The Zippy Fix (9 page)

An hour later, the crowd started to thin out.

“Whew.” Uncle Scoop took off his cap and dabbed his sweating forehead with a paper napkin. “Can you two watch the truck for a minute? I need go bat’troom.”

“We can do it, Uncle Scoop.”

“Sure,” Willy added.

Uncle Scoop took his apron off and headed over to the pavilion, where the bathrooms were. For a moment I imagined that Willy was my partner, and the Lucky Lunch was our business. I liked it.

Two boys walked up and ordered shave ice, one yellow and one red. It took us less than a minute to make them. We were pro salesmen now.

“That will be two dollars,” I said, as if I’d been in the shave ice business all my life. I took their five-dollar bill and gave them three dollars back. “Thank you. Come again.”

The boys raised their chins like, Yeah-sure.

“I never made change before,” I said, more to myself than to Willy. It was so easy to make
money with a lunch truck. Maybe when I grow up I might have one, too.

A cackling laugh snapped me out of my daydream.

“Bwahahahaha…”
Snort-snort
. “Bwaaahaha! Look what Uncle Scoop wen’ drag up! Bwaha-haha…”
Snort!

“Aw, man,” I mumbled.

17

T
ito almost choked on his own cackle.

He slapped his leg and staggered around, laughing and snorting and pointing at me and Willy. Bozo and Frankie Diamond were laughing, too, but not like somebody with a golf ball for a brain.

I glanced toward the pavilion, hoping to see Uncle Scoop coming back.

No such luck.

Tito finally got control of himself. “Hey, let’s have a shave ice,” he said to Bozo and Frankie Diamond. “I never had one made by midgets before.”

Bozo bounced on his toes. “Yeah cool, Tito, cool. Hey you midgets, make me one blue one. Put plenny juice on top, too, ah, no cheat.”

Frankie Diamond half snorted.

I didn’t get Frankie Diamond. He didn’t seem like a Tito-Bozo kind of guy. He didn’t seem that dumb.

“I’ll take a red one,” Tito said. “What you like, Frankie?”

“Red.”

Tito turned back to us. “Two reds and one blue, and make um good like Bozo tell.”

Were they serious, or just joking around?

“Hey, Coco-cans,” Tito said. “Whose birfday you was talking about back at the store?
You going buy um cake and pointy hats, or what?”

“Pointy hats!” Bozo cackled, cracking up. “Pointy hats!”

Dingbats.

“It’s for Stella,” Willy said. “Not that you’d know her.”

Tito looked at me, his face brightening. “Stella? You mean the girl who live with you?”

Tito had met her once, and flipped over her.

I ignored him.

“Stel-lah,” Tito said again, dreamily. “What day’s her birfday? I might bring her something, too.”

Oh, no! Stella would kill me if he showed up again. Last time, he brought her a bag of cuttlefish. She thought they were bugs. “It’s Monday,” I said. “But don’t come over. We won’t be there, we’re going to… uh, a movie.”

Tito nodded. “Monday. Good. I come then, say happy birfday, bring her something
nice. She likes me, ah? Remember?” Tito flicked his eyebrows.

“Whatever,” I mumbled.

“Whatchoo waiting for? Where’s that shave ice?”

I turned the ice shaver on and stuck a hunk of ice on it. Willy packed the shavings into three cones that sat in a cone holder. We made two reds and one blue.

I handed them down. “Three dollars, please.”

Tito gave me a squint. “What? You don’t make um free for friends?”

I pointed to the price list. “One dollar each.”

Tito frowned and pulled out a wad of dollar bills.

A
huge
wad of dollar bills.

My face felt suddenly hot. I could almost feel fire flaming out of my ears. Tito had all that money and he had to steal ten of my
cans?

He peeled off three one-dollar bills and started to hand them up to me. But then he
stopped and folded the money back into his fist. “Oh, look,” he said, making a surprised face. “I wanted blue, like Bozo’s. You made mines wrong.”

I shook my head. “No, you said red.”

Tito smiled. “No, I said blue.”

Bozo giggled. Frankie Diamond turned away, shaking his head.

I looked at Willy, who shrugged. “Just make him another one.”

No way, I thought. “You said red, Tito. Two reds and one blue, right, Willy?”

Willy shrugged again. “That’s what I heard,” he mumbled.

Tito stepped closer and whispered, “You don’t make it right, I ain’t paying you nothing, how’s about that?” He stuffed the three dollars back into his pocket.

I made him another one. Blue. And while I made it, Tito nipped big hunks off his red one.

I handed Tito the blue shave ice.

Now he had one in each hand.

“Three dollars,” I said again.

“Hey, Bozo. Pay um for me, ah? My hands are full.”

Bozo took his own fat wad of dollar bills out. He peeled off three of them and paid Willy.

Now my face
really
got hot. All that money! “You should pay for that one, too,” I said, pointing to the red one. “Since you’re eating it.”

Tito cocked his head, pretending he was considering my suggestion. “I don’t think so, Coco-dork, because listen … if you make a mistake, you should pay for it yourself, right? Not the customer. You never heard of the customer is always right?”

Bozo nudged Tito with his elbow.

Tito turned.

Bozo nodded toward the pavilion.

Uncle Scoop was coming back.

“We go,” Tito said.

They hurried off.

Frankie Diamond glanced once over his shoulder as I took a dollar out of my own pocket and put it in the cash drawer.

When I looked up, Tito, Bozo, and Frankie Diamond were nowhere in sight.

18

“H
ow’d it go?” Uncle Scoop asked, climbing back into the lunch truck.

“Good,” I said.

“Make any money?”

“Some.”

Uncle Scoop put one hand on my shoulder
and the other on Willy’s. “You two have quite a knack for working with people.”

“Thanks,” I said, trying to shake off the junk feeling of getting robbed, twice. Seemed I had a knack for that, too.

“Hey,” someone said. “Mr. Scoop.”

When I saw who it was, I got steamed all over again.

Frankie Diamond. Alone.

He glanced over his shoulder as he walked up.

Uncle Scoop grabbed his order pad. “What can I get for you?”

“I don’t want anything. I just need to … to say something.” He glanced over his shoulder again.

Uncle Scoop rested his arms on the counter. “What’s up?”

“Well… see … a few minutes ago, you weren’t here, but those two were, and I was here with two guys and we ordered three shave ice. My friend said they made his cone wrong and made them make it again.”

Uncle Scoop nodded. “Okay.”

“But they didn’t make it wrong,” Frankie went on. “They made it right… so my friend got two shave ice for the price of one.”

“I see,” Uncle Scoop said, keeping his eyes on Frankie Diamond.

Frankie pointed his chin at me. “That kid there? He paid for the second shave ice out of his own pocket.”

Uncle Scoop raised his eyebrows. “Why are you telling me this, son?”

Frankie shrugged. “Because I seen that kid pay with his own money.” Frankie looked at me, then back at Uncle Scoop. “I guess I just thought you should know that.”

Uncle Scoop reached down to shake Frankie’s hand. “You’re right. Thank you for telling me.”

Frankie hesitated, then reached up and shook. He left quickly.

Uncle Scoop watched him hurry away. “Now, that’s something you boys won’t see every day.”

When Frankie got to the end of the lane he looked back once, then slipped around the corner.

Uncle Scoop took a dollar out of the cash drawer. “This is your money, not mine.”

“But—”

“Call it the cost of doing business. Sometimes you lose a little money. But you did exactly the right thing, Calvin. A customer complained and you fixed it… but you sure didn’t have to pay for it with your own money.”

I looked at the dollar bill, which I needed… a lot. I stuffed it into my pocket. “Thanks, Uncle Scoop.”

Uncle Scoop yawned. “I think I’m going to pack it in, boys. So let’s see … how long did you work?”

I turned to Willy. “An hour?”

Willy shrugged. “I forgot to look at a clock.”

Uncle Scoop waved it off. “Doesn’t matter. I give you five bucks each. How’s that?”

“Wow!” That was way more than I’d expected.

“Double wow!” Willy said.

Uncle Scoop gave us each a five-dollar bill from his cash drawer. “You boys come help me again sometime, huh?”

“For sure! We like to work, right, Willy?”

“Yeah. Lucky we ran into you, Uncle Scoop.”

Uncle Scoop laughed. “I don’t call this rat-trap Lucky Lunch for nothing.”

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