Take Two! (2 page)

“Is this what you’re looking for?” I wiggled it in Mom’s face.

“Oh, Dustin, you found it!” she gushed.

“Just doing my job, ma’am,” I said, sounding like a crime detective who had just cracked a case. “Don’t lose your head.”

I knew it. Tap-dancing on grass was like applauding with mittens on – it just didn’t work. And the sidewalk scratched up the
taps. To top it off, Ellen Mennopi, my nosy ten-year-old neighbor, was hanging over the fence between our yards giving me
the tenth degree. Everybody’s called her LMNOP ever since I can remember, but to this day she still thinks we’re using her
first and last name.

“Are those tap shoes, Dustin Grubbs?”

She called everybody by both names in return.

“Yep.”

“With real taps – not just cleats, right?”

“Right.”

“Cool. You taking lessons?”

“Nope.”

One-syllable answers to annoying questions are extremely satisfying
.

Even though it was one of those thick, sticky August nights where the breeze feels like it’s coming out of a blow-dryer,
I was determined to give my tap shoes a test run. I tip-tapped along the artificial flagstone that bordered the weed garden
to see if I could get better sounds. Nope.

“Omigod, know what?” LMNOP said, tumbling off the fence. “There’s a coupon in this week’s
Penny Pincher
. I think it’s for one free class at Miss Pritchard’s Academy of Dance – you know, on Main Street? Over the VFW Hall? With
all the steamy windows? Darlene Deluca takes classes there. It’s supposed to be good.”

My ears perked up big-time, but I played it cool. This kid was a blabbermouth, and if there was one thing I’d learned it was
to mind my LMNOPs and Qs.

“I can give you the coupon if you want.”

“That’s okay.” I hopped up onto the wooden bench where Granny always played Chinese checkers with whoever was brave enough
to take her on. “I’m just goofin’ around.”

Besides, we had a copy of the
Penny Pincher
sitting on the radiator in the kitchen and I didn’t want to owe LMNOP any favors.
That newspaper rules!
They did a full-page article about me “saving the show” last year. Instant celebrity! I still get recognized on the streets.
Well, okay – only in Buttermilk Falls, which is a very small town – where everybody knows everybody. Even so…

“You should check it out,” LMNOP said over my clattering feet. “You might turn into a triple threat.”

“A what?”

“A singing-dancing-acting actor.” She popped up a finger for each. “Then you’d have three times the odds of making it in show-biz.
But even for an actor-actor, a dance class couldn’t hurt.”

Triple threat
. I liked the sound of that. LMNOP sure knew a lot about a lot – she was very well-rounded for such a bony girl.

“Did you know that NFL football players take ballet classes?”

Then again, she did come out with some pretty off-the-wall stuff. I didn’t bother answering, but let my feet do all the talking.

“To improve their coordination and flexibility,” Little Miss Know-It-All added.

“Yeah, right.” Somehow I couldn’t picture those hulking guys in pink shoulder pads with matching tutus.

“No, it’s a fact!”

“Well, maybe private lessons… in the middle of the night… with armed guards at the door,” I said. “And definitely
not
at Miss Pritchard’s Academy of Dance!”

Having the final word on a subject was even more satisfying than those one-syllable answers. I flew off the bench attempting
to do a fancy turn in the air and wound up lying in
a heap under the rose trellis on a patch of dead ivy. I think I’d stubbed my entire body.

“You all right, twinkle toes?”

“Don’t call me that.” I sat rubbing the dirt off my shoes with my thumbs. Part of me wanted to get up and keep tapping, but
most of me decided it was time for a breather.

“Sooo,” LMNOP lisped over a chorus of crickets, “are you stoked about starting school tomorrow with your new teacher, Mr.
Lynch? Do you think he’s as strict as they say? Did you know he only wears bow ties?”

“I’m sorry, but this concludes the question-and-answer portion of the evening.”

She was rapidly getting on my nerves, so I pulled myself up to my feet and limped toward the house. In the darkness LMNOP
looked no wider than a picket.

“Well, I guess I should get my kitty-care-kit ready for your aunt. I’m really gonna miss Cinnamon; she’s such a sweetie. Still,
I’m
super
excited about my trip tomorrow.” I swear, fireflies were zigzagging to dodge the lisp spittle shooting out of her mouth.
“So’s my dad. He’s so psyched, he hasn’t slept since Saturday. Seriously.”

LMNOP gets to miss the first six weeks of school because she’s going with her parents to New England to study endangered whales.
Lucky dog! Anyway, my aunt Birdie volunteered to pet-sit her cat while they’re away, without
clearing it with me first – even though she knows I’m not a big fan of cats. (Notice how you never hear anyone say “lucky
cat”?)

“Yep, my dad’s finally gonna be living out his fantasy, even if it’s just for a little while,” LMNOP went on. I was bouncing
the screen door open with my rear end, waiting for her to stop yammering. “The only body of water we’ve got within a fifty-mile
radius is Buttermilk Creek, and it’s half dried up. That can’t be easy for a marine biology professor.”

“Talk about a fish out of water! That’s as bad as trying to be a stand-up comedian in this town.”

“I know, right? Hey, I could send you postcards if you want. Or even e-mail you, like, digital photos of humpbacks – if you’re
interested.”

I didn’t answer because that wasn’t really a question, even though it sounded like it. To be honest, a complete break from
her would be better. Without any pictures of lumpy fish as reminders.

“I’ll send postcards. It’s not a problem, really.”

“Whatever. Okay, I have to take a shower now,” I lied, “to beat the morning rush. Have a nice trip.”

“G’night, Dustin Grubbs. Don’t let the bedbugs bite.”

As soon as the screen door slammed behind me, that shower seemed like a good idea for real. After the attic and the yard,
I was living up to my name – dusty and grubby.

I stepped into our shower upstairs wearing my swim trunks with the palm trees and coconut design. This was my usual
drill ever since Mom accidentally painted over the lock on the bathroom door. See, I was strongly against public displays
of nudity (especially my own) and with a bum lock and a crazy family, I wasn’t taking any chances. I had lathered, rinsed,
and was about to repeat when I got to thinking about fate. First the tap shoes appear; then
abracadabra
, the coupon! First Dad disappears; then,
bibitty-bobitty-boo
, he’s back in the picture again. Literally.

I didn’t know what the heck was going on, but there was one thing I was suddenly dead sure of: You get
great
tap sounds in the shower! Just bare feet on wet tub. Discovering it was a complete accident, but I couldn’t resist belting
out “Singin’ in the Rain” at the top of my lungs and doing a splashy pretend tap routine.
Stand back, world, I’m a triple threat!
After my showstopping finish, I whipped open the shower curtain to take my bow and –

“Hey!”

My mutant teenage brother, Gordy, was standing there with a camcorder aimed right at me! I went for the curtain again quick,
but my feet slipped. Flailing arms… fistfuls of slick plastic… curtain rings shooting…

Next thing I know I’m lining the tub, wound in yards of bright yellow vinyl. My horoscope was right: It was proving to be
an accident-prone day.

“Are you all right, dweeb?” Gordy reached out to help me with one hand, but kept the camera steady with the other. Oh, yeah
– he was busting a gut the whole time.

“
No!
Yes. I’ll live.” The jerk jerked me to my feet. “It’s not funny, freakazoid! I could’ve cracked my skull and it would’ve
been all your fault.”

“You look like a wet banana.”

“Turn that thing off,” I yelled. “Cut! Cut!” (Don’t get me wrong. I’m usually a big ham when it comes to being in front of
a camera, but I definitely wasn’t ready for my close-up.) “Come on, beat it, loser! I can’t stand here forever wrapped in
plastic like a salami. I’ll get all pruney.”

But Gordy, being Gordy, ignored me and sat on the toilet seat, cracking up at the playback on the camcorder. “Dad sent us
this thing so we could tape junk like this and send it to him,” he said. “I’m just following orders.”

“He wants us to capture special family moments – not ugly accidents.”

“You
are
an ugly accident.”

I hurled the loofah sponge at him, but it veered to the right and skimmed Aunt Birdie’s headful of curlers poking through
the open door.

“Knock-knock. Are you decent?” she asked breathlessly
with her eyes closed tight. “I ran up as fast as I could. Is everybody all right?”

“Yeah, c’mon in,” Gordy said, without looking up. “The more the merrier.”

“Are you sure?” Aunt Birdie was peeking through one eye and pumping the top of her polka-dotted housedress for the breeze.
“What was that big commotion? I could’ve sworn I heard Dustin singing and then –”

“You call this singing?” Gordy turned up the volume on the camcorder. “Dustin couldn’t carry a tune if it came with handles
and a shoulder strap.”

Even though I was laminated, I managed to grab the soap-on-a-rope and fling it at Gordy. He flung it right back. Followed
by the toilet plunger.

“I told you kids not to play so rough!” Granny growled, shuffling into the bathroom. “And turn down that radio – you’ll wake
the dead.” She was in her flannel nightgown, holding a glass filled with fizzy water and false teeth. “Is Dustin putting on
another one of his little skits?”

“No,” I muttered, unclogging a waterlogged ear. “And last time I checked you had your own bathroom downstairs. Jeez, can’t
a guy get a little privacy around here?”

“Man, too bad my thumb got in the way, ‘cause this is some killer footage,” Gordy said. He turned down the volume on the camcorder,
but was still studying the playback on the LCD screen. “Funnier than that stuff they have on that TV
show – you know, the one where they dish out big money to losers who send in videotapes of themselves crashing headfirst into
wedding cakes.”

“America’s Goofiest Slips and Trips,”
I offered.

“Yeah.”

Aunt Birdie, who’d taken to doing a complete inventory of our medicine cabinet, mumbled something about loving that show.
“It’s the only TV program that makes me laugh out loud.”

“Okay, everybody, party’s over,” I announced. “Thanks for coming, but mildew is starting to grow under this shower curtain
and I really should –”

“Here you all are,” a voice said from the hallway.

I could
not
believe it. LMNOP and her big, orange blob of a cat were joining the crowd.
Some nerve!

“Oh, I don’t think so!” I warned, but she barged in anyway.

“Cinnamon just wants to say “Thank you very much for cat-sitting me, Miss Grubbs,’” LMNOP cooed in a sickening baby voice,
bouncing her cat in front of her face like an overstuffed puppet. “‘And I promise to be on my most
purrrfect
behavior.’”

Gag me!
Aunt Birdie just encouraged her by shaking its paw and fawning over the thing. “Well, aren’t you a sweet kitty boo? Such
a fluffy, muffy, scruffy boo.”

“Hello!” I snapped. “Teeth chattering. Goose bumps sprouting.”

“Alrighty then, I guess I’ll see you guys when we get back from Gloucester, Mass.,” LMNOP said. “In six weeks or thereabout.
And, Dustin Grubbs, I brought you that dance-class coupon just in case. Oh, and you really should give me your e-mail address
so I could –”

“Get out!”
I roared.
“Everybody, ouuut!
”

If this were a scene in a movie, there’d be a reverb sound effect with footage of pigeons flying out of trees and paint curling
off walls. Nobody usually listened when I gave orders, but mission accomplished! I had barely begun to unwind myself out of
the shower curtain when Gordy barged back in with the camcorder still alive and blinking.

“I’m gonna count to five,” I warned through tight lips. “One, one thousand –”

“Don’t get your panties in a bunch,” he said, setting the camcorder on the hamper. He bent down and scooped up a fingerful
of plastic rings from the shaggy rug. “Just lemme help ya get the curtain back up, okay? So Mom doesn’t flip out.”

“Oh.” I switched to my calm voice. “Thanks, Gord.”

“Then hop back into the shower, soap up, and we’ll take the whole thing from the top!”

I was up at the crack, way before my alarm clock went off. But I figured I might as well stay awake and take the extra time
getting prepped for my first day as a seventh-grader. Yep, I was now officially an upperclassman. In some towns they’re shipped
off to a separate school called junior high, but I was still stuck in Buttermilk Falls Elementary – not that big a deal. But
big enough. So I splashed on some of Dad’s old Aqua Velva aftershave and gelled my hair into a magnificent work of art.

The hordes of kids heading toward school looked like they’d been dipped in new. Unmarked shoes and unmarked notebooks. Clean
fingernails, clean slates. And tired old BMF Elementary somehow looked welcoming and full of possibilities. The spotless hallways
even smelled like the first day of school – like pressed corduroy and freshly sharpened pencils. And Aqua Velva.