Double Fudge (6 page)

Fudge got a banana and a juice box at the snack car. While I paid, Fudge peeled all the skin off his banana and shoved half of it into his mouth. His cheeks puffed out and he couldn't talk his mouth was so full. He insisted on carrying the little cardboard box that held the rest of his banana and his juice box. But on the way back from the snack car the train swerved and Fudge lost his balance. He flew into the lap of a woman in a red suit and coughed out the gooey, half-chewed banana all over her clothes.

"Get off me!" she shouted. "Someone get him off me!" She shoved Fudge off her lap as if he were a slobbering dog, or worse. "Ohhhh," she cried, "look what you've done. You've ruined my suit." She turned to the man across the aisle. "Can you believe this?

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And I've got an appointment at the White House!" Then she glared at Fudge, who was picking himself up off the floor. "You know who lives at the White House?" she asked him.

"The President," Fudge said.

"That's right! And I'm going to tell him exactly how I got these stains on my suit." She jumped up and marched to the rear of the car, where there was a rest room.

"Tell him it was a banana," Fudge called. "And tell him my name, too. It's Farley Drexel Hatcher, but he can call me Fudge."

I grabbed him and pulled him back to our seats. No way was I ever taking him to the snack car again.

When we finally got to Washington our first stop was a tour of the Bureau of Printing and Engraving. That's where the
green stuff
is printed. There were about twenty other people in our group. Our tour guide's name was Rosie. She had dark eyes, reddish hair, and big teeth.

Before our official tour began, Rosie told us some of what we'd see during our tour.
Fun Facts,
she called them. I decided to write her
Fun Facts
in my notebook in case any of my teachers ever assigned a report on U.S. currency.

"Fun Fact Number One," Rosie said. "The Bureau

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of Printing and Engraving produces 37 million notes a day, worth about $696 million."

Fudge raised his hand and asked, "Are notes the same as bucks?"

Rosie told him they were. "They're called bills, dollars, bucks ..."

Some guy shouted out, "How about
moola?"
A couple of people laughed. A few more groaned.

"Well, yes," Rosie said. "I suppose some people refer to money as
moola
or even as
dough."

"How
about green stuff?"
Fudge shouted. "That's what my grandma calls it."

This time almost everyone in our group laughed. Any minute I thought Fudge would take a bow. But Rosie kept checking her watch and asked the group to hold their questions and comments until she was finished running through all her
Fun Facts.
Then she led us through the metal detector. Fudge asked if we were getting on a plane. Rosie explained that we weren't, but because this is a federal building they had to make sure no one was carrying a weapon.

"A weapon?" Fudge said, right before Dad set off the alarm. Nobody would have paid any attention except that Fudge shouted, "Dad! Are you carrying a weapon?" That got everyone's attention.

"It's his belt buckle, Turkey Brain," I said.

Rosie took a deep breath and checked her watch a

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couple of times. She was still smiling but she didn't look that happy. She led us down a long hallway. We followed her single file through narrow corridors that twisted and turned. The old wooden floor squeaked under us. Every few minutes we'd stop in front of glass walls that looked down into rooms where we could see the
green stuff
in production. As the crowd pressed forward to the window wall, Fudge worked his way up front, wedging himself between people's legs if he had to, to get a better view. Then he waved to the workers in the rooms below. I heard him singing under his breath,
"Oh, money, money, money... I love money, money, money
..."

I
couldn't believe my parents thought bringing him here was a good idea.

We saw the
green stuff
as it was printed, cut, stacked, and counted. Toward the end of the tour Rosie invited Fudge to walk with her since he was so interested. "I love money!" he told her.

"Well, you've come to the right place," Rosie said.

"Want to see mine?" He pulled out a jumble of Fudge Bucks. "I make it myself. Pretty good, huh?"

"Play money is fine," Rosie told him, "as long as you don't try to use it or pass it off as real because then you could get in big trouble."

"Why?" Fudge asked.

"Because that's the rule," Rosie said, firmly, which

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shut him up until the end of the tour. That's when Rosie asked our group if anyone had any special questions. Fudge's hand shot up first. Rosie didn't look thrilled but she had no choice. She had to call on him.

"I still need to find out how you get a lot of it all at once," Fudge said.

"A lot of..." Rosie sounded confused.

"Money!" Fudge shouted.

Mom stepped in and tried to explain. "Fudge has become very curious about money," she told Rosie. "And we thought that by bringing him here ..."

"I hear what you're saying," Rosie said to Mom. "But somebody has to set him straight."

"I'll set him straight," a tall man with silver hair said. "First of all, young man, you need to get a good education. Then, when you're grown up, you need a good job. Then you save something from your salary every week. You invest carefully. You let your money work for you. And by the time you're my age, with luck, you'll have a nice little nest egg for your retirement."

Our group applauded.

But Fudge still wasn't satisfied. "Or else someone can just give it to you," he said.

You could hear the tongues clucking and the whispers in the crowd. I heard someone say, "This kid is hopeless."

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That's when Rosie announced that the next tour was about to begin and we could all proceed to the gift shop. "You're going to love the gift shop," she told Fudge. "All the children do."

"Gift shop?" Mom said. "Warren, did you know there was a gift shop?"

Dad groaned.

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"This is better than the tour!" Fudge sang, racing all around. He was fascinated by a five-pound bag of shredded money containing a minimum of ten thousand dollars. You could buy it for forty-five dollars. "Pete, look... ten thousand dollars all in one little bag."

"Yeah ... but it's shredded, so it's totally useless."

"I could try to glue it back together. Then we could buy every toy in the world."

"Even if you could glue it back together, it'd be

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counterfeit," I told him. "If you tried to use it, you'd go to jail."

"Anyway," Dad said, "forty-five dollars is way too much to spend."

"How about a five-dollar bag, instead?" the clerk suggested, holding one up.

Fudge liked that idea. "I'll get one for me and one for Richie."

"Richie Richest doesn't need shredded money," I told him.

"How about you, Pete?"

"I don't need it either. I don't even want it."

"Okay, fine," Fudge said. "Then I'll just get a bag for me."

While Dad was paying, Fudge tore around the shop. "How about this tie?" he shouted. "I have to have this tie! Mom, please can I have this money tie?"

Mom hustled over to him. "What are you going to do with a tie?"

"Wear it," Fudge said. "Please, Mom! Pretty, pretty please with pistachio nuts on top."

"All right." Mom gave in. "But that's it."

"What about Tootsie?" Fudge said.

"Tootsie doesn't need anything from this shop," Mom said. "She doesn't understand about money."

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I turned to Mom and Dad. "So, you think he's cured now?"

They looked at me like I was the lunatic. Then Dad said, "Let's just get out of here."

While we were collecting our things, Fudge raced back across the gift shop. "Dad ..." he said. "That guy is staring you out."

"What guy?" Dad asked.

"That
one," Fudge said, pointing across the shop.

"Don't point," Mom told Fudge. "It's not polite."

"Then how will Dad know
which
guy I mean?"

"Good question," I said. "It's pretty crowded in here."

"Peter, please ..." Mom said, shaking her head. Then she turned to Fudge. "You can describe him, instead of pointing."

"Okay," Fudge said. "That guy, who kind of looks like you, is staring you out, Dad."

"It's not
staring you out,"
I told Fudge for the twentieth time, at least. "It's
staring at you."

Now some guy came across the room and walked right up to Dad. He was big--taller and heavier than Dad. His voice boomed through the room, "You have the Hatcher jaw and the Hatcher eyes and if I didn't know better I'd swear you must
be
a Hatcher!" He stuck out his hand and introduced himself. "Howard Hatcher of Honolulu, Hawaii."

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For a minute Dad looked blank. Then he did a double take. "No," he said. "It can't be. Are you telling me you're Cousin Howie Hatcher?"

"None other. And you're Cousin Tubby, aren't you?"

"Cousin
Tubby?"
Fudge said.

I was thinking exactly the same thing but I don't always
say
what I'm thinking, the way Fudge does.

"I'm known as Warren now," Dad told Cousin Howie.

Cousin Howie gave Dad a friendly punch in the shoulder. "Lost a few pounds since we last met, huh? You were a real butterball in those days." He laughed. "A big tub of lard."

Dad sucked in his gut and stood up really straight.

"You got to work out, Tub!" Howie said, sticking his finger in Dad's gut, like Dad was the Pillsbury Doughboy.

"I do work out, Howie." Dad got a funny look on his face then, like he suddenly wished he'd told this guy he must be mistaken. Like he had no long-lost cousin named Howie.

"Well, maybe you got to work harder," Cousin Howie said. "Run a marathon or two."

That struck me as weird, because Dad was a lot less flabby-looking than Cousin Howie, who had shifted his focus to Fudge and me. I stood up straight, shoulders back, stomach tight.

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"See, that's why we used to call him
Tubby,"
Cousin Howie said, as if we didn't get it by now. "So, Tub ... these handsome boys belong to you?"

Dad said, "Yes, this is my family. My wife, Anne ..."

Cousin Howie kissed Mom's hand. "So you're the little lady who stole Tubby's heart." Mom looked like she might puke.

"And these are my sons," Dad said, "Peter and Fudge."

"Fudge!" Cousin Howie said. "Now there's a name."

"Actually, it's Farley Drexel," Dad said. "We just call him Fudge."

"Farley Drexel!" Cousin Howie's voice was so loud I backed away. "What a coincidence."

Fudge pulled me aside. "What's a coincidence?" he asked.

"It's like when something just happens, something you didn't expect."

"We didn't expect Cousin Howie, did we?"

"No," I told him. "We definitely didn't expect Cousin Howie. But he's more of a surprise than a coincidence."

Cousin Howie wasn't alone. He introduced us to his wife, Eudora, a chunky woman with freckles, a doll's mouth, and straw-colored hair. "Sweetheart," he said, "I want you to meet my long-lost cousin, Tubby Hatcher."

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"
Warren ..." Dad said, with a tight smile on his face.

"Right you are," Cousin Howie said. "You keep reminding me and eventually I'll remember."

Dad took a deep breath while Eudora gushed. "I have heard so much about you over the years, Tubby."

"Warren," Dad said again. "My name is
Warren
."

"Oh, of course," she said, laughing. "You wouldn't go by your boyhood nickname anymore, would you? I mean, imagine a grown man called
Tubby.
That would be embarrassing, wouldn't it?"

"Actually," Dad told her, "Howie is the
only
person who ever called me
Tubby."

"Is
that right?" Howie said. "And I always thought
everybody
called you Tubby."

Eudora smiled sweetly and told Dad, "What a shame you lost touch when Howie's family moved to Hawaii. I know how much Howie's missed you." After that she took Mom's hand and said, "I feel as if we're personally connected, don't you?"

Before Mom had a chance to answer, before she could say,
Why no ... I don't feel personally connected at all. Why would anyone in her right mind feel personally connected to you and Cousin Howie?
Eudora gushed, "This is just so wonderful. We didn't think we had any family left. And to find you this way, out of the blue ..." She pulled Mom close and hugged

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her until Mom was practically gasping for breath.

Mom looked to Dad for guidance when suddenly Fudge said, "It's a real coincidence."

Eudora looked surprised. "Why, yes ... it is. A real coincidence."

I thought it was a pretty weird coincidence since Dad's never mentioned anything about a Cousin Howie to us.

And there were still more family members to meet. Eudora whistled and two girls about my age came over. "Boys," she said to Fudge and me, "meet your long-lost cousins, Flora and Fauna Hatcher. They're named for the natural beauty of our islands. And that's just what we call them... our natural beauties."

Fudge laughed. It came out sounding like a big hiccup. I gave him an elbow and he covered his mouth with his hand. Isn't he the one who told me we don't laugh at people's names? Not that I didn't feel like laughing over
Flora
and
Fauna,
too. But I was into proving I could control myself. It was part of my new seventh-grade maturity.

Eudora went back to talking with Mom and Dad, leaving Fudge and me with the Natural Beauties.

"We're twins," one of them said.

"Identical, in case you didn't notice," the other one added.

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"You want to know how to tell us apart?" the first one asked.

"By your fingerprints?" Fudge asked.

"In case you don't have access to our fingerprints," the second one said, "I'm Flora and I have a scar on my chin." She stuck out her chin and pointed underneath to her scar. "See?"

Then the other one said, "I'm Fauna and I have a brown dot in my right eye, but you have to look really close to see it."

Who'd want to?
I was thinking as Fudge stood on tiptoe and peered into Fauna's right eye.

"How old are you?" Flora asked me.

"He's twelve," Fauna said, stretching back to her full height, which was just a little taller than me.

"How'd you know that?" I asked her.

"I can always tell," Fauna said.

"How old are you?" I asked.

"How old do you think?" Fauna said.

"I'm not into guessing," I told them.

"He's not into guessing," Fauna repeated to Flora and they giggled.

Why do girls giggle? I mean, do they really find things so hysterically funny, or are they born that way?

"Want to know how old I am?" Fudge asked.

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He didn't wait for them to answer. "I'm five but I'll be six soon. I'm in mixed group."

"What's mixed group?" Flora asked.

"It's what comes after kindergarten if you're really smart," Fudge told her. "Pete's in seventh grade."

"That's what grade we'd be in..." Flora said.

"If we went to school," Fauna said, finishing for her.

"You don't go to school?" Fudge asked.

"We're home-schooled," Fauna said.

"What's that?"

"Our parents teach us at home," Flora explained.

"Who else is in your class?" Fudge asked.

"No one," they answered together.

"Except our brother sometimes hangs around," Flora said. That's when I realized the little boy hiding behind her was part of the family.

"He's almost four," Fauna said, "and even though you can't tell ..."

"Our mother is pregnant again," Flora whispered.

"Our mother was pregnant one time," Fudge said, also whispering.

"Only one time?" Flora asked. She and Fauna looked at each other and giggled again.

"Isn't that right, Pete?"

"How about three times?" I said. "Once with me, once with you, and once with our little sister."

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"Oh. I forgot about the you and me part," Fudge said. Then he danced around, singing, "I know how the baby got inside ..."

"We all do," I said, stopping him before he got started.

This time Flora and Fauna actually laughed. Then Flora stepped aside and said, "This is our little brother. And if you think we have interesting names, wait 'til you hear his!"

"It's Farley Drexel!" Fauna announced.

"Farley Drexel?"
Fudge said. "That's
my
name!"

"It can't be," Flora told him.

"Well, it is," Fudge said, hands on his hips.

"But it's an old family name," Fauna said.

"Yeah... well, our fathers are cousins, remember?" I said.

"You mean ..." Flora began.

"That Farley Drexel Hatcher ..." Fauna said.

"Was
your
father's uncle just like he was
our
father's uncle?" Flora finished for both of them.

I nodded. "We call him Fudge," I said.

"They call me Fudge," Fudge repeated. "Everybody but my little sister calls me Fudge. She calls me
Foo,
but that's just because she can't say Fudge."

"Fudge! That's a great name," Fauna said. "We've been trying to come up with ..."

"A good name for Farley," Flora said.

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"And Fudge is perfect!" Fauna added.

"He can't have my name," Fudge told them.

"He already does," I reminded him.

"He has the Farley Drexel part but not the
Fudge!"
Fudge planted his feet wide apart and prepared to do battle. "You can call him Farley or you can call him Drexel or you can call him F.D., but you
can't
call him Fudge!"

That sounded familiar. I was wondering where I'd heard it before when Fudge nudged me and said, "Remember when Rat Face said that, Pete?"

Oh yeah
... I thought. Rat Face. His first kindergarten teacher. Then I started to laugh.

Little Farley growled.

"My name belongs to me," Fudge told them, in case there was any doubt. "I own it!"