Big Mouth (15 page)

Biting into number fifteen was hard. I focused on my chewing, then swallowing but not really wanting to. I fell back into the couch. I had no interest in leaning forward, and I barely noticed the Galactic Warrior firefight in front of me. Number fifteen was cold, so it was even less appetizing. And it seemed saltier than the rest, somehow. At least the bun helped cut the saltiness.

I took a second bite, trying to chew it way over on the side, not letting it touch my tongue because I was now grossed out by the salty meat that half an hour ago was screaming my name through a bullhorn. I swigged water again to wash away the salty. Half of number fifteen was still left.

I paused. I could feel something, a big air bubble maybe, pushing up from the bottom of my stomach…
C’mon, c’mon
…yes, it was…a big—

BUUUUUUURP!

I tried to catch and hold it out for maximum relief, but with medium success. Ultimately the burp was a seven on a scale of one to ten. But it would do. I rubbed my face and took a deep breath, then shoved the rest of number fifteen into my mouth, trying to not let it touch my tongue. I swallowed tiny bits as I chewed the rest, sneaking the food around the back of my tongue and down my throat.

Two sudden, satisfying burps rocked me.
Relief!

Gaining courage from the burps, I bit into number sixteen. Only I wasn’t sensing trouble anymore—I was
feeling
it. Smack-dab in the center of my belly. I pulled up my shirt and patted my gut. It was taut as a rope, hard as a boulder, full as a canteen.

The rest of number sixteen was going to be T-O-U-G-H.

I bit into number sixteen and chewed with my mouth wide open, afraid to stop chewing because then I’d have to swallow—and that did not sound good. But sooner or later I’d have to, so I chose sooner: I swallowed.
Okay, that went down.
I bit again.
Bite, bite, bite, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, swallow.
I could do this.
Bite, bite, bite, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, swallow.

No I couldn’t.

My stomach was a balloon about to burst. I tapped my gut again. Jeez, it was harder after just those two bites. I still had three and three-quarters HDBs to go. No, I couldn’t do this after all.

But the very moment I thought that, a wonderful thing happened: I caught the biggest burp of my life. It was a gnarly, whopping burp, and I managed to drag it out good and long. The drop in belly pressure was immediate.
The glory!

I scooched to the edge of the couch again, my back as straight as possible. Using my arms and legs as leverage, I bounced up and down a few times to pack the dogs into the bottom of my stomach.

I took another small sip of water. One-fourth of number sixteen to go. I seriously didn’t want it. I wasn’t going to reverse, but putting that last bit of HDB in my mouth sounded about as appetizing as putting in a spoonful of dead ants. Thirty-eight minutes had now passed, which meant my half-hour guess was way off. But I
would
eat twenty dogs, come hell or high water. So I bit and
chew, chew, chew
ed about a million times until number sixteen was dead and gone.

Groaning, I sagged back into the couch and watched a few minutes of phaser battles while I worked up the strength to go back to my dog pile. Captain Quixote dodged the Icarus 2000 into a sunspot region that brewed and rumbled like it was ready to erupt. The Icarus shook and bounced and a few heat shields peeled off, but it held together as Captain Quixote plowed unwaveringly forward. The man knew no fear.

And neither did I! I could be like Captain Quixote! I could stay the course even if a few heat shields peeled off! I hoisted myself up to the edge of the couch. It was a painful maneuver, but I got there.

Number seventeen was a serious belly strainer, but I ate it over the course of two more phaser battles.
In your eye, T’larians!

Now I was officially hurting. Big time. Number eighteen was downright agony. My belly felt stuffed worse than any Thanksgiving, maybe three times over. I bet if someone had looked down my throat, they would’ve seen the food right up near the back of my tongue. I was
that
full.

The back of my throat got warm and sickly ticklish for a moment. I rode it out, but a terrible thought invaded my mind as I did so: I wanted a reversal of fortune.
Badly.
The relief of that burp at number fifteen was long gone.

But I couldn’t reverse. That was for losers and I was Thuff Enuff. I could do twenty.

As I forced myself to chew number eighteen, I stared at the center of the hot dog in my hand. There were tiny, disgusting whitish specks in the meat. And the so-called white bread bun had a sickly yellow hue.
Ugh. Why did Lucy pick this brand of bun?
It was too fluffy, expanding into every crevice in my stomach. She should’ve bought cheap, wimpy buns.
Dang it!

I caught two more burps, getting marginal relief that let me slump a little instead of needing to sit so ramrod straight. My breathing was shallow since there was no longer room for my lungs.

The last bite of number eighteen was in my hand. No way could I do twenty. Eighteen was a good show; I could live with it. Still, as much as I wanted this nightmare to be over, I could only handle half of that piece right then, so I bit into it long-ways. Now the white specs in the meat were exposed in their full glory. Talk about nightmare. I put the piece on my plate and rotated it so that I was looking at bun instead of massacred meat.

I leaned back, sipped, breathed a few moments, then made up my mind. Grabbing the last of number eighteen, I forced it between my lips. I had to chew it for a millennium, but eventually I swallowed it.
There. I did it.

I fell back onto the couch. Except for my groaning, the house was silent. There were no cheers, no congratulations, no thumbs-up or high fives. It was just me and my two abandoned HDBs. I’d eaten eighteen HDBs in forty-five minutes.
Big whoop.

I lowered myself sideways onto the couch, trying to breathe as shallowly as possible so that my lungs and diaphragm wouldn’t push down on my stomach. Captain Quixote’s Galactic Cruiser exploded into a bazillion pieces, the camerawork spinning and twisting along with the wreckage. I covered my mouth and quickly switched the channel to “T’larian Justice.” Not that this episode was any more calming than the battle in the eighth dimension had been. In this one, a T’larian shuttlecraft piloted by brainwashed Commander Panza was on a kamikaze mission aimed at the sun. Captain Quixote was chasing his buddy in the Icarus 2000, which had been specially designed for flying close to the flaming star. He’d passed his heat threshold, but he was determined to extract Panza and escape despite the odds.

Watching scene after swooping scene of the sun’s flaming surface, I started to feel flushed myself. Or maybe it was the eighteen HDBs in my gut finally sending my body systems into overload. Sweat was beading up on my forehead, it was hard for my brain to focus on the dialogue, and my eyelids felt heavy. As the IcarusCam recorded the shuttle’s loopy swoops at the T’larian ship, I fought the dipping-tongue gag reflex. The pressure in my stomach was intense. No, it was beyond intense. It was death itself.

I can’t take it anymore. I have to end the pain. I have to.
Slowly, painfully, I worked myself into a standing position. Macho or not, a man had to do what a man had to do.

I hobbled toward the bathroom. But after only a few steps, I burst into a painful gallop with my hand over my mouth.

Ready or not, butyric acid, here I come!

CHAPTER 13

Everything looked better in morning sunlight. Or at least it was supposed to. This morning, I wasn’t so sure about that. The sun was only just rising, and Gardo had me on my porch at the butt crack of dawn on a Sunday morning in shorts, thermal long johns, pants, sweats, snow pants, undershirt, T-shirt, sweater, scarf, ski cap, hoodie (with my hood up!), gloves, and plastic wrap around my stomach and thighs. The garden thermometer next to the porch said seventy-nine degrees. I swear, Gardo had flipped.

But he was the coach, and what the coach says goes. Which, in this case, was me: I was going for the very first jog of my life.

Though it was early and I was bundled up like it was the Arctic winter, I was actually feeling okay about the upcoming jog. The relief of last night’s reversal was huge, so I wasn’t suffering any after effects from my training session. I felt pretty good, truth be told. I’d conquered eighteen HDBs, and now I was going to work off more of my belt so that I could do nineteen HDBs in Tuesday’s capacity training. Life was unfolding nicely. Lucy would’ve been proud of me. I wanted to tell her, but I couldn’t. I’d fired her and that was just the way of it.

“Ready?” Gardo asked. He was alternating between jumping jacks and jogging in place.

I was done rolling my shoulders and squatting, so, yeah, I was ready. “Now or never. Let’s pound the pavement, Coach.”

“All right, then. Giddyup!”

We took off at a gallop. The sun was rising in front of us, and the moon was falling behind. There was a slight crispness in the breeze that brushed my cheeks. My heart was
pump, pump, pumping
the blood through my body, and my leg muscles were stretching and getting juiced by the workout. Already I could picture myself racing up the steps of the library at Palm and Thirteenth, Rocky style.
I got the eye of the tiger, baby.

I focused on breathing in, out, in, out. Gardo was next to me, playfully pulling forward and dropping back, pulling forward and dropping back. I kind of liked this, the two of us out here bonding, doing athlete stuff, while the rest of the world slept. It was a whole new side of our friendship.

The first block was all downhill. It wasn’t steep, just a slight decline, but it was nice to have gravity working in my favor for the opening strides. I was feeling good, loose and lean. This jogging stuff wasn’t so bad.

“You want to speed it up there, Seabiscuit? My granny walks faster than that. Move it, move it!”

Jeez, I didn’t know I was running with Coach Hunt.
I picked up the pace. My breathing picked up the pace, too. And my heart went from
pump, pump, pumping
to
pound, pound, pounding.

“Much better,” Gardo said. “Granny would have to be in her wheelchair now to catch you.”

I flipped him the bird. I would’ve told him to stuff it, but since I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t talk.

The plastic wrap around my belly started slip-sliding with sweat, and wet beads dripped down my lower back, under the plastic, feeling like an army of ants. My left calf twitched threateningly.

Gardo consulted the pedometer clipped to his waistband. “Point three miles down, one-point-seven to go. C’mon, Shermie, pick up those knees, find your rhythm.”

I’ll show you rhythm….

A beat-up truck zoomed by, kicking up a cloud of dust. A beer bottle flew out the passenger window and exploded on the asphalt. Glass bounced off my shin.
Jeez!
If I hadn’t had on twenty layers of clothing, that shard might’ve sliced an artery. What a lovely way to start a Sunday morning. Whose brilliant idea was this jog?

“When we’re done,” Gardo said, dropping back next to me again, “we’ll have some pickles and a refreshing Gardo Glass of
agua.
” He wasn’t even breathing hard. “How does that sound?”

“Lovely,” I got out between breaths.

Did Gardo know I was scheduled for water training today? I wracked my brain, but I couldn’t remember telling him. He was so hard-line on the Gardo Glasses, he might nix that part of my training. Well, I just wouldn’t tell him, that was all. I couldn’t risk it. Anyway, what was a little water in my belly going to hurt him? He’d let me have hot dogs last night because they were part of my training, and water expansion was just as vital. I had a graph from Lucy to prove it.

The miserable army of sweat ants had now spread from my back to my front, and the skin under the plastic wrap around my belly and thighs was stinging and hot, like when a too-tight shoe rubbed my heel. My head might as well have been in an oven instead of that ski hat and hood. No heat was escaping through my head today. Making things even rosier, the downhill slope was leveling out, so I was losing gravity as a running partner. People did this for fun?

Gardo dropped back next to me again. “How you doing, Shermie? You’re looking kind of tired.”

Then why the heck are you asking?
“Fine.” I didn’t want him thinking I was a puss.

“You sure?”

“Fine.”

“Okay….”

We jogged a few more feet.

“You know,” he said, “you could
walk.
”

You know, I could
stop. “I’m…fine.”

“There’s nothing wrong with walking. My mom walks every day.”

He might as well have told me to start carrying a purse. “She’s a girl.”

“True.” A few more feet, then, “She says walking is better for you than jogging. Less pounding on the knees and spine, same weight burn. But you have to walk fast enough. It just takes more time, that’s all.”

“Then
you
walk.”

“Can’t. Hunt would have a cow.” He pulled ahead again, leaving me to my misery.

I wished I
could
walk. Especially if it was just the same or better than jogging. Jogging sucked. But walking was for girls, and that was just the way of it. Rocky didn’t walk. Hulk Hogan probably didn’t walk. They were champions, and I was going to be a champion, too. So Thuff Enuff wouldn’t walk. Period.

We jogged around the corner of Palm onto Thirteenth. That was when I remembered that Thirteenth Street was uphill.
Steep
uphill. What genius put a library at the top of a hill? Didn’t they know kids had to ride their bikes to the library? Didn’t they know old people walked to the library? Didn’t they know crazy wrestlers made their poor friends jog to the library?

I tucked my head down and pumped my arms harder. My heart pounded in my ears and my breath came in gasps.

“C’mon, Shermie, one foot in front of the other, same as on the downhill. You can do it! You just have to think you can.”

I think I can, I think I can, I think I can…

Who was I fooling? I couldn’t jog up this hill. I’d die before I got halfway. I was just sorry Gardo would witness my Walk of Shame.

I slowed down to a walk and—

“Ow!” I collapsed to the sidewalk, clutching my left calf, the plastic digging into my belly flesh.

“What? What happened?” Gardo stooped over me helplessly. “Are you okay?”

“Calf!” I was wincing hard, barely holding back tears. The muscle was locked so tight that my foot flexed backward, my toes trying to curl under, even inside my shoes. It couldn’t have hurt worse if I’d squeezed it in a vise.

Then it locked down even harder.

“Owww!” My tears rolled free.

“Rub it, Shermie, rub it.” Gardo dropped to his knees and started kneading my calf.

“Ow! Stop!” I shoved his hands away and rubbed it myself—furiously, with both hands.
Stupid Gardo for making me jog. It’s my first time ever, we should’ve walked. Walking’s just as good or better than jogging, his own mom said so. Some friend!

He was right about the rubbing, though. It was helping my cramp loosen up. As lame as I felt doing it, I kept at it, all the while willing my aching, sweaty, wheezing, pathetic body to relax. But it was slow in cooperating. At least I was able to stop crying. My breath was still gaspy, but it was settling down as the cramp faded, and my pounding heart was slowing to a solid
pump, pump
again. The plastic wrap slid as I shifted around.

Gardo still knelt next to me. “Any better?”

“Some.”

“Keep rubbing.”

“I’m rubbing!”

“Good. That’s the best thing.” He sat back on his heels. “I had a calf cramp once. It hurt worse than when I broke my arm.”

“Thanks for sharing that.”

“Cranking at me won’t help. It’s just bad luck, that’s all. Don’t sweat it. You’re an athlete now, things happen.” He patted me on the back as a bike rider coasted down the hill past us. She was sitting straight up, her long blond hair streaming behind her, her hands stretched to the sky like she was on a roller coaster.

“Yee-hawwwww!” she yelled.

Of course you’re happy, you’re going
down
hill. Gravity is your pal on the downhill.

Gardo shook his head sadly. “And you were doing so great, too. If it wasn’t for the cramp, you’d probably be running up those library steps right now.”

He must not have seen my Walk of Shame. There was mercy in this universe.

“Stupid leg cramp,” I said, gazing longingly uphill and shaking my own head. “It ruined everything.”

Gardo stood and consulted his pedometer. “Not everything. We covered half a mile.”

A lousy half a mile? Talk about shame.
Maybe his pedometer was wrong.

He smiled down at me. “Way to go, man.”

Way to go?

“You did great for your first jog ever. I bet Lance Armstrong didn’t ride his bike half a mile his first time out. And you know, by the time we get home, we’ll have a whole mile under our belts. Our
smaller
belts. Nope, a mile ain’t shabby.”

A whole mile?
No, that wasn’t shabby at all, not for my first jog ever.
Wow, so there you have it, Thuff Enuff starts out strong again. Are YOU Thuff Enuff? I am!

“Here.” He held out his hand and helped me stand. I kept my left leg up, like a stork. Plastic-trapped sweat squooged around my lower back. “Test it.”

Test it, my butt. If someone pokes you in the eye, you don’t poke in your own finger a few minutes later to see if it still hurts.
“I don’t want to.”

“
Athlete
now, remember? Get over it or get out.”

“Fine.” Hesitantly, I touched my foot to the ground. My full weight wasn’t on it, though, not at first. I wiggled my toes. Then I flexed my ankle. Then slowly, gingerly, I put full weight on my leg. It wasn’t so bad, actually. My calf muscle was still tight, but the burn was gone. My breathing was better, too. If I hadn’t had the disgusting, slippery plastic wrapped around me, I would’ve been tip-top. “It’s okay, I guess.”

“Good.” He slapped some dirt off the seat of my sweats. I knocked his hand away, scowling. He was the guy who was so worried about image. What if someone saw that?

I rested my hands wearily on my waist as a beat-up jeep whizzed by, honking its sick-bird horn and dragging a long, black cloud behind it. It smelled like cigarette smoke in a tar factory.

“Don’t just stand there.” Gardo bent down at the waist, his knees locked, and touched his toes. “Coach Hunt says to stretch when you feel tight.” Then he stood up straight again and rubbed his stomach uncomfortably. “Jeez, it’s hard to bend like that with this plastic wrap.” He paused and looked around, then leaned in close. “What do you think of Hunt’s Gut Wrap?”

“It sucks.”

“It does, doesn’t it?”

“Seriously.”

He glanced around once more, like he was worried we were being spied on. “Want to take it off?”

“Heck, yeah.”

“Good. Over there.”

He pointed to a tall blue mailbox. We took turns standing behind it and stripping off the sweaty plastic wrap. The relief was immediate. The breeze that grazed my belly before I dropped my undershirt, shirt, sweater, and sweatshirt was like heaven, the lack of girdlelike pressure a blessing.
Gut Wrap, my butt. Try Plastic Wrap from Hell. Hunt is an idiot.

“Where do we put this stuff?” Gardo was holding up a mess of drippy plastic as big as the slippery blob in my own hand. There was no trash can in sight.

I pointed to the mailbox. “In there.”

We quickly opened the metal door and threw in our plastic. I let the door slam shut, and then we hustled away as fast as my calf allowed, just two innocent boys headed for choir practice in twenty layers of sweat-soaked clothing.
Who, us? No, Officer, we don’t know anything about sweaty plastic wrap in the mailbox. We swear.

When we were about to turn the corner back onto Palm, Gardo slapped me in the ribs with the back of his hand and pointed behind us. A black and white police car cruised toward our mailbox. We rushed around the corner and busted up.

“Man,” Gardo said, “that was close. I bet the mailman’s gonna be seriously ticked tomorrow.”

I made a face. “Imagine the smell by then. I’m just glad this stupid calf didn’t foil our getaway from the cops.”

Gardo put his sweaty arm around my sweatier shoulder. I barely felt it with my thick clothing cushion.

“I’m sorry that happened to you, man,” he said. “The first week of wrestling season, I thought I’d die at least three times. It’ll get easier, I promise. In the meantime, nobody ever has to know. We got coach-athlete confidentiality.” He turned an invisible key at his lips.

I was glad I had Gardo on my team.

We walked past a gray utility box. It was about waist-high, just the right height for a nice sit-down. But something told me not to suggest that to Coach Gardo.

A big rig passing by blared his horn at a little blue BMW. Traffic was picking up on four-laned Palm. Next to us, a gardener in khaki overalls sprinkled pellets on the lawn. Another gardener was hedging the strip of grass between the sidewalk and the road with a weed-whacker. A pack of bike riders in fluorescent colors zoomed by. The sun was now solidly in place in the sky above. The rest of the world was finally waking up.

I couldn’t believe how hot and parched I was—or how woozy I felt. I reached up to push my hood off, but Gardo stopped me. “Just a little bit longer, Shermie. Trust me.”

I did trust Gardo. He’d known me since second grade, and he’d never let me down. Plus he knew how hard this athlete stuff was.