Big Mouth (30 page)

“And you like being a Shane disciple?” she asked.

“No.” He pouted but took the shirt and went RE
D, too.

She held one out to Gardo. He waved it off. “Red is nothing but trouble.”

“Trouble in the eyes of The Man is power in the hands of the People.”

“Yeah, well, when power comes in another color, we’ll talk. Right now I’m in mourning.” He pretended to brush some lint off his black shirt.

Lucy pushed her way back to the crate. With the crowd growing next to us, Gardo and I sat side by side. He hadn’t opened his container of lettuce yet.

“In mourning, huh?” I asked guardedly. “No more wrestling?”

“I dunno.” He shrugged and sighed heavily. “It’s more running than wrestling. Maybe I’ll join the marching band. I hear they need tuba players.”

I cringed. “Max talked to you, didn’t she?”

“Of course she did. What’d you think would happen? She’d invite me to a buffet?” He lifted the lid and stared at his container of lettuce and lemon wedges. Suddenly he reached across the table and grabbed a handful of Leonard’s Tots.

“Hey!” Leonard protested.

“Hey yourself. Share with the conquering hero.” He shoved them all into his mouth at once and chewed like a starving cow. He caught me watching and swallowed. “Jeez, Shermie, the woman made me look at pictures of a guy wearing a tuba. I almost let Shane kill you.”

I’d almost wanted him to.

“You could’ve warned me,” he said.

“I tried to.”

“Tried to? You gave me a cookie!” He stabbed his Tot in ketchup.

Okay, so that was a retarded thing to do.
“What do you want me to say?” I watched him jam his Tot into a mushy red mess. “Fine. I’m a rat. You never have to speak to me again. Is that what you want?”

He took Leonard’s napkin and covered the red and brown carnage in front of him. “Would you do it again?”

There it is, the million-dollar question.
I nodded.

“Then you’re not sorry.” The napkin soaked up the water from the ketchup beneath. He poked at it a couple of times. “But you’re not a rat, either. You opened your big mouth for the same reason you stood up for Leonard. You’d take a punch in the teeth for Ruffers Thuff if you had to.”

I didn’t say anything. He was right, and we both knew it.

“Not that it matters, anyway.” He scooped up the napkin and the mess and tossed it past Tater into the trash. “I just pledged my loyalty to you in public, so I can’t very well kill you now. I’m committed.” His smile seemed forced, but at least it was there. He took another Tot from Leonard and offered it to me.

I stared at it.

“Oh, for crying out loud, Shermie, take it. We’ll be fine. Jeez.”

There was a reason we’d been friends forever. I took the Tot and bit into it. And, man, was it good.
I gotta figure out what to eat already.

A RE
D shirt dangled in front of my face.

“What do you say, Shermie?” Lucy was behind me. “Time to retire the Scoops white?”

I looked at the shirt. If I said no, would she wrap it around my neck? “I don’t know…. I’ve been loyal to Grampy this long.”

“Loyalty isn’t your problem.” She tossed the shirt on the table in front of me. “But you could dial down your Leo once in a while. It’s a bitch sometimes.”

I swiveled to face her and she leaned against the crate, which was being pillaged by half-dressed Plums. She looked good in RE
D. Better than yellow or brown. Her cheeks seemed rosier or something.

“Hard to believe Shane was behind the Mustard Movement,” she said. “He’s an idiot.”

Next to me, Gardo snorted. “We thought Tater was an idiot, too, till we got to know him.” He batted away a Tot that Tater’d aimed at his head. “No offense, buddy, but you do stick food up your nose.”

“No offense taken,” Tater replied. “I’ve been thinking about ditching the Snot Tot trick anyway. It might be time for a new image, you think?”

Gardo perked up. “Really? If you’re serious, I can make you a legend.”

I groaned.
Careful what you wish for, Tater.

“And that’s my signal to run.” Lucy stood tall again. “I gotta go, anyway. Ms. Maxwell’s waiting for me. We have to finish setting up that lab. It’s taking forever.” She pointed to her Band-Aid. “And it
hurts.
” But instead of leaving, she watched the Plums who were bringing in more red shirts from Culwicki’s booth and passing them out. Black markers were uncapping left and right. “It’s kind of sad, isn’t it?”

“What?” I said. “That Plums are back to wearing red?”

“No. Not that, really. More like sad that we’re done being yellow, you know? It was kind of fun—in the beginning, I mean. I liked not being a tomato, at least for a few minutes each day.”

“We’ll find something else stupid to get crazy over.” I picked up the T-shirt she’d dropped in front of me and held it against my chest. It was too small even if I had wanted to wear it. I balled it up like a ripe, round Plum and threw it at her. “This is Del Heiny Junior thirteen. Stupid is a way of life.”

CHAPTER 25

“Says here Libras are ruled by Venus, the planet of
luuuv.
We’re
a delight to be around.
No wonder I’m so irresistible.” Gardo glanced at me over the small booklet in his hands. “Hey, what are you doing, picking corn? You gotta bend
all the way
down for cherry pickers.”

I shot him an upside-down shut-up look, then stood and leaned to my left in a long, satisfying side stretch. I didn’t care how much
luuuv
Mr. Delightful had going, he was in no position to criticize my stretching techniques. The only leaning he was doing was against the cement step behind him.

Gardo was lounging like a lump on the bottom row of the stadium bleachers. His legs were stretched out in front of him, and he was reading me random facts from a ten-cent astrology booklet as he waited for me to finish my post-walk stretch. The lazy bum hadn’t walked the track with me in three weeks, not since he quit the wrestling team. He said he was saving himself for badminton next year.
Jeez, I can’t believe we talk about badminton.
Life sure got boring when they kicked out Shane and the Finns. Being a Plum all day every day was as dull as it was pathetic. Something had to happen around here already or we’d all whither way.

“Oh, I like this one: ‘Libras appreciate the finer things in life.’ I thrive in aesthetically pleasing surroundings.” Scowling, he shifted and sat up straighter. “There ain’t nothin’ pleasing about this bench.”

I made a few “isn’t that tragic” noises. A good friend would’ve probably finished stretching so Gardo’s delightful tushy didn’t go numb, but the suffering boy was stuck with me. Leaning right, I stretched long and slow. “Where’d you get that thing, anyway?”

“7-Eleven. They sell them next to the register. Hey, did you know John Lennon was a Libra? Bruce Springsteen, too.” He turned the page. “Maybe I should start a band.”

“Please, Ruffers Thuff sings better than you.”

“That didn’t stop Springsteen. The guy’s throat is a gravel pit, but he’s still filthy rich.”

“I’m sure they call him the Boss for a reason.” I straddled my legs wide, then bent down for another set of cherry pickers—
all the way
down.

I did need to finish up. We were meeting Lucy in the parking lot for an early movie. She’d be finished helping break down the month-long pig carcass lab by now. Building that fake crime scene and double-wire cage had taken her and Max a lot of lunch and after-school time, but the breakdown was supposed to go really fast. All their sneaking around and trying not to be noisy or attract attention while they waited for approval really slowed the setup. Frankly, I was more than happy to see that nasty hog go. I usually liked Max’s labs, but a rotting pig smelled a million times worse than any butyric acid lab. And I’d seen enough maggots and ham flies to last me a lifetime.

Max’s new unit was on nutrition, which was way easier to stomach. She was giving extra credit to anyone who did a report on the documentary
Supersize Me,
so we were headed to the Kensington Art Cinema, where it was replaying back in the theater. We’d write our reports over winter break, which was just a day away. Plus, Max said people should try to do social things that didn’t revolve around food. Going to the movies would cover that—once we passed the refreshment counter without caving, we’d be home free.

I finished my stretch and stood up. Gardo was digging through his plastic grocery bag. When he pulled out a snack bag of Lays potato chips, I saw a takeout box of China Town Express still in the Seven-Eleven bag.

“
Ew.
What are you thinking, buying Chinese food from 7-Eleven?” I didn’t know China Town had express stations in convenience stores.

“Shut up. It’s good.”

“It’s disgusting. Seven-Elevens are for packaged snacks, not meals. It’ll probably give you scabies or something.”

“You don’t even know what scabies are.”

“I know I don’t want them. It doesn’t matter anyway, because they won’t let you take that into the movies. No one’s dumb enough to believe a metal-handled paper box with teriyaki dripping from the bottom is your purse.”

“No one will even see it; I’ll tuck it down my pants. What are they going to say, ‘Hold it there, young man, I believe that bulge in your pants is kung pao chicken’?”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “You’re an idiot.”

“It’s a gift.”

I reached into my backpack for my water bottle and the graham crackers I’d packed that morning. “You still can’t take it. Today isn’t about eating. Max said we should do nonfood things. Lucy made a graph about it. If she sees those chips, you’re dead meat.”

“It’ll be dark. She won’t even know.”

“Not that dark. Hurry up, we gotta go.”

He sighed, then suddenly ripped open the Lay’s bag and started jamming chips into his mouth. “I’m eating my chips, at least,” he declared, spraying bits of potato. He held the bag out to me. “Wah suh?”

I waved it off. “It’s not Saturday.” I was fine with my graham crackers. They’d been in the Sherman T. Thuff Book of Good and Tasty Things forever, so it was no sacrifice. I could wait until Saturday for chips. On second thought, I’d have a scoop of Spazzy Monkey on Saturday instead. Now
that
was worth waiting three more days for.

I had to admit that I was kind of liking man-hater magazine’s Whatever-On-Saturday rule. Max said it was smart, even. That was how she ate, so it couldn’t be stupid. And it is true that knowing I’d get a treat on the weekend did make it easier to pass up chips and stuff during the week. I just couldn’t eat
a lot
of my weekend treat. But hey, some was better than none. All I had to do was make sure that during the week I stuck to the foods in the book Max gave me. I didn’t have to starve or gag myself on coconut.

When Max first handed me a book about “healthy foods,” I considered lighting it up with a Bunsen burner. But then I discovered that the foods in it weren’t all raw carrots and cauliflower stalks and grass seed from the front lawn. Besides graham crackers, it said I could have baked chips, and apples with peanut butter, and cherries, and even this really good stuff called Uncle Pete’s Spiced Pork with Ten-Alarm Salsa. Lucy helped me cook it, and
ten-alarm
was no exaggeration. Best of all, the book didn’t have the word
coconut
in it anywhere.

It also said I was supposed to drink lots of water. Heaven!

I alternated chomping grahams and chugging water.

“Oh, hey, I got your map.” Gardo pulled a shiny black poster folded like a square napkin out of his bag. White lines and colored dots covered the black background.

“She remembered!” I snatched the square from his hands.

It was a star map. Gardo’s sister was taking astronomy at the community college and agreed to pick up a star map at the campus bookstore in exchange for one car washing. Gardo said I had to do the washing, but I argued that she meant for him to do it. Either way, I got my map. Only, when I unfolded it to full size, I discovered several smeared fingerprints floating in space around Orion’s Belt.

“Aw, man. Look what your greasy chip fingers did. Max will think I did my term paper in a chip factory.” I tried to rub the smudges off with the edge of my T-shirt, but it didn’t help. Maybe I could get a white gel pen and label them as nebulas.

“What do you want me to do? They’re potato chips; you have to eat them with your fingers. Unless you’ve figured out a way to eat chips with a fork.”

“Very funny.” My eyes settled on the kung pao. A long, skinny paper sheath was taped to the top of the box, with two cream-colored sticks poking out one end. I pointed at them. “Use those.”

“My chopsticks?”

“Sure. Here, I’ll show you.” I picked them up and arranged them in my right hand, taking his bag of Lay’s in my left. “You stick them into the bag like so…and then you get a soft grip…a very soft grip…” I fished around a bit, using my triple-dipping wristwork to grip a chip without crushing it. “And then you carefully pull it out…slowly…slowly…Voilà!”

I yanked out my chopsticks with a flourish and held them up, a pristine potato chip nestled gently between them. I was a natural! “See? It’s like using long tweezers. And look, my hands are completely greaseless.”

“You’re a man of talent.”

“Ain’t that the truth.” I started to flip the chip to a pigeon, but then I stopped myself and examined the sticks and chip more closely. “You know, this isn’t such a stupid idea. Someone should seriously invent this, long tweezers for gripping chips. Plastic ones. With little grippers at the bottom. I would buy one.” I smiled, quite pleased with my clever brain. Maybe I could be an inventor. I was in tune with the needs of the people. “They have the Chip Clip for clipping bags closed. This could be the Chip Grip.”

Gardo slapped his palm on the metal bench. “Sherman T. Thuff, you are freakin’ brilliant! That’s our ticket!”

“What, the Chip Grip?”

“The
Amazing
Chip Grip. You’re a genius, I tell ya. We’re gonna invent this ourselves and make a fortune. Think about it. Everyone who eats chips gets stuck with greasy fingers. And since
everyone
eats chips,
everyone
will buy an Amazing Chip Grip.” He snapped his fingers. “Poof! Good-bye, greasy fingers; hello, fortune. Man, this’ll be bigger than the straw!”

Wow, that was big.

“I
am
a freakin’ genius!” I slapped the bench, too, as the cheers in my head turned to chants—
Thuff, Thuff, Thuff, Thuff, Thuff
!—and countless rows of imaginary people waved plastic chopsticks like candles at a rock concert, potato chips wedged gently in the middle. “I can already see it, me, Sherman ‘Thuff Enuff’ Thuff, the world’s youngest and richest inventor. Hey, I could even host my own infomercials.”

“Oh, we’re not stopping at crummy infomercials,” Gardo said. “We’ll do talk shows and the Home Shopping Network and radio jingles, too. Before you know it, that gadget shop at the mall, Sharper Image, it’ll be begging for the Amazing Chip Grip. Begging! And the money, it’ll pour in by the boatload. Shermie, my good man, I am going to make you a very wealthy man.”

“Wealthy is good. I like wealthy.”

“Wealthy is great.” He poured the last of the Lay’s into his mouth as I refolded the spotted map, careful not to smudge it more.

Talking through the half-chewed glob, Gardo said, “This invention is way more marketable than that other thing you tried. What was that again,
competitive eating
?” He socked me playfully in the thigh.

I covered my face with the folded map in mock shame. Well, mostly mock. “
What
was I thinking?” I peeked out and grinned, then grabbed my backpack and moved toward the steps. I didn’t want to keep Lucy waiting. “The Chip Grip, though, now,
that’s
a good idea.”

“That it is, my friend.” He stepped in behind me and we jogged up the stadium steps.

“I’ll tell ya, Shermie,” he called out halfway up, not the least out of breath. Neither was I, for that matter. Not yet, anyway. “You and me, we’re gonna go places with this one. It can’t miss. Trust me, I know these things.”