by Jack Gantos
Then he placed his lips against her skin again. “Give me the first number,” he whispered. He waited. We waited, and waited. But nothing happened. Finally Mom couldn’t wait any longer.
“I’ve got to get going,” she said, backing away and pulling her shirt down. “My belly isn’t a Ouija board.”
“But babies can see into the future,” Charles said.
“Well, I hope it looks better than what I see,” she said scornfully. “Now give me your credit card, I can’t wait for you to conjure up a winner.” She stuck out her hand.
Dad pulled out his wallet and gave her one that had both their names on it.
“Thanks, sugar,” she said, taking the card and kissing him on the head. Then she turned toward me. “Freddy, go in the house and put those two bags of baby shower gifts in the car for me.”
“I thought your friends gave you gifts at the shower?” Charles said.
“Honey she replied,”it makes me feel good to buy things for my friends, which is why I have friends and you two just have each other and the perros. Now you want me to be your dream angel, don’t you, sweetie?”
“Of course, sugar,” he replied. “You go wear that credit card out and we’ll see you in a few days.”
I took the bags of gifts to the car and said goodbye to her, and when I returned to the diner Dad was sitting there with his head in his hands.
“Freddy,” he called when he looked up.
“Yeah, Dad?” I answered.
“Get me that stack of mail out of my post office.”
I trotted down to the end of the diner, where Dad had taken over a second booth and called it his “post office.” There was a stack of credit card letters.
“Do you want these bills?” I hollered back.
“They’re not bills,” he said. “Just bring them to me.”
I carried them back to him and he opened the top envelope and pulled out a card. “Here’s your first credit card,” he said, holding it up. I read the name on it—JOEY PIGZA. “Now sign it on the back.”
“Don’t you have to be an adult?” I asked.
“You’re not in school,” he replied. “That means you are an adult.”
“But the name says Joey,” I pointed out.
“Exactly,” he replied, and winked at me. “So billing him will be like trying to bill a breath of air you had last year.”
“Is this criminal?” I asked.
“We’re just making our own luck,” he explained. “Now sign, and when we build our paintball empire we’ll pay it all back.”
“But what if I can’t pay it?”
“Don’t worry, they won’t throw a kid in jail for debt.”
I really didn’t know what to say but for just a moment, a quick little moment, I knew that something smelled rotten. It was one of those moments that if you were with the wrong kind of people you would take off running for your life. But since I was with Dad I just did as I was told. I signed the back of the card.
“Great!” he said.
I didn’t know what to say so I said, “Do you want fries with that card?”
“Maybe later,” he said, “but right now I feel something different coming over me.”
“Like what? A cold?” I asked.
“No. Just something like a seed sprouting out of the ground. You know, like something inside me wants to break out and come to life.”
“Maybe you feel spring coming on,” I suggested.
“I can’t wait for that,” he said with sudden determination as he stood up. “I’m going to do it now. I’m going to take the plunge and do it!” He pounded his fist on the table.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“The face change,” he said, unfolding a brochure. “The plastic surgery I told you about.”
I sat down next to him and looked. You could pick from a list of noses, eye treatments, chin implants, cheek implants, eyebrow shapes, lip sizes—it was like playing Mr. Potato Head with all the mix-and-match features. He had already circled a few changes he wanted to make.
“Aren’t you afraid of getting all cut up?” I asked.
“Nah,” he said bravely. “That part doesn’t scare me. But I do have this one oddball fear that after the bandages come off I’m going to look into the mirror and not know who the heck I am. You know what I mean?”
“I do,” I replied. “Because once I gave up being Joey it took me a while to figure out who Freddy was.”
“Exactly,” he agreed. “I worry that might happen to me, too, and I’ll have to go make myself up all over again.”
“Then don’t chance it,” I said. “Besides, can’t you just wait until Heinzie is born?”
“I want to have my face changed now so I don’t confuse the baby,” he said. “I want little Heinzie to bond with the new Charles. I don’t want him seeing my old Carter face. He’d think he had two dads!”
“Well, how are you going to pay for it?” I asked now that I knew we were running out of money.
He grinned and held up the new credit card with my old name on it. “Now that you’ve given me a little rainy day cash,” he said, slipping the card into his pocket, “I’m all set. Besides, if I don’t spend this on my face now, I may never get another chance. With the way your mom runs through cash,” he said, waving his arms overhead, “this whole place will be out of operation.”
In a few minutes he called the private clinic. They just had a cancellation and could take him immediately. “See,” he said after he hung up the phone. “Nothing to worry about. Luck is on my side.”
“But you can’t leave me by myself. I’m just a kid.”
“Don’t kid yourself, Freddy. Be a man. You’re old enough to handle a couple days on your own. Besides, you know where to reach me if you need me.”
Within an hour the dogs and I followed him outside with his tote bag of clothes where a taxi was waiting. “I should be home before your mom, but if not she’ll be home in a few days,” he said. “But whatever you do,” he warned me, “don’t answer the door, and don’t answer the phone, and it would be best if you don’t play outside.”
“What can I do then?” I asked.
“I think you need to come up with some special Freddy Fries,” he suggested. “Something hot and spicy we can sell at the paintball gallery.”
“Okay, I’ll work on it,” I said, and turned to go.
“One more thing,” he called out, grinning at me. “Take a last look at this beat-up old face because you are going to be blinded by a superstar face the next time you lay eyes on me.”
I took a good look at him, and thought to myself it didn’t matter if I remembered his old face or not. I’d just have to adjust to whatever changes he made.
Once the cab pulled out onto the road, I went back into the house. I climbed up to my room. There was a lot to think about with so much happening, and happening quickly. Soon Mom was going to have a baby. Charles was going to have a baby face and I needed to baby myself. I took off my old patch and tossed it in the trash, then put a fresh one on.
“Get ready, Freddy,” I said to myself. “I smell trouble.”
I stood up to look out my window because it was better than looking into my own panicky mind. I stared at the tree. It was still dark brown, but where the new branches and leaves would arrive were small green nubs already poking up like noses to sniff the air and make sure that it was safe to come out all the way. The new leaves didn’t take chances. Even though winter had been light those leaves were waiting for the sun to warm them up and only then would they peek out like kitten eyes opening for the first time. Then they’d grow larger and stronger until once again they’d look like those leaf hands waving for me in the warm wind, and no matter what trouble came my way we’d hang on together.
13
WHAT GOES AROUND
As Mom’s doctor said, we needed a family apartment at the hospital once all four of us suddenly found ourselves living there.
I was the first one to check in.
M
om and Dad had left the house the day before. I’d spent most of my time watching TV and playing with the dogs until I got bored. Then I locked myself up in the diner kitchen and started cooking up some gourmet Freddy Fries. It was actually great to be alone because I could finally get some cooking done without Dad telling me not to make a mess, or Mom telling me what food smells made her tummy “churn.” I had already invented Salsa-Seasoned Fries for the Paintball Empire and I was working on K-9 Freddy Fries. I pounded up a bunch of dog biscuits with a hammer then rolled the cut-up potatoes in the crumbs and let them sit for a minute. Then I dressed the dogs for dinner with little white napkins tied around their necks and I sat them on the counter stools. I had given them each a little doggy menu I made with only one choice—K-9 Freddy Fries. I had taken their food order and given them their own bowls of water, then stepped back into the kitchen to lower the basket of K-9 Fries in the boiling Frialator oil. Suddenly there was pounding on the front door. It startled me and the dogs began to bark and they jumped down from their stools. I went into the front of the diner. It was already dark but I could make out a big man banging his forehead on the glass.
“What do you want?” I hollered.
“It’s Dick!” he wailed. “Carter’s old friend Dick.”
I hadn’t seen him since the wedding, when he got drunk and Dad had to ask him to leave the reception. Dad had fed him at Thanksgiving but now he was back. I thought maybe he was hungry again.
“Please, let me in,” he cried. He waved a fistful of money over his head then pounded on the door again.
I thought he was going to break the glass so I said, “Okay, just a minute.” I figured some Freddy Fries would settle him down and then he’d leave. He could be my first human diner customer.
But as soon as I unlocked the door he lunged at me like a drunken polar bear. “Here’s your money!” he roared, and tried to wrap his arms around me. The tears streamed from his eyes and his drunken breath was awful. He held up the money for me to see then lunged at me again. I didn’t have my helmet on and as I stepped back I tripped over El Gordo, who yelped as I flew backward, and slammed my head against the sharp edge of the coffee counter. All I could picture in my brain was the sound of a baseball bat snapping. My head bounced up and as I dropped toward the floor I smacked my head on the metal footrest that jutted up from the bottom of the stool. I didn’t black out but I almost wished I had because Dick just leaned over me and he was wringing his hands and blubbering and asking what he should do next.
“Call 911,” I whispered. “I think I recracked my head.” It was throbbing.
He called them and then he stood over me. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “You’re bleeding.”
“Is it red liquid, or white?” I asked.
“Red,” he said, pressing on it with napkins.
“That’s better,” I guessed. “I just don’t want my brain leaking out.”
“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I was just trying to return the money. I have all five grand of it.”
“It’s fine,” I said. “Just turn off the fryer and take care of the dogs. You can stay at the house.”
Dick nodded.
Then I closed my eyes and Dick held my hand and we waited quietly for the ambulance to arrive, and when it did they carefully picked me up and put me on a special neck-and-head-brace stretcher and we raced toward the hospital.
“Am I going to be okay?” I asked the EMT who was taking my temperature.
“You look familiar,” he replied. “Aren’t you the same kid who did this last year?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Last time I was knocked out.”
“What’s your name?”
“That’s kind of a confusing question,” I said.
“You better rest,” he suggested after giving me a careful look. “I think it’s just a bad cut. Everything will be fine.”
And it was.
In the ER, they wanted to know how to find my parents. I told them Mom was at a spa and Dad was at the downtown face clinic.
“Oh, the butcher shop” is what one doctor remarked. He seemed to know the clinic I was talking about. Then they stitched me up.
I fell asleep on my little curtained-off bed. When I woke up I couldn’t turn my head at all because I had a plastic brace on my neck and my head was still wrapped up as if they were trying to keep it from splitting open like a broken egg. But I looked worse than I felt.
When the nurse saw I was awake she came over to my bed and gave me a sip of water.
“Don’t worry about your head,” she said. “It’s fine. The doctor just put the brace on your neck to keep you from rolling around in your sleep.”
“Thanks,” I said as she removed it.
“And here’s something else I don’t want you to worry about,” she said. “Your mother is here.”
“To visit me?”
“Not just yet,” she replied. “At the moment she is a patient on the maternity ward. She just had a baby.”
“But it’s not due yet,” I said.
“No one told the baby that,” she said.
“Can I visit her?” I asked the nurse.
She glanced at her watch. “Sure,” she said. “There’s a spare bed in her room, so you can stay with her.”
The nurse helped me stand up and I walked like a robot onto an elevator and we went up a floor and off to Mom’s room, where she was resting.
The nurse sat me in Mom’s wheelchair then left us alone. Mom was dozing and I stared at her until she opened her eyes and blinked as if she had just come out of a dream and didn’t know where she was. She had a tube in her arm and looked as if she were a deflated balloon they were trying to blow back up.
“It’s me, Freddy,” I said.
“Oh, sweetie, I heard you were here,” she said with concern, and she raised her arms for me to come hug her.
“I heard about you, too,” I said, and wheeled my way over to the side of her bed.
“What happened?” she asked. “And where’s your father?”
“You tell me your story first,” I said as I leaned over and hugged her. “My busted head story is about the same dumb thing as before, only this time not so bad.”
She smiled. “My birth story is about the same as when I had you, too. But not so bad, either. I’m just really sore.”
“Does that mean Heinzie is a boy like me?”
“Yes,” she said. “Another nutty boy who showed up early just like you did. The two of you have no patience.”
“Can I see him?”
“In a little bit,” she said. “He’s in the intensive care unit, but they promised to bring me to him for some special mother love when he’s ready.”
“Why’d he come early?”
“I was a little more pregnant than what they thought and I did something stupid. I was at the spa with the girls and this morning we all had facials and massages and then they talked me into going into the hot tub, which was a mistake. I overheated and suddenly I had a terrible pain in my belly that wouldn’t go away and I got lobster red and my blood pressure shot up and the girls hauled me out of the tub and into the minivan and drove me to the emergency room, where the baby was in a ‘fragile’ state and I had to have an emergency cesarean section. The baby is fine. He was just a little early, is all.”
And then I heard Dad’s voice say, “And I’m a bit late.”
He was the last of the Heinz family to arrive. I looked toward the door but wouldn’t have known it was him unless he told me because he had white gauze bandages wrapped in circles from his neck up to the top of his head where just a few dark hairs stuck out like oily weeds. All I could see of his face were two beady eyes and a greasy brown food stain on the gauze around his swollen lips.
“What happened to you?” I asked as he staggered through the doorway and moaned like a mummy in a scary old movie.
“Complications,” he whispered painfully. “Infection set in.”
That gave me the willies.
> Mom had a different reaction. “I can’t believe you left Freddy alone and then missed the birth of your own son—again!” she said. She slapped the bed so hard she jerked the tube and I had to hop up to catch the metal stand before it fell over.
“Relax,” Dad said, but that only made it worse.
“And then you went and got your face rearranged without telling me,” she continued, still angry. “You know I wanted mine done, too.”
“I wanted it to be a surprise,” he mumbled.
“Oh,” she said, wincing as she sat up a bit. “And here’s another surprise.”
“Mom,” I said quietly, “you should stay calm.”
It must have hurt Charles to talk because he just nodded in agreement with what I said.
“How can I be calm when the credit card he gave me was refused by the hospital?” she said crossly. “And this is going to cost a fortune,” she continued, pointing toward us all.
“Guess I won the lottery of bad luck,” Dad said softly, as he slowly shook his head back and forth.
“Well, what goes around comes around,” Mom said, sounding tired again.
“But I have good news,” I said, suddenly remembering. “Dick returned with the money he owed Dad.”
“What?” Dad said, perking up when I mentioned money.
“That’s how I cut my head,” I explained. “He came by with the money and scared me and I fell down.”
“Do you know where he is?” Dad asked.
“At the diner,” I replied. “He’s taking care of the dogs. Or they’re taking care of him.”
Dad let out a painful snuffle. “Don’t make me laugh,” he begged. “It pulls on my stitches.”
He stood up. The way he was bandaged made him look like his brain had been amputated. “Freddy,” he said, “let’s allow your mom to rest.”
“See you later,” I said, and blew her a kiss. She blew one back.
We were not out of the room for two seconds when Dad said to me in his reedy voice, “Did you see the cash in Dick’s hand?”
“Yeah,” I replied. “It was about the last thing I did see.”
“Good,” he said, straining. “Call him and have him bring the cash. But not a word to your mom.”
