Kid Power (6 page)

At first I just stood there not knowing what to do. I was scared to jump in and pull the dogs apart. What if one of them bit me? Or both of them? I didn't know what dogs did when they got mad, but I was sure it wasn't pleasant.

So I shouted “Help!”

Sure enough, a man came charging out of the house the scottie had been in front of. “Ginger!” he cried and ran across the street. He jumped right in and pulled the dogs apart. He grabbed Ginger and held her, then untangled Sugar from her leash, which he gave me. “You stupid dog,” he said to Ginger, while I tried to get Sugar under control.

“Ginger jumped right on her,” I said. “Sugar was just minding her own business.”

“I don't doubt it,” he said. “Ginger gets very upset when she sees another dog. I shouldn't have let her out untied.”

“It's okay,” I said.

“They both seem to be all right,” he said. “No harm done. I'm sorry if Ginger scared you.”

“That's okay,” I said, even though I was still trembling. I pulled on Sugar's leash and dragged her back to Mrs. Hodges. What if Ginger had been a big dog, as big as Sugar? She could have killed her, and I wouldn't have known what to do to stop them.

I got back to Mrs. Hodges as fast as I could, and handed Sugar back to her. I didn't even go in. “I can't handle this job,” I said. “Sugar's just too big for me.”

“Are you sure?” Mrs. Hodges asked.

“Positive,” I said, even though it was the first job Kid Power had turned down, and I felt perfectly miserable about giving up seven dollars.

“Well, let me give you what I owe you,” she said.

“No, that's okay,” I said. I didn't feel I deserved it anyway, since I hadn't been able to keep Sugar out of a fight. Instead I ran home. Running made me feel better, and by the time I got home I felt almost okay. Just a little bit shaky.

“Lisa called about fifteen minutes ago,” Mom told me when I got in. “She was very upset about something.”

“Did she say what?” I asked.

“She didn't say,” Mom said. “But I'd call her if I were you.”

So I did. “Hi, Lisa,” I said to her when she picked up the phone. “Did you have a good time at your aunt's?”

“Some friend you are,” she said bitterly.

“What do you mean by that?” I asked nervously.

“We were supposed to go to the movies today, remember?” she said.

“We were?” I asked, and thought about it. “Oh that's right, we were. I forgot all about it.”

“I called you to remind you, but your mother said you were out.”

“I was,” I said. “I was walking a dog for Kid Power.”

“I don't care about Kid Power. I don't care how much stupid money you make!” Lisa said. “Isn't it more important we were supposed to go to the movies together? Isn't friendship more important than money?”

I knew she'd been waiting to shout that at me. I think of great things like that to say sometimes, but I usually don't have the chance or forget what I'm supposed to say when the chance comes. “Calm down Lisa,” I said. “I forgot. I'm sorry. How was the movie?”

“I didn't go,” she grumbled.

“No? Why not?”

“Because I would have had to take my brother,” she said. “And he would have cried and made an idiot of himself, and I would have had to take him home right in the middle of the movie, and Mom would have blamed me for taking him to a scary movie in the first place. That's why.”

“I'm really sorry I forgot,” I said. “Can we go next week?”

“You'll probably be too busy next week,” she said. “Making more precious money.”

“Oh, cut it out,” I said. “You're just jealous because I'm taking care of Mrs. Townsend's garden and you're not.”

“I am not jealous,” she said. “I thought you were my best friend.”

“I am your best friend,” I said.

“Then how come you forgot all about me?” she asked.

“You've forgotten about me too sometimes,” I said.

“I never have,” she said. “Name once when I forgot about you.”

I thought about it for a moment. Lisa never forgot anything. When we were seven, I told her red was my favorite color, and when I was ten, she gave me a red pen for my birthday. Just because it was my favorite color. By then green was my favorite color, but I never had the heart to tell her. “So you have a better memory than I have,” I said. “That doesn't mean I'm not your best friend.”

“Face it, Janie,” Lisa said. “All you care about is making money. That's all you ever talk about anymore. Money, money, money. You're a regular old Midas.”

“I am not,” I said.

“You are too,” she said. “Go count your money and see how much fun that is.”

“You're just jealous,” I said again.

“I'll tell you one thing I'm not jealous of,” she said. “There's something I think you should know.”

“What?” I asked, more scared than mad.

“Remember those bugs you thought were so cute?” Lisa said. “They're Japanese beetles. They're going to eat Mrs. Townsend's garden until it's nothing but holes, and then you'll be sorry. Good-bye, Janie.”

“Good-bye to you, too,” I said angrily, and slammed down the phone. Mom, who'd been sitting in the kitchen pretending not to be listening, stopped pretending. “You two have a fight?” she asked.

“Shut up,” I said, and stormed out of the kitchen. I went up to my room and looked at the envelope where I'd been keeping my money. I had wanted to count it, just to see how much I'd earned, but thanks to Lisa, I was no longer in the mood. So instead I stayed in my room until suppertime and read. I didn't enjoy it very much because every time the story got boring, I started thinking about Lisa. I almost called her again, but then I decided not to. Let her call. She was the one who insulted me. I hadn't said anything except to apologize. If she was any kind of friend, she'd just laugh and say it was okay. Let her be the one to call.

“You seem sulky tonight,” Dad said at suppertime. We were having a barbecue, and he made the hamburgers. Dad always got upset when he did the cooking and we didn't eat enough.

“Lisa's mad at me,” I said.

Dad looked at Mom. I recognized the old raised eyebrow look. “What about?” he asked.

I knew I didn't want to tell him, but I figured he'd worm it out of me. “She's just jealous because of Kid Power,” I said.

“Lisa never seemed like the jealous type to me,” Carol said.

“A lot you know,” I said. “She's even jealous that I have an older sister.”

“That's not jealousy, that's taste,” Carol said.

“How did this fight happen?” Dad asked. “How do you know she's jealous?”

“We were supposed to go to the movies today and I forgot,” I said. “I called her up when I got home, and I apologized for forgetting. I apologized a lot, but she didn't care. It's all because I got the job taking care of Mrs. Townsend's garden. She felt she should have gotten it because she knows more about gardening than I do.”

“Then why don't you offer her the job?” Dad asked. “If she'd be good at it anyway …”

“Because it's my job!” I shouted. “I'm the one who made the posters.”

“Well, actually I made the posters,” Carol said.

Sometimes I really hate Carol. “It was my idea,” I said. “I'm the one who's been working all summer to earn money for a bike, not Lisa. Why should I just give her a job?”

“Because she's your friend,” Dad said. “And her friendship is worth more than a silly job. More than any money you might earn from it.”

“You're just saying that because you don't like me working,” I said. “You want me to give up all my jobs.”

“I don't like you going around the whole neighborhood crying poverty, I admit that,” he said.

“I did that once,” I said. “Before I knew you didn't want me to do it. I wish you'd forget it. The people who call me now are perfect strangers.”

“I'm not crazy about you working for perfect strangers either,” he said. “There are a lot of strange people around. You might get into some kind of trouble.”

“You don't like it when I work for people we know. You don't like it when I work for strangers,” I said. “You just don't like it that I work.”

“No I don't,” he said. “I don't see the point to it. If you want the bike that much, we'll just buy you one. There's no reason for you to spend your childhood working all the time.”

“It's not bad practice,” Mom said. “After all, most women do have jobs nowadays.”

“You don't seem to anymore,” he said.

“Now what's that supposed to mean?” Mom asked.

“You haven't left the house in three days,” he said. “You haven't even checked the want ads out. All you keep doing is muttering about your feet.”

“They hurt!” Mom shouted. “You try getting a job this time of year and see how your feet feel about it.”

“You haven't even made any phone calls,” he said. “What's the matter, couldn't take the rejection?”

“No, I couldn't,” Mom said. “Besides, why are you suddenly so desperate for me to get a job? It seems to me it took quite a while to convince you that I should even go back to school for my master's.”

“That was different,” Dad said. “The kids were little…”

“You don't have to use the same old excuses all over again,” Mom said. “I remember each and every one of them.”

“I suppose I'll get to listen to a whole new batch this summer,” Dad said. “‘My feet hurt. It's hot outside. Nobody's hiring anyway.'” He mimicked Mom's voice.

“They're all true,” Mom said. “My feet do hurt. It is hot outside. And nobody is hiring.”

“If you wanted a job bad enough, you'd find one,” Dad said.

“Don't be so simplistic!” Mom cried and left. We could hear her stomping her bad feet all the way upstairs.

Carol sat at the picnic table, carefully examining the sky. I tried to sit very still and disappear, but I accidentally moved my head and found Dad staring straight at me. He didn't have to say a word for me to know that somehow he blamed me for everything that was happening. And I almost couldn't blame him for blaming me.

Chapter Six

Mom spent Sunday making a point of reading every single want ad in the classified section. The really bad ones she read out loud to Dad, who grumbled until it was time for a baseball game. He turned one on as soon as he possibly could and refused to even pretend to listen to anybody after that.

Carol stayed in her room all day, after she'd delivered her papers. I went in to visit her at one point, and she told me flat out that the whole thing was all my fault, and if it wasn't for me, she'd have her new bike already and Mom and Dad wouldn't be quarreling and she wouldn't have to be hiding in her unairconditioned bedroom on a hot Sunday in July. She gave me the feeling she didn't really want to talk, so I left and went into Mom and Dad's bedroom. Mom was making a point of sitting in the living room with Dad, even if he wasn't talking to her, so there was plenty of privacy. I called every single one of my friends who was home for the summer except Lisa. There weren't that many of them. Most of my friends were in camp, which had just started, or else on trips with their parents or visiting their grandparents, but there were three left, and I called them all. Sheila said Kid Power sounded like a good idea; she'd like to earn some money, but her mother would never let her put her phone number anyplace public. Her mother had an unlisted phone number. Every time she had a crisis, she had the number changed. Sometimes it was impossible to reach Sheila for weeks. Ted said Kid Power sounded like a good idea, except he wouldn't want to do anything that would take too much time away from his baseball practice. Ted wants to be another Catfish Hunter when he grows up. And Margie said Kid Power sounded like a good idea except the only thing she could really do was babysit. That she's good at because she has three younger brothers and sisters so she's had lots of practice. None of them was the least bit interested in gross and net or how much money I had made or whether I should raise the rate for the oatmeal cookies at yard sales. It really made me appreciate Lisa. Besides, there was no one else I could turn to about those beetles. So I called her up, in spite of all my resolutions. She picked up the phone, and it took all my nerve to say, “Hi, Lisa,” after I heard her say “Hello?”

“Oh it's you,” Lisa said. “I'm still not talking to you.” And she hung up.

I went downstairs after that and sat in silence with Dad watching the ballgame. Fortunately it was a double-header, so except for Mom occasionally calling out to us, “Wanted: Egg Processor. Good Hours. Call 264-9087,” I was able to sit and look at the ballplayers and not think about anything at all.

The second game of the doubleheader went into extra innings. At some point during it Mom went into the kitchen and made herself a salad. Carol came downstairs and opened up a can of tuna fish. She didn't bother putting it on a plate, just ate it right out of the can. Nobody even told her to drain out the oil. Dad and I shared a big bag of potato chips.

“All natural,” Dad muttered. “Lots of nutrition in potato chips.”

It was the only thing he said all day.

I spent the next morning working hard. First I went over to Mrs. Blake's and helped her cure Peachy, who bit me. Then I went over to Mrs. Edwards' and visited for two hours. She didn't need anything, but she seemed glad to have my company, and I was glad not to be at home.

After I left Mrs. Edwards, I went to Mrs. Townsend's garden and checked out the Japanese beetles. Sure enough, they were eating all the leaves and flowers. The leaves looked like doilies. The roses just looked lousy.