Blubber (8 page)

Linda kept her eyes shut and we could see her chewing, then swallowing the candy. Wendy let go of her then and sang, “Blubber ate an ant … Blubber ate an ant …”

We all joined in, making a circle around Linda. Even Rochelle, who usually doesn’t pay any attention to the rest of us, was enjoying the show.

But after a minute Linda turned this awful greenish color, gave a big burp, then puked all over her desk and the floor. Wendy ran down the hall for Mrs. Horvath.

When Mrs. Horvath saw the mess she told the boys to get the custodian.

By then Linda was crying. “They made me eat an ant.”

“Try to stay calm,” Mrs. Horvath told her. “I’ll take you down to the nurse’s office.”

If you throw up in school you automatically get sent home for the rest of the day. So Linda didn’t come back to class that afternoon. Instead, Mr. Nichols came to see us.

“We seem to have a little problem, Mrs. Minish,” he said, pretending he was talking just to her but looking at all of us. “Linda Fischer said your class made her eat a chocolate-covered
ant. In fact she claims they forced it down her throat, causing her to vomit.”

“Well … this comes as a surprise to me, Mr. Nichols,” Mrs. Minish said. “I just can’t believe my class would do such a thing.”

“Neither can I,” Mr. Nichols said. “Nevertheless …”

I wondered if something like this could go down on your permanent record card and keep you out of college.

“I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation, Mr. Nichols,” Mrs. Minish said. “Can anyone tell us what happened?”

Wendy raised her hand.

“Yes, Wendy?”

“I think I can explain,” Wendy said. “You see, Linda’s been on this diet and all she eats is cheese and celery … so naturally I knew better than to offer her a piece of my candy.” Wendy looked at Mrs. Minish.

“Go on,” Mrs. Minish said.

“Well … Linda just went crazy. I mean, she wanted my candy in the worst way … so I told her it was a chocolate-covered ant … I thought she wouldn’t want to eat it when she heard that.” Wendy paused and looked around.

“Yes …” Mr. Nichols said.

“But Linda didn’t believe me … so I told her
how my father goes all the way to New York to get these special chocolate-covered ants that my family loves and that they’re very fattening. But she still didn’t believe me so finally I gave her a piece of my candy and after she ate it I asked her how the ant tasted and that’s when she got sick all over the place.”

“So it wasn’t an ant?” Mr. Nichols asked.

“No, it was regular chocolate candy from Barricini’s.”

“I see.”

“Linda has a lot of imagination,” Wendy said.

Only Wendy could sit there telling lies to Mr. Nichols as if he were a regular person instead of the principal of our school.

“I knew there had to be an explanation,” Mrs. Minish said.

“Yes … well …” Mr. Nichols began. “Thank you for your cooperation in this matter.”

“Anytime,” Mrs. Minish told him, as he walked out of the room.

It was drizzling when me and Tracy stopped for our mail that afternoon. There was nothing for either one of us so we ran home.

“We’ve got to take the dogs to the vet today,” Tracy said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Not tomorrow,” I told her. “We’re going to a bar mitzvah.”

“Oh … I forgot about that.”

“See you Sunday.”

“Right.”

When my parents got home my father said he’d had a really rough day and would I mind scratching his back for a little while. I told him I’d love to and that my nails would soon be long enough to file. When Mom had finished showering she came into the living room carrying two Bloody Mary’s. She handed one to my father, then flopped onto the sofa. “Jill, would you bring me the mail?”

“Sure.” I went to the hall table and got it.

Mom sifted through all the letters and sighed. “Bills and more bills.” Then she picked up a yellow envelope. “I wonder what this is,” she asked, ripping off the tape. When she saw what was inside she said, “Oh God …” Then she cursed a couple of times. My mother’s not shy about cursing. She doesn’t even care if me and Kenny use those words around the house as long as we understand there are some people who don’t approve of them. I think that’s the reason most of the kids I know love to curse. It’s because their parents make a big deal out of those
words. With me it’s different. I don’t have to yell and scream them on the school bus every day since I can say them any old time I feel like it.

“Gordon … look at this …” Mom passed him a letter. I read it over Dad’s shoulder, while I was scratching. It said:

I stopped scratching my father. Mom held up a picture. It showed two kids from the back. They were running. One of them had feathers hanging out of her jacket. The other one had a hand on her head to keep her hat from flying off. It was definitely me and Tracy.

“We only did it because he’s so mean … he hates kids … he won’t even give to Unicef …” I told everyone. It was after dinner and Tracy, her mother and father were sitting with me, Mom and Dad in our living room. Mr. Machinist also sent the picture and note to their house.

Tracy was crying.

“You know you did wrong, don’t you, girls?” my father asked.

Tracy nodded.

I said, “In one way I know we did wrong, but in another way, he really deserved it.”

“We’ve always tried to teach Tracy right from wrong,” Mrs. Wu said. “We’ve always trusted her.”

That made Tracy cry even harder. “I don’t want to go to jail.”

I brought her a box of tissues. “You won’t let us go to jail, will you, Dad?” I asked.

“Nobody’s going to jail,” he said. “But you will have to face the consequences.”

Mom and Dr. and Mrs. Wu nodded in agreement.

“We’d better call Mr. Machinist,” Dr. Wu said, “and see what he has in mind.”

My father went to the phone. I couldn’t figure out anything from his end of the conversation. Mr. Machinist must have been doing most of the talking.

“What did he say?” my mother asked when Dad hung up.

“He said he’ll talk to the police unless the girls admit what they did and show him that they’re sorry.”

“Show him that we’re sorry … how?” I asked.

“He’s already cleaned out his mailbox,” my father said, “… it’s too late for that. But he’s got a yard full of leaves that have to be raked up and bagged.”

With all the trees in Hidden Valley Mr. Machinist must have millions of leaves, I thought—maybe even billions.

“When?” my mother asked.

“He wanted them to come tomorrow but I
explained that we’re busy so we settled on Sunday,” Dad said.

“Sunday!” I shouted. “That’s my only free day this week. Do you think that’s fair?”

“I think so,” Mom said. “After all, he could have called the police first.”

“I think it’s fair too,” Mrs. Wu said.

“And …” my father added, “maybe this way you’ll both learn that it’s not up to you to decide who deserves what in this world.”

After Tracy and her parents were gone, I went upstairs to get ready for bed. Kenny was in the bathroom, brushing his teeth. When he finished spitting he said, “I heard the whole thing. You really got yourself in big trouble.”

“Mind your own business,” I told him. “And wipe that blob of toothpaste off the counter.”

Kenny ran his towel along the countertop. “I hope you like raking up leaves. If you’d stayed home like me you wouldn’t be in this mess.”

“Oh … shut up, you dumb ass, before I bash your face in!”

I heard him laughing all the way to his room.

When I got into bed I thought about who had identified us. It must have been Blubber! She threatened to get me and she did.

We were late starting out for the bar mitzvah because of Kenny. He didn’t want to wear a tie and jacket. “If I can’t go in play clothes then I’ll just stay home!” he said.

My father doesn’t yell often, but when he does you can hear him as far as Tracy’s house, maybe even farther. Afterwards he is hoarse for days and has to drink tea with honey. Kenny got the message and put on his new tie and jacket, complaining the whole time that he couldn’t swallow and might even choke to death.

I was ready long before anyone else and while they were rushing around I was in the kitchen, making myself a peanut butter sandwich, just in case I didn’t like the bar mitzvah lunch. I wrapped it in silver foil and put it in my shoulder bag.

By the time we got to the temple in New Jersey it was after eleven. There was no place to park so Dad dropped us off in front while he drove around the block.

The temple sat on top of a hill and as we climbed the steps leading to it Mom said, “Listen, Jill … you can’t go around scratching all day. It doesn’t look nice.”

“I can’t help it,” I said. “You’re the one who picked out this itchy dress.”

“It’s too late to do anything about that now. Try and keep your mind on something else.”

“I’ll try,” I said, but as soon as Mom looked away I gave myself a quick scratch.

“We just climbed up thirty-seven steps” Kenny announced, when we reached the top.

Only Kenny would think of counting!

“Whew …” Mom said. “No wonder I’m winded.” She pushed the door open and we walked inside.

I looked all around. “Wow … this is some big place.”

“It certainly is,” Mom said. “It’s enormous.”

“Yeah … but it’s not the biggest synagogue in the world,” Kenny told us. “The biggest synagogue in the world is in New York. It’s on Fifth Avenue and it’s called Temple Emanu-El. It holds six thousand people.”

“Tell the little computer to keep his facts to himself today … please, Mom.”

“Kenny’s facts are very interesting,” Mom said.

“Yeah …”

“Not to me,” I told him.

“Stop arguing … we’ve got to find the sanctuary,” Mom said. “We’re late enough now.”

We walked all around before we came to a man standing in a doorway. He had rosy cheeks and a flower in his buttonhole. He smiled at Mom and handed her a prayerbook. Then he put his finger to his lips as if me and Kenny didn’t know enough to be quiet. We followed Mom into the sanctuary.

Warren was on the stage. He looked as creepy as ever, except for his hair. That looked worse. Usually it hangs into his eyes but today it was parted and looked like it had been sprayed.

As soon as he noticed us tiptoeing into the sanctuary he stopped reciting, right in the middle of a prayer. Everyone turned around to see who Warren was watching. My mother tried to smile but as she took a seat in the last row she dropped her pocketbook. It has a chain handle so when it hit the floor it made a clinking noise. Mom bent down and picked it up. She had this funny look on her face. I recognized it right
away. It meant
I don’t think I can live through this without a cigarette
. I’m very good at knowing what my mother is thinking.

Warren went back to his prayer but he must have lost his place because he stumbled along until the Rabbi pointed and said a few words. I was really surprised that Warren could read Hebrew at all. The last time he was over I showed him my book,
Poems for the John
and he had trouble with every word over two syllables, and that was in English!

When my father walked into the sanctuary a few minutes later, Warren stopped again. This time when everyone turned around there was a lot of whispering. Dad sat down next to me and I could tell he was embarrassed because the back of his neck turned red. That’s when Kenny started to sneeze. He never sneezes once like a normal person—it’s always twenty or thirty times in a row.

I knew that I shouldn’t laugh. I also knew that if I looked at Kenny I would. So I stared straight ahead, right at the back of some girl’s head. It reminded me of Linda Fischer’s. It was the same potato shape and the hair was the same too—reddish-brown and curled up at the edges.

At least that gave me something to think about so I didn’t have to listen to Warren’s stupid
speech which was something about being grateful to everyone he knew.

After the service we went to a party at Mr. Winkler’s country club. As soon as we walked into the lobby this woman asked us our names.

“Brenner,” Dad told her.

“Oh yes,” she said, fishing some little white cards out of a pile. She handed them to my father. He passed one to me and one to Kenny.

“What’s this?” Kenny asked.

“It tells you what table to sit at for lunch,” Mom said.

“You mean me and Kenny can’t sit with you?” I asked.

“We’re at Table Nineteen,” Dad told me.

“I’m at Table One,” Kenny said.

I looked at my card. “I’m at Table One, too.”

“All the young people are probably sitting together,” Mom said.

“But I’d rather sit with you,” I said. “Suppose I don’t like what they have to eat?”

“Just say
no
,
thank you
,” Dad told me. “Nobody’s going to force you to eat anything.”

“You should have brought your peanut butter!” Kenny laughed. “Then you wouldn’t have to worry.”

“Shut up, you little brat!”

“It won’t hurt you to try something new,” my father said.

“Look, Jill …” Mom told me, “you don’t have to eat a thing. If you’re hungry, that’s your problem. Now, I’m going to the Ladies’ Room … do you want to come?”

“All right.” I didn’t want to stand around talking about food anymore. I was glad I’d brought a secret sandwich with me.

On the way to the Ladies’ Room we passed a big room filled with round tables. In the center of each one was a bunch of blue and white flowers.

“Look at that!” I said. “Blue daisies … I didn’t know there was such a thing.”

“They’re dyed,” Mom said.

“They are?”

“To match the tablecloths.”