My Hairiest Adventure (6 page)

“It’s
not
a kiddie keyboard!” Jared protested.

I laughed. “Just because you wind a crank at the side of it doesn’t make it a
kiddie keyboard!”

“It’s small—but it has all the notes,” Jared insisted. He set the keyboard
on the coffee table and bent down to plug it in.

“Let’s stop messing around and get to work,” Kristina said, moving her
fingers over the frets of her shiny red Gibson. “What song do you want to
practice first?”

“How can we practice without Manny?” I asked. “I mean, what’s the point?”

“I tried calling him,” Lily said. “But his phone is messed up or something.
It didn’t even ring.”

“Let’s go to his house and get him,” I suggested.

“Yeah. Good idea!” Kristina agreed.

All four of us started for the front entryway to get our coats. But Lily
stopped at the door. “Larry and I will go,” she announced to Kristina. “You and
Jared should stay and practice. Why should we all go?”

“Okay,” Jared agreed quickly. “Besides, someone should be here in case Manny
shows up.”

With that settled, Lily and I pulled on our coats and headed out the front door. Lily’s Doc Martens splashed through a wide
puddle as we made our way along the sidewalk.

“I hate it when the snow gets all gray and slushy,” she said. “Listen. All
you can hear is dripping. Water dripping from the trees, dripping from the
houses.”

She stuck out her arm to block my path and stop me from walking. We listened
in silence to the dripping sounds.

“It’s deafening—isn’t it?” Lily asked, smiling. The sunlight reflected in
her eyes. One blue eye, one green eye.

“Deafening,” I repeated. Lily can be pretty weird sometimes. She once told me
that she writes poetry. Long poems about nature. But she’s never shown any of
them to me.

We trudged through the slush. The sun felt warm on my face. I unzipped my
parka.

Manny’s house came into view as we turned the corner. Manny lives in a
square-shaped brick house on top of a hill. It’s a great sledding hill. There
were two little kids sledding down it now on blue plastic discs. They were going
pretty slow since most of the snow had melted.

We walked past them and made our way up to Manny’s front stoop. Lily rang the
doorbell, and I knocked. “Hey, Manny—open up!” I shouted.

No reply.

No sounds at all. Just the
drip drip drip
of water from the gutter.

“Hey, Manny!” I called. We rang and knocked again.

“No one home,” Lily said quietly. She stepped off the stoop and moved to the
front window. Edging up on tiptoes, she tried to peer in.

“See anything?” I called.

She shook her head. “No. The sun is reflecting on the glass. It looks dark
inside.”

“There’s no car in the driveway,” I said. I knocked one more time, as hard as
I could. To my surprise, the front door swung in a little.

“Hey—the door is open!” I called to Lily. She hurried back to the stoop. I
pushed the door open a little further. “Anyone home?” I called in.

No reply.

“Hey—your door is open!” I shouted.

Lily pushed the door all the way, and we stepped inside. “Manny?” she called,
cupping her hands around her mouth. “Manny?”

I stepped into the living room—and gasped.

I tried to speak. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t believe what I saw.

Lily grabbed my arm as we both stared around the living room.

The room was totally bare. No furniture. No curtains. No paintings or posters
on the wall. Even the carpet had been removed, leaving shiny dark floorboards.

“Wh-where did they go?” I managed to choke out.

Lily made her way through the back hall to the kitchen. Also empty.
Everything gone. An empty hole where the refrigerator had stood.

“They moved!” Lily exclaimed. “I don’t believe it!”

“But why didn’t Manny tell us?” I demanded, my eyes moving around the
deserted room. “Why didn’t he tell us his family was moving away?”

Lily shook her head and didn’t reply. The house was silent. I could hear
water dripping from the gutter outside.

“Maybe they had to move suddenly,” Lily said finally.

“Suddenly? Why?” I demanded.

It was a question that neither of us could answer.

I love to run.

Not when I’m running from snarling dogs. But I do love to run.

I like the way it gets my heart pounding. And I like the
thud
of my
sneakers on the ground, and the feeling of my muscles all working together.

On Saturday mornings I like to go jogging with my dad. He always jogs at
Miller Woods, along a path that curves around a small lake.

It’s really pretty there. The air is always fresh-smelling. And it’s a very
quiet place.

Dad is tall and lean and pretty athletic. He used to be blond like me, but
now his hair is mostly gray, and he has a big bald spot on top.

He jogs every morning before work. I think he usually jogs pretty fast. But
on Saturdays, he slows down so that we can run side by side.

We usually jog without talking. That way we can concentrate on the scenery
and the fresh air.

But this Saturday morning, I felt like talking. I had decided to tell Dad
everything. About the bottle of INSTA-TAN. And about the black hair that kept
sprouting.

As I talked, I kept my eyes straight ahead. I saw two big crows float down
from the clear blue sky and perch side by side on the bare limb of a tree. The
crows cawed loudly, as if talking to us.

The lake sparkled brightly as Dad and I followed the curving path around it.
Small patches of ice bobbed in the blue-green water.

I started at the beginning and told the whole story. Dad slowed down a little
more to listen. But we kept jogging as I talked.

I told him about finding the bottle of tanning lotion and how we all splashed
it on ourselves as a joke. Dad nodded but kept his eyes straight ahead. “I guess
it didn’t work,” he said, sounding a little breathless from running. “You don’t
look too tan, Larry.”

“No, it didn’t work,” I continued. “The bottle was really old, Dad. It had
expired a long time ago.”

I took a deep breath. The next part was the hardest to tell. “It didn’t give
me a tan, Dad. But something really weird started happening to me.”

He kept jogging. We both leaped over a fallen tree branch. I slipped over a
pile of wet leaves, but quickly caught my balance.

“This weird hair started growing on me,” I told him in a shaky voice. “First
on the back of my hand. Then on both hands. Then on my knees.”

Dad stopped. He turned to me with a worried expression on his face. “Hair?”

I nodded, breathing hard. “Black hair. Thick clumps of it. Very rough and
spikey.”

Dad swallowed hard. His eyes grew wide. With surprise? With fear? With
disbelief?

I couldn’t tell.

But to my surprise, he grabbed my arm and started to pull me. “Come on,
Larry. We’ve got to go.”

“But, Dad—” I started, holding back.

He tightened his grip and pulled harder. “I
said
we’ve got to
go
!”
he insisted through gritted teeth. “Now!”

He tugged so hard, he nearly pulled me off my feet!

“Dad—what’s wrong?” I demanded in a high, shrill voice. “What is it?”

He didn’t answer. He pulled me back along the path toward the street. His
eyes were wild. His whole face was twisted into a tight, frightened scowl.

“Dad—what’s wrong?” I cried. “Where are you taking me? Where?”

Dr. Murkin raised the hypodermic needle and examined it in the light. “Turn
away, Larry,” he said softly. “I know you don’t like to watch. This won’t hurt
at all.”

Pain shot through my arm as the needle sank in. I shut my eyes and held my
breath until he pulled out the needle.

“I know it’s early,” he said, rubbing my arm with a cotton ball dipped in
alcohol. “But since you were here, I thought I’d give you your shot.”

My dad sat tensely in a folding chair against the wall of the small examining
room. He had his arms crossed tightly over the front of his sweatshirt.

“Wh-what about the hair?” I stammered to Dr. Murkin. “Did the INSTA-TAN—”

The doctor shook his head. “I really don’t think tanning lotion can cause
hair to grow, Larry. Those lotions work on the pigments of the skin. They—”

“But it was a very old bottle!” I insisted. “Maybe the ingredients turned sour or something!”

He waved his hand, as if to say, “No way.”

Then he turned and started scribbling notes in my file. “I’m sorry, Larry,”
he said, writing rapidly in a tiny handwriting. “It wasn’t the tanning lotion.
Trust me.”

He turned his head to me, his eyes studying me. “I’ve examined you from head
to foot. You passed every test. You seem fine to me.”

“Whew! That’s a relief!” Dad said, sighing.

“But the hair—!” I insisted.

“Let’s wait and see,” Dr. Murkin replied, his eyes on my dad.

“Wait and see?” I cried. “You’re not going to give me any medicine or
anything to stop it?”

“Maybe it won’t happen again,” Dr. Murkin said. He closed my file. Then he
motioned for me to jump down from the examining table.

“Try not to worry, Larry,” he said, handing my coat to me. “You’ll be okay.”

“Thank you, Dr. Murkin,” Dad said, climbing to his feet. He flashed the
doctor a smile, but I could see that it was forced. Dad still looked really
tense.

I followed Dad out to the parking lot. We didn’t say anything until we were
in the car and on the way home. “Feel better?” Dad asked, his eyes narrowed
straight ahead on the road.

“No,” I replied glumly.

“What’s wrong?” Dad asked impatiently. “Dr. Murkin said you checked out
fine.”

“What about the ugly black hair?” I demanded angrily. “What about it? Why
didn’t he do anything about it? Do you think he didn’t believe me?”

“I’m sure he believed you,” Dad said softly.

“Then why didn’t he do anything to help me?” I wailed.

Dad didn’t reply for the longest time. He stared straight through the
windshield, chewing his lower lip. Then, finally, he said in a hushed voice,
“Sometimes the best thing is to wait.”

We met at Lily’s house for band practice that afternoon. We sounded pretty
good—but it wasn’t the same without Manny.

We were all really upset that he had moved away without saying good-bye. Lily
asked her mom to call some friends who were friendly with Manny’s parents. She
wanted to find out where Manny and his family had moved.

But the friends turned out to be as surprised as we were.

We couldn’t find anyone who knew that Manny’s family planned to move from our
town.

I have to admit that our songs sounded better with two guitars instead of
three. Lily has a very light singing voice—not much power. And three guitars
nearly always drowned her out.

With Manny gone, we could actually hear Lily some of the time.

I kept messing up the Beatles song we were rehearsing—“I Want to Hold Your
Hand.” I played the wrong chords and couldn’t get the rhythm right.

I knew what the trouble was. I couldn’t stop thinking about Dr. Murkin and
how he didn’t believe me about the hair. He said it wasn’t the INSTA-TAN. But
maybe he was wrong.

I felt so angry—and so… alone.

Glancing around Lily’s living room as we started “I Want to Hold Your Hand”
for the twentieth time, I studied my friends. Were they having the same problem?
Were they growing ugly, black hair, too, and afraid to tell anyone?

The first time I had asked, Lily had laughed at me and called me Hairy Larry.
But I had to ask again. I couldn’t think about anything else. I had to know the
truth.

I waited till practice was over. Kristina was tucking her guitar into its
case. Jared went into the kitchen to get a Coke from the fridge. Lily was
standing beside the couch, one hand twirling the gold pirate coin at her throat.

“I—I have to ask you something,” I said nervously when Jared returned to
the room.

He popped the top on the can, and a spray of Coke hit him in the face.

Everyone laughed.

“Can’t you work a Coke can?” Lily joked. “Do you need an instruction book?”

“Ha-ha,” Jared replied sarcastically, wiping his face with his sleeve. “You
deliberately shook the cans, Lily, so people would get squirted. Admit it.”

Kristina laughed as she snapped her guitar case shut. “Maybe you should stick
to juice boxes, Jared.”

He stuck out his tongue at her.

I cleared my throat loudly. “I want to ask you guys something,” I repeated in
a shaky voice.

They were all in a great mood, laughing and kidding around. They all seemed
totally normal.

Why was I the only one who felt worried and afraid?

“Remember the INSTA-TAN stuff?” I started. “Have any of you been growing hair
since we put that stuff on?” I could feel my face turning red. “I mean, really
ugly patches of black hair?”

Jared started to laugh, and Coke spurted out of his nose. He started to
choke. Kristina hurried over to slap him on the back.

“Hairy Larry!” Jared cried when he stopped choking. He pointed the Coke can
at me and started chanting. “Hairy Larry! Hairy Larry!”

“Come on, guys!” I pleaded. “I’m serious!”

That made Kristina and Jared laugh even harder.

I turned to Lily, who was still standing beside the couch. She had a troubled
expression on her face. She definitely wasn’t laughing. She lowered her eyes to
the floor as I continued to stare at her.

“Larry is a werewolf!” Jared declared.

“I hope The Geeks don’t have to play when there’s a full moon!” Kristina
exclaimed.

“Maybe Larry’s howling is better than his guitar playing!” Jared said. They
both laughed.

“I—I was just making a joke!” I stammered. I wanted a hole to open up in
the floor so that I could disappear into it.