by Lee Wardlaw
Last but not least, I told Hic about that long-awaited, dream-come-true meeting . . .
. . . and how it had ended quickly, nightmarishly, with four curt words:
“Sorry, kid. Not interested.”
Chapter Six
“But! What?! Not!” Hic sputtered like popcorn in hot oil. “Didn’t Mr. Patterson give you a chance to properly demonstrate the alarm?” He clapped a hand to his mouth, eyes wide with dismay. “Oh, doh! You dibn’t ambudade his dose, dib you?”
I laughed. “No, I didn’t amputate his nose. The Nice Alarm worked nicely.”
“Then what was the reason for his negative response?”
A rusty nail scratched a painful memory in my head: Mr. Patterson’s polite smile erasing even before the alarm’s second tap on his shoulder.
“He thought the alarm was too nice,” I explained. “He told me”—I imitated his booming voice—“Mr. Wyatt! In this tech-savvy world, our customers want novelty items that offer more whiz-bang for their buck!”
“Whiz-bang?” Hic frowned. “I don’t understand. Would he prefer an alarm clock that launches fireworks?”
“Maybe.”
“But an incendiary device wouldn’t awaken sleepers gently. It would jolt them to consciousness, forcing them to flee their beds to extinguish a fire!”
“Which defeats the whole purpose of the alarm.”
“Exactly!”
“Exactly!” I nodded, relieved we agreed, relieved that I’d told him—and that he understood.
“To whom will you demonstrate the alarm now?” Hiccup asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Surely Patterson Enterprises is not the only company producing novelty items.”
I kicked at my bike tire. Hic didn’t understand after all. “Didn’t you hear what I said? The Nice Alarm is a flop! A failure! It fizzled—end of story.”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Hiccup leaped to his feet like MM come to life: fists on hips, jaw set. “You cannot surrender now, Sneeze! Mr. Patterson is just one person, one opinion. You must demonstrate the Nice Alarm to others. If it is rejected again, then you must demonstrate it to someone else, and to someone else after that, until you succeed!”
Sorry, kid. Not interested.
My stomach twisted. “No. I’m done, Hic. I can’t face being rejected again.”
“The alarm was rejected,” Hic said, “not you.” He righted his bike, hooked his helmet into place. “If you choose not to contact other manufacturers, then the only person responsible for the Nice Alarm’s demise is . . . yourself !”
Ouch. He had a point.
“How’d you get so smart, Hector?”
“It is the company I keep,” he said, flashing an embarrassed smile. “Although, I am not totally without flaws. There exist two major snags in this scenario. First, due to prohibitive travel costs, you cannot demonstrate the Alarm in person to additional potential buyers. Second, due to extreme risk factors, you cannot ship your sole prototype to said buyers for examination.”
After I’d translated his “snags” into English, the proverbial lightbulb switched on inside my head. “Ah, but that’s where CAD comes in handy!”
“CAD?” Hiccup frowned. “Coronary artery disease?”
I laughed. “ Computer-aided design. It’s one of the classes I signed up for this semester at Patrick Henry High.”
I’m considered a “gifted” student. So, in addition to attending Jefferson Middle this year, my parents pulled strings to allow me to take three advanced high school courses as well. I was especially excited about CAD because that class would teach me how to design, build, and test 3-D invention prototypes on the computer. CAD is a cheaper, easier way to invent because you don’t have to fork out big bucks to erect a working model until you know for sure it works.
“My original plan,” I explained to Hiccup, “was to use CAD for inventing stuff to ease Mom and Dad’s lives after Sis is born. Stuff like the Loaded Diaper Pager and Butt-Oh-So-Fresh and the Rubber Baby Body Burper. But since Sis isn’t due till December, I can use part of the semester to create CAD plans for the Nice Alarm—the kind I can submit via e-mail to other manufacturers.”
“Brilliant!” Hiccup said. “And I assume you will need assistance researching names and addresses of additional novelty companies? I humbly offer my services.”
“I humbly accept.” I glimpsed my wristwatch. “Yikes, I gotta get home, Hic. I haven’t even had a chance to say hi to the Guys!”
The Guys (Edison, Bell, Ben, and the Wright Brothers) were my tropical fish. I’m allergic to all things feathered and furred, so the Guys were the only pets I’d ever owned. Hiccup fed them at his house while I was away. I wouldn’t entrust my scaly confidants to anyone else. I mean, Hic was the kind of guy who’d take a bullet for them.
“I hope they behaved themselves,” I said, straddling my bike. “That ornery Ben—always first in the chow line. And Bell! Does he still play hide-’n’-seek in the sunken treasure chest?” I chuckled. “Never mind. Fill me in tomorrow, okay?”
“I, ahem, would prefer to accompany you now. It’s imperative we discuss a matter of great sensitivity. After you disinfect yourself, of course.”
“Of course.”
“And perhaps I might stay for dinner? That is, if She doesn’t mind.”
Hiccup’s eyes glazed like dreamy donuts. They tend to take on that look whenever one of us mentions Mom.
“We’re having pizza,” I warned. “What about your allergy to wheat gluten? And what’s this matter of ‘great sensitivity’ you need to—?”
Before I could finish, Hiccup vaulted his bike and blasted off.
I thunked my helmet into place and scrambled to catch up, coasting behind him into the garage and edging with care past Dad’s vintage 1976 Caddy convertible. The trunk yawned. Inside it, hunched like a boxy toad next to the jumper cables, sat the Nice Alarm.
I leaned in. Lifted it out. The clock tick-ticked in perky, perfect time. Its arm with padded glove fell forward and patted me twice on the shoulder as if to say: You did your best, Sneeze. Thanks for trying.
I returned the reassurance: I won’t give up. Someday, you’ll be built for thousands to enjoy . . .
“Steve?” I heard Mom call. “That you?”
“It’s me, Mrs. Wyatt!” Hic yipped, charging through the back door. “Hector! Hector Denar—gaaack!”
Ah, he’d spotted the Belly.
I placed the Nice Alarm on the kitchen counter and hurried to the living room. Hic stood staring, stammering, “You’re—you’re—”
“Behemothic?” Mom guessed with a weary smile. She lay on the sofa, her swollen feet propped on pillows. The Belly served as a mounded desk with letters, bills, and catalogs cascading into a mail moat below.
“No, no!” Hiccup insisted. “You’re small, Mrs. Wyatt! Infinitesimal!”
“Dear, sweet Hector. You lie like your dogs. But you’ve grown faster than E. coli this summer, hasn’t he, Steve?”
I hadn’t noticed (how had I not noticed?) that Hiccup stretched at least three inches above me now. His face was a battlefield, freckles engaged in a great civil war against a battalion of red, angry zits.
“I’m starved,” Mom said, arising with a grunt. “Stay for dinner, Hector? We’re having pizza, curdled milk, wilted lettuce, and a bag of Halloween candy I found in the freezer. That’s all we’ve got till I buy groceries tomorrow.”
“Mm-mm!” Hiccup exclaimed. No surprise. He would cheerfully snack on broken glass if it meant dining with Mom.
“Stephen.” She grimaced. “You’re green. Did one of your inventions decompose again?”
“No, Mom.”
“Then what—?”
“It’s a long story, Mom.”
“Do I want to hear it?”
“No.” I grinned. “I’ll go shower now.”
“Yes, you will. And Hector: Call your mother and let her know you’re staying for dinner. I don’t want her to worry.”
After only minutes in the shower, I was lassoed by the succulent scent of re-heating pizza. (Mental note: Design a “Mama Mia! Alarm” that tantalizes you to consciousness with pizza aromas.) I didn’t even bother going to my room to dress. I just snagged Dad’s ratty robe from where it hung behind the bathroom door and leaped the stairs, three at time, to the kitchen. There I found Dad tossing a limp salad, Mom fussing with the silverware, and Hiccup fussing over Mom. He pulled out her chair and, with a flourish, draped a napkin across the Belly.
“Hector, I’m pregnant, not an invalid,” Mom said with a hint of exasperation, although I could tell she enjoyed the attention.
Dad studied the kitchen clock. “Hector, my boy, you’ve set a personal record. Two months, three weeks, four days, five minutes, six seconds since you last dined with us. But I’m sure you’ll make up for lost time in no time.”
It needles Dad that Hiccup spends so many “family meals” with us. Probably because Hiccup spends so many of our family meals needling Dad about his questionable food choices.
Hiccup eyed the bowl of wilted lettuce with his own version of Hayley’s SOS.
“Don’t you have any tomatoes, Mr. Barker?” he asked. “They’re an excellent source of vitamin C that will boost the baby’s immune system.”
Dad yodeled into the cavernous fridge, “Hel-loo! Any tomatoes in there? Nope, sorry. Will ketchup or moldy salsa do?”
Hic sniffed. “I think not.”
“I’m impressed with your nutritional knowledge, Hector,” Mom said. “Perhaps we’ll hire you as the baby’s dietician.”
Hic looked hopeful, but Dad sniffed. “I think not.”
We tore into the pizza. Not Hic. He selected one slice, peeled off the cheese, discarded the crust, and lectured us on the dangers of sodium nitrates in pepperoni. Mom made him lick at the tomato sauce, though, because tomatoes are an excellent source of vitamin C.
For dessert we gnawed on the frozen Milky Way bars (except Hic, who fretted about cracking a tooth). That’s when Dad ruffled his already ruffled hair, cleared his throat, and announced, “Stephen, I’m afraid we have bad news.”
I felt a queasiness that had nothing to do with sodium nitrates. “Plain, ordinary bad news?” I asked. “Or ‘We bought you a new tropical fish’ bad news?”
My parents have a nasty habit of springing bad news at the dinner table and bribing me with a new fish to ease the springing of bad news at the dinner table.
“Our news isn’t fish-worthy,” Dad said, shooting a glance at Hiccup. “But—ow! ” He gawped at Mom. “Did you just kick me?”
“Sorry,” she said, nibbling her candy bar. “Crossed my bloated ankles.”
Hic snatched our plates and began scrubbing them in the soapy sink.
I gripped my chair. “I’m ready, unless I need a cigarette and a blindfold.”
“Your schedules for both schools came in the mail while we were gone,” Mom said, slipping an envelope from beneath her placemat. “You got all the classes you registered for—except PE.”
“That’s good news!” (I’d made a point of not registering for PE.)
“You’re required to take phys ed,” said Dad. “And in order to get yourself from Patrick Henry to Jefferson Middle in time for PE, I’m afraid you’ll have to drop your third period class.”
I swallowed. “Which. Class. Is. That?” I asked, knowing the answer before Mom took a printed form from the envelope and read aloud:
“Computer-aided design.”
Chapter Seven
“Oh, no,” I said. “I can’t drop that class. I won’t!”
“I understand your disappointment,” Mom said, “especially coming on the heels of Mr. Patterson—”
“You don’t understand at all, Mom. CAD is crucial for the Nice Alarm—and all the other inventions bursting to get out of my brain!”
Dad said, “Maybe next semester you could—”
“I can’t wait four months to work on my inventions!”
“No one’s asking you—”
I shoved backward, chair shrieking against the floor. “CAD is the main reason I agreed to take morning classes at Patrick Henry. And now you’re making me drop it? Why? So I can trot around a grass-infested field, sneezing my nose off?”
“Sweetheart, it’s out of our hands,” Mom said.
“The state requires that every student your age take PE,” Dad explained.
“This is unacceptable!” I kicked my chair. It crashed onto its side.
Hiccup jumped, soapsuds flying.
“Stephen Wyatt.” Mom’s tone was scarily calm. “Right now it’s your behavior that is unacceptable.”
Dad pointed his candy bar at me. “Enough with the melodrama. Go to your room. We’re all punchy from traveling. We’ll discuss this in the morning.”
“But—”
“Now.”
“But—”
“What part of now don’t you understand?”
“Fine, okay, whatever,” I grumbled. “C’mon, Hic.”
“Hector goes nowhere but home,” Dad said.
“I cannot depart just yet, Mr. Wyatt.” Hic stood twisting a dish towel. “There is still the sensitive matter I must discuss with him.”
“Do you mean to say you haven’t told him yet?”
Hiccup’s freckles blotched.
“Told me what?” I asked.
“Pretend it’s a bandage, Hector,” Mom advised. “Best just to rip ’er off fast and get it over with.”
Hic nodded, mouth grim.
“You’re scaring me, people,” I said. “What’s going on?”
Hic sighed. “I shall explain everything, Sneeze. Will you please accompany me upstairs?”
“Gladly,” I answered, although what I felt more was dread.
Hic knotted the dish towel into an origami flower. Ears pinking, he presented it to Mom. “A blossom for a blossom . . . to remember me by.”
“How thoughtful, Hector,” she murmured. “It’s very . . . cottony.”
“Maybe we should offer him a blindfold and cigarette,” Dad muttered.
“Hush,” Mom said.
As we left the kitchen, you could’ve heard a cat whisker drop.
Hic led the way through the living room, up the stairs, and down the hall to my bedroom. He paused outside the door, straightening his shoulders before nudging it open.
I craned around his tall, skinny form and glimpsed my aquarium. It sat, as usual, on the desk next to my bed. I felt a thrum of excitement.
The Guys!
I burst into the room. Snatched a small yellow container from my bookshelf, ready to sprinkle the food flakes, eager to watch my buddies zip to the surface, tails wriggling, mouths gulping, blowing kiss-bubbles of thanks . . .
But—
The Guys were gone.
So was the water . . . and the turquoise gravel . . . and the plastic kelp . . . and the little plastic treasure chest with diver.
“Hiccup,” I said, facing him. “Where are the Guys?”
He stared at the carpet, rubbing a stain with the toe of one sneaker.
“Where. Are. The. Guys.”
He rubbed harder.
“WHERE? ” I demanded.
In the olden days (meaning every day of Hector’s life until last May), this was the moment he would’ve started hiccupping. Hic used to hic whenever he felt flustered, flummoxed, frightened, fretful, or fraudulent (hence, the nickname Ace bestowed upon him). The hiccups lasted hours, often a week or more.
But those days were gone. Hiccup had been cured. There were no hics forthcoming this time to help him stall for time.
“The Guys . . .” he admitted at last, “. . . expired.”
“No.” I felt numb. Dumb. “I don’t understand.”
“I know what ‘expire’ means. What I don’t understand is how. Sure, Edison was old, possibly senile. But the others—”
“It was an accident,” Hic said. “A terrible, terrible accident.” He slumped into my desk chair, head in his hands. “The aquarium needed cleaning. I followed your instructions exactly. Yet, afterward, there remained the most disgusting, decaying organic matter stuck to the glass.” He shuddered. “So I used cleanser—”
“You used cleanser?”
“—and bleach—”
“You used bleach?”
“—to scrub every nook and cranny—”
“You used cleanser and bleach!?”
He lifted his head, eyes shining at the memory. “Sneeze, you should’ve seen it! The aquarium sparkled like new. The Guys were dazzled! Grateful! They waved their little fins at me from where they watched in the auxiliary bowl. But within moments of being reintroduced to the tank, Edison began swimming perpendicularly. Ben darted to his aid, but halfway there he lost all volition. Then they were floating, belly-up—”
“You didn’t really follow my instructions, did you?” My voice sounded scarily calm like Mom’s had minutes before. “And the Guys, they didn’t just expire, did they? They were murdered. By you.”
“It was an accident! You must believe—”
With a strength and fury I didn’t know I had, I wrenched Hector to his feet. Shoved him out the door. Slammed it in his shocked and zitty face.
I flung myself onto my bed, trying not to cry.
A minute—or a million—passed.
Then—a tentative knock.
The door creaked. Hic tiptoed into the room again. “Please, please, please forgive me, Steve,” he said, his voice ragged.
I hunched toward the wall.
“It was a grievous mistake. I swear on MM’s cape that I’ll buy you as many fish as you want to replace—”
“Replace? Ha!” I said, my words bitter yet muffled against the pillow. “Nothing can replace good friends, Hic. The Guys and I, we’ve been through everything together: building the Nice Alarm, writing the ‘bug’ books. My inventor’s block, your hicking marathons. They deserved better than”— I rolled to face their executioner—“death by disinfectant!”
