Take Two! (9 page)

So I clamped my eyes shut and refused to think a single thought about A, the audition; B, the field trip; or C, Dad. But somehow
I got to thinking about D, what superpowers I’d want most.
Okay, stop! This is stupid
. I squinted at the 3:04
AM
blazing on my digital clock.
If I fall asleep right this second I could still get four and a half good hours. Ready, set, sleep
. Unfortunately, I was still deciding between X-ray vision and the ability to fly when the sun came up.

The bowl of lukewarm oatmeal I wolfed down for breakfast reminded me of the workhouse gruel the orphans in
Oliver!
ate – setting off stomach pangs. But staring at the two pitiful raisins at the bottom of the bowl, I decided I wasn’t going
to give up hope about being in the musical.
Movie stars are always telling stories about how they loused up their audition but still got the part!
Plus, everybody knows I can act. And I totally saved last year’s show – the school owed me. (Not to mention, they really
needed boys.)

Okay, maybe I was just kidding myself, but I needed a positive attitude to get through the weekend. So with renewed confidence
(sorta) I held out my empty bowl to Mom and uttered Oliver’s famous line:

“Please, sir, I want some more.”

“I’m late for work. Grab a granola bar if you’re still hungry.”

We both rushed around the house collecting our things and met up at the kitchen door, where she handed me a sealed envelope.
“This has emergency money and phone numbers in it. So don’t lose it, whatever you do.”

“Mom, have you seen my book,
An Actor Prepares?”
I was rummaging through my overloaded backpack. “I need tons to read for that two-hour bus ride.”

“I think I saw it in your brother’s room yesterday when I was changing his sheets.”

Cripes!
He probably scribbled on all the pages so the library will sue me. But I didn’t have time to deal with Gord-zilla.

“Listen, Dustin, if you want to cut your visit with your father short – for any reason, just call,” Mom reminded me for the
thousandth time. “Or if you just feel like talking. Or if you’re going to be late meeting me at the Greyhound bus station
on Sunday… or get sick… or just feel like talking…”

“You covered that one twice. Don’t be doing your mom thing and calling every two seconds checking up on me, okay? Promise?”

“I promise.” She stuffed a tissue packet and a small bottle of hand sanitizer into my jacket pockets. “But don’t hold me to
it. I am your mother after all.” There was a long, desperate hug. I felt as if she were sending me off to war.

When I got to school I made a quick bathroom pit stop to make sure I was drained of all liquids before the long trip. It took
me a second to realize I was staring at a missing-dog flier that was posted over the urinal. It was Futterman’s weird dog,
Shatzi.
Hmm. Must’ve gotten fed up and flown the coop
. Someone had drawn a moustache and an eye patch on the pooch’s picture with black marker. Kids can be so cruel.

By the time I got to the buses they were already packed, and some kid in a humongous
GOT MUSIC
? sweatshirt was sitting next to my best friend.

“Jeez, Wal, thanks for saving me a seat!” I said sarcastically.

“First come, first serve. You snooze, you lose. The early bird gets –”

“The worm. I know. Man, you’ve been hanging around my family too long, with their crazy sayings.” I glared at the giant lump
taking up
my
seat with a hard, threatening look. “You’re an eighth-grader, right?”

And then it spoke. “Lester Moore.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be on the other bus?”

“It was too crowded. I got special permission from Miss Sedgwick to ride on this bus, if you must know.”

“Take a chill pill. I just asked.”

“Get this,” Wally said. “Les has been going to our school for two years, but we never met till last summer in band camp.”
Band camp, ugh!
“He’s an awesome French horn player and he might join my quintet. I’m thinking of calling it Opus Five.”

“Fascinating.” I waited for more to come out of my mouth but nothing did, so I continued down the aisle.

Les Moore. His name was an oxymoron – more or less. According to Mr. Lynch, that’s when contradictory words are combined,
like deafening silence or jumbo shrimp. Not sure if it really applied in this case, but from what I could tell, Les Moore
was big as an ox and definitely a moron.

“Hey, Dustin!” Stewy called out, waving me down from the backseat of the bus. “There’s room back here.”

“Hi, Stew, what’s new?”

There was always plenty of room around Stewy. Probably because he was too smart, too young, and due to the macrobiotic lunches
his Mom packed him – too stinky. Luckily, Pepper and her dad (biological, not step) were stuck in the backseat too. He must’ve
been chaperoning.

“Dust-buster! Long time no see,” Mr. Pew said really enthused. “We’ve got a seat all warmed up for ya.” I squeezed in between
Pepper and the fingerprint-covered window. “Say, ya ever had a hankering for some really good tomatoes?”

Huh?
Mostly after they turn into ketchup or spaghetti sauce, but, “Sure,” I replied. “Who hasn’t?”

“Wrong answer,” Pepper whispered, elbowing me. “Now you’ll never shut him up.”

“I’ve got you pegged as a beefsteak tomato type of guy, am I right? I’m partial to those babies myself, but there’s quite
a variety out there! You’ve got your Quick Picks, your Supersonics, your Mountain Springs – your orange, your pink, your white…”

I laughed out loud just so Wally would think I was having a good time. The bus peeled out of the lot and I took out my foreign-dialects
book from my backpack as if to say thanks for sharing, Mr. P., but conversation over. That didn’t stop him from rattling on
nonstop. I was able to tune him out, though, quietly practicing my cockney accent – hopefully for the show.
Think positive!

By the time we hit Willowbridge, my tongue needed a break. (You try getting “Bob’s your uncle” to sound like “bAWbz y’ rAHnkOOl,”
like, fifty times straight.) So I gazed out the window at the gigantic, head-shape water tower and for some reason pictured
Dad’s face on it – like that cutout in the attic, only a zillion times bigger. The thought of being up close and personal
again with the real thing was freaking me out and I didn’t know why. Sure, I hadn’t set eyes on him in three years, but we
talked all the time. And it’s not as if we were strangers – same flesh and blood – plus, he was the funniest father on the
planet. But part of me wanted to call the whole thing off.
Just quit while he’s a head
.

“Jeez, Pepper, can I have a little breathing room here?” I was jammed up against the window. “You’re squashing me like a –
tomato.”

“I’m just trying to avoid Stewy’s stench,” she murmured, practically snuggling. “His mom must’ve packed him those sardine-barley
nut balls again.”

Enough said. For the rest of the trip I pretended to be asleep, while Mr. Pew jawed on about the horrors of horn-worms and
stinkbugs. Finally, I heard the bus engine wheezing to a stop and my eyes popped open. The view from the Shedd Aquarium parking
lot alone was totally worth the trip! There was the Chicago skyline on one side with skyscraper after skyscraper poking through
wispy clouds; and Lake
Michigan on the opposite side – an ocean of a lake, with no end to its shimmery blue water in sight.

“People, people! Back in your seats!” Mr. Lynch shouted over the bus blabber, waving his spindly, windshield-wiper arms. “The
buses will be locked, so please remember to take your lunches, notebooks, asthma inhalers…. Oh, and chaperones, we’re two
teachers short, so you really need to be on your toes. Principal Futterman was supposed to be accompanying us, but he had
a pet emergency; and Coach Mockler pulled a fast one on us at the last minute and decided to ‘call in sick.’” He did the air-quote
finger gesture like he thought it was a crock. “Okay, everyone, grab your belongings and let’s move!”

The aquarium was bigger than Buckingham Palace. (Not that I’d ever measured.) Mr. Lynch told us to take detailed notes because
we’d be writing a report on our favorite exhibit.
So many fish, so little time!
Well, fish, mammals, coral, you name it. I’d gotten totally sucked up into water world, but never stopped thinking about
the big finale of the day – Dad! I was jotting down report possibilities in my spiral notebook as we moved from exhibit to
exhibit. By late afternoon I had it narrowed down to:

1.
Beluga Whales
. Love to have their tongues tickled! (I’ll take the staff’s word for that.)

2.
Potbelly Seahorses
. Males give birth to the babies. (Totally glad I’m not a seahorse.)

3.
Poisonous Frogs
. The prettier, the deadlier. (Something about that combo that’s hard to resist.)

When we stumbled upon the penguin exhibit I melted – on the inside. The outside was pretty chilly. But those birds were so
darn cute. I scored the last seat on a long, carpeted bench facing the exhibit, which was packed with noisy little kids in
red crab-pincher caps. The penguins were behind a wall of thick glass. Some swimming; some waddling around on a cascading
rock wall that was dripping in icicles.

“Hey, Dust,” Wally said, running up to me, “you like seafood?”

Even the first-grader sitting next to me rolled his eyes. But you had to indulge the Walrus every now and then.

“Yeah. Why?”

“See – food!” He opened his mouth wide, revealing a chocolatey lump.

“That joke is older than the hills – with dinosaur poop sprinkled on top.”

Wally stopped chewing and made a sour face.

“So is this Snickers Bar.”

We majorly cracked up, just like old times. But then
the Oxymoron bounded out of nowhere and dragged him away.

“Why’s Wally always hanging out with that guy now?” Stewy asked, squeezing in next to me. (And I’d assumed the weird smell
was coming from the fish.) “I thought
you
were his best friend.”

“I am!”

Wally’s booming laughter came from the Oceanarium behind us. The Oxymoron probably told him a joke about Mozart or Schmozart
or something.

“Well, don’t look now,” Stewy said, looking over his shoulder, “but you might have some competition.”

“I think that’s apparent.”

“Nuh-uh, that’s an eighth-grader. Lester something. He’s just overgrown for his age.”

“No, not a
parent
– I meant – oh, skip it.”

The crab-cap crew was leaving and a bunch of rowdy boys around my age immediately took their place on the bench. I honed in
on the staff guy, who was giving his spiel in front of the exhibit. “We humans can learn a valuable lesson from these feathered
creatures…” He looked an awful lot like a giant penguin himself. “Most penguins mate for life.”

Interesting!
I added 4.
Penguins
after
Poisonous Frogs
in my notebook and jotted down that little fact. When I looked up I saw Zack and some of the other Fireballs roughhousing
down the steps – they ended up standing right in front of us,
blocking our view.
Rude with a capital
R. Mr. Kincaid was with them. He’d probably volunteered to chaperone so he could make Zack drop and give him twenty between
exhibits.

“Hey, Butterballs! Down in front!” the kid next to me hollered.

“Don’t look now,” I heard Pig say to Zack, “but the Claymore Cougars are here.” Suddenly the human wildlife was more interesting
than the penguins. It was almost like the Jets meeting the Sharks in
West Side Story
, only without the switchblades and finger snaps. Their conversation went something like this:

FIREBALLS: Well, if it isn’t the Claymore Boogers. We’re looking forward to beatin’ the snot outta you at the Slam-Dunk Tourney
this year.

COUGARS: In your dreams. We whooped your [BLEEP] last year, Butterballs. What makes you think we can’t do it again?

FIREBALLS: Duh. Home-court advantage. This year the tourney’s on our turf!

COUGARS: [CRACKING UP BIG-TIME] I guess you guys didn’t hear. News flash: They’re holding the basketball tournament at Claymore
again this year!

FIREBALLS: That’s bull!

COUGARS: ‘Fraid not, Butterballs. The organizers think the athletic facilities at your school belong in the freakin’ Stone
Age.

FIREBALLS: Liars!

COUGARS: Losers!

Mr. Kincaid and the Fireballs were sizzling mad. Mad enough for a backstreet “rumble.” I shot out of my seat and purposely
got swallowed up in a clump of plaid-clad Catholic schoolgirls inching toward the penguin display – but I could still hear
what Mr. Kincaid was saying. Heck, they could hear it in Bangladesh.

“This is the last straw!” he ranted. “We were looking forward to hosting that tournament for the last four years, and now
it’s ripped out from under us. Things have really gotten out of hand at that school of yours – pouring all its money into
that sissy little play. What’s next? Turning the basketball team into a sewing circle? We have
got
to put our foot down before sports don’t exist at all in our town!”

I’d ended up at the exhibit railing right next to Candy Garboni, who was wearing a fluorescent orange fur jacket that looked
like a limp Muppet. “Whoa,” I said, “did you catch that? Mr. Kincaid is really steamed about our musical.” She seemed oblivious.
“Hey, did you ever end up auditioning? I didn’t see you there.”

“Nah, I decided to go out for cheerleader instead.”

She was cracking her gum, squinting at a pair of penguins zooming through the water like mini-torpedoes. “Look at ’em go!”
I said, touching the glass.

“To me they just look like little blur waiters. I can’t see so good without my glasses.”

“Did you forget ’em?”

“No. But they make me look hideous.”

“You can spot several of the birds on their nests at the far right,” the penguin guy said, continuing his commentary. “The
eggs they’re sitting on are actually plastic decoys. We had to transfer the real ones to an incubator, because they’d never
hatch in this environment.”