Puppet Pandemonium (4 page)

I
practiced working with Waldo until way past midnight. I was too tired to wake up and say good-bye to Dad the next morning. I gave him a faint wave from my bed. It was a long drive to Texas, and he left very early. Mom and I were staying in Seattle to get everything ready for the movers, and we planned to fly down and join him later. I called Gram on my cell and thanked her for Waldo.

“All the puppeteers were in on it,” she said. “They know how much you enjoyed Leo.”

I took him downstairs and sat him at the breakfast
table beside me. A book about Texas was propped against the Krunchie Krumbles cereal box on the table. I flipped through it while I ate my cereal. Okay, so there were some exciting things about Texas: Six Flags Over Texas and a museum that had strange things in it.

“I'll admit, I'm curious about the two-headed goat,” I called to Mom. She was packing boxes in the den. “And a mummy that glows in the dark sounds cool. But the shark wearing neon braces doesn't fly with me.” I grabbed the carton of orange juice and took a swig.

“Baker, get a glass,” Mom said. She didn't miss a thing. She had eyes in the back of her head. I was sure of it.

“What kind of orthodontist would be crazy enough to put braces on a shark?” I asked.

“Dr. Brave, that's who,” she said, laughing. I started laughing too. I could just picture a shark with bad breath and seaweed stuck in his braces.

Mom continued working on a list of stuff to go in moving boxes. The boxes were scattered across the room. She had labeled them with red marker. But then she would change her mind and pitch in extra stuff, making it impossible to know where the final dumping place should be. The box labels looked something like this:

“What about Dad's tools?” I asked. Next to Mom and me, Dad loved his workshop best of all. “You know how he is about all his workbench stuff.”

“I've warned the movers,” she said. “They pack garage stuff. We don't have to bother with it.”

Dad could make anything and everything out of wood. It was his hobby. Last year on Earth Day, my friends and I entered a contest to find an alternate means of transportation to school. Dad made a school bus out of plywood for me, and we walked to school carrying it. We stuck our heads out the windows and waved to people in cars. The whole idea was to save energy and keep the air clean. The newspaper took our picture and we won first prize. There wasn't anything Dad couldn't build. He'd built Gram's puppet house and dozens of shelves for Mom. When Gram saw all Mom's shelves, she threw her hands up in the air.

“Carole,” she said. “You have more shelves than Wal-Mart.”

I had noticed a map of Texas tacked up on the bulletin board in the kitchen. Mom had drawn smiley faces around the Alamo. She drew smiley faces on everything whenever she wanted to make a point. It had practically taken an act of Congress to get her to stop drawing them on my lunch sacks last year in fourth grade. She was into nutrition big-time, and she thought smileys would remind me to eat the dried fruit she packed in my lunches. It only reminded me to throw it out. Who eats dried apricots, anyway?

“I don't think Davy Crockett would have appreciated smiley faces on the Alamo,” I told her, turning the TV on. I wanted to catch my favorite cartoons before the cable was turned off.

I guess she was listening because later in the day the smiley faces were gone, replaced by a couple of long-horn steers instead. It wouldn't have been so bad except she forgot to draw tails on them. Mom was never going to be van Gogh.

“We've got a job to do here,” she said, nudging me from my cartoon stupor. “Come help me.”

“What about my job helping with Gram's shows? Don't you even care about that?”

“You can get another job when we get to Texas,” she said.

“Yeah, like what? Herding cattle?”

“Pack!” she said, grabbing a stack of dishes.

Lately I tried not to hang around in one room too long without working—if I held still for more than a minute, Mom might wrap me in newspaper and pack me in a crate. She carried around the tape like it was her best friend. She taped and untaped boxes all day. She and the tape dispenser were forming a close relationship. She even slept with the tape by her bed in case she thought of something to wrap during the night.

There was a plate of Gram's cookies on the table. I grabbed a handful and started wrapping some of my stuff. When I got to the boots, I shoved them down in a box. The main thing was not to let them be seen or Dad might expect me to wear them my first day at school. No way was that going to happen. He had told both Mom and me that meeting people in a small town and making new friends was as easy as falling off a log.

If he wanted me to wear those boots to school, I was going to fall for sure. But it wouldn't be off a log. It would be off the school bus. Did a small town even own a school bus? Then a horrible thought crossed my mind. I hoped the kids didn't ride horses to school. The last horse I'd ridden was at the Londonderry Mall when I was three years old. It was a wooden pony on the carousel. When it started going up and down, I screamed to get off.

“I'll never meet anyone as great as Sam or the guys on my Little League team,” I said, tossing a pillow into my box.

“Oh, Baker,” Mom said. “You'll make lots of friends. Just wait and see. This is going to be an adventure.”

I thought about what Gram had said about coming to Texas and giving a show in my new school if I needed her to. Having a grandmother who could give a puppet show might be as good as having a dad who managed the neighborhood theater. At least I didn't have a funny haircut, and maybe I wouldn't have to eat alone.

I hated broccoli.

T
he Seattle Seagulls gave me a going-away/birthday swim party at Sam's house. We played water baseball and I covered first base for the last time with my teammates. There were a piñata and a cool treasure hunt too.

I got some great gifts: sports stuff, a pocketknife, books, gift cards. Sam gave me a fifty-dollar certificate for our favorite place: McDonald's. He promised he'd e-mail me and give me a heads-up about our team and school stuff, and I promised I'd e-mail back.

“Don't forget,” I told him. “I have my own cell, too.”

We stayed with Gram until the movers packed our stuff in the humongous van, and then it was time for Gram to take us to the airport. Gram held up like a trooper, but I knew she was sad to see us leave.

“I'm worried about leaving Gram,” I told Mom as we boarded the plane.

“Don't be,” she said. “I know my mother. She will do fine. She has lots of friends in Seattle and she's independent.” Then she squeezed my hand. “But it's okay to feel sad about it. I'm a little sad too.”

I took Waldo out of my backpack and sat him on my lap so I could practice with him on the long flight to Texas. When the flight attendant came by to ask us if we wanted something to drink, Waldo blinked his eyes and spun his head around in circles.

“I'll take a Coke with six cherries,” he said. “And one for my friend.” At first the flight attendant looked shocked. Then she chuckled.

“Got it,” she said, turning to the drink cart.

“Waldo! I'm surprised at you,” Mom said, frowning. The attendant handed me two Cokes—one for me and one for Waldo. His glass had six cherries bobbing around in it.

“Cool,” I said. “I'll have to let Waldo order more often.”

I sat there for a long time practicing the different sounds to make when I was talking for my dummy.
The more I worked on it, the easier it became. When people got up and walked to the front of the plane, I couldn't resist letting Waldo talk about them.

“I like that red sweater. Don't try to cut the bathroom line. Could you grab me some peanuts?” he said. Mom couldn't keep from laughing.

A flight attendant told us that traffic was backed up and it would be longer until takeoff.

“Don't they teach these guys how to take off faster?” Waldo said.

The guy in the seat behind me leaned over. “I agree with you, buddy. They need to get us out of here. I have a connection I need to make in Dallas.”

I popped Waldo's face over the back of the seat and he blinked his eyes and spun his head around. “If the captain doesn't take off soon,” he said, “I'm going to fly this contraption myself.” Everyone laughed except Mom.

“That's enough,” she said. “You and Waldo need to keep your thoughts to yourself now.” So I took a book out of my backpack and started reading. After a few minutes I heard static over the intercom.

“This is your captain speaking,” a woman's voice said. “Just waiting for some air traffic to ease up. We're on tap to leave in about nine minutes, folks.”

“You mean there's a girl flying this thing?” Waldo said. “I'm getting off.”

“That's enough,” Mom whispered, putting her hand over Waldo's mouth. “If you keep it up, I'm sure they'll want to
escort
you off.”

When I looked around I noticed that everyone was making last-minute phone calls. I speed-dialed Gram's number and waited for her to pick up. Her voice mail came on immediately.

“Hey, Gram,” I said. “We haven't taken off yet.” I tried to think of something to say. “Waldo is enjoying himself. He's already had two Cokes and twelve cherries. Bye.”

Within a minute my phone vibrated in my pocket. “Gram! Want to come back to the airport and see us?”

She was still laughing when I clicked off.

T
he flight to Texas was three hours and fifty minutes. Dad was there to pick us up. It felt good to stretch my legs. After we claimed our luggage, I crawled into the back of our SUV and slept most of the way from the airport to Franklin.

Mom woke me just before we arrived. “Don't you want to see where we're going to live, Baker?”

I looked out the window, but all I saw were trees. There were sidewalks everywhere. I liked that because it was easier to ride a bike without having to worry about the traffic. But I didn't see a lot of traffic. Maybe there weren't many cars in Texas.

“We'll take a spin through town before we head for home,” Dad said.

“Sounds good to me. It's been a while since I've seen it,” Mom said. We drove past a supermarket. “Oh, look,” she said. “There's a garden center next to that store.” Mom loved flowers, and Dad had told her that our house had flower beds where she could grow all the flowers she wanted next spring.

“Over there is the town square,” Dad said, pointing to a group of buildings. I looked out the window and saw shops around a big building that stood in the center of the square: an ice cream parlor, a Dollar General, a bookstore, and a couple of restaurants. Some older kids were riding skateboards in front of a video store, but I didn't see anyone who looked my age.

“I bet when kids get old enough to move, they're outta here,” I said. “This place looks boring.”

“That's not true, Baker,” Dad said. “Some people stay here a lifetime.”

“You left, didn't you, Mr. Kennedy?”

I saw Dad's eyes cut to the rearview mirror. Waldo was sitting beside me. I had taken him out of my backpack when I got into the car.

“Who's the smart aleck with you?” Dad asked.

“My one and only friend in town,” I said. “His name is Waldo. Waldo Peppernickle.”

“You better tell Mr. Peppernickle to cool it or I might use him for firewood.”

“Yikes,” Waldo said, spinning his head in circles.

On the corner of the square there was a bakery, and delicious aromas drifted inside our car.

“I'm starving,” I said. “Airline peanuts and sodas don't cut it for lunch.”

“Yeah,” Waldo said. “I'll take a double cheeseburger, hold the mayo, fries, and an extra-large chocolate shake.”