Barfing in the Backseat (6 page)

I didn’t mean to watch that long. But circumstances were against me. I mean, how was I to know it was a
Simpsons
marathon night?

When my dad came in to wake us in the morning, the first thing he asked was how much of my homework packet I had done. I quickly pushed the packet off the bed and onto the floor so he wouldn’t see it.

“About as much as I expected,” I said. As I yawned, I batted the packet way underneath the bed, real casual-like, with my outstretched hand.

“You see, Hank,” my dad said, not noticing what I was doing with my hand, “it just takes a
little discipline and a little planning, and presto, the world opens up for you.”

I glanced over at Frankie and gave him the “don’t blow it” look.

“Now get ready, boys. Emily’s dying to get to the Science Museum of Virginia.”

As soon as my dad was out the door, Frankie popped out of bed and started to pace.

“I’m worried about this, Zip,” he said. “How much homework did you actually do last night?”

“Don’t sweat it, man. I have this all under control.”

“Hey, don’t give me that line. I am not your dad. I know better.”

“Okay, Frankie. I slipped a little last night. But it was the second night of vacation, and I was in a vacation kind of mood.”

“Just remember three words, dude. Colossus Coaster Kingdom. You and me, we’re going to ride the Super Duper Looper. And Freefall. Don’t mess that up, Zip, you hear?”

Before I could answer, Emily came running in. She was all dressed, with her hair braided and her shoes on.

“Science museum day,” she said. “Hurry up and get ready.”

“What’s the rush?” I asked. “It’s not going anywhere.”

“I want to have as much time as possible in the museum,” Emily said. “The world of science is so fascinating and complex. You just can’t spend long enough in it.”

“Okay, beat it,” I said. “We’ll hurry.”

While Frankie got dressed, I strolled into the bathroom and found all the little bottles of free stuff they give you in hotels. I love those little bottles. I jumped in the shower and washed my hair with green apple shampoo and conditioned it with a strawberry-smelling cream. I rinsed my mouth with minty mouthwash and finished things off with a peach body lotion. When I was done, I was like a walking fruit cocktail.

“Hank,” Emily yelled through the bathroom door. “What’s taking so long?”

“A guy’s got to be well-groomed for the world of science,” I hollered.

“Well, the car’s all loaded and we’re leaving,” she said. “With or without your well-groomed self.”

“Where’s Frankie?” I called out.

“He’s downstairs already. You’re the slowpoke.”

“All right,” I said, opening the bathroom door. “Take a breath, will you?”

“How would you like it if I made you late for the roller coaster park?” she said.

“I wouldn’t,” I answered. “And don’t even think about it.”

“Okay, then let’s go. I love science as much as you love roller coasters.”

You can’t argue with a crazed ten-year-old science nut. So I grabbed my jacket, threw an extra bottle of green apple shampoo into my jeans pocket, and ran out the door after her.

S
EVERAL HOURS LATER,
we pulled up in front of the Science Museum of Virginia. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that Frankie and I were not too excited to be there. I mean, it may have been a thrill for my nerdball sister to spend the morning looking at pictures of atoms and molecules, but for me, I could already feel my brain dozing off. It was only a matter of time before the rest of my body followed right into snoozeville.

To top off the excitement of the morning, as we started to climb out of the minivan, my dad suggested we all bring a pad of paper and a pencil so we could take notes. Well, it was not exactly a suggestion. It went a little something like this:

“Kids, make sure you have paper and a pencil to take notes. I’ll review what you’ve
written while we’re eating lunch.”

“Stanley,” I heard my mom whisper to him. “Are you sure we need to go that far? I mean, it is their vacation.”

“It’s okay, Mom,” Emily piped up. “We’re here to learn. I’ve brought a pack of twenty-four colored markers so I can diagram the DNA of snakes, lizards, and other reptiles I love.”

“Ah, you must be drawing yourself,” I said to her.

“Just get your materials, Hank,” my dad said. “Your attitude about learning could be a little more like Emily’s.”

Emily stuck her tongue out at me, but for the first time ever, I didn’t mind. That’s because I had a bigger problem than her bumpy tongue wagging in my face.

“Frankie,” I whispered in a panic as I rummaged through my backpack, looking for the pad and pencil. “Get over here!”

“Not now, dude. Everyone’s waiting for you.”

“Look,” I said, pointing to the inside of my backpack. “What do you see?”

Frankie looked inside. “A wad of old gummy bears, two broken pencils, a high-bounce ball
from a gumball machine, a pad of paper, and a lot of empty space.”

“That’s what I’m talking about. My homework packet’s not there.”

“Oh no. What’d you do with it, dude?”

“What did
I
do with it? What did
you
do with it?”

“Me?” Frankie asked.

“Oh, wait a minute. I never did put it in my backpack. Now I remember. I threw it under the bed when my dad came in this morning. You should have reminded me to take it.”

“Hey, stop blaming this on me. You never even told me what you did with the packet.”

“Well, I meant to.”

“Meant to and doing it are two different things, dude.”

“Okay, can we talk about this another time? What do I do right now? It’s gone.”

“We’ll just have to drive back to the hotel and get it,” Frankie said.

“And tell my dad I screwed up? No way. Besides, how do I explain to him that the packet was under the bed? Tell me that, smarty pants.”

I felt a large hand on my shoulder. It was a hand I knew.

“Come on, Hank. You’re holding up the works,” my dad said, giving me the Stanley Zipzer shoulder squeeze. He must have learned that from Papa Pete.

“I’ll be right there, Dad,” I said. “Frankie and I have some important business to discuss.”

“There’s time for that later,” my dad said. “The wonderful world of science is waiting.”

And without giving us even a little bit of a choice, he herded us away from the minivan, across the parking lot, up the steps, and into the front door of the museum.

You won’t believe what greeted us in the entryway. What you’d expect in the entry of a science museum might be a spaceship or a dinosaur or a huge atom. If it’s a really cool science museum, maybe a model of the solar system with the rings of Saturn flashing on and off in neon. But there at the Science Museum of Virginia, what they had in the entry was a gigantic jar of candy.

It was so huge that it almost touched the
ceiling. And it was filled with every delicious type of candy you could think of from all over the world—gummy worms, bubble gum, taffy, caramel, candy bars with coconut, chocolate bars with nuts and raisins, sour tarts, jawbreakers, thin cookie sticks covered with chocolate from Japan, lollipops of every color and one shaped like Switzerland. All I could think of was standing on the edge of the jar, diving in, and eating my way down to the bottom.

“Did we just take a detour and wind up in heaven?” I asked my mom.

She pointed to a big banner over the candy jar. It said, Candy Unwrapped: Science Never Tasted So Good.

“The exhibit,” Emily said, “is about the science behind the candy we love. I’m going to use my markers to diagram sugar molecules, both simple and complex.”

“Emily, you’re my hero,” I said. “You know just how to eke out every ounce of fun in any situation.”

“Ease up on her, dude,” Frankie said. “You’ve got your own problems.”

In the glory of the candy moment, I had forgotten about the missing homework packet. This is what happens to me all the time. I have one thing on the brain, and suddenly it disappears like it had never been there. Without a trace. You’d think that when a guy has lost his seven-thousand-page homework packet, he could keep that front and center in his brain for five minutes. Not me. Not your Hank. My brain was filled with sesame-seed-covered nougats from Thailand.

“Hey, kids, look at that,” my dad said, pointing into one of the big exhibit halls. “Have you ever seen a tongue like that?”

In the center of the hall was a giant tongue, as big as the kindergarten jungle gym at our school. Three kids were sliding down the tongue, and as they slid over different sections, the tongue talked.

“Salty, sweet, bitter, sour,” it said.

“That’s a weird sentence,” I commented. Of course, Emily had a comment on my comment. She’s a girl who can’t resist commenting.

“It’s announcing the four flavors the taste buds can actually recognize,” Emily said.

“Everybody knows that,” I said, which of course, I didn’t.

“I don’t suppose you know where a butterfly’s taste buds are located,” Emily said with a smirk.

“I think you’ll find them on their feet as well as in their mouths,” I answered.

Emily was stunned that I actually knew this science fact. I have to confess, I didn’t read it in a book. I saw it on a
National Geographic
special on caterpillars and butterflies. But she didn’t have to know that.

Frankie gave me a high five. It was the second time this trip that I got to out-brain my know-it-all sister. In fact, it was such a special occasion, I even high-fived myself.

Emily took off to explore the tongue. Frankie started to follow her because it was a very cool and unusual object, but I grabbed the back of his Yankees sweatshirt and pulled him toward me.

“This is no time for tongue slides,” I whispered. “We have a serious problem to solve.”

“You keep on saying
we
,” Frankie said.
“You’re the one with the problem, Zip.”

“Fine, I’ll solve it by myself. Can I borrow your cell phone? I’ll call the motel where I left it.”

“My parents gave it to me for emergencies only,” Frankie said, “with strict instructions not to make any other calls.”

“Look at me, Frankie. Do you not see emergency written all over my face?”

“Okay,” Frankie said. “One call.”

He reached into his jacket pocket and slipped me his cell phone, just as my dad approached us. I shoved the phone into the back pocket of my jeans, and flashed my dad a big smile.

“Why aren’t you exploring the tongue?” he asked.

“Well, Mr. Z., Hank and I wanted to learn all about the taste receptors first, before we actually slid down the tongue,” Frankie said, pointing to a list of facts.

“We’re trying to take this educational experience seriously,” I joined in.

“Did you know, Mr. Z., that the average tongue has ten thousand taste buds on it?” Frankie said.

“That’s the number of fans that can fit into the left outfield section at a Mets game,” I threw in. I liked the sound of that. My dad did, too.

“It’s nice that you boys are taking all this information in,” he said.

“Maybe you can use that piece of info in one of your crossword puzzles, Dad. Wouldn’t that be something?”

“Speaking of which, I have the crossword puzzle from the Richmond newspaper right here, which I plan to work on while you kids explore,” he said. “That’s the great thing about travel, boys. There’s a new crossword puzzle in every city.”

Happy as a baby clam in salt water, my dad strolled off to the coffee bar to attack his new puzzle.

“Okay,” I said to Frankie. “Let’s go hide behind the tongue and get this call made. I don’t think my dad can see us if we sit on the tonsil.”

Frankie followed me to the back area of the giant tongue. I thanked my lucky stars that it was plastic and wasn’t real, so we didn’t have to be dodging spit and already-been-chewed
peanut butter patties. That would have been disgusto.

“Dial information and ask for the number of the Comfort-For-U Motel in Washington, D.C.,” Frankie said.

As I dialed, I was already panicked, because I’m not good at remembering numbers thrown at me by an operator. I hear them, I repeat them, and I forget them all in the same instant. But I want to say a huge thanks here for the Great Automated Voice in the cell phone, who not only gave me the number, but connected me to it. Thank you, Great Automated Voice. You are a goddess. And I mean that sincerely.

I held the phone up to my ear. The guard at the door was watching us very carefully. I could tell he didn’t like the two of us using the tonsil as a phone booth.

I held the phone to my ear. Frankie moved his ear in as close as he could, trying to hear.

The phone rang once. Twice.
Oh please, someone pick up.