Big Mouth (23 page)

A raindrop landed on my cheek, then another. The clouds had swooped in and now blocked the moon completely. Lucy would be pretty dang wet by the time she reached the mall.

I went back inside and leaned against my closed door.
What just happened? How did a harmless night of training between friends turn into a flash fire?
A bolt lit the sky out the back window, then thunder clapped loudly, trailing off in a wall-shaking rumble. Raindrops pelted the roof. My stomach gurgled and launched an acidy burp, reminding me that I’d just reversed eighteen HDBs. With a sigh, I pushed heavily against the door, working myself up to a full standing position, and plodded to the kitchen.

Another flash lit up the windows. Ducking my head under the faucet, I rinsed my mouth to the rumble of thunder.

Who is Lucy to tell me how to lose my belt, anyway? She isn’t an athlete. It was stupid to invite her over. I could’ve had a lovely evening by myself, just me and my telescope and my hot dogs. I could’ve done some research, even. I have that special summer swimsuit edition to work through, after all.

I cleaned up the kitchen and went to turn off the light in Grampy’s bathroom. The room reeked of butyric acid. I almost threw up all over again. Reaching for the light switch, I caught sight of myself in the mirror. Lucy was right. I did look like hell. My cheeks were speckled with red spots, my eyes were bloodshot, and my skin was almost as pale as Tater’s.
Great.
What was I supposed to do about that? It wasn’t like I was a girl and could put on makeup. If people saw me looking like this, there’d be a whole different Thuff legend.

Wait, maybe there is something I can do about it….
I rushed upstairs to my room. Pulling my magazine out from under the mattress, I thumbed through the pages. That summer bikini tips thing had some mixture you put on your face in the privacy of your own home. It couldn’t hurt to look at. No one had to know.

Page fifty-one…ad for pimple cream…page fifty-five…contest for year’s supply of teeth whitener…ad for tampons…ad for tampons…ad for more tampons…ad for those ugly pointy sandals again…page fifty-seven…ad for home manicure kit—Good grief, who would use those harpoons on a toe?—more tampons…page fifty-nine…There. The summer bikini tips.

I climbed in bed and pressed the magazine open on my knees. Leaning back into the pillow, I paused to let the roll of the water bed soothe my exhausted body. I could’ve slept for a year straight.
Tell me I have a problem…I don’t have a problem, I’m an athlete. Good thing Gardo’s on my team, he understands that things happen. Get over it or get out, he said. Well here I am, getting over it. I’m a Thuff, and when the going gets tough, the Thuffs get Thuffer.

The thunder rolled low and hard across the house.

I sat up and focused on the magazine. Now where was that?
“For beautiful beach feet…” “To give your hair ‘natural’ summer highlights…” “Eat a balanced diet, don’t starve yourself…” “To look your best on the beach, replace high-cal, high-fat breakfasts…” “Staying trim for the summer is not about deprivation…” “To make your skin luminescent in the summer sun…” There.
I’d found it.

I settled in to study the benefits of slathering honey, egg yolk, almond oil, and yogurt on my face. I’d get myself looking normal again. That would show Lucy. I was more than
a Leo.
I was Sherman “Thuff Enuff” Thuff, aka Rocky Balboa of the Buffet Table, aka Captain Quixote, Savior of the Universe.

My stomach gurgled and a tiny burp popped free.

Now, if the Savior of the Universe could just figure out where his mom would store almond oil…

CHAPTER 18

“Let’s go, girlie, lift those knees. Move, move, move!”

Gardo’s wrestling win last night had really energized him. That, or Coach Hunt had given one heck of a motivational speech at the pizza party, because this morning my personal coach and supposed friend was a hyped-up slave driver. He kept jogging ahead, then dropping back to yell at me; jogging ahead, then dropping back to yell. Once he even dove to the leaf-strewn sidewalk and did push-ups on his knuckles until I caught up with him. It took every ounce of self-control I had not to stuff him down the open manhole we’d just passed.

“I swear, woman, you’ve got lead in your pants. Are
YOU
Thuff Enuff? I—don’t—THINK—so! Let’s GO!”

Despite my pleading back at my house, Gardo was making me jog to the library this morning. Which meant we had to run up the Thirteenth Street hill. I hated, hated,
hated
jogging, and I’d told him so, but in the end, he was the coach, so I had to do what he said. “Always respect the coach, Shermie, always respect the coach.” Easy for him to say—he was the coach, and he got the respect. I just got heatstroke and a heart attack.

Starting the run was a mixture of easy and hard. I’d stretched out carefully, which always felt good and made the first few steps of exercise easier. And I’d logged some great zzz’s last night, despite all the drama. I’d ordered a pizza while I researched my magazine and then took my own sweet time eating it. The reversal had cleared out my stomach, after all, and it was still a post-meet night, so I wasn’t in violation of Gardo’s rules. Feasting was part of it. Happy tummy meant happy dreams.

Morning—and my return to reality—was less dreamy. At five-thirty on the dot, Gardo had shouted through my open window that it was time to get my Sleeping Beauty butt up and running. Then he’d ever-so-kindly given me a spoonful of peanut butter and a Gardo Glass of water before we started. The saint. Then he informed me that that would be it for the rest of the day—no more food, no more water. I almost shoved him off the porch and went back to bed. My coach had lost his mind. How could I live on a lick of peanut butter and a drop of liquid? Hadn’t Max said something about people needing two and a half quarts of water a day? No way was a Gardo Glass even two and a half
ounces.
I couldn’t wait for the training part of my eating career to be over and the fame part to kick in already.

Instead I had dutifully sat there in my ninety layers of clothing, sucking my peanut butter spoon and waiting for him to finish the pull-ups he was doing on our rain gutter. I couldn’t even see his face, his ski hat was so low over his forehead and his hood cinched so tight around his face. After fifty pull-ups, he’d dropped down and hustled over to me with a box of plastic trash bags, reminding me that I had to wear them all day every day under my clothes. How stupid was that? People would hear it crinkle when I moved. Crazy homeless guys wore plastic bags, not future champions.

Now every step I jogged, I heard the crinkle and felt the gross slip-slide of plastic over wet skin. If anyone but Gardo ever learned about this, I’d die.

I wasn’t the only thing that was wet; the ground was soggy and slick, too. Last night’s storm had been crazy—angry thunder and lightning and lots of water, just like Max had said there’d be thanks to the solar flares throwing off the cosmic balance. I bet Lucy got drenched. But hey, that was her choice. Now and then water dripped from the trees, plopping into my eyes. I was tempted to open my mouth and catch a drop or two on my tongue, but I was afraid of what Gardo would do if he caught me.

“I swear, Shermie, I’m gonna buy you a tutu. This isn’t a dance class. Run!”

Stupid Coach Hunt and his motivational crapola.

My legs were lead weights, my lungs were on fire, and my dry tongue was the size of my shoe and just as tasty. My head felt every bit the sixteen pounds that Max had lectured, bobbing on top of my suffering body like a brick on a whipped cream sundae. Max had said our bodies were sixty percent water, but since I’d had just a few Gardo Glasses in the last few days, my body was probably sixty percent nothing. Just what did that make my brain, which was supposed to be seventy percent water? No wonder I was jogging at six in the morning with a crazed lunatic: I had nothing in my head but empty space.

“Pump those arms, lady! Get that blood moving, get those feet flapping! Rocky Balboa wouldn’t walk. Run, run, run!”

An ocean of sweat sloshed between my skin and the plastic bag. How could I sweat so much when I was barely drinking anything? Even without the sun at full force yet, my twenty layers of clothing felt like an oven.

A kid on a tricycle pedaled by with his dad jogging behind. He rang his bell happily.
Briiiiiiing, briiiiiiing.

Jeez, I’ve just been lapped by a trike. I’m such a loser.

“Okay, Shermie, stop at the bottom of the hill here. Sit in the grass.”

Say no more!
I collapsed into the dewy grass, facedown. So what if it was wet; I was already drenched with sweat.

“Very funny, Shermie. Roll over and get into sit-up position. I’ll do one hundred, but you can stop when I get to fifty. We’ll start you out light.”

Fifty is not light. Fifty is impossible.
“Gardo, I can’t do sit-ups.”

“Yes, you can. You just have to believe you can. Coach Hunt says this is the hardest point—the day after the first win, the dawn of a new weight-cutting cycle. But we’re not going to slack off, are we? We’re Thuff Enuff!” He dropped down next to me and got in a sit-up position, lacing his fingers behind his head and closing his eyes in deep concentration. “ONE, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. TWO, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. THREE, two, three…”

I laced my fingers behind my head and lay back in the dewy grass, staring into the cloudy sky. The sun peeked through for a moment, but the clouds swallowed it up again just as fast.

Man, Lucy would’ve laughed her head off if she’d seen me there. Big bad Thuff Enuff, lying on the side of the road like an old couch tossed from a truck. Well, I’d just have to show her how it’s done, that’s all.

“…EIGHT, two, three, four, five, six…”

But first I had to survive Gardo’s morning torture session.

“…seven, eight…nine…and…TEN!” Gardo dropped flat on his back, panting. Seeing that, I heaved a sigh of relief. No way would he get up and run up the hill now.

I pushed myself to a sitting position.

Gardo opened his eyes and smiled. “Now
that
was a workout.”

I nodded and pushed my hood off my head. My ski cap was soggy.

“No, leave it on,” Gardo ordered.

“But I still have my ski cap on.”

“You need both. We’re not done yet. We still have to go to the top of the hill.” He rolled to his side, then popped up. “Let’s go!”

He’s lost his freakin’ mind! I am not running up that hill. I’ll die if I try. That’s it, this run is over, here and now.
Heaving myself to an almost standing position, I made as if to put my weight on my right leg, then doubled over, clutching my calf.

“
Ow!
Leg cramp!” I collapsed onto the grass. “Not again!”

Gardo dropped down next to me. “What happened?”

“Stupid calf!” I rubbed my right calf furiously. “Shoot, now I won’t be able to finish the jog.
Ow!
”

He sat back on his heels and tilted his head to the side. “Wasn’t it was your left leg that gave you trouble?”

“No, no.
Owwwww!
It’s my right.
Owwww!
It’s always been my right.” I rubbed harder, wincing for emphasis. Gardo was checking me out hard now, but I was up to the scrutiny. I was Thuff Enuff, future champion, I didn’t cave under the gaze of a skeptical public. “I’ll just rub it out and limp home. Go on, finish your run. No sense both of us missing out.”

He frowned and looked up the hill, then back down at me. I couldn’t tell if he was torn because he wanted to leave me here to finish his run or because he wanted to ditch the stupid hill himself.

“You can make it home?” he asked.

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll be fine. Walking it out will be good.”

He still knelt there, undecided, a ring of sweat soaking the neck of his hoodie.

“Go,” I urged. “I’ll be fine.”

“Okay.” He stood and kicked a snail across the sidewalk. “I’ll go. But Shermie”—he locked his eyes on mine—“next time, I’m not closing my eyes when we do sit-ups.” Then he turned and ran up the hill.

I swear, there were times I thought Gardo and I shared the same brain. And this time, he was letting me have my way. I wouldn’t have to run anymore—ever—I just knew it. I’d won this round.

Sit-ups, though, that was another story.

Gardo’s note was depressing. I found it taped to our locker door when I stopped there between third and fourth period. It turned out that even though we’d spent the whole week in high training mode, he wouldn’t make weight for his second meet unless he cut three more pounds by three o’clock. So he was going to spend fourth period and lunch in the sauna at his mom’s gym.

Which left me without my lettuce and lemon feast, since he was the one who brought it for me every day. And the last thing I’d do was sit at that crowded table watching everyone else eat. That was torture, not training.

Training. Please.
Training wasn’t anything like I’d thought it would be. I’d reversed at the end of every single session. Some future champion I was.

I walked past the rowdy cafeteria and headed for the main doors. As always, Shane’s yelling carried over the din, but it wasn’t his taunting stuff, he was just doing shout-outs to his friends from his wheelchair. I swear, the guy was just a waste of a red wrestling shirt now. He spent lunchtimes at his table pounding down huge plates of fries, not a care in the world since he didn’t have to make weight anymore. If you asked me, without his daily dose of terror to keep everyone on their toes, he’d lost his power position. Even the Finns had stopped hanging around him so much. One of them stopped by now and then, kind of like a dog sniffing his master’s body to see if he was actually dead, but otherwise they weren’t much interested. And without Finns, Shane was declawed. He was just a big, annoying goof rolling around wrestling meets with a bullhorn. Some team captain. Gardo said he’d probably be replaced.

I was on my way to the stadium to walk around the track a little. It would be empty and peaceful. And I wouldn’t have to worry about anyone seeing me walk. Just like I’d predicted, Gardo had agreed to let me do that instead of jog. He hadn’t even put up a fight. “I guess it would be good for your calf,” he’d said, “
both
of them. Just make sure you walk
fast.
”

When I was almost at the stadium, I heard the fast
thup-thup-thup-thup-thup
of helicopter blades. I squinted against the sun. A helicopter was coming in low, circling around for a pass not far above my head. I looked around me, trying to see what would interest the pilot, but nothing caught my eye. I did see some movement on the roof, something yellow maybe, but I couldn’t quite tell from this angle. Then my gaze dropped and I discovered that I was standing on yellow paint. Someone had graffitied a message on the sidewalk.

I moved off the paint, trying to read the words, which were very large and very messy. I bet they could read it just fine from that helicopter, though, which I now saw was a KPUT news chopper.

It took me a few moments, but I finally worked out what the yellow graffiti said:
KETCHUP IS FOR WIENERS!

Yikes.
I scurried away. I didn’t want to be seen anywhere near this. It was in
paint
. That was a whole level above squeezed mustard and even chalk.
Dang.
The Del Heiny company wouldn’t be happy to see this on the news. Which meant the school board wouldn’t be happy, which meant Principal Culwicki wouldn’t be…well, suffice it to say, someone was in Big Trouble now.

All is not peachy in the tomato empire….

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. This is Dan Druthers reporting from the KPUT News Center.

Del Heiny Ketchup Company is losing control of its high school empire. That’s what people are saying tonight as janitors sandblast a large anti-ketchup message sprayed in yellow paint on the Del Heiny Junior High School #13 campus.

According to an anonymous Del Heiny Junior 13 employee, this is not the first anti-ketchup statement on campus. Frequent mustard-yellow taggings have desecrated company logos in the cafeteria, the gym, and the halls of Del Heiny Junior 13. Some believe the Mustard Tagger, as he’s been dubbed, is a disgruntled Del Heiny employee. Others theorize it’s an inside job, committed by someone who has access to the Del Heiny Junior 13 campus after hours. Still others argue that this is a conspiracy masterminded by the National Mustard Vendors Association, intended to discredit the Del Heiny Ketchup Company and prompt school districts to rebid their sponsorship contracts.

Cyrus C. Culwicki, principal of Del Heiny Junior 13, calls such speculation “a bunch of poppycock. We have no reason to suspect that this is anything more than a student acting out his or her teen angst. We will put a stop to it, and soon, or my name isn’t Cyrus Culpepper Culwicki.”