Two Under Par
Authors: Kevin Henkes
DedicationFor three of my favorite families, with loveâ
Henkes, Dronzek, Greenwillow
4. Aunt Bonnie and Uncle Larry
Excerpt from
The Year of Billy Miller
T
he castle. Although it was only seven feet tall, it appeared oddly majestic with the sun rising in the east behind it. Its ornate spires glittered in the morning light, and the elongated shadows they cast ran across the tee-off mat, over the driveway, and pointed directly to Wedge's bedroom window like large arrows.
Wedge was sitting on his bed, his pajamas still on, rubbing the drowsiness from his puffy eyes. He yawned as he rose and shuffled across the rippling linoleum more like an old man than a ten-year-old boy. The floor creaked and groaned under his weight. He stopped at the window, squinting at the castle. Wedge scowled at the golden turrets. “I feel like I'm waking up in
Disneyland
,” he said to himself, disgusted.
It wasn't Disneyland. A far cry from it. Actually, it was King Arthur's CamelotâMayfield, Wisconsin's first and only miniature golf course.
Arthur (“King”) Simpson, Camelot's owner and Wedge's brand-new stepfather, had just opened the course at the end of the school year. Camelot was King's pride and joy. Wedge thought it was embarrassing. He couldn't understand why a grown man would pour his entire life into a miniature golf course, go by the nickname King, or parade around in public in a plastic gold crown with fake jewels glued on.
Especially
when he was married to your very own mother.
It didn't make any sense to Wedge. Sometimes nothing made sense to Wedge. In fact,
most of the time
nothing made sense to Wedge anymore.
For openers, Wedge never understood why his real father had to take off before he was born and never come back. Wedge didn't even have a picture of him. And his mother's description of himâwhen Wedge pressed her for oneâhad a tendency to change from time to time. Drastically. Wedge wondered if she ever really got a good look at him.
Wedge also never understood why, out of the entire male population of Mayfield, his mother had to choose King for a husband. Two of Wedge's friendsâJackie DeRose and Eric Schellerâhad stepfathers, too. But that was different. Wedge wasn't exactly sure
how
it was different, but he knew that it was. Maybe it had something to do with that stupid crown King always wore. (At least Jackie's stepdad had the decency to cover
his
head with a Milwaukee Brewers cap.) Or maybe it was because acquiring King was a package dealâalong with him came his own son, Andrew.
Whenever Wedge looked at Andrew (who was five), he was reminded of King. And whenever he looked at King (who was thirty-eight), he was reminded of Andrew. In Wedge's opinion they both bordered on pathetic. They were thin and pale with lanky arms that hung down the sides of their bodies like long curtains. Their arms even moved like curtains wouldâfloppy and smooth. And if the wind happened to be blowing, Wedge thought that they could pass for scarecrowsâsleeves waving wildly about, as if they had no arms at all.
Their faces were almost white with pinkish splotches haphazardly cropping up here and there. The splotches turned deep red when King got angry or when Andrew was embarrassed. And their hair was like blond string, falling halfway down their faces in straight lines, partially covering their beaked noses. (Andrew's, incidentally, happened to be dripping quite frequently.)
Pitiful, Wedge thought. Extremely pitiful.
Wedge had physical problems of his own, but they were more tolerable; he looked almost normal. Most obvious was the fact that Wedge was slightly overweight. Possibly more than slightly overweight. Wedge liked to eat and it showed. Wedge's other disability, only he, his mother, and his pediatrician knew about. The left side of his buttocks was completely covered with a large white spot. Doctor Harris said it was simply from a lack of pigment in his skin and that it was nothing to be alarmed about. The spot was in the shape of Texas, upside down.
Wedge vowed that no one else would ever see his spot, except for his wife if he ever got married. Which was highly unlikely because most of the girls he knew were like Judith Mills. And that was bad news.
Wedge was thinking that perhaps the spot meant that his real father was living in Texas somewhere, when his mother called from the hallway.
“Wedge! Andrew! Time for breakfast!”
“How can she sound so cheerful?” Wedge mumbled, taking one last look at the castle, before turning and heading for the good smells of the kitchen.
It didn't make sense.
Like everything else.
Nothing. Ever. Made. Sense.
When Wedge entered the kitchen, King and Andrew were already seated at the table eyeing stacks of steaming pancakes. Wedge could tell that King had done the cooking, because the pancakes were perfect, golden disks. Sally always made pancakes in the shapes of unidentifiable animals, which were usually broken, crumbled, or burned by the time they got to your plate. Wedge walked past his new father and brother without a word and sat at the far end of the table.
“Morning, Sally,” Wedge said to his mother, who was waiting in her bright red robe by the stove for the teakettle to whistle. Her hair hung down past her shoulders, resembling spiral macaroni spray-painted bronze.
“Morning, honey,” she replied with a toothy smile. Like a cardinal, she flitted around the table and pecked the top of his head, her robe swooshing about her.
For as long as he could remember, Wedge had always called his mother Sally. According to her, the terms mom, mother, and ma made her feel like an old lady. “Something I hope I never am,” she said frequently.
“Does that mean you plan on dying young?” Wedge had asked once when he was in a temperamental mood and his mother's indignation at being called what she naturally was annoyed him. He even fleetingly pondered the possibility that she
wasn't
his mother, but quickly dismissed the thought.
“No,” she had answered, “it just means that I plan on staying young in spirit until I'm at least one hundred.”
“Please spare me the sight of seeing you in a bikini when you're over fifty, okay, Sally?” Wedge had said sarcastically, anger rising deep within him. But then, in a matter of minutes the anger had disappeared and he'd found himself surrounded by Sally's arms. Laughing. After allâuntil King and Andrew came alongâthey were all each other had. And, comparatively, Wedge had liked it that way.
Wedge's empty stomach growled during grace. The noise was so loud that it took King and Andrew by surprise; Sally was used to it.
“How did you
do
that?” Andrew asked, pointing to Wedge's stomach and sniffling.
“Didn't your father ever tell you it was rude to point?” Wedge said, ignoring Andrew's question and pouring a large amount of maple syrup on his pancakes in a circular motion. His stomach growled again. “Excuse me,” Wedge said, sneering at Andrew.
The teakettle whistled. Sally fixed herself a cup of almond tea (without sugar) and sat down at the table next to King. Besides the tea, all Sally had for breakfast was half a grapefruit. She wasn't even slightly overweight (more like downright skinny)âbut she watched her diet carefully, keeping track of her daily calorie intake. “I'm
so
fat,” she'd often say as she looked in the bathroom mirror or passed a storefront window.
In Wedge's opinion, Sally's concern with her weight was like Rapunzel complaining that her hair was too short. Enough to drive you nuts. But she rarely commented on his own weight or monitored his food drastically, which he appreciated.
Sally sighed loudly, getting everyone's attention. She drew in another long breath and gently pushed her teacup away from herself. “I came up with a real winner of an idea this morning,” she began, toying with one of her curls, her lips slowly curving up in a smile.
“What is it, Sal?” King asked.
“Well, it concerns all of us. And I think it's real important. Especially because two families of two have become one family of four. . . .”
I wish she'd get to the point, Wedge thought. He had taken a piece of bread from the bread box on the counter and was using it to soak up the syrup that was left on his plate. He was paying more attention to his sticky creation than to his mother, but when she finally announced what she had been working up to, he heard every horrible word.
“Since I don't have to be back to work for a week, I thought it might be nice if Andrew and I took a little trip togetherâto the Dells or to Madison or somewhereâto really get to know each other. And then, Wedge, you can be alone here with King. We're going to have a whole lifetime together, so I think a week separated like that would be good for us. All of us.”
Sally's voice trailed off in Wedge's mind, while his pancakes turned to rocks in his stomach. He thought he might cry if he wasn't careful. It was bad enough to have a pair of scarecrows for a new father and brother, but to be
alone
with one of them for a week would be unbearable.
“Could we go camping, Sally?” Andrew asked, twirling his fork in delight.