful the cemetery was? It worked, right? The lady believed you, didn’t she? Come on, Earl! Tell us what happened!”

  I sat down on my bed and took a big, deep breath. Things had gone so perfectly, I probably should have been jumping all over the place. But for some reason I felt totally calm and relaxed inside.

  There was only one other time in my life when I remember feeling that same kind of calm. It happened the first time I rode my two-wheeler. All by myself, I mean. Without my mother running along beside me.

  I still think about that day sometimes. About how I took off from the house, real unsure of myself and all.

  But as I went farther and farther down the sidewalk, it began to dawn on me that I wasn’t wobbling. I wasn’t even nervous, in fact. So I sat up a little straighter, turned around, and—grinning from ear to ear—I rode right back to where I’d started.

  My mother was jumping up and down, and clapping her hands like crazy. But instead of getting off the bike and dancing all around, calm as anything, I leaned it against the garage wall and walked straight inside to my bedroom. Then, just like now, I sat down on the edge of my bed and took a big, deep breath. And as I breathed in, it was like my whole insides were filling up with this magical new feeling of self-confidence. I’m telling you, I wanted to hold that air inside me forever. ’Cause I was afraid that if I let it out, the feeling would escape along with it, and I might never get it back.

  But now it was happening again. And just like before, it was the sweetest feeling in the whole world.

  All at once, Maxie put his hands on my shoulders and shook me out of my mood. “Come on, Earl! How can you just sit there like that? Tell us what happened at the cemetery! Did you get the funeral pictures or didn’t you?”

  I handed him his camera back and smiled.

  “Did,” I said.

  Maxie’s eyes opened wide. “Did?” he repeated in amazement. “You mean, you really, really got the pictures we need? They’re in the camera right now? They really, really are?”

  I nodded. “Yup.”

  Maxie came unglued. I’m not kidding. He let out this wild hoot of laughter and jumped on my back. The next thing I knew, the two of us were wrestling all around on my rug.

  Caught up in the spirit, Rosie climbed up on my bed and jumped high into the air. “Hiiiii-yaaka!” she hollered.

  Seconds later, she came crashing down on top of us. The thud knocked one of my framed pictures off the wall.

  The next thing I knew, my mother was standing in my doorway.

  “Enough!”

  Maxie, Rosie, and I looked up.

  Mom had already changed into her old pink housecoat and slippers, and was trying to open a bottle of aspirin with her teeth. It didn’t take a genius to figure out she had a bad headache.

  Rosie jumped up and began smoothing out her clothes as if she hadn’t been involved.

  “Hello, Mrs. Wilber,” she said. “How are you this afternoon? That’s a very lovely, uh … old robe-kind-of-a-thing you’re wearing.”

  Maxie stood up, too. He tapped on his watch. “Whoa. Would you look at the time. Rosie and I really need to be going.”

  My mother was holding her head. “Darn,” she said. “And I was so hoping you’d stay to tea.”

  Slowly, she turned and shuffled back down the hall.

  Quickly, Maxie took the film out of the camera and stuffed it into his pocket. I gave him one of my last dollars to help pay to have it developed.

  As they were leaving, Rosie ruffled my hair. “You did good today, Earl,” she said. “Really. You did perfect.”

  Maxie stopped at the door. “Yeah, you did,” he agreed. “But don’t forget. There are still two more important things that you have to do if The Plan is going to work. First, you’ve got to convince your mother to let you stay home on Monday. And second, you can’t let anyone from school see you until Tuesday. You understand how important that part is, don’t you, Earl? No one can see you at all.”

  I smiled. After what I’d already been through, staying home from school would be a piece of cake. I’d even thought of a perfect excuse. And the little wrestling incident my mother just witnessed would set the whole thing up perfectly.

  By the time Maxie and Rosie left, I was feeling as light as a feather inside. I’m not kidding. I took a flying leap in the air and floated over to my bed.

  You’ll just have to take my word on this, I guess.

  But I swear, I floated.

  An hour later, I hollered out in pain. “OWWW! UCH! OWWW!”

  My mother came right away. “What? What’s wrong? What is it, Earl?”

  “Owww!” I hollered again. “It’s my neck. I can hardly move it. Owww! Owww!”

  Mom tried to see what was wrong. The instant she touched my neck, I yelled again. “No!

  Don’t! That kills!”

  She pulled her hand away. “Okay, okay. I’m sorry,” she said. “I bet you anything that you pulled a neck muscle when you were horsing around on the floor with your friends. Darn it, Earl. You should have known better. It’s not like this has never happened before, you know. Remember last year before your class play? I even had to take you to the doctor for that one.”

  I tried to nod. “Owww!” I hollered again.

  “Stop moving it,” Mom ordered. “Yeah, this is definitely the same thing that happened last year, all right. You couldn’t go to school for two or three days, remember? The doctor gave you a muscle-relaxer, but he said there wasn’t anything you could do except rest.”

  She headed for the door. “I’ll go get you an aspirin.”

  As soon as she was gone, I raised my fist in victory.

  Yes! I had done it again! For the second time in only a year, I had pulled the old strained-muscle-in-the-neck trick and gotten away with it! First, to get out of the school play! And now this! You’re a world-class actor, Earl! I thought. World-class!

  A few minutes later, Mom came back with her sweater on. “I’m sorry, honey, but we’ve got to go to the drugstore to get you some aspirin,” she said. “It looks like I took the last two this afternoon.”

  Carefully, she started to help me sit up.

  No! No way! I couldn’t go to the drugstore! Maxie said that no one could see me. And the drugstore was the busiest place in town. It was right next to the Happy Family Pizza Palace. And half the kids at school hung out at the Happy Family Pizza Palace on Saturdays!

  “No! I can’t!” I blurted. “I can’t go there, Mom! I mean … I mean, I can’t go anywhere. Honest. My neck hurts too much. Just let me stay home, okay? I promise I’ll stay right here in bed and rest.”

  My mother was still trying to get me up.

  “No, Earl. I’m sorry. But there’s no way I can leave you home alone in this condition. What if something happened? What if there was a fire? You couldn’t even get out of the house on your own.”

  “Yes, I could. Of course, I could,” I said. “It’s my neck that hurts. Not my feet. Come on, Mom.

  Please. I’ll be fine.”

  There was no use arguing with her, though. By then my mother already had me standing up. She braced my neck with her hand and started shuffling me to the door.

  As soon as we got to the car, she helped me lie down in the back seat and covered me up with an old blanket she keeps back there.

  “There. How’s that? Are you comfy?” she asked.

  “No, I’m not comfy,” I growled. “My neck is totally scrunched up bac
k here. It hurts worse than ever. I bet you anything that we’re doing some permanent damage here, Mother. You’re never supposed to move someone with a neck injury. Haven’t you learned anything from watching ER?”

  My mother cracked my window a little bit and shut the back door. Feeling cramped, I stretched out my legs and propped my feet up on the glass.

  Ten minutes later, she pulled the car into the drugstore parking lot. Even though I was still lying down, I could see the sign for the Happy Family Pizza Palace flashing next door.

  Mom got out of the car. “I’m going to let you stay here, okay?” she said. “I’ll be back as fast as I can. I promise.”

  She locked the doors and left.

  As I lay there, I could hear the kids outside the pizza place, laughing and clowning around. They sounded close, too. Too close for comfort.

  I got more and more uneasy.

  God? Are you there? It’s me again. Earl. And I’m sorry, okay? But I’ve got a little bit of an emergency going on here at the moment.

  I stared up at the roof.

  Can you see me, God? I’m in the back seat of the little white car outside the Happy Family Pizza Palace. Can you see me through the sun roof? I’m lying down on the back seat because I don’t want anyone to spot me. See, that’s very important right now, God. No one is allowed to see me at all for a while. So if you could please, please, please just keep everyone away from my window for a few minutes, I would sincerely—

  “HEY! LOOK! FEET!”

  The loud voice interrupted my prayer.

  Feet? Someone out there saw feet?

  Just then my blood went cold.

  Oh, no! It was my feet he saw! My shoes were still propped against the window! How could I have been so stupid?

  I froze solid with fear. As solid as a block of ice, I mean. I squeezed my eyes tightly shut, and all my muscles went totally rigid.

  A second later, there was a tap on the window. “Hey, you in there! You with the feet! What’cha doin’, dude? Are you takin’ a nap or what?”

  The kid started to laugh.

  “Hey, McFee! Come here! You’ve gotta see this! There’s a zombie dude in here with a blanket over him!”

  McFee? No! It couldn’t be! What kind of sick, rotten luck was this?

  I’m sure Eddie must have had on sneakers, but I swear I could hear the sound of his footsteps as he walked over to the car that afternoon. It was like a scene in one of those horror movies, sort of. The kind of scene where you hear the evil bad guy plodding up the stairs, getting closer … and closer … and …

  Then all at once, Eddie McFee was there. Even though my eyes were still closed, I could feel him grinning down at me.

  “Well, what d’ya know? If it ain’t my old pal Jumbo!” he said, laughing.

  Eddie pounded on the glass. “Hey, Jumbo!

  Hey, Earl! Wake up!”

  I didn’t flinch. I’m positive of that. When your muscles are as tensed up as mine were, they’re not even capable of flinching.

  I still don’t know what would have happened if my mother hadn’t come out of the store at that exact moment.

  “Hey! What are you doing?” I heard her yell. “Get away from that car!”

  Feet scattered everywhere. A second later, the car door opened.

  “Are you okay, Earl?” Mom asked. “What was going on out here? Were those boys bothering you?”

  But I was still too petrified to speak.

  It was over.

  All of it.

  The Plan.

  My life.

  Everything.

  When we got home, my mother helped me out of the car.

  “No wonder your neck hurts so bad,” she said. “Your muscles feel like they’re tied in knots. Look at you. You’re as stiff as a board.”

  She was right. By then I was so tense I didn’t even have to fake it. Nothing helped, either. Not the aspirin. Not the hot bath. Not even the chicken soup she brought me for dinner.

  Also, knowing that I had to tell Maxie and Rosie what had happened didn’t make things any easier. Just a few hours before, I had practically been their hero. And now I had to call Maxie with the worst news ever.

  By the time I finally dialed his number that night, I was sick inside.

  “Zuckerman residence,” he answered.

  At first, I didn’t say hello. In fact, I was seriously considering hanging up when Maxie said, “Is this one of those sicko breathers?”

  “No, Max. No. It’s me,” I admitted. “It’s Earl.”

  “Earl?”

  I swallowed hard. “Yeah, you know … your good friend Earl Wilber. The Earl Wilber who knows how totally kind and sympathetic you can be when things that are supposed to go right … well, go really, really wrong.”

  Through the phone cord, I could feel Maxie brace himself.

  His voice got quieter. “What happened?” he asked.

  That’s when it all came flooding out. All in one long breath.

  “He saw me, that’s what happened! My mother forced me to go to the drugstore with her. And Eddie McFee was there. And he saw me, Max. But it wasn’t my fault. Honest. There was nothing I could do. My mother made me go. And then I accidentally propped my feet up on the window. And a bunch of Eddie’s friends saw them. And they called Eddie over to the car. And then he—”

  Maxie hung up. Just a little click in my ear. And the line went dead.

  Dead like The Plan.

  Dead like me.

  Dead with a capital D.

  *9* BINGO

  Sunday morning, Maxie and Rosie were in my room bright and early again. Since my mother was outside washing the car, I’m sure they walked right in without her knowing it.

  I had just opened my eyes when I heard my bedroom door open. The next thing I knew, Maxie was standing there looking as mad as I’d ever seen him.

  In fact, he was so mad that I had ruined The Plan, he couldn’t even speak to me. So instead of talking directly to my face, he relayed all his questions through Rosie.

  After glaring a while, he turned and whispered in her ear.

  Rosie looked at me. “Maxie wants to know all the details of what happened at the drugstore yesterday,” she said. “And he means all.”

  I heaved a sigh. “But I already told him all the details,” I said. “Eddie saw me in the back seat of my car. I blew it, okay? It’s over.”

  Maxie whispered to Rosie again.

  “Yeah, but Maxie wants to know what Eddie said to you, Earl,” she explained. “And he wants to know what you said back.”

  Now I was getting annoyed.

  “Nothing,” I told her. “I didn’t say one single word to Eddie. I totally froze up, all right? My body went rigid, and I couldn’t even open my mouth. I was so scared I was hardly breathing.”

  I narrowed my eyes at both of them. “There. Are you guys satisfied now? Do you finally have a nice, clear picture of the whole humiliating little scene?”

  Maxie called me a name under his breath. It sounded like toad-eater.

  Okay. That did it. I just didn’t need this, that’s all.

  “Quit it. Stop it, Max,” I said. “Just stop it right now. What kind of friend are you, anyway? Don’t you think I know how bad I screwed up? Do you think that I let Eddie see me on purpose? Well, I didn’t. But here’s a big news flash for you. I’m the one who’s going to have to eat Eddie’s socks for the next few weeks, not you. So if the only reason you and Rosie came over here this morning was to make me feel like a giant screwup, then you might as well go home. Because that job has already been accomplished.”

  Just then I got out of bed and went to my door. I made a giant sweeping motion for them to leave.

  “Thank you, friends. Thank you for your support,” I said sarcastically.

  After that, I waited and waited. But Maxie and Rosie didn’t leave. Instead, they just kept looking at each other, sort of surprised. Like they hadn’t actually planned for this kind of reaction.

  Pretty soo
n the silence in the room got so thick it was suffocating, almost.

  I was beginning to wonder how much longer I could stand it when Maxie finally spoke. “Okay, fine. I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

  It totally threw me, too. His apology, I mean. It was the last thing in the world I had expected him to say.

  I’m totally awkward at handling apologies, by the way. I almost always end up saying something sappy or stupid. When I was little, I used to giggle and pretend to boink the other guy in the eyes like in The Three Stooges. But I’ve pretty much got that reaction under control now, I think.

  This time I did okay, too. I just sort of shrugged and said, “Yeah. Well, you know. No big deal.”

  Even then Maxie still didn’t leave, though. He hemmed and hawed for a little while longer. Then he reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out an envelope full of pictures.

  He filled his cheeks with air and let it out slowly. “Well, I guess even if Eddie hadn’t seen you yesterday, we still would have had this little pet cemetery issue to deal with. Huh, Earl?” he said.

  I swear. You could have knocked me over with a feather when he said that. That’s how shocked I was. I mean, I just didn’t get it, that’s all. How could he have possibly known the pictures I took were in a pet cemetery?

  I began to sputter. “But … I mean, but how in the world did you—”

  Maxie cut me off. “It didn’t take a genius, Earl,” he said. “You’ll understand as soon as you see the first picture.”

  After that, he kind of shook his head and walked out the door.

  Rosie followed. But instead of going straight outside, she stopped in the hall and stood there with her back to me.

  “Don’t worry, Earl,” I heard her say after a minute. “It’ll all work out okay, probably. We won’t let Eddie kill you. I promise.”

  I smiled sadly to myself.

  Good, old, honest Rosie Swanson.

  Even when she’s trying to make you feel better, she can never lie to your face.

  As soon as she was gone, I hid my head under my pillow and groaned.

  Sometimes it can be very peaceful under a pillow. You can hear the rhythm of your breathing and kind of relax your muscles under there. Also, you can sort of let your brain drift all around from thought to thought and dream to dream. Brains enjoy free-floating like that, I think. It can get their creative juices flowing, I guess you’d say.