The Summer of Bad Ideas

by Kiera Stewart

  “All right, Edie.” Rae surveys the place. “I’m seeing a lot of possibilities.”

  “For what, exactly?” Because in an empty Laundromat in a tiny town, there don’t seem to be a lot of possibilities for much of anything.

  “For likes.” She tosses her phone to me and goes over to the double-stacked row of dryers. “Okay, when I say when, take a picture.” She opens a dryer door on the top row, takes hold of the rim, and launches up and into it, so that only her legs dangle frantically. I can’t help but laugh a little—she does look ridiculous. “When!” she calls, and I snap the photo.

  She climbs down from the dryer and commends me on my photo. “Post,” she says as she presses a few buttons on her phone. “Okay, what next? I’d say you should try flirting again, but well, look around.” She does a drawly impression of Officer Elwayne—“Unless you’ve got your heart set on some fabric softener, I’d say you’re out of luck.”

  I give her a little smile. “I actually might have better luck with that fabric softener.”

  She laughs.

  “I’m sort of serious.”

  “Flirting’s not that hard, Edie. I think you’re overanalyzing it.”

  “You do?”

  “Either that or you really do like Mitchell, so you get all jittery—”

  “It’s not that!”

  She looks at me. “Okay, good. Because actually, I think Mitchell’s the perfect person for someone trying to master their skills.”

  “You do?”

  “Yeah,” she says. “He’s basically pretty nice, so he’s never going to make you feel completely stupid. And he’s just okay looking, so you’re not like, ‘Oh my god, he’s talking to me!’”

  Maybe I should feel a little offended on his behalf, but I don’t—in fact, I’m relieved. She doesn’t like him like that. Could there be hope for me?

  “Okay, so . . . how do I not overanalyze it?”

  “Well, this is a no-brainer, but for one, it’s mostly about eye contact.”

  “Uh. Can you be more specific?”

  “See? You are overanalyzing!”

  “I’m not sure I know how not to,” I admit.

  She sighs. “All right, fine. Let’s overanalyze it then.”

  She turns me to face her and signals me to look directly at her eyes. “Okay, not like this . . .” Her brown eyes go wide. “And not like this . . .” Now she makes them into slivers. “But more like this.” She tilts her head and lets her eyelids drop a little.

  It makes her look sort of tired, but I don’t tell her that.

  She continues. “And keep looking at him like that for like an extra second too long. Like a second past ‘I’m listening to you,’ and a second before ‘I’m a stalker and you should be very afraid.’”

  “Oh. Okay,” I say, even though I’m possibly more confused than ever.

  “You should also find out what you have in common with him—if there’s something you both like to do, then maybe you can do it together.”

  I wonder what that could be with Mitchell. And I probably will continue to wonder. I sigh.

  “It also helps to have something to give him,” Rae adds.

  “Wait, so now I have to bring a present?”

  “I just mean, give him something. Gum is good. Tic Tacs are good too. Although sometimes that backfires because he might think you’re telling him his breath stinks. I don’t know, Edie. Just something. But whatever it is, just be casual about it.”

  “Okay, Tic Tacs, things in common, eye contact—”

  “And don’t forget to make him laugh.”

  I probably give him plenty to laugh at. It’s the laugh-with thing that’s the problem. I just say, “Oh.”

  “You know what I do, Edie? If I can’t think of something funny to say, sometimes I just give Leo a sort of hard time about whatever. Like joke with him, you know?” She looks at my face. “Okay, would an example help?”

  I nod.

  “Okay, like once, Leo totally blew his line. He was like, ‘What light through yonder window breaks? It is the west, and Juliet is the sun.’ Can you believe it? You don’t even have to know Shakespeare to know it’s east. So, anyway, it was pretty funny, so I always give him a hard time about it.”

  “Huh.”

  The washers slow their spinning. Rae gets up to start loading the clothes into the dryers. “So does that make any more sense, Edie?”

  “I . . . guess so,” I say, though I still feel pretty clueless.

  She lines up the quarters in the change slot and closes the last dryer. “Now I have a question for you.” She glances over at me. “How’d you get a boyfriend if you don’t know how to flirt?”

  My mouth opens, though my mind goes suddenly blank.

  “Wait—let me guess. Chess club.”

  That’ll work. “How’d you know?”

  She shrugs. “That’s where all the smart kids go. But think about it this way: if you can master chess, you can master flirting. It’s just another game.”

  I can’t help but admire her. Nothing seems to scare her. It’s almost like she doesn’t believe in fear—like she thinks it’s something that belongs in the same category as the tooth fairy.

  I try to ask my next question casually. “Do you ever get nervous? Around boys?”

  “I guess so. But if I let nervous get to me every time I felt it, I could never get up onstage. You know my philosophy, Edie. Carpe diem!”

  I look up at her, hoping she’ll elaborate a little more about this nervousness and how to get through it. Because everything I’ve done so far this summer—or actually not done, as the case may be—has involved her. And flirting . . . well, she can’t flirt for me, can she?

  But she says, “And you know what? Speaking of carpe-ing the diem, I think it’s a great day for ice cream.”

  I know we’re not supposed to be wandering around town. But I look out the window. It’s a straight shot across the street to Augustus Tools and Treats, so I think we can get there without any meandering.

  When we arrive at the shop, Welles greets us with two tall glasses of ice water.

  His ma nods at us from behind the counter as we sit down. “Nuts,” she says.

  “These girls are not nuts, Ma,” he says, looking up at the ceiling.

  “Well, did they bring us any?”

  “Now why would they bring us nuts, Ma?”

  The bell jingles on the door. A tall, leathery-skinned woman walks in and waves to Welles. “Just in for a few cool breaths. That heat’ll make you madder than a bobcat.”

  “Hey there, Rosie,” Welles says. He pours a third glass of water and slides it across the counter to her. “Another gator sighting today?”

  Rae and I raise our eyebrows at each other.

  “Yep. A call from a passerby. Said she saw a gator over there by the Buy ’n’ Tote. Can you even imagine? But when I got there, nada, hear me? Not a darn thing.”

  The woman nods at Rae and me and reaches out her hand. “Rosie Dunwoody, pleased to meet you.”

  “Rosie, these are Petunia Posey’s grands, Rae and Edie,” Welles says.

  “A smart woman, Petunia Posey,” Rosie says. “Sorry for your loss.”

  We give her some words of thanks, and Welles says, “Girls, Rosie’s our go-to gator woman. She wrangles any gators we find around town.”

  “You’re an alligator wrangler?” Rae sounds as impressed as I feel.

  “Well, a trapper. But, sure, wrangler sounds better. I just take alligators out of the places they shouldn’t be—backyards, pools, playgrounds—and put them back into the wild where they belong.” She looks at my face and then laughs. “Now, don’t let that get to you. We don’t have a lot of them around these parts. But there have been more calls than usual lately. Except there’s no alligator to be found.”

  “I saw one of them good-for-nothin’ swamp critters last night,” Welles’s ma pipes up from behind her tiny television screen.

  Rosie and Welles exchange a knowing
smile, and Welles says, “Oh, yeah? Where was that, Ma?”

  “Was on my front porch. Sittin’ there, under the swing.”

  “That so?” Welles looks like he’s fighting a smile. “And what did you do about it, Ma?”

  “It looked hungry. I gave it some roast beef,” she grumbles.

  “Well, Ma, I’m sure that nasty swamp critter appreciated you sharing your dinner.”

  “No, sir, it did not! Left it there for the flies. That’s the last time—”

  It takes a lot of effort for us not to laugh too loudly. Rosie manages to say, “Well, Mrs. Augustus, next time you spot a gator on your porch, you give Elwayne a call.”

  But Welles’s ma holds up her hand to signal she’s done talking—her “stories” just came back on.

  “So how many alligators have you caught?” Rae asks Rosie.

  “Hard to say. After twenty years or so, you stop counting.”

  “Have you ever gotten bitten?” I ask.

  “Sure I have—it comes with the territory. Nothing so bad it hasn’t healed.”

  “But don’t you get . . . scared?” I mean, isn’t this the obvious question?

  “Course I do.” Rosie laughs. “But you know, I heard a smart woman say once, she said, ‘Fear is a force. You can use it like a crutch and let it cripple you, or you can use it like a slingshot and let it make you soar.’” She picks up her ice water and takes a big sip. “And that smart woman was your grandmother.”

  It feels strange to be getting to know my grandmother only now that she’s dead, but still, I swell with pride.

  “And she was right,” Rosie continues. “I’ve never felt braver than when I’m staring an alligator in the face.”

  Rosie downs the rest of her water and wiggles off the stool. “Oh, girls,” she says. “If you do see an alligator—don’t go giving it any roast beef.” She smiles and salutes us on her way out.

  “All right, you pesky squirrels.” Welles slaps the counter. “What’ll it be today? Vanilla, chocolate, or—hey, Ma, what’s the Surprise Me today?”

  Rae knocks her knee into mine, and we sneak a silent laugh together.

  “Today? Oh, well, today it’s—well, I like to call it Full Dinner.”

  “Full Dinner? Come on, Ma! What’s in that, anyway?”

  “Oh, it’s . . . well, let’s see. . . .” She gets quiet for a few moments and then says, “I forgot.”

  Welles sighs. “Okay, squirrels, you name the flavor. My treat.”

  I dare myself to look that alligator in the face.

  “Surprise Me!” I declare.

  Welles lowers his eyebrows. “You sure, now?”

  On second thought, I order vanilla. Rae orders chocolate. I guess that when it comes to ice cream, there’s really no good reason to take any foolish risks.

  The sun’s almost down by the time my dad picks us up from the Laundromat. We’ve had time to fold, refold, and take a few more postables of Rae “surfing” with the rolling basket. My dad apologizes for his lateness but monologues about the refrigerator he’s picked out (IceExpress! Turbocool!) nearly the whole way home.

  As we drive up the curving gravel road toward the house, we can see the twins huddled over something in the yard. Beatrice looks up and starts waving wildly to us, calling out, “You guys! I have proof! I have proof!”

  “It’s not proof!” Henry shouts.

  “Proof of what, Beatrice?” my dad asks as we park and get out of the car.

  My mom and Uncle A.J. come out onto the porch to see what all the fuss is about.

  “Proof that my kitten is real! He left us a gift!”

  And that’s when I notice the twins are standing over a dead rat.

  “Looks like we got ourselves a Free Willy here,” my dad says.

  “If you ask me, it doesn’t take that much to escape from those humane rattraps you guys like,” Uncle A.J. says. He hasn’t been thrilled with the latest rat-control measure, preferring to go with the “all-out shock and awe,” as he calls it—meaning deadly traps and lethal poisons. But he lost in a family vote, six to one.

  “But Dad,” Beatrice says, “it was injured! You can tell if you look at it.”

  My dad kneels down and studies it. “Well, Beatrice, you are indeed right!” He starts explaining to the rest of us. “If you examine it closely, you can see that the rat’s neck has been dislocated, quite possibly from a very recent predatory strike. The fact that the body remains pliable tells us that rigor mortis hasn’t set in—”

  “Okay, thanks, we get it, Dad,” I say.

  “How do we know it wasn’t Barbara?” Henry says. “Iguanas can also attack rats, can’t they, Dad?”

  “Iguanas are herbivores!” Beatrice shouts.

  “Exactly! That would explain why Barbara just left it here! Just because she doesn’t eat rats doesn’t mean she wouldn’t attack one! Does it, Dad?”

  “Oh, sure, I guess that could be argued. We don’t really know—”

  The twins start bickering loudly, and my mom shepherds them inside, since it’s starting to get dark. Uncle A.J. brings out a flashlight and a plastic bag, and my dad carefully bags up the corpse.

  “Well, one down, about a hundred to go,” Uncle A.J. says.

  My dad holds out the bag in front of him, one last glimpse before he puts it in the bin. “Well, sorry, little buddy,” he says. “Here’s to happier trails.”

  “Yeah, sorry, little rat.” Then Rae smiles at us and, in a stage-worthy voice, says, “Let your spirit soar!”

  Soar. I think of what Rosie told us at the ice cream counter. Fear—you can use it like a slingshot and let it make you soar.

  They all start back to the house. Rae turns around and looks at me. “Coming?”

  “Yeah, in a minute,” I tell her.

  She gives me a weird look but turns and bounds up the steps anyway. Which is good, because I don’t really want to explain anything right now. I think I might be ready for that slingshot.

  Chapter 13

  Slingshot

  Minutes later, I am walking down the worn path that leads to Mitchell’s house. I almost chicken out three times. The first time, it’s because of what’s in my hand. But at least I come bearing gifts, which is apparently important. The second time, my brain wants to tell me how weird he is. But I remind myself that I’ve heard people at school whisper the same thing about me, so I power on. The third time, I start to wonder what the symptoms of a heart attack might be, because I might just be having one. And then I remember that fear probably feels a lot like a heart attack, and I breathe deep—three counts in, four out. It actually does help.

  And I keep walking. And making kissing noises, to be safe.

  When I finally reach his house, just as I’m starting to worry that I might have a fourth chicken-y event, the door opens. Mitchell’s mom steps out, saying, “Okay, kiddo, I’ll see you after my shift!”

  She turns around and sees me there. I hide my gift behind my back. No need to freak her out.

  “Oh, hi again, Edith,” she says.

  I cringe. She came over to the house the other day, and my mom introduced me. “Actually, you can call me Edie,” I say.

  She smiles. “Okay, well, hi, Edie. Good to see you again. You here to see Mitchell?”

  I smile and nod.

  She pokes her head back inside the door. “Mitchell? You’ve got company.”

  He comes to the door. “Hey, Edie.”

  “Don’t talk long. You’re responsible for Colvin tonight while I’m at work.”

  “I know, Mom.”

  She kisses him on the cheek, and he shrugs it off, wiping his cheek on his shoulder, turning pink. I feel his embarrassment.

  His mom drives off, and Mitchell looks at me a little uncomfortably. My cheeks feel warm, but before I can even think of what to say, there’s a clanging sound from the other room.

  “Be right back,” he says—and when he reappears, he has Colvin slung over his shoulder.

  “Hi, C
olvin,” I say, although I’m pretty much speaking to Colvin’s butt.

  Mitchell gives me an apologetic smile, then spins around so I can see his little brother’s face. Colvin looks annoyed, probably at being taken away from his clanging things.

  “Say hi,” Mitchell says to Colvin.

  “No,” Colvin says, his mouth snapping into a tight frown.

  “Say hi or I eat your baby toe.”

  “No!”

  Mitchell turns back around to face me. He opens his mouth wide and pretends like he’s about to chomp down on Colvin’s foot, but then Colvin starts squealing out, “Hihihihihi!”

  “Hi hi hi hi!” I say back. It seems appropriate.

  “Good. Now go get ready for the movie.” He plucks Colvin off his shoulder and sets him on the floor.

  “Hihihihihi—”

  So this is what normal kids are like. For a second I miss Henry and Beatrice. But it’s only a second.

  “Hey, Cole, go on, I’ll be right there.”

  But Colvin just stands there. “Fish are friends, not food.”

  “They’re what?” I ask.

  Colvin’s voice gets even louder as he begins to chant, “Fish are friends! Not food! Fish are friends! Not food—”

  “It’s his favorite line from Finding Nemo,” Mitchell says over his little brother’s voice. “He’s only seen it about three hundred times.”

  Now Colvin’s quoting movies too?

  “I’ll be right back,” Mitchell says. He steers Colvin away from the door. I hear him settle him onto the couch. Then he’s back. “Okay, eighth time, sorry,” he says. “Now—”

  With Colvin out from between us, I almost have my fifth chicken-out, but I think about that slingshot again, and I know I need to do this.

  “I have something. . . .” I try the droopy-eye-contact thing, but I feel suddenly shy and my eyes spring away from his before even the I’m-listening point. “Something for you.”