Penguin Problems Read online

  Then, when I turned three, Mom told me I had to give my pacifiers to a new child. That was THE LAW, she said, and I remember this part of the story myself. Only Mom didn’t really give my pacifiers to a new child. She just put them in a cup on the shelf above the refrigerator. She admitted it after Teensy Baby Maggie was born.

  Hmm. After school I’ll ask her to get them down for me, so I can look at them.

  Taylor flaps his puny arms. “Passies are for babies!”

  “We are babies!” I remind him.

  He lunges close and thwaps me hard. My head snaps back, and Taylor laughs.

  “Taylor, stop and I mean it!” I say in a not-me voice. I think I taste blood, and inside of me is a big, hot, mad feeling, so maybe it’s a mad voice. Super mad, because I don’t like it when people laugh at me. Also, I might be getting teary again—for the second time this day!—and I really don’t like people seeing my tears.

  “You’re a big dumb bay-bee!” Taylor chants. “You’re a big dumb bay-bee!”

  I could tell on Taylor. He’d have to run a lap around the playground. Instead, I walk away. Away from him. Away from everybody. I lean against the big gray trash bin and touch my tooth with my tongue.

  It moves.

  Taylor made my tooth loose. One of my top teeth, the one that’s in the exact front. Except I have two front teeth, and Taylor whacked the one on the right, and now it wiggles.

  “Ty?” Mrs. Webber says.

  I jump. Where did she come from? I quickly wipe my eyes, hoping I’m not tearstained.

  “Are you hiding behind the trash can?” Mrs. Webber asks.

  “What? No. I just like it here.”

  “Ah,” Mrs. Webber says. “Well, can you please be Price’s bathroom buddy?”

  Price is standing next to Mrs. Webber. I didn’t see him till now. He’s holding the part of his pants where the zipper is, which I would never do. Which I never did do, even in preschool.

  “Um, sure. Come on, Price.”

  Inside the school, Price walks fast, but with stiff zombie legs.

  “It’s a bad pee,” he tells me.

  I think of my morning pee, and I speed up my walking. We reach the boys’ bathroom, and I say, “We made it! Yay!”

  Price gazes at me.

  I swing my hand at the urinals. “Go on. I won’t watch.”

  Price keeps gazing at me. His eyes are round and not like Robo-Thing’s eyes at all.

  “Price? Don’t you need to use the bathroom?”

  His forehead gets scrunchy-worried, and I smell a smell. Ohhhhh.

  “All right, um, don’t worry,” I say. “You stay here. I’ll be right back.” At the door, I glance over my shoulder. “Don’t leave.”

  He sucks his lower lip and nods. He’ll be tearstained soon if he’s not careful.

  I dash to the office and whisper in Ms. Betsill’s ear. She is very nice and not mean at all and gives me a brown plastic grocery bag with spare pants and underwear in it.

  “We ask parents to donate used clothing for just this sort of thing,” she says.

  Back in the boys’ bathroom, I hand Price the bag.

  He looks inside. “There’s underwear in here.”

  “And pants. Yep.”

  “Bob the Builder underwear.”

  I peer into the bag. Sure enough, there’s Bob in his yellow hard hat, driving around the underwear in a dump truck. A dump truck. Ha.

  But Price is still worried, so I say, “I like Bob the Builder. And they’re clean, so . . . yeah.”

  “But they’re not mine.”

  “I know. They’re loaners.” I show him the waistband of the underwear. “They say TRINITY ELEMENTARY, see? You wear them now and bring them back tomorrow.”

  “Oh.” Price shifts his weight. “What do I do with . . . um . . . ?”

  That’s a good question. What is he supposed to do with his own underwear and pants?

  “I guess put them in the plastic bag? But go to the bathroom first.”

  He turns bright red. “I already did.”

  Which I already know, but I try to be nice like Ms. Betsill.

  “Go into one of the stalls,” I tell him, because there are urinals and stalls in the boys’ bathroom. “Take your pants and underwear off and put the new ones on. Then put yours in the bag. And then we need to get back to recess.”

  Price’s face relaxes. “Okay,” he says. “Okay, Ty.”

  Within the stall, he makes preschooler sounds—grunts and mouth-breathing and stuff—and I examine my tooth in the mirror.

  “Done,” Price says proudly. He holds out the plastic bag. After a second or two, I take it. We both wash our hands.

  We go down the preschool hall, and I hang the bag on Price’s hook. After that, we go back outside. Price runs off. Then he runs back and hugs me. Then he runs off again.

  For the rest of recess, I mainly just stand there. Lexie and Breezie walk by, and Breezie tosses her hair. She links her arm through Lexie’s and says, “Boys are so childish, don’t you think?”

  Lexie looks at the sky. “Sometimes yes, sometimes no.”

  I think about Price, who is a boy. Breezie would definitely call Price childish, if she knew what he did.

  But guess what? I’d rather play with Price than Breezie any day. I don’t want to play with Price or Breezie, but if I had to, I’d pick Price.

  CHAPTER SIX

  When I get home, I tell Mom about my loose tooth. She’s supposed to say, “Oh my goodness!” and be shocked. Instead she says, “Yeah? That’s great, Ty.”

  That’s great? She is not listening. She’s fixing dinner, and Baby Maggie is strapped to her like a caboose. I mean papoose.

  “No, because it didn’t get loose on its own,” I say. “It’s only loose because Taylor hit me.”

  “What?!” Mom swivels. Baby Maggie swivels with her. “Who hit you?”

  “Taylor! Right in the mouth! I told you!”

  She comes over to look, and she says, “Oh, sweetheart. My poor baby!”

  I’m not a baby, because Maggie’s the baby, and even so, I’m seven.

  But I don’t mind.

  Just this once.

  She hugs me, and in the middle of it, she sniffs my head. “Ty. You have got to take a bath.”

  “I think I’ll pass, but thanks for the offer,” I say politely. I’m not a fan of baths.

  “Wrong answer, bug,” Mom says. “You don’t want to be the kid who everyone says, ‘Ooo, he smells’ about.”

  “Yes, I do.” Except I think about Price, and I know she’s right.

  “Bath. Tonight. Especially since you have a field trip tomorrow.”

  “The field trip isn’t tomorrow. It’s the day after tomorrow. Did you buy my Lunchable?”

  “Not yet. I will. Now back to Taylor. Did you tell a teacher he hit you?”

  I shrug.

  “Maybe you should hang out with someone else during recess,” she suggests.

  Maybe, but who? Lexie was doing rubber-band guns. And it was fun being Big Fat Babies until Taylor whacked me.

  I remember something, and my brain lights up.

  “Hey, Mom? Can you get down my old pacifiers?”

  “Your old . . . ? No, Ty. Why in the world do you want your old pacifiers?”

  I eye the cabinet above the fridge. “Please?”

  Teensy Baby Maggie pluhs. Mom groans. There’s a dribbly bit of yuck on her shirt.

  “Ty, I’m trying to fix dinner and take care of Maggie,” she says. “I can’t do everything.”

  “I just want to see them.”

  “Not now.”

  “When?”

  “I don’t know, Ty. When you can get them down for yourself. Why don’t you go play on your Wii, okay?”

  Because
I don’t want to play on my Wii. I want to see my old pacifiers. And since Mom said “when you can get them down for yourself,” then I will.

  Because I can.

  I drag a stool over to the fridge.

  “Ty, don’t you climb on that,” Mom warns, even though she’s facing the sink. She thinks stools are only for sitting on, because they’re high and the seat part is just a round circle. But I have very good balance. I might be a circus person one day.

  But, fine. I’ll climb on the counter. Mom doesn’t think counters are for climbing on, either, but I know they are. Otherwise why would they be there?

  I hear Dad pull into the driveway, which isn’t the best news. Dad also doesn’t think counters are for climbing on. But the good news is that the garage-door-opening noise will cover up my climbing sounds.

  Vrrrrmmmmmm. The garage door rattles, and I backward bottom-hop onto the counter by the fridge. I twist around, get to my knees, and rise to my feet. So far, so good, even in my socks.

  Clunk clunk clunk. That means the garage door is almost open, because that sound isn’t supposed to happen. Dad keeps saying he needs to get it fixed.

  With my left hand, I hold on to the cabinet closest to me. With my right hand, I reach for the cabinet above the fridge. My arm isn’t long enough, so I stand on my tiptoes and use finger nudgings to coax it open. Come on, cabinet door, I tell it. That’s right. Just a little farther.

  It opens! On the shelf is a glass bottle filled with brown stuff, and next to that is the hot glue gun. Behind the hot glue gun is a six-pack of Perrier. Behind the Perrier is . . . yes! A plastic kids cup from the Olive Garden with pacifiers sticking out of it!

  The garage door thunks to a stop. I hear Dad’s car door open, I hear Dad’s door shut. I hear the garage door start to go down. All of this means hurry.

  I pretend I do have an extendable arm, and I grope for the Olive Garden cup. I’m touching it . . . I’ve almost got it . . . come on, come on—

  The back door opens, and one second later—half a second later—Dad’s deep voice says, “Ty. Get off the counter.”

  I almost fall from being startled, but I catch myself, and I don’t give up on my mission. “Mom said I could! Mom said if I could get them myself, then I could!”

  “Excuse me?” Mom says. Then, “Ty! What are you doing up there?”

  My finger wiggles over the rim of the cup.

  “Ty,” Dad says, coming my way. “When I tell you to do something, I expect you to do it.” He lifts me off the counter, and my scrambling fingers tip over the Olive Garden cup. The cup and the pacifiers clatter to the floor.

  “Go to your room, Ty,” Dad says. “You just earned yourself a break.”

  I kneel and gather the pacifiers. There are a lot of them, seven or eight, and they have cute pictures on them. A car. An elephant. A teddy bear.

  “But, Dad . . .” I say.

  “Keep arguing, and it’ll be even longer.”

  I bundle the pacifiers in my shirt and go upstairs. Well, not all the way up, but far enough that they can’t see me.

  I don’t like being sent to my room.

  “Sorry, Joel,” I hear Mom say. “I didn’t know what he was doing. You have no idea how long a day it’s been.”

  Dad lets out a big breath. “Well, I shouldn’t have snapped at him. He scared me, that’s all.”

  “It scared me, too. And just so you know, I did not give him permission to climb up there.”

  What? Yes, she did.

  “He needs more attention,” Mom says. “The baby . . . me being tired all the time . . .”

  I get a tightness in my chest. I scooch one step farther up.

  “Don’t worry, Ellen. Ty is okay, and you’re okay. We’re all okay.” There’s a smooch sound. “But I’ll go talk to him.”

  His footsteps come toward the stairs, and I scurry to my room. I shove my pacifiers under my pillow just in time. Phew!

  Only, Dad passes right by. He said he was coming to talk to me, but he doesn’t. He just passes right by.

  • • •

  Here is what I learn about pacifiers. I like them! When I suck one, it’s like something safe is pressing up close.

  Another interesting thing is their smell. They smell like my pillow, when I first wake up.

  I hold the green teddy bear pacifier to my nose and breathe in. Then, right at the very second when I’ve stopped expecting him, Dad appears out of nowhere. I shove the green pacifier under my leg. The others are by my crossed legs. I swoop them behind my back.

  “Hey, bud,” Dad says. “Can we talk, man to man?”

  “Okay. How was your day?”

  He settles himself on the edge of my bed. “Having a new baby in the house . . . It’s a big change, huh?”

  “No.”

  He studies me. He’s got beard stubble on his chin.

  “Are you doing okay with it?” he asks.

  “What ‘it’?”

  “The new baby. Baby Maggie.”

  “Baby Maggie’s an ‘it’?”

  Dad bows his head. He breathes. He looks back at me and says, “I know she takes up a lot of Mom’s attention. And she cries sometimes. But she’s kind of cute, don’t you think?”

  “Like seaweed,” I mutter.

  “Seaweed? How is your sister like seaweed?”

  “The way her arms wave about. Like seaweed deep in the ocean.”

  “Ahhh. But your sister is a little girl.”

  My face warms up. I never said she wasn’t.

  We sit there. Finally, Dad smacks his hands against his thighs and pushes himself up. “Well, try to help your mother out. Don’t cause her any trouble. And why don’t you give me those pacifiers, huh? I think it’s time we got rid of them.”

  “Why?”

  “Because pacifiers are for babies. And you, Ty, are a big guy.”

  “I won’t use them. I just want to keep them.”

  Dad holds out his hand. “C’mon, buddy. Pass ’em over.”

  My stomach tightens.

  His hand stays where it is.

  I scowl and give him the seven pacifiers that were behind my back. Greenie is a hard plastic lump beneath me. So? I don’t look at Dad, because I don’t even want to.

  “Thank you,” Dad says.

  “Don’t throw them away,” I say. “I want to give them to my own children one day.”

  “Ty,” Dad says wearily. “When you have kids, you can buy them new pacifiers. These are too old.” He tugs on the rubber tip of the blue pacifier, and part of it comes off. What’s left is a ragged hole.

  Dad looks shocked. He stands up straighter and says, “See? If a baby was sucking on that, the baby would have choked.”

  I dig my fingernails into my palms. I would have never ripped off the head of my blue pacifier. Also, I want to touch the torn part. But I can’t. Dad would say no.

  Dad puts all the pacifiers into his pockets, plus the scrap of rubber that used to be part of the blue one. The way he does it says, There. Done.

  What he doesn’t know is that I still have my green one.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  After school the next day, Sandra takes me to Piedmont Hospital to visit my best friend, Joseph. Piedmont Hospital is where Teensy Baby Maggie was born, so I know all about it; plus I’ve visited Joseph before. I even have permission to visit Joseph without having a parent with me. Sandra drops me off at the front entrance and says she’ll be back in an hour.

  I wave at the nurses in the Pediatric Ward. They wave back. When I get to room 512, I peek through the crack to see if Joseph’s mom is in there, and when she isn’t, I barge in and go, “Boo!”

  Joseph jumps in his hospital bed and screams like a girl. Or a dolphin. They sound the same.

  “Hi,” I say, grinning.

  Jo
seph grins back. “Hi. Do it again.”

  So I go, “Boo,” and he screams like a dolphin. We crack up.

  And then we just talk. About gum-by-the-foot, about a mole on one of the nurse’s cheeks, about alligators and how they let their meat rot before eating it. Joseph reads a lot, so he knows all kinds of stuff.

  I tell him about Lexie, and how she was mad at me, but how she isn’t anymore. He tells me his white blood cells are getting better, and I say, “That’s awesome.” I really want him to come back to school.

  When it’s time for me to leave, he says, “You stink, by the way. Like, smelly-stink.”

  I look down at myself. I sniff.

  “It’s okay, though,” he says. “I don’t care.”

  “I don’t care, either,” I say. I kind of do and kind of don’t. “I was supposed to take a bath last night, but I didn’t.”

  “Cool.”

  “I’m not going to take one tonight, either. I’m going for an Olympic record.”

  He gives me a thumbs-up and lies back against his pillow. “Cool.”

  • • •

  I’m a man of my word and don’t take a bath that night, just like I said. Mom tells me to right after supper, but I hop into bed instead, and then ka-boom! I wake up and it’s Thursday, the day of our field trip! Sharks! Starfish! Beluga whales!

  I wake up so excited, and then whoosh, my excitement gets sucked out of me, like someone sucked it out with a giant Dustbuster. Only not a fun Dustbuster.

  First, I find out that Mom forgot to buy my Lunchable, and that I have to bring a juice box, an apple, chips, and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in a stupid plastic grocery store bag. When I get mad, she says, “Ty, I hate to break it to you, but the world doesn’t always revolve around you.”

  That makes me madder, and also hurts my feelings, because saying that is like saying I’m acting like a baby, when I’m not.

  Then, at school, Lexie is back to being more friends with Breezie than with me. Breezie’s mom, Mrs. Hammerdorfer, is our chaperone, and Lexie wants to show off by being Breezie’s specialiest friend. That’s what I think.