Katy Kelly_Lucy Rose 01 (9 page)

Jonique said, “Yuck.”

But I said, “I would be happy for any clue, even if it's poop.”

And then we went in the furnace room which is the scariest room in the house and we saw nothing. And Melonhead said we had to be very quiet and
listen for scritching noises so we all held our breath and waited but we didn't hear one single scritch. But then we did hear my mom and Madam calling and we went up and Madam said, “The Cheerios are missing and I am pretty sure Gumbo didn't eat them.”“I think Jake ate them,” my mom said. “And then crawled through this hole in the floor where the radiator pipes go through.”“So where is he?” I asked.

And my mom said, “I think he has gotten underneath the floorboards.”

Then I felt sick with worry that we would never find him.

But all of a sudden Jonique said, “I have a very great idea! Follow me!”

She ran back to the basement and into the olden-days kitchen and Melonhead ran after her and so did I. “One of us should get in the dumbwaiter,” Jonique said. “Then they can ride up and look through the slot on the side to find him or at least leave him some food.”

Melonhead said, “I'll do it!”

But I said, “No. I lost him so I should do it.”
And I didn't say I was scared to pieces which I was.

But then Melonhead said, “Lucy Rose, if you let me do it I will trade you my good lunches for your bad lunches for the rest of the year.”

I couldn't believe it. “You don't have to give me your good lunches,” I said. “You can do it if you want.”“Thanks!” Melonhead said.

Then I was a little embarrassed feeling. “Besides,” I said, “it'll take me and Jonique to pull the rope that makes the dumbwaiter box go up because it's not electric or anything.”

So Melonhead smooshed himself into the dumbwaiter and there was hardly any room left and then he said, “Raise her up!”

Jonique and I yanked on the rope with all of our muscles and the dumbwaiter went up and Melonhead went with it and we pulled and pulled until we could only see an empty space, like if you saw elevator insides without seeing the elevator, only smaller. Then we pulled even harder and our arms felt like they were coming out of their sockets and we held on but then I screamed, “Watch out!” because I couldn't hold on another second and
neither could Jonique and the rope just got away and I didn't breathe at all waiting for the crash.

But nothing happened.

We called up, “Are you okay?”

And he yelled back, “Yes.”“Look through the slot,” Jonique told him. “What do you see?”“I can see the space between the basement ceiling and the upstairs floor,” Melonhead said.“I mean do you see Jake?” I shouted up to him.“Nope,” he said. “But I'll put some food in the in-between place and then after I get down we'll send it back up and maybe Jake will find it and walk through the slot and be captured in the dumbwaiter!”

I was depressed with that news.“Let her down,” Melonhead said.

So we pulled the rope but nothing happened. Then we swung on it and nothing happened. Then Melonhead said, “Hurry up, Lucy Rose. It's hot in here.”

And I said, “It's stuck.”

Then Melonhead went quiet and I went frantic because now Jake and Melonhead were both stuck in the walls and I said, “I'll get Pop.”

“Oh, brother!” Jonique said, shaking her head so her braids flew side to side. “He'll probably be mad at us.”

And I said, “Probably, but we can't just leave Melonhead in there forever.”

And she said she was one who agreed with that because after a while he would be starving, so we ran for Pop and he and Madam and my mom came to the basement and started calling up things to Melonhead. “Help is here,” Pop yelled and he pulled on the rope.“Don't worry,” Madam said, even though Pop was not having luck getting him down.

But my mother looked at me and looked at Jonique with mad eyes and she said, “Whatever made you girls think this was a good idea?”

Jonique looked like she was about to cry.“Well,” Pop said, “you have to give them credit for original thinking and a certain amount of nerve.”“But poor Adam Melon,” my mom said.“Adam Melon is probably having the time of his life,” Pop said.

And then we all went up to the kitchen where
the dumbwaiter goes up to. The problem is that the door to it has been screwed shut since they remade the kitchen so Pop got a crows bar and a screwdriver and a hammer and he and my mom started to try to unwind the screws to open the door and Pop called out, “How is it down there?” in his echoing voice.

And Melonhead yelled back, “It's small.”“I'll bet,” Pop said.

Then Melonhead shouted back, “I guess you really had to be a dumb waiter to ride in this thing.”

Pop didn't tell him that before now only food rode in it because it might make him frantic to realize he was the first human to do it.

Madam and Jonique and I went back to the basement in case the dumbwaiter got unstuck and came back down again. Then someone would be waiting for Melonhead when he got out. After a while we could hear Pop yelling down, “Only one screw left to go!”

And then Adam Melon started yelling at the top of his lungs, “I see him!”

For just one second I forgot who him was and
then Melonhead shouted, “I am shining my flashlight right on him!”“You are?” Jonique shouted. “For real?”“Yep. Jake is just sitting in the in-between looking at me,” Melonhead yelled.

I was hardly breathing from my nerves. “Is he near or far?” I hollered.“Near. I'm putting my arm through the slot. I'm touching fur!”

Then I was hardly breathing from happiness.

We could hear him say, “Come here, Jake.”

And then he said, “No! No! Wrong way.”“Which wrong way?” Jonique screamed.“He's going up through the floor where a pipe is,” Melonhead said.

Jonique and I and Madam ran back up from the basement to the hall by the back staircase where we could hear scritching in the wall and it was getting higher and my mom came out from the kitchen and said, “It sounds like Jake is climbing up the pipes to the upstairs bathroom.”

So we all except for Pop ran up there and my mom was right because we could hear him jumping around inside the wall that is right over the door of

Madam's fancy bathroom that has the morning glory wallpaper and the old-time bathtub with golden faucets. And my mom said, “I think he fell in and is stuck there because I doubt there is any way for him to go up or out.”

So I ran down the back stairs to the kitchen and pulled on Pop's arm and said, “Hurry, Pop. Jake needs you upstairs.”

But Pop said, “Children first.”

Then he pushed the screwdriver underneath the dumbwaiter door and banged it with the hammer until it made a sound like SWAK and flew open. But inside the dumbwaiter looked empty except for rope. And then I was scared. “Don't tell me we've lost him, too,” I said to Pop.

But Pop pulled on the rope and up came the dumbwaiter and out came Melonhead. I NEVER thought I'd be glad to see him but actually I was. Very. Then I asked him, “Were you scared?”

And he said, “I had the time of my life.”

So Melonhead and I took the chisel and the hammer but left the crows bar because we did not need it Pop said and went all up to the bathroom and my mom showed Pop where she thought
Jake was trapped and Madam got a chair for Pop to stand on and Mom got a shoe box from Madam's closet. Then Pop said, “I need room. Everybody has to stand in the bathtub except for Lucy Rose because she is my assistant and it's her job to hold the box.”

Then Pop stood on the chair and put the bathroom cup sideways on the wall and put his ear on the bottom of it so he could listen. “Something is in there and I hope it's a guinea pig,” he said.

Then he took the chisel and the hammer and started tapping out a hole in the wall that was about as big as an Oreo and when he finished he said, “Someone give me some guinea pig food.”

We all turned to Melonhead but all he said was, “Oops!”

It turned out that while he was stuck in the dumbwaiter he was feeling like he was hungry so he ate Jake's food which even my mom said was so gross but he said, “It wasn't so bad. It tasted sort of like oatmeal, if you mixed sand in it.”

Then he said he found some dried apricots and he ate them, too.“Man-o-man,” I said. But I decided I wouldn't
tell him how those apricots had been in there for extremely long.

Jonique climbed out of the bathtub and ran down the back stairs to the kitchen and took the first food she could find which was one of Madam's soy bars and brought it back up. Pop broke a piece off and held it by the hole and we all were quiet for the longest time and then I made some little kissing noises and Jake's head came right through.

But his body did not. The hole Pop made was too small so Jake was stuck. And do you know how deer heads look on the wall? He was looking like a little guinea pig head hanging over the bathroom door which made us all laugh, especially me because I was so glad to see him.

The bad thing was that Pop had to push him back inside the wall so he could cut the hole bigger.

Then, finally, the hole was big enough and Pop reached in and got out Jake who was one dusty guinea pig eating a soy bar. Pop handed Jake down to me to put in the shoe box but first I kissed him right on his fur. A few minutes later, when Jake was in the box and we were all petting him, Madam
said, “Lucy Rose, you will have to paint me a really great picture that we can put in one of the frames and hang over the hole because I am never going to be able to find another roll of that wallpaper again.”

And I said, “It will be a picture of Jake's head.”

And then I was feeling even more thankful than at Thanksgiving and I turned to Adam Melon and said, “You are one good friend, Melonhead!”

And I don't know how that Melonhead part came out but he looked like he was feeling shocked plus hurt plus angry. And he said, “What did you call me?”

And I wanted to tell the biggest lie ever in my life but I didn't because of being honorable. Instead I told him, “I said Melonhead but I mean it in a nice way,” which I figured out I did.

And he said, “Same with me when I called you a fart.”

And we both laughed and mine was with relief.

I am feeling a little yuck about going back to school so I wrote to “Dear Lucy Rose”: “What is the best way to tell something you would rather not say? A Nervous Person.”

This is the answer I got: “Dear Nervous Person, Just say it.”

Today, we went back to school and I still did not want to confess to Mr. Welsh about Jake's big adventure which is what my mom kept calling it but I was pretty sure it was the honorable thing. Besides Jonique said that if we didn't Melonhead probably would because even though he is pretty much our friend now he is the kind who has to tell everything. So I went to Mr. Welsh and I said, “I was
not so responsible as I said I would be in my letter.”

And he said, “How's that, Lucy Rose?”

So I told him the whole story and I said, “I learned a hard lesson and that is that I will not take him out again, especially without being much more careful about closing doors and maybe putting him in a box or something, if you let me keep him for some of the time in the summer.”

And Mr. Welsh said something that I did not think he would which was, “This has happened to other kids before because the thing about Jake is that he is the sort of guinea pig you want to take out of the cage and when you do a lot of times he gets away.”

When I told him about the dumbwaiter he said, “Well, you were resourceful, at least.”

And when I told him about Adam Melon trying to save the day for me, Mr. Welsh said, “How about that?”

And he made a smile.

I e-mailed my father about one big thing I really need and it is a secret and I am waiting for the answer.

Our class went to the zoo to see Mr. Welsh's friend in Small Mammals and my mom and Mr. McBee came with us. Mr. McBee did have to tell Melonhead to shape up when we were riding on the subway and he was acting wild. But after we got back to school Melonhead's mom was waiting at the playground and she gave us one dollar so we could all go to Grubb's for a treat and Melonhead let Jonique and me decide and we picked Starburst. I try to not call him Melonhead in front of his mother.