Rebel McKenzie (3 page)

The weather. My nephew discussed the weather with God. I wondered if Rudy ever asked Him to make it snow so he could get a day off from school.

“What do you want me to do?” I asked.

“It might be a phase. Just don't make a big deal out of it, okay?”

Well, at least now I wouldn't have to worry about what I'd say to a seven-year-old all summer. Apparently God would take up the conversational slack.

Lynette had to get up early for her first day at Dot's Pink Palace Beauty Academy. She put Rudy in the tub while she redid her nails. I leafed through my
How and Why Wonder Book of Prehistoric Mammals
, but I was so tired, I kept reading the same sentence over and over.

Rudy came out of the bathroom in checkered-flag underpants, damp-haired and smelling of Prell. When he saw me, he screeched and ran into his room.

“Don't peek! I'm in my birthday suit!”

“Not quite. Put your pj's on and hop in bed, Popkin,” Lynette called after him, waving her hands to dry her nails. “Don't forget your cuddly.”

At last Rudy was in bed, wearing NASCAR pajamas and clasping a plastic truck that didn't look very cuddly to me.

Lynette kissed him fifty times and pulled the covers up to his chin even though it was a hundred and ten degrees. “Nighty-night, Sugar Pie. Don't let the bedbugs bite. See you in the morning, Rebel.”

“Yeah.” I had already changed the bandages on my heels and slipped into my sleep shirt. Lynette cut the light as I slid between the sheets.

And sank into a deep trough.

The bed was a canoe. I couldn't roll out of the hole!

“Rebel?” Rudy said from across the room (only a few inches away). “Will you keep that bully away from me?”

“What bully?” How come Lynette didn't tell me about
that
?

“The one next door. I'm scared to go near their house.”

“Don't worry. I'll take care of any bully.” It was probably some boy a year or so older than Rudy. I'd fix his little red wagon pretty fast.

“Rebel?”

“Yeah?”

“Will you let me sleep with your elephant sometimes?”

“Tusky? He's not an elephant. He's a woolly mammoth.…That's a kind of elephant that lived thousands of years ago.” I could hear Rudy waiting for my answer. “I guess so. Sometimes.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Maybe.” I hoped he would drop off, so I kept quiet.

Within a few minutes, Rudy's breathing grew even. I lay awake and sweat. It was like trying to sleep in a bread box. I wondered what to do with a funeral-outfit-shopping, sleepwalking, lunch-with-God-sharing seven-year-old all day, every day, for eight weeks. Then I fell asleep too.

* * *

“Ohhh, the night they drove Old Dixie doownnn…”

I sat up in the dark. What the
heck
was that eerie sound?

“…and all the people were singing…”

It was Rudy, singing “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” in a high-pitched, quavery voice. He was asleep! The notes were off-key, but he got all the words right.

This was too much. I decided to go to the bathroom. Maybe Rudy's solo would be finished by the time I got back. I heaved myself out of the canoe-bed and inched toward the door.

“Ow!” Naturally I cracked my shin on the stupid dresser. Then I made my way through the trailer without turning any lights on so I wouldn't wake Lynette.

I started to sit down on the toilet. My bare skin met something furry.

“Aiiiieee!” I stumbled backward, windmilling my arms to keep my balance.

There was a
splash!
then something large and soaking wet shot out of the toilet like a geyser. The dark shape streaked toward the door, drenching my legs and sleep shirt.

Doublewide, the Wonder Cat.

First thing tomorrow, I planned to buy a calendar so I could mark off every day I was stuck in this joint. Just like a convict.

Personality Quiz

Answer One:
(a) Always, (b) Sometimes, (c) Never

1. D
   o you give careful attention to personal grooming such as clothes, hair, makeup, hose, and shoes?
   
2. D
   o you check your posture sitting, standing, and walking erect?
   
3. D
   o you change undergarments regularly and avoid halitosis and body odors (B.O.) at all times?
   
4. A
   re you loyal to others?
   
5. C
   an you accept responsibility?
   
6. D
   o you have confidence in your knowledge and ability?
   
7. D
   o you have a good tone of voice and choice of words?
   

Give yourself 10 points for
Always
; 5 points for
Sometimes
; and zero (0) for
Never
. Compare your rating to the following standards:

Excellent Personality ….….….….…85–100

Good Personality….….….….……75–80

Fair Personality….….….….….….60–70

Poor Personality….….….….….…55 or less

B
leary-eyed, I shook Cheerios into a bowl. I desperately needed a shower to wash off the toilet water Doublewide had splashed all over me. I tried not to worry if the cat had peed
before
I sat on him.

Lynette spent an hour in the bathroom getting ready for her first day of beauty school. She emerged with her blond hair swept to one side and enough blue eye shadow to chalk a mile-long hopscotch grid.

“See you this evening,” she said. “Let Rudy sleep in. He's a growing boy. And don't forget to feed Doublewide.”

“I did feed him. He's pretending I didn't,” I said, glaring at the cat, who was staring forlornly into his empty dish.

“It's gonna be a great day!” Lynette said. “I already took the personality quiz in my textbook, and I got a hundred!” Then she breezed out the door with her new pink smock and the seriously dull-looking
Standard Book of Cosmetology
tucked in her black patent leather tote bag. If she had had any more personality, the world wouldn't be able to stand it.

She left before I could bring up the fact that Rudy not only walked in his sleep but performed in his sleep too. Maybe she knew, and had decided to let me discover some of his other little habits on my own.

“Rudy!” I hollered. “Breakfast!” If I couldn't sleep, he wasn't going to loll in bed all morning, growing boy or not.

A few minutes later, Rudy appeared, dragging his plastic truck. Doublewide ran over to him, casting wary glances at me. The cat's fur was still wet in patches that went the wrong way, like cowlicks.

“Here,” I said, setting the bowl and a carton of milk in front of Rudy.

He pushed the bowl away. “I hate cereal.”

“How can you hate cereal? It's un-American.”

He went over to the refrigerator and took out an RC Cola. “Fix me a RC float. Two ice cubes and one scoop of ba-nilla ice cream. And you have to use the blue monster truck glass.”

Lynette had warned me this was his standard breakfast. The soda fizzed as I poured it over ice cubes and plopped in a scoop of ice cream.

“You could
try
cereal,” I said, eating the Cheerios myself. “You might like it.”

“No.” Foam from his float left a brownish mustache above his lip. He finished his drink with a healthy belch.

“Not bad,” I said. “For a kid.”

“Daddy is the best burper, but Mama always gets mad.”

Little did my nephew know he stood in the presence of a champion burp-talker. I'd have shown him, but I was afraid he'd be struck down with awe. Better let him get used to my dazzling talents a bit at a time.

“Okay,” I said. “Go out and play.”

Rudy hesitated by the front door. “I don't wanna go by myself. Ain't you coming, too?”

“In a few minutes. I have to wash these dishes and make our beds. Now, go on.”

After Rudy slunk outside, I whipped the bedspreads over rumpled sheets, then rinsed the dishes under a lukewarm tap. Good enough. Next I raced into the bathroom to take my shower.

Doublewide was using the facilities. I hadn't seen him do his business in daylight, so I leaned against the doorjamb to watch.

His hind legs splayed on the rim of the toilet seat as he leaned forward on his front feet. His tail was raised like a pump handle. He gazed straight ahead and seemed to be concentrating very hard. Then he finished and hopped down. I was disappointed he didn't flush.

Finally I had the bathroom to myself. Water trickled from Lynette's showerhead and I had to dance around to get wet. Then I changed the bandages on my heels and went outdoors.

The sky was white with heat and it wasn't even nine o'clock. Another searing day. Yippee.

I sat on the bottom porch step to practice listening. Even if I had to spend my summer Up the Creek, so to speak, I needed to keep my talents sharp.

Last year a man came to our school to give us hearing tests. He ran a big machine, and I signaled every time I heard something through the earphones. Sometimes the sounds were so faint I wasn't sure I heard them, but I signaled anyway.

Finally the man looked at his assistant and said, “There's no way she can be cheating. She can't see me adjust the dials.” Then he turned to me and said, “You have extraordinary hearing, young lady. You hear almost as well as a dog!”

Since then I've been training my superhuman ability by figuring out sounds and where they are coming from.

Chip, chip, chip
. That was easy. Someone was using hedge clippers two trailers down. I listened harder.
Fwooooooosh
. That was somebody spraying a garden hose over on the next street. I blocked those sounds and closed my eyes.

Ulp. Ulp.
That was a weird sound, like a guppy being strangled. It came from the direction of the backyard. I walked around the side of the trailer.

Rudy lay flat on his back in the brown grass. A scrawny girl with limp red hair had pinned his shoulders down. Her bony elbows poked up like chicken wings. She wore a pink shorts outfit and ruffled pink ankle socks with white sandals. A long string of drool swung from her mouth directly over Rudy's face.

She sucked the drool back up with a slurp and said, “What'd I tell you about looking at me?”

“Not…to,” Rudy said weakly.

“Are you gonna do it again?”

“No.”

“No,
what
?”

“NoLaceyJaneBossoftheWorldandGrandviewEstates,” he gasped.

But the girl let the drool slide back over her lip. Rudy thrashed from side to side. Then I remembered Rudy telling me about the bully next door.

This
was the famous bully? This chicken-winged girl named Lacey Jane? What kind of a name was that for a bully?

I marched over and jerked the girl up by the scruff of her pink top. The drool string snapped, landing in Rudy's hair.

“Ewww!” he cried, rubbing his T-shirt over his hair.

“Hey!” the girl said, wiping spit off her chin.

“That's my nephew you're sitting on,” I told her.

“Earwax? I was just teaching the little twerp who's boss.”

I gave her The Look—one eye squinty, the other drilling through the back of her head—an expression of my mother's I'd perfected. “First of all,
I'm
boss. Second of all, his name is Rudy. And third of all, if you lay a fingernail on him ever again, I'll kick your butt into next Christmas.”

“Yeah? You and what army?” the girl sneered. I noticed the plastic barrettes in her skimpy hair matched her ankle socks.

I moved closer. “When I'm riled I have the strength of a saber-toothed cat attacking a spring hare.”

She stepped back. “Who are you?”

“Rebel McKenzie is my name. Ask me again and I'll tell you the same.”

“She's my aunt!” Rudy piped up.

“You lie,” Lacey Jane said. “She's too young to be anybody's aunt.”

“Lynette Parsley is my sister. She's fourteen years older than me.” I put my hands on my hips. “Where do you live, Miss Mouth?”

If that girl took the personality quiz in Lynette's cosmetology book, she'd flunk quicker than a skunk trying to hide in a snowbank.

“Right there!” Rudy said, pointing to a neat gray trailer with dark blue shutters, but no flower beds or birdbaths like a lot of the other trailers. A fence with a gate divided her yard from ours.

“Maybe I should tell your mother,” I said, keeping my voice level with just an edge of threat. “When she finds out you've been picking on a little kid, she'll—”

Lacey Jane's face flared red from the chest up, like a thermometer. “My mother won't do anything! So just forget about it!”

“Where is your mama?” Rudy put in. “I seen your daddy last night. He came home in a white van.”

“That's his work truck,” said Lacey Jane. “He's the drywall man for Merchant's Construction. So you'll go to my school,” she added sourly to me.

“No. I'm only staying with Lynette for the summer while she goes to beauty school.” I left out the part about being Grounded for Life. “I'm in Frog Level Middle this year.”

“Estate kids go to Red Onion Elementary,” she said. “I'll be in sixth grade.”

“I'm in second!” Rudy said eagerly. “We'll ride the same bus!”

“Don't get any idea of sitting with me, Booger Nose.” More proof this girl would score at the bottom of Lynette's personality quiz.

I punched Lacey Jane's arm. “I
told
you not to call him names. You don't listen so hot. Maybe I'll tell your mother after all—”

The ligaments in her neck popped out. “Leave my mother out of it! Go away!”

“
You're
the one in
our
yard,” I said. “Are you always this grouchy?”

I wondered if Rudy had started the fight by bugging Lacey Jane. She was probably the “somebody” who had mentioned the man with the football lump and the bingo-winning lady. Maybe Rudy pestered her about them. I could see where he might get on a person's nerves.

Reaching in the pocket of my shorts, I pulled out a roll of Necco Wafers. Paleontologists work long hours in the field and need a little sumpin' sumpin' when we start feeling peckish. So I always carry hard candy. Maybe Lacey Jane had low blood.

I peeled back the wax paper. The first wafer was chocolate, my favorite flavor. Even though Mama claimed I didn't have a scrap of manners, I held the roll out to Lacey Jane first. “Want one?”

She shook her head. “I don't like the chocolate ones.”

I thumbed up the next wafer, which was pink. I hated those burny mints.

“Ooh, I love the pink ones!” Of course she did. She was a living advertisement for Pepto-Bismol.

“Let's get out of the sun,” I said.

Lacey Jane lurched across the yard like she didn't have any knees.

“Do you always walk like that?” I asked.

“Like what?”

We found a speck of shade and sat down. I divided the Neccos—chocolate, green, and yellow ones for me. Lacey Jane took all the pink, purple, and orange ones. That left Rudy with the white and black ones nobody wanted.

“So what d'you like to do?” I asked Lacey Jane.

She shrugged. “Not much.”

I'd known lots of kids like her. They bop along through life with no ambition. I decided to tell Lacey Jane all about myself. She
was
gobbling my candy.

“Well, I'm practically a paleontologist,” I began. “I was supposed to go on a Kids' Dig in Saltville this summer, but…I ran into financial difficulties.”

“You want to be a
what
?”

“A person who digs dead things up,” Rudy broke in. He stacked his Neccos, alternating licorice and peppermint.

Lacey Jane flicked the back of his head. “Who asked you, Peanut Head?”

“Leave him alone.” What was
with
this girl? One minute she was nice, the next she was the Bride of Frankenstein. “
Any
way, at school they wanted me to play softball or basketball, but I told the coach I don't like team sports. I wanted to learn fencing, but they don't teach it. Too bad, because it's a very noble sport.”

Lacey Jane and even Rudy were quiet as I barreled on. Who put a nickel in me today? I always talked too much when I was nervous. Or fibbing.

“In band, I told the music teacher I didn't want to play the clarinet because there were already about a hundred clarinet players. So I picked the euphonium. There's only
one
euphonium.” I leaned back in the grass. “Ainsley Carter—she's my best friend—we never hang around anybody else because they're too boring and ordinary. Ainsley wears a black beret, even in the summertime, because she believes she was a beatnik in a former life.”

“What's a beatnik?” asked Rudy.

“Like a hippie, only cleaner. Ainsley plans to open a bookstore that sells only old mystery books. But she's at her grandmother's in Tennessee all summer, and now I'm stuck here—” I stopped.

Lacey Jane drew down one corner of her mouth. “Stuck in boring, ordinary Grandview Estates, you mean. With boring, ordinary people like me.”

“I didn't say—” I was saved by a car whirling into the driveway of the trailer across the street.

A woman got out of the driver's side. The front of her short hair dipped in three waves. One wave was platinum blond, the middle was reddish brown, and the last wave (and the rest of her hair) was dark brown. She looked like a triple-twist Tastee Freez cone.

The woman's high heels clicked on the pavement as she walked around to the passenger door. She opened it like she was a chauffeur and the person inside was a foreign dignitary.

Out stepped a girl the same age as Lacey Jane and me. She had a plastic, blue-eyed prettiness, like those dolls you keep on a shelf. Her hair was all one color, blond, long, and curly. The sequins on her poufy yellow party dress sparkled like stars.