Tom Bites Back

by Steven Banks

  “How was violin practice, Emma?”

  “I’m quitting violin.”

  “What? Why?”

  “It’s too hard!”

  Emma quits EVERYTHING.

  So far, she has quit the following:

  Ballet (She said the shoes hurt.)

  Gymnastics (She said the gym smelled.)

  Piano (She said the piano teacher smelled.)

  Ribbon dancing (She said it was boring. I could have told her that.)

  Harp (She said it was too hard.)

  Karate (She didn’t like the way she looked in her gi.)

  Irish step dancing (She got tired after five minutes.)

  The front door opened and Dad finally walked in with dinner. He had a pizza box in one hand and a yellow bag from The Sound Experience in the other.

  “Pizza! Pizza! Pizza!” he yelled.

  I wasn’t starving anymore, since I had just eaten The Mouse Who Shall Not Be Named, but I had to pretend to be hungry.

  “Dad, what took you so long?” I said as I followed him into the kitchen.

  “Let’s eat!” said Dad, ignoring my question.

  Emma grabbed the pizza box from him like she always does.

  Dad held up the Sound Experience bag. “I got a rare Bob Dylan album for Gram’s birthday. We can give it to her when we go up for Thanksgiving.”

  I almost said, “I know a girl who saw Dylan’s first concert in New York.” Luckily, I didn’t.

  “Emma,” said Mom, “thank your brother for cleaning Terrence’s cage.”

  “I was going to clean it as soon as I got home,” said Emma.

  There is no way Emma would have cleaned his cage. Normally I would have said, “I clean his cage all the time! Even though he’s not my pet!” But I didn’t want to talk about Terrence.

  “Hey, how is Terrence?” asked Dad.

  No one had asked about Terrence for months.

  “He is such a cutie,” said Mom. “Emma, remember how you used to put him on your lap and watch TV?”

  Emma had only done that once, the first night she got him. Terrence peed on her. She got really mad because she was wearing a brand-new pair of jeans (that Clare Devi had told her she HAD to buy). It was pretty funny. She never put him on her lap again.

  “How old is Terrence?” asked Dad.

  “Good question,” said Mom. “How long have you had him, Emma?”

  Emma shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  Why was everyone so interested in Terrence? But they had given me an idea.

  “He’s really old,” I said. “I was looking at his face. He’s got a lot of wrinkles.”

  “Mice don’t get wrinkles,” said Emma, who was suddenly a mouse expert.

  I ignored her. “He’s had a long, happy life. I bet he’s going to get some disease soon. I hope he doesn’t go on forever, suffering. I hope he just goes quickly. You know, he could be suffering right now and we don’t even know it.”

  “Oh my God, that is so morbid,” said Emma.

  Muffin trotted in and stared at me. He started sniffing. I think he could smell Terrence, even though he was inside my stomach.

  I needed to launch the plan.

  14.

  The Terrence Plan

  My plan was perfect. Nobody would know I ate Terrence. But first, I had to get Emma to go upstairs and look in Terrence’s cage. She probably hadn’t looked in there for months.

  “Go up and look at Terrence’s face, right now, Emma,” I said. “He’s old. He has wrinkles.”

  “He does not.”

  “I bet you five dollars he does.”

  She ran upstairs.

  “I don’t like you two betting,” said Mom.

  “They have to start someday,” said Dad.

  “Mom! Dad!” yelled Emma from upstairs. “Tom left Terrence’s cage open and he got out!”

  Dad stood up and said, “The game is afoot! The Mysterious Case of the Missing Mouse has begun!”

  “Don’t worry, Emma, we won’t give up until we find him!” said Mom.

  * * *

  We looked for about fifteen minutes and then we gave up. Of course, nobody found Terrence because he was in my stomach. We all sat back down around the kitchen table. It felt like we were four detectives who couldn’t solve a case because one of us had done it.

  Me.

  Mom patted Emma’s hand. “He’ll turn up, Emma.”

  No, he wouldn’t.

  “Do you think Muffin could’ve eaten him?” asked Dad.

  Everybody looked at Muffin. Maybe I could blame him? He did have a guilty look on his face.

  “I bet he did!” I said.

  “No,” said Mom. “Terrence has gotten out before and Muffin just stares at him. He wouldn’t eat him.”

  Thanks a lot, Mom.

  Then Emma gave me a strange look. “Wait a minute…. Did you eat Terrence?”

  “What?” I said, as innocently as I could. “Are you crazy?”

  “Emma!” said Mom.

  “Did you?!” said Emma.

  “No, I didn’t eat Terrence! Gross! That’s disgusting! Eat a mouse? Yuck!”

  I was pretty good at lying. I learned from Emma.

  “You big fat liar!” she said.

  Apparently, she didn’t think I was good at lying.

  “Zombies eat anything!” she said. “And werewolves eat animals! And vampires maybe. I don’t know, maybe they do!”

  “Everybody calm down,” said Mom. “Tom would not eat Terrence.”

  Emma seemed to believe her. Then, she looked like she was going to cry. She’s good at fake crying. I could see her trying to win an Academy Award for Best Crying for a Lost Pet Mouse That She Didn’t Really Care About.

  She let out a sigh that sounded real. She did look sad. I started to feel guilty. Maybe she liked Terrence? Maybe, when she was alone in her room, she talked to him?

  “Terrence, I want to tell you a deep, dark secret. You know how I’m not a very nice person? How I lie all the time, complain, exaggerate, and make fun of Tom and I’m mean to him…. Well…it’s because I’m not a human being, I’m from another planet!”

  That probably didn’t happen, but I still felt bad.

  “Sorry, Emma,” I said. “I thought I closed the cage door…. Maybe Terrence was sick and knew he was going to die, so he went off somewhere to be alone? I bet that’s what happened. I think I read somewhere about mice doing that.”

  Dad looked at me with an “I don’t think mice do that” expression.

  Emma said, “Maybe he ran away so he could be free and go live in the wild.”

  Why didn’t I think of that? That was a much better reason than going off to die.

  “Or maybe Tom’s right and he went off to die,” she said.

  Of course, where he went off to die was my stomach, but I wasn’t going to tell her that.

  “I guess I probably could’ve taken better care of him,” she added. Emma never admits she is wrong about anything.

  I felt like I had to say something. “I’ll buy you a new mouse if you want.”

  “No, thanks,” said Emma. “I don’t want another mouse. To be honest, Terrence was kind of boring. I mean, he didn’t really do anything.”

  What had she expected Terrence to do? Be like the mice in Cinderella and sing songs and sew her a dress for the big dance?

  “And he did pee on me that time,” she said.

  I left the three of them at the table and went upstairs to the bathroom to brush my teeth. I only felt about fifty percent better about swallowing Terrence. But, then the grossest, most disgusting thing ever happened.

  I burped.

  Then I started to cough.

  And then…

  I threw up Terrence.

&nbs
p; 15.

  Terrence Lives!

  Terrence was still alive. I caught him in my hand. He looked up at me like he was really mad. I quickly rinsed him off in the sink and ran downstairs to the kitchen, where Mom and Emma were sitting. Dad was coming in the back door, after going to look in the backyard.

  “Look!” I yelled. “I found Terrence!”

  “The case is solved!” said Dad.

  Mom jumped up out of her chair. “Oh, Terrence! I am so glad to see you!”

  “Where’d you find him?” asked Emma, who stayed in her chair and didn’t look that happy to see him.

  “In the bathroom,” I said. “He was in the cupboard under the sink.”

  “I looked there,” said Dad.

  “Well, uh, he must be really good at hiding,” I said, and handed Terrence to Emma.

  “Ew!” she said. “Why is he wet?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe there’s a leak in the sink?”

  Emma held him up to her face. “He doesn’t have wrinkles. You owe me five bucks.”

  I hadn’t thought of our bet.

  Then, Terrence pooped in Emma’s hand.

  She screamed and dropped him on the floor. I swear that Terrence gave me a dirty look. He ran in between Dad’s feet and raced out the open back door as fast as he could. With my night vision I saw him run across the backyard and under the fence to freedom.

  Terrence the Mouse was gone.

  Dad solemnly turned to us and said, “Terrence…has left the building.”

  * * *

  That night, I looked up “Can you swallow a mouse?” on the Internet. I found out there used to be a real guy named The Great Waldo, from Germany, who performed in sideshows and circuses and carnivals. He swallowed fish, frogs, mice, and rats, and then regurgitated them back up again. It sounded like a disgusting job, but I guess The Great Waldo didn’t mind. Maybe he just wanted to be famous and that was the only thing he could think of.

  I wondered about Terrence. What was he thinking when he ran out of our house?

  I’m free! Free at last! I have escaped from that house of evil! Kept in a cage! Wallowing in my own filth! Ignored! Eaten by a savage beast! But I shall have the last laugh…. I have a plan…. I’ll go to that old scientist across the street, the Professor Beiersdorfer they talk about. I will find a concoction or machine that will make me into a giant fifty-foot-tall monster mouse! It may take weeks, months, years! I don’t care! Be afraid, Tom and Emma, be very afraid…. For one dark night, I shall return and have my vengeance. I will put you in a cage, Emma! You shall wallow in your own poop! And as for you, Tom, I shall eat you as you ate me! Let’s see how you like that! Revenge is sweet! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!

  I hoped Terrence didn’t do that.

  16.

  Zeke Almost Has a Heart Attack

  I kept practicing flying and landing in my room at night over the next week.

  On Thursday, after school, Zeke and I were walking to my house from the bus stop. Our first band practice was in half an hour at Annie’s house. I didn’t tell Zeke about eating Terrence. It was pretty embarrassing, not to mention gross.

  “Do you think our band’s gonna be famous, Bat-Tom?”

  “Zeke, please don’t call me that.”

  “Sorry. I’ve tried, but I just can’t help it.”

  “We might get famous,” I said. “Annie’s a great singer and guitarist. She said Abel’s a really good guitar player, and Dog Hots is good on drums, and I think Capri takes classical piano lessons.”

  We got to my house and my mom was unloading a box from her van into the garage, where she stores the stuff she sells on eBay.

  “Hi, Mrs. Marks,” said Zeke. “Do you need some help?”

  “Thank you, Zeke, this is the last box. Hey, Tom, did you notice anything new on the bumper of the van?”

  There was a bumper sticker that said:

  Mom smiled. “Dad has one too.”

  “Uh…thanks, Mom.”

  It was sort of nice and embarrassing at the same time.

  “I wanna get one too!” said Zeke.

  I reminded him that I wasn’t his son and he didn’t have a car.

  “Oh, yeah. Right,” he said. “Wait! I know! I’ll get one that’s says, ‘Proud Friend of a Vam-Wolf-Zom’ and put it on my skateboard.”

  “I thought it got stolen? Did you get it back?”

  “No. But if I ever get it back, I’ll put that on it.”

  Mom reached into the back of the van. “Zeke, I found something today that you might be interested in.” She pulled out a long, leather black bag.

  “Excellent! A big, black bag! Thanks, Mrs. M, I can totally use that.”

  It doesn’t take much to get Zeke excited.

  She smiled and then unzipped the bag and pulled out an old, beat-up banjo.

  Zeke almost had a heart attack. His eyes got big; his mouth opened wider than I thought was possible; he started shaking and hyperventilating, that thing when you breathe really fast. I thought I might have to call 911.

  “A BANJO!” he screamed, and started jumping up and down. He jumped higher than I’d ever seen him go before. Maybe he should try out for basketball?

  He stopped jumping. “Can I…can I touch it?”

  “Of course,” she said.

  Zeke slowly reached out and touched it with the tips of his fingers.

  “It feels…banjo-y.”

  I don’t think “banjo-y” is a real word.

  “How much are you going to sell it for on eBay, Mrs. Marks?” he asked.

  Mom winked at me.

  “I’m not going to sell it, Zeke. I’m going to give it to you.”

  Zeke looked like he was going to faint.

  “Really, Mrs. Marks? Seriously? Honestly?”

  “It’s yours, Zeke. Let’s call it an early birthday gift.”

  Zeke started crying. I knew he was crying because he was happy, but I was sort of embarrassed for him. I don’t like to see people cry. Especially when it’s a friend, or your parents or any old person, or even Emma (though she’s usually faking it). There are only five times when it’s okay to cry. I made a list.

  Zeke wasn’t embarrassed about crying in front of people. He never gets embarrassed about anything. Sometimes I wish I was more like Zeke, but not the banjo, Rabbit Attack!, jumping jacks part. He wiped his eyes with his shirtsleeve. He was looking at the banjo like it was made of solid gold.

  He gave her a hug. “Thanks, Mrs. Marks…. This is the best gift I ever got.”

  “You’re very welcome, Zeke.”

  “C’mon, Zeke,” I said. “We gotta go to Annie’s. You can leave the banjo here.”

  “No way! I’m gonna bring it!”

  “Why? You don’t know how to play it yet.”

  “You never know when you might need a banjo!”

  17.

  The Band

  Zeke and I were the first ones to get to Annie’s house.

  “I didn’t know you played banjo, Zeke,” Annie said when she opened the door.

  “I don’t!” he said with a big smile, holding up his banjo. “I’m going to learn.”

  I couldn’t see Zeke sitting still long enough to learn how to play the banjo. The only thing he does that for is when he plays Rabbit Attack!

  Abel showed up with his guitar and a big, giant amplifier. He still had his suit and tie on. Did he ever wear regular clothes? I started to pick up the amplifier to take it inside, but Zeke stopped me.

  “Hey! I’m supposed to be the roadie!”

  I let him carry it in and it took him forever, huffing and puffing and getting red in the face. We set everything up in Annie’s living room. There was a piano there for Capri, who hadn’t arrived yet. On top of the piano was a picture of Annie from last year, when she had long hair and no glas
ses. I was looking at it when she came up to me.

  “Tom, I only have one microphone. We’ll have to share it, is that okay?”

  “Sure. I don’t mind.”

  Annie tuned her guitar and Abel noticed Zeke’s banjo on the sofa.

  “And who amongst you plays the banjo?” he asked.

  “Nobody!” said Zeke cheerfully. “But I’m gonna learn.”

  “Marvelous instrument. Originated in the Caribbean, via West Africa, in the seventeenth century. I play a bit of banjo. May I, Mr. Zimmerman?”

  “Sure!” Zeke handed it to him. Abel tuned it and started playing. He was pretty good.

  “How many instruments do you play?” I asked.

  “I haven’t taken a tally, to be perfectly honest. Perhaps six?”

  “Tom knows a girl who can play eleven instruments!” said Zeke.

  I gave him a dirty look. He didn’t see it. He never does.

  “What girl?” said Annie.

  “This girl that Tom met up at his grandmother’s house,” said Zeke.

  “Is she the same girl who told you about that jazz guy, Louis Armstrong?” asked Annie.

  “Yeah,” I answered. “So, what song should we do first?”

  Annie tuned her guitar again, even though she’d already tuned it. “What’s her name?”

  “I forget.”

  “It’s Martha Livingston,” said Zeke. “And she’s—”

  I had to make sure Zeke didn’t say “She’s the vampire bat girl that bit Tom!”

  “She’s just this girl,” I said.

  “How old is she?” asked Annie.

  “Thirteen.”