Lucky Cap

by Patrick Jennings

  “Who pierced Ink’s ears?” I screamed.

  I ran back outside and confronted the Sisterhood, who were still gathered by Evan’s car. Except Nadine, who was sitting on the lawn, writing in her journal.

  “Who did it?” I yelled. “Who pierced my dog’s ears?”

  Evan laughed.

  “Nobody did,” Lupe said.

  “Well, he’s wearing earrings,” I said, pointing at them.

  “Those are studs,” Lupe said.

  “Are you crazy? You pierced a dog’s ears? Isn’t that illegal? Cruelty to animals or something?”

  “We didn’t pierce Inky’s ears, Enzo,” Mom said. “They’re magnetic.”

  “Oh,” I said, and calmed down a little. I was relieved they had the good sense not to stick some big needle through my poor dog’s ears.

  “Magnetic?” I asked. “Magnetic dog earrings?”

  “Studs,” Lupe said. “Rings could be dangerous. Inky could hook a claw in them when he scratched—”

  “But wait a minute,” I said, feeling upset again. “I don’t want earrings in my dog’s ears!”

  “Studs,” Lupe said.

  She was really asking for it.

  “Take them out,” I said to everyone listening.

  No one moved.

  “Then I’ll do it,” I said, and rushed at Ink.

  Lupe stepped between us.

  “He’s not just your dog, Enzo,” she said, crossing her arms in front of her like she was the queen of me.

  I looked around at the others.

  “We all like them,” Desi said.

  Susana nodded.

  I turned to Dad. I knew I could count on him, at least.

  He shrugged. The coward.

  I tried Nadine. She was against so many things for so many reasons that I couldn’t imagine her standing by and letting people put earrings on a dog, especially without the dog’s permission. Nadine’s all about rights.

  “What about you?” I asked. “You can’t like this.”

  She didn’t look up from her journal. She was staying out of it.

  “We thought it was a fun idea, Enzo,” Mom said. “They don’t hurt him, you know.”

  “I knew you’d do this,” I said to all of them. “I knew you’d try to turn my dog into a girl while I was gone.”

  Everybody laughed.

  “I mean it,” I said. “Don’t you think there are enough girls in this family already?” I was really hopping mad. I was actually hopping.

  “Calm down, Enz,” Dad said.

  “Calm down? Look what they did to him, Dad! My dog’s wearing diamond studs!”

  “Pirates wore earrings,” Evan said.

  I idolized the guy, but I sure wished right then he would butt out.

  “You’re crazy!” I yelled. “All of you! Take those earrings out of my dog right now!”

  “You can’t make decisions for everybody,” Desi said. “We’d have to put it to a vote.”

  Desi loved to vote on things. Who’s prettiest in her grade at school, for example. Or most popular.

  “Can I tell you what you can do with your vote?” I said.

  “Okay, okay, that’s enough,” Mom said. “We can talk about this later. Right now, let’s say adios to Evan and get our guys settled back in. I’m sure there will be a lot of new things for them to get used to….”

  “What new things?” Dad asked.

  “Just some little changes, honey,” Mom said, putting her arm around him.

  “What changes?” I asked.

  “Tranquilo,” Mom said.

  I seethed. This is what she always says when someone starts getting mad at her. It means calm down, and it usually makes people madder.

  “What changes?” I demanded.

  “I really should be on my way,” Evan said.

  “Thank you for taking such good care of my men,” Mom said. “And I hope you’ll come to our Labor Day asado tomorrow. Bring a date if you like.”

  An asado is an Argentinean barbecue. My mom was born in Argentina. Her family lives there. I hoped Evan would come, but without a girl. We had plenty of those.

  “I’m girlfriendless at the moment, Tina,” Evan said. “A rolling stone gathers no miss.”

  Mom and Dad laughed, so it must have been a joke. Evan was always saying things that made adults laugh. I looked forward to the day when I could do that. When you can tell jokes over kids’ heads, you know you’re a man.

  I was relieved he’d be coming back the next day, so we wouldn’t have to have a big, gooey good-bye scene. I hated big, gooey good-bye scenes.

  Evan gave me an air five, then left. Perfect.

  “Let’s get you two inside,” Mom said. “We want to hear all about the trip. And we can’t wait to see what you think of our little changes.”

  Nadine coughed.

  “Except Nadine, that is,” Lupe said. “She wants you both to know she had no part in what we did.”

  Nadine nodded and closed her journal.

  I had already been in the house, but I had been in such a mad rush to look at my buffness I hadn’t noticed anything around me. This time, though, I braced myself for what Mom and the Sisterhood (minus Nadine) had done to it.

  The first thing to hit me was the stink. It smelled like a hundred grandmas having a quilting bee. I couldn’t breathe. I was dying. I’m serious.

  “Can we open a window?” Dad asked.

  “Can we open all the windows?” I gasped.

  Dad and I started unlocking and opening windows. A lot of them were pretty stuck. Had they been locked the whole time we were gone? Probably. Females are always cold.

  “Was there a fire sale at the candle shop?” Dad asked.

  He was right. There were candles everywhere: on tables, windowsills, the mantel, even the floor.

  Mom laughed. “Oh, you’re funny!” She was flirting with him. That’s another way she keeps him from getting mad at her. It’s gross.

  “And new furniture,” Dad said, “and new paint. These are ‘little changes,’ Tina?”

  “Uh, Daddy, our old couch was a hundred years old,” Lupe said.

  “We did the painting ourselves,” said Susana. “To save money.”

  “You should check out your room,” Lupe said to me. Sinisterly.

  “Sí, Lenchito!” Mom said, clapping her hands together. “I can’t wait to see what you think!”

  “Me either,” Lupe said.

  “What did you do to my room?” I asked, terrified.

  Mom laughed again.

  Lupe didn’t. But she sure smiled.

  I ran upstairs. There were more changes along the way, but I didn’t stop to take them in. I rushed like a guy whose home was hit by a hurricane while he was on vacation. Which was sort of what I was.

  I froze when I came to the door to my room. It was shut. The NO GIRLS ALOUD sign was gone. So was the foil mirror I bought at the mall with the words IF YOU SEE A GIRL, GET LOST! printed at the bottom. The door was bare and had been painted turquoise. I couldn’t remember what color it had been before, but I was sure it wasn’t turquoise.

  I stood staring in horror at the door so long that Mom, Dad, and the Sisterhood (minus Nadine) caught up to me.

  “Well?” Mom asked. “Aren’t you going to open it?”

  She reached past me, turned the new glass doorknob, pushed the door open, and there it was: the room formerly known as Enzo’s. Everything was gone. Everything. There was nothing on the walls. Nothing on my dresser or my bed or my desk or my floor. Nothing. It was a nightmare come true.

  “W-Where’s all my stuff?” I finally managed to say.

  “In your closet, in boxes,” Mom said. “We took great care in taking it down. We knew you’d want to do the arranging.”

  I looked at her. She smiled at me, totally unaware that I was on the verge of strangling her.

  “Great care?” I asked, trying to contain my rage.

  I couldn’t.

  “ARE YOU KIDDING ME!” I
yelled.

  “Tranquilo,” Mom cooed.

  Before I could go psycho on her, Dad gripped my shoulders, leaned in close, and whispered in my ear, “All good things must come to an end.”

  “But Dad!” I squawked. No way could he cave to this!

  He gripped my shoulders tighter. “Their good thing,” he said into my ear so that only I could hear him. “Their good thing is coming to an end. We’re back.”

  “Ohhh,” I breathed, getting his meaning.

  It was take-back time.

  “You at least like the color, don’t you?” Susana asked, as if offended. “I hope so. It took us forever to get the right shades.”

  I looked at the walls. Two were blue. Two were gray. They alternated. The ceiling was gray. I had to admit I kind of liked it.

  “Let’s leave Enzo alone,” Mom said, ushering the girls out. “He needs time to get used to the changes.”

  She left, too. Only me and Dad remained. I sat down on my bed. It had a new spread: dark brown with a blue border. I kind of liked it, too.

  Dad sat next to me.

  “‘Little changes,’” he said, and raised his eyebrows.

  “Yeah,” I said, nodding.

  But they weren’t all bad.

  5. Stan

  I got one day between coming home from the Kap trip and returning to school, one day to shift from Drive to Neutral to Park. I shifted so fast, I think I blew my transmission.

  At least that’s how I felt the morning after Labor Day, after the barbecue, on my first day of middle school. I couldn’t get into gear. I hadn’t gotten to sleep the night before till well after midnight. I was still in the habit of staying up late. I was still in the habit of having fun. Plus I was kind of jittery about going to Stan for the first time.

  Stanislaus Middle School was its real name, but everyone called it Stan. All four Pasadero elementary schools emptied into it after fifth grade. That meant there were going to be a lot of kids I didn’t know, a new enormous building to get lost in, a new principal, new teachers, new everything. And I wouldn’t be staying in one classroom anymore. I’d have a new room, a new teacher, and a new subject every fifty-five minutes. With all this to look forward to, it’s no wonder I had trouble getting to sleep that night. And trouble waking up the next morning.

  Mom opened my curtains at seven and told me to get up. I rolled over and fell back asleep. She came back again and again, bouncing my mattress, pinching my nose, pulling off my blankets, threatening to pour a glass of cold water on me. I didn’t so much as open my eyes.

  It took her and Dad together to drag me out of bed and downstairs. They dropped me into a chair at the kitchen table. I dropped my head on the table and fell asleep.

  “He’s tired,” Mom said brilliantly.

  “He’s faking,” Dad said more brilliantly.

  Mom put food in front of me: cheesy scrambled eggs and toast and melon.

  “Coffee,” I groaned.

  Mom laughed. “How about orange juice?”

  I pounded the table with my fist. “Coffee!”

  “Did you let him have coffee on the trip?” Mom asked Dad.

  “Sometimes… a little decaf…,” Dad said. The rat.

  Mom poured some decaf into a mug and set it down beside me. I stirred in my usual six spoonfuls of sugar and some half-and-half to cool it off, and gulped it down.

  I banged the table, making my mug dance, and roared, “Coffee!”

  They didn’t refill my cup. Instead, they hustled me out the door.

  As I leaned against the bus stop sign, waiting for the bus, I went over in my mind the advice Evan had given me at the barbecue.

  “Wear T-shirts, jeans, and athletic shoes, preferably ones made by Kap.”

  No problem there, especially about the Kap gear. I was wearing it head to toe.

  “Don’t wear jewelry. No bling. Nothing a wise guy could grab hold of.”

  No-brainer. You’d never see bling on me. But then I bet that’s what poor Ink had thought…

  “Take off your cap in the halls, or lose it.”

  What a horrifying thought!

  “Don’t carry your schoolbooks in your hands. Stow them in your backpack.”

  “Duct-tape over any vents in your locker from the inside so that no one can slip things in.”

  “Don’t bother talking to your upper classmen. Avoid them like the plague, especially your first year.”

  “Keep your priorities straight. Number one: athletics. Number two: athletics. Number three: Kap athletic wear and gear. Number four: never run for elected office. That’s for chumps. Number five: athletics.”

  I was going to follow his advice. I figured if I focused on athletics, I would stay fit (take that, bullies!), stay alert (take that, pranksters!), have some fun at least (take that, parents!), and be able to show off my cool new gear (take that, all you middle schoolers whose dads didn’t work at Kap!). Athletics was my game plan for surviving middle school.

  Lupe was at the bus stop with me. She had finished sixth and seventh grades and was starting her last year at Stan. She looked wide awake and even eager, and wore a new outfit and plenty of makeup. Her eyelashes were caked with little black clumps. This was her first year of wearing makeup to school.

  We didn’t stand near each other, of course, or act like we knew each other. Lupe had big plans for eighth grade. She wanted to be Stan’s queen, so she wasn’t going to risk her reputation by being seen with a lowly sixth-grade boy.

  When the bus pulled up, Lupe hopped up and down and waved at girls through the windows. She squealed after she boarded the bus, then raced down the aisle into the arms of her squealing friends. They all hugged and squealed and chattered. Girls are like rodents.

  I was still leaning against the no-parking sign. The bus driver asked me if I was coming. She looked pretty frazzled for Day One. I bet bus drivers dread school, too.

  I trudged onto the bus. No one mobbed me.

  Kai trudged onto the bus a few stops later. No one mobbed him, either. I sat and waited for him to trudge down the aisle and plop down next to me. He wasn’t happy about this back-to-school thing, either.

  It had been a long time since we’d seen each other, but I didn’t want to make a big fuss about it, especially on a school bus. Also, I don’t like big, stupid, gooey helloes any more than I like big, stupid, gooey good-byes.

  Kai understood. He just said, “Hey, Enz.”

  “Hey,” I answered.

  He looked pretty much the same as he did in July, except he was way frecklier. The sun always did that to him. His freckles got bigger and bigger till they fused together into a giant brown blob covering his whole body. He still had his dark, rusty, tangly mop of hair, like Annie’s in Annie. What middle-school guy wants to look like Annie? Not me.

  I realized right then what I needed to do to my cute, long blond hair.

  “We should get crew cuts,” I said.

  He nodded.

  “You seem bigger,” he said, looking me up and down.

  This made me uncomfortable. I didn’t like being checked out by another guy.

  “What do you mean, ‘bigger’?” I asked.

  “Bigger. You know. Kind of… buff.”

  He was right, of course. I was buff. And I kind of liked being buff, but I still didn’t like it being pointed out, especially by Kai, who I assumed was feeling jealous. The guy had always been as scrawny as a scarecrow. A short scarecrow. And he dressed like a scarecrow. I think he had on the same shirt and shorts he did the day before me and Dad left on the trip. I wondered if they’d been washed in between.

  “I hate the first day of school so much,” I said.

  “Me, too,” he said.

  “And I hate the second day.”

  “And the third one,” he said, starting to grin.

  “All right,” I said. “Let’s not go through the whole school year.”

  “Hey, did you really meet LeBron James?”

  I took off my cap and
showed him where LeBron signed it with a metallic silver marker.

  “Can I touch it?” he asked in a whisper of awe and respect.

  “Are your hands clean?”

  “Huh? Yeah. I guess…”

  “Kidding,” I said, and handed him the cap.

  He touched the signature lightly, tracing it with the tip of his finger. Then he held the cap at arm’s length to admire it. He kept shaking his head, like he couldn’t believe it was real.

  “This is the amazingest cap in the history of the whole megaverse.” His eyes were kind of wet.

  I had to agree. “Yeah, and it was the most amazingest trip in the history of the whole megaverse.”

  “It sure sounded like it in your texts.”

  “Oh, man, the texts didn’t even come close to what it was really like.”

  He nodded. I think he could tell that something earth-shatteringly major had happened to me. When he looked at me, it was like I wasn’t Enzo Harpold anymore. It was more like I was famous. Maybe superhuman.

  That made me uncomfortable, too, but in a way I was way more comfortable with.

  Stan was a big brick block of a building. It looked like a prison, but then don’t all schools?

  Aren’t all schools?

  Kids were pouring out of buses and cars and into Stan’s front doors, all of them probably thinking pretty much what I was thinking: Blah or Ugh or Burn down the school!

  I’d been to an orientation in the spring, so I knew the basic layout of the place. But that didn’t mean I knew where to go. I’d gotten a schedule during the summer in the mail that listed what classes I had, what rooms they were in, and what teachers taught them. I had it in my hand, but in my fog of sleep deprivation, it looked like Chinese.

  A dull electronic tone came over the intercom. MOOOOOP! What did it mean? Was it a warning bell? Tardy bell? I waited for a voice to explain, the way flight attendants do. The principal would like all students to return to their seats… Or homerooms, or whatever. I wanted to return to my bed. No one explained anything.

  “Should we send up a flare?” Kai asked.

  “Got one?”

  “We could ask for help?”

  You don’t start middle school by asking for directions. Everyone knew that. Even I knew that. Kai was so clueless.