Big Mouth

by Deborah Halverson

  Thuff! Thuff! Thuff! Thuff! Thuff! Thuff! Thuff! Thuff! Thuff! Thuff! Thuff! Thuff!

  * * *

  CHAPTER 15

  I was late for my shift at Scoops. I didn’t care, though. I wasn’t cutting my afternoon workout short. It was Thursday, and I’d been walking the track at the stadium every morning and every afternoon since Monday. That first day’s whole-body painfest was long gone, and there wasn’t even a hint of stiffness in my legs. And as of this morning, I could make it around the track four times in one workout, no breaking it up between the morning and evening workouts. That meant I was up to two miles a day. Not shabby at all.

  Grampy would probably be ticked that I was late, but tough, that’s what he got for starting my Thursday shifts at four-thirty. Sure, Thursdays were busy ones at the mall, but he and Arthur could deal without me for a few extra minutes. It wasn’t like we did heart surgery there or anything, it was just ice cream. People would live if they had to wait thirty seconds longer to get their scoop. I wouldn’t skip my stretches for that. Those were even better than the walking.

  I worked through my stretching routine, breathing in deeply with the tightening of each muscle, then breathing out slowly with each loose, limber release. I ended with a relaxing wide straddle, reaching my arms toeward. Not that I could touch my toes, but my stretched fingers were a little closer to reaching them than they were just a few days ago.

  What really mattered, though, was that it felt good to stretch. Nothing else felt even remotely good these days of stomach stretching and belt tightening. Seriously, if I wasn’t stuffing my belly like a Thanksgiving turkey, I was delirious with hunger and thirst. I should’ve changed my name from Thuff Enuff to Stuff & Starve Shermie. I couldn’t wait to drop this belt and leave the lettuce eating to the ladies. Let them worry about the ultimate summer bikini, I had my sights set on Tsunami and the Mustard Yellow International Hot Dog–Eating belt and then that would be that.

  The breeze was warm again today. Thanks to my thermal shirt, my undershirt, my T-shirt, my sweatshirt, and my new designer trash bag, my chest and back were soaking wet. Of all the layering, I hated the trash bag the most. Coach Hunt had found out that Gardo wasn’t Gut Wrapping and ordered him to wear a plastic trash bag with holes ripped for his head and arms. Which meant Gardo was making me wear a trash bag, too. It was tucked between my T-shirt and my sweatshirt. I felt like something that crawled out of the dump. When I shoved back my hood, my hair dripped with sweat. I had to squeeze my head under a water fountain spigot to get any relief after the walk. Luckily, I’d found a fountain at the base of the stadium steps that people didn’t seem to know about. It was in a secluded corner; everyone else used the one by the entrance.

  When it seemed like no one was paying attention to me, I grabbed my backpack from the grass and slipped around to my secret fountain. There I ripped off my soppy sweatshirt and top, then stuck my head under the faucet. Ahh, cool water! I splashed some of it on my chest, then rubbed myself dry with the towel I now kept in my backpack. I gave my belly a pat. Last night I’d downed the whole gallon of water before my fortune reversed, and on Tuesday I’d put away eighteen-and-one-bite HDBs before reversal. Maybe my capacity was expanding because my belt was starting to loosen up with the rest of my muscles. My training might actually be working. I just had to stick to Lucy’s graphs and Gardo’s workout routine and menus.

  I still missed real food, though. Gardo stopped bringing pickles as dessert, and he cut back our water allotment by half this morning. He wasn’t even showing up for our break feasts at the mall anymore. Lucy wasn’t, either, big surprise. With nobody to hang with at break time, I just found a seat in the food court and people-watched while I gnawed the celery that Gardo cut up and bagged for me. Last night I asked him if I could at least put peanut butter on the celery, and he totally wigged out on me. Apparently peanut butter wasn’t part of the Gardo Weight-Cutting System.

  I reached into my bag for a fresh Scoops T-shirt. That was when I remembered that even though I’d meant to grab a shirt out of the dryer on my way out this morning, in my rush to meet Gardo I’d blown right by the laundry room. Shoot. I’d have to put my soggy shirt back on again. Disgusting.

  I jammed the stupid towel back into my backpack. In the process, my hand pressed against something soft at the bottom. I pulled out a wadded piece of black fabric. My Galactic Warriors T-shirt. The shrunken one.

  I stared at it a moment. Then I looked at the sweat-drenched T-shirt lying on the cement. I looked back at the black shirt in my hand. It was dry. Aw, what the heck? I pulled it over my head and tugged it down. It was snug around the belly, but it fit.

  It fit!

  “Woo-hoo!” I danced a wild jig, my hands waving every which way. “Thuff Enuff, you kick butt! Woo-hoo!” Man, I was lucky no one knew about this corner.

  I grabbed my soggy stuff, jammed it all into my backpack, then raced up the stairs toward the bike racks. The Gardo System was working, my shrunken shirt fit! I punched the air like Rocky Balboa himself. Jab! Jab! Jab! Good-bye, jiggly ol’ Shermie belt; hello, Mustard Yellow International Hot Dog-Eating belt! Jab! Jab! Jab!

  I was a total loser. In the course of two brief hours I’d burned five waffle cones, cracked six triple dips, spilled a thousand-count bag of taster spoons, drizzled chocolate sauce on my shoes, squirted an old woman with whipped cream, and knocked Grampy’s prized Halsey Taylor double bubbler drinking fountain with nonremovable anti-squirt technology right off the wall. All I’d been doing was leaning in for a quick sip of agua. It was just a sip, Gardo, don’t get a nosebleed.

  Maybe I should’ve seen the bad karma lying in wait for me tonight. When I’d raced through the Scoops entrance, my shin was covered with chain grease and I had a headache to beat the band. Definitely not a great way to start a shift. And then, being twenty minutes late, I immediately caught a cherry in the left ear from Arthur and a verbal kick in the pants from Grampy. And that was the good part of the evening. When I snapped at a woman for making me rescoop the ice cream for her spoiled-brat kids because my scoops “weren’t round enough, young man,” Grampy finally just kicked me out of Scoops altogether. “Take a break, boy.”

  “But it’s not my break time.”

  “You’re a human wrecking ball. Out!”

  So there I was, sitting on the planter ledge near the down escalator just behind a potted plant, the side of my face against the cool glass wall, watching Lucy from above like some pathetic stalker. She was just below me, working the Chocolat du Monde cart at the bottom of the escalator with her Great Aunt Enith. It was kind of funny to watch them. They had the same quick, no-nonsense movements, and they moved like synchronized swimmers—when one ducked, the other bobbed; when one spun, the other tucked. You could set them to music. And they certainly had a lot of opportunity to twist and turn. The cart was pretty busy, and rightly so. Chocolat du Monde had the most awesome truffles ever, and their Black ’n’ White Chocolate Glory candied apples were the world’s tastiest fruits on a stick.

  Lucy balled up a ripped bag, then rolled around her aunt, arching the paper ball into a nearby trash can. Hole in one! No, wait, in basketball it was a slam dunk. Whatever.

  Lucy blew on her fingertip like it was a smoking gun, making me smile. I hadn’t talked to her for a whole week. With all my morning and afternoon workouts, I wasn’t riding the bus, so there wasn’t much chance to talk even if we’d wanted to. And I didn’t. Thuff Enuff’s life was just dandy without her. I was in control of my own destiny and I liked it.

  We didn’t do lunch together anymore, either. She never came near the cafeteria. I had no clue where she ate. Not that I spent a lot of time in the cafeteria, either. Gardo and I spent most of our lunchtimes that week on the track. Eating lettuce didn’t take long, so we had time to kill. Hanging out at my table wasn’t so much fun without Lucy, and, anyway, if I stuck around it too long, inevitably the conversation came around to me kicking Shane’s wheelchaired butt and body-slamming the Finn
in the doorway of the guys’ john. Gardo had spun that story so big that I could barely stand being in the same room when he started in on it. He should consider being a publicity guy, not a sports announcer. Maybe fame had its price, but it was no fun sitting there while he lied through his teeth about me. I was starting to think that “image” was just a nice way of saying “pack of lies.”

  It didn’t help that sitting at the lunch table also meant I had to watch everyone else eat their hamburgers, corn dogs, or whatever amazing food they had piled in front of them. I could scream, I wanted to attack their food so badly. I was almost glad when the bell rang and I had to go to class, because in class, there was no temptation.

  Down below, there was a break in the action at the truffle cart. Great Aunt Enith took off her apron and walked away, probably taking a break. Lucy could fly solo just fine. She was a pro under pressure. Maybe I would go down there and talk to her. Just to let her know I was still water and HDB training, and all. She probably wondered about it.

  Even as I thought that, though, I knew I didn’t have the energy to lift my face off the glass, let alone go down there. My head hurt too much to try to figure out what to say to her. So I just sat there, motionless, watching as she carefully nudged the truffles in the display window, making sure the stacks were just so. Every few nudges, she licked her fingers. I smiled again. Lucy hated it if food handlers didn’t wear plastic gloves when touching her food. She said it was disgusting and if she wanted anyone else’s cooties, she’d just ask them to lick her face. She could be very graphic when she wanted to be. That was half the fun of being with her; I never knew what she’d come up with next. Gardo rarely surprised me. He was like the twin brother I never had. We pretty much shared a brain, the poor guy.

  Suddenly Lucy looked up my way. I tried to duck, but with this stiff body, ducking was impossible. So of course she saw me. Shoot. Now she’d think I was spying on her.

  I stood slowly and waved. That’s right, Lucy, I meant for you to see me. She lifted her hand to her waist in a half wave. Great. Now I’m locked in. C’mon Thuff, you can do this. Captain Quixote had fourteen First Contacts, seven of them with hostile aliens. You can do one.

  Somehow, I mustered the energy to haul myself up and step around to the top of the escalator. I hated getting on those things even when I didn’t have a raging headache. The stupid steps popped out of the floor and then sank so fast that I was always afraid of tumbling down. Trying to focus through my dizziness, I spent a minute timing it so that my foot would go down as a step poked out. But I was just too fuzzy to get it right. Finally I just grabbed the moving railing and jumped forward. My feet landed squarely on a step right before it sank. Take that, headache.

  I leaned against the railing on the way down, rolling my head forward, back, forward, back. I loved the neck roll part of my stretching routine. It was so relaxing. And by relaxing my neck, shoulders, and upper back this way, I got some relief in my aching head.

  Too soon, the escalator dumped me at the bottom. The Chocolat du Monde cart was just steps away. And so was Lucy.

  “So you are alive,” she said, studying me. “Barely.”

  I didn’t want to think about my head, so I gestured at her yellow polo shirt. “You went yellow.”

  “Yeah. Anything to crack The Man’s nuts. Like it?”

  I shrugged. “Now you look like a banana instead of a Hershey’s bar.” Idiot! “That’s a good thing, really, I like bananas, they’re my favorite fruit, and yellow’s my favorite color. Love it.”

  She stood there rapidly blinking her eyes like she didn’t know what to make of the alien babbling gibberish at her.

  “Yeah, it looks great,” I continued. “Brings out the yellow streaks in your hair.” Oh yeah, that made things a lot better, you dork.

  But apparently it did make things better, because she smiled wider than I’d seen in weeks. Boy, I missed that smile. I could practically feel my bad attitude slipping away, soothing my sore muscles on the way down.

  “They’re called highlights, you goof,” she said. “You’d make a terrible girl.”

  “Says you. You haven’t seen these legs in a dress.” I did a prancy two-step, then flashed her the Shermie Smile, all cheeks, completely irresistible. It didn’t feel as fake as it normally did. “How come you’re not wearing your uniform?”

  “I don’t have to anymore. Aunt Enith agreed that as long as I wear the apron, I can wear whatever I want underneath it.” She wrinkled her nose. “I hate that apron.”

  “Just be glad it’s not puke pink like my Scoops smock.”

  “I wish it was pink. Brown is the color of crap.”

  “Lucy!” I laughed. That’s my girl.

  Even she couldn’t resist a light giggle at herself. It was nice to hear that sound again. She needed to laugh more often. Heck, what she needed was more Shermie time. I could make her smile, no problem.

  “You know what?” I said. “You should come over tomorrow after Gardo’s meet and see how my training’s coming. My capacity is way up. Look!” I pointed to my Galactic Warriors shirt, then did a 360 with my hands over my head. It was still snug, but it fit. It fit! “This didn’t fit before, now it does. My, uh, my belt is going away. I’m going for twenty HDBs tomorrow night.”

  “Twenty? Really?

  I nodded. She seemed impressed. “And I’m speed-training it. So it’s twenty in twelve minutes.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “Totally.” Yep, she was impressed. Good. Gardo wasn’t the only one who can spin the glory tale. Now she knew I was my own man.

  Someone yelled my name and we both turned. It was Paul from my American History class walking by the cell phone accessories cart. He gave me a thumbs-up and I waved back.

  Lucy looked more annoyed than impressed now. “I don’t know. You sure you want me over? You’re awfully busy these days.”

  “Busy? What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about all your beating up people and Thuff Enuffing.” She made invisible quotation marks in the air with her fingers. “Everyone’s talking about it. It must be exhausting being a superhero.”

  “Who keeps telling everyone that? I didn’t beat up anyone. You know I wouldn’t.” You know I couldn’t.

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “That’s what everyone is saying, that the Great Thuff Enuff beat up Shane and a Finn.”

  “Well, everyone’s wrong.”

  She didn’t respond, just pursed her lips and scanned the busy promenade.

  “Look, just come over after the meet,” I said. “It’ll be fun.”

  “I’m not going to the meet.”

  “What?” I couldn’t believe it. Gardo had dreamed of being on the wrestling team since his mom bought him that first WWE video in third grade. “You have to come, it’s his first one.”

  “He won’t care, trust me.” A customer walked up to the cart. “Hi, ma’am, what can I get for you tonight? Shermie, I gotta get back to work. I’ll just talk to you tomorrow, okay?”

  She’ll talk to me tomorrow…. More crankiness slid away.

  Catching the up escalator wasn’t nearly as difficult as the down. Though the Chocolat du Monde cart receded below, the scent of cocoa stayed in my nose. I wished it wouldn’t, actually. It made my headache worse, if that was possible. Pounding, aching, dizzy…I didn’t know how I’d get through the rest of my shift. I’d probably crack twenty more cones, at least. Arthur would be throwing fruit at me all night.

  You know what, I’m not going to get through it. I’m going to get my bike, go home, and curl up in my water bed with my last Gardo Glass of the day and my “Summer of Fun” man-hater bikini issue. Arthur and Grampy could get along without me. They were always calling in sick on my shifts, but I’d never called in sick, not once. They owed me, and tonight was the night I’d collect.

  I got off the escalator and stomped toward Scoops, determined to hold my ground in the face of any objection they hurled my way. Or, in the
case of Arthur, any fruit he hurled my way. I wouldn’t give in. I needed a night off and I was taking it. Ladies and gentlemen, Thuff Enuff is leaving the building.

  CHAPTER 16

  “The Elixir of Life. Agua. H2O…”

  Mad Max sounded hoarse today. She was sucking on a cough drop while she talked, and every few minutes she paused to sip from a tall yellow tumbler.

  “You all know the subject of today’s science concept in action as that clear fluid you’re stuck drinking when the vending machine is out of Gatorade. Scientists, on the other hand, know it as the most essential part of life next to the almighty atom itself: water. Two parts hydrogen, one part oxygen. All around me I see water—each of your bodies is sixty percent water; each of your brilliant brains is seventy percent water; our school mascot, the oh-so-inspirational plum tomato, is ninety-five percent water. Water is so important to the human body that while we can go a couple of weeks without food, we can only go a few days without H2O. You, my knowledge-thirsty young scientists, will be working with water in today’s experiment.”

  I groaned. Here I was, back on Gardo Glasses again and so incredibly thirsty that I could barely see straight, and Max assigns a water experiment. The universe was cruel.

  Max pulled on her lab coat and nodded at Lucy, who passed out the Experimentation Documentation worksheet. Then Max put up an overhead of a grape and a raisin. The images made me think of the heaping bowl of raisin bran Grampy had eaten for breakfast this morning, right before his buttered cinnamon raisin toast. I’d pretended to be finishing my Spanish homework at the breakfast table just so I could be close to that buttery cinnamon smell. Twice during breakfast I’d had to wipe drool off my Entradas textbook.

  Thankfully, Gardo’s meet was today. After he weighed in, he’d have an hour to eat and build energy for his match. And since we were in this together, I’d get to “build energy” with him. He promised me it’d be the feast of a lifetime. I’d have the good end of the stick, too, because I’d just get to eat, not grab some sweaty guy in a singleton afterward.