by Linda Urban
He spun on the stool until his pancakes came. Then he ate them as fast as he could. And when he got outside, he ran and ran and ran.
Dad unlocked the apartment-building door. “I thought those pancakes would make you too slow to catch my mighty football passes,” he said as Max sped into the lobby. “But I guess I was wrong.”
“Race you up the stairs,” said Max, but Dad pushed the elevator button.
Max hopped up and down while he waited for the elevator. He studied the mailboxes in the hallway. In the neighborhood where he lived with Mom, mailboxes sat on poles by the street. At Dad’s apartment, the mailboxes were built into the wall, and Dad needed a key to get his mail. Every mailbox had a label on it. B. COLLINS 104. T. TIBBET 302. Z. POLASKI 201. And Dad’s: L. LEROY 202.
Bing! The elevator door rumbled open. A small woman in a purple turban stepped out. She wore a puffy coat that reminded Max of a sleeping bag. The woman had on red rubber boots and thick red mittens, and in her hand she held the leashes of two sturdy basset hounds. Max remembered their names from when he and Dad had been spies and had overheard the woman talking to Ace. “Hi, Barkis!” he said. “Hello, Peggoty!”
The woman smiled, which made extra wrinkles on her already wrinkly face. One of the dogs flopped onto his back and scratched. The plumper one waddled closer, and Max held out his hand for the dog to sniff. The dog licked his sleeve.
“Syrup,” said Dad.
“You must be ‘L. LeRoy 202,’” said the woman.
“And son,” said Dad.
Max dropped to his knees to pet the dog, who continued to sniff his clothes for traces of syrup. She found some on his coat collar and licked. Her breath smelled like vegetable soup.
“Theodosia Tibbet, 302,” said the woman. The elevator rattled away to a higher floor. “Barkis, Peggoty, and I are in the apartment above you. You play some sort of stringed instrument.”
“A ukulele,” said Dad. “I’m just learning.”
“Barkis likes it very much. He would howl along if I did not provide distraction.”
Distraction sounded like a good idea to Max. The plumper dog was a determined syrup sniffer and had climbed onto his lap for better access. “What sort of distraction?” he asked as the dog licked his ear.
“Biscuits. Which then distract Peggoty, unless she is provided one as well. Since you have moved in, L. LeRoy, Peggoty has put on pounds. Thus,” said the woman, jiggling the leashes, “we must brave the elephants.” She winked at Max. “I mean elements, of course, but it seems more courageous to brave elephants than to fret about puddles, doesn’t it?”
Max nodded. He liked Theodosia Tibbet. He could tell that she was the kind of person who would never sing the blues—no matter how sad or bad or uncomfortable things got. But he could also tell that she was in no hurry to go outside. It had rained last night and was damp and chilly out this morning. Max doubted that Ms. Tibbet would enjoy jumping over puddles.
“We were going upstairs to get our football to throw around at the park,” said Max. “Maybe we could walk your dogs for you instead?”
Ms. Tibbet tilted her head as she thought. “Barkis and Peggoty are my heart and soul, but I am an indoor woman. I am also a good judge of character. I trust you,” she said to Max. “And I know where to find your father, should I need to exact retribution.”
“She means ‘to get even with if something goes wrong,’” Dad said to Max.
“He knows what I mean,” said Ms. Tibbet. Max had only sort of known what she meant, but he nodded. He liked having Ms. Tibbet think he was trustworthy and smart.
“Well?” said the woman to her dogs. As far as Max could tell, the dogs did not do anything different than they had been doing, but Ms. Tibbet had her answer. “Barkis is willing,” she said. She chuckled as if she had made a joke, and Max chuckled too.
“A caution: These are not greyhounds. Their pace is not swift, and they like an intermission.”
“Don’t walk too fast and let them rest sometimes?” said Max.
“Exactly. Perhaps you could bring your instrument, L. LeRoy. I’m sure Barkis would enjoy an entertainment during his rest stops.”
Max saw Dad’s face light up.
“Now, that’s an idea,” said Dad. “Stay here, Max. I’ll be right back.”
Dad did not wait for the elevator to return to the lobby. He ran up the stairs.
Chapter
Three
Peggoty was not fast like a greyhound. In fact, Max wondered if she was a hound at all. She was more like a nose with legs. All she wanted to do was sniff.
She sniffed at the sidewalk.
She sniffed at the trees.
She sniffed at a hat someone had dropped on the ground.
She sniffed at garbage cans and fire hydrants and mailboxes.
She sniffed as she walked through puddles, dragging her ears like flat-bottomed boats.
“C’mon, Peggoty,” said Max each time she stopped to sniff.
He supposed he should be happy the dog was such a slowpoke. Just before they left the apartment building, Dad had told Ms. Tibbet that they would not be long because he and Max had some shopping to do that afternoon.
Max hated shopping. It was boring. Back when his parents still lived together, one of them usually stayed home with Max while the other went shopping, but now it felt like Max had to go on every errand to every store in the state. “Oh, Max,” his mom had said once, “it’s not that boring. At least you get to walk around and look at things. It’s not like you’re penned up in a jail cell. That would be boring.”
Mom had been wrong. Max would rather be in jail than go shopping. In jail you could sneak a spoon out of the cafeteria and dig a tunnel and escape. There was no escape from the grocery store.
Peggoty stopped to sniff again. This time, Max could not blame her. They were just outside Lickety Split Ice Cream. Max took a big sniff too. It smelled like chocolate and caramel and vanilla and nuts.
“Keep her moving, Max,” said Dad. “Or we’ll never make it to the park.” Barkis trotted ahead with Dad.
“C’mon, Peggoty,” said Max. The basset hound looked up at him. Okay, so she wasn’t just a nose with legs. She also had sad, sad eyes.
“Wumph,” she said.
“I know,” said Max.
Oak Grove Park took up a whole block. It did not have a playground, like the park near Max’s house with Mom. It had a fountain and trees and a long, curvy path. Dad chose a bench with a view of the entire park. He pulled a bandanna from his pocket, dried off the bench seat, and sat down. Barkis and Peggoty flopped in front of him and panted. Everyone was ready for an intermission. Except Max.
“Can I run on the path?” he asked.
Dad lifted his ukulele from its case and looked around the park. “I guess so. I can keep our canine companions entertained.”
Before Dad could play a single note, Max was running. He jumped over puddles. He jumped over spots where he wished puddles had been. It had been hard to walk as slow as Peggoty. It had been hard to stop for every sniff. Now Max ran like a rocket, around a tree and past the fountain. He could not hear Dad’s ukulele when he ran, but he could hear Barkis howl.
“Stevicus was only a few yards ahead of the Baron’s men,” said Max. He imagined himself running through a dark green forest. On his back, he had tied a sack that held the Orb of All Time. If he let it fall into the Baron’s hands, the Baron would stop time for everyone but himself and his men. They would steal all the jewels and money and stuff, and the rest of the people could do nothing about it. They would be frozen in time and totally bored forever.
Zing! The Baron’s men were shooting arrows! “Stevicus dodged them, darting left and right. He leaped high into the air, but landed on a slippery rock and fell, just as another arrow whizzed overhead.” Max landed on the damp grass, somersaulted, and sprang to his feet. “Stevicus patted himself on the back—but not because he was conceited or anything. He was checking for the Orb of All Time. It was
still there. The world was safe.”
Max ran the entire path twice, then dropped onto the bench beside Dad. His heart thumped a happy, run-around-the-park thump. Peggoty sniffed his knees where he had fallen in the grass. Her tail thunked on the dirt, in time with Max’s heartbeat.
“I think Peggoty likes you,” said Dad.
“I think Barkis liked your music,” said Max. “I heard him howling.”
Dad scratched Barkis’s ear. “Nothing in the world like an appreciative audience,” he said.
If Dad could go to Open Mike Night, he would have an audience, Max thought. His heart continued to thump, but it didn’t feel as happy as it had before.
“I’m going to run one more lap,” said Max.
“Can’t, pal,” said Dad. “I promised Ms. Tibbet we wouldn’t have Barkis and Peggoty out for too long.” Dad stood and slung his ukulele case over his shoulder. “Besides, we have some shopping to do.”
Max took Peggoty’s leash and followed Dad, but he was imagining Stevicus kneeling behind a tree. Stevicus took the Orb of All Time from its sack and gasped, Max said in his head. He had saved the Orb from the Baron’s men, but it had cracked. Stevicus could feel the freezy boredom leaking out. It felt just like shopping.
Chapter
Four
The INEEDA furniture store sold everything from pencil holders to kitchen sinks. Every item in the store had a name, which made Max laugh. “This is my toothbrush Albert,” he said to Dad. Except the toothbrush he had picked up off the display had not been named Albert. It had been named “Tandborste,” which made Max laugh even harder.
Dad did not laugh. “We don’t need toothbrushes today,” he said. “We need to cure your sore-butt blues. We need a sofa.”
The furniture store was so big that the salespeople had given them a map when they came in. Dad used it to get them to the SOFA/COUCH section pretty quickly. This gave Max hope that their shopping would be fast and they would go home soon. But when they reached the sofas, everything changed.
Dad was the slowest sofa shopper in history.
He considered every sofa in the store.
He stood in front of them.
He leaned against them.
He sat on one end and slid to the other.
He kicked off his shoes and stretched across them.
And then, when Max thought he must have made up his mind that this was the best sofa in the place, Dad would get up and stand in front of another one. The whole time, he hummed the ba-da, ba-da blues song.
Max wondered if this was taking so long because Dad was really thinking about Open Mike Night. Sometimes it was hard for Max to focus on his homework sheets when he was thinking about playing basketball with his friend Warren or building a fort for Stevicus. Maybe Dad was wishing he could go to Open Mike Night as much as Max was wishing he could leave this furniture store.
Dad stood in front of another sofa. “What do you think of this one?” he asked Max.
Max read the tag that hung from the sofa’s arm. “Its name is Flenn, which reminds me of this kid in my class named Glenn. I don’t think I could watch TV while sitting on Glenn.”
“I’m serious, Max,” said Dad.
Max looked at Flenn. It looked like a couch. “It’s fine,” he said.
“Surely you have more to say than that,” said Dad.
Max had lots of things to say, but he did not have the words to say them. He remembered what Dad had said about the blues—how people found words to sing what they couldn’t say. Did that really work? Max looked at Flenn again. It had ugly black horizontal stripes. He heard the ba-da, ba-da blues song in his head.
“The stripes look like a jail suit. Gives me the prison-couch blues,” sang Max. He sang it quietly, but Dad heard.
“The prison-couch blues?”
Max shrugged.
“I guess it does look a little penitential,” said Dad. “What about this one?”
Dad had Max sit on a red couch named Ploomf.
“It’s sticky and it smells like plastic,” sang Max. “I got the sticky-red-plastic blues.”
“Okay. No jail stripes. No sticky. No plastic.” Dad moved to a couch that was soft and brown and nubby. “How about this one? It reminds me of Agent Whiskers.”
Probably that was a good thing, but Max did not want it to be. He did not feel like saying anything was good. He felt like getting out of here.
“What’s good about a walrus isn’t always good about a sofa.” Max flopped onto a gray couch named Olle and crossed his arms.
Dad sat down beside him. “I wish you’d help me out,” he said. “I don’t want to goof up and get the wrong thing, like I did with the football curtains.”
“What you really wish is that you didn’t have me tonight, so you could go to Open Mike Night at Doctor Spin,” said Max. There. He had said it. And he didn’t need some old blues song to do it.
“Oh, Max.” Dad leaned back on Olle and looked at the ceiling. Max did the same. “Open Mike Night at Doctor Spin is not for kids, but this has nothing to do with you. The truth is I’m not a good enough player.”
Max sat up. “Yes, you are, Dad. You’re great!”
Dad fiddled with a green plastic squirrel named Knut that had been perched on the end table beside him. “I don’t like making mistakes, especially big mistakes that everyone can see. Or hear.”
Max understood this. He was better at dribbling a basketball in the driveway at Mom’s than he was at school with his whole class watching. But Mr. Sherwin, his P.E. teacher, said the only way to get better was to practice with other kids around, and eventually he would forget people were looking.
Max told Dad what Mr. Sherwin had said.
“Has it worked?” asked Dad.
“I’m a lot better at dribbling. I’m a little better about forgetting that people are looking.”
“Hmm,” said Dad. It was the hmm sound Dad made when he was really thinking about something. He stretched his arm along the top of the couch, and Max leaned back like he had before. They sat there for a while, and Max closed his eyes. It felt good. It wasn’t even boring.
“You two moving in?” A salesman in a bright blue shirt was standing over them.
“My dad already has an apartment,” said Max.
“But I don’t have a sofa,” said Dad, patting the arm of the couch. It made a solid thunking sound. “Max, what do you think of Olle?”
Max considered Olle.
He stood in front of it.
He leaned against it.
He sat on one end and slid to the other.
He kicked off his shoes and stretched across it.
Then he got back up and stood in front of Olle again.
“Well?” said the salesman.
“Just a minute,” said Max. He peered beneath the sofa. There was just enough room to crawl under.
Stevicus snuck into the tiny crevice and watched as the Baron’s men stomped stupidly past, said Max in his head. While he waited, he checked the Orb of All Time. The crack was gone. It was a miracle!
Max shimmied out from his hiding place and crouched behind the sofa. What Stevicus needed now was a hideout. But where could he go? An arrow zipped overhead. He had been spotted! “We will exact retribution!” shouted one of the Baron’s men. Stevicus dove for cover. He landed on something soft and bouncy and safe. It was the perfect hideout.
“Well?” said the salesman again.
Max looked at Dad and nodded.
“We’ll take it,” they said together.
Chapter
Five
It turned out that they could not bring Olle home with them that afternoon. The salesman said that the sofa would be delivered later in the week and until then, if they had guests, it would have to be B.Y.O.C.
“What’s B.Y.O.C.?” Max asked Dad as they waited at the cash register. In addition to paying for Olle, Dad was buying the green plastic Knut and a bag of dog biscuits named Voff-Voff that Max had picked up for Barkis and Peggoty
.
“Bring Your Own Chair, I guess,” said Dad. “The sales guy was being funny. Sometimes parties are B.Y.O.B., which means Bring Your Own Beverage.”
Dad paid the cashier and tucked Knut under his arm. He handed the dog treats to Max.
“If you were having a dog party, it could mean Bring Your Own Biscuits,” said Max as they headed to the car.
“I suppose it could,” said Dad.
“If you were a lion, it could be B.Y.O.Z.”
“Bring Your Own . . . Zebra?” Dad laughed. “Max, that’s gruesome!”
Max leaped over a parking-lot puddle. He loved making Dad laugh.
“Do you know any funny ukulele songs?” Max asked as he got into the car.
“I know ‘Yes, We Have No Bananas,’” said Dad. “Why?”
“I think you should go to Open Mike Night tonight and play a funny song. I can go with you. I will close my ears if anyone says any bad words.”
Dad laughed again, even though Max had not meant to be funny. “I’m not going to Open Mike Night tonight—but who knows? I may surprise us both and go to the next one, whether I think I’m ready or not.” Dad fastened his seat belt. “I just hope the audience is friendly to beginners.”
Max hoped so too. He buckled his own seat belt and hoped that when Dad finally went to Open Mike Night, the audience would love his playing as much as Barkis did.
And that gave Max an idea.
If he were in his bedroom at his house with Mom, Max would have used colorful markers and construction paper for the invitation, but he did not think Dad had any art stuff in his apartment. Max did not ask, because then Dad might get suspicious. Max wanted everything to be a surprise.
