Shoebag Returns (8 page)

“Thanksgiving is coming,” said Mrs. Sweetsong. “Then you will be here and not there.”

“We’ll have a big turkey!” his father said. “Where do all good turkeys go when they die?”

“Where?” Stanley asked.

“To oven!” his father laughed.

“Not funny,” Stanley said, because one thing the Butters stood for was kindness to all critters large and small.

There was yet another reason for the Butters to dislike C. Cynthia Ann Flower. For there she was, on that blustery Autumn noon, as Stanley came out of the phone booth, dressed in her royal blue blazer, white skirt, and white sock and red sock. A fur collar on her parka. Rabbit fur, it looked like to Stanley Sweetsong.

So he said to her, “Anyone who’s better, ought to have a better idea to keep warm than wearing the fur of a dead animal.”

“Anyone who was butter,” she replied, “was melted down by Miss Rattray into a yellow puddle, and no longer exists. Isn’t that right, Stanley?”

She opened her parka and flashed her white button with the red letters:
WE’RE BETTER!

Next to it was a button with Gregor Samsa’s photo on it, for C. Cynthia Ann Flower was a big fan of the Great Breath spokesboy.

Her beautiful beautiful face smiled meanly at Stanley.

She said, “For a while I thought the Butter Club was meeting secretly, but the meltdown finished you, didn’t it?”

Stanley wished he could laugh in her beautiful beautiful face, but the Butters were an underground club, and underground people kept their cool, and waited for just the right moment to strike.

Career Day.

C. Cynthia Ann Flower would be in for a little Butter Surprise the second week in November.

Now everything was working out.

The only thing missing was Bagg.

A
T THE END OF
October, the Betters treated the Lower School to pizza at Pie in the Sky, for Patsy Southgate’s birthday.

Everyone went but Stanley Sweetsong.

He did not like to be the only boy along on these treks to town.

He stayed in his room, playing a game on his computer, guiding a speeding car through a treacherous course. Eating a Butterfinger, the official candy of the Butters. Talking to Butter, who had taken to hanging out in the dustballs under Stanley’s bed.

He was surprised that Josephine joined the group.

He was amazed that the Black Mask Theater had not had a single performance in a month!

Josephine did not even like Patsy Southgate, nor any other Better. But all the Butters were going, and Josephine said since the VP wouldn’t go, the P would have to.

“I thought I’d find you here,” said Miss Rattray, standing in the doorway. “May I come in?”

“Yes, ma’am … I did not feel like having pizza.”

“Sometimes it’s hard to be the only boy, isn’t it?” She sat down on Stanley’s bed.

“Not all the time it isn’t,” he said.

He turned around in his desk chair and faced her.

The tip of Butter’s tail protruded under the dust cover, whipping the floor impatiently.

Miss Rattray never saw things she had to look down to see. She had no inkling the cat was studying her ankles with an eye to batting one with his paw.

Stanley was devoted to Butter now. The cat seemed to favor him, and preferred to spend most of his time in Stanley’s room.

“You have learned to make your bed in a proper way, Stanley,” said Miss Rattray, “Congratulations!”

“Thank you. I only make my own bed here, though. At Castle Sweet a maid does that.”

“Do you miss Castle Sweet?”

“I used to.”

“And now?”

“Not so much,” said Stanley.

What was she doing there, he wondered? Had she heard about the underground Butters?

Had she waited until everyone in the Lower School was gone to tell him she’d found out what was going on in the Music Room certain afternoons?

“One can learn to do without servants,” said Miss Rattray. “I sometimes think we are too dependent on them here … and they are not always dependable. Even this very morning I had to speak to Cook about emptying the Dustbuster. Cook believes she shouldn’t be expected to do anything but cook!”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“But we all have little extra duties, some we don’t foresee. And that is why I’m here, Stanley. I have a surprise for you.”

“Is it a good surprise or a bad one?”

“A good one, I think. I want you to be Gregor Samsa’s student escort on Career Day. You will help me greet him, and then you will be his guide while he’s with us.”

“Fine,” said Stanley. “That
is
a good surprise.”

“Have you ever met an actor before?”

“No, ma’am, but I have chewed Great Breath gum.”

“Not here, though,” said Miss Rattray, her eyes narrowing.

“No. At Castle Sweet I chewed it.”

“Because
we
don’t chew gum, do we?”

“No, ma’am, we don’t.”

Miss Rattray rose, “Gregor Samsa is not much of an actor, but he has had other small parts in theater, though not big parts.”

“Then why was he picked for Career Day?”

“He is popular with the girls, and Great Breath chewing gum is making a donation to our building fund.”

“So there can be more tanks in the Science Room,” Stanley said gloomily.

“More educational exhibits, yes,” Miss Rattray agreed. “All right, then, Stanley, I am counting on you. Go back to your game. The girls should return soon from Pie in the Sky.”

Stanley could hear the girls. He could hear the laughter of Josephine Jiminez. This was a rare sound, unless she was playing the part of Monroe, the masked Kewpie doll who always told the others they were not good enough to get in the club. But in Monroe’s voice, the laughter was mean, not high and happy as it sounded now from next door.

Then, suddenly, Stanley heard Josephine wail, even louder than the wail she had let out at the news C. Cynthia Ann Flower was president of both school clubs!

“Oh, no!” she called out.

And Butter, who could not tolerate sudden noises, shot out from under the bed, running hair-raised to the door.

“No! No! No!” Josephine Jiminez yelled.

But she did not whack the wall.

She was not putting on a play at all.

Whatever had happened, had to be real.

“W
HY WERE YOU WAILING,
Josephine?” Stanley asked.

“I just read a letter from my mother. Listen to this!”

Dearest Daughter,

We are coming for Career Day. Are you surprised? Your father and I have another surprise for you, too. We have been thinking long and hard about how unhappy you are at school. We never realized what all our moving about the world has done to you. Then last week we had a conversation with Dr. Dingle that helped us make a decision.

Darling, why didn’t you ever tell us that you felt like a cockroach — something no one wants around? No wonder you are often lonely and angry!

Your father has decided to take early retirement from the Army. We are making plans to buy a house in Knoxville (known for coal, marble, aluminum sheeting, and textiles), Tennessee, where your father grew up. On Career Day we will take you home with us. It will be the last day you have to spend at Miss Rattray’s.

So cheer up, dear daughter, you will never again feel like a cockroach. You will be our little girl. … The decision is final.

Love, Mother.

P.S. You’d better start packing! See you in three weeks!

“I never knew you felt like a cockroach,” Stanley said as Josephine slapped the letter down on her desk.

“I never felt like one is why you never knew it!” said Josephine. “What is to become of me?”

Stanley moved Arlington, Monroe, and Washington out of the way and sat down on the bed. “And what is to become of the Black Mask Theater?” he asked.

“I don’t care about that so much. We haven’t had a performance in weeks.”

“I know. You haven’t whacked the walls in a long time.”

“A president has more things to do than put on the same play over and over,” said Josephine.

“You’d better fax your mother and tell her you do not want to move to Tennessee.”

“Tennessee is one of the few states where we have never lived! I know nothing about Tennessee!”

“The Sweetsongs have visited every state in the U.S. of A.,” said Stanley Sweetsong, remembering a riddle his father had told him when they were tooling through Nashville, Tennessee, in their Rolls Royce. “What did Tennessee, Josephine?”

“What
did
Tennessee?”

“She saw what Arkansas.”

“Not funny!” Josephine said. “And it will do no good to fax my mother. In our family, when a decision is final, it is final!”

“Fax her anyway,” said Stanley. “Tell her you like it here.”

“I never said I like it here!”

“But you
do,
don’t you, Josephine?”

Josephine Jiminez sat down on the bed beside Alexandria, the wooden doll with pink-rouged cheeks. She frowned as she thought over Stanley’s question.

“I never did before,” she said. “I was never part of the ‘in’ crowd.” Then she grabbed the masked Kewpie doll, Monroe, and said in his deep, stern voice, “If you’re not in, you’re out,” but there was none of the old anger, only sadness in her tone. And she did not smash any doll against the wall.

E
VERY OTHER MONTH, THE
Betters sang in assembly. This sunny November morning, after the school song, and before Miss Rattray’s announcements, C. Cynthia Ann Flower led them out on the stage.

“One, two, three!” she said, and then she waved her arms to get the performance underway.

We are the Betters

Better at Everything!

Better when we dance and when we sing!

Better at everything!

Better at science and history,

Better at solving a mystery,

Better than a queen, better than a king,

Better at everything!

We’re Betters!

We look better, read a book better,

Swim a brook better, and we cook better,

We are the Betters!

C. Cynthia Ann Flower then found a seat in the audience, right next to Josephine Jiminez.

“If the Butters had been better, you might have been up on stage yourself, Josephine. But not everyone can be better, particularly a Doll Smasher like you.”

Josephine said nothing, for she was in a slump.

She was imagining herself somewhere in Tennessee going to another new school, seeing more unfamiliar faces, hearing some new teacher say, “We have a new girl in our midst, so everyone welcome her,” which no one would do.

On the other side of Josephine sat Stanley Sweetsong. He leaned over Josephine and said to C. Cynthia Ann Flower, “Just you wait!”

“Wait for what? Wait for you to get taller so you’ll be the size of other ten-year-olds? For Josephine to lose some of her freckles so we can see her face? Haw! Wait for
what?”

Now Miss Rattray was standing before the assembly waiting for absolute silence.

“I have two announcements!” she said. “One is that we are losing Josephine Jimenez after Career Day, and we are sorry to lose her.”

“We
are?”
C. Cynthia Ann Flower muttered under her breath. “I don’t know anyone who is.”

“The other announcement,” said Miss Rattray, “is that Stanley Sweetsong will be the personal escort of Gregor Samsa when he comes for Career Day next week. Anyone who wants to shake the hand of this famous spokesboy and actor must go through Stanley.”

C. Cynthia Ann Flower’s hand went up instantly.

“Yes, dear?”

“But a Better has
always
been the personal escort!”

“This year, since we are asking a
male
actor, we shall have a
male
escort, dear! There is no male Better.”

“There is no male better than me!” Stanley Sweetsong whispered at C. Cynthia Ann Flower.

Now there were two of Miss Rattray’s girls in a slump that morning. One with the dread of starting all over again in Tennessee. The other with the dream of meeting Gregor Samsa dimming.

“H
OW WOULD
THEY
LIKE
it,” Under The Toaster used to say of humans, “if someday creatures a hundred times their size gassed them —
pffft
— like they were mindless, heartless, unfeeling flecks of flesh, put on earth only to annoy them?”

Shoebag’s heart broke remembering his father’s tirades against the human race.

Ever since he had come flying out of the Dustbuster, into the kitchen wastebasket, he had wondered what would become of him, alone in this place, without a family or another roach anywhere in view.

How could he think of being Bagg again? Why would he want to become the very enemy who had uprooted his family’s home, invented a noxious substance like Zap (which had nearly killed him), and through the years stepped on his kind, designed lethal Roach Motels for his kind, and always looked upon any critter from roachdom with loathing?

Still, one thing cockroaches were known for was loyalty. Gas them, they would return. Smoke them out, they would be back. Tear down their buildings, they would remain in the neighborhood.

And so it was that Shoebag, frail and shaken from everything that had happened to him, found himself finally back in the Changing Room.

“You have to judge humans individually,” Drainboard was fond of saying. “One in a million is decent.”

Shoebag believed Stanley was one of those one in a million.

High in the eaves of the small room were the clothes Bagg had hidden so many weeks ago … before he had been orphaned and Zapped.

Now came the next step: “Flit, flutter, quiver, quaver, totter,” and as always, on the word “totter” he felt himself begin the change.

S
OMETIMES, IF YOU PUT
the top of a water glass to a wall, and place your ear against its bottom, you can hear everything that is being said in the room next door to you.

That night after dinner, Josephine Jiminez could.