Take Two! (17 page)

Here are the final results as recorded in my spiral notebook:

Call #1: Dad.
(Collect.) Totally weirded out. Will check with agent to see if she can
“pull some strings” for me! I’m not supposed to count on anything, though.

Call #2: Wally.
(Mrs. Dorkin answered.) Not home. At Oxymoron’s house and gonna spend the night. Figures! Why did I even bother?

Call #3: Pepper.
Freaked when I told her. Said I should try bribing casting people, like Maggie was doing to Lynch with baked goods. Brilliant
idea! But did I want to sink to Maggie’s level of butter-uppery? YES! Pepper’s suggestion: Send them a basket of minimuffins.
Too blah.

Flowers? Balloons maybe? A box of chocolates? No, no – and definitely nothing to do with candy. I ran up to my room and searched
around on the Internet for the next, like, two hours until I came up with a real winner. Ballads-to-Go!
I could appeal to their sense of theatrics
. They only took credit cards, though, so I had to drag Mom into the picture when she got home from work.

“Oh, Dustin, you’re going a little overboard, don’t you think? I’m happy to put it on my card for you, but – I’ll have to
eventually get reimbursed.”

So I
burst
open my piggy bank and forked over every last cent of the $138.73 of birthday money it was digesting. I did
have that mall job coming up so what the heck? Spare no expense, right? I mean this was my life we were talking about!

Cutting to the chase, here’s how it was supposed to go down. Picture it: ten
AM
Wednesday morning, Uncle Sam flies into the front office at McKenna Casting, Inc. and shouts,
“I want you
– to change Dustin Grubbs’s time slot!” Then to the tune of “Yankee Doodle” he belts out my original singing telegram:

“Have a heart and don’t make Dustin forfeit his audition

He would sooner eat a rat than be in that position.

Dustin Grubbs is talented. Dustin Grubbs is funny.

He’ll be perfect for the part and make you tons of money!”

I’d thought it was genius, but so far the Uncle-Sam-O-Gram had been a total bust. Friday had come and gone and I hadn’t heard
jack from McKenna Casting, Inc. If they didn’t leave a message by the time I got home from my mall gig on Saturday, I’d have
to call them and – I don’t know what. Offer up my firstborn child?

It was barely October, so the Hinkleyville Mall should’ve been decorated for Halloween. Instead, it looked as if it had been
attacked by Santa’s Elves. They’d decked the mall with boughs of fake holly, visions of inedible sugarplums, and one hulking
Styrofoam snowman. Mr. Smashum stationed me on the second floor next to a mirrored pillar, opposite Hickory Farms. His only
instructions to me were, “If anyone asks, you’re sixteen.” So there I stood – just me in a spongy Tommy the Termite costume
and a box of fliers. I was Dustin Grubbs: One-Man Bug.

“Twenty dollars off,” I mumbled to the passersby, holding out a limp flier. No takers, just a lot of strange looks. At least
I was miles outside of Buttermilk Falls, where people didn’t know me. I mean I had a reputation to protect, and this was at
the bottom of the show-biz ladder – one rung up from being a mime.

All right, if you’re gonna do this thing, give it all you’ve got
. I adjusted the airplane-size wings that were scratching my neck and took a deep breath of smoked meats and cheeses. “Yowza-yowza-yowza!
Smashum Brothers Pest Control is offering twenty bucks off your next exterminating job. That’s twenty – two, zero American
dollars. Step right up, folks. You don’t wanna pass up this amazing offer!”

“Oh, look, sweetie,” a lady said, pointing me out to her sticky-faced little girl. “A big butterfly.”

“Termite, actually. Take a flier?”

As I was handing her one, her little brat gave me a swift kick in the shins and took off running.

“
Oww
, that hurt! Bugs have feelings too, ya know!”

I saw red. Not rage – hair. Pepper, her mother, and her baby sister were passing the bug molesters, headed my way. What were
the chances? Five minutes on the job and I wanted to file for unemployment.

“Dustin?” Pepper did a triple take. I’d never actually seen one before. “Hey! Is that you? What’s with the getup?” she
asked, swatting my antenna. “You in the Witness Protection Program or something?”

“I don’t know what that means. Just doing a favor for my aunt’s fiancé – but I
am
getting paid. What are you guys doing out here?”

“What’s all of Buttermilk Falls doing here?” Pepper’s mom said, wiping a string of drool off the baby’s mouth. “It’s the Shop-Early-Shop-Smart
Pre-Christmas Extravaganza Sale!”

“You’re kidding?”

“It’s huge! We already got such a deal on towels at Berg-mann’s Department Store.” She started maneuvering through an army
of Old Navy bags loaded in the back of the stroller. “My sister does makeovers in their cosmetics department, so we got her
employee discount on top of the sale price,” she blabbed on, pulling out the corner of a plain, blue towel from a Bergmann’s
bag. “Look. Twelve-ninety-nine for real Egyptian cotton!”

“Very absorbent,” I felt obliged to say.

She rearranged the bags and proceeded to unzip her long, puffy coat, hardly coming up for air. “So, big shot, Pepper tells
us you might be in a real TV commercial. That’s really something. You excited?”

“Yep.”
Quick change of subject
. “That the baby? Man, she’s grown.”

“That’s my li’l puddin’, Joy-Noelle.” She hoisted the kid out
of her stroller and rested her on her hip. “Well, not so little. Nine pounds, twelve ounces coming out the chute.”

“Gawd, Mom! Spare us the grimy details.”

The baby fit right in with the whole holiday theme. Having been born on December twenty-fourth, they slapped one of those
Christmassy names on her. I guess Carol was too plain. It’s a good thing it wasn’t a boy or he could’ve wound up being a Rudolph
– or Frosty.

“Swudge,” the baby cooed, reaching for my bobbing antennae. “S
uuu
dge.”

“Holy Toledo!” Pepper’s mom looked stunned. “Did you hear that? I think Jo-No’s saying her first word!”

The baby kept repeating the same mystery word and all attention was on her bubbly mouth. I kinda could care less, but folded
an ear out from my headgear to pretend to hear better.

“Fudge? Such?” Pepper’s mom guessed, smoothing down a dollop of Jo-No’s red fuzz. “Lunch? Is that what you’re saying, angel?
Lunch?”

“It’s really weird, you guys,” I said, “it almost sounds like she’s saying – sludge?”

“Bingo!” Pepper’s mom was elated. “Wait…” Then deflated. “What the heck kind of a word is that?”

Pepper reached over and pulled her mom’s coat open. “Hello? It’s only plastered across your bazooms.”

“Cripes!” I screeched. I couldn’t believe she was wearing a
bright yellow T-shirt with SLUDGE printed on it. Sludge-mania was running amok! “Where’d you get that?”

“This?” she muttered, looking down at her chest. “I forgot I even had it on. Some of the Fireballs were going door-to-door
last night with a petition, giving them away – for the price of a signature.”

“Was one of them freakishly tall with a buzz cut?” I asked. “And horns?”

“Tell him what the petition was
for
, Ma.”

“Oh, something to do with phys-ed funding. Things have gotten so bad, apparently, their coach just got the boot.”

“That’s bogus,” I snapped.

“You left out the part about them wanting to can the Arts Committee,” Pepper added. “And stopping the production of
Oliver!
I can’t believe you signed that thing.”

“Why not? Pepper, you love sports. Don’t act like you don’t all of a sudden.”

“What? This is freakin’ unbelievable!” I roared. “The jocks have had the spotlight on them since – forever. Now that the school
is finally throwing us creative types a crumb, they’re acting like big babies. No offense, Joy-Noelle.”

“Sludge!” she spouted.

“They won’t let up until all the drama geeks are wiped off the planet!”

“Oh, Dustin, don’t be so dramatic,” Pepper’s mom said, lowering Jo-No back into her stroller.

“With all due respect, ma’am, please take off your shirt.”

She snorted. “What am I supposed to do? Run around the mall in my brassiere?”

“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Pepper said. She got a smack on the butt for that one. “Kidding, Mother!”

“Boy, you’ve got some mouth on you.” Pepper’s mom snatched the ducky pacifier that Jo-No had tossed onto the ground and pocketed
it. “I know I’ll never be able to drag you away from Dustin,” she said, buckling the baby into her stroller, “so meet us in
front of Cinnabuns in an hour. C’mon, Joy-Joy, let’s go spend your father’s money.”

My face was on fire as I watched Pepper’s mom push her sister’s stroller into the Casual Corner. “I can’t believe that Zack
is taking this thing so far. His drill-sergeant father is probably behind the whole thing – how much you wanna bet?” I tugged
on the collar of my costume, pumping it for air. “Jeez, I’m sweatin’ bullets in this thing. Talk about chestnuts roasting
on an open fire.”

Pepper picked up a stack of fliers and fanned me with it. “You got yourself all worked up, didn’t ya? I like a man with convictions.”

“Is that what I am?”

“That’s what ‘you am.’” She handed me the stack and without warning, took off toward the escalators shouting, “Back in a sec!”

I tried to calm myself down so I could get back to the job
at hand. “Smashum Brothers Pest Control. Twenty bucks off.” Hardly any takers. You’d think I was charging for the darn things.
“Get rid of your filthy vermin just in time for the holidays!”

“I’ll have one of those.”

Speaking of vermin, it was Candy Garboni. I almost fell back into the potted palms. She was wearing a lime green leopard-print
jacket – over her SLUDGE shirt, of course, and a short jeans skirt. I didn’t want her to recognize me, so I turned my face
quickly toward the pillar.

“Hi, Dustin!”

The
mirrored
pillar.

“Don’t try to hide – I can see your reflection. You look so cute. What’re you supposed to be, like, a Christmas moth?”

“Yes. The traditional Christmas moth.”

She stuck her face in mine and rolled her eyeballs around. “My dad finally sprung for contacts. You like?”

“Just keep moving along, miss,” I said in my iciest voice. “You’re holding up traffic.”

“Du-
ust
,” she whined, with a hip jut and a hair flip. “You don’t hate me, do you?”

“Get rid of your obnoxious two-faced pests! Kill them dead!
”

“C’mon, don’t!” I wouldn’t look directly at her, but I think there was bouncing up and down. “I hate it when people hate me.
Can’t we still be friends?” Yes, there was definite bouncing. And then came the bug-hug.

See, here’s the thing. Even though Candy was a two-faced snitch, I couldn’t stop myself from overheating when she wrapped
her arms around my thorax. She smelled like fresh strawberries and vanilla – like one of those fancy, expensive candles. So
the fact that she was clinging on a little too long wasn’t the worst thing in the world.

“
Ooh!
Shoot. I can’t believe it!” she cried. “I think my new charm bracelet is caught – on your thingamajig. And Zack gave it to
me!”

“What gumball machine did he get
that
from?” I said, checking it out. No response. “Don’t come cryin’ to me when your wrist turns green and your hand falls off.”

“That was just mean.”

“Are you gonna run home now and tell him I said that?”

“No,” she answered with a fierce tug. “Don’t have to. He’s right downstairs outside the Sports Shack – getting signatures
on his petition to stop your precious show.”

“Oh, perfect.”

A clump of Candy’s long hair was now stuck to the Velcro on the back of my costume. And the more she maneuvered to free herself,
the more she got tangled in wings and things. People must’ve thought we were, like, a living sculpture of bug parts, legs
and hair. Finally, Pepper came huffing and puffing to our rescue and with a single
rip!
we were free. Candy took off immediately without so much as a “see ya later.”

“Uh, you’re welcome,” Pepper called out after her. “It’s
autumn, in case you haven’t noticed – buy a freakin’ pair of pants!” We both watched as Candy disappeared around the enormous
snowman, tugging at her skirt. “Here, dude, I got you a Dr Pepper, my signature drink.” She held the straw from the giant
plastic container to my lips and I took a slurpy sip. “Seriously, who dresses like that in this weather? And what’s with all
the makeup? She’s obviously covering up a fresh crop of prepubescent zits.”

“I dunno, she still looks pretty hot in makeup. You’ve gotta give her that.”

“Get real!” Pepper yelled, shoving me. Hard. “You serious?”

“Sure, why not?” I steadied myself and set the soda down on the rim of a giant planter. “Listen, I really should get back
to work. I’ve got this whole box of fliers left.”

Pepper took her sweet time bending my crooked wings back into place before heading toward Bergmann’s. The next half hour dragged
by as I handed out five fliers at a time to whoever would take them, and most wound up in the trash can by Borders Books.
This job really bit. My costume was starting to smell like the inside of a bowling shoe – and people didn’t even know what
I was supposed to be. So far I’d been mistaken for a butterfly, a moth, a bee, a wasp, Lord of the Flies, and the Sugarplum
Fairy.

“Here. Take. Save.” I bent over to grab my final handful and saw Wally and his bassoon approaching.
Friends are coming
outta the woodwork!
And that wasn’t just the termite in me talking.

“Hey, Wally! It’s me – Dustin. What the heck are you doing here?”

“Opus Five is performing,” he said with a steely tone. “It’s our first real gig.”

No wisecracks about me being dressed up in a bug suit – with wings?