by Vicki Grant
The guy called out, “Just wait until I get my hands on you kids! So help me, I’m going to...I’m going to...” Either he couldn’t find the words or he figured they were too rude to scream out in the middle of the day. He tore his apron off and threw it on the porch. It would have looked like a real tough-guy thing to do if had been a bulletproof vest or a flack jacket, but frankly, under the circumstances, it was just funny.
He must have seen us move or heard us snort or something, because suddenly he looked up. He started coming down the stairs straight for us. I have to admit it made me nervous. He was a lot scarier without the apron on.
I was sure we were toast.
But then the guy suddenly turned around and went, “No, no. It’s all right, Norma. It’s nothing. I’m coming.” He sounded all sweet as pie again.
He snatched the apron up off the porch. He went back into the house. Just before he closed the door, he leaned out and shook his fist in our general direction.
We thought it was the most comical thing we’d ever seen.
At least we did at the time.
Later, of course, it wasn’t so funny.
door number two
I was only joking when I said, “Too bad we didn’t get that on videotape.”
Lesson Number One: Never joke with Richard.
The next thing I knew we weren’t playing Nicky Nicky Nine Doors anymore. We were making Nicky Nicky Nine Doors: The Movie.
“Seriously,” Richard said. “This could be our big break! Critics love this sort of thing. You know: ‘Fourteen-year-old boys make ground-breaking documentary.’ I’m not kidding. We could go to all the film festivals. Meet all the big stars. Make a ton of money...”
I was rolling my eyes, but I was sort of going for it too. I mean, how cool would that be? Making our own movie. Getting famous. Getting rich. I acted reluctant, but I was totally up for it.
I had to do an errand for my mother. By the time I got back an hour later, Richard had scrounged a video camera and had practically written the script too.
“Okay, this is what we should do,” he said. “We’ll stick to this street. We’ll ring nine doors and videotape what happens. Then afterwards, we’ll go back and explain that we’re making a movie. We’ll interview the people. You know, ask them how they felt when nobody was there. Ask them if they played the same game when they were kids. Whatever...”
Hearing him describe our so-called “blockbuster” kind of killed my enthusiasm. “I don’t know,” I said. “It sounds a little boring. We might find it funny, but I’m not sure anybody else would.”
I tried to be as gentle as I could—I didn’t want to hurt his feelings—but I mean, come on. Interviewing people? It sounded like one of those educational films you watch in social studies class.
Richard was already rooting around in his backpack for the video camera, so I wasn’t expecting him to take my comments very well—but he surprised me. He tapped his finger on his front tooth and nodded. “You’re right,” he said. “It is kind of lame. We need to add something else...get a little excitement in there...”
He paced back and forth for a while and then sat down on the lawn to think.
“Whoa! Watch it!” I said. I pointed to a crusty brown mound on the grass right next to where he was sitting.
He put on this appalled-old-lady voice and went, “Ewww! Doggie droppings! How positively vile!”
The natural thing to do was to move away. It was a hot day. Believe me, you don’t want to be around a pile of “droppings” on a hot day. I took a few steps back—but not Richard. He was down on his knees, staring at the stuff as if he’d just discovered a new life-form or something.
“I got to get this on film!” he said.
I managed to cough out, “Why?”
Although, frankly, I really didn’t want to know the answer.
Richard rubbed his chin and smiled. “What can I say? Different things inspire different people. Isaac Newton had the apple. I’ve got...this!” He waved his hand at the pile as if he was introducing the lead singer in his band.
He turned on the camera and leaned in for the close-up.
I practically gagged.
“What are you doing?” I said.
“Just documenting the process, my friend,” he said. “This humble pile of bio-waste has inspired me to undertake...the Flaming Feces project!”
I went, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Bio-waste? You know—doggy-doo, canine ca-ca...”
“I know what it is! I just don’t understand how it could have inspired you—or anybody else, for that matter.”
He took the camera away from his face and sighed. I guess I was being dense.
“Please. It’s the oldest trick in the book! You put the fecal matter in a brown paper bag. You place the brown paper bag on the porch. You light the bag on fire. You ring the doorbell. You run. When the homeowner opens the door, they see the fire. They put it out with the first thing they can find— which, generally speaking, is their foot.” He let this sink in for a second.
I got it. I laughed. He was right. It was a funny idea.
This wicked smile spread over that angelic face of his.
“If we’re really lucky,” he said, “they’ll remember the immortal words of the fire safety pledge...”
I knew exactly where he was going with this. We both said it together.
“Stop, drop and roll!”
We cracked up. The image of that guy in his apron rolling over a flaming doggie bag was just too much for me.
I was laughing so hard I didn’t even notice Richard had moved on to other things. He’d pulled a paper bag out of his knapsack. He dumped the Choco-Nutz bar inside it onto the ground.
“You just happen to have a paper bag with you?” I said, wiping the tears from my eyes.
“Yeah. So?” He made it sound like the most natural thing in the world. “I’m a good Boy Scout—always prepared.”
He picked up a couple of twigs as if they were chopsticks and started trying to drop the poop into the bag. (It was harder than it sounds.) “Shall we give it a go?” he said.
“What? No!” I said. “You’re not actually serious!”
He stuck his neck out at me. “Why not? You seemed to think it was funny.”
“Yeah, but...” I just looked at him with my mouth hanging open. I didn’t know where to start. Setting fire to a bag of doggie droppings was just so wrong on so many levels.
“Ye-es?” He said it like a challenge, as if only an idiot would disagree with him.
“Okay, for starters...,” I said but then had to stop. “Would you quit playing with it for a second so I can think straight?” Seriously. What was wrong with the guy? He was like a kid with a new tub of play dough.
He said, “Oooh, sorry,” under his breath and then stuck the twigs into the mound like two little antlers. “I didn’t realize you were so sensitive.”
I let that go. I tried again. “Okay. For starters, it’s full of germs. It’s gross!”
“That’s the whole point!” he went. “All the popular movies are gross. That’s what makes them funny!”
He snorted at my stupidity. I snorted right back.
“Movies aren’t gross. They just look gross. Newsflash, Richard: It’s make-believe. They use props. You think Adam Sandler or Will Ferrell would actually roll around in...in...that?” I pointed.
Richard looked down and smiled at the pile as if it was too cute to actually do any harm. After a while he shrugged and went, “Okay, fine. No biggie. So we won’t use it.”
He smiled.
“We’ll use stunt poo instead.”
I laughed—but Richard was apparently serious. He picked the chocolate bar off the grass and unwrapped it. It was starting to melt. He squished it with his hands and kind of bent it so it wasn’t perfect. He put it on the grass beside the real thing. If you knew what it was, it still looked like a chocolate bar, but if you didn’t...
; Now I really laughed.
“So,” he said, licking the chocolate off his hands. “Problem solved?”
“No,” I said. “You’re still lighting it on fire. That’s dangerous.”
Richard threw back his head and groaned. “Look. Do you want to make a movie or don’t you?”
“Yeah, I do. I just don’t want to—”
He cut me off. “Well, then get used to it. Nobody pays to go to a Batman movie to watch the Joker double-park. People want danger! They want excitement!”
I didn’t say anything. Who did he think he was kidding? Burning bio-waste was gross, but frankly, it wasn’t that exciting. I’d rather watch a car chase any day.
He waved his hand at me. “Oh, come on,” he went. “These are brick houses, cement steps, asphalt driveways. What could possibly catch on fire?”
“I don’t know. Lots,” I said. “Frankly, I don’t want to go to jail because I burnt down somebody’s house playing”—I paused so he could hear how dumb it sounded— “Nicky Nicky Nine Doors.”
I turned to go.
Richard went, “All right. All right. You win.” He picked up the bag and tore the top half off.
“Okay,” he said. “How about this? Stunt poo, itty-bitty bag and a bucket of water to put out the flames. Does that meet your safety requirements, Fire Chief Murray?”
I looked at the bag. It was half the size of my shoe. I felt ridiculous. How much harm could a little thing like that do?
I hesitated. I didn’t want to look like a wuss.
“Okay, okay!” he said. “I’ll also throw in a fire truck and—for a limited time only—a Dalmatian dog wearing a little red helmet too!”
I laughed. What could I do?
“Fine,” I said. “Whatever.”
“Excellent!” Richard plopped the chocolate bar into the paper bag and dug around in his backpack for matches. That’s when I knew I’d been tricked.
The doggie-doo.
The bag.
The chocolate bar.
The matches.
Some inspiration. My guess is Richard had this planned right from the start. I could just see him planting the dog poop there himself. The weird thing is, I almost admired him for it. The guy sure knew how to get what he wanted.
“Now,” he said, “we just have to find a victim...”
He turned on the camera and started playing with the controls. “Nice,” he said. “You can zoom right into people’s windows. Take a look.”
I peered at our house through the camera. I could see my mother pounding away on her computer. I scanned past Marjorie’s place. I saw something move inside, but the curtains were closed so I couldn’t tell if it was her or a cat or just the wind. The next few houses seemed empty—but the one at the end was better than we could have hoped for.
I passed the camera back to Richard. “See the house on the corner?” I said. “There’s someone on the second floor... left-hand side.”
I waited while he zeroed in on them.
“If the house is laid out like ours,” I said, “the person’s in the bathroom.”
I didn’t need to explain. Richard understood immediately.
He put on that old-lady voice again. “Oh dear, oh dear. I do hope we shan’t be catching them at an inconvenient time...” He did this ha-ha chuckle thing.
“Oh and look, Nervous Nelly,” he said. “You’re in luck. There’s a hose at the side of the house. That’s even better than a bucket.”
We crept down behind a car. He handed me the camera and looked right into the lens. He spoke in the whispery way reporters do when they’re trying to sound important.
“Door number two. The prey has been spotted. All systems are go. Now it’s up to yours truly—the fearless Richard B. Inkpen— to deliver the blow.”
He poked his face up like a periscope, did a quick check for witnesses and then booked it across the street.
He ran to the side of the house and pulled the hose over to the steps. He made this big deal of turning on the tap and demonstrating how the water spurted out. He gave me a cheesy thumbs-up, then tiptoed up the stairs.
This time he didn’t take any chances. He rang the bell a bunch of times and waited until he heard someone coming. He leaned down, lit the bag on fire and disappeared around beside the steps.
The door opened, and the all-time hairiest guy I’ve ever seen stepped out, wearing nothing but a white towel. He looked around for a second before he noticed the fire. He followed the script exactly.
He stomped on it with his bare foot.
He screamed.
His towel fell off and landed on the fire.
He stood there buck naked for a second—just long enough for me to get a clear shot. Then he picked up the flaming towel and ran back into the house.
We just lost our PG-13 rating, but that didn’t matter.
It made amazing footage.
door number three
Watching Naked Guy try to put out the fire was what did it for me. Suddenly, I was convinced our movie was going to win an Oscar. I didn’t want to miss my chance at stardom. It was my turn to ring the doorbell.
We scoped the neighborhood for another target. I noticed signs of life in a house at the far end of the dead-end street. Richard got the bag ready, then ran me through the procedure.
My heart was pounding as if I was about to jump off the high diving board, but Richard didn’t need to know that.
“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “I got it. It’s not that hard.”
I grabbed the bag and the matches from him. I said, “You ready?”
He nodded, held the camera up to his eye and then went, “Aaand...Action!”
I took off across the street. I almost tripped on my shoelace, but there was no way I was stopping to tie it. I stumbled up the steps. I put the bag on the welcome mat and lit a match.
A breeze blew it out.
I tried again—but this time I put the match out myself. What was I thinking? The mat was made of straw or something. If a spark landed on it, it would go up in flames for sure. That’s all I needed.
I pushed the mat out of the way. The people who lived there had obviously been using it to cover a big crack in the concrete. I put the bag back down on the porch. My hands were shaking so hard by now I had to light four matches before one worked.
The bag whooshed up into flames. I didn’t expect such a big fire. It made me jump. I knew Richard must have been laughing his face off at that, but I couldn’t let it bother me. I pulled myself together and rang the doorbell.
I wanted to take off right then, but I didn’t. No way was I going to run if Richard hadn’t run. I didn’t want to look like a chicken. I put my ear up to the door and listened.
A couple of seconds passed. No sound. I rang again.
Bingo.
Almost right away, I heard footsteps bouncing down the stairs.
I turned to run—and almost fell flat on my face. I jerked my leg forward but couldn’t move my right foot. I looked down. My shoelace was stuck in the crack in the concrete. I tried to pull it free, but the knot at the end was rammed in there good.
Someone inside said, “Coming! Coming!” Even if I’d taken my shoe off right away, I’d still have been nailed. I had no time to run.
That stupid bag was still burning. I suddenly remembered I didn’t get the hose ready. Lot of good it would do me now.
I had to put the fire out before I got caught.
I blew on the bag. That just fed the flame.
I thought about throwing the whole thing into the bushes, but I canned that idea pretty quick. The weather had been so dry lately that the place would burn down for sure.
The lock on the door clicked open.
Why was the bag taking so long to go out? You’d swear it was the Olympic flame or something. A thought flashed through my mind. Richard probably stuffed the bag full of extra paper when I wasn’t looking. He might have even soaked it in lighter fluid for all I knew. I wouldn’t have put it past him.<
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I tried to spit on it, but my mouth had gone completely dry. That always happens when I’m in trouble.
The hinges squeaked. The door was opening.
The fire was still burning. I did the only thing I could think of doing. Not quite “stop, drop and roll” but close enough.
I sat on it. The fire went out with a little puff and a whistling sound.
Someone said, “Hello?”
I looked up. This girl with long black hair was standing there looking down at me.
She had the brownest eyes I’d ever seen. She scrunched them up as if to say, “What are you doing?” (Or maybe she was asking, “Why is there smoke coming out your pants?”) I put my hands up like “I don’t know.” I must have looked ridiculous. She shook her head. Then she kind of smiled.
I tried to smile back, but you wouldn’t believe how hot that chewy caramel filling suddenly was. I started to worry I was doing serious damage to myself. Some day I wanted to have children.
“Is something the matter?” she said.
“No. Um...It’s just...,” I said.
This loud voice from inside the house went, “What’s burning? Is something burning, Bebi?” The guy had a really thick accent.
I looked at her, all panicky, and shook my head. I whispered, “No! No!”
I could see the girl wasn’t sure if she should help me or not, but I mouthed the word Pleeeease in the most pathetic way I could. She pretended to look mad at me for a second, but then she said, “No, Dad, it’s nothing.”
That didn’t stop him from coming to take a look for himself. He obviously wasn’t too impressed to find me sitting on the porch like that. I would have stood up, but I didn’t know what kind of mess I’d leave behind.
“I smell something,” her father said.
The girl shrugged and shook her head like she had no idea what he was talking about.
“I don’t,” she said. Then she looked at me. “Do you?”
I shook my head too—but just gently. I was trying to keep myself out of the boiling caramel as best I could. Any movement at all was proving painful.
