Lydia scootched over to let Prairie in. “You and Hugh. A match made in heaven.” She wiggled her eyebrows.
Prairie glanced across at me.
“We, uh, have a plan.” I forced a grim grin. “You tell her, Lydia.” I couldn’t look Prairie in the eye.
Lydia huffed. “Oh, all right.” She told Prairie about the plan, conveniently forgetting to mention the part about sneaking the picture to Hugh. I knew it was my responsibility to tell her, but Prairie seemed so excited about the glamour photo that I couldn’t burst her bubble. Now could I?
Chapter 7
The Truly Amazing, Ultra-Impossible, Colossus Rat Contraption, aka the Extreme Rat-o-rama, began with a sheet of plywood that Max borrowed from behind the Ace hardware store. Borrowed, confiscated, swiped. We didn’t ask, and she didn’t tell. It was huge, dance floor size. Never mind getting the project off the ground. We’d barely got it in through the Peacemobile’s door.
The first components of our obstacle course consisted of five one-gallon milk jugs, cut out on both ends; two Quaker oatmeal cartons, also cut out; a saltines box; and a rolling tower of TP tubes hotglued together. Prairie said, “That’s all I could f-find in our recycling b-bins.”
Max contributed a jumble of car parts from the junkyard, including a steering wheel, a tire rim, an alternator (she called it), and a teeter-totter made out of two gas pedals welded together. She also threw in three stacks of Styrofoam and a hunk of foam rubber, which Harley was heartily devouring as we spoke.
“And last but not least,” Max said, shoving her hand into a grocery bag, “ta-da.” She pulled out a black box with buttons on it.
“What is it?” Lydia asked.
Max pressed the green button. The blare of a siren caused us all to scream and cover our ears. Max pressed the red button to turn it off. “It’s an old ambulance siren,” she said. “I had to bribe my brother to use it, so we better not bust it or anything. He’ll make me lube chassis for a year.”
“Geez, it’s loud.” I popped my eardrum back into place.
Max smiled. “I thought it’d be cool for Harley to set it off when he gets to the end of the obstacle course. Sort of like, ‘Hey, everybody, I did it.’ ”
Lydia muttered in my good ear, “Let’s hope he never makes it.”
After Max duct-taped everything together, she positioned Harley at the start. He just stood there, looking panicked. “Here, Harley.” Max snapped her fingers over the TP tower. “This way.”
Harley’s beady eyes bore into mine.
I seached my backpack. The only thing I could find was a package of crushed crackers with peanut butter. “Try this,” I said.
Max ripped off a corner of the cellophane with her teeth, which unleashed a shower of cracker crumbs. She broke off a corner of cracker and held it over Harley’s nose. He sniffed, then stood on his hind legs and wrapped his claws around Max’s hand.
“He’s going to bite you!” Lydia screeched.
Max gave her a withering look. Then Harley bit her.
“Yeow!” Max jerked back, sucking her bleeding thumb.
“Now you’re going to get bubonic plague!” Lydia cried. “It comes from rats, you know. And it’s highly contagious. You heard how a billion people died of the black death in Europe. Call 911.”
Max rolled her eyes at me.
Really. I wondered, though, what is bluebonic plague? Was it related to Blue Bonnet butter? Did victims get a sudden craving for popcorn?
Prairie said, “Look, guys.”
We all focused on what Prairie was pointing at. There, in the Extreme Rat-o-rama, Harley was wandering across the course, following the trail of cracker crumbs over all the car parts. I took the package from Max and smeared each rung of the steering wheel with peanut butter. Harley sniffed once, then one by one, tripped over each rung until he’d made a full circle. We all cheered.
“Lydia, quick,” I said. “Get this down.”
Lydia yanked out her science notebook. “I’m going to document the biting incident, too,” she said. “Just in case.”
As she scribbled, I scattered cracker crumbs into an oatmeal carton. Harley skittered through the carton, slurping them up. In a small voice, Prairie said, “I’ve b-been thinking about the plan.”
We all turned to her.
I knew what she’d been thinking. Same thing I’d been. It was a stupid plan.
“I…l-love it.” Prairie smiled.
My eyes grew wide as waffles. She must really have it bad for Hugh, I thought.
Prairie added, “I’ve always wanted to have a g-glamour photo. They make everyone look so b-beautiful. One thing I don’t understand, though. How is a g-glamour photo going to get Hugh to t-talk to me?”
See? my sneer said to Lydia. Did you think she was an idiot or something?
Lydia said, “We thought we’d stick the picture somewhere where Hugh would see it.”
“Yeah, like in his pocket protector,” I muttered.
Prairie’s eyes bulged. “We c-can’t do that at school. It’s too risky. Why don’t you let me t-take care of getting the p-picture to him?”
“Sure, okay,” Lydia said. She sounded disappointed, as if she was now out of the running to be Prairie’s maid of honor at the wedding.
Prairie said, “One m-more thing. I d-don’t want to take a g-glamour photo alone. I’ll only go if you guys c-come with me.”
“Of course we’ll come.” Lydia wrapped an arm around Prairie’s shoulders. “I’ve been dying to see how they take those pictures. How they turn really ugly pe—”
Max punched Lydia.
“Ow!” she yelped. Rubbing her arm, she said, “I mean, how they turn really ordinary people into supermodels. Not that you’re ordinary, Prairie.”
“No,” I said, trying to salvage the situation. “You actually have a brain.” I made a face at Lydia, and she returned it.
Prairie shook her head. “I don’t mean just come. I mean you have to have your p-pictures taken, too.”
Lydia and I turned to Max. She stiffened. “All of us?”
Prairie smiled weakly and nodded.
Inwardly I warmed. A glamour photo? Me? The image of my face in the mirror, transformed from Jumbo Jenny into Supermodel Solano flashed through my brain. Then another thought streaked through. What if my gorgeous glamour photo somehow found its way into Kevin Rooney’s possession? And what if he noticed me? Maybe this was a perfect plan. “All for one”—I held up my palm to high-five—” and one for all.”
Chapter 8
I knew when I burst through the door at home that something was wrong. For one thing Vanessa wasn’t practicing. She sat at the kitchen table, staring off into wall plaster. When she saw me, she blinked and pressed a finger to her lips.
“What?”
Then I heard it. Or felt it. Charged linoleum, powered by the bellowing from the basement. “I thought we agreed to do this together,” my mother’s angry voice streamed up the stairs. “I thought we were going to find something in common to do together.”
A clunk against the basement wall made both Vanessa and me jump. My father said, “I hate dancing. I’ve always hated dancing. You know that.”
Ominous footsteps pounded on the stairs. Like a scared pig, I skittered off to my room, where those Hostess cupcakes beckoned from the dresser drawer. Maybe I’d even write them down.
I took out my food diary and flipped to an empty page. It happened to be page two. Rather than jotting down Cupcakes, Hostess, both of them, I wrote, Jennifer Marie Rooney. It had a nice ring.
Jenny Rooney. Very nice.
Mrs. Kevin Rooney. The ring went flat.
Mom never used Mrs. Robert Solano. In fact, I’d never seen her write Mrs. Just Katherine T. Solano.
Maybe that was her problem. She wasn’t a Mrs. What was a Mrs. anyway? A name? A title? A wife for a Mr.? A mother of misses? Not that the problems she and Dad were having were all Mom’s fault. I didn’t know whose fault they were. Probably Vanessa’s
. Her multitudinous disorders had brought my parents to the brink. And my overeating had pushed them over.
Mrs. Jennifer Marie Rooney. Yes.
I sighed. It sounded so romantic. That was it! That’s what was wrong. Mom and Dad weren’t romantic. About the same time we lost our dinner discussions, Mom and Dad had lost their romance. It used to embarrass me, the way they’d hug and kiss in the kitchen. I was glad when it stopped. Except now I wasn’t so glad. Something had changed between them. Something major. But what?
A knock on my door made me slap my food diary closed and slide it under the covers. “Yeah?”
Vanessa opened the door. “Dinnertime,” she said. “Mom made liver linguine.” She stuck an index finger in her mouth. “Needless to say, Dad went out.”
Yes, the romance was definitely dead.
“My brother’s girlfriend says she’ll take our glamour photos,” Max informed us at lunch the next day. “On one condition.”
We all stopped chewing and stared at Max. She guzzled down her third carton of chocolate milk. It gave us time to swallow, too.
“Well, what is it?” Lydia asked.
“My brother has to propose to her.”
“You mean, marriage?”
Max nodded.
My eyes bugged out. Scuzz-Gut? Someone actually wanted to marry Scuzz-Gut? He was such a freaky guy. Grungy, too. Plus he drank beer like it was Kool-Aid. Made me shudder to imagine what his girlfriend was like. “What’s her name?” I asked Max.
“Caressa,” she said.
“Scuzz-Gut and Caressa.” I shook my head. Sounded like an Oprah show to me. “So when’s the wedding?”
“Ain’t gonna be no wedding.” Max fed Harley a hunk of her sandwich crust. “My brother isn’t ready for marriage.”
“What’s to be ready for?” I replied. “You say, ‘I do,’ and live happily ever after…. On second thought,” I added, “maybe he shouldn’t rush into anything.”
“If he’s not ready, he definitely should not get married,” Lydia said. Spoken like the child of a child psychologist. “My parents got married too soon, and it didn’t work out.”
That was news to me. We’d never actually talked about Lydia’s father. Just assumed she had one. Most people do. “Why’d they get married too soon?” I asked.
Lydia’s face turned red as rhubarb.
“Oh,” I muttered. “Never mind.”
Prairie patted Lydia on the back. “It h-happens. My aunt B-Bethany had to get married.”
Max said, “So, unless we can come up with two hundred and fifty dollars for the shoot, we’re outta luck.”
“Two hundred and fifty dollars? Forget it,” I said. “If I had two hundred and fifty dollars, I’d buy a McDonald’s franchise.”
We all chewed for a moment in silence. Then Lydia piped up, “Prairie could still have hers done, right? You said Caressa offered you a free session. We’d be there; we just wouldn’t get glamourized.”
“Actually—” Max choked on her sandwich. She shoved the rest of it into her pocket for Harley and continued, “Caressa said the free offer was only for me. Not my friends. Because she has ulterior motives.” Max’s eyes dropped like lead.
“Oh,” Lydia said.
We all sighed wistfully.
“M-maybe we could t-take our own glamour photos,” Prairie said slowly. “My b-brother Moon got a new camera for Christmas. I b-bet he’d let me b-borrow it.”
Lydia lit up. “That’s a good idea. I have a bunch of dress-up clothes from when my mom was a showgirl in Las Vegas.”
We all stared at Lydia. I said what we were thinking, “Your mother, the child psychologist, was a stripper in Vegas?”
Lydia scoffed. “Not a stripper. A performing artist. Before she became a child psychologist. That’s how she worked her way through college. Didn’t your parents work their way through college?”
“Yeah,” I said. “My dad did a double shift at Denny’s. But I think he threw away the uniform.”
Max snorted.
Lydia went on, “Why don’t I ask my mom if you guys can sleep over? Then we can take our glamour photos. I can’t do it this Saturday because I have a ballet recital. But maybe the next weekend. As long as we don’t eat in the living room or watch TV, it’ll probably be okay.”
“We can eat in the kitchen, can’t we?”
Over her glasses, Lydia narrowed her eyes at me.
“Just checking.”
We spent our after-school social hour the rest of the week putting Harley through his paces. He was getting closer to the ambulance siren every day. He was also getting fatter by the obstacle.
“Are you sure Harley is a he?” I asked Max on Friday. “Are you sure you shouldn’t have named him Harlena?” We watched the fat rat scrabble over a car radio and squeeze through a milk jug. He used to wriggle through the jug a whole lot easier. I added, “We might be looking at a litter of little Harleys by tomorrow.”
“No way,” Max said. She clucked. But she lifted Harley and studied his underbelly.
“If he does have babies, they better come after the science fair,” Lydia said. “I refuse to document the live birth of baby rats.” She shuddered.
“I don’t know,” I thought out loud. “We might get extra credit. In fact, maybe we should build one long tunnel. Harley starts at one end and by the time he reaches the other, there are eight Harleys. We claim cloning!”
Everyone laughed. Prairie said, “C-can I name one of the babies Hugh?”
“You can name all the babies Hugh,” I said to her. To myself I added, Except the one I’m calling Kevin.
“Ain’t gonna be no babies,” Max said. “Except those Baby Ruth bars. Pass ’em over, Solano.”
I opened the six-pack that we’d bought at 7-Eleven on the way over and tossed her one, all the while watching Harley/Harlena, and wondering if he or she had found a little rat romance out in the wreckage.
Chapter 9
Minnette bounced into the waiting room, the glow of good health illuminating her aura. “Hey, Jenny. Hey, Mr. Solano,” she greeted us. Even her teeth were gleaming. “Sorry I’m late. Whoo, sure is hot today.” She swiped her brow with a wristband.
I muttered to Dad, “What, did she ride her Exercycle over?”
He ignored me, he was so intent on reading the recipes in Redbook. Sometimes I wondered about Dad.
“Come on in, Jenny,” she said. “This shouldn’t take long.”
Long is relative, I thought. The ten minutes I’d been sitting here had churned up a major stomachache.
Dad set the magazine back on the stack and stood. “I’m going down to the cafeteria for some coff—uh, some juice and a bran muffin.”
Right, I thought. Sludge and a sugar doughnut is more like it.
“So, Jen.” Minnette hopped up on the desk and motioned me to a chair. “How’s the food diary coming?”
Call me Jen one more time, I seethed inwardly, and I’m outta here. We’re not bosom buds. Okay, Min? She was so perky. So jerky.
She waited.
I shrugged.
“So”—she stuck out a hand—“let’s see it.”
I exhaled wearily. For appearance’s sake, I rummaged through my backpack. “Wow.” My voice was flat as her chest. “I guess I lost it.”
Minnette pursed her pink lips. Her eyes met mine.
I vegged.
She jumped off the desk and dropped into the chair next to mine. “You didn’t do it, did you?”
I clucked. How’d she know?
“Want to know how I know?” she asked.
Geez. She was skinny and psychic, too. Life isn’t fair.
“Because I didn’t do mine the first time, either. Oh, maybe I filled in a day or two, then thought, This is a joke. A food diary? How’s that going to make me stop eating? So I turned it into a joke. I wrote, Dear Mrs. Butterworth, Today I ate a double stack of pancakes—with extra syrup. Yummee.”
It made me look over at her. “How come you had to keep a
food diary?”
She blinked. “Because I used to be fat. Very fat.”
That surprised me. “How fat?”
“Two hundred and sixty-nine pounds.”
My eyeballs swelled. Fatter than Oprah at her peak.
“Wow!”
“Yeah, wow,” Minnette said. “We’re talking obese. I lost it, but it was a struggle. Sometimes I still get the urge to eat a whole cherry cheesecake, all in one sitting.”
I might have smiled. “Maybe you should see a registered dietician about that.”
Minnette laughed. “I do. And I keep a food diary. It helps me keep track of how I’m doing. Especially during the tough times.”
My eyes slid down to study her petite feet. “What if all the times are tough?” I asked.
She reached over and squeezed my knee. “They are, in the beginning. But once you change your habits…” Minnette let go and leaned back in her seat. “I don’t need to tell you this stuff, Jenny. You know what it takes to lose weight.”
“Yeah, eat right and exercise.” I rolled my eyes.
“No!” She lunged at me. “It takes a passion. A need. A desire to change. A burning desire. Right here.” She jabbed a fist in my middle.
My stomach muscles clenched. The only thing I had a burning desire for right now was a big fat jelly doughnut.
Minnette stood up. She grabbed a stack of folders off the desk and bounded toward the door. “I’d like to see you again, Jenny, but I won’t make an appointment. It’s Dr. Sid’s feeling that this is something you want. I’m here for help and support. But I can’t do this for you. Neither can Dr. Sid, or your parents, or anyone else. You have to do this for yourself.” She opened the door. “So, call me when you’re ready.”
She left me there alone. All alone. And miserable. In the glass of the framed diploma on the opposite wall, my reflection blinked back. A tear slid down my cheek. You’re a real glamour puss, the reflection said.