Hit the Road, Manny: A Manny Files Novel (8 page)

Harmony told us that her mother lived in California at Disneyland and that she’s going to go live with her in Cinderella’s castle.

The manny said, “Oh, how fun! You’re very lucky! I bet you’ll get to sleep in a canopy bed, and the mice will sew you pretty dresses.” I looked at the manny, and he wasn’t teasing Harmony. He was really talking to her.

“I
love
the mice,” said Harmony, fake-hugging herself. “They’re nice to me when I’m there.” Then she sped off on her tricycle and ran into Grant and Dana’s RV.

We burst through the door of our RV, and Dad quickly started kissing Mom like that’s what they had been doing the whole time we were gone. I could tell they hadn’t been kissing because Mom pushed him away and kept reading the
New Yorker
. I looked over her shoulder, and she was reading about a man who could train unruly dogs. There was a picture of him in the middle of a mud puddle, with mean-looking dogs jumping all over the place. Maybe Belly should be sent there instead of to the desert boot camp.

The manny sat Belly in the driver’s seat of the RV and explained the whole story to Mom and Dad. About the tricycle. About the Skipper doll being stuck in the spokes. About Belly refusing to apologize. Belly just sat there with her arms still crossed. She kept making “humph” noises. She even told the manny that he wasn’t her friend anymore.

Mom told Belly that she thought Harmony was nice and that what Belly did wasn’t very nice.

“Harmony’s bossy!” shouted Belly as she widened her eyes and shook her head back and forth for extra attitude.

I thought that was funny because usually it’s other kids who call
Belly
bossy. When Belly’s friends come over, they play a game called Mean Babysitter where Belly acts like she’s the babysitter and bosses the other kids around. She threatens to “swat” them and puts them in the time-out corner. We don’t know where she learned the game. Nobody’s ever threatened to spank Belly, but maybe they should.

Belly sat in the time-out chair for an hour and a half. She was there when the manny and I left to go swimming, and she was still there when we got back. I made sure to act like I had never had as much fun in my life as I had swimming.

Belly stuck her tongue out at me when I said, “Oh, man, you missed it. Kids were standing in line waiting to have the manny throw them into the swimming pool. You’ve never seen so many kids flying through the air. It was awesome, dude.” I threw in some surfer talk because surfers always seem like they are having a good time.

“It was sick-nar! Totally tubular!” the manny added in surfer talk too. He made a “hang loose” sign with his hand.

Belly didn’t budge from her chair except once to go to the bathroom. In fact, she ate dinner and fell asleep in the time-out seat. Mom covered her with her silky blanket, the one made out of her old nightgowns that Grandma had made. Belly slept all night long in the time-out chair.

Lulu and India shared the bed above the driver’s seat, and I slept on the couch by the table. I could see the light from Lulu’s reading lamp, and she was reading out loud from
To Kill a Mockingbird.
She was at the part where the dad says, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view…until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” Lulu read like she was a book on tape, with a soothing voice and pauses at the end of each sentence. She’s a really good reader.

My head was right next to a window that was cracked open a tiny bit because I love the smell of fresh summer air. Or at least that’s the excuse I gave. I really wanted to crack it open a little because I wanted to eavesdrop. That’s how I found out where babies come from. I heard Mom talking to India about it. I was in the hallway with my notepad, writing it all down like in
Harriet the Spy
. Sarah and I both did book reports on
Harriet the Spy
this year. Sarah got an A. I got a B because I included a list of things I had overheard and written down in a spiral notebook just like Harriet had done in the book. Mrs. House didn’t like the list because there was a quote from her when she was talking to Mrs. Grant on the playground and they didn’t know I was eavesdropping. The quote was “I’m so glad it’s Friday. I sure could use a drink.” I thought the list would get me extra credit, but when she returned my paper, the list had been ripped off. I don’t know what she did with it. Maybe it’s in a scrapbook of excellent student work at her house.

Harmony’s grandpa has a portable fire pit, and all the adults were sitting around it. Mom and Dad were snuggled together like somebody was telling ghost stories. The manny had a blanket around his shoulders. He jumped up and screamed like he was on fire when the fire popped, and I had to cover my laughter so they wouldn’t know I was still awake. I’ve gotten really good at eavesdropping. It doesn’t even make me have to pee anymore.

As the smell of smoke seeped through the tiny crack in the window, I could hear Harmony’s grandpa talking. My head was covered with a sleeping bag except for one of my ears.

“She’s been living with us for about a year while her mother tries to get her life in order. Usually she does pretty well, and we do our best to give her a normal childhood, but it’s difficult. She’s seen so many awful things already.”

I tried to get my ear closer to the cracked window so I could figure out who they were talking about, but I didn’t want to get caught like I had when I listened in on Lulu’s telephone conversation with Fletcher, a boy from Lulu’s class that she “like-likes.” The conversation where he asked Lulu to go with him. They didn’t really go anywhere. It just means that they’re boyfriend/girlfriend and they pass notes in the hallway between classes.

Harmony’s grandpa continued, “Her mother named her Harmony because she thought that a new baby would change her life and make it better.” They were talking about Harmony. I took my whole head out from under the sleeping bag but kept my eyes closed and pretended to be sleeping.

“And it did for a while…but then…” He kept pausing like he didn’t know what he was going to say next or like he had forgotten.

Dana put her hand on Grant’s leg and interjected, “It’s just so hard to watch your daughter get so sad and out of control. I can’t imagine what it must be like for Harmony seeing it happen to her mother.” Then there was complete silence. I opened one eye and peeked out from under the blanket. I could see that Dana had her hands covering her face and was crying.

Grant rubbed her back and looked at Mom, Dad, and the manny and whispered something. I could barely hear him: “Harmony’s mother is a math addict. She’s getting help, but it’s always a struggle. It’s very dangerous and takes control of your entire life. At this point we’re just planning on raising Harmony ourselves.” He got quieter and quieter, and then I couldn’t hear anything until Mom, Dad, and the manny walked into the RV and got ready for bed. I still pretended to be asleep when Mom leaned over, brushed the hair away, and kissed me on the forehead.

I couldn’t fall asleep. A math addict? How does somebody get addicted to math? I imagined Harmony’s mother traveling across the country, neglecting or even forgetting all about Harmony while she was searching for long-division problems to solve. Sarah might have a problem. Last year in Mrs. House’s class, when we were practicing multiplication with flash cards, she stood up and yelled, “WRONG!” whenever somebody answered a problem wrong. Then she did a little dance like football players do when they make a touchdown.

Dana was really upset. I think I must have misunderstood her, because I don’t think she would be this sad if her daughter just had a problem with math. I thought about asking the manny in the morning, but then he’d know I was eavesdropping. I fell asleep thinking about Harmony and how she doesn’t get to live with her mother in Cinderella’s castle.

Belly was the first to wake up the next morning. She was still in the driver’s seat and figured that she was still in trouble, so she didn’t get out of it. Instead she honked the horn of the RV and yelled, “MAAAWM! I NEED YOUR HEEEELLLP!” Mom grumbled and lifted up her head from underneath the covers. She looked like a wet cat, with scrunched-up eyes and messy hair. That’s what she always looks like in the morning. Like the before picture on makeover shows.

The manny lifted his head up too. He looked just like he always does, like a cross between Mr. Clean and Vin Diesel without all the muscles. I didn’t think of that. India described the manny that way in a descriptive essay that she had to write for her English class about her family. In the same paper she described me as “adorably tolerable.” I had to look it up. It means “cute and fairly easy to deal with.”

Mom started to get up, but the manny stopped her. “I’ll check on her. You get some rest. You have some speeding to do today.”

Mom grumbled but stayed tucked in underneath her covers. The manny walked to the front of the RV to take care of Belly. Along the way he shook my foot and whisper-sang, “Schoolboy, time to wake up and go to school and learn something so you can grow up and be somebody,” even though it was summer and I wasn’t going to school.

The manny was wearing Uncle Max’s black Basquiat T-shirt, which had a white crown on the front. Jean-Michel Basquiat is another artist that Uncle Max likes. His paintings look like graffiti, and they have lots of words on them. Uncle Max met him once in New York City in the 1980s before he died of addiction. He was addicted to drugs, and it ended up killing him. I think Harmony’s mother is addicted to drugs.

Belly looked up at the manny, crossed her arms, and said, “YOU’RE NOT HER FRIEND ANYMORE.”

Belly is good at holding grudges. She didn’t talk to me for a week one time when I wouldn’t take her to school as my show-and-tell. She really wanted me to because she had a new dress, but I took a peacock feather instead. I found it in our yard, but I’m pretty sure that it wasn’t from a wild peacock. I’ve never seen a wild peacock in our neighborhood, or anywhere else. I think the feather blew over from Mrs. Waycott’s porch. Belly finally started talking to me when I let her wear the peacock feather to preschool. She duct-taped it to the back of her jeans and wore it like a tail all day.

The manny sat down and started talking to Belly, who was staring out the window and pretending not to hear him.

The manny said, “Hey, Belly. I know that you think you were just having fun, but you really hurt Harmony’s feelings. Popcorn is very special to her because her mother gave it to her as a present. Harmony is not as lucky as you are. You get to see your mother every day, and Harmony doesn’t, so think about how special that tricycle is to her. Imagine if somebody took DecapiTina away from you. Okay?”

Belly didn’t answer. She just looked out the window.

“Okay?” he asked her again, only louder to make sure she understood.

“OKAY!” she answered back, kicking the steering wheel.

“Think about what it’s like to walk around in Harmony’s skin,” I said, remembering Lulu’s reading from
To Kill a Mockingbird
. Belly looked at me like I was crazy. “Maybe Harmony has a sad life, and Grant and Dana are trying to make it happy. Maybe Popcorn is really special to her. Imagine what it’s like to be her. She doesn’t get to see her mommy,” I added, trying to make sense to Belly.

The manny looked at me, and I stopped talking because I didn’t want to give it away that I had eavesdropped.

We were all awake now, and Mom was making us toast. Harmony was playing with her Barbies on the fake lawn around Grant and Dana’s RV. She had the Barbies stacked all over Popcorn and was pretending that they were in a beauty pageant.

Belly rolled down the window and said, “Sorry, Harmony.”

“Okay,” said Harmony like she didn’t remember that anything had happened. “Do you want to play beauty pageant?”

Belly climbed out of the window without opening the door. Harmony pushed Popcorn over for Belly to climb down on. They played beauty pageant until the RV was all packed up and Mom and Dad and the manny were saying good-bye to Grant and Dana and giving them hugs and exchanging addresses. I hugged Dana too, a really tight squeeze.

When Dana hugged the manny, she said, “Just give your parents time, they’ll come around. Parents love their kids no matter what.” The manny squeezed Dana on the shoulder while they hugged. I must have missed some of their conversation around the fire. Harriet the spy would never miss anything.

Belly and Harmony cried when they said good-bye. They held on to each other like they were long-lost sisters, hugging each other and pressing their cheeks together. Just like the girls do in the movie
The Color Purple
when they’re being split apart. Lulu had to watch
The Color Purple
for school and write a paper comparing it to a book she read called
Their Eyes Were Watching God
. She got an award for her paper. A gift certificate to an office supply store. She used the gift certificate to buy a frame for her award.

“NO!” Belly wailed. “HARMONY’S MY BFF.” India taught Belly that “BFF” means “best friend forever.” All of India’s friends wrote “BFF” in her yearbook next to their pictures. One girl named Jane didn’t write “BFF.” She wrote “LYLAS” by her picture. “LYLAS” means, “love you like a sister.” Jane comes over to our house for sleepovers sometimes. Jane likes to bake cakes and make prank phone calls to boys. She calls the boys from her class to order pizzas or to say things like “Jane’s bakery! We have nice buns!” The manny says that Jane is “hyperactive but in a good way.” Like Daffy Duck.

Mom and Dana pulled the two girls apart, and we got into our RV and started to pull away. “Wait!” yelled Harmony, and she ran up to the window that Belly was sitting by. Belly was doing her long fake sob that ended in a dry heave. Harmony handed Belly her Skipper doll and said, “So you won’t get lonely.” Then she snatched it back, stripped the clothes off Skipper, and handed the doll back to Belly. “I’m keeping this outfit, though, it’s really pretty.”

Belly hugged the naked Skipper doll, who had a tan line like she’d been swimming all summer in a boy-shorts bikini. Belly grabbed DecapiTina and handed it to Harmony and said, “LOVE HER. HER LIFE IS SAD.”

Belly
had
listened to what I had said.

Harmony hugged the headless doll. She rode Popcorn next to the RV for a few feet and then stopped and just waved to Belly. We all waved back.

“I’m really going to miss her,” the manny said, too sad to have good posture.

“You didn’t spend very much time with Harmony,” India said.

The manny dropped his head and said, “No, I mean DecapiTina.”