Death by Eggplant (13 page)

“Whosit?” he muttered.

“Notice anyone missing?” I asked.

“Wha—? Bertha, is that you? What's that?” he asked, suddenly awake. The phone clattered to the floor, and he was gone. In the background, I heard the shrill blast of a smoke detector.

Burnt waffles, I thought with satisfaction.

After a few minutes, the alarm stopped. As soon as
I heard him pick up the receiver, I demanded, “Where's Cleo?”

“She's gone, you pathetic loser! She was gonna be my breakfast. Now she's toast, thanks to you.”

“Ha! Your mother already told us those waffles were frozen. Try again.”

“My mother? What about my mother?”

“We've got her.”

“I don't believe you.”

“Then where is she?”

“She must have left for work already.” His voice was sullen. “I don't know and I don't care.”

“Mmmmm!” Mrs. Dekker squealed. A big sip of Colombian roast prevented her from voicing her anger.
“Mmmmmmm!”

Mrs. Dekker's garbled voice gave me an idea.

“That's your mother through the gag,” I said. “I want my flour sack, Nicky-poo.”

“Don't call me that!”

“What, Nicky-poo? Shorty? Small fry? Your mother's been kidnapped and you're worrying about nicknames?”

“Go ahead, keep her.”

At that, Mrs. Dekker swallowed wrong and began to choke. My mother, sitting next to her, thumped loudly on her back while the poor woman coughed.

“Do you hear that?” I asked. “Things could get very ugly here.”

“What are you doing to her?”

“You don't want to know,” I said menacingly. “Listen, you've got Cleo, I've got your mother. From here on in, it's simple.”

“Oh yeah? Maybe your little baby's not waffles. But how do you know she's not bread, huh? A nice big loaf just waiting to be sliced!”

My mother gasped. Mrs. Dekker made comforting shushing noises.

“Cleo's safe,” I said. And she was. Somehow I just knew it. “But if I don't get her back, if I fail eighth grade, or if anything happens to her, I swear I'll—”

“What? You'll bake a cake? I'll tell you right now, my mother's favorite is double chocolate.”

Angrily, Mrs. Dekker made a grab for the phone. She moved so fast, coffee sloshed out of the cup, turning her pink bunny slippers brown.

“Ooohhhhh!” she wailed.

“All right, all right!” Dekker said. “I'll do it! Just leave my mother alone!”

“Twenty minutes,” I told him. “The Market Street bridge.”

“No, eight-fifteen at . . . at Overlook Park.”

“Twenty minutes,” I insisted.

“I can't, that's too early.”

I had a sudden flash of clarity, the kind I wished would come during a math test but never did.

I knew where Cleo was.

“Eight o'clock,” I said. “The schoolyard. Right outside the eighth-grade class.”

There was a very long silence.

“Okay.” He hung up the phone.

I looked at my waiting parents.

“Cleo's still in school,” I said. “She's been there all along.”

“So she was never really kidnapped?” asked my mother.

“Not kidnapped,
hidden.”
I guess Dekker and I had been mortal enemies so long I was beginning to think like him. “If he really got rid of Cleo,” I explained, “I could blame him and there would be a chance I might be believed. Then he would get in trouble. But if I blamed him and Cleo later turned up, it would look like I had lost her. Then I would be irresponsible because I had lost my baby, a liar for trying to hide it, and a creep for blaming it on him. I would fail for sure, and Dekker would get away with the whole thing.”

Fully awake at last, Mrs. Dekker shook her head.

“I never would have thought my dear sweet little Nicky could be so mean,” she said sadly. “How can I help? What do we do now?”

I looked at the empty donut bag as my father guiltily licked his fingers. “There's just enough time for another drive-thru order,” I said. “Then we go back to the house so I can get ready for school.”

The last bell had rung, and the stragglers were inside. I stood alone in the schoolyard, my knapsack in hand. Sunlight slanted in my eyes, but instead of being blinded, I saw everything more sharply: the crisscross of the chain-link fencing, the white cement between every brick, the pockmarked grains of blacktop beneath my feet. A snapped branch hushed the birds to silence. My hands twitched. I was Luke Skywalker facing Darth Vader.

I stood outside my class, while Mrs. Dekker waited with my parents, hidden in the bushes at the side of the schoolyard. Because of the glaring reflection, I couldn't really see into the room; then a face appeared at the glass, and a second, and a third, and through the open windows, I heard whispers. For the briefest instant, I thought I saw Indra. The image vanished like a ghost.

About halfway down the school, one of the doors opened and Dekker appeared, backpack slung over his shoulder. He began to walk toward me. I wanted to rush up and punch him in the face. I could do it, too, I thought; I had discovered that this week. But that wasn't
my
way. Besides, how could I make rose garnishes out of tomato skins if I had a broken hand?

Behind me, I heard another door open, close, then open again. Though I didn't turn to check, I bet Indra had taken one look out the window, then come out to help. And I bet Mrs. M. had followed.

Everyone in my life was here, I realized, everyone who meant anything to me, good or bad.

“Where's my mother?” Dekker asked, throwing his knapsack down.

“Where's Cleo?” I countered, throwing down mine.

He unzipped his backpack, took out a flour sack, and held it up. It was Cleo—lolling tongue, crossed eyes, Band-Aid on her forehead. Pulling the bag close, Dekker worked his finger under the bottom flap and threatened to spill Cleo's innards all over the yard.

Hands trembling, I unzipped my pack, unzipped the inner pocket, and took out my chef's hat. I fluffed up the toque and, like a king crowning himself, carefully pulled it onto my head. It was a perfect fit. If I went down today, I'd go down cooking.

Dekker was startled into speech.

“What is
that?”

“What do you think, you idiot? It's a chef's hat. It's called a toque.”

“It makes you look like the Pillsbury Dough Boy, Bertha.”

“I
am
the Pillsbury Dough Boy!” My cheeks flamed. I shouted the words anyway, shouted loudly enough for everyone to hear. “I'm a
chef! A cook! A baker!
You'd better give me that flour sack right now, Dekker. She belongs in the hands of a trained professional.”

“First, Dough Boy, where's my mother?”

My eyes almost flickered toward the bushes. Clearly
visible lined up beneath the greenery were a pair of black wingtips, a pair of white sneakers, and a pair of bunny slippers, mottled pink and brown. I had been afraid that the bunny slippers would dash out any second, but they hadn't. And now I knew why they hadn't moved.

Mrs. Dekker
wanted
to be ransomed.

“Maybe I'll keep your mother,” I told Dekker. “She was pretty cool yesterday in class.”

He started to rip open the bottom flap. A trickle of white dusted the ground. I kept talking.

“It doesn't matter anymore what you do,” I said. It was true. Mrs. M. could see he had taken Cleo, so I should get those three extra points and pass. And I had declared I was a chef. What was left? I seemed to hear a faint whisper:
Just me
.

“You can't keep my mother!” Dekker said.

“Why not?”

“You just can't!” He looked exasperated. “Besides, what would you
do
with her?”

I shrugged. “I don't know. It wouldn't be so bad, having two moms. You know, double a good thing. Why do
you
want her back?”

“She's my mother! And I—”

“You what?”

“I . . . I . . .” He turned red. No words came out.

I couldn't believe it. Could Nick Dekker have a weakness after all, one more vulnerable than being called
“Shorty”? Could it truly be his mother? Did he deep down—better make that deep,
deep
down—feel something for her besides the embarrassment he had shown so far? Or did he want her back just because it was practical? A bully like him could use a good lawyer in the family.

“Yes?” I prompted.

He still couldn't get beyond “I . . . I . . . ”

“You what, Nicky?” Indra asked from behind me.

“I guess I . . .” His voice dropped lower. “I . . . ”

Mrs. Dekker couldn't wait a second longer. A stammer and a blush were enough for her.

“You love me!” she declared, and burst out of the bushes.

A dozen girly voices sighed, “Awwwww,” from the classroom windows.

I grabbed Mrs. Dekker by the wrist and dragged her back. She had to wait till I made the exchange. Slowly we walked toward Dekker, closer and closer, step by step, inch by inch. Everything was going as planned, until Mrs. Dekker broke free and leapt toward her son.

When his mother launched herself, Dekker stumbled back. His hand shot up and he let go of Cleo. Up, up, up she flew! I dived to catch her, getting only too good a look at her bottom, the flap turned the wrong way—out and now ripped fully open.

In my Jedi-knight clarity, I saw everything in slow motion as Cleo finally fell to earth, just inches from my
outstretched fingers.
Oof!
She landed as gracefully as a flour sack can land under such undignified circumstances. The impact made the loose flour that had already spilled out puff up into a cloud that spread over everything. Was it magic, the wind, or just a drop in blood sugar that made the whole hot June world suddenly seem sprinkled with snow?

A second later, Mrs. Dekker was hugging her son. And Dekker, black hair now powdered, was actually hugging her back.

“That was
sooo
nice what you did for Nicky's mom,” Indra said from behind me. I turned. Indra's hair, too, was shot through with white. She leaned over and gave me a quick kiss. From the windows came another chorus of “Awwwwww.”

“It was nothing,” I said, trying not to faint. “I mean, the poor lady needs some help; she's got Nick Dekker for a kid.”

“And I've got you.”

There they were, my mother and my father, all rumpled from crawling through the bushes. Bits of twigs and leaves stuck to their clothes.

“Young man,” my mother said. There was something weird in her voice. It took a minute, then I knew what it was: Her voice was stern and all, all
momlike
. I had heard voices just like it on TV, but never in person.

“Bertie, you're grounded.”

“Grounded?” It was a word from a foreign-language
dictionary, maybe trans-meso-Siberian or something, certainly nothing
I
had ever heard before. What terrible ideas had Mrs. Dekker been feeding my mother while they were in the bushes? “What do you mean I'm grounded?”

She gave an exaggerated sigh; obviously my being grounded was the clearest fact in the whole world.

“Bertie, kidnapping is a federal offense.”

“It wasn't really kidnapping,” I sputtered. “It was really just . . . just luring away with coffee.”

“But her son truly believed that—”

“You can't ground me!” I yelled. “Summer's coming!”

The idea of my mother disciplining me was dizzying. I was bending over to put my head between my knees and breathe deep, when I felt a firm tap on my shoulder. I straightened up. It was Mrs. Menendez with her grade book. Flour dusted her navy-suited shoulders.

She held out one hand.

I gently picked up Cleo, held the flap closed, and handed her over.

Mrs. M. looked at Cleo this way and that way, top to bottom, side to side. She nodded once, returned her, and opened the grade book. With a frown, she blew a puff of white from its pages, then made a mark in the book.

“You passed.”

Indra and I both jumped into the air and whooped.

“Now, tell me, Mr. Hooks,” Mrs. M. said. “Have you learned a lesson from this?”

My answer was immediate: “That parents, and maybe even all adults, are generally clueless when it comes to kids?”

“No,” Mrs. M. said sharply. “Try again.”

“That, um . . . ” I tried to think fast and talk slowly. “That kids shouldn't be . . . embarrassed by their parents, um, because
everyone's
parents are embarrassing?”

“No!”

What did she want from me? I saw Nicky at the end of the schoolyard and remembered how this whole thing had started.

“That kids are always the creepiest to other kids?”

“No, Mr. Hooks! I'm talking about discovering that even
you
are capable of responsibility and can succeed.”