Big Mouth (19 page)

“Those girls stay active. I couldn’t survive without my Friday fudge.”

“I guess.”

We watched the girls a minute longer; then Max clapped her hands on her knees and stood up. “Enough yakking. I can feel my heart rate dipping.” She turned and raised a foot to start climbing again. “I’ll leave you to your spectating.”

“Oh, I’m not spectating. I’m here to work out.”

She lowered her foot. “Really?”

What, is that so hard to believe?
“Yeah, I’m gonna do laps. I did some today at lunch. And I’ll be here tomorrow morning, too.”

I stood up and pulled my hood over my head so she’d know I was serious.

“Well, that’s great, Sherman. Just…be careful and take things slowly, will you? Speed kills, you know.”

“I’m not doing my laps in a race car.”

She laughed.

Hey, I made a teacher laugh. Score one for the Thuffster.

Her laugh trailed off, but her soft smile stayed. Was it any wonder every guy in school was in love with her? “I just mean don’t do too much too soon, that’s all. Be patient.”

Just my luck, a lecture after school.
I snatched up my backpack and started down the steps toward the field. “Yes, Ms. Maxwell.”

“It’s the tortoise who wins the race, Sherman,” she called out, “not the hare. Remember that.”

“Yes, Ms. Maxwell.”

“Work smarter, not harder.”

“Yes, Ms. Maxwell.”

“Where’s your water? Drink lots of water!”

“Yes, Ms. Maxwell.”

“And above all, have fun!”

“Yes, Ms. Maxwell!”

When I reached field level, I looked back up into the stands. Max was running up the steps again. She was going pretty fast, too, for a girl. She might’ve even given Gardo a run for his money.

I turned back toward the field as two runners sprinted by. Fudge Ripple and Butter Pecan. They waved.

“Hey, Thuff Enuff. All right!”

“Atta boy, Thuff!”

Swell.
Between them and Max, there was no going back now. I was committed to lapping this crowded field. There was no way I was going to walk it, though. I wasn’t a girl.

I hung my backpack on the wire fence, took a sip from the fountain at the bottom of the stairs—
shut up, Gardo, it was just a sip
!—turned to the track, and started jogging. I’d stiffened up again since lunch, so it wasn’t a pretty beginning. The hunchback was back. Not as awful as before, but still.
Have fun, my rear. Nothing about this training is turning out to be fun.
After a few steps, my calf started to tighten, reminding me that I’d forgotten to stretch. I stopped and moved over to the grass.

As I was leaning left with my hand over my head, Fudge Ripple came racing at me. All alone this time, he slowed, then stopped in front of me, bending forward with his hands on his knees and panting like a racehorse.

“Hey, Thuff,” he said. Sweat splashed in the dust at his feet.

“Hey.” I pushed my hood off for one last bit of breeze. “Where’s your partner?”

He wagged his thumb over his shoulder. “Josh didn’t want to sprint the last lap.”

“You weren’t sprinting when I saw you before?”

That made him laugh. “Funny one.”

What? I was serious.

He stood up straight and then leaned sideways in a stretch that was just like my own.
See, Max, I know what I’m doing.
Then he switched hands and leaned to the other side.

That was what I was just about to do. So I did.

After a moment, he rolled his head forward, back, forward, back, very intense about it. It looked like it felt good, so I gave it a try. Yeah, it felt good. Next he hula-hooped his hips clockwise, then counterclockwise.
I can hula-hoop.
So I did. It kind of felt like we were doing a disco dance on the football field or something. As we hula-hooped our knees, Butter Pecan jogged slowly up to us.

“Hey, Thuff Enuff.” He was winded but not the panting dog that Fudge Ripple had been after sprinting.

I smiled at him but didn’t answer because I was being intense about my stretching, too. Fudge Ripple and I stopped hula-hooping, straightened our knees, and then bent forward to touch our toes. Or in my case, to touch the tops of my shins. It felt really good on my hamstrings. My calf, though, was ominously tight. I rubbed it.

Butter Pecan stretched his hand over his head and leaned to his side. “Bad calf?”

“Yeah.”

“Rubbing is good. Maybe you shouldn’t jog on it, though.”

“Really?”
Keep talking, buddy.

“He’s right,” Fudge Ripple said. “I strained my calf over the summer, so I walked for a few weeks instead of running. You gotta go easy on a bum calf, otherwise it never heals up. You need to be patient, don’t push it.”

Butter Pecan nodded, then hula-hooped his waist. “Walking’s as good for you as running, so it’s okay.”

“Then why are you guys running?”

They looked at each other and shrugged. “We like running,” Butter Pecan said.

Now I know you’re crazy.
We worked our legs into wide straddles and reached toward the ground. “Well…” I tried to sound thoughtful with my head hanging upside down between my legs, “walking would make me late for Scoops. But if it’s best…”

“It is,” Fudge said with finality. “Hey, will you be working on your ice cream training tonight? That was the coolest. I’d like to try it.”

I stood up straight, then nearly keeled over from the head rush. “I…uh…no. No, I’m not doing ice cream anymore, just hot dogs.” The throbbing relaxed and I could see straight again. “Brain freeze sucks.”

“You can avoid that, you know,” Butter Pecan said.

“You can?”

“Yeah. When you eat the ice cream, spoon it into your mouth upside down. That way, the cold ice cream doesn’t touch the roof of your mouth, just the spoon does. No more brain freeze.”

I doubt that.
“I work in an ice cream parlor, so I know everything about ice cream, and I never heard that before.”

“Apparently you
don’t
know everything about ice cream.”

“Whoa! Them’s fighting words, buddy!” I put up my dukes.
Ow.
That maneuver was too quick for my head, and for my sore arms, too.

Butter Pecan threw his hands up to shield himself and backed away in mock fear. “Hey, now, go easy on me, Thuff Enuff. I heard what you did to Shane today.”

I dropped my dukes. “Huh?”

“Oh, yeah, everyone’s talking about it. You didn’t know?”

“No.”

“You’re kidding? I think the scrubs are about ready to elect you class president. Anyone who can punch out Shane
and
a Finn is freakin’ royalty.”

Punch out Shane and a Finn? I just snapped at them. How did
that
turn into a punch-out? The Del Heiny Junior 13 rumor mill sucked.

“Look, Thuff Enuff, we gotta take off. My dad is probably already waiting in the parking lot. We’ll catch you later tonight at Scoops.”

They jogged to the stairs and started climbing. I couldn’t think of any more stretches to do, so I stepped onto the dirt track and began walking my three laps. Right away I noticed that the stretching helped. I didn’t feel so tight everywhere. And walking was definitely easier on the stiffness than those few steps of jogging had been.

Every once in a while, I stopped and rubbed my calf so that people would know I was walking because I was injured. The rest of the time, I just put one foot in front of the other and envisioned myself drinking a
huge
glass of water, eating Meat Lover’s Supreme Deep Dish from Slimmy Jim’s, putting ice on my head to quell the pounding headache, and then taking a long, deep nap. And while I was at it, I composed a pretty cool eighth-grade class president acceptance speech.

Hey, crazier things have happened.

Friends, Classmates, Countrymen, lend me your ears….

It is with great honor that I stand before you today, your humble servant and newest eighth grade class president.

When I first came to Del Heiny Junior High #13, I was much like you—a kid without a dream, without a goal, without hope…a Plum without a future. Then I discovered my calling, my talent, the reason I was put on this earth, and I realized that the key to my destiny had been within me the whole time. It just needed a little nudge, a little training. I did have a future, and that future was hot dogs. With that realization things tumbled my way—fame, riches, reputation, and, now, the presidency.

I am but a humble representative. My success is your success, and in voting for me, you have voted for yourselves. You have put your trust in me, and I am thankful. Rest assured that I feel my responsibility to my fans and fellow eighth graders. To you all, I pledge to be a president of action and change. My eyes are open to the things that need changing, and I am committed to making those changes. To that end, I, Sherman “Thuff Enuff” Thuff, eighth grade class president, hereby make three essential presidential promises:

Henceforth, all vending machines will dispense soda.

Thuff! Thuff! Thuff!

Henceforth, the cafeteria will stock mustard packets. And relish. Everyone’s always forgetting relish. Go, Green!

Thuff! Thuff! Thuff!

Henceforth, the school colors will be changed back to orange and blue, and the mascot will be the Galactic Warrior Royal Ranger!

Thuff! Thuff! Thuff!

And, most importantly, henceforth, all those caught dunking scrub doughnuts will be sentenced to wear embarrassing wrestling singletons at school—ALL day, EVERY day!!

Thuff! Thuff! Thuff! Thuff! Thuff! Thuff! Thuff! Thuff! Thuff! Thuff! Thuff! Thuff!

CHAPTER 15

I was late for my shift at Scoops. I didn’t care, though. I wasn’t cutting my afternoon workout short. It was Thursday, and I’d been walking the track at the stadium every morning and every afternoon since Monday. That first day’s whole-body painfest was long gone, and there wasn’t even a hint of stiffness in my legs. And as of this morning, I could make it around the track four times in one workout, no breaking it up between the morning and evening workouts. That meant I was up to two miles a day. Not shabby at all.

Grampy would probably be ticked that I was late, but tough, that’s what he got for starting my Thursday shifts at four-thirty. Sure, Thursdays were busy ones at the mall, but he and Arthur could deal without me for a few extra minutes. It wasn’t like we did heart surgery there or anything, it was just ice cream. People would live if they had to wait thirty seconds longer to get their scoop. I wouldn’t skip my stretches for that. Those were even better than the walking.

I worked through my stretching routine, breathing in deeply with the tightening of each muscle, then breathing out slowly with each loose, limber release. I ended with a relaxing wide straddle, reaching my arms toeward. Not that I could touch my toes, but my stretched fingers were a little closer to reaching them than they were just a few days ago.

What really mattered, though, was that it felt good to stretch. Nothing else felt even remotely good these days of stomach stretching and belt tightening. Seriously, if I wasn’t stuffing my belly like a Thanksgiving turkey, I was delirious with hunger and thirst. I should’ve changed my name from Thuff Enuff to Stuff & Starve Shermie. I couldn’t wait to drop this belt and leave the lettuce eating to the ladies. Let them worry about the ultimate summer bikini, I had my sights set on Tsunami and the Mustard Yellow International Hot Dog–Eating belt and then that would be that.

The breeze was warm again today. Thanks to my thermal shirt, my undershirt, my T-shirt, my sweatshirt, and my new designer trash bag, my chest and back were soaking wet. Of all the layering, I hated the trash bag the most. Coach Hunt had found out that Gardo wasn’t Gut Wrapping and ordered him to wear a plastic trash bag with holes ripped for his head and arms. Which meant Gardo was making me wear a trash bag, too. It was tucked between my T-shirt and my sweatshirt. I felt like something that crawled out of the dump. When I shoved back my hood, my hair dripped with sweat. I had to squeeze my head under a water fountain spigot to get any relief after the walk. Luckily, I’d found a fountain at the base of the stadium steps that people didn’t seem to know about. It was in a secluded corner; everyone else used the one by the entrance.

When it seemed like no one was paying attention to me, I grabbed my backpack from the grass and slipped around to my secret fountain. There I ripped off my soppy sweatshirt and top, then stuck my head under the faucet.
Ahh, cool water!
I splashed some of it on my chest, then rubbed myself dry with the towel I now kept in my backpack. I gave my belly a pat. Last night I’d downed the whole gallon of water before my fortune reversed, and on Tuesday I’d put away eighteen-and-one-bite HDBs before reversal. Maybe my capacity was expanding because my belt was starting to loosen up with the rest of my muscles. My training might actually be working. I just had to stick to Lucy’s graphs and Gardo’s workout routine and menus.

I still missed real food, though. Gardo stopped bringing pickles as dessert, and he cut back our water allotment by half this morning. He wasn’t even showing up for our break feasts at the mall anymore. Lucy wasn’t, either, big surprise. With nobody to hang with at break time, I just found a seat in the food court and people-watched while I gnawed the celery that Gardo cut up and bagged for me. Last night I asked him if I could at least put peanut butter on the celery, and he totally wigged out on me. Apparently peanut butter wasn’t part of the Gardo Weight-Cutting System.

I reached into my bag for a fresh Scoops T-shirt. That was when I remembered that even though I’d meant to grab a shirt out of the dryer on my way out this morning, in my rush to meet Gardo I’d blown right by the laundry room. Shoot. I’d have to put my soggy shirt back on again. Disgusting.

I jammed the stupid towel back into my backpack. In the process, my hand pressed against something soft at the bottom. I pulled out a wadded piece of black fabric. My Galactic Warriors T-shirt. The shrunken one.

I stared at it a moment. Then I looked at the sweat-drenched T-shirt lying on the cement. I looked back at the black shirt in my hand. It was dry.
Aw, what the heck?
I pulled it over my head and tugged it down. It was snug around the belly, but it fit.

It fit!

“Woo-hoo!” I danced a wild jig, my hands waving every which way. “Thuff Enuff, you kick butt! Woo-hoo!” Man, I was lucky no one knew about this corner.

I grabbed my soggy stuff, jammed it all into my backpack, then raced up the stairs toward the bike racks. The Gardo System was working, my shrunken shirt fit! I punched the air like Rocky Balboa himself.
Jab! Jab! Jab!
Good-bye, jiggly ol’ Shermie belt; hello, Mustard Yellow International Hot Dog-Eating belt!
Jab! Jab! Jab!

I was a total loser. In the course of two brief hours I’d burned five waffle cones, cracked six triple dips, spilled a thousand-count bag of taster spoons, drizzled chocolate sauce on my shoes, squirted an old woman with whipped cream, and knocked Grampy’s prized Halsey Taylor double bubbler drinking fountain with nonremovable anti-squirt technology right off the wall. All I’d been doing was leaning in for a quick sip of
agua. It was just a sip, Gardo, don’t get a nosebleed.

Maybe I should’ve seen the bad karma lying in wait for me tonight. When I’d raced through the Scoops entrance, my shin was covered with chain grease and I had a headache to beat the band. Definitely not a great way to start a shift. And then, being twenty minutes late, I immediately caught a cherry in the left ear from Arthur and a verbal kick in the pants from Grampy. And that was the good part of the evening. When I snapped at a woman for making me rescoop the ice cream for her spoiled-brat kids because my scoops “weren’t round enough, young man,” Grampy finally just kicked me out of Scoops altogether. “Take a break, boy.”

“But it’s not my break time.”

“You’re a human wrecking ball. Out!”

So there I was, sitting on the planter ledge near the down escalator just behind a potted plant, the side of my face against the cool glass wall, watching Lucy from above like some pathetic stalker. She was just below me, working the Chocolat du Monde cart at the bottom of the escalator with her Great Aunt Enith. It was kind of funny to watch them. They had the same quick, no-nonsense movements, and they moved like synchronized swimmers—when one ducked, the other bobbed; when one spun, the other tucked. You could set them to music. And they certainly had a lot of opportunity to twist and turn. The cart was pretty busy, and rightly so. Chocolat du Monde had the most awesome truffles ever, and their Black ’n’ White Chocolate Glory candied apples were the world’s tastiest fruits on a stick.

Lucy balled up a ripped bag, then rolled around her aunt, arching the paper ball into a nearby trash can.
Hole in one!
No, wait, in basketball it was a slam dunk. Whatever.

Lucy blew on her fingertip like it was a smoking gun, making me smile. I hadn’t talked to her for a whole week. With all my morning and afternoon workouts, I wasn’t riding the bus, so there wasn’t much chance to talk even if we’d wanted to. And I didn’t. Thuff Enuff’s life was just dandy without her. I was in control of my own destiny and I liked it.

We didn’t do lunch together anymore, either. She never came near the cafeteria. I had no clue where she ate. Not that I spent a lot of time in the cafeteria, either. Gardo and I spent most of our lunchtimes that week on the track. Eating lettuce didn’t take long, so we had time to kill. Hanging out at my table wasn’t so much fun without Lucy, and, anyway, if I stuck around it too long, inevitably the conversation came around to me kicking Shane’s wheelchaired butt and body-slamming the Finn in the doorway of the guys’ john. Gardo had spun that story so big that I could barely stand being in the same room when he started in on it. He should consider being a publicity guy, not a sports announcer. Maybe fame had its price, but it was no fun sitting there while he lied through his teeth about me. I was starting to think that “image” was just a nice way of saying “pack of lies.”

It didn’t help that sitting at the lunch table also meant I had to watch everyone else eat their hamburgers, corn dogs, or whatever amazing food they had piled in front of them. I could scream, I wanted to attack their food so badly. I was almost glad when the bell rang and I had to go to class, because in class, there was no temptation.

Down below, there was a break in the action at the truffle cart. Great Aunt Enith took off her apron and walked away, probably taking a break. Lucy could fly solo just fine. She was a pro under pressure. Maybe I would go down there and talk to her. Just to let her know I was still water and HDB training, and all. She probably wondered about it.

Even as I thought that, though, I knew I didn’t have the energy to lift my face off the glass, let alone go down there. My head hurt too much to try to figure out what to say to her. So I just sat there, motionless, watching as she carefully nudged the truffles in the display window, making sure the stacks were just so. Every few nudges, she licked her fingers. I smiled again. Lucy hated it if food handlers didn’t wear plastic gloves when touching her food. She said it was disgusting and if she wanted anyone else’s cooties, she’d just ask them to lick her face. She could be very graphic when she wanted to be. That was half the fun of being with her; I never knew what she’d come up with next. Gardo rarely surprised me. He was like the twin brother I never had. We pretty much shared a brain, the poor guy.

Suddenly Lucy looked up my way. I tried to duck, but with this stiff body, ducking was impossible. So of course she saw me.
Shoot.
Now she’d think I was spying on her.

I stood slowly and waved.
That’s right, Lucy, I meant for you to see me.
She lifted her hand to her waist in a half wave.
Great. Now I’m locked in. C’mon Thuff, you can do this. Captain Quixote had fourteen First Contacts, seven of them with hostile aliens. You can do one.

Somehow, I mustered the energy to haul myself up and step around to the top of the escalator. I hated getting on those things even when I didn’t have a raging headache. The stupid steps popped out of the floor and then sank so fast that I was always afraid of tumbling down. Trying to focus through my dizziness, I spent a minute timing it so that my foot would go down as a step poked out. But I was just too fuzzy to get it right. Finally I just grabbed the moving railing and jumped forward. My feet landed squarely on a step right before it sank.
Take that, headache.

I leaned against the railing on the way down, rolling my head forward, back, forward, back. I loved the neck roll part of my stretching routine. It was so relaxing. And by relaxing my neck, shoulders, and upper back this way, I got some relief in my aching head.

Too soon, the escalator dumped me at the bottom. The Chocolat du Monde cart was just steps away. And so was Lucy.

“So you
are
alive,” she said, studying me. “Barely.”

I didn’t want to think about my head, so I gestured at her yellow polo shirt. “You went yellow.”

“Yeah. Anything to crack The Man’s nuts. Like it?”

I shrugged. “Now you look like a banana instead of a Hershey’s bar.”
Idiot!
“That’s a good thing, really, I like bananas, they’re my favorite fruit, and yellow’s my favorite color.
Love
it.”

She stood there rapidly blinking her eyes like she didn’t know what to make of the alien babbling gibberish at her.

“Yeah, it looks great,” I continued. “Brings out the yellow streaks in your hair.”
Oh yeah, that made things a lot better, you dork.

But apparently it did make things better, because she smiled wider than I’d seen in weeks. Boy, I missed that smile. I could practically feel my bad attitude slipping away, soothing my sore muscles on the way down.

“They’re called highlights, you goof,” she said. “You’d make a terrible girl.”

“Says you. You haven’t seen these legs in a dress.” I did a prancy two-step, then flashed her the Shermie Smile, all cheeks, completely irresistible. It didn’t feel as fake as it normally did. “How come you’re not wearing your uniform?”

“I don’t have to anymore. Aunt Enith agreed that as long as I wear the apron, I can wear whatever I want underneath it.” She wrinkled her nose. “I hate that apron.”

“Just be glad it’s not puke pink like my Scoops smock.”

“I wish it was pink. Brown is the color of crap.”

“Lucy!” I laughed.
That’s my girl.

Even she couldn’t resist a light giggle at herself. It was nice to hear that sound again. She needed to laugh more often. Heck, what she needed was more Shermie time. I could make her smile, no problem.