The Odds Get Even (5 page)

L
ater that week, the boys convened at the clubhouse.

“I don’t have any white sheets,” Itchy reported to his friends, his disembodied head poking through the hole in Escape Hatch #1. “But I found an old tire and a camera.” He plunked a Polaroid Swing camera onto the clubhouse floor. “It has film in it and everything. I left the tire at the base of the tree. It’s too heavy to carry up the ladder.”

“Hey! I lent you that camera months ago,” Squeak said, snatching up the Polaroid and checking it for damage. “What are we supposed to do with an old tire?”

“We can hang it from a rope,” Itchy said, climbing into the clubhouse.

Boney and Squeak stared in bewilderment at Itchy’s popsicle-pink T-shirt.

“My mom dyed all the white sheets pink to suit
her most recent decor decision,” Itchy explained. “She dyed the towels and all our underwear by mistake, too. The whole house is just one big bubble-gum-pink nightmare.”

Squeak furrowed his brow with concern. “Why would we hang a tire from the clubhouse?”

“To swing on,” Itchy said. He held up a length of rope.

Boney rolled his eyes. “I asked you to do
one
simple thing,” he said. “We need you to dress in white for our revenge plan.” He turned to Squeak. “What about you, Squeak? Do you have any white sheets at your place?”

Squeak shook his head. “Dad and I use sleeping bags. It’s for the best, really, because I can’t imagine what the sheets would look like if Dad were responsible for washing them.”

“Well, we can’t have a pink ghost,” Boney said.

“What do you mean, ghost?” Itchy jumped in. “You said there weren’t any ghosts of any kind in this plan.”

“Not any real ones,” Boney replied. “Just fake ghosts.”

“You said I could be a zombie.”

“Right. You’re a zombie. But we still need a white sheet.”

“Why don’t
you
provide the white sheet, seeing as this whole zombie thing is your idea?” Itchy demanded.

Boney sighed. “You know my aunt only buys red-and-black plaid flannel sheets. She read somewhere that they repel bugs.”

“Well, that’s that, then,” Itchy said with a measure of relief. “Guess the plan is off.”

Squeak squinted from behind his goggles. “Where’d your aunt read that?”

“Some women’s magazine. Come on, Itchy,” Boney pleaded. “There must be something you can wear. Go back home and look harder.”

“I’m telling you, we don’t have anything!” Itchy shouted.

“Try again!” Boney insisted. “I ran around collecting everything else.” He pointed toward a pile of stuff to one side of the clubhouse: a length of webbing, a silver bucket, two flashlights, an old hockey helmet, a spotlight, and a feather pillow.

“And I brought all my special-effects materials,” Squeak said. “Foam latex, silicone prosthetics, makeup, hair pomade, gelatin, wigs, false teeth—a creepy eye.” Squeak held this up to his face, the eyeball bouncing lazily on the end of a spring. “I even received my blood capsules in the mail today.” He produced a small cellophane bag filled with little capsules and sniffed it. “Smells like revenge to me.”

Itchy took the bag from Squeak. “How do they work?”

Squeak opened the bag and popped a capsule in his mouth. “You just put them in your mouth like this…and when you’re ready, bite down like a great white shark.” He clamped down on the capsule and the fake blood spurted between the gap in his teeth.

“Cool,” Itchy said.

“See?” Boney enthused. “We’re going to dress you like a zombie-ghost kinda thing and send you flying out of the tree with blood and all kinds of horrible stuff. When Larry gets a look at you, he’s going to cry like a baby for his mother. And we’ll have the photos to prove it.” He held the Polaroid in the air.

“And when they’re begging for mercy, I’m going to tar and feather them—just like in medieval times,” Squeak added, gesturing to the silver pail.

“Where are we going to get tar?” Itchy asked.

“Well, we can’t use real tar,” Squeak confessed. “But I thought of something just as good.” He pulled a large jar of honey from his messenger bag. “If we dilute this by 20 percent with H
₂
O, it should have the desired viscosity. It’ll take them weeks to wash this honey from their hair.”

“This could be awesome,” Itchy said.

“It
will
be awesome,” Boney encouraged him. “So
all we need now is something white for you to wear. I’m sure there’s something at your house. Come on. Squeak and I will help you look.”

OVER AT ITCHY’S HOUSE, Itchy opened the linen cupboard door, revealing a stack of pink sheets and towels.

“See?” he said. “Everything’s pink. There’s not a white thing in the house.”

Boney frowned at the pink sheets, his eyes drifting over to the open closet at the end of the hall. “What about that?” He pointed to Itchy’s father’s gleaming white Elvis costume.

“Oh, no,” Itchy protested. “Forget it.”

“It’s perfect,” Boney said, walking over and lifting the plastic covering from the suit.

“Ahhhh! Don’t touch it!” Itchy slapped Boney’s hand away. “That’s my dad’s spare. Nobody touches his costumes.”

“Can’t you just see it, Squeak?” Boney murmured, his eyes glazed with a trance-like ecstasy. “This costume will be perfect…”

“Those sequins would create quite an effect in the right light,” Squeak agreed. “And those flared cuffs and sleeves will flap brilliantly as he’s flying out of the tree
like a…like a…” Squeak’s voice trailed off as he searched for the right word.

“Like a screaming zombie Elvis,” Boney said.

“Am I the only one who isn’t crazy here?” Itchy threw his hands in the air. “I don’t think you understand. If anything happens to that costume, I’m dead.” He yanked the plastic back down over the suit.

“But you said it’s his spare,” Boney said, removing the costume from the rod. “We have to do it.”

“No,” Itchy refused.

“Just imagine how amazing it’ll be…”

“You’re out of your mind.”

“It’s brilliant!”

“Can’t we just build the Apparator instead?” Itchy pleaded. He watched helplessly as Boney drifted down the hall with the costume. “I’m so doomed…”

UP IN THE CLUBHOUSE, Itchy folded his sparkling arms across his chest as Boney tightened the waistband on the costume with some safety pins. Squeak fussed with Itchy’s makeup, adding the finishing touches to Zombie Elvis. You could hardly recognize Itchy, he looked so different. His hair was jet-black and slick with pomade. He had sideburns pencilled to the corners of his twisted
blue mouth. One eye dangled horribly from the socket, while the other was distorted and sunken. His face was powdered a ghastly white and his hands were covered in horrible Frankenstein scars.

“We’d better not get this suit dirty,” Itchy slurred for the umpteenth time through false teeth. “And I have to have it back before midnight. My dad checks in on it like a prison warden.”

“No problem,” Boney said. “The whole plan shouldn’t take more than half an hour. But we’d better get ready. Larry and his fellow convicts will be walking home after soccer practice soon.”

“At least I got to eat supper before I die,” Itchy sulked. “And it was good, too. Tuna casserole. Not like that canned-soup stuff your aunt makes.”

“I believe canned mushroom soup is one of the main ingredients in tuna casserole,” Squeak corrected him.

“Well, it was good anyway,” Itchy said. “My mom’s a great cook. I’m going to miss all those delicious meals when I’m dead.”

Boney laughed dismissively. “You’re not going to die.”

Itchy stared at him suspiciously with his one good eye, the other bouncing lightly on its spring. “Easy for you to say.”

“Open wide,” Squeak ordered, popping several fake
blood capsules into Itchy’s mouth. “Okay, you know how it works. At the right moment, bite down hard on the capsules and then spit the blood all over—making sure not to get any on the suit, of course.”

Itchy-Elvis nodded his head, the fake eye bouncing.

Squeak stood back, proudly admiring his work. “You’d make a great mascot,” he said. “Zombie Elvis—I don’t think any other club has such an innovative sidekick.”

“Forget it,” Itchy said.

“Too bad,” Squeak sighed. He turned to Boney and saluted. “He’s ready for the harness, Chief.”

Boney produced the webbing harness and fitted it carefully around Itchy’s thin frame.

“Are you sure this thing will hold?” Itchy mumbled warily, trying not to burst the blood capsule between his teeth.

“Sure it’ll hold,” Boney answered confidently. “I learned how to tie a harness in Scouts, remember?”

“That was a long time ago,” Itchy reminded him.

“Well, it’s kind of like riding a bike,” Boney said, cheerfully. “You never really forget how to do it.” He studied the harness for a moment. “Now where does this piece go?” he mused, holding up a loose end of rope.

“You said you knew what you were doing,” Itchy grumbled.

“Don’t worry. I was just kidding. See, it goes here.” He pushed the end of the webbing through a small loop at the back of the harness and secured it, tugging on the harness to show how strong it was. Itchy tugged on it as well. While he was doing this, Boney squeezed his old hockey helmet over Itchy’s blackened hair. “For extra protection.”

“Ahhhh,” Itchy wailed. “You’re ripping my hair out!”

“Sorry.” Boney adjusted the straps on the hockey helmet to fit Itchy’s head. Then he produced a black magic marker and a large scribble pad with a diagram of the neighbouring streets. “Okay, listen up.” He began drawing on the diagram, the way Colonel R. sometimes did on the chalkboard in gym class. “Here’s the soccer field,” he said, marking the spot on the pad with a big black “X.” “Prisoner 95 and his henchmen will finish soccer practice at 8:00. At approximately 8:15 they’ll stop to change their shoes at the bleachers, then walk down Bleaker Street to Joe’s Variety on the eight corners to purchase soda and licorice. By 8:25, they’ll be moving along Friendship to Van Avenue, where they’ll cut across the street to the alley between Walker and Johnston. They’ll reach Green Bottle at 8:33, where they’ll deposit their soda cans in Mrs. Scheider’s garbage can. They’ll stop for two to three minutes to tease her schnauzers, then throw a few rocks
at Mrs. Pulmoni’s cat. That’s when I step out from behind the mailbox into the streetlight. As soon as I see them, I’ll give two sharp whistles.” Boney demonstrated, giving two loud blasts with his fingers to his lips. “When they start to chase me, I’ll signal Squeak with the flashlight,” he signalled with the flashlight, “and run back to the clubhouse to man the rope. Squeak, the second they run under the south branch, you hit them with the honey. When they’re rubbing their eyes, blind them with the spotlight. Itchy, that’s your cue to come flying out of the tree, spitting blood and swinging the feather pillow. They won’t know what hit them! Any questions?”

Itchy raised his hand. “What if I have to go to the bathroom?”

“Do you have to go to the bathroom?” Boney asked.

“No. But what if I do?”

“Then hold it until the manoeuvre is over.”

Boney helped Itchy through the clubhouse window onto the big east branch of the clubhouse tree. Itchy inched along the branch to his position, trying not to catch the pants of his father’s Elvis costume on the bark of the tree. He steadied himself to keep from falling as Squeak leaned out the window and handed him the feather pillow.

“Hold this end up,” Squeak instructed. “I’ve loosened the stitches so the feathers will explode when you swing it.”

Itchy nodded. He looked at Boney. “This had better work,” he threatened.

“Don’t worry,” Boney assured him again. “It’ll scare them senseless. When I give you the signal, you push off the branch, start swinging the pillow and spitting blood. I’ll be down on the ground working the rope so you don’t fall. Got it?”

Itchy-Elvis nodded.

“Ready with the tar and spotlight?”

Squeak saluted. “Ready, Chief.”

“All right,” Boney said. “I’m going down the street to wait for Larry Harry and the evil twins. Remember the code.”

“Two sharp whistles,” Squeak answered obediently.

“Right,” Boney said. “As soon as you hear those whistles you’ll know I’ve spotted them. When they start to chase me, I’ll signal with the flashlight to Squeak. Squeak gives Itchy the signal to get ready,” Boney made a slashing motion with his hand in Itchy’s direction, “and it’s showtime! Any final questions?”

The boys shook their heads.

“Good. I’m off. Good luck, men.” Boney saluted his friends.

Squeak saluted back. Itchy-Elvis raised his hand to salute but almost slipped from the tree in the process and decided to just nod instead.

Boney slid down the pole to the ground. He skulked along the length of the house, hiding behind bushes and making his way to the street, trying to avoid the prying eyes of his nosy neighbours. Ducking out of the street-lamp light, he scurried behind Squeak’s father’s car. From this vantage point, he could see Itchy’s mother sitting in a chair on her porch at 27 Green Bottle. He would have to take evasive measures. Crouching low, he slipped alongside the car into the street and shuffled quickly past Itchy’s house, hiding behind Mrs. Pulmoni’s old station wagon. But as he did this he was ambushed by Itchy’s terrier, Snuff, who came snarling out from behind some garbage cans and grabbed the cuff of Boney’s pants with his needle-sharp teeth.

“Get off me, you stupid mutt!” Boney growled hoarsely, struggling to pull his leg clear of the dog. But when he jerked his leg back, he lost his balance and tumbled into the street from behind the car, with the dog snapping and pulling on his pant leg.

“Is that you, Boney?” Itchy’s mother called from the porch.

Boney waved back as though nothing was wrong, still trying to pull his leg free. Snuff snarled and tugged even harder. Several lights snapped on along the street.

“Oh, dear!” Itchy’s mother cried once she’d realized
what all the confusion was about. “Snuff! You stop that this instant! Bad dog! Bad dog!” And then she gave two sharp whistles. “Come here right now!”

Boney wrestled with Snuff, trying to step over the dog and wrench himself free. Kicking and struggling, he tripped over his pant leg and fell to the ground, hitting the concrete. The flashlight bounced from his hands and blinked twice before rolling to the centre of the street, where it was instantly crushed by a passing car.