Puppet Wrangler (8 page)

¹⁹
Wilbur died really young, even for a guinea pig, and I always wondered if I should mention that to Zola. I was worried she might actually be harming herself eating so many of those honey-sesame-nut chews. I figured she must have felt the same way about me and the chocolate chip cookies. She didn't say anything about it so I decided not to either. But I still worried.

²⁰
Bitsie's fault, of course.

20
MY DAILY ROUTINE.

I'd hide in the washroom or spend ages tying my shoes or look like I was really, really interested in some IMPORTANT PARKING NOTICE on the bulletin board. Then when everyone was gone for the day, I'd do the old “coast-is-clear” head spin and slip under the beach house set to wait for Bitsie.

It took him longer to get there than me. It's probably pretty obvious why. If worse came to worst and somebody caught me walking around the studio after hours, I could just say I was going through puberty.
²¹
If somebody caught Bitsie walking around the studio, they'd go nuts. I mean, you saw how I reacted when I saw him the first time. And I'm way more normal than most people.

So Bitsie had to be really careful.

Not that he always was, of course.

Sometimes he'd just make this wild dash for it like he was some brave army guy risking his life to save his friends. (As if.) Other times he'd climb up the walls and do this Tarzan thing on the overhead ropes and then just hope I'd catch him when he let go. The worst, though, was when he hitched a ride in the cleaning lady's cart. Just hopped on the bottom shelf when she wasn't looking and hid behind the Super-Flush cans until she stopped outside the studio. That was way too risky.

Which is exactly why he loved it. He could say he didn't want other people to know he existed, but frankly I was starting to doubt it. He was getting bolder all the time.

Anyway, when we both finally got to the beach house, we'd just hang around for a while. Sometimes he'd complain about the drippy scripts, but mostly we'd just talk about what happened that day and laugh our heads off.

Like I hadn't already laughed enough by then.

It surprised everyone in the studio when Kathleen's little deaf-mute niece started laughing all the time. But I couldn't help it. Once I'd found out about Bitsie, everything he did on the set was hilarious to me because I knew he was doing it on purpose. Like that first day? When he couldn't say “Bitsiest bestiest friend” and his jaw locked open and his tongue hung out like he was gagging? He was doing that on purpose. Just to amuse himself because the script was so boring.

It got even worse once he had an audience. He'd do anything for a laugh.

A lot of it was just plain childish. Whenever Jimmy put him down, Bitsie'd make sure his bum was right in Ram's face or his eyes were crossed or he had one leg bent up like he was a dog peeing on a fire hydrant or something.

Like I said, childish—but funny too.

What cracked me up the most was when he did imitations of real people right in front of them. I don't know how he got away with it. Someone would blow their lines and Mel would run up onto the set with his eyes all bugged out, yelling about how much money these sloppy mistakes were costing the production, and I'd look over and see Bitsie lying there perfectly still with his eyes all bugged out and his mouth stretched open like “You idiot!!” (It was hilarious, but I knew better than to laugh—at least out loud—when Mel was going ape.)

Other times it was way more subtle.
²²
All Bitsie had to do was raise one eyebrow and he looked exactly like David Anthony Cudmore, the show's phony director. Whenever Nick would come around to talk, Bitsie'd do his bashful act.

He'd look at the ground or make like his hand just happened to be pushing his hair back. I knew he was making fun of me, but I never let on. (I didn't want to encourage him, at least about that.)

At night, under the set, Bitsie would go through everything again, and somehow the jokes were even funnier the second time around. (How often does that happen?)

There were only two things that got in the way of our friendship.
²³

Number One: Bitsie watched too much TV. After about an hour or so of goofing around, he'd always want to go up to the control room and veg in front of the tube. The tubes, actually. He liked to have a different channel on each of the screens. You'd think I'd love that, not having a TV at home and all. I did for a while, but then it just got boring. It also got kind of creepy, the way he'd watch a cop show or sitcom or something and act like it was real. You'd think a puppet, at least, would know the difference.

That was the first thing. The second was worse: Bitsie was jealous of Kathleen.

²¹
I didn't remember that excuse until after my close call on the first night. It was an old Bess trick. Puberty made me do it! Like a little armpit hair would turn her into a criminal or something. It worked for a while, but now that she's sixteen she's got to come up with something new. Hopefully, before her sentencing hearing.

²²
That's the first time I ever got to use the word “subtle.” It's one of Kathleen's words – believe it or not. She uses it to describe clothes and she doesn't pronounce the “b.”

²³
Other than the fact that Bitsie was just a hunk of latex, of course.

21
IT CAME AS A SHOCK

Bitsie wouldn't admit it, but he hated the fact that I'd actually started to like Kathleen. It surprised me at first too. I always figured she was one more member of the family that I was just going to have to learn to live with.

Then one Saturday morning, when I'd been in Toronto about a week, she came up to me and said, “So what do you want to do today?” all sweet and everything. Or at least trying to be.

I'm not stupid. I know the only reason she was asking was that my mother called and wanted to know what the two of us had been up to, and Kathleen couldn't honestly come up with a single thing. (She's a pretty good liar at work, but she really can't pull it off with my mother. I guess it's the big sister thing or something.)

So that's why Kathleen was so eager for a little “quality time” together. She needed something to report. We looked at each other in terror for a while. I know she was worried I was going to say, “Why don't we go to the playground?” or “Let's make paper dolls!” or some other little kid thing like that. (Even still, Kathleen has a lot of trouble figuring out exactly what a twelve-year-old is.)

What I was thinking about, though, was Nick and how Beach Meadows I looked compared to him and how I'd like to find something more Toronto to wear. I just sort of blurted out, “Ah, could we go…shopping maybe?”

It was like I'd asked Bess if she wanted to help me steal a bus. Suddenly, Kathleen looked…I know this sounds ridiculous, but it's true. She looked delighted. Like thrilled. I barely had time to pack my Choc-o-rama before we were out of the house and on a major mall crawl.

I knew Kathleen was really worried about
Bitsie 'n' Bytesie
going way over budget, so I was surprised how much she liked shopping. It was as if spending money on clothes relaxed her or something. She smiled. She laughed.
²⁴
She only answered her cell phone three times.

I was just planning to get one T-shirt (to replace the one with the chocolate stains), but Kathleen laughed at that too.

One T-shirt?!? I called that shopping?!?

No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

I was getting a whole new wardrobe. And she wouldn't even let me pay for anything, even though I told her Mum had given me emergency money. (I wasn't worried about spending it. I figured if you're twelve years old and you have a crush on someone, a new T-shirt is an emergency.)

Kathleen insisted on paying for everything herself. I could be mean and say that was so I had to get what she liked—but it wasn't that.
²⁵
She did it because of all the things my mum did for her when she was young.

She didn't say that exactly, but I figured it out pretty fast.

She couldn't hide it once we walked into that store.

Kathleen was acting perfectly normal, I mean for Kathleen. She had her lip curled up, and she was picking through the clothes like they were somebody else's dirty laundry.

She'd just said that there was “absolutely nothing here even worth looking at” when she suddenly sucked in her breath and put her hand over her mouth. I thought she must have forgotten something important, like her weekly massage or a dentist appointment or a niece left at the airport.

But it wasn't about that. It was about a pale pink sweater.

The second she noticed it on the display she bolted over and picked it up.

No, that's wrong. She didn't pick it up. She “embraced” it, like the sweater had just come back to her from the war or something. I think she might even have had tears in her eyes. She started babbling about how the sweater was exactly the same as this one she really, really wanted when she was young. I knew the part about their father leaving them and Grammie not having any money or anything and how she took this horrible job as a secretary for this bad-smelling lawyer because it was the only way they could “scrape by.”

But I didn't realize that Mum had to look after Kathleen from then on.

Anyway, Kathleen wanted this sweater so badly, but she didn't have any money. She dreamt about it every night, but she knew she'd never get it. They were living on powdered skim milk and meat that had been “reduced for quick sale.”

There was no way her mother was going to spring for a pale pink sweater that would show the dirt and wasn't even very warm. Then one day, Mum—Kathleen kept calling her

“Dodo,” which completely cracked me up. No one calls her Dodo. She's Dorothy—and you even have to pronounce the middle “o.” Dor O Thee.

Sorry. Where was I?

Oh, yeah. Then one day, “Dodo” came home from her night job at the Burger Palace. Kathleen used to wait up for her because every now and again Mum would bring her back a “Queenburger” that someone had ordered by mistake when what they really wanted was a “Princess Pattie.”
²⁶

That night, though, Kathleen almost didn't bother coming down because she couldn't smell any grease. (That's how she'd know if Mum had managed to scavenge some leftovers. Nice, eh?) But Kathleen didn't want her to think that the only reason she waited for her was because Mum brought her food.

So she ran down and gave Mum a big hug.
²⁷
Mum had her hands behind her back and said, “I've got a treat for you.”

You know the ending. No homeless Queenburger for Kathleen that night. Mum had bought her the sweater.

By this time, Kathleen really did have tears in her eyes.

She said it was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for her. And it was especially nice coming from Dodo. (This was where Kathleen started talking in this really high-pitched voice and swallowing a lot.) All sorts of guys
²⁸
wanted to take Mum out back then,
²⁹
but Mum always said no because she was too busy studying.

Kathleen said she did study a lot, but that wasn't the real reason Mum wouldn't go out with them. She was too proud to admit that she had nothing to wear. (The Burger Palace uniform just didn't cut it on a big date, I guess.)

But instead of buying herself something, Mum spent her hard-earned money on Kathleen. The money she had left, that is, after she'd paid for her tuition and helped Grammie out with the groceries.

Figures. That's just like Mum.

Kathleen managed to pull herself together. Boy, was that a relief. It was a nice story and everything, but I really didn't want to have to hold Kathleen up while she bawled her eyes out over a pink sweater.
³⁰
I was already scared she was going to get mascara on it and we'd have to pay for it.

Kathleen just gulped a couple of times, though, touched up her makeup and we kept right on shopping.

There were no more tears after that, but the stories just kept coming. Every little sock or hair band I picked up reminded her of something.

Like how Dad dropped into the Burger Palace for a Duchess Dog one day when he was at med school and then ate there every night for the next four months until Mum agreed to go out with him.
³¹

Like what a good dancer Dad was.
³²

Like what beautiful curly hair Dad had.
³³

Like what nice long legs Dad had.

I was starting to think Kathleen had a crush on Dad, but I figured that was ridiculous. He was so much older than she was. It would have been like me and—hmmmm.

Oh. Right.

It would have been like me and Nick. I sort of laughed.

Kathleen looked at me and sort of laughed too. Then she came right out and admitted that she'd had this big crush on “Mitch”—Dad, that is—for years.

Completely innocent, of course.

Of course.

Kathleen said I had to realize what it was like for her family back then. Mitch was like a knight in shining armor
³⁴
rescuing them from this horrible situation. Their no-good father left them with nothing but bills, and then along came this kind, handsome, wonderful man. A doctor too—or just about! It was as if everything was going to be all right from the moment he bought that first Duchess Dog.

I could sort of imagine Dad making them feel that way.

He must have been pretty amazing, I mean, before he lost his hair and everything.

Kathleen could even be kind of funny. She told this one story about how, when she was twelve or so, she walked in on Mum and Dad “kissing.” (There was no way they were just “kissing,” but that's what she said.) Anyway, Mum got all prissy and flustered and said that Mitch—the doctor—was just showing her where her spleen was. (See what I mean? They weren't just “kissing.”) I really laughed because I could just picture Mum doing that. It's like when I catch her eating Oreo cookies or ketchup chips or something highly unorganic like that, and she tries to make out as if she's doing some sort of scientific research on junk food or something.