Shoebag Returns (6 page)

“Yes, I have,” Stanley agreed, and did not wonder aloud why it ever had to stop so he could attend a girls’ boarding school.

If it was not for Bagg, Josephine Jiminez would not be the only one who needed to see the school psychologist.

If it was not for Bagg, Stanley might never have awakened from the nightmare, would never have thought up the Butter Club, nor made the yellow Butter badges. Bagg had even helped him make his bed! That was a
real
pal!

They had done a sloppy job on the bed. Stanley took this opportunity to turn back the top sheet as he sat there.

“You’re not such a good bed maker, either, are you?” said Miss Rattray.

“I have never had to make my own bed.”

“So you said the first day we met, Stanley.”

“So I said.”

“But a bad bed maker is one thing, and a bad sport is another.”

“I don’t like sports at all,” said Stanley, “except for croquet, which I play with Tattle on the great, green lawns at Castle Sweet.”

“Played,”
said Miss Rattray firmly. “You are not
at
Castle Sweet now. You are here.” She crossed her long legs and pushed her black-framed spectacles back on her nose. “What I mean by a bad sport is someone who turns bitter at the fortune of others, just as you were bitter over the Betters, and formed the Butters.”

Miss Rattray’s point was punctuated then by a
WHACK! WHACK! WHACK!
against the wall next door.

It seemed the Black Mask Theater was having a surprise matinee, though that was not the custom at all.

“Speaking of bad sports,” Miss Rattray sniffed, “Josephine Jiminez seems to be acting out her rage once again. No wonder she is called the Doll Smasher!”

“Maybe she is mad because you sent away the line of girls in the hall. No one has ever lined up to see her before!”

WHACK! WHACK! WHACK!

Butter, the cat, must have been on his way into the Black Mask Theater when the whacking began, then changed his mind. For suddenly out of the corner of one eye, Stanley saw the creature dart through the door of his room, and disappear under his bed.

Miss Rattray held her head so very high, she never saw Butter. If she had, Stanley would have been in more trouble, for cats were not allowed anywhere but the kitchen.

“Why,” she asked, “does the Better Club bother you?”

“It bothers me that I’m not in it,” Stanley said.

“But all through life there will be some clubs you will not be in. That is just a fact of life, dear boy.”

“That is why I started my own club,” said Stanley.

“Life is not that simple, Sweetsong. You have already been admitted to a girls’ school, when there was never a boy admitted here before you. You cannot have everything.”

Stanley could hear Butter’s purring from under the bed.

He raised his voice to drown out the sound. “I have always had everything,” he said. “I even have a Rolls Royce back at Castle Sweet.”

“But you are not there. You are here!” said Miss Rattray. “And you have made fun of the Betters by calling yourself the Butters. And now you are raising your voice to me, which is rude!”

“I’m sorry, ma’am.”

WHACK! WHACK! WHACK!

“The Betters know better than to raise their voices at me, which is why they are better!”

“Why else are they better?” Stanley said over Butter’s purring.

“They mind, for one thing!” Miss Rattray’s own voice was raised now.

WHACK! WHACK! WHACK!

“They would never
dream
of sneaking down to the swimming pool, which is what I suspect
you
did, when you left
these
around the corner in the Changing Room!”

Miss Rattray tossed the clothing on Stanley’s bed.

She stood and lumbered toward the door.

“
I
will stop that banging right now!” she said. “And
you
will call a halt to this Butter Club
right now!
I never want to hear of it again, Sweetsong! It is over! And so are quick dips in the pool, when there is no one there to supervise you!”

WHACK! WHACK! WHACK!

Miss Rattray paused a moment in the doorway. “I will
not
send you home, either. I give up trying to get the cook to use the new computer, and I give up trying to get certain alumnae to contribute to the building fund, but I do
not
give up on my students! I will not give up on
you,
Sweetsong! That is not my way!”

T
HURSDAY NIGHT AFTER THE
lights out bell, Josephine Jiminez was admitted to the school infirmary. She was suffering from a major stomachache, brought on by eating twelve Butterfingers.

“This is a disaster!” Stanley told Bagg, saying the word “disaster” in the same heavy tone his father had used the day moles invaded the great, green lawns of Castle Sweet. “The Butter Club is finished. Josephine Jiminez has come down with a bellyache. And the poor tarantula up in the Science Room will probably die from mishandling!”

“Wait a minute! Hold your horses!” said Stuart Bagg. “There is always a way out of any disaster.”

“Lucy Lightite doesn’t think so! Right after she saw you running naked from the Changing Room, she faxed her family to come and get her!”

“She will get over it,” Bagg said. “And Josephine Jiminez will get over her bellyache, too. The only way to get on with it is to get over it!”

“The Butter Club is finished, though,” Stanley moaned, sitting cross-legged on his bed in the dark, while Bagg looked through the closet for more clothes.

“The Butter Club is alive and well,” said Bagg, slipping into a pair of Gap khakis. “The Butter Club must go underground, that’s all.”

“How can you dress in the dark?” said Stanley. “That’s why you always forget your Hootie & The Blowfish T-shirt.”

“That’s my lucky shirt, but sometimes I like a change. And I never knew a boy with so many clothes.”

“Are you poor, Bagg?”

“Where I come from clothes aren’t too important. It’s what’s above, not what’s below, it’s what you know.”

Bagg was always at his best in the dark. He found a neat green Lands’ End shirt and pulled it over his head.

“Don’t go swimming again, please,” said Stanley.

“I won’t,” said Bagg, who had let him believe in Miss Rattray’s theory that someone had gone into the pool. The next time he used the Changing Room, he would hide his human clothes up in the rafters.

“We can’t go underground. Josephine ate all the Butterfingers there were. We can’t wear one yellow sock or Miss Rattray will know. How will we have style? Or flair?” Stanley Sweetsong’s face was not a happy one.

But Bagg was always an optimist.

Bagg knew from experience never to give up.

“You must have a secret location and do everything in secret,” he told Stanley. “You must have a secret handshake. And buy more Butterfingers!” Bagg’s nose twitched at the thought of Butterfinger crumbs.

“I don’t think Josephine is up to it,” said Stanley. “And tomorrow her shrink comes. If we go underground, she may have to tell him about it.”

“I don’t think she will, Stanley.”

“But shrinks can get secrets out of you,” said Stanley. “My mother had a shrink once and when my father said don’t tell him what we’re worth or he’ll charge more, my mother said he’d only get it out of her. They’re very clever, Bagg. And we’ll never know if Josephine tells him.”

“I’ll find out for you, Stanley.”

“No one can find out what someone else tells a shrink,” Stanley said.

“I can find out. What kind of a pal would I be if I couldn’t?”

Now Bagg was dressed, and ready to sneak back to the Changing Room. It was risky enough scooting along the darkened corridors, but at least with clothes on he would not cause some frightened female to fax an SOS to her folks. He could pretend he was a friend who had visited Stanley and forgotten the time. Bagg would think of something if the occasion arose. The important thing was to get back to the Macintosh, before Drainboard began to fret. Then tomorrow, as Shoebag, he would sit in on Josephine’s session with her shrink.

“Remember, Stanley: To get on with it, get over it. You have nothing to worry about anymore.”

“But I can’t always stop. Right now I’m worrying about the tarantula. I feel so sorry for her, Bagg.”

Stuart Bagg felt a shiver down the length of his body.

He could not bring himself to discuss the tarantula. Of all arachnids, the tarantula was said to be the fiercest hunter. Its very hairs aided it in locating prey.

Bagg could barely bring himself to discuss an ordinary spider, but a fearsome one like the tarantula made his human stomach turn … for once a roach,
always
a roach (except for Gregor Samsa).

“Nevermind the tah-tah-tarantula,” Bagg managed to spit out the word somehow.

“Have you seen her, Bagg?”

“No, fortunately.”

“She’s very beautiful,” said Stanley Sweetsong. “I think you’d feel fortunate to see her … Bagg? Bagg? … Are you still here?”

He was not.

I
T WAS FRIDAY.

Stretched out on a couch in the infirmary was Josephine Jiminez.

Behind her, in a large leather armchair, sat Dr. Dingle.

“Do you want to tell me about the Butter Club?” he said.

“I’m hungry. Do you have anything to eat?”

“Now, Josephine, you know we never eat in our sessions. And you just recovered from stomach trouble.”

“That was last night. I’m back to normal.”

“We’ll see about that,” said Dr. Dingle, who was not fond of the word “normal.” In his profession it was not a money-producing word, and he rarely heard it when he didn’t sneeze. Perhaps he was slightly allergic to it.

“Achoo!”

“God bless you,” said Josephine.

“Why don’t we end this session with a few words from you about the Butter Club,” he persisted.

“Miss Rattray says there’s no such club. … Anyway, why don’t you get Stanley Sweetsong in here? He’s been having nightmares about being put in one of Mr. Longo’s tanks.”

“
You
are my client, dear, not Stanley Sweetsong. Have
you
had any interesting dreams?”

His voice had such a plaintive sound, very like Josephine’s father’s every time he announced another transfer to a new Army post.

“I dreamed,” Josephine began, “that on Career Day a famous actor came to talk to us in assembly, and guess what, Dr. Dingle?”

“What?” the psychologist leaned forward, pencil ready over the pad he held on his lap.

“He asked if he could see a performance of
If You’re Not In, You’re Out!”

Of course she had made all that up. She never remembered her dreams. And an actor was
never
invited to speak on Career Day. Just writers were. Just scientists were. Just lawyers were. Just accountants, musicians, and computer analysts. Just females were, never males!

But Josephine felt sorry for Dr. Dingle in these sessions. She wanted to say something he could make notes about … and she
had
always wished she could meet a real live actor. How long could she continue writing and performing her plays without some notion of what one was like?

“In your dream, did this famous actor see a performance of your play?” Dr. Dingle asked. “In this dream how did you feel when the actor asked to see it?”

But Josephine was bored with the whole idea of this dream she never had. She uncrossed and crossed her legs, and put her palms behind her head and yawned.

“Well?” Dr. Dingle asked again.

“That’s all there was to the dream.”

“How do you feel about that dream?”

“I feel that we ought to have an actor come on Career Day, and I wish you’d tell Miss Rattray that.”

Dr. Dingle made a note of it.

“What else, Josephine?” Dr. Dingle asked.

“Nothing. I feel quite normal today.”

“Achoo!”

“God bless you.”

Up the wall, beside the couch, a cockroach had paused, his antennae quivering, his eyes alert, almost as though he understood every word being spoken.

“We have a little visitor in here listening to everything we say,” Josephine said.

The cockroach hurried away.

“You know, Josephine,” said Dr. Dingle, “it is a good thing to have a lively imagination. Your little plays, your new little club, this little visitor you claim is present — all of that has its value.
But
—” he paused to rub his eyes, and take a deep breath.

“But?” Josephine said.

“But we must get to the bottom of things. Your rage, and your fears. The strange names you gave your dolls!”

One thing Josephine Jiminez was not afraid of was bugs. She looked out for them whenever she could. She watched the cockroach until it disappeared down the side of the couch.

“Tell me what you’re thinking about right now,” said Dr. Dingle, never one to give up on a client.

“I’m thinking of what it would be like to be a cockroach.”

“Aha! Is that what you feel like? Something shunned. Something no one wants around?” Dr. Dingle was sitting forward now, his eyes bright.

Josephine said, “I never said I felt like one. I said I wondered what it would be like to
be
one.”

“Wouldn’t you always be hungry? Wouldn’t you have rage? Wouldn’t you want to smash your dolls against the wall? Wouldn’t you fear that no one would want you in a club?”

Josephine glanced up at the large clock on the infirmary wall. Three minutes to go before the session was over. Ten minutes to go before the nine members of the secret, new, underground, Butter Club met in the Music Room.

Josephine Jiminez was its president.

She had never been a president before, and while she would have liked to discuss her presidential problems with a shrink, she could not trust him not to tell Miss Rattray that the Butters had gone underground.

He told Miss Rattray everything. Miss Rattray told Josephine’s parents everything. Josephine’s parents thanked Miss Rattray by giving gifts to the school, which they bought dirt cheap at the Army PX.

The latest one had been a computer for the cook. On her way to her session with Dr. Dingle, Josephine had seen them crating it for return to her family, since Cook could not learn it, nor even bear to look at it.