Puppet Wrangler (11 page)

Normally, that would have embarrassed me, but right then it didn't matter. I had to move fast.

I was standing behind the old lady and was getting all ready for my big “accident” when she suddenly slapped her hand to her mouth and said, “Oh dear, oh dear! My shoes!” She'd forgotten the Favorite Footsies bag. She raced off back into the dressing room. (Okay, “raced” probably is a bit of an exaggeration, but she sure could shuffle when she had to.)

Now what was I going to do? The saleslady didn't give me time to think.

She said, “I'll ring that in for you while we're waiting.”

Something else I hadn't planned on. Actually having to buy the thing! Bitsie needed that glow-in-the-dark dog collar more than I needed a 38D leopard skin bra. But I didn't want to make the saleslady anymore suspicious than she already was. I didn't want her to remember my face if anything I had to do in the next few minutes would result in criminal charges being laid against me.

So I just bought it.

“That will be $42.87.”

I nearly died. I had no idea it was made of real leopard skin. It was going to cost me pretty much all the emergency money I had left.

I was fishing around in the bottom of my knapsack for the twelve cents I still needed when the old lady came back from the dressing room. I slapped the pennies on the counter and got ready to trip.

I was still struggling with whether I should throw my arms out like this was a major fall or just sort of casually stumble over the bag, when the old lady squawked.

I'm not saying that to be mean. She really did squawk.

Can you blame her? It must have been a terrible surprise, expecting to see a nice sensible pair of shoes in your bag and instead seeing Bitsie's blank eyes staring up at you.

“Good heavens!” she went. “What is this? Someone put a …put a…goblin in my shoe bag!”

I could hardly trip on it now.

The saleslady started saying it was probably some sort of special offer. You know, one free “goblin” with every pair of orthopedic oxfords. That brought some color back to the old lady's face, and she started talking about what a clever shopper she was to have picked up such an “interesting” free gift.

She was warming up to Bitsie, I could tell. What if she took him back to the suburbs with her? Or mailed him off to her grandson in Pugwash Junction? Or got two dollars for him at the church rummage sale? Or let Bitsie talk her into selling her house and buying that state-of-the-art barbecue system he wanted?

That last thought really scared me. Who knew what Bitsie was capable of? I had to do something! And right away too.

My mind was blank. No brilliant ideas. Not even any lame ones. I could only think of one thing.

I had to tell the truth.

I said, “Oh, no. It's not a free gift. It's mine. That's why I followed you up here. You were sitting next to me on the bench and then…”

Well, that's where the truth ended.
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I babbled something about accidentally putting “my new toy” in her bag because I was too busy thinking about what I could get my sick mother for a going-away present since she had to spend the next seven to twelve weeks in a hospital that was very far away from our home, in a whole other country actually, and she might never see me again because there was always the chance the surgery would leave her blind.

I think the old lady gave me Bitsie back just so I'd shut up. Who knows? Anyway, it worked. She handed him to me and I ran.

I had about eight seconds of relief before I heard the saleslady scream.

“Stop! Stop!! Somebody stop that girl!”

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He had a number of variations on this. Sometimes he'd follow the fart with a big sigh like “Ooooh, that felt good!” Sometimes he'd have me go, “Anyone else feel a draft? Har-har! ” like I'm the type that would just let one rip in public and have a big laugh about it. Then other times he'd say, “Oh. Sorry, must be the sauerkraut I ate” or “I knew those sardines I had for lunch were bad” or something else equally disgusting so that even though people around me couldn't smell anything, they started to believe that they did. And there was nothing I could do about it. If I looked embarrassed, people thought, And you should be! Passing wind in public like that! If I tried to look like I didn't do it, they all gave me that who-are-you-kidding look. That's the thing about farting. The more you try and deny it, the more everyone figures you did it. Nobody ever thinks to blame it on the puppet in your knapsack.

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“Intimate Apparel for all your needs – and desires.”

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Just as well, all things considered. If I told the truth I'd be writing this from the loony bin.

28
IT COULD HAVE BEEN WORSE.

My heart was pounding. I couldn't let them catch me! I had to get Bitsie back to the studio—no matter what. I slung him under my arm like a football and picked up speed.

I ran to the left. Eight large Schuyler Dawn Delano fans formed a human wall and blocked my way.

I darted right. The saleslady was coming straight for me, all red in the face and screaming, “Hey, you! Stop! Stop!”

I swung around, hoping I could bolt down the escalator. No such luck. The old lady had read my mind. She'd wedged herself like a cork in the opening to the escalator. She was bent over with her hands on her knees, getting ready to charge. She was sweating and panting, but I knew she could still take me down easily.

I hesitated for a moment. But that was all she needed. The old lady pounced, slid across the floor and grabbed me by the ankle. “I got the girl!” she screamed. People in the crowd went crazy. It was as if Canada had just won the ten-thousand-meter relay or something. What could I do? I quit trying to drag her off with me and just gave up.

The saleslady did a few high fives with shoppers, then hobbled over to us on her broken slingbacks. “Good work, Mrs. Mancini,” she said—then turned to me.

I figured I was done for. But the saleslady just smiled, handed me a bag and said, “You forgot your bra, dear.”

29
HE DESERVED IT.

Bitsie was sitting on a toilet in the mall's public washroom. He was wearing my leopard skin bra and laughing his head off.

I was not laughing.

I was standing against the cubicle door with my arms folded, glaring at him. I had never been so angry in my life.

He was giving a detailed and extremely “humorous”
⁴⁹
account of the chase scene. Like this was just some funny little prank that he'd rigged up for our amusement.

I let him have his fun for a while—and then I ripped into him. I told him he was thoughtless and selfish and just plain stupid. I asked him what he thought would have happened if I hadn't tracked that old lady down. What would have happened if she'd taken him back to her little retirement home and put him in her shoe closet, miles and miles and miles away from the studio? What would have happened if she'd opened her bag and looked at Bitsie and actually had a heart attack?

“Oh, lighten up,” he said. “It didn't happen, did it?”

Can you believe it?!

I went wiggy. I mean, even Mel would have been proud.

I said, “What is the matter with you? Don't you realize you could have gotten lost, and the whole production would have had to shut down?”

He shrugged and said, “They'd just make a new puppet.

It's not like they don't have the molds or anything.”

“And who would pay for that?” I was practically screaming by this time.

“I dunno.” Like, who cares?

I told him I'd have to pay for it. Once I got out of jail, that is. But even that didn't seem to faze him. Bitsie kept on looking at me like I couldn't take a joke or something.

That's when I knew I didn't have any other choice. I said, “I'm never taking you to the mall. Ever. Again.”

Now that fazed him.

Suddenly, he was so, soooo sorry. He realized what a stupid thing he'd done. He was ashamed. Embarrassed.

But reformed! A different puppet. He'd learned from his mistakes. He would never do anything like that again. Ever.

He promised.

Like I was going to fall for that.

I said, “I know you'll never do it again. Because you'll never have the chance. I repeat, I am never, ever taking you to the mall again.”

Bitsie was shocked. How mean could I be? He started begging for mercy. He told me this sad, sad story about how horrible it was to be in that little cubicle with a naked lady.

He'd never seen anything like it before, even on the Health Channel. The whole time he was cowering in the corner, ter rified. The shock was such that he could feel all his powers of speech and movement draining away from him. Numbing him. Reducing him to a simple foam-head.

The whole experience was awful, he said. Awful!

Oh, cry me a river. Like having to watch an old lady put on a girdle is the worst thing that's ever happened to anybody. Bitsie had absolutely no appreciation for what other people go through. He wasn't getting any sympathy from me. I just looked at him like “So what?”

But that didn't stop him. He had one more thing to try.

He stood up and stretched his hands out toward me. I knew he was going for that “sad but dignified” look, but he missed it by a mile. (It might have helped if he'd taken off that stupid leopard skin bra.)

“Haven't I suffered enough?” he said, in this pathetic little whisper. “The remorse…the fear…the never knowing if I'd see my loved ones again? What more can I do? What more can I give? If we are to live together—if civilization is to survive!—we must embrace forgiveness! And that's all I'm asking for. A little…forgiveness.”

“Very moving,” I said. “It's just too bad that we watched that episode of
Quest for Justice
together or I might have fallen for it.”

Bitsie didn't have time to say anything else. I'd had enough. I grabbed him, stuffed him into my knapsack and took him back to the studio in silence.

I never even stopped to consider what all those ladies in the other toilet stalls must have been thinking.

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At least that's what he thought.

30
REVENGE IS SWEET.

The next day was a Friday.

It was bad from the moment I got up. Getting ready to go, I realized I'd bent Nick's Choc-o-rama when I stuffed Bitsie into my knapsack the night before. I tried to be mature about it. It was only a chocolate bar after all, and it's not like I'd lost it or anything, but it was still really upsetting.

Then Kathleen got mad at me for keeping her waiting, even though I was the one who'd been waiting for her. (I mean, who absolutely had to find her Mulberry Gash Lip Stain that day despite having twenty-six other lipsticks to choose from? Me or her? ) I kept my mouth shut though.

I knew she'd been talking money with her accountant the night before so I was sort of prepared for her to be cranky.

Not that cranky, of course, but cranky.

Even Zola wasn't herself. Her boyfriend's band—“The Tofu Weiners”
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—had a big concert in Ottawa that weekend and the bus was leaving right at six. Zola was worried that if things didn't go smoothly on set that day, she'd miss it. She was still nice of course, but I could tell she was anxious. And that made me anxious. When I saw Zola, a.k.a.

Granola Girl, woof down that chocolate jelly donut, I really started to worry for her.

And it only got worse as the day went on—because of Bitsie. Of course.

He was acting like a complete jerk. He kept “breaking down.” He must have done it ten times by noon. We were way, way behind and bound to go into overtime. That was bad for Zola—and for Kathleen. Kathleen had to pay everyone extra when things ran late. She wasn't going to be very happy about it.

I knew why Bitsie was breaking down of course. It was his way of getting back at me for not taking him to the mall.

It worked.

It was the perfect revenge. He could hurt me by hurting my friends. I didn't know what to do. Make us all suffer or just give in and promise to take Bitsie shopping again? It was the type of thing I would have liked to talk over with the family counselor.

I was agonizing about what to do when Nick came by.

Bitsie's behavior suddenly didn't seem so important. After all, I was wearing the lime green T-shirt Nick always raved about (“Matches your eyes”). That day, though, he didn't even notice. He just rattled off a bunch of orders to Zola from Kathleen, and then, like it was just another message, said, “Oh, and Tally, there's an e-mail for you from your sister. It's marked urgent.”

I told you the day stunk.

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The name suited them perfectly.

30
LETTER BOMB.

Zola said I better go to the office and check out the e-mail. I said no, I'd stay. There was too much work to do. I couldn't leave it all to her.

“No, no. Go,” she said. “You have to. It could be an emergency. You shouldn't put aside your own needs for someone else's.”

Did that ever make me feel like a jerk.

Zola was acting like I was so nice when nice had nothing to do with it. The only reason I wanted to stay was because I hated getting mail from my family. It always made me feel mad or sad or—worse—both.

Mum's letters always sounded great. “My dearest little Telly.” “Darling Telly.” “Sweetheart.” She wrote just about every day by hand on paper, in an envelope with a stamp.

Like this was the olden days or something. Who would take the time to do that nowadays? I had to admit that that alone was probably a pretty good sign she loved me.

She always gave me the complete weather report and the minutes from whatever volunteer meeting she just came back from and lots of news about how everyone was doing:

Dad is exhausted. Fern Haliburton went into heavy
labor at two yesterday afternoon and didn't give birth
until 11:30 this morning. She said some atrocious
things about her husband and other well-known
members of the community, but Dad said that was
just the pain talking and it's hardly grounds for
divorce.