by Alan Katz
“Wonderful,” Mrs. Wohlfardt said as she took a seat in a nearby easy chair. “Please do rewind and show me that, Martin.”
Martin shook his head. “Alas, I cannot,” he informed her. “But I can have the boys demonstrate their newfound skill of reciting the fives table up to seventeen thousand. Master Nathan, would you start?”
“Five,” Nathan said with little emotion.
Mrs. Wohlfardt applauded wildly.
“Your turn, Master David,” Martin urged.
“Ten,” David said with little emotion.
Mrs. Wohlfardt applauded wildly once again.
“Fifteen,” said Nathan, yawning.
Mrs. Wohlfardt applauded wildly once again, again.
“Perhaps you might want to hold your applause until they hit seventeen thousand, Mrs. Wohlfardt,” Martin suggested. “I wouldn’t want to have your hands peel, get irritated, or fall off.”
Mrs. Wohlfardt thought that was an excellent idea, and she just watched and listened as the boys took turns saying numbers until David finally rasped, “Seventeen thousand.”
Upon hearing that, Mrs. Wohlfardt leaped up on her chair, waved her arms, and exclaimed, “Genius! Pure genius!”
“Thanks, Mom,” croaked David.
“Yeah. Thanks, Mom,” croaked Nathan.
“I meant Martin,” Mrs. Wohlfardt said. “But you boys did well too. Now run along, so I can continue telling Martin what a sensational job he’s doing around here.”
The boys left the room, once again feeling somewhat tricked by Martin. After all, they were the ones who did the counting, but Martin got the credit. They were the ones with a reputation for making a mess, but somehow, they ended up being the ones who had to take responsibility for doing the cleaning.
Like brushing their teeth at 10:30 a.m. . . . or doing their homework right after getting home from school . . . the counting and the cleaning up and the working on the same side made Nathan and David feel, well, different than they’d ever felt. It wasn’t a bad feeling, really, but one that made them think about themselves and each other and their parents and their former nannies and (especially) their current nanny.
And then there was the matter of the ski trip hanging over their heads. It was complicated, to be sure, but if they failed or if Martin failed or if they failed to make Martin seem like he wasn’t failing when in truth he failed at almost everything . . . they’d fail to go on the ski trip.
Why was the ski trip so important to them? Because it was a special getaway that they’d had every year since they could both remember. And when you’ve had something that long, you’ll do everything you can to keep it. Even if that “everything” involves all they’d been forced to do since the day The Mustache took over.
The family feasted on delicious meat loaf that night. But the boys were too stressed out from the close-call, emergency cleanup to notice that the loaf seemed to be shaped oddly like Martin’s head. They were so stressed out that music-hating Nathan sang throughout the meal, and David ate all the vegetables on the table, then asked for seconds and thirds. Now that’s stressed.
CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN
Martin, too, had been stressed out lately. Although Mr. and Mrs. Wohlfardt hadn’t asked to see his recommendation letters in a while, he knew that it was only a matter of time before one of them brought up the subject again.
Martin awoke with a start one night at precisely 3:17 a.m. He knew it was 3:17 a.m. because his alarm clock read 11:17 a.m., and Martin liked to keep his clock set to eight hours ahead so he always felt as if he had an extra one-third of a day more to have fun.
Knowing that the members of the Wohlfardt family were fast asleep (though not quite sure where the expression “fast asleep” came from, because truly, no one was doing anything fast while sleeping), Martin spoke softly to himself, weighing the possibilities.
“If Mr. Wohlfardt says, ‘Martin, I’d like to see your recommendation letters,’ or Mrs. Wohlfardt says, ‘I’d like to see your recommendation letters, Martin’ . . .”
(Mrs. Wohlfardt still hadn’t broken the habit of ending every sentence with “Martin,” which wasn’t so bad when she was talking to him, but was utterly confusing when she said that at work and the person to whom she was speaking was named Rose or Simone.)
“What, oh what do I do? I could lie and tell them that they were destroyed in a tragic letter-of-recommendation accident, but that would be like lying, and I’ve heard that’s not good.
“I could lie and tell them that I don’t have them and I never had them, but that would be the truth and it wouldn’t be lying at all, which would be good, but would be bad because then they’d know I don’t have them and that l’d never had them.
“I could write some letters and sign them and show them to them, telling them that they were from the people who wrote them and signed them, making them think they were from them and not from me. . . .”
Martin repeated that last idea several times, simply because all the “thems” totally confused him.
“Or . . . I could fall asleep and dream an answer to this rather sticky, rather tricky problem.”
And that’s exactly what Martin did. He fell asleep within seconds, and dreamed that when he woke up, there’d be a pile of enthusiastic recommendation letters on his bed.
And guess what? When Martin woke up after a sound sleep and a happy dream, there were no recommendation letters by his side.
So, faced with having to tell the truth, having to admit he didn’t actually have a single recommendation letter . . .
Martin turned over and went back to sleep.
“Martin,” Mr. Wohlfardt said, “you have made such a difference in our home, and with our boys, that we’ve decided it would be ridiculous to ask you for letters of recommendation.”
“I agree, Martin,” said Mrs. Wohlfardt. “Your actions in this home are all the recommendation we need . . . ,” she added.
Martin smiled, then paused, waiting for Mrs. Wohlfardt to finish speaking.
“. . . Martin,” she added.
Martin was overwhelmed with relief. He thought he was going to cry. And then . . .
Martin woke up again.
He looked around his bed for Mr. and Mrs. Wohlfardt. (They weren’t there, of course.)
He looked around the room for the recommendation letters from his earlier dream. (They weren’t there either, of course.)
Martin had dreamed a happy solution to his problem. But sadly, it was only a dream; he still had the problem.
So, faced with having to tell the truth, having to admit he didn’t actually have a single recommendation letter, faced with not being excused from showing the letters by Mr. and Mrs. Wohlfardt . . .
Martin ripped a sheet of paper from his personal, double-secret, never-written-in diary and wrote down some of his best, most unique characteristics. While they weren’t recommendations, to be sure they were reasons to admire Martin:
• Martin grew up with five brothers and two sisters, and slept in an octuple bunk bed. Martin was sixth from the bottom. He fell out of bed once a week, but strangely, never on a Thursday night.
• Martin remembers the lyrics to every song he’s ever heard, but never recalls the melody. That’s why he usually sings “Jingle Bells” to the tune of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
• Martin has had the same bar of shower soap since age ten, and it’s never gotten any smaller. And despite what you might think, that isn’t because Martin doesn’t actually use the soap.
• Martin has a total of ten toes, but not always five on each foot.
• Martin tried out to play for his favorite baseball team, the Kansas City Royals, but he didn’t actually hit the ball in more than one hundred at-bats, and didn’t catch any of the ground balls or pop flies they hit his way. None of the pitches he threw came within twenty feet of home plate. The team asked him never to come to tryouts again. And, in fact, they requested that he root for another team entirely.
• In his spare time, Martin is an amateur tree surgeon.
• Martin has never given anyone change for a quarter, and hopes no one will ever ask him to do so.
• Martin is a fourteen-time department-store escalator-racing champion.
• Martin laughs every day at exactly 4:13 p.m.—even if there’s nothing funny going on.
Martin reviewed the list for spelling and punctuation. Satisfied that it was well written and revealed his true nature, he then ripped it up, turned over, and went back to sleep.
CHAPTER
NINETEEN
It took all of David’s holiday money, and some of his birthday money, and a few dollars of Nathan’s emergency cash (shh, don’t tell Nathan) . . . but David was confident that the Super-Sleuth Detective Kit was well worth it.
David was huddled in a dark corner of the basement, flashlight held between his teeth, studying the many pieces of the kit. He had all he needed to check hair follicles, analyze fingerprints, study DNA samples, investigate crime scene clues, decode secret messages, and out-spy a spy in many sneaky, tricky, clever, and sinister ways.
“Martin Healey Discount, prepare to be exposed as an international spy,” David said, adding a not-so-sinister laugh, “Nyah-ha-haaaa!”
Gotta work on that laugh, he told himself.
Then, armed with the contents of the spy kit, David scampered around the house. He tiptoed through hallways, peered around corners, and moved through the house in a very spylike manner. From time to time, he stopped to collect loose strands of hair, lift fingerprints, and record important clues in his Official Secret Spy Notebook (which, come to think of it, shouldn’t really have that written on it in big, bold letters, should it?).
When David got to Martin’s bedroom door, he wrote the following in his notebook:
11:03 a.m. in the morning.
SIS (Suspected International Spy) is in the garden, picking tomatoes for his tomato and tomato sandwiches (don’t ask).
Door is locked.
Will lift DNA from the doorknob.
Strange buzzing from behind the door.
No one has seen the contents of this room since the SIS moved in. Will try to gain access through spy methods or surprise politeness.
Plan to check hair samples, finger-prints, and DNA, and review clues to further determine if SIS is an AIS (Actual International Spy).
Time for a snack.
After his snack (hey, a spy tracker’s gotta eat), David used his kit to analyze the samples he’d collected. And after studying and matching them to the handbook from the kit, he was convinced that the samples came from a 104-year-old woman from Tibet. Or a three-day-old baby. Neither of which had ever been in the Wohlfardt house (at least since David and Nathan had been three-day-old babies).
“Back to the drawing board,” David sighed, knowing full well that his family didn’t actually own a drawing board.
“But I’ll prove that Martin Healey Discount is an international spy, or my name isn’t . . . isn’t . . . isn’t . . . X-14-Double L-7.”
(Which, in fact, it wasn’t.)
CHAPTER
TWENTY
Of all the boring afternoons in a lifetime of occasionally boring days, Saturday, October 5, had to be the boringest ever. David stared at Nathan. Nathan stared at David. And Martin, who was very vain, stared at himself in the mirror. He smiled. He smirked. He struck poses. Usually he found this utterly fascinating. But not today.
There was absolutely nothing interesting to do.
David sighed.
Nathan sighed.
Martin sighed.
“I can’t think of a single thing to do,” David said.
“Me either,” Nathan said.
“Why don’t you boys pick up your backpacks and do some studying?” Martin suggested.
“Good one, Martin,” Nathan said. “But Mom and Dad aren’t around, so you don’t have to suggest things that make us do work.”
“Yeah,” David agreed. “Save those bothersome ideas for when our parents are around so you get credit for being a genius nanny when we all know the real . . .”
David paused. “. . . um, er, I, that is . . .”
Martin raised an eyebrow. “The real . . . ?” he wanted to know. “The real what?”
David realized he had nearly insulted Martin.
“The real Mona Lisa painting is worth a fortune, though there have been many copies,” David said, changing subjects. “We read about that in art.”
Either the nanny hadn’t actually been insulted, or he quickly forgave David, because Martin immediately went back to being bored.
“I wish this family had a pet we could play with,” Martin whined.
The boys both got a little interested. “But Mom’s allergic to anything with fur,” David said. “So we can never have a pet in the house.”
“It’s so unfair!” Martin said as he pounded a couch pillow in frustration. “Why me? Why me? Why meeeee?”
He frowned. But soon his frown turned into a smile. Then he bolted upright. “I have it!” Martin yelled excitedly.
Nathan and David both looked at Martin as he continued.
“I can solve the pet problem and the allergy problem! What this house needs is an East Dakotan hairless mini hyena!”
The boys stared at Martin as he giggled and somersaulted all the way out the door.
Then he dashed back in and said, “Don’t tell your mother or father I left you alone. I’ll be back before you can say . . .”
And with that, Martin ducked out the door and was gone again.
“Before we can say what?” David wondered.
“Before we can say, ‘We’re alone. Just us in the house. No one to tell us what to do or not to do,’ ” Nathan said.
“Hey, yeah! This is the moment we’ve always dreamed of,” David told him. “We can eat whatever we want. We can do whatever we want. We can watch whatever we want. After we make a pact to not tell on each other, what should we do wrong first?”
“You know, bro?” Nathan said. “I don’t really want to do anything we shouldn’t just ’cause there’s no adult around.”
“What, are you getting mature or something?” David wanted to know.
“Nah. Well, I dunno,” Nathan told him. “It just feels wrong to do wrong things just for the sake of doing them.”
David suddenly realized he agreed, but he didn’t have a chance to respond. Because right then, Martin came hopping back into the house with the smallest, cutest, un-furriest creature the boys had ever seen!
“Men, meet Half Nelson, a real-life hairless mini hyena from Phlegmalia! He’s playful, cute, and best of all, he’s one hundred percent hypoallergenic! That means no wheeze, no sneeze, and by the way, no fleas!”
Nathan and David were thrilled (and to be sure, Mr. Wohlfardt would have enjoyed the triple rhyme). They petted him. They cooed over him. They took turns holding him.
But the moment the icemaker in the kitchen freezer let out an ice-dumping thud, Half Nelson was startled. He sprang out of their arms and raced around and around the house, laughing like a hyena. (After all, he was a hyena. Well, a mini one.) The boys chased him but couldn’t catch him. Then they found him next to the refrigerator, gulping down raw sirloin steaks—two at a time!
As they grabbed for him, he took off, charged around the house laughing, then disappeared. The boys spent all afternoon looking for Half Nelson.
Martin had indeed solved the boredom problem and the pet problem. But now there was a bigger problem. There was a wild hyena loose in the house!
Just then, Mrs. Wohlfardt walked in.
“Achoo!”
“Achoo! Achoo!”
“Achoo! Achoo! Achoo!”
“Achoo! Achoo! Achoo! Achoo!”
“Achoo! Achoo! Achoo! Achoo! Achoo!”
“Achoo! Achoo! Achoo! Achoo! Achoo! Achoo!”
“Hear that, men? The sound of a twenty-one-sneeze salute!”
“A-a-a-a—Is there a dog in t
his house?—choo!” Mrs. Wohlfardt demanded.
“Mrs. Wohlfardt, knowing how allergic you are, I’d never allow these fine young lads to bring a dog on the premises,” Martin assured her. “But guess again.”
“Achoo! A cat?”
“Certainly not. Any other ideas?”
“Achoo! A hamster?”
“No.”
“Achoo! A gerbil? Raccoon? Snake?”
“No. No. And blech, no.”
Nathan and David knew that it would probably take a couple of weeks for their mother to get around to guessing it was a hairless mini hyena from Phlegmalia. But they also knew they had to find Half Nelson. Now!
As the boys scurried around the room repeatedly bashing into each other, Martin turned the house upside down looking for Half Nelson.
That’s not a figure of speech. He literally turned the house upside down. And at last, Half Nelson popped out of Mr. Wohlfardt’s golf bag. The hairless mini hyena had fallen madly in love with the fluffy cover on Mr. Wohlfardt’s nine-iron.
Martin scolded Half Nelson for running away. He also scolded him for causing Mrs. Wohlfardt’s allergic reaction. “You’re supposed to be one hundred percent hypoallergenic, you silly hyena!”
Half Nelson was insulted. He shed a tear while letting out a loud hyena laugh, then Martin swooped him up and dashed out the door to transport Half Nelson to Kalamazoo, Michigan, where Martin had a cousin who owned a decorate-your-own-pottery shop.
Meanwhile, the boys spent the rest of the day scrubbing down the entire house to get rid of all traces of the mini hyena. After that, exhausted and with little time to do anything else, Nathan and David grabbed their backpacks and began studying.
When the house was de-Half-Nelsoned and Mrs. Wohlfardt had stopped sneezing, Martin explained to her that it must have been the men’s aftershave sample from his current issue of Sensational Nanny Monthly that he’d used that caused her allergic reaction.
