Big Mouth (9 page)

“You know where it’s held,” I answered. To the guys I said, “At Nathan’s Famous.”

“Precisely,” she said.

I shook my head in confusion. “You lost me.”

Gardo was just as confused. “What’s Nathan’s?”

“Nathan’s
Famous.
It’s only the most famous hot dog place in the world, Mr. Image,” Lucy said. “Or should I say
Miss
Image?”

Gardo winked his false lashes and tipped his wig like a true gent.

“Nathan’s Famous is a Coney Island landmark,” Lucy said. “Every Fourth of July they hold a huge hot dog–eating contest. It’s the Super Bowl for competitive eaters. Shermie, what’s your cupboard stocked with at home?”

I had the feeling I was being set up, so I didn’t answer.

Gardo did. “He’s got mustard in his cupboard. I’ve seen it. Bottles and bottles of it.”

“What kind of mustard?” Lucy asked.

Leonard gave it a try: “French’s Classic Yellow?”

Lucy shook her head, then stared at me calmly, waiting for my answer.

I didn’t want to answer, but the silence was excruciating. “Nathan’s Famous mustard,” I finally said.

Nathan’s Famous mustard was the highest-rated condiment in the Sherman T. Thuff Book of Good and Tasty Things. I slathered it on everything, not just hot dogs. I even tried it on pizza once. Lucy herself had three pieces of that brilliance. She knew I was crazy about the stuff, and she knew that when I first heard that Nathan’s Famous wasn’t just a mustard brand but an actual restaurant, one where they hold
the
main eating event of the year, that was what convinced me that choosing hot dogs as my trademark food was destiny. But what did that have to do with her soup and salad?

“I still don’t get your point,” I said. “So they don’t serve mustard in the school cafeteria. So what?”

“So you’re letting them dictate which condiment you can put on your food.
Condiment,
Shermie. If that isn’t Big Brother, I don’t know what is. Who are they to tell us what food we can or can’t eat, let alone which condiment we top it with? What if I want relish? I’m gonna get kicked out of school for
relish
?” She pulled a big, shiny yellow lemon out of her grocery bag, scored it with her fingernail, then squeezed the pee-colored juice onto her lettuce. “I will not give in to the Man. Del Heiny may own Culwicki, but it doesn’t own the universe.”

“She’s got a point there,” Tater said, tapping his Yellow-Shirted heart.

“Of course I do.” She stirred the juice and salad with her finger. Then she stabbed her spork into the bed of colorful leaves and raised several pieces daintily to her mouth. It was as mesmerizing as watching Tsunami execute the Solomon Method.

“That’s your lunch?” I’d pass out from starvation if all I ate was salad with a squirt of lemon, a few sips of broth, and some goopy cheese.

“It is.”

“I swear,” Tater said, shaking his head, “I don’t get girls. Lettuce and a squirt of lemon juice? Next thing, you’ll be pulling rice cakes and tofu out of your backpack. Are you on a diet or something?”

She made a face when he said “tofu.” “I’m not
on
a diet. Everything anybody eats is part of their diet. I’m watching what I eat.”

“Why?” I asked. She looked fine to me.

Gardo fielded that one. “Because she’s a girl, and girls do weird things with food, man. Don’t think about it too hard.” He chomped into his second burger. Ketchup dribbled down his chin like blood. “
Man!
Whoever invented hamburgers should get the Nobel Prize.”

“No way,” I protested. “The inventor of pizza should get it.”

“Over my dead body,” Leonard cried. “Ice cream wins, hands down.”

“No,” I countered. “It can’t—”

“Don’t you argue with me, Thuff Enuff.” He cut me off. “You know exactly what I’m talking about. The way you trained with that ice cream yesterday…I don’t know how you didn’t puke from it all.”

Lucy’s eyes snapped up from her salad. “Ice cream training?”

Gardo nearly choked on his burger.

“Yeah,” Leonard said. “Didn’t he tell you? He totally pigged—
ow!
” The whole table jolted as he grabbed his leg and glared at Gardo.

Nice shot, Gardo.

Lucy drilled me with her eyes. “Shermie? What’s he talking about?”

“Leonard is an idiot,” Gardo said quickly, returning Leonard’s glare. “He’s got Shermie confused with someone else.”

It was no use. Once Lucy sank her teeth into something, she didn’t let go. “Shermie…”

Leonard and his big mouth.
I wracked my brain for an answer that wouldn’t get me killed. What did a guy have to do for a little divine intervention around here?

“Out of the way,
scrub,
” a voice boomed across the cafeteria.

My stomach seesawed.
Shane.
His kind of intervention was far from divine.

But at least he got Lucy’s eyes off me. She and the rest of the Plums couldn’t help but watch as the ninth grade king strode toward his table with Gabriella Marquez, the hottest eighth grader in the whole school. Gabriella was wearing her own crown and cape and hanging on his arm.

“We got a lady coming through,” he declared. “Make way.” Another scrub was getting a promotion from Shane.

Using his scepter, Shane poked Plums out of the path to his table. Gabriella was smiling and waving at everyone she passed, looking royally happy. Plodding behind them, the Finns looked royally unhappy in their green tights, red tunics, and floppy green-and-red jester hats. It amazed me what traitors would do to stay in the upper class’s good graces.

A hush settled on the cafeteria as a roomful of eyes flicked from Shane to me to Shane to me. The Plums seemed to be waiting for something big to happen. Something big…like me.

Quick, Shermie, do something.
“Stupid shoe,” I blurted then ducked below the table.

“Hey, quit pushing.” Kenny didn’t appreciate being shoved aside, but that’s what he got for squeezing himself in there to begin with. It was a table, not a clown car.

Tugging and twisting at my shoelace, I stayed down there for a while, considering my options. I could sit there and act like everything was normal, just go about my business and hope I’d fly under Shane’s radar. Or I could hightail it out of there. That second idea sounded like a winner. Too bad the exit was on the other side of Shane’s section. I’d have to be sly about reaching it, waiting for just the right moment, some kind of distraction, maybe….

The cafeteria chatter was picking up again. Maybe the Plums had forgotten about me? I peeked under my armpit. King Shane and his jesters were now seated.

Kenny nudged me in the ribs. “You done yet, Thuff Enuff? My back is cramping. I need to sit straight.”

Tommy nudged me on my other side. “Me, too, man.”

“All right already.” I elbowed both of them back, then twisted and shoved my way to sitting again.

Tommy nudged me again. “There’s Shane, man. See him?”

“Will you stop with the poking? I see him.” Even as I said that, Shane turned his head and saw me right back.
Crap.

He started to stand, but Queen Gabriella stayed him with a hand on his arm. Maybe she didn’t want her royal “coming out” ruined; I didn’t know. But whatever her motive, I was thankful for it. Shane looked at me, then at her, then at me again. Eventually he relaxed back onto his bench.

“What are you waiting for, Thuff Enuff?” Kenny asked. Ketchup dripped off of his Tot, right onto his stupid pickle-colored overalls. “Go kick his butt.”

“Yeah, man,” Tater urged, “go show him who’s Thuff Enuff.”

Gardo set down what was left of his hamburger. “I don’t know, guys…”

“Kick whose butt?” Lucy followed Kenny’s pointing finger. The cafeteria was crowded, but it was obvious who he was pointing at. “Shane’s?”

“The one and only.” Kenny rubbed his hands together, the green vulture. “This’ll be great. Shane’s had this coming for a long time. We’ve been betting on who’d do it. My money was on Tater.” He laughed as Tater pegged him with a Tot. “I wish I brought my video camera. The great Shane is going
down.
”

Lucy stared at me for a second like I was crazy, then she sized up Kenny, then Gardo, and then the rest of the guys at our table. Finally she picked up her mangled lemon again, inspected it, and said, real calmly, “You are not kicking anyone’s butt, Shermie.” She licked the yellow rind and made a sour face. “You’re training tonight. You need those hands for stuffing food into your mouth. They cannot be broken from pounding in someone’s face.”

Oh man, I love Lucy.
“Well, okay…if that’s the way it has to be.” I tried to sound resigned as I shrugged helplessly. “Sorry, guys, an athlete has to do what his coach tells him.”

“Aw, man.” Runji muttered something about girls and sports, but part of it was in another language, so I didn’t quite follow it. And I probably didn’t want to.

Eventually the guys started talking about Gardo’s canceled meet again. Then Tater shoved a Tot up his nose, and Runji and Roshon laughed at him hysterically. They seemed to forget all about Shane.

Across from me, Lucy worked on her salad, trying to spear the soft leaves with her spork. When she finally gave up and just picked some up with her fingers, her eyes caught mine. I winked to let her know we were friends again. I wasn’t in a bad mood anymore, with the Thuff Enuff rep on the rise and all, and she did have my back when I was in need.

She lowered the leaves. “Something in your eye?”

“No. Nothing’s in my eye.”
Jeez, can I just do my thing without her always calling me out?

She picked up her lemon again and dug into it with her fingernail. A blast of lemon juice squirted across the table at me.

“Ow!” I grabbed the left side of my face. Now I
did
have something in my eye—and it stung!

“Sorry.” She smiled and licked the lemon again.

“You did that on purpose!”

“I did not. There, go over to that water fountain and wash out your eye. When you come back, we’ll talk about refocusing your training. And your attitude.”

Refocus? Who needs to refocus? I don’t want to refocus…
I hustled to the fountain, one hand over my stinging eye. Halfway there, my good eye caught sight of Principal Culwicki running into the cafeteria wearing his green college wrestling singlet.

“Surprise!” he shouted. Plums exploded in shrieks and whistles. “Happy Halloween!” He dropped down into some freakish wrestling lunge and growled.

I slapped my hand over my other eye and spun away.
Ah!
There had to be a law against what I’d just seen! At the very least, several hundred Plums were now in need of serious psychological counseling.

I hunched over the fountain and splashed water in both eyes, as desperate to wash away that image as the lemon juice.

It took a while—not that I was completely sad about it with Culwicki’s singlet running free—but eventually my eyes stopped burning. By then, lunch was pretty much over. Dracula, Jabba, Doughboy, and all the other creatures and Yellow Shirts were trickling out of the cafeteria and down the halls to class. With no showdown at the OK Corral on today’s menu, there was no reason to hang around.

Shoot.
In all the lunchtime excitement, I’d eaten only a few Tots. I’d have to eat my corn dogs on the way to class. At least the fizzies would be bubbled out of my soda by then, so I’d be able to chug that quickly.

The bell rang as I headed back to grab the food from my tray, officially ending this round of lunch with my new rep—and my face—intact.

IT’S INTERMISSION TIME, FOLKS!

Let’s all go to the Lunch Room,

let’s all go to the Lunch Room,

let’s all go to the Lunch Room

to get Ourselves a Treat.

De-li-cious things to eat.

The Corn Dogs can’t be beat.

The bubbly drinks are just daaaandy,

the Tater Tots and the caaaandy.

So, let’s all go to the Lunch Room

to get Ourselves a Treat.

Let’s all go to the Luuuunch Rooooom,

to get Ourselves a Treeeeeeeeat…