Welcome to Wonderland #4

by Chris Grabenstein

  While we waited for our food, Gloria and I filled Dill in on some of his duties.

  I pointed to our frog slide. “We could use you the next time we do a Freddy the Frog karaoke show.”

  “Okay. What do I do?”

  “Sing along with the frog. Be the first one up when I ask for a volunteer.”

  In showbiz lingo, Dill was going to be my shill—a pretend customer to encourage other folks to play along.

  As Jimbo served us our burgers and fries, I saw movement to our left. The athletic guy came out of the Banana Cream Pie Room in his bathing suit.

  “Eat fast,” I said to Gloria and Dill. “It’s showtime. Jimbo? Can I borrow your walkie-talkie?”

  He slid it down the bar.

  I pushed the talk button. “Grandpa? Do you have your ears on?”

  “Ten-four, good buddy,” he crackled in reply.

  “Grab your microphone. We need to do a Freddy show.”

  “But those are only on weekends.”

  “This is a special command performance. For Jim Nasium.”

  “What? Who’s he?”

  “One of our prime suspects.”

  Grandpa didn’t answer right away. Finally, he said, “For the thing with the thing?”

  “Exactly!”

  “Give me ten seconds to fire up the amplifier.”

  “You got it.”

  “What’s going on?” asked Dill.

  I gestured toward the man who’d just spread out a pool towel on a lounge chair. “We’re going to show that guy that nobody has fun-in-the-sun activities like we do! Nobody!”

  With Dill’s help, Grandpa and I launched into a primo Freddy the Frog poolside performance.

  “That’s just a frog slide,” said Dill, doing his lines beautifully. “It can’t talk or sing.”

  “Well, my friend,” I said, “that’s where you’re wrong.”

  The guy we needed to wow put down his Florida Fun in the Sun magazine.

  Aha! I knew he was our mystery shopper.

  He started paying attention to the show. So did everybody else hanging around the pool.

  “Freddy doesn’t move around much. He thinks nobody can see him if he stays perfectly still.”

  “I’m like butter on a hot toasted bagel,” boomed Grandpa’s frog voice from the speaker we’d hidden inside the slide’s mouth. “I’m blending in here.”

  “That frog’s not really talking,” said Dill, just like I had instructed him to. “That’s a prerecorded tape.”

  “Is that so?” growled Grandpa. “Then how come I can see your glasses and your red swimsuit?”

  After a few jokes, it was time for the main event: Croaky Karaoke, which was what we called singing along with Freddy.

  Every time we did it, folks loved it.

  Grandpa, Dill, and I launched into one of our biggest hits, “Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog.”

  The kids at the pool were cracking up.

  So were their parents.

  But our prime suspect wasn’t.

  Jim Nasium was shaking his head.

  I mimed slicing my throat with my finger. Grandpa killed the music.

  Gloria was off her barstool fast.

  “Is there some problem, sir?” she asked the man who just might be our undercover critic.

  “You bet there is. I came here for outdoor activities, not corny kiddie shows and karaoke.”

  I hustled over to help Gloria. Dill hustled over behind me.

  “Sir, may I ask you your name?” I said.

  “Nick Cerone.”

  “Well, Mr. Cerone, you are in the right place. How’d you like to kitesurf against the Dolphin King?”

  Both eyebrows went up behind his sunglasses.

  I had his attention.

  “That sounds awesome!” said Dill.

  Yes, I had his attention, too.

  As the four of us hiked down to the beach, I quickly re-spun the story I’d told in Mr. Frumpkes’s class.

  “The other day, Mr. Cerone, I was carving across a wave. Totally cranking. It was epic. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, this dolphin pops up! He challenges me to a race.”

  “The dolphin talked?” he asked skeptically.

  “He didn’t need to. I could read the challenge in his eyes. I could hear it in his taunting squeaks and mocking cackles.”

  “So what’d you do?”

  “I whipped out a kite, slipped on a harness, gripped my board with my toes, and took off. Before long, I was soaring across the water, leaving that dolphin to chase my shadow, because I was flying high—up where pelicans swoop. One of them wanted to race me, too, so I said, ‘You’re on.’ I left that pelican eating my exhaust fumes, mostly because he had a huge fish flopping around in that pouch thing they have for a chin. It was totally slowing him down.”

  Fact: when you go back and retell a tale, you’ll always find room for improvement. Like they say, there’s no such thing as good writing, only good rewriting.

  “You beat the pelican and the dolphin?” asked Mr. Cerone with an easy grin.

  I nodded. “A sea turtle and a manatee, too. And so will you, sir, after we hook you up with the proper gear.”

  “Can I get some gear, too?” asked Dill.

  “Sure,” I told him. “But you might want to start out with a boogie board.”

  “I did that the other day,” said Gloria. “It was a blast.”

  “Wanna race?” said Dill.

  “Sure,” said Gloria.

  We took Mr. Cerone and Dill down to Beach Bum’s Equipment Rentals.

  The surfer dude, Corky, was chilling in a low-slung chair under one of the bright blue umbrellas. He had even more stuff for rent than he’d had the other day, including a trio of paddleboats shaped like flamingos.

  “Hey, Corky,” I said, “we’d like the Wonderland discount for some of our new guests.”

  “Excellent, little dude. Waves are awesome today. I did an el rollo before I ate it on a gnarly heavy.” He stood up and wiped the sand off a board. “You ready to hit the surf, brah?”

  “Can I get a kite and harness, too?” asked Mr. Cerone.

  “Fer shure. I can definitely hook you up.”

  “I might also want to do a little sea kayaking.”

  “At the same time?”

  “No. Afterward.”

  “Oh. Okay. That’ll work.”

  Corky helped Mr. Cerone into his rig.

  “Now this is what I call a great setup,” Mr. Cerone said. “All these fun beach activities, right in your own backyard.”

  “Well, sir,” I said, “when it comes to fun in the sun, we aim on being number one and never outdone.” I was rhyming out slogans like crazy. I think I could have a career in advertising someday.

  Mr. Cerone took off in a kitesurfing getup and hit the waves.

  When he caught the wind and was airborne, Gloria and I turned to each other and hollered, “Booyah!”

  We’d just wowed our first potential mystery shopper.

  Mr. Cerone flew over the Gulf.

  Then he kayaked.

  Then he skimboarded across the slick sand and flung a Frisbee and played beach volleyball and read a paperback novel that Corky also had for rent.

  “Nothin’ but beach reads,” the surfer dude said proudly. “True page-turners, brah.”

  Mr. Cerone did more beach activities in two hours than most people do in two weeks.

  While he was having fun, renting everything Corky had to offer, Gloria, Dill, and I piled into those flamingo-pink paddleboats and played saltwater bumper cars, a game we sort of made up as we went along.

  Dill giggled so much I thought he might pee in his pants. Not that anyone would notice. That’s another great thing about playing in the Gulf o
f Mexico: when nature calls, you are free to pee. Hey, do you think all those fish out there wait until they find a bathroom to relieve themselves?

  When we finally headed back to the Wonderland, Mr. Cerone thanked us for a “great day” and went to the Banana Shack to “grab a burger.”

  Score some more points for the home team. I knew he’d love his dinner, too.

  Dill went to his room.

  Gloria and I headed into the lobby, where her father was showing Mom something on his phone.

  “It’s a Twitter war!” Mr. Ortega said. “Biff Billington up in Philadelphia just hashtagged ‘ESPNlock.’ He thinks he’s a shoo-in for the job because he landed a major one-on-one interview with the one and only Phillie Phanatic.”

  “That big furry green bird thing?” said Mom.

  Mr. O nodded. “Arguably the most recognizable mascot in all of North American sports!”

  I raised my hand.

  “Yes, P.T.?” said Mr. Ortega.

  “Does the Phillie Phanatic ever actually talk? Doesn’t he just, like, dance and wiggle and wave and stuff?”

  “Exactly! That’s why this interview is such a major get! It’ll all be done without saying a word.

  “I don’t know how I’m going to beat that,” said Mr. Ortega, shaking his head.

  “Easy,” I said. “Interview somebody even more interesting. Maybe somebody who actually talks.”

  Mr. Ortega snapped his fingers. “That’s genius! P.T.? You just hit it out of the park.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I’ve been hearing about a golf prodigy over in Clearwater,” said Mr. Ortega. “A kid named Johnny Zeng. He’s never done a TV interview. His parents are trying to protect him from the harsh spotlight of fame. He’s only sixteen, but the PGA is considering bending the rules and letting him turn pro. He’d be a huge get. My sources tell me Johnny Z could become the youngest player to ever win a major championship.”

  I grinned.

  Because Gloria and I were kind of like Johnny Zeng. We might become the youngest players to ever win a very major tourist-attraction trophy.

  I was up bright and early Saturday.

  Mostly because that’s when Jimbo makes his famous Chunky Monkey Chocolaty Peanut-Buttery Flapjacks: a stack of chocolate chip pancakes smothered in melted peanut butter (instead of syrup) and topped with crumbled chunks of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. That’ll get your motor running.

  Gloria and Dill joined me at the Banana Shack. Gloria went with Jimbo’s Pineapple Paradise pancakes—topped with tropical fruit and coconut. Dill chose the Good Morning Sunshine special. Jimbo makes them with banana-blueberry eyeballs, a blackberry nose, sliced-strawberry sunbeams, and a raspberry-syrup smile.

  When we were almost finished with our breakfasts, mystery shopper suspect number two, the woman we’d dubbed Ms. Matchy-Matchy, came down to the pool with her son.

  “I am soooo bored,” I heard the boy moan. “There’s nothing to do here.”

  “Well, just play in the pool for a little while,” suggested the mom. “This afternoon, we can go someplace with more activities. Like the Seawinds Resort or the Fun Castle. I need to check those out for work, too.”

  Uh-oh.

  That was not good.

  The mother definitely sounded like she was an undercover judge. She had literally said she needed to check out our competitors “for work.” If she was grading us on fun things to do, the worst thing in the world would be for her son to be bored out of his gourd.

  “We need to fix that,” I whispered to Gloria.

  The boy was pouting.

  “He looks so sad,” said Dill. “He should order some happy-face pancakes.”

  “I could take her a menu,” said Gloria. “Pretend I’m a server…”

  I shook my head. “No. We need something bigger than Jimbo’s pancakes.”

  “Really?” said Dill. “Because these things are the size of a tricycle tire….”

  I snapped my fingers.

  “Remember all those pirate costumes and eye patches and junk we bought for the Pirate Chest Treasure Quest promotion when you first moved in?”

  Gloria nodded. “Sure.”

  “All that stuff’s still stored in Grandpa’s workshop,” I said. “We should call a few friends. Invite them to come over and play pirate. I’ll run across the street to Shore Enuff Stuff and buy some squirt guns. Maybe one of those water cannons.”

  “May I ask a question?” said Gloria.

  “Go for it.”

  “Why?”

  “Years ago,” I told her, “Grandpa used to have a ride-along railroad that chugged in a loop through the parking lot. We need to borrow a page from his playbook.”

  “Was your grandfather a football star?” asked Dill.

  “Nope,” I said. “He was, and still is, a master showman. Back in the day, when kids started getting bored puttering around in his choo-choo, he’d hit them with a plot twist: bandits! Guys in cowboy hats and robber masks would hold up the train. Grandpa would deputize everybody on board, pin tin stars on their chests, and pass out the cap guns, and together they’d send those bad guys packing.”

  “So we’re going to stage a train robbery?” asked Gloria.

  “Nope. A pirate attack!”

  We divided up the tasks.

  Or as Gloria put it in business lingo, we “peanut-buttered” them out.

  She called the Alberto brothers, Jack and Nate; plus Bruce Brandow; super-tall Lily Lawler; her sister, Matilda; and six other pals from school.

  Meanwhile, Dill tagged along with me.

  We raced across the street to Shore Enuff Stuff and bought a bunch of pirate flintlock water pistols, a couple of Tampa Bay Buccaneers pirate flags, some inflatable pirate swords, and a Super Soaker Hydro Cannon.

  “That looks like it’s from outer space,” said Dill when he saw the high-tech water squirter.

  “Excellent idea!” I said. “The Wonderland will be the first motel on St. Pete Beach ever attacked by space pirates! To the costume aisle, Dill!”

  Shore Enuff Stuff had everything. Toys, games, books, even goofy dress-up costumes.

  “Some of our pirates should wear light-up deely boppers on their heads,” I told Dill, “so they can look like they came from outer space! We need to grab some balloons, too.”

  “Woo-hoo!” squealed Dill as we careened our cart through the store and loaded up. “I hoped there’d be balloons!”

  We made our purchases and carried four shopping bags bulging with more than enuff stuff back across the street. We met Gloria and the gang in Grandpa’s workshop, told everybody the plan, and started getting dressed and ready for our first-ever Pirates from Outer Space Extravaganza.

  Grandpa came in when were all dressed up and ready to go. Half of us were wearing deely boppers; half of us weren’t. We needed to look like two opposing teams, because when you’re telling a story, you need conflict or nothing too exciting is ever going to happen.

  Grandpa placed his hand on my shoulder and smiled.

  “You have learned well, grasshopper,” he said. (I’m not exactly sure why.) “Now go out there and give them the old razzle-dazzle!”

  The matchy-matchy family was still poolside.

  But now the boy’s pout was on its way to the meltdown/tantrum zone.

  So squirt guns blazing, deely boppers bopping, we attacked the pool, pretending to be two bands of pirates, fighting each other.

  Jack and Nate Alberto led the alien team. They were whacking Bruce with an inflatable pirate sword the size of a caveman’s club. Dill was waving a Tampa Bay Buccaneers flag.

  “You’ve got to help us,” I said to Ms. Matchy-Matchy’s son, who stopped whining when Jack slammed me with a blast from his water cannon.

  “Why should I help you?” he asked.
/>   “Because we’re the good guys.”

  “You look like a pirate.”

  “True. But I’m a Tampa Bay Buccaneer.”

  “We’re locals!” shouted Dill. He waved the football team’s flag higher.

  Jack super-soaked me again. Right in the face.

  I gurgled. Pretended like I was wounded. Like I couldn’t fight on.

  “Here,” I said, reaching into my pirate coat. “Take this. Fight back.”

  It was a water balloon.

  The boy heaved it at Jack.

  I handed him another one.

  He walloped Nate.

  “You’re my hero,” I told him—right before I dramatically died and fell into the pool.

  As the “bad guys” reeled from the boy’s water-balloon barrage and, one by one, toppled into the pool, I heard him cry out, “Mom, this is the most fun I’ve ever had anywhere!”

  “Booyah!” Gloria and I hollered, and knocked knuckles.

  Because we’d just wowed the second leading suspect for our mystery shopper.

  We were one step closer to making Grandpa’s lifelong dream come true.

  I was busy giving everybody a high five when I heard some unpleasant puttering overhead.

  Two planes.

  Each one hauling another Fun Castle banner.

  On Sunday, both Mr. Cerone and Ms. Matchy-Matchy checked out.

  Gloria and I were sitting on the wicker sofa in the lobby again, pretending to read ancient magazines so we could eavesdrop on our departing guests’ final words.

  “We wish you could’ve stayed with us longer,” said Mom as she printed out Mr. Cerone’s final bill.

  “Me too. You guys have a great setup here. All that beach gear for rent out back? Fantastic! And that Banana Cream Pie Room? Delicious. The whole room smells like a tropical breeze.”

  Fact: air fresheners come in a Hawaiian Aloha scent. Grandpa bought a case of the stuff for the Banana Cream Pie Room.