Isabelle Shows Her Stuff: The Isabelle Series, Book Two (9 page)

Last night he'd watched a karate exhibition on TV. Those guys knew what was what. He'd seen a girl smaller than he was break a board with her bare hands. Imagine that. If she could, he could.

“I'm gonna knock you out of your socks,” Guy muttered. “I'm gonna bash in your head and stick my thumb in your eye, and when it falls out I'm just gonna leave it there. I'm not gonna pick it up or anything, just leave it there.” He shivered, thinking of all those eyes lying on the ground, looking up at him.

It was all very well to be mean and tough in your own room, in your own house with all your family there. It was another thing entirely, Guy knew, to be mean and tough out in the real world, when and where it counted.

Karate was the answer, no question. All he had to do was talk his mother and father into letting him take a karate course. They had one at the Y.

Someone knocked. Guy said, “Come in,” in a deep and hairy voice. It was Herbie.

“Your mom said I could come up,” Herbie said.

“I was just practicing,” Guy said.

Herbie sat on the bed. “I got elected art editor of
The Bee
today,” he said.

“That's nice,” Guy said. “You wanna do anything? Look through my microscope or anything? Look at my stamp collection?”

Herbie shook his head no.

“My favorite animal is frogs,” Guy said. “What's yours?”

“Zebra,” Herbie answered, after some thought.

“I never saw a zebra,” Guy said.

“Me either,” said Herbie. “Except on a jungle special.”

“Want some Jell-O?” he asked Guy, pulling a packet out of his pocket.

“What color?”

“Green.” Herbie ripped open the inside wrapping and poured out some green Jell-O into his hand. “Once I used it to brush my teeth with,” he said.

“What'd it taste like?”

“Green,” Herbie said. He poured some into his mouth and some more into Guy's open hand. Guy wondered if he really wanted some Jell-O that bad.

“My second favorite animal is unicorns,” he said.

“I never saw one, never heard of one either,” Herbie said, chewing and making a face.

“It's got one horn growing out of its head. If you see one, it means good luck.”

“One horn,” Herbie said. “Crazy.”

“I never even saw one in the zoo. That's because it's only mythical,” Guy explained.

“What's that mean?”

“It isn't real. It doesn't really exist. It's just in your imagination.”

“Crazy,” Herbie said again.

There was a companionable silence as the two boys stared into space.

“I'm going to paint my room dark blue and paste stars on the ceiling,” Guy said at last.

“Cool,” said Herbie. “My mother put wallpaper on mine. It's stupid. It's stripes that go up and down, up and down. That's it. I wouldn't mind pasting stars on mine. Where you getting the stars?”

Guy shrugged. He hadn't thought it through. “Maybe from school,” he said. “Like the ones they give you if you get an A. Silver stars. That way, I can look at 'em at night and pretend I'm sleeping out.”

“Yeah. You can also get a jar full of mosquitoes, and when it gets dark, let 'em out. They'll dive-bomb you all night and bite the stuffing out of you. That way, you'll
really
think you're sleeping out.” Herbie laughed and scratched himself on the leg.

Guy covered his mouth with his hand and smiled around it at Herbie. He liked the idea of sleeping out under the stars, but he wasn't too hot on the idea of mosquitoes.

Becca knocked and opened the door.

“Supper's ready,” she announced.

“You wanna stay for supper?” Guy asked.

“What's for supper?”

“Tuna fish,” said Becca.

Herbie only liked to stay at people's houses for supper if they were having spaghetti.

“No thanks,” he said. “My mother said I should be home early. See you,” he said.

Guy listened to the sound of Herbie's feet clattering down the stairs. Then he started punching his way around the room again.

“Take that and that and that!” he muttered.

Pow, pow, pow!

Not one mosquito escaped his deadly blows.

“Supper's ready!”

Stepping carefully around the mosquito bodies littering the floor, Guy went downstairs.

The first thing I have to do, he thought, is get some stars. Then I get the paint.

Chapter Eighteen

“It was me voted Herbie in,” Chauncey bragged. “I started the landslide. Just the way when somebody runs for president. Some presidents win by only a couple of votes, and some win by a landslide. I told it around that Herbie was our man. I told 'em Herbie was the best person for the job. I landslided Herbie into office, I did.” Chauncey beamed. Isabelle felt like wiping off Chauncey's smile. She got her fists ready.

“It was a good deed, huh?” she asked. “You Lone Ranger, me Tonto. Who Kemosabe?”

“Talk English, why don'tcha?” Power had already gone to Chauncey's head. He wasn't letting any grass grow under
his
feet, Isabelle thought.

She opened her mouth, ready to let him have it. Unbidden, Mrs. Esposito's words about being kind popped into her head. She shook it, trying to clear the words out. But they stayed, they wouldn't go away.

Chauncey was not an easy person to be kind to. But she had promised herself she'd try. So try she would.

She cleared her throat and said, “You did a good job, Chauncey.”

Stunned by praise, to which he was a stranger, Chauncey puffed out his chest like a baby robin who's just caught the first worm of the season.

“I'm thinking of going into politics,” he said. “I was going to be a tennis player or maybe a pro ball player, but now I've decided to go into politics. I'm even writing a speech.”

Talk about getting the ball and running with it! Isabelle thought. “What about?” she said.

“Whaddya mean, what about?” Chauncey had lost his train of thought.

“The speech. What's it about?”

“Oh.” Chauncey shrugged. “Lots of things.”

“Name some.”

Chauncey stared at a spot just over Isabelle's head. “Well, peace on earth, for one.”

“Are you for it or against it?” Isabelle asked, dangling her hands loosely, the way Philip did before a swim meet.

“I'm for it,” Chauncey said stoutly. “Plus, we oughta have more open spaces and less pollution. I think weekends oughta be longer. I think kids oughta have the same rights parents have. I think …”

“You're all right, Chauncey,” Isabelle cut in. Once started, Chauncey had fallen in love with the sound of his own words.

“We should also have bigger lunches and not so much homework,” he continued, glassy-eyed with joy at her attention. “I also think kids oughta be allowed to pick out their own shoes when they go to the shoe store. They have to wear 'em, not their mothers.”

Chauncey was getting out of hand, Isabelle decided. “I'm late,” she said. “See you.”

“Hi,” said Guy, as she rounded the steps to the playground. “Did you?”

“No,” she said. “Not yet.”

“Well, you don't have to. You said you were going to think of something. I didn't ask you, you said you would.”

“I know. I will. I'm real busy right now.” The sight of Guy looking woebegone made her feel guilty. “Listen, wait here. I've got something for you.” She wanted to make him look happy so she wouldn't feel so bad. “I'll be right back.”

And she was. “Here, these are for you.”

Guy's eyes shone as he saw the five silver stars she handed him. “Gee, thanks,” he said.

“Mrs. Esposito said it was all she had left. She said she ordered some more. Maybe you can ask her later and she'll fork over some more. So long,” and she left him in the hall, smiling at his stars.

After school Guy kept an eye out for Isabelle. Maybe they'd go see Mrs. Stern again. She was, Guy knew, a good mixer of paints. He knew just the shade of blue he wanted—a deep blue, the color the sky got just before total darkness fell, before the moon showed its face.

A boy named Bernie barreled out the door.

“Hey, Bernie,” Guy said shyly. Bernie sat across the aisle from him. Bernie was small, smaller even than Guy. Bernie was very smart, too, but he didn't make a big deal out of being smart.

“My cat had kittens this morning,” Bernie said, out of breath. “I was eating a piece of toast when the first one was born, right in our kitchen in my mother's old laundry basket.”

“How many did she have?” Guy asked, envious, wishing he'd been there in Bernie's kitchen, eating toast when the first kitten was born.

Bernie held up three fingers. “My mother said to hurry home, maybe there'd be more. Gotta go!” and Bernie went.

Guy watched him go, wishing he was going too, running home to see Bernie's new kittens.

I don't need Isabelle, Guy thought. I can find Mrs. Stern's by myself. I've been there once. Just keep an eye out for the tomato-red door.

Follow the yellow brick road. He'd seen
The Wizard of Oz
four times on television and wondered if he'd ever have the luck to find a yellow brick road. He thought not.

A solitary walk on a sunny day was not a bad thing. He'd find some violets, pick a bouquet for Mrs. Stern. This was violet time. He'd seen their little faces peeking out in empty lots he'd passed on his way to school. He was in no hurry. He liked being alone. Sometimes, not always. This was one of those times when he liked it a lot.

Guy started to skip. He was quite a good skipper, if he did say so himself.

This is the turn. Is this the turn? Surely this was Mrs. Stern's street. He wished he'd paid more attention when Isabelle and he had come here.

Still, he could find it on his own. He knew he could. But suppose Mrs. Stern had painted her front door another color? Isabelle had said she changed the colors of her rooms and her front door at the drop of a hat.

What then?

No, that door was still tomato-red. Hadn't Mrs. Stern said she liked that color, it was the best she'd ever done?

Guy investigated a spot of color he thought might be a clump of violets. No, it turned out to be only a piece of paper, crumpled up and thrown away.

Up ahead, a group of people were making a lot of noise, shouting and hollering. Guy heard loud voices, loud music. One of them had a big radio turned up high. They were too far away to give him any trouble, but Guy kept an eye on them anyway, just to make sure.

With a surge of relief Guy saw the red door. It shone at him like a beacon lighting his way. And even though he'd found no violets for Mrs. Stern, he hurried toward that red door, empty-handed and joyful. Would she ask him in for some cocoa? Maybe not. Maybe she only asked Isabelle in. No, she'd ask him in. He was positive.

He knocked, getting a big smile ready to greet her. Maybe she wouldn't remember him. He knocked twice, getting anxious. Sure she would. She was a nice lady. She'd remember him. If she didn't, he'd tell her he was Isabelle's friend. Then she'd ask him in. For sure.

Should he knock again? Someone was watching him. He felt eyes. Maybe Mrs. Stern was hiding behind the curtains, watching him, wishing he'd go away. He stared at the windows. They stared back. He decided to try the back door. Maybe Mrs. Stern was deaf. She was old. Old people were often hard of hearing. If she was in the kitchen, she might not have heard his knock.

He pressed his face against the kitchen window, shading his eyes against the glass to get a better look. The room was neat and tidy. There were no dirty dishes in the sink, no pots on top of the stove. A newspaper was spread out on the table as if someone had been reading it there. A bunch of flowers nodded at him in a friendly fashion. Guy breathed a circle on the windowpane and wrote GUY in big letters.

He sat down on the back steps to think. Maybe Mrs. Stern had just nipped down to the corner on an errand and she'd be back any moment. He picked up a handful of pebbles and tossed them in the air one by one.

Minutes passed. Isabelle had told him Mrs. Stern sometimes climbed up on her roof to clean out the gutters.

“At her age!” Isabelle had said admiringly.

The roof was empty today except for a cluster of starlings roosting on the TV antenna, chatting nervously among themselves, passing the time of day.

Then Guy heard someone coming, someone whistling gaily. He hid in the bushes under Mrs. Stern's front windows. If it was Isabelle, he'd pounce out on her and scare her. He hoped it was Isabelle.

It was Philip, delivering his papers. Guy was scared of Philip. Isabelle said Philip was always doing bad things to her, socking her in the stomach, calling her names, stealing her candy. He crouched low, spying on Philip.

Two girls appeared. They stood at the yard's edge talking, watching from the corners of their eyes as Philip folded his newspapers in the special, intricate way he had. Philip frowned and twitched and carried on, Guy thought, like a mad scientist about to blow up the world. The girls acted as if they didn't know he was there. They whispered behind their hands and waited for Philip to notice them.

A caterpillar crawled slowly up Guy's leg, under his jeans, looking for something to eat, maybe. Guy dug his hands in and moved his fingers, looking for the caterpillar so he could pull it out and hurl it onto the grass.

Guy heard a thump nearby. Philip had thrown Mrs. Stern's paper. It had landed right on target, on the stoop. Still whistling, Philip got on his bike and prepared to ride away.

“Oh, hi,” he said to the girls, noticing them for the first time.

The girls, looking a little frayed around the edges from all their efforts, said, “Oh, hi!” back.

With fanfare befitting a high-powered motorcycle, Philip took off in a cloud of dust. The girls watched him go. Then they too went on their way. The street was quiet.