Smiles to Go (7 page)

My parents punished Tabby by not rewrapping her presents. Her stuff sat under the tree yesterday in their boxes and plastic, looking naked next to everyone else’s gussied-up gifts.
The idea was to teach her a lesson, teach her some self-control. Show her how she ruined the whole surprise factor of Christmas morning. So she won’t do it again.

Memo: It didn’t work. She tore into her stuff, paid no attention to the rest of us, shrieked and squealed and wallowed in her pile of no-bow presents like a hog in slop.

Actually, Tabby did get one wrapped present. From Korbet. He did his knock-and-run thing. Tabby didn’t bother to answer the door, but my mother did. When she returned she said to Tabby, “There’s a gift on the front step. I think it’s for you.” At that moment I could see Tabby’s gears starting to work: How much do I hate Korbet? Enough to not even take his present?

By lunchtime she couldn’t stand it any longer. She stomped out to the front step and snatched the gift. She flung it to the sofa. The wrap job was sloppy, scotch tape, no bows, no ribbons. It was the size of a deck of cards. In fact, I was sure that’s what it was. Korbet is always asking her to play Old Maid.

Tabby pretended to ignore it, but you could
hear her brain grinding. About midafternoon she raced to the sofa, tore off the paper, saw it was a deck of Old Maid cards, snarled, “Lugnut!” and threw the cards into the wastebasket.

She did get cash from relatives. Forty-five dollars. She thinks she’s rich.

PD97

M
i-Su is in Florida. She went down to visit her aunt and uncle in Tampa. This messes up my kiss plan. Got to retool.

PD100

O
ne hundred days ago the proton died.

Tabby’s Christmas money is gone.

In my sleep last night I heard the
plink…plink…plink
of Tabby dropping black jelly beans into a wastebasket.

PD106

I
snapped.

I can’t believe it. It’s not me.

HERE LIES WILL TUPPENCE
HE NEVER SNAPPED
(WELL, MAYBE ONCE)

It happened tonight in my basement. Monopoly night. All the usual stuff: BT bought everything he landed on, BT ran out of money, BT mortgaged his properties, BT chirped, “Wheelin’ and dealin’,” BT went flat broke—nothing that hasn’t happened a hundred times before. And then Mi-Su says to him, “How much do you need? I’ll give you a loan”—like a hundred times before, only this time—
snap!
—I went bonkers.

It’s like Will Tuppence II showed up. I heard myself yelling at Mi-Su: “No!”

Mi-Su winced as if my voice was a gust of wind. Her eyes went wide. “No what?”

“No more loans.”

She laughed. “It’s
my
money. I can do what I want with it.”

“No, you can’t.” I groped for the rule book, riffled the pages. “Here! Quote, ‘No player may borrow or lend money to another player.’” I smacked the page. “There it is.”

She stared at me with those wide eyes, her mouth frozen in wonderment, as if she was seeing ten falling stars at once. “You’re serious,” she said. “Look at you. You’re red.”

Tabby clapped. “He’s red! He’s red!”

“Yeah, I’m serious,” I tell her. “It’s right here. In the rules.”

“We break the rules all the time.” She spoke softly, as if a loud voice would shatter me.

“It’s not fair,” I said. “It’s not fair to the other players.”

“You’re the other player.”

“We should play right or not play at all.”

Mi-Su blinked. “Will, it doesn’t make any difference. I just lend money to BT to keep him in the game for a little longer.” Do you? I thought. Or is there some connection between this and the star-party kiss? “You
know
what’s going to happen. Sooner or later he’s going to lose. He
always
loses.” She leaned forward, enunciated: “
And. He. Doesn’t. Care.
”

All this time BT was lounging on the floor,
his chin propped up on his hand, grinning. Tabby jumped on his back. “Yeah! You always lose! Looozer! Loozer!”

“Well,” I said, “maybe
I
care.”

Mi-Su frowned. “What’s that mean?”

I didn’t know what it meant. The storm inside me had passed. Just dry husks of thought left on the ground.

“Maybe I’m thinking of him. Maybe I want him to win. Maybe I want him to win fair and square, that’s all.”

Mi-Su just stared. She knew it was all bull-crap.

BT finally spoke: “All I know is, you meatballs wouldn’t stand a chance if this game had more railroads.”

Tabby was perched on BT’s shoulders. She pointed down at me, sneered, “Meatball!”

When I went to bed all I could think was:
You jerk. What makes you think she’ll want to kiss you back now?

PD108

S
trange territory for me: the after-snap. I still feel myself vibrating. Humming. When I think about it, one minute I’m embarrassed, the next minute I’m—what? Excited? Thrilled? I mean, feeling myself lose it like that—I wonder if it was anything like BT’s plunge down Dead Man’s Hill: off the edge of self-control and down the slippery slope of my own words. Scary. Wouldn’t do it again. But kind of OK with having done it that once.

And surprised that the whole world seems to be OK with it, too. No announcement over the PA this morning: “Calling all classes! Please note that on Saturday night at around nine o’clock Will Tuppence snapped….”

BT was perfectly normal in school today, like it never happened. He came at me before homeroom: “Yo, Will! Check this out.” And showed me a handful of change he found with his father’s new detector. I had been toying with the idea of saying “Sorry about the other night,” but I could see there was no point. He would have said, “What are you talking about?”

So he’s letting me off the hook. Fine. But here’s the twisted part: now I’m a little mad at
that
. Why? Because by ignoring my bad behavior he throws it back in my face. Because he refuses to care about
anything
. How do you deal with somebody who can’t be insulted?

So what the heck do I want? I think I want him to forgive me. But that will never happen, because you can’t forgive unless you first give a crap.

I finally got to Mi-Su at lunch. I steered her to an empty table in the corner. (BT usually sits with us, but he left school before lunch. Took a half-day. He does that sometimes.) Somebody called: “Check it out—Tuppence and Kelly.” Mi-Su smiled (dazzling), laughed (smile on wheels), stuck out her tongue at the caller.

We sat down. I jumped in: “I was a jerk the other night.”

She pried the plastic lid off her salad. “Just the other night?”

“Funny girl.”

She went straight for the radish. She crunched it. “Did you tell him?”

I picked at the clear wrap on my egg salad sandwich. “Well, actually, I was sort of going to, and then when I saw him this morning he was so, like, Who cares? Like, it’s
today
now. It’s like he never even noticed.”

I caught a whiff of radish breath. “He didn’t.”

I unwrapped my sandwich. “I feel like the villain.”

“Hissss.”

“I was thinking about this—”

“You’re
always
thinking.”

“The thing is, that’s not why I get mad at him.”

She crunched the second radish. “If you say so.”

“Hey”—I jabbed half a sandwich at her—

“maybe I care more about him than he cares about himself. Ever think of that? Ever think that when I bust his chops it’s—”

She finished the sentence: “—for his own good. I know.”

“So?” I said. “Is that so bad? Is it so bad to want him to amount to something? Look at
him. He goes down hills and messes up clocks. What kind of life is that?”

She sipped her orange juice. Orange juice and radish. Sicko. “What I think is, we have this conversation about once a month.”

“Sorry,” I said. “So, shoot me for caring.”

Now she was looking at me funny.

“What?” I said.

“It just occurred to me. Out of the blue.”

“
What?
”

“You never laugh out loud.”

“You’re off the subject,” I told her. “And you’re crazy, too. I do so laugh out loud.”

She studied me. “I don’t think so. I’ve known you most of my life. If you did, I’d know it.”

“Well, you’re wrong.”

She shaded her eyes with her hand and squinted, as if I was standing in sunlight far away. “No, I don’t think so.” She brought back her normal face, smiled. “Anyway, I think you should just stop caring. So much.”

“Huh?”

“He’s got parents for that. Just be his friend.”

“I am. He’s my
best
friend. That’s what this is all about.”

“You have a funny way of showing it. And anyway, you’re not caring. You’re meddling.”

Am I? Is she right?

“Don’t
you
care about him?” I said. And instantly wished I could take the words back. They covered more territory than I meant. Would she think I was thinking of the star-party kiss?

But she was cool. Impy. Mi-Su. She plastic-forked salad into her mouth, chewed, stared at me, fingered the amber sea horse at her throat, grinned. “Of course.”

What did she mean by that?

“So?” I said. Whatever that meant.

“So,” she said, munching, “I’m along for the ride.” The bell rang. She laughed, pointed at my sandwich. “You never took a bite, you moron.”

The Big Snap has knocked me off my planning for the kiss. I need to refocus.

PD109

A
long for the ride…along for the ride…

PD110

L
ooking in the mirror. Smiling. Laughing out loud.

PD111

plink…plink…plink…

PD113

I
’m at the top of a hill. Dead Man’s Hill. Black Viper wobbles beneath me. Wind whistles. I’m scared. Nothing but air beneath me. I want to go back but I can’t. Something pushes me. I
spill off the edge, I’m heading down. I can’t stop. There’s nothing to hang on to. My body drags back while my toes point straight down like a ballet dancer. Black Viper’s wheels are stuttering, skipping. The wind is screaming. I can’t stop. The wheels lose contact. I’m surfing space. Black Viper goes drifting off, like a jettisoned fuel tank. I’m falling…falling…the wind is screaming…
Wally ate a potato every day…Wally ate a potato every day…

I opened my eyes.

Tabby was straddling my chest, wearing her snooty I-can-read face, saying over and over, “Wally ate a potato every day.”

I bucked, I swatted, but she was faster. She flitted from the bed like a grasshopper. On the way out the door she bumped the bookcase. My chess trophy tottered, toppled, crashed to the floor.

The pewter King Arthur lay by himself, broken off at the ankles. I cradled it in my hand. The only trophy I’d ever won.

PD118

T
he trophy is fixed. I got it back from Hicks’ today. It’s not on the bookcase by the door anymore. It’s high. On top of my dresser.

I put a hook-and-eye lock on my door. I use it at night.

PD119

V
alentine’s Day! Perfecto! That’s when I’ll do it.

I’m drawing up a plan.

PD120

S
aturday. The dormer. BT and me.

He had to take his little twin chipmunks to the dentist. Then they came here. They were all playing in Tabby’s room, the three of them shrieking beneath us.

We sat on the floor, eating hoagies from
the deli. BT pointed to the wedding gifts. “When are you gonna open them?”

I shrugged. “Me? Never. Maybe nobody ever will. Or maybe some archaeologist someday.”

He wagged his head. “Crazy.”

“Why?”

“They’re both dead, right? The newlyweds?”

“Yeah. Andrew and Margaret. Long dead.”

“So open them.”

“They’re not mine. They’re like a memorial. It’s a family tradition to
not
open them.”

“Open them.”

“No.”

He reached. “
I’ll
open them.”

I slapped his hand away.

“If they were in my house—”

“Yeah,” I said, “I know.”

“I’m surprised Tabby hasn’t ripped into them.”

“Yeah,” I said, “I am, too. It’s a mystery.”

It seemed impossible that the shrieking below could get any louder, but suddenly it did, followed by stampeding footsteps. Three
miniature girls burst into the dormer. The first, one of the twins, raced bawling into BT’s arms.

“Tabby tripped me!”

“She stold Ozzie,” gushed Tabby. “I had to stop her.” She was hugging her octopus.

“Where’s it hurt?” said BT.

“I don’t
know
!” wailed the twin. Her arms collared BT’s neck, her face was buried under his chin. I’d never heard such screaming. I kept looking for blood. Tabby and the other twin were gaping.

BT cradled her like a baby, rocked her. He was perfectly calm. “I think I know,” he said. He pulled up her pant leg. “I think it’s right here.” He kissed her knee. “That better?”

She nodded. She stopped bawling. He tickled her. She laughed. A minute later the three of them were shrieking again in Tabby’s room.

PD127

E
ighteen days till Valentine’s! I work on The Plan every day. It’s almost ready.

PD128

P
lanning…

PD129

P
lanning…

PD130

THE PLAN

Inspired by the words of Mi-Su Kelly:
“The stars. The place. The night.”

• I. The Place
  

• II. The Night
  

• III. The Stars