The Zippy Fix (6 page)

O
utside, the grass was warm under my bare feet. Down the way at the curve in the road, Julio’s house glistened bright white in the sun. Maybe he was up.

He was, but he’d gone somewhere with his dad.

So I went to Willy’s.

“Hey,” Willy said when I knocked on his door. He was eating toast. Purple jam stained one corner of his mouth.

Of all of us on our street, Willy was the only haole, a blond white boy. Julio was German-Filipino-Portuguese. Maya was pure Chinese, adopted from China, and I was a pot of stew: Italian-Filipino-Hawaiian-Chinese.

Willy held the door open. “Come on in.”

Willy’s dog came thumping up, wagging his tail. He nudged me with his fat head. “Hey, Bosco.” I wished I had a dog. But Mom wouldn’t let me. “They’re so stinky,” she’d said. “And they shed.”

Bosco picked up a stuffed groundhog and followed us into the kitchen. It squeaked as he chewed on it.

Willy’s mom and dad were reading the paper at
the kitchen table. “Good morning, Calvin,” Mrs. Wolf said. “What are you doing out so early today?”

I shrugged. “Mom just went to work.”

“Ah, yes … Macy’s, right?”

“And I’m supposed to think of something to give Stella for her birthday,” I blurted. No matter how I tried, I couldn’t get what I’d done to Stella out of my mind.

Mrs. Wolf snapped her fingers. “Oh, Stella! From Texas.”

“Yep.”

“Surprise her,” Mrs. Wolf said. “Girls love to be surprised.”

“They do? How?”

“Well, what kinds of things does she like?”

She likes to call me Stump. She likes to chase me with a rolled-up magazine. She likes to mess up the bathroom with all her junk. She likes guys with trumpets and pink cars that make a lot of noise. “Well,” I said, “she has a poster that she drew hearts on.”

“Oh? What kind of poster?”

“Some guy’s on it.” I tried to remember. “Chris something … Body? No, Bot-tee … Chris Bo-tee.”

“The jazz musician?”

“He had a trumpet.”

“That’s him,” Mrs. Wolf said. “Chris Botti. Stella has excellent taste in music. I have every CD he’s made.”

“You do?” Willy asked.

“Sure. Stella must be a bit of a romantic. Chris Botti’s version of ‘When I Fall in Love’ is the most beautiful I’ve ever heard.”

I looked at Willy. Willy opened his hands.

“That’s what you should get her, Calvin,” she said. “Chris Botti’s brand-new CD. It just came out this week. Here, I’ll show it to you.”

Mrs. Wolf grabbed the CD from a stack in a cabinet and handed it to me. It was the guy in the poster, all right.

“This would be a
very
nice gift, Calvin.”

Well… if it just came out she wouldn’t have it yet. And there were those hearts. “Good idea.” I handed it back. “Thanks.”

I followed Willy outside to shoot some hoops in his driveway. I dribbled the ball. Should I tell him about what Julio and I did with the Zipster?

No, no, no. Forget it. All of it. It never should have happened.

But I couldn’t forget.

“Take a shot,” Willy said.

Clank!

I couldn’t hit anything. My guilty conscience was giving me a lecture: Do something nice for Stella. Get her that new CD, and maybe—
maybe—
the crummy feeling might go away.

I tossed the ball to Willy. “You want to walk into town?”

“What for?”

“See how much that Chris Botti CD costs.”

11

“S
ure, we have it,” the guy at the music store said. “Just came in this week.”

His nametag said KEONI. He had short spiky hair and two gold rings on the right side of his lower lip. Ouch. I sure wouldn’t want rings poking through my lip.

He nodded toward the jazz section. “Look under
B
.”

Willy found it. “Here he is.”

“Ho! He has a lot of CDs.”

“That’s prob’ly because he’s good.”

I turned the CD over to see the price. “Ai-
y
ai
-yai
!”

Willy grabbed it. “Eighteen dollars! You got that much?”

I pulled out a crumpled one-dollar bill.

“Just one?”

I shrugged. “And thirty-one cents … in my bank… at home.”

I jumped when Keoni came up behind us. “That’s the new CD.”

“Uh … yeah,” I said. “Is it
really
eighteen dollars?”

Keoni grinned. “Yeah, really.” He looked over his shoulder. “You like a few songs on it?” he whispered. “Download them on your computer. Save some money.”

That would be good, but downloading was
out Stella didn’t have a computer, but she was saving for one.

I stuck Chris Botti back in the rack. The most money I’d ever had in my whole entire life was the ten-dollar bill I got for Christmas from Tutu Bunny, Mom’s mom, who lived on Kauai. But that money was long gone.

“We have cheaper CDs,” Keoni said. “There’s a sale rack.”

I frowned. “I just wanted this one.”

Keoni shrugged. “Sorry.”

Me and Willy left.

“With a dollar you can get her peanut M&M’s,” Willy said.

I considered that. “Or gum. She smacks it like firecrackers. Mom says it’s not ladylike.”

Calling me names wasn’t ladylike, either, I wanted to add. But I kept that to myself. I didn’t want Willy to know she called me Stump. I prayed Julio would keep his big fat mouth shut about it, too.

“Too bad about that CD,” Willy said.

“It was a lot.”

“Too much.”

But the Chris Botti CD would
really
be something she’d like. And if eighteen dollars would make the crummy feeling go away it would be worth every penny.

I started walking faster.

Willy jogged to catch up. “What’s the hurry?”

“I’m running out of time. Stella’s birthday is Monday and I’m seventeen dollars short.”

12

“Y
ou got any cans?” Willy asked as we hurried home.

“Cans?”

“Pop cans. Like what strawberry soda comes in, or root beer. You can recycle them and get money.”

I slid to a stop and clapped my hand on his
shoulder. “Willy-my-man, you’re a genius! We can collect cans!”

“Uh … I was just thinking maybe you had some in your house and you could … you know, turn them in.”

“Right. And then we go to your house, and Julio’s, and—”

“I get it,” Willy said.

I flicked my eyebrows. “Let’s do it.”

At home I found nine empty Diet Sprite cans under the bottom shelf in the kitchen pantry. I grabbed a paper grocery bag and started tossing them in.

Two long feelers came waggling out of one of them. A huge, ugly brown cock-a-roach body followed them out.

“Yah!”I
yelped, and dropped the can, which bounced on the tile floor and sent the roach flying. It landed on its back and struggled to turn over, legs wheeling.