Smiles to Go (11 page)

Suddenly I wanted to talk.

“Korbet?”

His eyes fixed on mine. “Huh?”

“Korbet…you don’t think Tabby likes you back, do you?”

He wagged his head wildly. “No way!”

“But you still like her.”

“Yep.”

“Do you think she’ll ever start liking you?”

“Yep.”

“When?”

He thought about it, dug into his ear, looked at the sky, looked at me. “Next year.”

I bit my lip.

“Do you think about her a lot?”

He beamed. “Yeah. Lots!”

“When you’re playing?”

“Yeah!”

“When you’re eating?”

“Yeah!”

“When you’re washing your feet?”

“Yeah!”

He doubled over laughing.

“So, Korbet…are you ever, like, timid around her?”

“What’s timid?”

“Never mind. What about scared?”

He looked puzzled. “Huh?”

“Are you ever scared of her?”

He mulled that for a moment, then laughed. “Hey, Will, you’re funnin’ me. Tabby’s not scary.”

“Yeah, just funnin’,” I said. “But, you know, like, sometimes she’s not real nice to you? Like she hollers at you or shuts the door in your face?”

“Yeah?”

“So…how’s that make you feel?”

He was puzzled again. “What do you mean, Will?”

“Does it make you sad? Upset?”

He thought hard. He said, “It makes me sad for two seconds. Then I love her again.”

Double wow.

“And when you think of her playing with other little boys, do you get jealous?”

Korbet’s eyes slid past me, focused on something else. He smiled hugely, waved.
There was a beep behind me. Our car pulled into the driveway. Mom, Dad and Tabby spilled out.

“Hi, Korbet,” said my mom.

“Hi, Korbet,” said my dad. He tousled Korbet’s hair as he went by.

“Hi, Tabby,” said Korbet. Tabby said nothing. She didn’t even look at him. She shot him her tongue out of the side of her mouth and scooted on past him and into the house.

I looked at Korbet. He didn’t seem devastated. Those two seconds had already passed. He said, “What’s jealous?”

PD187

M
i-Su is nice to me. She smiles at me all the time. Such a nice smile. She’s nice to me in algebra. She’s nice to me in Spanish. She’s nice to me in English. She’s nice in the hallways and the lunchroom and before school and after school and on the weekends and Saturday-night Monopoly. Nice. Nice. Nice. I
hate nice. So what
do
I want? I don’t know. But I don’t want nice.

PD191

plink

plink

plink

What?

I opened my eyes. Smooth, brown, plastic surface. My wastebasket. Sitting by my pillow. Tabby. Grinning. Dropping black jelly beans. One by one. Into the basket.

plink

I moved. She ran screaming from my room. The basket toppled to the floor. Clatter! Jelly beans rolled under the bed. Dad called, “What’s going on?” Tabby screamed, “Mischief Night!”

It wasn’t night, and it definitely wasn’t Mischief Night, which around here is the night before Halloween, which is seven months
from now. But ever since Tabby heard about Mischief Night, and ever since she was told that she would not be allowed to go out like a big kid and terrorize the neighborhood, she’s been threatening to have her own Mischief Night.

I was slowly waking up. In front of my face my left wrist was coming into focus—it was naked! My atomic watch was gone! I sleep with it. She must have snuck in and weaseled it off my wrist. I went ballistic. I roared into her room. I dragged her out from under her bed. The watch was too big for her wrist. It was on her ankle. I yanked it off. I said something murderous. She squealed, “Mischief Night!”

Evidence of other crimes today:

• a string of Elmer’s Glue on the toilet seats
  
• a vacuum cleaner humming inside the dining room closet
  
• four sinks, a shower, two bathtubs, a laundry room tub—every faucet in the house running
  
• a pile of Lucky Charms on the living room rug
  
• the doorbell is ringing—nobody’s there(a hundred times)
  

At least my trophy was safe, hidden away for the day. Ditto Black Viper.

BT came to the rescue, took her outside for skateboard lessons. “Don’t leave the driveway,” Mom told them. Crazy as BT is with himself, he’s never that way with Tabby. He never lets her roll off the driveway.

I watched them from the dormer window. If you drove by and saw them, you’d think they’re brother and sister. I thought of BT’s little sister bringing her hurt knee to him, laughing when he fixed it….

BT stayed for dinner. He was in the kitchen helping my mother with the rigatoni. Tabby was on the phone with Aunt Nancy. Well, not really—she just punched the number, yelled “Mischief Night!” into the phone and hung up. When she turned she found me standing there. She screamed, “BT!” and tried to run. I held her. From the look on her face, she
thought this was it, the Big Counterattack. She thinks that someday I’m going to get so fed up with her tormenting me that I’m going to blow my stack and come after her with all guns blazing. She flailed. “BT! BT!” All I wanted to do was ask her something, but the violence of her struggle surprised me, the terror in her eyes. I let her go. She bolted like a freed animal.

At dinner she wanted to sit on BT’s lap. My father wouldn’t let her. She pouted.

I asked her, in front of everybody, “Why don’t you like Korbet?”

Shock showed on the faces of my parents and BT, like:
Whoa, Will just spoke to Tabby!
They all turned to her.

Tabby was cutting her spaghetti into pieces with her blue plastic saw. She stabbed a meatball with her screwdriver. She held it up to her mouth and licked at the sauce, like it was a Popsicle. She took a bite out of the meatball, chewed with her mouth open, grinned meatball mush. I finally realized she had no intention of answering my question. For once in my life I give her some attention
and she hangs me out to dry. I wanted to plead Korbet’s case, tell her what a great little kid he is, but it wasn’t going to happen.

All my mother said to Tabby was, “Chew with your mouth shut.”

PD194

A
nother week of nice from Mi-Su. I’m sick of nice.

PD200

T
wo hundred days since 10:15
A.M
. that September Saturday morning when Riley picked his nose and the phone rang and Mi-Su said turn on 98.5 FM and I learned that a proton had died in Yellowknife. How many have died since then across the universe? Are dying protons like roaches: for every one you see there’s a hundred behind the wall? How many
need to die before it starts to show? Before steel becomes transparent? And people? Ghost world. I feel a twitch. A blip. Was that a tiny flash inside of me? Is my liver down one proton from yesterday?

HERE LIES WILL TUPPENCE (OR WHAT’S LEFT OF HIM)

PD201

I
dea!

eBay!

Nice be gone!

PD208

I
t came today, my order from eBay. It’s a little figurine not much bigger than the pewter king on my chess trophy. It’s a band member. Tall red and white feathered hat. Red and
gold jacket. White pants. Playing a trombone. A tiny gold-gilt trombone. A label on the bottom says “76 TROMBONES.” It’s from
The Music Man
!

It’s plastic. It’s cheap. I don’t care. I’m thrilled.

PD209

H
ow shall I do it? All I know for sure is how not to do it. Don’t give it to her at school. Don’t give it to her at Saturday-night Monopoly. Think…think…

PD210

T
hinking…

PD211

G
ot it!

PD213

I
wrapped it up. White paper, red bow. One word on the tag: “Mi-Su.” Skateboarded over to her house yesterday. Sunday. Walked the last block. Had to be careful she wasn’t outside. Snuck up to the front step, laid it down on the bricks, rang the bell, ran, hid on the far side of the garage. I was hoping she would answer the door. She usually does, runs for it like a little kid. But even if one of her parents answered, I could live with that. I peeked around the corner.

She opened the door. Frowned. Looked around. Looked down. Picked it up. Tore it open right there. Squealed. Came out farther. Looked up and down the street. Called to the empty street, “Hey?…Hello?” Looked again at the figurine. Kissed it. Held it up in the
sunlight, the tiny trombone gleaming. “Thank you!”

I stepped out. “You’re welcome.”

She turned, saw me, came running, threw her arms around my neck, kissed me, squealed, “Where did you
get
it?”

“Oh, somewhere,” I said, mucho cool.

We spent the rest of the day together. If she touched me once, she touched me a hundred times. Big, long, non-nice kiss good-night.

Today I’m floating through school. She blew me a kiss in the hallway. Is there a Cloud Ten?

PD214

U
p in the dormer before dinner. Staring at her roof. Imagining her in her house, moving from room to room, humming
Music Man
tunes. The show will be Friday and Saturday nights.

At lunch today she said to BT and me, “So, which night are you guys coming?”

“Friday, of course,” said BT. “Saturday’s
Monopoly.” He deadpanned at her. “You’re not giving up Monopoly to do that stupid play, are you?”

She looked at him, her face blank for a half second, then caught the twinkle in his eye and broke out laughing.

I said, “Both.”

She turned to me. “Huh?”

“I’m going both nights.”

I’m not sure they believed me.

I was tempted to ask her to the dance right there. The freshman dance is next month. I’ve been thinking of it since Valentine’s night. I probably would have asked her already, but I held off because things were uncertain there for a while. Now I’m ready to roll. Or at least, ready to plan. Valentine’s night and the
Music Man
figurine worked out well. So I know that’s the way to go for the dance.

In fact, the plan is already in place. It just came to me. I guess I’m getting good at this. I’m going to do it this Saturday night, right after the last performance of the play. I’ll meet her in the lobby, or maybe even backstage. She’ll be flushed and breathless and glowing
from excitement, and I’ll congratulate her and we’ll hug and then I’ll say something like, “Well, y’know, just because the play is over doesn’t mean you have to stop dancing. Let’s go to the freshman dance together.” And she’ll squeal out “I’d love to!” or “Yes!” or whatever and we’ll hug again and so forth.

I can see it so clearly. After three or four days of this, I’ll hardly be able to tell it from a memory, it will be so real. In fact, the looking forward will be so much fun that when Saturday finally comes, I’ll probably wish I had another week to think about it. I’ll carry my thoughts around with me like soda in a cup, sipping through a straw whenever I feel like a taste: during class, on my skateboard, lying down to sleep, especially then.

I’m that way, goofy as it sounds. Sometimes I don’t want things to happen—I’m talking about good things, even wonderful things—because once they happen, I can’t look forward to them anymore. But there’s an upside, too. Once a wonderful thing is over, I’m not all that sad because then I can start thinking about it, reliving and reliving it in
the virtual world in my head.

Down below, BT was giving Tabby skateboard lessons in the driveway. She was arguing with him about something. The word “Now!” kept coming up through the windowpane. If I had to pick one word to sum up her life, I guess that would be it:

HERE LIES TABITHA TUPPENCE NOW!

PD215

S
ipping…sipping…

PD216

M
rs. Mi-Su Tuppence

Mrs. Mi-Su Tuppence

Mrs. Mi-Su Tuppence

PD217

T
he play was great. And totally different from the rehearsals I’ve seen. The bright stage lights. Every seat filled. Suddenly I had a new perspective on Mi-Su and her fellow actors. I knew why I’d never try out for a school play. And I knew Mi-Su and the others were nervous; she told me so. But that didn’t stop them. They were talking and dancing and singing as if they were actually enjoying themselves. As if they were all going down their own Dead Man’s Hill.

PD218

T
he play was great again. Standing ovation.

I waited in the lobby with all the parents, grandparents, etc. She came out laughing with others, stage makeup still on her face, her eyes bigger than ever, dazzling, like, Doesn’t anybody want to take my picture? Her parents beamed, held out their arms. “My baby star!”
her mother cried. I didn’t want to be too pushy. Give her time with her family, cast members.

Finally she noticed me. For a split second she didn’t react, and I had the weirdest feeling she didn’t know who I was, but then came the famous smile and I went to her and held out my arms like her parents and we hugged and I whispered in her ear, “You were sensational,” and she whispered back, “Thank you.”

That’s when it occurred to me that I had a problem. The lobby was crowded with people. No privacy. If she went right home, it would probably be in her parents’ car. Meanwhile, other cast members were saying they should all go out and celebrate, that’s what show biz people do after the last performance. So when, where, how was I going to ask her to the dance?

I considered waiting till tomorrow, Sunday, but all week long I’d been locked into the plan. Time was coming to a point. I tugged on her sleeve. “C’mere a sec.” I led her a couple of steps away. We were standing in front of the trophy case. Bright lights. Chattering, laughing
people. I tried to remember my words.