Sink or Swim (4 page)

“Of course!” Lucille says. “Now I remember.”

“Anyway, the guy didn't use his feet,” Sam explains. “The evidence suggests a higher point of impact. We think the thief used his hands to break the window. Only . . .” Sam sighs and shrugs his shoulders.

“What is it, Sam?' I ask.

“Only we couldn't find any fingerprints.”

“He was probably wearing gloves,” I say. We turn left onto Maple Drive and take a shortcut through the small deserted wooded section that backs up onto Lonesome Lane. The sky is growing darker by the second. I walk a little faster. “Wouldn't that have been the logical thing to do?”

“Absolutely,” Lucille says. “Only based on the evidence collected, we don't think the intruder was wearing gloves.”

“Well, maybe he wiped off his fingerprints.” I am clutching at straws. And not coming up with any.

Lucille nods her head. “That's what we assumed, until we noticed a broken clock near the door. It got hit by a shard of broken glass and stopped ticking at exactly seven twelve. Mr. Dieterly opens up his store every morning at seven thirty. It says so on the door.”

“We don't think the thief would have had enough time to grab all that salmon and then go around wiping off his fingerprints without running into Mr. Dieterly,” Sam adds.

“Whoever broke into that store didn't leave any fingerprints, Charlie,” Lucille says quietly but firmly. “Because they didn't have any to leave.”

“What are you saying?” I ask.

“Whoever or whatever broke into that store doesn't appear to be human,” Lucille admits.

“I'm the only nonhuman around here, and we know
I
certainly didn't do it.” I wring my claws in frustration. “Because I was with
you
!”

“What if . . .” Lucille begins. “And this is only a possibility . . . but what if there's another one of you living in an alternate universe somewhere, Charlie. And you're not aware of each other. And the one you're not aware of is a thief.”

“Earth to Lucille,” Sam intones. “Earth to Lucille . . . come in please . . . a flesh-eating virus appears be devouring your brain . . . earth to Lucille . . .”

“Well then
you
come up with an explanation, Sam Endervelt, because I can't think of anything else!” Lucille picks up a rock and hurls it at a nearby tree. “Anyway, I only said it was a possibility.”

“There's got to be a perfectly reasonable explanation,” Sam says. “Only I can't seem to think of one either.”

“It's starting to look like I'll be stuck on the swimming team for the rest of my life.” I shake my head sadly. “How are the police ever going to apprehend someone who doesn't exist?”

Sam pulls at his nose ring so hard it flies off and lands on the sidewalk. He grabs for it and puts it back into place before you can say “my two best friends are both crazy and I hope it's only a temporary condition.”

Suddenly the sound of nearby footsteps crashing through the underbrush sends Sam, Lucille, and me jumping about a mile into the air.

“What was that?” Lucille whispers.

“It's probably a raccoon,” Sam says. “Mr. Arkady says they're harmless unless you threaten their young.”

“Quiet,” Lucille urges in a hushed tone. She gets down on her knees and presses her ear to the ground. It's an old Native American trick we learned in Mr. Arkady's science class last year. Sounds travel faster through a conducting medium such as water or earth. “Get down, everybody. Whatever it is, it's getting closer.”

I try to join Lucille and Sam, but it's hard to get my neck low enough to put my earflap to the ground. Plus I get a terrible cramp in my bulging thigh and have to stifle a scream of pain as I leap up and hop around massaging my leg with both claws.

“Whatever it is seems to have stopped,” Lucille announces.

“It probably knows we're listening,” Sam says.

Getting scared out of your wits when you're home watching the Mummy light his tana leaves on the television set in your den is one thing. But actually being afraid in your real life is not my cup of tea. And you don't have to put your earflaps to the ground to hear the unworldly shriek that suddenly emerges from the wooded thicket just ahead of us.

“I would say that was either the hideous cry of a banshee foretelling an imminent death, or a werewolf howling at the rising moon.” Sam points a stubby finger at the faintly glowing moon peeking out through the clouds overhead. “I think I'll go with werewolf.”

“That's great. I feel so much better now,” Lucille whispers. “Thanks a lot.”

“Would you mind keeping your overactive imagination to yourself there for a minute, Sam?” I say.

The three of us huddle closely together, too frightened to move, as we wait for the howling to stop. At last we hear something clomping away through the underbrush. The sounds get fainter and fainter until at last we get up the courage to speak. “It was probably a raccoon after all,” Sam suggests weakly.

“Yeah,” I agree halfheartedly. “Probably.” I feel like calling my parents and begging them to come get us. But now that I am twelve I have to at least
pretend
not to be a whiny little baby.

We get up from the cold, wet ground, and scrape the mud from our school shoes with twigs. And then we make a mad dash for 442 Lonesome Lane and the safety of my cozy, warm, werewolf-free kitchen.

FOOD, GLORIOUS FOOD

“I DON'T WANT
you kids going out after dark by yourselves for a while,” my mom says to Lucille, Sam, and me, putting on her apron. “Your poor uncle Marvin is still recovering from the shock of his used shoe robbery. It isn't safe out there. Not with that thief on the loose.” A worried look crosses my mom's face. “Actually, Principal Muchnick stopped by this afternoon.” She takes a pan of freshly baked hummus puffs out of the oven.

“He did?” I try not to sound concerned. “What did he want, Mom?”

“He asked me a lot of questions about your whereabouts this morning, honey. I told him there was no way you could have broken into school. But he was awfully persistent.” She places the tray on a trivet on the table. “Careful, kids. They're hot.” My mom comes up to me and gives me a big hug. “It must be terrible to have people going around thinking you did something you didn't do.”

“It's not my favorite thing.” I sigh.

“Dig in, kids.” We don't need to be asked twice.

I spear a few of the delicious puffs with the tip of my long pointy tongue. “These are great, Mom. What do you call them?”

“Crispy Hummus Dreams, sweetie.” She hums to herself as she starts arranging her mixing bowls. “Why don't you try one, Sam?”

“Don't mind if I do.” Sam grabs a fistful of puffs and shoves them into his mouth until big round cheeks bulge out like a squirrel carrying around too many nuts.

“How'd your big meeting go this morning, Mom?” I ask.

“What meeting, Mrs. Drinkwater?” Lucille polishes off a Crispy Hummus Dream and reaches for another one.

“I met with Mr. Hollabird over at Beautiful Bites.” My mom wipes invisible crumbs from her apron. “He invited me to make my six favorite healthy desserts and bring them to the charity bake-off his company is sponsoring the week after next. The winner gets a one-year contract and a thousand-dollar advance.”

“You'll be Martha Stewart in no time, Mrs. Drinkwater!” Lucille exclaims.

“I don't know about that, Lucille, honey. Alice's mom, Sally Pincus, will be competing, too, and I'm a little concerned about it.” My mom reties the bow on her apron. “If she submits her low-fat vegan pineapple upside-down cake with coconut drizzle frosting and vanilla pot de crème, my goose is cooked. No one works with tofu the way that woman does. It's uncanny.”

“My money's on you, Mom.” I spear a few more of those delicious hummus puffs with my gigantic tongue.

Dave comes racing into the kitchen, carrying a football under his arm. “Practice was great! I scored three touchdowns and two field goals and completed five lateral passes. Catch!” He suddenly hurls the football right at me with all his might. It hits me smack in the stomach before dropping to the floor and rolling under the table.

I am the worst catch in the history of catching.

My brother grabs the last remaining Crispy Hummus Dream and pops it into his mouth. “These are great, Mom. What's in 'em?” Dave asks.

“Love, honey. Lots of love.” She brings the empty platter to the sink. “Everybody out of the kitchen this minute. I haven't even started dinner, and your father will be home soon. Shoo.”

While my mom gets supper ready, Sam and Lucille and I sit in the den, learning ten new words from Wilfred Funk and Norman Lewis's book
30 Days to a More Powerful Vocabulary
, while we watch
The Raven
.

“Tawdry,” Sam announces.

“Cheap or gaudy,” I respond. “Overly decorated. In poor taste.”

“Very good, Charlie. Use it in a sentence, Lucille,” Sam orders.

“Amy Armstrong looked
tawdry
when she showed up for English class wearing false eyelashes, a fake diamond tiara, and her middle school prom dress.”

Sam and I laugh. If her mother would let her that is exactly what Amy Armstrong would wear to school every day of the week.

Sam buries his head in the book while Lucille and I watch the movie.
The Raven
stars Boris Karloff as Edmond Bateman, a disfigured escaped murderer, and Bela Lugosi as Dr. Richard Vollin, a mad surgical genius with a torture chamber in his basement. We're just at the part where Doctor Vollin saves the life of the beautiful ballet dancer, played by Irene Ware, after she has been in a horribly disfiguring car accident.

The Raven
is possibly the scariest movie in the history of scary movies. I do not recommend watching it (A) after midnight; (B) if you are alone; or (C) at all, if watching a movie in which an insane surgeon cuts off people's faces and then puts the poor faceless creatures into a giant box and squishes them to death makes you want to hide under your bed and never come out.

Sam looks up from the book. “Something tells me there's someone else running around Decatur making everybody think you're committing those crimes.”

“Do you think Craig Dieterly is doing it to get me in trouble?” I ask.

“I don't know.” Sam scratches his dark purple hair and plays with his nose ring. “All I know is it's a mystery. And I love a good mystery.”

Just then Balthazar woofs excitedly as my dad strides through the front door. “I'm hoooome everybody.” He tosses his scarf and his overcoat onto the little bench in the hallway. “What smells so good?”

“Suppertime, guys!” Mom calls. Dave rockets down the stairs, and my friends and I run into the dining room, take our places at the table, and dig in. “Everybody choose one new and interesting thing that happened to them today and tell it to the table. Let's start with—”

My mom doesn't even get a chance to finish her sentence when Dave blurts out, “Charlie's on the swimming team as of this morning. Coach Grubman told us all about it at football practice.”

“I know, sweetie,” my mom says. “Principal Muchnick told us all about it.”

“Does that qualify?” Dave asks. He hands me a platter of vegetarian steak.

“It sure does,” my dad replies. “It's new and interesting, and it happened to somebody.”

“Unfortunately,” I say, “the somebody it happened to will probably drown as a result. Anybody want more fake food?”

“You won't drown, sweetie,” Mom says cheerfully. “You have built-in flippers. You're amphibious. You'll be a great asset to the swimming team. And we call vegetarian steak
real
food where I come from, honey.”

“I wouldn't call not knowing how to swim a great asset to the swimming team, Mom,” I say.

“You'll just have to learn!” Dad reaches for the platter. “Remember, son, nothing's impossible.”

“That's what my mom always says!” Sam exclaims.

“I bet your inner athlete is hiding inside those big green scales, just waiting for a chance to come out,” Dave adds. My brother is a regular cheerleader. You can practically see him jumping around and waving pom-poms as he speaks.

“Anybody else feel like sharing?” Mom asks. She hands my dad a homemade sweet potato pie.

“Why don't you tell Dave about the new and interesting thing that happened to
you
today, Doris?” my dad says proudly.

“Mom's going to be in a bake-off and win a thousand dollars and become a famous chef and get her own show on the Food Network,” I announce.

“That's fantastic, Mom.” Dave is slurping down his soup so fast he's nearly finished his bowl.

“Let's not get ahead of ourselves. I'm going to be competing against real professionals.” She gets up from the table and goes into the kitchen.

“Watch that negativity, Mom,” Dave calls. “You have to start talking like a winner if you want to be one. Take it from me. I know a little something about the subject.”

My brother has been on thirty zillion winning teams. He plays every sport known to man, and some you have never even heard of. Like underwater tennis and competitive burping. He puts his hands to his mouth like a megaphone and practically shouts: “Message to Charlie and Mom:
if you want to win, think positive
. It really works.”

“Mom, when you're rich and famous, will you still make us lunch every day?” I ask.

“Maybe. If you're very, very nice to me.” My mom hangs up her apron and takes her place back at the head of the table. “Charlie, when you win the big swimming race and they pin the blue ribbon on your bathing suit, will you remember to thank your friends and your family who supported and encouraged you, even on your darkest days?”

“Like that's ever going to happen,” I say.

“Say, that reminds me.” My mom reaches into her pocket and pulls out the little pad she keeps in there in case of sudden inspiration. “I'm going to have to make you swim trunks tonight.” She pulls out a small mechanical pencil and starts sketching something that looks an awful lot like lederhosen. You know, those funny-looking shorts that Swiss yodelers wear when they go mountain climbing. “You can't very well go swimming in your birthday suit, Charlie. What would everybody think?”

“They'd think he was pretty strange, Mrs. D.,” Sam says, digging into his salad. “But come to think of it, everybody already does.”

By the time supper's over, the table looks like a swarm of locusts has descended and eaten everything but the chairs and the napkins.

Dave goes to Lainie Mingenbach's house for a study date. Lainie is Dave's third-favorite girlfriend. She is captain of the pep squad and specializes in doing the cha-cha, the samba, and modern jazz. If it can be danced, she can dance it. This means Dave's first- and second-favorite girlfriends are either sick, grounded, or out babysitting.

Sam and Lucille and I finish watching
The Raven
.
(I don't want to spoil the ending for anybody, but basically everyone in it eventually gets maimed, killed, or arrested.) We learn two more vocab words and do the rest of our homework, and then my dad and I drive Sam and Lucille home in my mom's old pickup truck.

“You know you could be a wonderful swimmer if you put your mind to it, Charlie,” my dad tells me when we're finally alone and heading back to our house. “Your grandmother swam like a veritable fish.”

“She
was
a fish, Dad.” I sigh. “She played championship bridge, too, but that doesn't automatically make me a card player.” My parents are always telling me I can do anything. Which is nice, I guess. Only sometimes it just reminds me of how many things I
can't
do.

“I just hate to see you being so afraid, son. That's all. Fear can stop you from doing all sorts of fun and interesting new things.”

“But can't fear sometimes be a good thing, Dad? Like fear of putting your hand too near the fire? Or fear of falling off a tall building?”

“Of course, son.” Dad smiles as he pulls into our driveway. He shuts off the motor and we go into the house. “We have to learn to tell the difference between our unnecessary childish fears and the fears that keep us safe. That's what growing up is all about.”

Balthazar trots up behind us as we quietly climb the stairs. “Sleep well, Charlie. You have a big day tomorrow.”

My father pads down the hall and I change into my pj's and get into bed. At least most of me does. The part that's too big to fit sticks out over the end and rests on my brother's old camp trunk. Balthazar curls up next to me. Pretty soon I hear Dave come home and go into the bathroom to brush his teeth. The big spruce tree outside casts an ominous-looking shadow on the ceiling. But then, any shadows you run into after watching
The Raven
are guaranteed to look pretty ominous.

Suddenly a distant shriek pierces the silence of my room. It is the same sound we heard on the way home from the fish store today. I wonder if “fear of shrieks in the night” is an unnecessary childish fear, or a helpful adult one.

Balthazar wakes up and runs to the window, barking his most protective bark. He wouldn't hurt a mouse, but he can sound really ferocious when he thinks something might endanger his family.

Dave shuts off the water. It gets awfully quiet. He tiptoes out of the bathroom and steps on my Buzz Lightyear action figure. “OUCH!!!!!” he screams. Hard molded plastic toys are the worst thing you can possibly step on in your bare feet. “Sorry,” Dave whispers.

“It's okay. I'm not asleep.” I sit up in my bed and turn on my desk light. Balthazar jumps back into my bed and curls up next to me.

“You'd better get some rest.” Dave sits on the edge of his bed and rubs his sore foot. “Don't you have swimming practice tomorrow?”

“How am I supposed to be on the swimming team?” I say. “I don't know how to swim. I don't like to put my head underwater. I'm not even that crazy about drinking the stuff. I'm going to make a complete and total fool of myself.”

“Sorry I brought it up,” Dave says quietly. He gets under his covers.

“I hate seventh grade. It's like one big opportunity to goof up. Everyone stares at you all the time, just waiting for you to do something stupid so they can talk about it behind your back for the rest of your life.”