The Summer of Bad Ideas

by Kiera Stewart

  Number ten. Celebrate.

  That’s something we can do, and better yet, we can do it together, all of us. It’s an open house. A “remembering” party. A screening party. A bon voyage. There seems to be nothing that we’re not celebrating.

  On the night of the party, music fills up the old house. Zachary Amos, neighbor-slash-Hurricane heartthrob, is playing a Beach Boys song on an accordion, and his wife, Melba, sings happily along. “Wouldn’t it be nice if we were older . . .” Despite the fact that her voice is as smooth as an alligator’s tail, the music makes an upbeat backdrop for the party.

  I’m in the foyer with my mom and Beatrice when Welles Augustus and his ma arrive. They’re holding a five-gallon tub of ice cream. “Thought I’d bring some refreshments,” he says.

  “Thank you, Welles.” My mom smiles at him. “Looks delicious.”

  “A fresh batch of Surprise Me,’” his ma adds.

  Beatrice makes a face. “What flavor is that?”

  I brace myself. Artichoke heart’s delight? Clouds of cauliflower? Dreamy dill?

  “Vanilla bean,” Welles says.

  “Oh, good,” Beatrice smiles. “I like vanilla.”

  But—

  “That’s vanilla-slash-bean,” Welles explains. “Homemade mix of vanilla and baked beans. Ma even added some pork fat.”

  “Welles, that’s the surprise part of the Surprise Me!” his ma scolds. Then she turns her head, as if just now hearing the music. “Oh, my! Is that an accordion?” She beams and clasps her hands in front of her chest—looking suddenly about twenty years younger before going off to find the source.

  Over the music, I hear the ripping sounds of a car motor. It seems like it can’t get any louder, until it does. A yellow Corvette parks in front of the house, and Dani jumps out of the car, her hands full of to-go boxes from the BEST Diner. She calls out, “I brought the fried pickles!”

  “Oh, good—Hannah’s favorite!” Uncle A.J. says as he comes down the stairs. He smirks in my mom’s direction.

  “Oh, A.J., Welles and his ma here just brought over a giant tub of vanilla bean ice cream. I don’t know how we’re going to eat it all. I think you should dive right in!”

  His eyes widen. For a second, I can imagine my uncle as a ten-year-old. “Awesome,” he says. “That sounds great. I could use some ice cream right now.”

  He goes down the hall into the kitchen. My mom and I look at each other and break into a big laugh.

  Mitchell and Rae show up with a big plateful of cookies they made for the party. As we’re putting them out on the reception table, Officer Elwayne’s patrol car pulls up and he gets out. Rosie Dunwoody, the alligator trapper, steps out from the passenger’s side.

  “Oh, hi, Elwayne,” my mom calls out to him. “Come on in—we’re just getting started.”

  “Thank you, Hannah,” he says. “But first, some official business. This here’s Rosie Dunwoody, our local gator wrangler.”

  “Uh, hello,” my mom says, but she looks suddenly nervous. “What’s going on?”

  “Well, that evening all the kids ran off—I’m sure you remember,” Officer Elwayne says.

  The expression on my mother’s face makes it clear that she remembers it all too well. Rae and I exchange an embarrassed look.

  “It seems a few boys in town were pulling pranks with that gator all summer. All those alligator sightings? Those boys were behind every which one—planting Petunia’s beloved old pet anywhere they could get a rise out of folks, then taking it away before we could catch them.”

  My mom’s mouth falls open. “Louis?”

  “That’s right,” Officer Elwayne says. “They must have stolen him from your property before you arrived. Seems their last and final prank was to try to float that stuffed alligator down the swamp.”

  The Pinne Mafia, I realize.

  Officer Elwayne continues. “Found those boys that night you called looking for your kids.” He nods at me and Rae. “They hadn’t gotten far.”

  “So . . . Louis? Well, what happened to him?” Mitchell seems concerned.

  “Let’s just say that those boys are working on their karma.” Officer Elwayne smiles. “Took a little, shall we say, encouragement, but they decided to right their wrong. They’ve taken the gator to the taxidermist to get him restuffed. I hear he’ll be good as new. Isn’t that right, Rosie?”

  “Like it never happened,” she agrees.

  My mom turns to Mitchell. “You knew Louis?”

  “Well, not when he was alive, but Petunia gave him to me last year. She said it was good to have an alligator to look in the mouth sometimes. I’m not sure what she meant by that, though.”

  I think I do. I look at Rosie Dunwoody, and she smiles at me.

  Officer Elwayne peeks past my uncle’s shoulder. “Well, things sure do look good in there.”

  “Come in,” Rae says. “I’ll show you around.”

  My mom goes to check on something in the kitchen, leaving me alone in the foyer with Mitchell.

  I look at him. “I can’t believe those jerks stole Louis from you. It’s so stupid. I mean, just because you went to a special school?”

  “Yeah, it’s stupid, but that’s what guys like them do,” Mitchell says. “They take stuff from kids they don’t like. Pencil sharpeners, lunch money. Alligators.”

  “But I still don’t get it.” I can’t imagine anyone not liking him, so I blurt out a stupid question. “Why wouldn’t they like you?”

  As soon as I ask it, I know the answer. It doesn’t always take a why. Some people are just looking for a who.

  But Mitchell doesn’t seem too fazed. “For being different, I guess.”

  And he sort of smiles at me, and I realize why I like him. Why I really like him. Because he is different, and different is starting to feel like a good thing.

  I don’t want the moment to end, but he tells me he needs to go feed the snakes. I start to go outside too—maybe the twins need help setting up their presentation. But on my way, I notice my mom standing at the newly installed kitchen island, just staring at nothing.

  “Mom? You okay?”

  She blinks, and then looks at me. “I was just thinking.” She lets out a sigh-laugh. “Do you know what I just realized, Edith? I spent half my childhood being jealous of Louis, that poor toothless alligator. It feels pretty silly now.”

  Kind of like feeding time at the zoo, I bet. I smile. “So, Mom, do you think that’s why you’ve never let us get a pet?”

  Her eyebrows lift. “Well, I don’t know. Maybe so. I never thought about it like that.” She seems to think about it now, though. “Maybe it’s why I do a lot of things.”

  “Like have so many rules?” I ask.

  She gives me a look. “Don’t push it. It’s only because I care.”

  “You know, I wouldn’t mind if you cared a little bit less.”

  “Edith,” she says, but there’s a little smile starting in the corner of her mouth. She leans back into the counter. “You know, honey, I’m kind of grateful that Petunia was the parent she was, even if she wasn’t perfect.”

  “You are?” I ask.

  “I am. Because if she had been a different parent to me, then maybe I would have been a different parent to you, and you’d be a different person.” She rests her palms on the edge of the counter behind her. “And I wouldn’t want to change that. I like who you are.”

  I look at her. Really look at her. And I start to see the blackberry-thicket free spirit, trying to stand out. I see the high school truant, trying to break out. I see the daughter, trying to avoid another falling-out. I see my mom, always on the lookout.

  And I see the person, the sum of these parts, smiling at me now, trying to reach out. I realize that’s what she’s been trying to do all along, with all of her rules. She’s been reaching out all my life.

  This time, I reach back. And I give her a big, fat hug.

  Outside, the twins’ documentary is showing on the side of the freshly painted
house. Though their mission was to capture an endangered bird on film, the video is a bit of a detour. After a fruitless search for Bachman’s warbler, then the sparrow-tailed kite, then a Florida scrub jay, then the grasshopper sparrow, then an endangered anything of any kingdom, phylum, or class whatsoever, they resorted to filming any creature of any type that is rare, or even not so rare, alive or not so alive. As expected, the alive things are mostly running for their lives. Set to a pop beat, the film shows frogs, squirrels, snakes, Herbie, Albert/Odysseus, all sorts of common birds, and finally, Beatrice’s elusive kitten, which was finally caught on film when Beatrice set the camera on a tripod in solitude all night.

  “Oh, look, here’s Aristotle!” Beatrice calls out. “Now everyone gets to see him!”

  In the greenish night-vision tone, we can’t quite make out the kitten’s color. But we can see other things. Like his crooked tail. The dark markings on his ears and snout. A little cowlick on his back.

  “Beatrice!” My father almost chokes on his lemonade. “Puma! Concolor! Coryi!”

  “Puma concolor coryi?” Henry repeats, blinking.

  “Puma concolor coryi!” Beatrice exclaims. Her eyes look almost as big as the lenses of the shared glasses.

  “Excuse me,” Rosie Dunwoody says, “I speak two languages—English and alligator—and I have no earthly idea what you’re saying.”

  “Sorry about that, folks!” my dad says. “What we have here is the Florida panther.”

  There’s some chirping and chattering among everyone watching, but Dani says, “The Florida panther? Can’t be. There’s less than a hundred of them left.”

  “You’re right, Dani. Critically endangered.” He turns to the twins. “Well, Beatrice, Henry, you should be proud of yourselves.”

  “But we didn’t find any of the birds, Dad,” Henry says.

  “But this is magnificent—it’s truly wonderful!” my dad says.

  The twins just stare at him with matching expressions of confusion.

  Henry says, “What do you mean, Dad? If this was an actual school project, we’d get an F.”

  But that doesn’t seem to bother my dad. “Did you know,” he says in a very twinlike tone, “that penicillin was discovered as a mold growing on the discarded petri dishes that Sir Alexander Fleming threw out, when he failed to find a ‘wonder drug’? And do you realize that penicillin has saved hundreds of thousands of lives since?”

  “Oh! I took that when I had an ear infection!” Beatrice says.

  Rae turns to me and smiles. “One more thing to celebrate tonight. Epic failure.”

  I think of all the things that have happened this summer, despite the fact that I failed at all nine things on Petunia’s list, and I smile. I’m already celebrating.

  “No regrets, right, Edie?”

  “No, but . . .” The moment feels right. “There is something from the list that I’d still like to do.”

  “What?”

  “Um, it’s probably best to do this with Mitchell.”

  “With Mitchell, huh?” A ridiculous, heavy-lidded look oozes onto her face, and she starts to make kissing noises. And not to scare off any snakes.

  I get a little embarrassed. “Rae, uh—”

  She laughs. “Go for it, Edie! And let me know how it is. It’s got to be better than pillows and vacuums. The real thing, I mean.”

  I want to laugh, but there’s no time. I’m ready for this now. “You want to come with me?”

  “Uh, no. That would be”—and she sings the word—“Awk. Ward!”

  I smile and start heading to the backyard. Into the dark. I feel great. Better than ever.

  I can do this. I can do this! I can!

  I keep walking until I’m there. At the snake enclosure. Right at the gate. And then past the gate. He’s huddled over Imelda’s cage but looks up at me. “Edie?”

  “Hi,” I say, feeling a little dizzy.

  “Hi.”

  “So, Mitchell?”

  “Yeah?”

  In for three, out for four. “I need you for something—your help, I mean.”

  “Sure. What?”

  Yes, he may be a charmer all right, but—

  “Will you show me how to catch a snake?” My heart flutters around like that monarch butterfly. Emerging out of that cocoon of caterpillar soup. Ugh. Thank you for that image, Henry.

  But Mitchell smiles. Dimples. And says, “Finally.”

  Chapter 27

  Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, (Extended) Family

  The minivan is packed. Very tightly. Very efficiently, like it’s some sort of three-dimensional puzzle. It’s just waiting for my family to get in and fill in the empty spaces.

  Uncle A.J. gives me a soft punch to the shoulder. “Be careful out there, Spitfire.”

  I can’t help but be flattered that he’s calling me Spitfire now. I still wish it was Firecracker, but Spitfire will do.

  Rae just rolls her eyes. I smile at my uncle.

  Then I hear a voice cry out, “Hang on!”

  I look over. Mitchell’s running across the yard toward us, his wild hair springing out in all directions.

  He’s got something in his hands. A small cage. My stomach drops, my mind races.

  What if it’s a—

  Just because I’ve actually held a snake in my hands doesn’t mean I’m going to pull a Petunia and—

  “I brought you all a turtle,” he says.

  Phew. And then my relief turns into excitement. A turtle! Something testudinal! This is our thing! We have a thing!

  Henry holds out his arms. “Can I see it?”

  “Oh. Sure. But leave him in the cage, okay? He’s alive.”

  “Alive?” Henry and Beatrice say together.

  “Yeah. Alive and moving. Not stuffed or anything,” Mitchell tells them.

  The twins wow and exclaim and practically swoon over the creature, which has tucked itself neatly—and smartly—inside its protective shell.

  “Wow. A real pet!” Beatrice says.

  “You can name him,” Mitchell says. “He’ll answer to anything.”

  I smile at Mitchell. Okay, I beam at him. I radiate. I’m practically radioactive with pure glee. He is cute. Carp, he’s cute.

  Rae nods at us. “Go say a real good-bye.”

  My face tightens with embarrassment. Mitchell turns a little red himself. My parents are talking over directions with my uncle, and the twins are arguing over names for the turtle.

  Mitchell and I look at each other. “So, want to say bye to Imelda? You know, I think she kind of likes you.”

  I still feel a little shudder, remembering the strangely smooth feeling of the ball python sliding over my hand and forearm as I tried to breathe evenly. I tried to be calm. It’s not that the fear went away. I just felt a little like I had outgrown it—like I had been trapped inside it for too long. I can’t help but wonder if that’s how a snake feels every time it sheds its skin.

  Still, I’m not eager to do it again. Though I feel proud of myself, I’ll admit that snakes are just not my thing. I wave in the direction of the enclosure. “Catch you later, Imelda.”

  Although I don’t know when later will be, or if it will be at all. The thought makes me sad.

  “Well,” he says, looking a little splotchy.

  “Well,” I say.

  Our eyes meet again. They’re getting pretty good at that. And then I decide to go for it. Why not? Gutsy Edie isn’t scared. Well, okay, maybe she is—but she won’t let that stop her! I take a step closer to him, and he leans in toward me. I press my lips into his cheek, but he moves and the rim of my glasses shifts, and I’m suddenly staring into his ear.

  Oh. I snort, and he laughs a little and wraps his arms around me. He squeezes me, a little too hard, and I squeeze back, a few extra seconds longer. Three seconds of my life I’ll never, ever forget. Even though this hug feels sort of like the time I got stuck between the mattress and my wall, I feel strangely liberated. Oddly free.

 
We release each other. Our smiles seem to be stuck on our faces; I don’t think I could make mine go away if I tried.

  “Keep in touch, Edie, okay?”

  I promise him that I will. We say our good-byes, and he walks off down the worn path. Halfway to his house, he turns and waves.

  “So, how was it?” Rae asks, joining me.

  “What?” I try to act casual.

  “Kissing the charmer.”

  “Glorious failure,” I say. “My glasses got stuck on his ear.”

  A laugh flies out of her.

  I laugh too, although I suddenly want to cry. There’s been talk about spending a holiday together, Rae’s family and mine. Our family, I marvel. Ours with a capital O. But still, the summer’s over, and I don’t know for sure when I’ll see her again.

  “I wish we didn’t have to go,” I say.

  “Me too. I’m going to miss you, Edie.”

  “I’m going to miss you too.”

  “I’m going to miss you more,” she says.

  “I’m going to miss you so much I could write a sonnet about it,” I say, and it makes her laugh again.

  We sit down on the porch step. She says, “It’s weird to think I didn’t even know you six weeks ago. Now I can’t even imagine that. I feel so—”

  She stops talking and shakes her head.

  “What?”

  “It sounds stupid. It doesn’t even make sense.”

  “What doesn’t?”

  “How I feel. I mean, part of me just feels like yay! that I have you as a cousin. And a friend. But then the other part of me feels the exact opposite, since we’re all going away. Like just the thought of us being apart—it actually hurts. It makes my heart feel super-scabby.” She looks at me. “See what I mean? It doesn’t make sense. Happy and sad at the same time.”

  “Rae, it makes perfect sense to me.”

  We smile together, but she looks like she’s straining to keep something in. In fact, it looks like she’ll burst if she keeps it inside for much longer. Even I know it’s a prime opportunity to quote Shakespeare. So I just say, “Go ahead.”