Zoo Breath

by Graham Salisbury

  “Breath, bad breath, bad-bad-bad breath.”

  “Zoo breath,” Rubin added. “The kind makes your nose go bent.”

  Julio poked Rubin. “Since you got zoo breath yourself, you going be our first subject. Open you mouth.”

  “Hey,” I said, elbowing Julio. “Look.”

  Tito, Bozo, and Frankie Diamond were heading back our way.

  Julio jumped up. “Let’s get out of here.”

  We ran off and ducked into the boys’ bathroom.

  Rubin wrinkled his nose. “Ho, man! Something died in here, or what?”

  Julio nodded. “A new stink for our list around every corner.”

  That rotten boys’-room air and those stalls of peed-on toilet seats gave me an idea. “I just remembered something. I got the first big stink we can study.”

  “Couldn’t smell more worse than this bathroom,” Julio said.

  I clamped my hand on his shoulder. “My house. Tomorrow. Ledward’s bringing it over.”

  The Throne

  The next day, Saturday, my mom’s boyfriend, Ledward, and his big hairy pet pig, Blackie, came cruising down our street in Ledward’s old army jeep. Blackie sat in the passenger seat, and a brand-new toilet sat in the back, bright white in the morning sun.

  Streak’s ears popped up like toast. She tilted her head and woofed.

  Julio and I were lounging on the grass in his front yard.

  Julio eyed Blackie. “Man, that just looks weird. A pig and a toilet in a jeep.”

  Today Ledward was taking our old toilet out and putting in a new one. I’d called him the night before and told him about our project. He thought it was hilarious.

  The jeep puttered closer.

  Streak studied Blackie and let loose barking.

  “Hush.” I pulled her close.

  Ledward raised a finger off the steering wheel as he drove by.

  I lifted my chin, Hey.

  Ledward was a good guy. He was part Hawaiian, and six feet seven inches tall. Mom came up to just under his shoulder, if she stood on her toes. In platform shoes. On a box.

  I jabbed Julio with my elbow. “So, here’s the plan. Ledward is taking out the old toilet and putting in that new one.”

  “No kidding? You can just take a toilet off the floor?”

  “That’s what Ledward said.”

  “What happens with the … you know, the hole?”

  “Got me.”

  Julio slapped his knee. “Genius, Calvin. This might be the worst stink you can find on the planet, ah?”

  I grinned. “Let’s go find out.”

  We hopped up and ran after the jeep as Ledward parked in our driveway. My house was the last one on the street. The river sparkled in the sun at the bottom of our sloping yard.

  Ledward got out and dipped his head. “How’s it going, boys?”

  “Good,” I said.

  Julio gawked at Ledward’s pig. Blackie was getting big. One day he’d grow tusks.

  Streak whisked around the jeep, sniffing. Blackie didn’t exactly smell like flowers. Hey, another stink to research. Pigs.

  But today Blackie was spotless and gleaming in the sun.

  “How come your pig is so clean today?” I asked.

  Ledward put a finger to his lips. “Shhh. He doesn’t know he’s a you-know-what. In his mind he’s a dog.”

  Julio started to laugh, but stopped. “Serious?”

  Ledward chuckled. “I hosed him off.”

  Julio inched closer.

  “He won’t bite,” I said.

  But I had to admit Blackie did make you think twice about getting too close. I mean, he was once wild, and everyone knew that wild pigs could tear you up bad if they wanted to. Ledward had found Blackie when the pig was a baby, wandering alone in the jungle up near his house. Ledward said some hunter probably got Blackie’s mama.

  Ledward read my mind. “Blackie’s as friendly as a tired old dog.”

  Blackie grunted and Julio jumped back.

  Ledward untied the ropes around the new toilet. “Meet your new throne.”

  “Throne?”

  “Like where the king sits.”

  I laughed at the picture in my head: a king wearing a crown, sitting on the pot. “What do you do with the hole when you take out the old one?”

  Ledward looked sideways at me. “Hole?”

  “Where the … the stuff goes after you flush it.”

  “Ah, the sewer pipe. I show you. Little bit stink, but.”

  “Perfect,” Julio said. “We’re studying stinks.”

  Ledward chuckled. “That’s what Calvin said.”

  He made a loop with a rope and slipped it around Blackie’s neck. “Usually he won’t run away because he’s basically lazy. But better to be sure, ah?”

  Since Blackie was too big to hop out of the jeep by himself, Ledward had to heft him down. The veins in Ledward’s neck popped up like ropes. “Ooof!” he grunted.

  Streak darted away and circled back, ears perked.

  Blackie blinked, then huffed, like a sneeze mixed with a grunt. He stood almost to my waist.

  “Let’s find Blackie some shade and water,” Ledward said. “After that, we go to work.”

  Ledward tied Blackie to the spigot under Darci’s bedroom window. He filled Streak’s water bowl and glanced at Streak. “You two can share, ah?”

  Streak settled on the grass, tongue drooping in the heat.

  Ledward went back to the jeep and got something wrapped in newspaper. “Aku head. For the dog.”

  He tossed the tuna head on the grass. Its mouth was open and the big black eye stared up at the sun. Streak snapped it up and took it down the slope toward the river. She loved fish heads.

  Ledward wiped his hands on his shorts. “You boys ready to see what’s under that toilet?”

  The Hole

  Ledward put his big arms around the toilet and lugged it off the backseat. “You boys grab my toolbox and hold the door open.”

  Julio got the toolbox.

  I ran to the screen door and held it back.

  Ledward squeezed by. We followed him in. “Stella! Darci!” I called. “Ledward’s here!”

  Mom worked Saturdays at Macy’s on the other side of the island. She had ordered the new toilet, but she didn’t know Ledward had picked it up and was putting it in today. He wanted it to be a surprise.

  Stella was on her knees sorting laundry in Darci’s room when Ledward huffed by. Darci’s room was a mess, and Mom had asked Stella to help her clean it. Mom had also asked Stella to see if her lost black leather sandal was in there somewhere.

  Stella glanced over her shoulder as we walked by.

  “New toilet!” I said.

  Darci scrambled up. “I want to see!”

  Stella tried to grab her. “You come right back, you hear? I haven’t got all day!”

  Darci flattened Julio against the wall as she sped by. “I want to see! I want to see!”

  Ledward eased the new toilet down in Mom’s bathroom. “These things are fragile, believe it or not.”

  I squeezed into the bathroom next to Darci. “Can me and Julio help?”

  “Of course,” Ledward said. “You boys should know how a toilet works.”

  I grabbed a wrench out of Ledward’s toolbox and handed it to him. “Let’s do it.”

  “First we got to turn off the water.”

  Ledward turned the knob on a valve behind the tank. He flushed the toilet, then took the lid off the tank and sucked up the remaining water with a sponge.

  “See this,” he said, pointing to a copper tube behind the tank. “That’s your water supply line, how the water gets into the tank. After I disconnect it we can lift this beast out of here.”

  Darci squatted for a better view. Stella scowled from the hall.

  Ledward disconnected the water line, cranked off the tank bolts, and lifted the tank off the bowl. We moved back as he set it on the floor. “Now for the good part.”

  He took a big rag
from his back pocket and spread it out on the bathroom floor. “Okay, junior plumbers. Ready?”

  “Ready!” we said.

  Ledward squatted and unbolted the bowl from the floor. He handed me the wrench. “Here we go.”

  Gently, he rocked the bowl back and forth. “Breaking the seal,” he said. He stood, got a good grip, and lifted the toilet bowl away.

  We all pushed back.

  “Sits on a gasket,” Ledward said, showing us the goopy brown waxy stuff on the bottom of the toilet. “You don’t want to get this on your floor. Hard to clean up.”

  He set the bowl on the rag, then squatted. “This is your sewer pipe.”

  We squeezed close to look down the hole in the floor.

  “Eeeww! Eeeww! Stink! Stink! Stink!” Darci gasped.

  I yanked my T-shirt up over my nose.

  Darci staggered back and crab-walked her way out of the bathroom.

  “Ho, man!” Julio yelped.

  Ledward pointed his chin. “Grab that big rag.”

  I handed it to him and he balled it up and stuffed it into the sewer pipe. “That … is what’s under your toilet.”

  Even with the rag in the pipe I could smell it through my T-shirt. I wanted to get out of there so bad my hands began to sweat.

  Stella gagged in the hall. “Ack! Close your mouth, Calvin. I can smell your breath all the way out here.”

  Julio laughed and I shoved him out of the bathroom. “Let me out!”

  As we banged past Stella I huffed out a gust of my best zoo breath right in her face.

  She staggered back. “You moron!”

  We stumbled out the screen door and sprawled on the grass, laughing like fools.

  “No stink can beat that one,” Julio said.

  “Maybe, maybe not,” I said.

  “What can be worse?”

  “I’ve got ideas.”

  Pink-and-Black Spies

  We got up to check on Blackie. He was asleep, flies sitting on his closed eyes.

  Streak sat nearby. She’d finished the fish head, bones and all.

  “Go smell your dog’s breath now,” Julio said. “See if it’s worse than that hole.”

  “Sure, right after you kiss her on the lips.”

  Julio laughed. “That was so funny, what you did to Stella.”

  “I’ll pay for it, too. But she started it.”

  Julio raised his chin toward Blackie. “Look. The pig’s mouth is open.”

  “So?”

  “So this is your chance to smell pig breath. Go on, see if it’s more worse than your dog’s.”

  I looked at Blackie. Julio was right. How often can you smell pig breath? I crept close and did it. Blackie slept on.

  “Bad, but not deadly.”

  We headed out to the street. Streak popped up and followed us.

  “Now what?” Julio said.

  Just then something moved in the bushes. A flash of color. Pink. And black. Streak’s ears shot up.

  I bumped Julio over to the side of the road. “We got company,” I whispered.

  “Where?”

  “In the bushes. Don’t look.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Spies.”

  He started to look, but I grabbed him. “Listen. When I say now, we turn and run right at them. They won’t have time to get away.”

  “Who’s they?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What if it’s Tito?”

  “Tito doesn’t wear pink.”

  “Pink?”

  “Ready? Now!”

  Whoever it was, was smart. The bushes shivered as the spies raced out toward the golf course on the other side.

  Streak barked and ran into the jungle. Julio and I stumbled after her. I held my hands up to block my face from low branches. Ahead I saw a pink shirt, and a black one.

  “Who is it?” Julio called. “Can you see?”

  “No, but there’s two of them.”

  They were too far ahead to catch, but once we got out on the golf course we could see who they were. I hoped there weren’t any golfers, or worse, the jeep guys, who roamed the fairways looking for kids to chase off the course. “Streak!” I called.

  She turned and came back. I grabbed her collar so she wouldn’t run out of the jungle. “Good girl.”

  We stopped at the edge of the seventh green. A golfer was in the sand trap, waiting to hit out of it. But he and another guy were looking down the fairway at the two escaping spies.

  Julio and I backed into the bushes. Streak growled. “Shhh,” I whispered.

  “Did you see who it was?” Julio asked.

  “I think so. Let’s get out of here.”

  We headed back through the jungle and out onto our street. I let Streak go and she took off after a mongoose that scurried across the road down by my house.

  “So who was it?” Julio asked.

  “You’ll never in your whole life guess.”

  “Tito?”

  “Nope. Shayla and Maya!”

  “For real?”

  “Pretty sure.”

  But was I? It wasn’t like Maya to spy on us. Shayla, yes, but not Maya. “I wonder what they were up to.”

  “Has to be their project. Why else would Maya be with Shayla?”

  “Hey,” I said. “If they’re working on their project, then you owe me a bag of dried shrimp.”

  “Okay, fine, but how come they were spying on us?”

  “Maybe they weren’t. Maybe they were just hiding.”

  “But … why?”

  We headed to Julio’s house and sat on the grass in his front yard. From there I could see Maya’s house. Like always, Maya’s black cat, Zippy, was sleeping out in the street.

  I leaned back on my elbows. “Sooner or later they got to show.”

  “Sooner,” Julio said. “Look.”

  Maya and Shayla were heading out of Maya’s garage, only they were dressed different. “Huh,” Julio said. “I thought one was pink and one was black.”

  Now I was worried. Was I wrong? No, I can tell those two from a mile away. “They changed.”

  “Sneaky,” Julio said.

  Maya and Shayla looked our way and waved.

  “Sneaky is right. Pretending nothing happened.”

  They headed up the street in the opposite direction. I could hear them laughing.

  Something was up.

  Pot of Tears

  Later, me and Julio tried to get up close to his brother’s pet white rat and check its breath. But it bit Julio’s nose, so we gave that up.

  “We need a zoo,” I said as we headed out of his house. “I bet they got all kinds of stink breath there.”

  “Zoo breath.”

  “Prob’ly monkeys got the worst.”

  “How come?”

  “They always eating bugs from each other’s heads.”

  “That’s weird, man.”

  “Not as weird as that,” I said, pointing my chin down the street. “A cat with a death wish.”

  Zippy the black blob was still sleeping out in the middle of the road. Someday he was going to get squished. “Let’s go see if a cat’s breath is as bad as a dog’s.”

  Julio shrugged. “They eat mice.”

  “And they always licking their okoles.”

  “Eeew, butt breath.”

  We headed toward the black blob.

  “Hey, Zipster,” I said.

  Zippy stretched and looked up at us.

  I squatted. “Open up. Julio wants to smell your breath.”

  “Your turn,” Julio said. “I already got bit once.”

  I got closer to Zippy. “Okay … let me have it.”

  Zippy rolled over on his back. I took a quick sniff and jumped back when he clawed at me. “Yuck!”

  “Bad?” Julio asked.

  “Cat food breath.”

  We headed back to my house.

  Ledward’s jeep was still in the driveway. When Mom got home I was thinking maybe I’d ask her if Julio
could sleep over so we could come up with fresh ideas.

  We headed into the garage. Julio stopped.

  “Ha! Look what your dog did!”

  Streak was lounging on the mat by the kitchen door, bits of rubber between her paws. She slapped her tail on the ground and looked up. Part of one of Mom’s rubber slippers hung from the side of her mouth.

  “Jeese Louise, Streak! You want to get sent back to the Humane Society tonight? Gimme that!”

  I yanked what was left of the slipper out of her mouth and scooped up the shredded pieces, then tossed it all into the garbage can.

  Streak looked up with a goofy dog grin, Heh-heh.

  “You are so lucky I came home before Mom did, because you’d be history if she saw what you were doing. History!”

  Streak yawned, her eyes turning to slits.

  Julio laughed his head off.

  Inside, Ledward, Darci, and Stella were standing around in the kitchen.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  Darci beamed. “We’re waiting for Mom. We’re going to surprise her!”

  Stella sat on a stool at the counter gazing out the window. “Shock her, is more like it.”

  “Come see,” Darci said, grabbing my hand.

  Julio wagged his eyebrows. “Let’s do it.”

  Ledward had covered the new toilet with an old sheet. Darci lifted it up. There was a big red Christmas bow stuck to the seat. “Wow,” I said.

  Someone had cleaned up Mom’s entire bathroom. There was even a vase of flowers. The place sparkled.

  We waited in the kitchen.

  Darci had invited her stuffed parrot, Petey, there to see it.

  When Mom finally came home, we cheered.

  “What’s all this?” she said.

  Streak tried to squeeze in the door behind her, but Mom nudged her back into the garage with her foot.

  Mom pecked Ledward on the cheek.

  “Welcome home,” he said.

  “You don’t know how welcome it is. What a busy day at the store!” She sighed. “Hi, Julio.”

  Julio lifted his chin.