My Life as a Cartoonist (24 page)

We hightail it to the back of the garage, where my mother keeps two plastic tubs of fabric she never uses. I guess somewhere in my mom's mind she imagines having all this spare time to sew; in reality, she barely has five minutes to sew a button on a shirt, never mind make an outfit from scratch. If she knew how often Matt and I have used her material as parachutes, capes, and blankets for Bodi, she wouldn't be happy.

Matt grabs a long piece of silky purple fabric; I choose a black piece with splashes of green. We drape them over us like magical robes. I hate it when people dress up their dogs in little raincoats and tutus, but I don't want Bodi to miss out on the fun. I rummage through the box until I find a small piece of sparkly fabric to wrap around him, then run inside to grab some safety pins. When I come back, Matt's wrapped some striped fabric in a turban around his head. He hands me some paisley material for mine.

“Frank looks left out,” Matt says.

“What are you talking about? He's the main attraction.” I find the scissors and start cutting holes in the shoebox.

Matt immediately sees where I'm going with this and scans the garage for more props. He comes up with fake spiderwebs and a lantern we use for camping. We clear off the table in the middle of the floor and cover it with a deep blue piece of fabric. Then we set up the spiderwebs and turn off the garage light for effect.

“Wait, wait!” I run inside and find an old CD player and put on a scratched CD of spooky sounds my mom used to play from the porch when kids came to trick-or-treat.

“Don't make it look too much like a haunted house,” Matt says. “We're magicians, remember?”

“Magicians with supernatural powers,” I remind him.

I take Frank out of his cage and carefully place him in the large shoebox.

“You think he'll squawk when you put his head in the hole?” Matt asks.

“Not if I do it right. Hopefully he'll think it's a little bed.” I place Frank's head through the hole, then put his feet through the hole in the other end. I do everything so delicately that Frank doesn't freak out.

I replace the cover. Frank now looks like a perfect assistant lying onstage in a magic box. Matt takes a photo with his phone while I go to the workbench on the back wall and find my dad's old saw.

“Just to check that we're on the same page,” Matt says, “we're only
pretending
to cut Frank in half, right?”

“No, we're really going to do it,” I answer. “Why are you even ASKING me that?”

We pose for a photo on Matt's phone. I hold up Frank-in-the-Box, and Matt picks up Bodi and puts him on the table. When we look at the photo, we see our turbans are falling off our heads, so we adjust them before beginning the show.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” Matt begins. “I am the Great Mattini, and this fine fellow beside me is the Amazing Derek.”

I take a low bow, still holding Frank so he doesn't escape. Matt waves the saw in the air.

“For tonight's astounding act, the Amazing Derek will saw a live monkey in half!”

I realize our pretend-audience should actually see us put Frank in the box to know it's not some kind of hoax. I take Frank out of his magic box and put him back in again.

It seems as if Bodi wants to participate a little more, so I find an old party hat and slip it over his head. Matt holds the saw ceremoniously, bending it for effect.

“And now, right before your very eyes,” he continues, “the Amazing Derek will begin this death-defying act.”

But when I raise the saw above the box, I am looking straight into the eyes of my parents standing in the driveway. My mother's carrying a doggy bag from her favorite restaurant; she is NOT happy. My father, on the other hand, is holding his hand up to his face and looks like he's trying not to laugh.

My mother wordlessly walks over to the table and takes Frank out of the shoebox. The CD is now skipping, stuck on a morbid sound of someone wailing.

“Um, you know we weren't really going to saw him in half,” I say meekly.

Mom removes the party hat from Bodi's head and unfastens the safety pin, letting his sparkly outfit fall to the floor. Matt and I take off our turbans and capes. Then she extends her arms for the fabric, which we carefully hand over. My father shoots me an expression that says Don't Even Think About Talking, and for once I'm smart enough to take his advice. The music continues to wail over and over until I finally punch the
STOP
button.