King of the Mutants (6 page)

Many a problem had been solved at the Waffle and Bacon Hut.

Freddie pulled into the parking lot. I rummaged through my duffle bag and decided to put on my trench coat and sunglasses. For one thing, I didn’t want any grief about my tail. And the other thing, it was dark out and my eyes reflected red.

“How are we going to pay for stuff?” asked Freddie. “Because I don’t have a dime.”

“I’ve got some alfalfa,” I said, showing him the can of cash in my bag.

He whistled through his teeth. “Geez, you’re, like, rich.”

“Not really. But I think I have enough to get us to New York. That is, after we make a little side trip to New Orleans.”

I told Freddie about Madame Zoltarano.

“You want to drive four hours out of the way just because some freaky lady has whacked ‘visions?’” He air quoted visions.

I crossed my arms over my chest and raised my brows. Once I got an idea into my thick head, there was no talking me out of it. “It’s what I need to do. I have to find out if Sarah Feena exists.”

“You’re the one with the moolah,” he mumbled. “And from the expression on your face, I can tell I’m not going to win this argument by saying this little detour of yours sounds like a complete waste of time—”

Snaggletooth propped himself up on the edge of the sidecar. With a shrug, I ignored Freddie and turned to my dog. “You have to stay here, boy, you know, guard the chopper,” I instructed. Snaggletooth hung his head, defeated, until I said, “Be good and we’ll bring back a treat,” and he wagged his tail excitedly. Snaggletooth found comfort inside my duffle bag. I pushed it toward the back and snapped the sidecar’s cover onto the bike, protecting my fuzzy faced friend from the rain.

Freddie and I walked to the door of the Waffl
e and Bacon Hut
. I was just about to reach for the door, but Freddie stopped and pointed to the “No shirt. No shoes. No service.” sign. Of all the problems we had to solve, this one was annoying. My stomach growled and I didn’t have an extra pair of shoes for my barefooted buddy. Next door, though, a crappy old motel caught my attention, the kind where they have more fleas than guests. On a whim, I headed straight for it.

Beaten up cars filled the parking lot—the kind caked in grime with smashed-in tail lights. They looked like they’d been sitting there for at least two decades. An outdoor pool, filled with more garbage than water, made my skin crawl. Pink paint peeled off it like a leper whose wounds would never heal.

The only light emitted from the neon word that was supposed to blink “Vacancy.” Instead, it flashed “can.” I took this as a good sign.

Freddie caught up to me and we stood on the walkway. He sat down and pulled a large shard of glass out of his foot, his face twisted in pain. In front of one of the rooms, I noticed a pair of shoes and pointed. “Don’t want to shred your feet? Want waffles? Put those on.”

“Mav, you cannot be serious,” Freddie whined. “I wouldn’t wear red heels for waffles.”

He was being ridiculous. The guy escapes the clutches of killer clowns, and now, a pair of sparkly sandals upsets him? “Look, I’ll buy you a new pair of shoes as soon as we find a place. But right now, I’m starving, I’ve got bug juice in my mouth, and I want bacon.”

“Bacon?” said Freddie with a laugh. “I’ll wear those chick sticks for bacon.”

It took him a minute to squeeze his Fred Flintstones into the crimson shoes, but he managed to do it. His feet looked like stuffed sausages dressed up at Christmas time.

Hey, they may have been an odd pair of shoes. But then again, we were an odd pair, too. Stumbling back to
the Waffle and Bacon Hut
, we burst out laughing.

HOW TO JUSTIFY THE TRUTH

We opened the door to the restaurant, and ahhh, breathed in the aroma of crispy, greasy bacon. A couple of sleepy truckers shoved forkfuls of food into their mouths, eyes glazed over from their long journeys. They paid no attention to us as we took a seat in the back of the room. A cheery, middle-aged woman, whose nametag said Madge, walked up to us and slammed two menus on the table.

“Nice heels,” she barked, rolling her eyes at Freddie. “Got money? I don’t want no chew and screw. They make me pay for the meals when that happens.”

She was a real charmer.

I pulled out a twenty from the can and placed it on the table. Madge grunted her approval. Or maybe it was disapproval. “Boy, why are you wearing sunglasses at night and a trench coat in this heat?” asked Madge.

I wasn’t about to tell her that the trench covered my tail and that my eyes glow red at night. “Uh,” I said, thinking fast. “We just left a costume party?”

“Just what I need. Halloween is coming early this year,” said Madge under her breath. She let out a long, dramatic sigh. “What do you want, then?”

“Two breakfast specials and three extra orders of bacon, please,” I said.

“Must have been some party, ’cause you kids stink to high heaven,” said Madge, writing down our order on her pad of paper. She pitched her head to the left. “The bathroom is over there. Go clean yourself up. This ain’t the circus, you know.”

Freddie snorted.

Madge stormed away, glaring at us like we were criminals. Which I think we were. I mean, we had stolen a bike, and I knew we were definitely fugitives. Yet, she was right—we weren’t exactly looking like movie stars at the moment. Freddie’s greasy, chicken-hair stuck out in lame pop star over styled clumps, oozy bug guts covered our bodies, and we stunk worse than a couple of farting skunks.

We went to the bathroom and gave ourselves a good wash down—as good as we could without taking off all our clothes. Seriously, there was no way I was going to get naked in front of Freddie, or anyone else for that matter, especially in the bathroom of a Waffle and Bacon Hut.

I wiped the fish burgers, the bugs, berry spit, and the donuts off my body using a wet paper towel. Then, I slicked back my black hair with soap. I thought I looked pretty cool, but Freddie just laughed at me. Like he was one to talk teetering in his sparkly heels.

“Hey, Freddie,” I said. “Dorothy from
The Wizard of Oz
called and she wants her shoes back.”

“Funny,” he huffed, “Not!” and tripped out the door.

Our meals awaited us when we returned to the table. Swear to God, we inhaled our waffles in two point nine seconds flat. I guess outmaneuvering killer clowns really worked up an appetite.

“Hey, Mav,” said Freddie, his mouth full of food. “How come you’re so comfortable with what you are? I mean all your—all your—all your—” He sounded like a broken record as he struggled to find the right words. I chose them for him.

“You mean all my genetic mutations?” He nodded and I shrugged. “I guess it’s because being a sideshow performer is all I’ve ever really known. And you norms–that’s what we circus performers call normal people—aren’t all that perfect, you know?”

“True, but your life at that evil circus must have sucked rotten eggs.” Freddie put his chin in his hands, resting his elbows on the table. “How did you end up there?”

“Funny, I actually thought Burt was my dad.”

“Do you think he could be? I mean, maybe that whole egg thing was a joke? Maybe you really are his kid—”

“Um, no, definitely not. I asked him that question when I was four years old.” I mimicked Burt’s growling voice. “Think I’d father something as weird as you? Your parents left you here when you were two and half years old. Dumped you high and dry in the tent with the other animals. Didn’t even leave a note.”

“Ouch, that’s harsh.” Freddie sucked in his breath. “But nobody can be that cruel all the time. He must have been nice sometimes? Right?”

“Never. I was just a dollar sign to him, nothing more.”

All the bad times at Grumbling’s reared their ugly heads at once. It was just like the time I was actually branded by a white-hot iron by Burt himself—a cursive G that indicated I was Grumbling property. But that letter didn’t have to mean Grumbling’s; it could stand for Gator if only I’d let it.

“Earth to Maverick, come in Maverick?” Freddie snapped his fingers in front of my blank gaze, knocking me out of my miserable past. “You look like you want to kill somebody.”

I glared at Freddie in distrust. “Why are you hanging around me, anyway? A freak nobody likes? What do you want?”

“Mav, I feel like a freak all the time too. And I’ve had nobody to talk to for years,” Freddie responded. His voice sounded sincere, but then his tone changed. “Especially after my mom was murdered.”

My eyes went wide. I didn’t expect that answer to come out of his mouth. I nodded for him to carry on.

Freddie gulped, his grief unmistakable. “My mom was just a teacher at this private school. I don’t know why anyone would have wanted to hurt her. I mean, come on, it was middle grade! And the most upsetting thing was the night her body was found floating in the Hudson, I’d been sleeping over at my friend Ashby’s house. The next morning they rushed me off to child services. I didn’t even get to say goodbye.”

He paused, getting really choked up.

“I don’t know who my dad is, I have no living relatives that I know of, and then I was put with this horrible foster family in upstate New York. Just like you were, I was just a big fat paycheck to them. They treated me like a slave. Smacked me around, too.”

I thought Freddie was going to burst out into tears, which would have made me really uncomfortable. Not that I was insensitive, I just hadn’t heard others’ problems before. Turns out, Freddie, like me, had some gargantuan issues. I didn’t know what to say, so I whispered the only appropriate thing that came to mind. “Freddie, I’m really sorry.”

“Don’t be. You didn’t kill my mom,” he managed to wheeze out. His eyes darkened. “But one day I’m going to find out who did.”

“Want anything else?” interrupted Madge.

“Um, we need to get to New Orleans,” said Freddie, clearly relieved to change the subject. He blinked away his tears and straightened up in his seat. “You don’t have a map we can buy?”

“No, no map, and that outside, why, that’s the wrong highway to take. You gotta backtrack some and get yourselves on the US 27 and then the I-10.” Madge must have read our confused expressions. “Oh, for Pete’s sake, I’m off the clock in ten minutes and heading out that way. You boys can follow me—the blue Ford with the SUGAR vanity plates.”

Apparently we’d judged Madge wrong. Under her bulldog-like exterior, a sweet old lady tried to get out. I left her an extra big tip and we went outside to give the sleeping Snaggletooth his bacon. Which he inhaled. Thankfully, the rain had tapered off to a slight drizzle. Like clockwork, exactly ten minutes later, Madge pulled up to us in her powder blue Ford Fairlane.

“Nice wheels,” she said, giving our ride the once over and cracking a withered smile.

Weird. Madge never questioned why two young kids were driving around in a tricked out chopper or why we were headed to New Orleans well past midnight. I guess in her line of work, she’d seen everything. Either that, or she needed glasses.

We followed the Ford to the interstate entrance, and Madge waved us off, pointing us toward the on-ramp. After our long day, I was pretty tired and a little depressed. It was that whole being-hatched-from-an-egg thing getting me down. I tried to focus on more pleasant thoughts. Like I now had a friend I could actually talk to, a loyal dog, and I had left the circus. However, I couldn’t help but wonder how I would survive on my own. I didn’t know how to cook, unless you count making a peanut butter and cotton candy sandwich. I didn’t have a place to live. Plus, once we got to the Big Apple, my life savings would disappear quicker than Peaches devouring ten pies.

I tapped Freddie on the shoulder and pointed at the fuel gauge, hovering on “E.” He nodded and pulled off at the next gas station. I couldn’t budge from exhaustion, so I handed Freddie a fistful of dollar bills. He hobbled into the station’s shop—in his heels—while I stayed in the sidecar with Snaggletooth.

A few moments later, Freddie bounded toward me with an ear-to-ear grin. I looked at his feet, on them, a pair of black flip-flops. Gone were the red heels. Under normal circumstances, I would have high-fived him, or done the hands-to-the-middle knuckle bump, but I was too tired. Adding to my discomfort, my tail throbbed from sitting on it for too long. My mood, just like the rotten luck in my life, was sour.

“We’re forty-five minutes away from New Orleans,” he said excitedly. Freddie filled up Cherry Pie and I just watched my money disappear into her gas tank.

“Hey, I hope you don’t mind, but I bought a pair of cheap flip flops. A ninety-nine cents special. Can’t beat that.” He tossed the ridiculous red shoes into a garbage can. “Dang, I don’t know how women wear those things. I have blisters all over my feet. Oh yeah, this guy told me about this cheap hostel we can stay in. It’s only twenty bucks a night and I got directions.”

The price was right for the hostel and it was music to my tired ears. I couldn’t wait to get there and rest my aching head. Maybe take a nice cool shower. “Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s get our butts to New Orleans and into bed.”

While Freddie finished up at the pump, I noticed a strange man digging through the garbage. See, the peculiar thing about this particular guy was that he wore a blue sequined dress and a blond wig. Now because this lot was well lit, I could see his Adam’s apple and facial hair from twenty feet away, so I knew he was definitely a guy dressed up in women’s clothes. He wasn’t a bearded lady; that was for sure.

As we pulled out of the station, the man danced spastically in Freddie’s stolen, red heels, giggling like a giddy schoolgirl on a playground. He caught me staring so I gave him the thumbs up. He responded with a triple snap, a laugh, and then skipped happily down the road. I burst out laughing.

According to Freddie, we were heading to Billy Bob’s Bayou Boarding House and Boogaloo Bar in New Orleans. I didn’t know what this place would say about Snaggletooth, but I’d come up with some kind of plan—I always did. Besides, they wouldn’t know an alligator boy slept in one of their beds, now would they?