Charlie Bumpers vs. the Perfect Little Turkey (8 page)

At the end of dinner, all the grown-ups sat around talking like they always do. Just when I thought I’d have to listen to them forever, the phone in the kitchen rang. I ran to answer it.

“I DON’T THINK SO!” said a voice on the other end of the line.

Buck Meson’s famous line. It was Tommy.

I glanced at the clock. “Half an hour to Buck Meson liftoff, dude,” I said.

“You all ready?” he asked.

“I’m ready, but I hope people leave before the show starts. We have a lot of guests.”

“I know!” Tommy said. “I’m at my aunt and uncle’s house and there’s a million people here. But we’re going to go home soon. Then I’ll be able watch the special without anyone to bug me.”

“I’ve got someone who’s going to bother me no matter what,” I said in a low voice. “My cousin Chip.”

“Argh! Cousins!” Tommy said. “Families can drive you crazy.”

“I know. Families are a big pain.”
Except,
I thought,
maybe for Team Bumpers.

“Right,” Tommy said. “I’ll call you after the show is over so we can talk about who gets the electron stare.”

I hung up and went back to the table to find the grown-ups had finally stopped talking. Pops, Gams, Aunt Sarah, and Uncle Brandon were putting on their coats. The Gritzbachs were standing by the door, saying good-bye to my dad.

Things were working out perfectly—they were leaving just in time for me to watch the show.

Aunt Sarah kissed Chip, and Uncle Brandon gave him a hug. “Be a good guy like you always are,” he said.

“We’re going to watch Buck Meson,” Chip announced.

“Good night, everyone,” Aunt Sarah said. “We really enjoyed the dinner.”

“Thanks, everyone,” Gams said with a big smile. “It was wonderful being together.”

“We had a beautiful time,” Mrs. Gritzbach said. “Thank you so much for letting us spend the day with your family. You made us feel like we belonged.”

“Thank you,” grumbled Mr. Gritzbach.

“Let me help you with your coat, Irma,” Mom said to Mrs. Walcott. “I’ll take you home. Charlie, can you come with us?”

This couldn’t happen! I liked Mrs. Walcott and I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, but I couldn’t miss Buck Meson!

“Charlie wants to watch Buck Meson,” the Squid said. “The show’s going to start soon.”

“Charlie can go with us,” Mom said. “He doesn’t mind.”

Charlie does mind! He minds very much!

“Oh, leave dat boy alone,” Mrs. Walcott said with a very definite tone in her voice. “It don’ mek sense for him to miss his show.” She gave her little chuckle. “But Charlie, if you help de ol’ lady get de Maserati in de car, dat will be very kind of you.”

“I’ll go with you,” said Uncle Ron.

“That would be very nice,” said Mom. “Thanks, Ron.”

“Not a problem,” he said, grabbing his jacket.

I put Mrs. Walcott’s walker in Mom’s car and watched them drive away. Then I hurried back into the house. The Squid and Chip were already in the family room. Dad was listening to music in the living room, so we had the TV to ourselves. I turned it on and punched in the right channel. The show was going to start in fifteen minutes.

I could hardly wait.

Chip got up and stood in front of the screen.
He crouched down, then whirled around and leapt toward me like some sort of kid ninja.

“I’m Buck Meson,” he announced, “and you’re the bad guy!”

“Sit down, Chip,” I said.

“Who’s the bad guy in this episode?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Probably Calculus.”

Calculus was a sinister mastermind from the Evil Eye galaxy who had once figured out how to get into everyone’s bank accounts, taken billions of dollars, and then built a machine to destroy Planet Xanthos. Buck Meson caught him and put him in the Intergalactic Cyberprison, but Calculus programmed the doors of the prison to open with a remote device and he escaped along with all the other super criminals.

Until Buck Meson’s electron stare paralyzed him.

“You’re Calculus! Hah!” Chip aimed a karate kick at me.

“Stop it, Chip,” I said.

He vaulted over the back of the couch and ran
around yelling, “I can’t stop! I’m fighting Calculus! I’m the hero, Buck Meson!”

Chip was bonkers. Maybe the sugar and food he’d been eating all day long was suddenly making him a wild man.

“Sit down!” the Squid shouted.

“Okay, okay,” Chip said, bounding into my dad’s big easy chair. He sat there, bouncing up and down on the seat.

After what seemed like forever, the show started. As soon as the Buck Meson theme song came on,
Chip got up again. “Wait a minute!” he said. “I want to get something!”

“What?” I asked.

“Pause it!” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

I paused the show. I was getting pretty frustrated.

Chip ran out of the room and came back in with the big jar of Swedish Fish. I couldn’t believe it—half of them were gone already! He must have been eating them all day long. He opened the jar, took out a handful, and stuffed them in his mouth.

“Okay,” he said. “Start it.” He plopped back down and started kicking his legs against the chair. But at least he wasn’t talking and I could watch the show.

As the program began, Buck Meson was leaving his planet in the Andromeda Galaxy to visit Earth in his transport module.

“That’s just like your model!” Chip shouted. “The one I saw in your room.”

“Be quiet!” the Squid said. “Charlie wants to watch the show.”

I could tell she was getting mad.

After about ten minutes of the show, Matt stuck his head in the family room.

“Aren’t you going to watch with us?” I asked.

“Nope,” he said. “I’m going up to my room—to a galaxy far, far away.”

Three minutes later, Chip jumped up again. “I have to go the bathroom,” he said. “Pause it.”

“Just hurry up and go,” I said. “You won’t miss much.”

“Please pause it,” he begged. “I don’t want to miss anything. And I really have to go.”

“Okay,” I said, pushing the pause button. “But I’m not waiting long!” Tommy was going to call as soon as it was over and I didn’t want him to get ahead of me.

Chip tore up the stairs.

“Chip is a
p-a-n-e,
” the Squid said.

“You mean
p-a-i-n,
” I said.

We sat there for a moment, staring at the frozen screen. Suddenly the Squid got up. “I want to get my pony pillow,” she said. “I’ll be right back!”

“Mabel!” I groaned. “Hurry up!”

The Squid scampered up the stairs. Now I was waiting for
two
little kids.

Uncle Ron and Mom had come back and they were in the living room with Dad, listening to music and talking. Matt was in his room, probably with his headphones on. Finally the Squid came hopping back down the stairs and ran in with her pillow.

“Where’s Chip?” I asked.

“Still in the bathroom,” she said. “You can go ahead and watch. It’s okay.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yep!” she said.

I hit Play and we went back to watching the show.

It was great—in my opinion the best
Buck Meson
yet. When he got to Earth, he immediately got caught by some intergalactic criminals. And I was right—Calculus was behind it all!

Every once in a while I thought about Chip, but then I figured he just got interested in something else and didn’t want to watch anymore.

After about twenty minutes had gone by, Chip still hadn’t returned. That seemed a little weird. He’d been bugging me all day, and suddenly he had disappeared.

“Do you think Chip’s still in the bathroom?” I asked the Squid.

“I think so,” she said.

“That’s a long time to be in the bathroom. Do you think he’s sick?”

“No,” she said. “Let’s watch the show.”

Something in the way she said that made me look at the Squid more closely. “Why don’t you think he’s sick?”

“Well, maybe he’s a little sick,” she said. “But I think he’s just in the bathroom.”

“What’s going on up there?” I heard my dad call. I turned and saw him standing at the bottom of the stairs. “Matt? Charlie?”

“I’m down here,” I said. Then I heard it. Someone was screaming and pounding on something.

“What’s that?” I glanced over at the Squid. She had the guiltiest look on her face I had ever seen.

“I think Chip’s locked in the bathroom,” she said.

“Did the doorknob fall off?” I said.

She didn’t answer.

“Mabel! Did you take the doorknob?”

Now Mom and Uncle Ron were hurrying up the stairs. We could hear Chip wailing.

“Where’s the doorknob?” I asked my sister.

She looked at her pony pillow. I took it from her and stuck my hand down in between the pillow case and the pillow. I felt the doorknob.

“Mabel! What did you do?”

She grabbed her pony pillow and put it over her head.

The next morning Uncle Brandon and Aunt Sarah and Pops and Gams came over for breakfast. Dad made pancakes. Uncle Ron decided we needed to have bacon, which we never get to have, so he went out and bought some. He made a big mess when he cooked it in the frying pan, but it tasted great. Chip ate about five slices. You’d never know that he’d been sick the night before.

When Aunt Sarah and Uncle Brandon heard how Chip had gotten locked in the bathroom (by accident) and had thrown up, they told him what a big brave boy he was. He smiled and nodded and ate another piece of bacon.

I looked at Matt. He rolled his eyes.

The Squid stuck her tongue out and bit down on it with her teeth.

Finally it was time for them to go. We all stood in the driveway giving hugs and saying good-bye. Aunt Sarah leaned over to me. “Charlie, thanks for having Chip stay with you. He told me he’d love to come see you again.”

“Okay,” I said. Then I bit my tongue, too. Ouch.

“Good-bye, Charlie!” Chip waved out of his window.

“Good-bye, Chip,” I called back.

We all waved as they drove away.

“Phew,” Dad said.

“You can say that again,” Matt said.

“I’m so glad everyone came,” Mom said. “It was a lot of people in our house, but it was worth it. Thanks, guys.”

“And girl,” said the Squid.

The soccer ball was sitting in the yard. I ran over and started dribbling it. Mom, Dad, Mabel, and Matt went inside.

“Hey, Charlie!” Uncle Ron yelled. “Pass it over here.”

We kicked it back and forth. Uncle Ron had told me how much he loved playing soccer when he was a kid.

“How hard can you kick it, Uncle Ron?”

“They used to call me Bigfoot,” he said. “Watch this.”

He dribbled the ball over onto the driveway in front of the garage, then trapped it. “Bigfoot Bumpers on a break!” he shouted in his announcer’s voice. “He’s all alone. He sees an opening!”

“Uncle Ron, no! We’re not supposed to—”

BAM!

He kicked it really hard. Harder than I’d ever kicked it. The ball flew up through the air like a rocket.

CRASH!

It broke through one of the little windows on the garage door.

“Whoops,” Uncle Ron said.

My dad came out on the porch. “Charlie! Are you crazy? For the millionth time—”

“Hold it, bro,” Uncle Ron said. “
He
didn’t do it.
I
did. Sorry.”

My dad shook his head and rubbed his eyes.

“But no harm,” Uncle Ron said. “Charlie’s going to help me fix it. We’ll go the hardware store right now for the glass.”

Without waiting for Dad to say anything, Uncle Ron headed to his truck. “Come on, Charlie,” he said.

“Be back in time for lunch, you turkeys!” Dad yelled.

“No problem,” Uncle Ron answered. “We never miss a meal.”

We climbed in the truck and put on our seat belts. Uncle Ron looked over at me. “This will give us just enough time to shoot off rocket number
two,” he said. “I built it last night. It’s in the back of the truck, already filled up with water.”

“Stupific!” I said.

“Stupific,” he agreed. “Whatever that means.”

I liked riding in Uncle Ron’s pickup—I got to sit in the front, since there were no backseats.

Uncle Ron was whistling to himself and started slapping the steering wheel in time.

I looked out the side window. From way up here in the truck, things looked different.

I thought about everything that happened yesterday. About Ginger not eating the brussels sprouts and the rocket flying sideways into the house and Grandma’s yeast rolls and Buck Meson and Team Bumpers.

And Chip, the Perfect Little Turkey.

I wondered if Matt and the Squid and I would laugh about all those things when we grew up, like Dad and Uncle Ron laughed about the whipped cream, or Mom and Aunt Sarah laughed about green hair. Maybe someday I would even laugh about the
broken transport module and Chip would laugh about throwing up the Swedish Fish.

And then, I thought of Mrs. Burke again. And my assignment. Right then, I knew what my definition of family was going to be.

“Uncle Ron,” I said, “do you know what I think a family is?”

“What, Charlie?”

“People who love you and accept you, even when you’re a bozon.”

“Are you talking about me?” he asked with a grin.

“Yeah. And me, too. And Matt. And Mabel. And everyone.”

“Everyone in this family is a bozon?”

“I think so,” I said. “At least some of the time.”

He laughed. “Works for me.”

It worked for me, too.