Who Put That Hair in My Toothbrush? Read online

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  A Sneak Peek of Maniac Magee

  A Sneak Peek of Space Station Seventh Grade

  A Sneak Peek of Eggs

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  For Muffin,

  who helped me write this book

  and my life

  Megin

  THE SADDEST SHOWER of all is the one you take the night before school starts in September. It’s like you’re not just washing the day’s dirt away, you’re washing the whole summer down the drain—all the fun, all the long, free days. So it’s sad. So the last thing I needed, taking my end-of-summer shower, was something to make it even worse. But that’s exactly what I got.

  It started while I was washing my hair: someone flushed the toilet and the shower water turned scalding hot. “Toddie!” I yelled, scooting on my heels to the other end of the tub. My little brother is the only one who goes to the bathroom while I’m taking a shower. I peeked around the curtain. No Toddie. No anybody. But the door was open. “Shut the door!” I yelled. The door slammed shut.

  I figured that would be it. Wrong. A couple minutes later, just as I got all soaped up, the water changed again, this time to freezing. I jumped back—and rammed my hip into the soap dish—pain! I peeked out, massaging my hip. Steaming hot water was gushing from the faucet in the sink. Again: nobody there, the door open. I knew right then who was behind it all.

  “Shut the door!” I yelled. The door stayed open. I had to get the door shut and the sink water off. They were both too far to reach from the tub. I pushed the curtain outside the tub, then I stepped out onto the floor with the curtain still in front of me. Dripping. Hip killing me. Door still a long way off. I inched away from the tub. I was getting closer, but with every inch, more and more of me was sticking out from behind the curtain. Pretty soon the only thing covering me was the red plastic triangle of the curtain’s lower corner. I reached out my leg as far as it would go; my big toe wiggled way short of the door.

  Only one thing to do. I dashed for the door, leaving the curtain behind. Right then, in mid-dash, is when things really started happening fast: suddenly Toddie was standing—gawking—in the doorway; I froze; I screamed; I dashed back to the curtain; I banged my leg against the toilet; I wrapped myself in the curtain; the curtain, like a machine gun, came pop-pop-popping off the rod; I screamed again—

  “Y​Y​Y​A​A​A​A​A​A​A​A​A​A​A​A​A​A​A​A​A​A​A​A​A​A​H​H​H!”

  Then my father came rushing in. He saw the shower running in the bathtub, he saw the water boiling into the sink, he saw his daughter, wrapped in the shower curtain, dripping and screaming in the middle of the bathroom—and what did he say? “Hey, your dimples don’t show when you’re screaming.”

  I screamed louder.

  He turned off the sink water and the shower. “Okay, okay, Dimpus. Now what’s going on?”

  “I’ll kill him,” I swore.

  He looked around, pretending not to know what I was talking about. “Kill? Who?”

  “You know who.”

  He rubbed his chin and pretended to think. “Hmm, let’s see now. You said ‘him.’ So it’s a ‘he’ you’re going to kill. Can’t be me. That leaves two other ‘hes’ in the house.” He turned to Toddie, who was still standing goo-goo-eyed in the doorway. “You’re not going to kill your little brother, are you, Megin?”

  “Daddy,” I said, “he’s making Toddie do stuff to me. He made him flush the toilet and turn the water on.”

  “Toddie,” my father said gently, “did somebody make you do that?”

  Toddie stuck out his chest. “Nobody make me do nuffin’.”

  “Daddy, he probably paid him off. He pays him to torture me. Look in his pockets. Go ahead—look.” My father reached into Toddie’s pockets and pulled out two nickels. “See!” I screeched.

  “Megin,” he said, “you can’t convict somebody on two nickels. That’s not proof.”

  My hip and my leg were killing me and I felt like I was being swallowed by a giant fish, and he was talking about proof. Still drenched, I stormed out of the bathroom and over to Grosso’s room. I could hear barbells clanking inside. His door was locked. I started kicking it and banging and screaming. “I’ll kill him! I’ll kill him!” By the time my father dragged me back to the bathroom, my feet and fists were sore too.

  But I wasn’t about to give up. I slipped from the shower curtain into a towel and had my father put the curtain back up. Then I made him stand guard outside the door while I went on with my shower. Sure enough, in about a minute the water changed again, to ice. I screamed. I could hear my father tearing downstairs. When he came back, he looked sheepish. “Sorry, Dimpus,” he said, “Mommy started the washer.”

  Greg

  “… forty-eight… forty-nine… fifty.”

  Done. I was ready If she was ever going to notice me, this would be the day.

  Suddenly I was nervous. Terrified. God, this is it! What if she still didn’t notice me? What if I still looked the same? What if those million sit-ups went to waste? What if she met somebody down the shore over the summer? What if…

  Stay calm, stay calm. I sat on the edge of my bed and started taking long, deep breaths. Relax, relax. Ever since school had ended in June, I had had only one goal in life: to make myself good-looking enough so Jennifer Wade would have to notice me. I got subscriptions to Muscles and Body Beautiful. I exercised and lifted weights. I covered myself with Coppertone and tanned in the sun. I used Sassoon shampoo and Sassoon conditioner and Sassoon rinse, and I brushed my teeth with Close-up at least four times everyday. I drank Pro/Gain and I ate tons of eggs and raw vegetables and fruit and red meats. Plus potato skins. I read they’re good for the complexion.

  And now it was time. One final first-day-of-school series of curls (25 each arm), push-ups (50) and sit-ups (50), and the job was done. I went to the bathroom and checked out my summer’s work. I was re-created. A new kid. A sort of Sassoon-Pro/Gain-Coppertone Frankenkid.

  But I still felt the same inside.

  I washed my face but couldn’t find a towel. I was ticked. I hauled my wet face right into Megamouth’s room. There they were: one towel wrapped around her head, one on a chair, two on the floor.

  “Dad-dee! Dad-dee! Greg’s in my room! Get outta my room!”

  I grabbed the towel on the chair and got out. I felt something hit me in the back.

  “Somebody better do something about that room of hers,” I told my parents in the kitchen. “We’re gonna get roaches.”

  “You know,” my father said, “it amazes me that two children in the same family can be so different. One so neat, one so sloppy.”

  “Doesn’t amaze me,” said my mother. “Greg, pancakes?”

  “No thanks.”

  “Not even on the first day of school? I don’t do this all the time, you know.”

  “No thanks.”

  Megamouth came in mocking. “No thannnks, no thannnks. He doesn’t want to junk up that beautiful body of his.”

  “Once you get roaches, you know, you can’t get rid of them.”

  “Greg, you’re going to have more than that milk shake, aren’t you?”

  “It’s not milk shake. It’s
Pro/Gain.”

  “If you don’t want the pancakes I got up early to make you, then what?”

  Megamouth swooned. “Oh, Jennifer, my darling, I love you, I adore you.”

  “Greg, I’m waiting for your order. I only do this one day a year, you know. Now what’ll it be?”

  “A grapefruit. Y’know, roaches’ve been around since before the dinosaurs.”

  Megamouth made a smooching sound. “Oh, Jennifer, I’m wild about you! I simply went crazy without you all summer!”

  She kept interrupting like that, but I ignored her. “They hang around where there’s food and darkness,” I said. “Just what’s in that room.”

  “Why, Jennifer, don’t you recognize me? It’s Greg. Greg Tofer.”

  “If somebody comes in here and sees that room, they could sic the Board of Health on us.”

  “That’s right! Remember ugly old Greg Tofer?”

  “I read this article—once you get roaches, you might never get rid of them.”

  “Since you saw me last, I lifted my dumbbells and I shampooed with my Sassoon and I drank my proteins and now look at me—I’m gorgeous!”

  “Never.”

  “Even my zits are smaller!”

  My father stood up—as usual, this big grin on his face. “Well, family, I’m off to support you now. Don’t forget: Help your father—push somebody into the mud.”

  He always says that. He’s an appliance salesman at Sears, and one of the things he sells is washing machines.

  I finished my grapefruit, grabbed a potato skin from the refrigerator (my mother saves them for me), and took off.

  You might have thought just a weekend had passed, not a whole summer. As usual, Old Mrs. Greeley next door was sweeping off her sidewalk. (You could eat off her sidewalk.) Valducci was waiting at the first corner, Poff at the second. Just like always.

  But everything wasn’t the same.

  Valducci jumped out in front, whirled, and did a high-kick in our faces that stopped us cold. Valducci is into karate or something. “Hey, baby! We are now”—an open hand snapped down to split an invisible cinder block—“chakkah!—ninth-graders!”

  “Big rip,” said Poff, who is built like a visible cinder block.

  Fast as a lizard’s tongue, Valducci’s hands flicked out, tattooed Poff’s head up one side and down the other, then shot back before Poff could raise a hand. Valducci’s quick, you have to give him that. “Ninth grade, man! We’re gonna rule that school!” Valducci went kicking and jerking and chopping ahead of us. “We are—sokka!—kings now, babeee—Look out—sokka!—teachers—look out—sokka!—everybodeee—Gonna rule—sokka!—that—sokka!—school—sokka sokka Chakkalahhh!”

  Valducci was right, even if he did get a little carried away. No longer were we seventh-grade zeroes or eighth-grade halfways. Suddenly I felt a little bigger in the world. I grinned. “Yeah, right, ninth-graders now.”

  “Big rip,” said Poff.

  Coming up to the school, I only had one question: Where was Jennifer Wade? I couldn’t go obviously gawking around after her; nobody in ninth grade knew about my thing for her, not even Poff and Valducci, and I wanted to keep it that way. So, while the outside of me was slapping hands and saying “How was your summer?” the inside of me was like a sack of blinded eyes.

  A couple times I saw girlfriends of hers, once I thought I heard her voice, but by the time the door opened, I still hadn’t spotted her. I was almost relieved. I didn’t know what I’d do if I saw her, anyway. The whole idea was to have her see me. All summer long I had been directing this little movie in my head:

  SCENE I

  Time: First day of school.

  Place: Avon Oaks Junior High.

  Somewhere in the hallway.

  JENNIFER. Hi, Greg.

  ME. Hi, Jen.

  JENNIFER. Gee, you look great.

  ME. Thanks. You’re looking pretty good yourself.

  JENNIFER [blushing]. Thank you.

  ME. My pleasure.

  JENNIFER. Say, Greg, that’s a great tan you have.

  ME. Thanks. You have a pretty good one too.

  JENNIFER [blushing]. Thank you.

  ME. My pleasure.

  JENNIFER. You weren’t down the beach all summer by any chance, were you?

  ME. Nah. I just love the outdoors, that’s all.

  JENNIFER. Well, that golden tan really sets off your eyes nice.

  ME. Thanks. So does yours.

  JENNIFER [blushing]. Thank you.

  ME. My pleasure.

  JENNIFER. And your forearms, I can’t help noticing them. They seem so strong, so rugged. And wow—look—look at that vein running down there, how it’s popping out!

  ME. Yeah.

  JENNIFER. That’s really great.

  ME. Thanks, Jen.

  SCENE II

  Time: Next day.

  Place: Same.

  JENNIFER. Hi, Greg.

  ME. Hi, Jen.

  JENNIFER. How’s school going?

  ME. Pretty good, thanks.

  JENNIFER [shyly]. Say, Greg, do you mind if I ask you something?

  ME. Not at all.

  JENNIFER [adorably]. Well, I’m having a party Saturday night, and I was wondering if you’d like to come—with me, of course.

  ME. Mm… okay. Sure, Jen. Sounds good.

  JENNIFER [excitedly]. Oh wow! Great!

  Not for one second did I stop squeezing the little rubber ball in my hand. I swore no matter where or when I met her, my forearm vein was going to be humping out. Like a python on a sidewalk.

  She wasn’t in any of my morning classes, and I didn’t see her in the hallways. When I couldn’t spot her in the lunchroom, I really started to worry. Afternoon: still no Jennifer.

  At the bell I rushed outside and hung around bus No. 4, the one she always took. I saw every person who got on, saw the bus take off, without her. Squeezing the rubber ball like mad, I ran back inside, to the office.

  The secretary looked up. “Yes?”

  “Uh—it’s not important, just wondering about something.”

  “What is it?”

  “Uh—a student, ninth-grader, I think. A girl.”

  “What about her?”

  “Well—uh—ah never mind—”

  I bolted from the office, my face on fire. I couldn’t do it. But I had to. Couldn’t. Had to. Suddenly, coming toward me in the dusky hallway, one of her friends. We passed. I turned, kept walking backward, called, breezily, “Hey—Karen.”

  She turned. “Hi.”

  “You—uh—still friends with that girl? What’s her name? Jennifer something?”

  “Wade?”

  “Yeah, that’s it.”

  “What about her?”

  We were still backing away from each other, so we were practically shouting by now. “Didn’t see her today!”

  “I know!”

  “She sick?”

  “She moved!”

  “What?”

  “Moved! To Conestoga!”

  I breezed on out the door, nonchalanted it down the steps, whistled a football fight song, cooled it all the way out to the curb, where the last bus was leaving. I stood right behind it and let its gas-fart smother me; then I wound up, and with all the summer and strength in my arm, I fired the rubber ball. It hit right where a bug-eyed seventh-grader had his stupid nose mashed against the back window.

  Megin

  I THOUGHT Sue Ann was going to pee herself, she was so excited.

  “D’jah hear about the girl from California?”

  “From where?”

  “California!”

  “What about her?”

  “She’s here!”

  “Who?”

  “The girl from California!”

  “So?”

  “Didn’t you hear about her?”

  “Sue Ann, we just started junior high school an hour ago.”

  “I know, but everybody’s talking about her already.”

  “What about her?�
�

  “I don’t know, all kinds of stuff. They said she’s really something.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. Really something.”

  The girl from California—that’s all I heard about. Every five minutes Sue Ann came rushing up with a new report: “She wears silver sandals!” “An anklet!” “Two anklets!” “Green toenail polish!” “Green eye shadow!” “Big hoop earrings!” “Her name’s Zoe!”

  “Zoe?” I screeched.

  “Yeah. Can you believe it?”

  “Zoe?”

  “Yeah, Zoe.”

  “Nobody’s name is Zoe.”

  “Megin”—she squeezed my arm—“she’s from Cali-for-nia.”

  Well, I never saw her the first day. She wasn’t in any of my classes, and I guess she wasn’t in my lunch shift either. On the second day, coming to school, Sue Ann pointed to a crowd near the door.

  “She’s in there.”

  “Who?”

  “The girl from California.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I just know. She’s in there. Go ahead, take a look.”

  She was pushing me.

  “Sue Ann! Knock it off! I gotta lotta things to do around here without having to listen to you jabber all the time about some weirdo from California. Now, are you going out for lacrosse with me or not?”

  Suddenly she was yanking me around. “Look, Megin! There she is! Look!”

  “Oh cripes.” I smacked her hand away. “You’re disgusting.” I marched into school and absolutely refused to look.

  Best friend or no best friend, Sue Ann can be a pain sometimes. She gets so—I don’t know—flighty, hyper. I didn’t have time to be bothered. By the end of the day, I had signed up for stage crew and lacrosse. I picked lacrosse because it’s the closest thing to ice hockey, which is my all-time favorite sport. In lacrosse you get a stick with this fishnet pocket in it to carry and pass around a hard rubber ball. I was only on the field a minute before the coach came blaring her whistle.

  “Hey! You!”

  “Huh?”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Megin.”

  “Megin who?”

  “Tofer.”