Take Two!
Authors: John J. Bonk
For Chris & Lisa
Writers, resources, friends.
Text copyright © 2006 by John J. Bonk
Little, Brown and Company
Hachette Book Group
237 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10017
Visit our website at
www.HachetteBookGroup.com
First eBook Edition: October 2009
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental
and not intended by the author.
ISBN: 978-0-316-08672-1
Contents
Chapter 2 “Singin’ Down the Drain”
Chapter 8 Three Lawyers, an Aardvark, and a Substitute Teacher…
Chapter 10 Where the Rubber Noss Hits the Road
Chapter 11 Peanut Butter and Shelly
Chapter 15 The After Math Aftermath
Chapter 20 The Roar of the Crowd
Chapter 21 Something Borrowed, Something Blue
Missing Pieces
“Dustin, help me find your father’s head,” Mom said, tossing aside a pair of barbecue tongs. “It’s got to be in this box somewhere
– buried under all this junk.”
I stopped making figure eights on the walls with my flashlight and shone it into the giant box marked
DESTROY
!
“But, Mom, it’s probably all corroded by now.”
Our attic was hot and shadowy, and the dim bulb dangling from the ceiling wasn’t lighting diddly-squat. Dust specks were floating
in the air, never settling anywhere, and the grime was so thick you could taste it. I crouched down and helped my mother dig
through Dad’s stuff. Dumbbells; record albums –
Vwadek Vushnewski’s Polka-Time Favorites
and an entire Jack Benny collection (who?); the coffee-stained Japanese kimono Dad used to wear on weekends; a kazoo.
“There’re dust bunnies forming in my nostrils,” I
complained. “Are you sure it’s in here? I mean, like Principal Futterman says, ‘Heads will roll.’”
“I know I put it in that plastic bag – with the others. Keep looking.”
Okay, before you start thinking this is going to be some gory tale of murder and suspense, let me set you straight. See, the
day my parents separated, which was three years ago and counting, Mom had a fit and crammed everything Dad left behind into
the box that the dishwasher came in. He had left us and Buttermilk Falls to chase his dream of becoming a stand-up comedian,
which no one found very funny. Then one night after their divorce was official, right in the middle of watching
Family Bliss
(another sitcom with wisecracking kids, a fat husband, and a pretty wife), Mom ripped a large family photo off the wall and
cut out Dad’s head. Real neat and careful with an X-Acto knife.
She followed that up by going through every photo album in the house on a decapitating rampage. I called it her Lizzie Borden
phase. You know, that nutball who whacked off her family’s heads with an ax? I’d decided not to hold her accountable for any
acts of craziness during that time (Mom – not Lizzie) because I was crazy upset myself, so I could relate. At least Mom had
the decency to save all the heads in a Baggie. And she never did destroy that box marked
DESTROY
!
“I keep telling you, Mom, those Press’n Seal things on the plastic bags never stay closed.”
We searched, quiet and sweaty, but weren’t making “headway” – and I wasn’t able to hold in my burning question for one more
second.
“So why the sudden urge to patch things up? You know, with the photos?”
Mom lowered the flashlight and eyeballed the wooden beam next to her as if the answer she was searching for were carved into
it somewhere. “Your father keeps joking around about making a surprise visit,” she said in a whisper, even though no one else
was around. “It’s taken us so long to get to the point where we are now –”
“You mean speaking to each other without screaming?”
“Exactly. I’d hate to have him pop in one day only to discover his mug missing in every photo in the house. Especially the
big one – he loved that thing.”
“Gotcha.”
Dad’s thinking about showing his face in enemy territory again? And Mom’s worried about hurting his feelings if he does? Major
progress!
Still, I knew not to get too worked up over stuff like that anymore – just in case it backfired.
“Will you help me paste in all the heads later?” she asked.
I nodded. Filling the holes in the photos would be the easy part – filling the hole in my heart was another story.
“If you want, I can scan the smaller pictures into my computer,” I told her, “work a little magic, and voilà! – have ’em looking
like new.”
“Oh, honey, you can do that?” Mom gave my arm a little squeeze. “And I thought twelve-year-olds were supposed to be difficult.
I must’ve hit the jackpot.”
“Just remember that thought when Christmastime rolls around.”
Mom’s flashlight was beginning to poop out so she gave it a good shake. It was one of those cool magnetic-force flash-lights
that don’t use batteries – but you had to rattle it whenever it ran out of juice. The light beam returned and Mom aimed it
into the box, which was my cue to get back to the task at hand. I drudged through Dad’s baseball cap collection, an old magic
kit, hair-in-a-can….
“Hey,” I said, lunging for something black and shiny, “what’s that?”
“Did you find the head? The big one?”
I dove into the box up to my armpits and came out with a handful of patent leather.
“Tap shoes?
Score!
I didn’t know Dad could dance.”
“He can’t. Believe me.” Mom rocked back on her heels, blotting her forehead with her wrist. “He picked those up at a garage
sale for a few bucks. Tried them on a few times, and that was the end of that.”
“Just one more thing he didn’t follow through with, I guess. So can I -?”
“No,” she said before I’d even finished. “They’re four sizes too big for you. You’ll kill yourself.”
“I’ll stuff ’em. So can I have ’em? Please, please,
please
?”
“I don’t want you ripping up my floor with those things.”
“You don’t understand. I ran into Darlene Deluca at the bookstore yesterday and she swore on a stack of
Teen Vogues
that we’re definitely doing a musical at school this year. Her dance teacher might choreograph. And get this: She told me
I’d better get a few
tap
classes under my belt if I knew what was good for me. Talk about fate, right?”
Just as I clapped the shoes onto the floor, a loud
thwap!
came from the other side of the attic. We both jumped.
“What was that?” Mom asked, nervously looking over her shoulder.
“Bats maybe? I remember Granny saying once that we have bats in our belfry.”
“I think she said your aunt Birdie has bats in
her
belfry.”
It must’ve been the attic door banging. The sound of
creak-creak-sigh, creak-creak-sigh
was rising up the stairwell, and Aunt Olive eventually appeared in the narrow shaft of light seeping through the window.
“Good Lord, I can’t do stairs anymore,” she said, all out of breath.
Aunt Olive was a tad on the heavy side. Nothing ridiculous – just a few extra layers of comfort. She was my favorite aunt,
but I’d never say it out loud just in case it got back to Aunt Birdie. They both lived downstairs with Granny Grubbs. Mom
and I lived in the upstairs apartment with my demon
teenage brother, Gordy. Just one big happy family - well, big, anyway.
“I saw the light on from the driveway and said to myself, ‘Now’s your chance, Olive.’” She grabbed onto a birdcage stand to
steady herself, letting out her final huffs and puffs. “I don’t like coming up here alone – it gives me the heebie-jeebies.”
Mom and I went back to headhunting while my aunt searched through the drawers of an antique dresser that was wedged under
the slantiest section of roof. Eventually Mom asked, “Are you looking for something in particular, Olive?”
“Mm-hm.”
We waited for the rest of her answer, but none came. “Well, can we shed a little light on the subject for ya?” I offered,
meaning the flashlight.
“Oh, that’s okay. I just found what I wanted.” She closed the drawer with a smack and waved something around in front of her.
“It’s a silly little nothing – an old lace hanky. I’ll bet you don’t even know what that is, do you, Dustin?”
“A snot rag. Did you run out of tissues or something?”
My aunt chuckled like that was a joke, but I was really asking.
“Well, I should get an early start on dinner,” she said, trotting past us. “Chicken piccata in lemon-caper sauce! I’m learning
new recipes – expanding my horizons.”
Mom encouraged her with a spunky “Good for you!”
“I just hope it doesn’t expand my rear end!” Aunt Olive laughed a musical laugh that could only come out of an ex-opera singer
and creaked her way back down the stairs.
Back to making my case. “Speaking of expanding horizons,” I said, “remember the standing ovation I got in
The Castle of the Crooked Crowns
at school last May? Well, my public will be expecting even more from me this year, don’t ya think?”
“Your public?”
“Everybody already knows acting is my life, but if I’m going to make it in show-biz, I need to develop all my hidden talents.
With the musical coming up, tap dancing could be the next step. Hey, good one.
Step
– get it?” She didn’t seem to get it – or want it. I twisted up onto my feet and started pacing. “Seriously, Mom,” I continued,
running a finger through the soot on a dented air conditioner, “what if I’m, like, a natural born tap-dancing genius, only
you never let me find out? Can you live with that guilt for the rest of your life?”
“Oh, I think so. We can’t afford lessons if that’s what you’re getting at.”
I autographed the air conditioner, then scooped up the tap shoes anyway. They were all cracked and scuffed. And the curly,
rotted insoles smelled like – well, no garden of roses, like Granny would say. Still, I knew I had to have them. Maybe they
originally belonged to a famous hoofer from the old
movie musicals, like Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly. Maybe I was breathing in authentic star stench! I took another whiff and
nearly horked up a lung.
“Dustin, what are you doing? Either help me or don’t, but stop hovering.”
“I’m not hovering, I’m –”
“Here, catch!” Mom said, tossing a deflated football over her head. “Can you use that?”
I watched as it bounced off my chest and flopped onto the grimy floor.
“A football? Mom, have we met?”
“Well, you said you wanted to expand your horizons.”
“Not
that
wide.” I picked up the pigskin with my fingertips as if it were a dead rat and dropped it back into the box.
Was that supposed to be a subtle hint?
Buttermilk Falls was one big sports town, but obviously that wasn’t my thing. Gordy’s neither. With his numerous ex-girlfriends,
I guess you could say he was into “broad-jumping,” but that ended when he met his current steady, Rebecca. So Mom was probably
spending sleepless nights wondering why. Why was the jock chromosome missing in her two kids?
“We’ve been over this already. It’s not that I don’t like sports,” I explained, “it’s that sports don’t like
me
. That doesn’t mean I’m weird or anything.”
She swept the hair out of her eyes and refueled the flashlight with a double-handed shake.
“But if you think about it,
tap dancing
is kind of a sport,” I went on, “only with musical accompaniment and top hats.”
“You never let up, do you? All right already, Mr. Relentless, take the darn shoes. Just stick to the backyard when you’re
wearing them.”
“But, Mom, get real – you can’t tap-dance on grass.”
Not wanting to come off like an ingrate, I thanked her with a peck on the cheek. I was tying the shoelaces together, watching
the disco-ball reflections from the shiny taps dancing on the walls, when something fluttered out of one of the shoes and
landed down the front of Mom’s shirt.
“Eeesh!”
she yipped, fumbling the flashlight. “What on Earth –?” She plunged a hand down her top, squealing like a mouse in a blender,
until she flicked something away with a final scream.
I looked around the floor for a daddy longlegs or worse. Lying in a piddly puddle of light was Dad’s mug grinning at me. I
plucked it up and examined it more closely. His eyes were crossed. I’d never noticed that before.