Double Fudge (10 page)

"What can't you believe, Pete?"

"That somebody's going to pay seven thousand dollars for this painting."

"So, Pete..." he began, and he got this greedy look in his eyes. I knew what was coming before he even said it. But he said it anyway. "We could get Tootsie to do the same thing at home and then ..."

I interrupted. "Yeah... except nobody would pay us thousands of dollars for a painting."

"How come?"

"Because we're not artists like Mr. Fargo."

"But, Pete, that doesn't make any sense."

"What can I say, Fudge? That's the way it is."

He swung my arm up and down. "We think the same way, don't we?"

Before I could answer, before I could say,
No... we don't think the same way and we never will...
someone came up from behind and stuck a finger in my ribs. I spun around.

"Gotcha!" Jimmy laughed.

"Where've you been?" I asked. "I've been looking everywhere for you."

"Yeah... it's crowded in here. That's a good sign. So, what do you think?" He stepped away from the paintings

126

and studied them from a distance. He squinted, then made his fists into binoculars and peered through them. I did the same, and when I did, all those swirling colors looked like they were moving.

"Cool, huh?" Jimmy said.

"Yeah... amazing."

"You're not thinking you could do the same thing, I hope?"

"No. Why would I be thinking that?"

"I don't know. You just have that look on your face."

"What look?"

"Never mind."

A woman in a black dress and dangling earrings shaped like skyscrapers stuck a red dot on the
Baby Feet Storm
card. She looked familiar--tall and scrawny with a lot of curly hair and a really long neck.

"Yes!" Jimmy pulled a victory fist. "There goes another one."

"Another what?" I said.

"Another painting. When a red dot goes up, it means that painting is sold."

"Wow!" I said. "Seven thousand dollars. What's it like to know your dad is rich and famous?"

"Rich?" Fudge said.

Jimmy ignored him and eyed me. "First of all,

127

the gallery gets half of everything. Second of all, since when are you so
into
money?"

"Me,
into
money?" I said. "That's a joke! You want to see someone who's into money, look at my brother."

Fudge started singing,
"Money, money, money... I love money, money, money
..." Then he skipped away.

A minute later someone tapped me on the shoulder. "Well, well, well ..." she said. "If it isn't my old friend, Peter Hatcher." It was the woman in the skyscraper earrings. She was carrying a shoulder bag with a small dog inside. As soon as I heard her voice I recognized her. It was Giraffe Neck, this woman I knew last year when we lived in Princeton. She owned a gallery there, right near the movie theater. One of Frank Fargo's paintings hung in the window. It was called
Anita's Anger.
One time I went in and told Giraffe Neck I personally knew Frank Fargo. But what was she doing here? And why was she carrying a Yorkie in her bag? I reached out to pet the dog but it barked at me.

"It's okay, Vinny," Jimmy said, scratching the dog behind his ears. "Peter's a friend."

"You know her dog?" I asked.

"Sure, I know Vinny," Jimmy said. "He walks backwards even when he's barking at you."

"Backwards?"

128

"He retreats," Giraffe Neck explained.

"Yeah, that's it," Jimmy said. "He retreats."

"But he loves Jimmy," Giraffe Neck said, tousling Jimmy's hair. "Vinny never barks at Jimmy." Then she was gone, back to doing business.

Jimmy watched her for a minute, then turned back to me. "What?" he said, as if I'd asked a question, which I hadn't.

"I didn't say anything," I told him.

"But you were going to."

"Well yeah... now that you mention it, didn't you say something about getting a Yorkie?"

Jimmy nodded. "I thought so."

A few minutes later I caught a glimpse of Giraffe Neck across the room with Mr. Fargo. It looked like he was nuzzling her neck. Jimmy saw me watching them.

"Am I missing something here," I began, "or are your father and Giraffe Neck ..."

"They're going out," Jimmy said. "They're talking about getting married."

"Married?"

"Could you not say it like that?"

"Like what?"

"Like it's a disaster or something."

129

"I didn't say it's a disaster," I told him. "I'm just surprised, that's all. I mean, I'm supposed to be your best friend ... so how come you didn't say something about your father marrying Giraffe Neck until now?"

"It wasn't official," Jimmy said. "And her name's Beverly. Beverly Muldour. And if you want to know, she's pretty cool."

"If you say so."

"The only bad thing is this means my parents aren't getting back together."

"Did you think they would?"

Jimmy didn't answer.

"Come on, Jimmy... your parents can't stand each other. That's why they're divorced."

"I don't want to hear that," Jimmy said. "Especially from you. You just said you're supposed to be my best friend.

"Okay, I'm sorry."

"Just because they're divorced doesn't mean I want either one of them to marry someone else."

"But you said Giraffe Neck's cool."

"Yeah, but what does she know about being a parent?"

"Look at it this way," I said. "You father doesn't know much about being a parent either."

"You can say that again."

130

"So how bad could it be? Your father seems happy tonight."

"That's tonight."

"So, maybe he'll be happier more of the time."

Jimmy shrugged. "Beverly says she won't try to be my mother since I already have one. She says we'll be friends instead. But what does that mean?"

"I don't know. Maybe you should just wait and see.

It was after 9:00 P.M. by the time we got home. Tootsie was asleep in Dad's arms. Henry met us at the door to our building. "Mrs. H ..." he said. "You've got visitors."

"Visitors?" Mom asked. "At this hour? Warren, are you expecting anyone?"

Dad said, "I can't imagine who it could be."

"I know!" Fudge said. "It's Grandma and Buzzy."

"No, it's not your grandma," Henry said, handing a note to Mom.

"Then I'll bet it's William, my teacher."

"Why would your teacher come to your house at night?" I asked.

"Because he likes me," Fudge answered.

"Not everything's about you," I told him while Mom opened the note.

131

She read it aloud.
Dear Tubby...
she began.

Oh no! I
thought.

"Oh goody," Fudge sang. "It's the Howies!"

"Let Mom finish reading," I said.

Mom started again.

Dear Tubby and Anne,

We finally made it to the big city

We're in the van, parked right around the corner.

can't wait to see you again.

Your loving cousins,

Howie, Eudora, Fauna, Flora and Farley

"Well," Mom said. "What a surprise."

Surprise?
I thought.
That's one way of putting it.

Dad passed the sleeping Tootsie to Mom. "You take her up and I'll go see about Cousin Howie."

"I'll come, too," Fudge said.

"It's way past your bedtime," Mom told him. "And tomorrow's a school day."

"But I'm not tired," Fudge said. "Look... see how wide I can open my eyes?"

"All right, but don't be long," Mom said. "What about you, Peter?" she asked, as I followed her to the elevator.

132

"I'm feeling really tired," I said. "I think I should go right to bed."

She tried to feel my forehead but with Tootsie in her arms it wasn't easy. "You're not getting sick, are you?"

"Yeah, I am. But not the way you think."

133

And just like that they'd climbed into their sleeping bags and closed their eyes. Cousin Howie snored softly. Lined up next to him were Eudora, then Mini Farley, followed by the Natural Beauties. They slept flat on their backs, like a row of hot dogs in their rolls. All that was missing was the mustard and the relish.

Turtle didn't get it. He kept sniffing them. He even tried licking Eudora's face, since no toes were available. But still, they didn't wake up. Mom said I had to

134

get Turtle into my room, and fast, but I couldn't lure him away from the Howies. "Pssst ..." I whispered, crawling around the living room on all fours, holding out a wedge of cheese. "Come here, boy." He didn't even look at me.

Mom motioned for me to come into the kitchen.

She was laying out plates, bowls, and silverware. "Would you count out nine juice glasses, Peter?"

"Are we having a midnight supper or what?"

"It's for tomorrow morning's breakfast," Mom said.

I checked the cupboard. "I hate to break it to you, Mom, but we don't have nine juice glasses. How about four?"

"I'll ask Dad to pick up some paper cups."

"Where is Dad, anyway?"

"At the grocery store. We've got five extra mouths to feed in the morning." When the phone rang Mom grabbed it on the first ring. "I'll take it in the bedroom so I don't wake our guests."

The second Mom left the kitchen, Fudge tore out of his room in his pajamas and started jumping over the sleeping Howies, making Turtle bark. Still, they didn't stir.

"Maybe they're dead," Fudge whispered to me.

"They're not dead."

"How do you know?"

135

"Because they're breathing. Be quiet. You can hear them."

Fudge listened. Then he said, "It's better to breathe, right, Pete?"

"Yeah, it's definitely better to breathe."

"Remember when I wanted to be a bird breather when I grow up?"

"That was a bird
breeder,"
I reminded him.

"Oh, right. A bird breeder." He watched the Howies for a minute, then looked up at me. "This is fun, isn't it, Pete?"

"No," I told him. "It's not fun."

He followed me into the kitchen. "How come?"

"How come?" I repeated. "I'll give you five reasons how come."

"But, Pete... Grandma says,
"The more the merrier."

"Grandma's full of sayings. You don't have to believe all of them."

"But I do." He dragged a chair over to the counter, climbed up, opened the snack cupboard, and pulled out a pack of rice cakes. "It's like a giant sleepover, isn't it?"

I could think of plenty of words besides
sleepover
to describe the situation but none that were appropriate to say in front of him.

When Mom came back to the kitchen and found

136

Fudge stuffing his face, she scooped him up and carried him back to his room, where he started singing:

The moon belongs to everyone

The best things in life cost money.

The stars belong to everyone

They're all so bright and funny.

Money money money

Funny funny funny

Bunny bunny bunny

Honey honey honey...

A minute later Turtle was howling. He loves to sing along with Fudge. I was glad Uncle Feather was still on strike. A trio would have been more than I could take tonight.

If I'd gone to bed then, I'd probably have been okay--annoyed, but okay. I mean, suppose
The Simpsons
were on tonight and I wanted to watch? Our only TV is in the living room. Then I started thinking,
Wait a minute... suppose my science teacher told us to watch a show on the Discovery Channel and we were going to discuss it in class tomorrow? She did that once. But this time I wouldn't be able to answer her questions. My teacher would say, "You should have told me you don't have a TV, Peter." Then Sheila Tubman's hand would shoot up. "I happen to know the Hatchers

137

have a TV, Ms. DeFeo," she'd blab. "It's in their living room." Then I'd have to explain that I couldn't watch because our living room had been turned into a sleepaway camp. "What camp is that?" Ms. DeFeo would ask. And I'd have to think fast to come up with some name. "Camp Howie-Wowie," I'd tell her. Then everyone would laugh.

The longer I thought about it, the more worked up I got. My heart started beating faster, my mouth felt dried out, and the palms of my hands were getting clammy. Still, I couldn't tear myself away from the sleeping Howies. It was like one of those bad dreams where you want to run but you can't. It was like my feet were glued to the floor. I could feel the anger boiling up inside me. Any second I would burst and it would come pouring out like lava from a volcano.
Just go to bed,
I kept telling myself. But my feet refused to listen to my brain.

Finally, I forced myself to break away. I tore down the hall to the bathroom, shut the door behind me, and leaned against it. But when I saw the five toothbrushes lined up in a row, the five towels hanging from the towel bar, and the five hairbrushes--not to mention the giant, economy-size bottle of vitamins--I just lost it. I mean,
totally!
I grabbed the towels and threw them to the floor, one after the other. Then I trampled them, like I was trying to kill some gigantic roach.

138

Aaaggghhhh...
This strangled sound came from deep inside me as I swept their hairbrushes off the counter. I kicked at them as if they were poisonous snakes.
Aaaggghhhh
... I'd turned into a raving lunatic. No, even worse--I'd turned into my brother at the shoe store! Then I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. My face was red, my eyes wild. I looked like some demented guy in a scary movie. In the back of my mind I heard Cousin Howie asking,
What do we do when we get carried away?

And the Natural Beauties answering,
We stop and count to ten.

And if that doesn't work?

We count to ten again.

So I started to count. When I got to ten I took a deep breath, then started all over again. In the mirror I saw my facial expression return to normal. I couldn't believe I'd used Cousin Howie's method to control my anger. Or that it actually worked. But it did. I shook out the five towels and hung them up again. Probably no one would notice since they were dark gray.
There are other ways to handle this situation,
I told myself, as I lined up their hairbrushes.

I marched down the hall to Mom and Dad's room and pushed open the door without knocking. "How do we know these people are who they say they are?" I said.

139

Mom was stretched out on her bed, her hands over her eyes. "What?"

"The Howies. They could be anybody. A week ago we didn't even know they existed and now they're sleeping on our living-room floor."

"But they have the Hatcher jaw, don't they?" Mom said.

"I don't see any Hatcher jaw," I said. "Do you?"

"Well, I thought I did." Mom looked worried for a second. Then she shook her head and waved her hand. "Oh, this is silly. Of course they're Dad's cousins."

"Hey, it's okay with me if you want five strangers sleeping on our living-room floor."

"They're not strangers, honey," Mom said. "They're family. No one but Cousin Howie ever called Dad Tubby." She put an arm around my shoulder. "You should get to sleep."

"I'd just like to know just one thing, Mom."

"What's that?"

"Why you and Dad had to invite them to stay here. We don't have room for two extra people, let alone five."

"They more or less invited themselves." We were quiet for a minute, then Mom said, "This is really important to Dad, so let's make the best of it, okay?"

"Important how?"

140

Mom said, "When Dad was a boy his mother got very sick."

"She did?"

Mom nodded. "Cousin Howie's parents were wonderful. Dad spent the whole summer with them. And for a while he and Cousin Howie were as close as ... well, you and Jimmy."

"How come I never heard this story before?"

"I guess Dad doesn't like to talk about that time in his life. It was hard on him."

"Did his mother get better?"

"She did... for a while."

"I wish Dad would tell me these things."

"He doesn't like to upset you."

"Yeah, but how am I supposed to understand anything if he won't talk about it?"

"Maybe someday he will," Mom said.

"By then it'll be too late."

"I hope not." She reached out and ruffled my hair. "I understand that having five
almost
strangers sleeping on the living-room floor doesn't give you, or any of us, much privacy. But it's just for a night. Two nights at the most. We'll get through it." Then she leaned over and kissed me. Sometimes I don't let her but this time I did.

141

I kept hearing Mom's voice saying,
It's just for a night. Two nights at the most.
When I woke up the next morning, the Howies were already in the kitchen, making themselves right at home--Eudora at the stove, scrambling eggs, Howie tending the toaster. Mini was seated on the counter next to the sink, breaking eggshells and sticking them to his nose and forehead.
This kid is as weird as Fudge,
I thought. The Natural Beauties were at the table, gobbling Dad's cereal. Fudge sat at his usual place, counting out his Cheerios.

Mom stood by, dressed in her whites, ready to go to work. She didn't look happy. I happen to know Mom doesn't like other people taking over her kitchen. She's okay with Grandma cooking here, but that's her limit. Our kitchen isn't exactly roomy. We have a small table shoved up against the wall. You can reach the stove right from the table, which is sometimes convenient. But we eat most of our meals in the dining alcove.

I poured myself a glass of orange juice and took the last chair at the table.

"Good morning, Peter," Eudora said. "We've been talking about you."

Me? What were they saying about me?

"We were just saying that maybe you could take Flora and Fauna to school with you today."

142

What? I can't have heard right. I must have water in my ears from my shower.

"They'd like to see a New York City school,"

Eudora continued.

This required quick thinking. "My school doesn't allow visitors," I said, hoping Mom would help me out of this one.

"That's right," Mom told Eudora. "They won't allow anyone in who hasn't previously registered. Schools have very strict policies in New York."

"And tight security." I threw that in just to make sure they got it. "Besides," I said to the Natural Beauties, who were filling their bowls with a second helping of Dad's cereal, "I thought you're home-schooled."

"We are," Flora began. "But that doesn't mean ..."

"We don't
visit
schools," Fauna said. "Besides, we've been studying ..."

"Foreign cultures," Flora said.

"This is New York," I told them. "It's not a foreign culture."

"It is to us." Fauna hiccuped. "Sorry, it's the orange juice."

"She's used to fresh-squeezed," Flora said.

Mom rolled her eyes and poured herself a second cup of coffee.

I was trying to figure out if there's a pattern to the way the Natural Beauties speak. Does Flora start every time