Death by Toilet Paper

by Donna Gephart

  But all the worry comes in with me.

  I throw the paper, pencil and toilet paper on my desk. I can’t think about the contest right now. Even if I wrote the best entry on the planet, I couldn’t win the cash prize in time to pay the September rent and the rest of the August rent by this Friday.

  Lying on my bed, I press a fist into my stomach because the crackers and cheese didn’t make a dent in my hunger. I remember the time I won a hundred-dollar gift certificate to the supermarket for telling why I loved our neighborhood ACME store. I used Mom’s name and wrote, “Our ACME puts the FUN in FUNctional!” While it was only a third-place winner, our fridge and pantry were stuffed with delicious food for a week. I wish I’d win something like that again.

  To take my mind off the landlord’s visit and our crummy situation, I open a big book called the Bathroom Reader. Dad had thought it was funny to keep it in our hallway bathroom. Now I keep it on the desk by my bed to read when I have trouble falling asleep. Unfortunately, the fun facts don’t distract me now, so I hurl the book across the room. It hits the far wall with a satisfying crash and lands on the daybed Toothpick uses when he sleeps over.

  “You okay?” Mom calls.

  No! “Yes,” I yell. “I’m superrific.” Sometimes I’m also the Sultan of Sarcasm.

  I lie on my back, staring at the galaxy Dad painted on my bedroom ceiling. Blue comets streaking across the nighttime sky, a golden crescent moon, bright red shooting stars and dozens of press-on, glow-in-the-dark stars. A few of the glow-in-the-dark stars have fallen off, but I’ve climbed on a chair and glued them back on. Luckily, the ceiling in my room is low, so I can reach it when I need to.

  “Eighteen hundred dollars is so much money,” I say to no one. “How are we going to get that much money by this Friday without spending the Grand Plan money? Not that the one ninety thirty-five we’re saving to pay for Mom’s final accounting exam is going to help much anyway.”

  I examine each part of Dad’s galaxy, remembering how focused he looked while he was painting it. A chasm slightly larger than the universe opens in my chest. I think about the toilet-paper pyramid on our kitchen table made up of the world’s worst toilet paper. I think about Mom counting out her lousy dollar bills and almost—almost—taking the Grand Plan money to pay the stupid rent and back rent.

  I grab my pillow and hug it to my chest. The only thing I know for sure is I could never sleep anywhere except under Dad’s galaxy.

  I roll to my side and watch Barkley—my blue betta fish with the swishy royal-blue fins—swim around his tank like nothing has changed, like the landlord didn’t just threaten to kick us out. Like everything on the planet is fine, thank you very much.

  When I begged Mom and Dad for a dog a couple years ago, they said no. They said, “Not enough space.” They said, “Not allowed in the apartment.”

  Dad came home after work the next day with a fish. “Closest I could come to a dog for you, pal. He’ll keep you good company.”

  So I named the fish Barkley—the name I was saving for a dog—and he has kept me good company ever since. I’m careful to keep Barkley’s water clean and feed him regularly so he’ll live a long life. I know he’s counting on me. Luckily, fish food is cheap, and Mom bought me a couple packages back when we had more money.

  Only problem is that if Barkley were an actual dog—one made of warm fur and a wagging tail—he’d jump on my bed right now and lick my face and curl up next to me, so I could pet his silky ears and feel slightly less empty inside. And maybe if Dad were still alive, we’d have moved into a house by now and he’d have painted a new galaxy of shooting stars on my bedroom ceiling and I’d have gotten an actual dog and named him Fishy or something stupid like that.

  I stare at the glow-in-the-dark stars and throw my pillow at Dad’s galaxy. “Why’d you have to die?” I scream.

  “Ben?” Mom calls.

  “I’m okay!” I lie.

  In the Remington Middle School cafeteria, which smells like boiled hot dogs and cleaning solution, I get my free lunch—a hot dog on a bun, crinkle-cut French fries and peas and carrots, each in little compartments on a plastic tray—and take it to the table I share with Toothpick.

  “Hey.” Toothpick peels the top layer of bread off a mozzarella, tomato and basil sandwich. He picks off the basil and puts it on his napkin.

  I take it and eat it.

  “How can you eat that stuff?” Toothpick asks. “It’s gross. And part of the napkin got stuck to it.”

  “Extra fiber,” I say, and chew with exaggerated motion. Toothpick’s lucky his dad is a chef. I wish someone made me fancy lunches every day so I didn’t have to get free school lunches.

  Toothpick hands me an apple and a Snickers bar—my favorite kind of candy—because his dad always packs him more food than he can eat.

  “Thanks, Pick.” I chomp into the juicy apple, remembering hearing that you get more energy from eating an apple than from drinking a cup of coffee. I hope it’s true.

  “Want to help edit Guess Who We’re Having for Dinner after school?”

  “Sure,” I say, thinking that Pick will probably have awesome snacks at his house, “but I have to work on my contest entry for Royal-T toilet paper, too. Ten-thousand-dollar grand prize.”

  “Awesome.” Toothpick gives me a fist bump.

  “Hey,” I say, wiping juice off my chin with the back of my hand. “Can you think of a way—”

  “Hi, guys.” Delaney Phillips drops a full box of Golly Pops onto our table. “Fifty cents each or four for a dollar. We’re earning money for our band trip to Hershey.”

  Delaney says it like it’s the nine-millionth time she’s had to say the same thing. Zero enthusiasm. Of course, her lack of zeal could be because she’s talking to Toothpick and me. Not too many girls at school get excited to talk to us, unless you count the tech teacher, Mrs. Gillespie. And she only gets excited to talk to Toothpick because he’s president of her audiovisual club and helps her edit film projects.

  “No thanks,” Toothpick says, holding up a Twix bar. “We have better stuff.”

  Delaney makes a face, grabs her box and swivels to go.

  “I’ll buy four,” I say, because sometimes my mouth works before my brain has a chance to hit the override switch. I don’t want to give up my dollar. It’s the last of ten bucks Aunt Abby sent me in a card when school started.

  “Thanks, Ben,” Delaney says, snatching the dollar from my fingers and flashing me a thousand-watt smile. She has blue rubber bands on her braces.

  I realize a dollar can’t buy much, but it just bought me a huge smile from Delaney. I pick out two watermelon and two grape Golly Pops and watch her walk to the next table.

  Other kids reach into their pockets and hand her money.

  Toothpick picks up his Twix bar, but before he rips open the wrapper, I get a sweet idea and snatch it from his skinny fingers.

  “Hey! Give it back!”

  “I need it,” I say.

  “You need it?” Toothpick says. “I need it. It’s mine! I gave you the Snickers.”

  I feel Toothpick’s stare on my back as I go to the next table, carrying his Twix bar and my Snickers bar.

  “I’m selling candy bars,” I say.

  “How much?” someone asks.

  “Buck apiece.”

  Before I know it, the candy bars in my hand are replaced by two dollar bills.

  I return and slap the bills onto the table in front of Toothpick.

  He grabs one of the bills and shoves it in his pocket. “You still owe me a Twix bar. I’m hungry.”

  I know Toothpick will get over being mad, and this is important. I’ve just come up with an idea that might save Mom and me from getting evicted. I shove the other dollar into my pocket.

  “Pick?” I ask, sliding back onto my seat and taking a huge bite of hot dog. “How can I make fifty bucks really fast?” I ask, my mouth full.

  “Rob a bank?”

  “Legally.”

 
“Hmm. What do you need the money for? More sweepstakes supplies?”

  I don’t want to tell him it’s to help out Mom. “Um, yeah,” I say, as though it’s no big deal. “So … any great ideas?”

  “Sell your spleen.”

  “Might need that,” I say, poking my side, wondering where my spleen actually is and what it does. “Any less painful ideas?”

  Toothpick unwraps one of the grape Golly Pops. “Sell something else,” he says. “What do you have? I mean, besides acne and bad breath?”

  I kick him under the table. I have just a few zits, and the one time I know I had bad breath was when Mom “forgot” to buy toothpaste, but that happened only once.

  “Got it!” I say a little too loudly, because a few kids at the end of our table turn to look at me. I lean across the table and whisper, “My barbecue grill. That’s got to be worth at least fifty bucks. Right?”

  “I guess.” Toothpick shrugs.

  “How will I sell it, though? It’s not like anyone at school would want to buy a barbecue grill.”

  Pick points his mauled Golly Pop at me. “The Internet, my good man. I’ll bet we have it sold before dinner.”

  Genius. I want to leap over the table and give Toothpick a huge hug, but no way I’m doing that in the middle of the cafeteria at Remington Middle School. I’d like to live to see eighth grade.

  “Let’s meet at my apartment after school.” After finishing my hot dog and fries, I unwrap a Golly Pop. “We can edit your movie afterward. Sound good?”

  Toothpick nods, and for the first time in a while, I feel fantastic, because I know that if this plan actually works—and it will!—I might have come up with the solution to our rent problem. Mom and I will be able to make it until she passes that last CPA exam and gets the accounting job at Mr. Daniels’s firm.

  I shove the watermelon Golly Pop in my mouth, knowing Dad would be proud of me.

  4:25 p.m.: At the apartment, I touch Dad’s name on our mailbox for luck, but our box contains only a dumb bill from the electric company.

  4:45 p.m.: Toothpick has eaten two pancakes from a take-out container in the fridge, shot a photo of the barbecue grill with his smartphone and listed it on SellSpace, a free site where people buy and sell things locally.

  5:10 p.m.: We receive our first email response from our ad. It’s from a prince in Nigeria who wants us to send our bank account information. Delete!

  5:21 p.m.: We receive our second email, from a guy offering to buy the grill for sixty dollars.

  5:22 p.m.: Toothpick and I high-five each other, jump around the room and generally dork out.

  5:24 p.m.: Toothpick replies where and when we’ll meet the guy to sell him the grill.

  5:25 p.m.: The guy agrees. And says he’s bringing cash!

  5:26 p.m.: Another brief dork-out moment.

  5:29 p.m.: Toothpick and I carry the boxed barbecue grill four blocks to the WaWa parking lot. (Note: This is harder than it sounds, because the grill is heavy and the one who walks backward the whole way is me.)

  5:48 p.m.: A guy pulls up in a white pickup truck. He has no trouble spotting us, because we’re the only two people with a large boxed barbecue grill.

  5:52 p.m.: The man seems surprised that we’re just kids and asks where we got the grill. I don’t think he believes I won it, but he puts two twenties and two tens in my hand and hoists the grill onto the back of his pickup truck and drives away, so I don’t really care what he thinks.

  6:01 p.m.: Toothpick and I go into WaWa (aka The World’s Best Convenience Store). It’s warm and bright and smells like coffee and fresh bread. I give Toothpick the free-hoagie coupon I won. It’s my way of saying thanks for all his help. Then I use ten dollars from the guy and the dollar I earned from selling a candy bar at lunch to buy chips and Shorti Hoagies for Mom and me. I get banana peppers on hers, because she loves those gross little yellow things.

  Then Toothpick and I pick out a hundred of the best candy bars WaWa sells, almost emptying their boxes near the cash register. The candy bars are on sale—two for one dollar—so it costs fifty bucks. I hate to hand over the money, but I know it’s the only way to make my new business idea work. The clerk raises her eyebrows at all our candy bars, but she doesn’t say anything.

  6:26 p.m.: Toothpick heads off to his house, because his dad is making a risotto—whatever the heck that is. Pick says he’ll eat the hoagie for dessert and thanks me.

  6:27 p.m.: I lug home a hundred candy bars and the hoagies in two bags, which feels like weight lifting (but is not nearly as heavy as carrying a barbecue grill).

  6:28 p.m.: I realize I never helped Toothpick edit his film, like I said I would.

  6:29 p.m.: I vow to make it up to him, while trying to find a way to carry the bags so they don’t feel so heavy.

  6:42 p.m.: I make it home with what feels like two broken arms.

  6:44 p.m.: In my room, I empty my backpack of three textbooks, a composition book and a loose-leaf binder, then fill the space with two WaWa bags full of candy bars. I imagine my backpack completely stuffed with dollar bills tomorrow and grin at Barkley. I know it’s impossible, but it seems like he presses his fishy lips against the glass of his tank and grins back.

  6:57 p.m.: Mom comes home from studying at the library. When she sees the WaWa Shorti Hoagies on our table, her smile is an even higher wattage than Delaney’s was at lunch today.

  6:59 p.m.: Mom notices I remembered banana peppers on her hoagie, and she kisses the top of my head. “Benjamin Epstein, you’re the best. You must’ve spent all the money Aunt Abby sent you to buy these hoagies.” I don’t tell Mom where I really got the money, so technically I’m not lying. But in my heart, it feels like I am.

  8:04 p.m.: Between the candy bars that fill my backpack and the delicious Shorti Hoagie and chips that satisfy my stomach, I feel pretty terrific. Even though I’m doing history homework. And it’s boring.

  9:16 p.m.: I can’t concentrate on creating a winning slogan for the Royal-T Bathroom Tissue contest, because I’m so excited about selling candy bars tomorrow.

  9:42 p.m.: Lying in bed, with only the dim light from the streetlamp outside and my stomach still feeling full, I say goodnight to Barkley, then stare up at the green glow-in-the-dark stars and tell Dad everything’s going to be okay, that I’ve got it covered.

  9:43 p.m.: I wish he could answer me.

  9:44 p.m.: I wish he could answer me.

  9:45 p.m.: I wish …

  Selling candy bars during lunch is easy.

  Kids can’t hand me their dollar bills fast enough. Some kids buy two or three at a time. Why didn’t I think of doing this sooner?

  When lunch period ends, my backpack is stuffed not with candy bars but with a hundred dollar bills, just like I imagined!

  I’ll need to spend fifty dollars to buy more candy bars for tomorrow. That means I’ll earn fifty dollars in profit every school day. That’s an amazing amount of money, but it won’t be enough to pay the eighteen hundred dollars due in two days! Maybe if we give Mr. Katz the money from my candy sales and Mom’s tips and salary, he’ll be able to let us slide a little longer.

  I resist the urge to treat myself to an ice cream sandwich, because we’ll need all the money I have. I can’t waste any right now.

  When I let Toothpick peek at the cash inside my backpack, he gives me a hard fist bump and half an almond-butter-and-strawberry-jam sandwich, because his dad packed him two. “That’s awesome, Ben.”

  “Awesome,” I agree, my mouth full.

  “Way better than selling your spleen.”

  “Way better,” I say.

  We both crack up.

  After school, I go to the Northeast Regional Library on Cottman Avenue to do my homework and look up information about evictions. I learn some interesting things about eviction law in Philadelphia, like how many days we really have to pay before we get thrown out. I don’t learn anything interesting from doing my history homework, but I write long, funny sentences using
our vocabulary words for Mrs. Durlofsky’s language arts assignment. I know she’ll love my creative sentences, some of which are over three lines long!

  Then I go to WaWa and buy a hundred more candy bars.

  This time, the guy who rings me up looks at me strangely as I pull fifty crumpled bills from my backpack. “You’ve got some sweet tooth there, kid!”

  The lady behind me in line laughs. “Your dentist is going to love you.”

  Feeling my cheeks heat up, I nod, pay for the candy bars and hightail it out of there. Why I need to buy a hundred candy bars is nobody’s business. Maybe I’ll go to a different WaWa next time, even though it’s farther away.

  The cool air feels great on my warm cheeks as I walk home.

  I figure if I eat a couple candy bars, the bag will get lighter, but I don’t want to literally eat into my profits.

  For some reason, the bags of candy bars don’t feel as heavy as last time.

  Maybe it’s because I don’t also have hoagies and chips in the bags, or maybe it’s because I’m getting stronger.

  At home, Barkley watches me stuff the bills into a paper bag and stuff it in the back of my underwear drawer. I love having so much money.

  The next day, Thursday, I sell every candy bar before lunch is even over and have time to sit with Toothpick and share his fruit salad and mini blueberry muffins before the bell rings. They go well with my grilled cheese, fries and salad. I keep peeking into my backpack to look at all that lovely green, crumpled money.

  After school, I go to the WaWa almost a mile farther away, but it’s worth it, because the store’s really crowded and no one says anything when I buy a hundred candy bars.

  Friday is my best candy bar sales day ever. Word’s gotten around, so people stop me in the hall between classes. By the time lunch is halfway over, I have only four left to sell.

  I’m standing at Trevor Duxbury and Brice Reid’s lunch table, hoping to unload my inventory and get back to Toothpick before he eats all his lunch. I’m thinking about what his dad might have packed for him today when I notice Trevor, Brice and the rest of the guys return to eating their lunches as though I were invisible. “Four left,” I say, trying to get their attention. “Two Twix and two Milky Ways. Who wants ’em?” I waggle the candy bars.