“Why does everybody keep saying that?” Fudge asked. “I know Uncle Feather is a bird.” He was quiet for a minute; then he said, “What does she do with her worms?”
“You know. She eats them,” Alex said.
“Really?” Fudge asked me.
“We think so,” I told him.
We walked up the path to Mrs. Muldour’s house, and Alex rang the bell.
“If she gives us worms, we can feed them to Uncle Feather,” Fudge whispered.
“Shush . . .” I told him.
Mrs. Muldour opened the door. She was wearing a jogging suit. “Well, well, well . . .” she said. “What a cute little ghost.”
“I’m not cute . . . I’m scary!” Fudge told her. “Whoooo. . . .”
Mrs. Muldour clutched at her chest. “Oh my, you are a scary ghost.”
“Hi, Mrs. Muldour,” Alex said.
“Hello, Alex. That’s an unusual costume you’re wearing.”
“It’s called Anita’s Anger,” Alex said. “I got the idea from a painting I saw downtown.”
Mrs. Muldour turned away from us and called, “Beverly . . . Beverly . . . come here . . . you’ve got to see this. . . .”
Right away I knew it was her. Giraffe Neck. I knew before I could even see her face. I knew by the way she walked from the other room to the front door and by the curly hair. “This is my daughter, Beverly,” Mrs. Muldour said to us. Then she turned to Beverly and said, “Alex is dressed as a painting. Can you guess which one?”
Beverly studied Alex for a minute. “Well, with the white background, the black circles and the red square . . . it must be Anita’s Anger.”
“Right,” Alex said.
I thought about telling Beverly about the night Jimmy’s parents had had their big fight, and how Mrs. Fargo had dumped red paint on Mr. Fargo’s canvas, and how Mr. Fargo had named his painting Anita’s Anger because Anita is Jimmy’s mother. I thought about telling her the whole story. But then I remembered how I’ve told Jimmy things that I wouldn’t have told anybody else, and I knew that if I were Jimmy, I wouldn’t want my best friend telling the whole world secrets about my family.
“Do you really eat worms?” Fudge asked, out of nowhere.
I gave him a kick but that didn’t stop him.
“Pee-tah says you eat them all the time, and he knows everything because he’s naturally smart, except for matching questions.”
Mrs. Muldour and Beverly looked at each other.
Fudge continued. “So did you?”
“Did we, what?” Mrs. Muldour asked.
“Eat worms for supper tonight?”
Alex let out a groan, and I could see our business going down the drain.
Mrs. Muldour smiled at Fudge. “Yes, we did,” she told him.
Beverly added, “There’s nothing like home-baked worms. And my mother’s recipe is the best.”
“We eat them instead of cauliflower,” Mrs. Muldour said. “We need to get our vitamins one way or the other.”
“Are your worms fortified?” Fudge asked.
Alex groaned again.
“My worms are naturally fortified,” Mrs. Muldour said. “They’re chock full of vitamins. No preservatives, nothing added. Just the real thing!”
She was beginning to sound like a commercial for worms. I could hear the announcer saying, “Buy Mrs. Muldour’s naturally fortified worms. . . . They’re chock full of vitamins . . . grind them up in your favorite recipe, blend them into your milkshakes, serve them instead of cauliflower on those special occasions. . . .”
“Would you like to taste my special worm cookies?” Mrs. Muldour asked Fudge.
“Yes,” Fudge said, following Mrs. Muldour into the house.
We marched through the house to the kitchen. On the counter was a big plate of cookies.
“Fresh out of the oven,” Mrs. Muldour said.
“They look like chocolate chips,” Fudge said.
“They are,” Mrs. Muldour told him. “Chocolate-chip–worm cookies.”
“Which part is worm?” Fudge asked.
Mrs. Muldour laughed. “You can’t see the worms. I grind them up and mix them into the flour.”
Just like my commercial, I thought.
“Go on,” Mrs. Muldour said, offering the plate of cookies to Fudge. “Take one.”
Fudge chose a cookie and held it to his lips. But he hesitated and I could see that he wasn’t sure he really wanted to taste a chocolate-chip–worm cookie after all.
Beverly took one and shoved it into her mouth all at once. “Ummmmmm,” she said. “These are really good, Mother.” She took another and ate it quickly, too. Then she brushed the crumbs off her hands.
Fudge bit into his cookie. He chewed it up very slowly. “It’s good,” he said. “You can’t even taste the worms.”
Mrs. Muldour offered the plate to Alex and me. We each took a cookie.
Fudge asked if he could have another, and Mrs. Muldour said she’d do better than that. She wrapped a little package of cookies for him to take with him.
When we got home, Fudge dumped out his pillowcase on the dining-room table. He arranged his loot in stacks and counted everything. “Eleven M&M’s, seven Nestlé’s Crunch . . . five Hershey’s without almonds . . . three with . . . two Milky Ways . . . one granola bar . . . four apples . . . and six worm cookies. . . .”
“What did you say?” Mom asked him.
“Nothing, Mom . . .” I told her. “He didn’t say anything . . . did you, Fudge?”
“Here, Mommy,” Fudge said, “have a cookie. Mrs. Muldour just baked them.”
“Thank you,” Mom said. She tasted it. “Ummmm . . . very good. I wonder where she got her recipe?”
“It’s been in her family for a long time,” I said.
“And they’re naturally fortified with . . .”
I didn’t give him a chance to finish. “No preservatives . . . no additives . . . naturally fortified . . . and chock full of vitamins . . . right, Fudge?”
“Right, Pee-tah,” he said, smiling, and I knew that he understood.
9
Superfudge
Fudge has a friend. His name is Daniel. He’s pudgy, with a lot of red hair and ears that stick out more than mine. The first time I saw him, he was standing in front of Uncle Feather’s cage, lecturing to Fudge.
“Myna birds are native to India and other parts of Asia. The common house myna is a bold, fearless bird, somewhat larger than a robin.”
“Robin . . . robin . . .” Uncle Feather repeated.
“Shut up and listen,” Fudge told Uncle Feather. “Don’t you want to learn about yourself?”
Daniel continued. “The myna is a noisy, sociable bird. . . .”
“I’ll say!” I said, from the doorway, where I’d been listening.
Daniel turned around and stared at me. “Who’re you?” he asked.
“Peter . . . Fudge’s older brother,” I told him “Who’re you?”
“Daniel Manheim. I’m six. I live at 432 Vine Street. You want to make something of it?”
He delivered the last sentence in a tough-guy voice so that it came out sounding like “Ya wanna make somethin’ of it?”
“Not especially,” I told him, trying not to laugh.
Daniel turned back to Uncle Feather. “Many myna birds learn to imitate the human voice. They can talk, sing and whistle. The common house myna is genus Acridotheres, species A. tristis.”
“Daniel is a bird expert,” Fudge said.
“So I see,” I answered.
“You want to hear about the vulture?” Daniel asked.
“Some other time,” I told him.
* * *
Daniel came for lunch on Saturday. “Would you like peanut butter or tuna fish?” Mom asked him.
“Tuna fish,” Daniel said. “You want to make something of it?”
“No,” Mom said, looking surprised at Daniel’s tough-guy line. “Tuna fish will be just fine.”
“Where’s the TV?
” Daniel asked. “I always watch TV while I’m eating.”
“It’s in the living room,” Fudge said.
“You don’t have a TV in the kitchen?” Daniel asked.
“No,” Mom said. “We don’t.”
“I feel sorry for you,” Daniel said, pushing back his chair. He stood up. “I guess I’ll have my lunch in the living room.”
“We don’t watch TV while we’re eating,” Mom said. “So why don’t you sit down and wait until lunch is ready?”
Daniel pouted. “I won’t have much of an appetite without the TV.”
“If you’re not hungry, you don’t have to eat,” Mom said. “TV shouldn’t have anything to do with it.”
I was thinking that it wouldn’t hurt the kid to skip a couple of meals anyway.
“I watch Nickelodeon and the Cartoon Network,” Fudge said, as if anybody cared. “And all the commercials. I never miss the commercials. They’re my favorites. My father used to write commercials but now he’s writing a book. One time I was in a commercial. I rode a Toddle-Bike.”
“No you didn’t!” Daniel said.
“I did too!” Fudge told him.
“I don’t believe you!” Daniel said.
Mom brought the tuna fish sandwiches and two glasses of milk to the table.
“I don’t eat anything with onions,” Daniel said. “I don’t eat lima beans or peas. I only drink chocolate milk, and cut the crust off my bread.”
“There are no onions, lima beans or peas in the tuna fish,” Mom said. I knew from her voice she was about ready to tell Daniel exactly what he could do with his lunch if he didn’t like it. But she walked back to the pantry and brought out the Choco. “You can put in as much as you like,” she said, as she cut the crust off Daniel’s sandwich. “There . . . now you should be all set.”
“Wasn’t I in a commercial, Mommy?” Fudge said.
“Yes,” Mom said. “Fudge was in the Toddle-Bike commercial.”
“See, I told you.”
“Did you get paid?” Daniel asked.
“I don’t know,” Fudge said. “Did I get paid, Mommy?”
“I wasn’t there, Fudgie . . . remember? I was visiting Aunt Linda and the new baby in Boston.”
“Oh, that’s right,” Fudge said. So he asked me. “Did I get paid, Pee-tah?”
“You got all the Oreos you could eat,” I said.
“I got Oreos,” Fudge told Daniel.
“I hate Oreos!” Daniel said.
* * *
On the same day that Daniel was eating his tuna fish sandwich without onions, peas, lima beans or crust, Tootsie learned to crawl. One minute she was just rocking back and forth on all fours, and the next minute she was moving across the floor. Mom ran to get Dad, and he raced upstairs for the camera. And for the rest of the day we took home movies. Tootsie was the star.
Only Daniel was unimpressed. “All babies crawl,” he said.
After a week of crawling, Tootsie became an expert. She could move so fast it was hard to keep up with her. Not only that, but she learned to pull herself up to a standing position. You couldn’t leave anything around anymore. Whatever she found went straight into her mouth. And she found everything, from crayons to spools of thread, from Lego toys to Dad’s notebook. She chewed up three pages of his notes one afternoon, and it took Dad all night to try to glue them back together.
Mom and Dad decided to baby-proof the house. They removed everything that Tootsie could possibly reach. Tootsie was very pleased with herself. She said, “Oga, bahfah, fum.”
Turtle learned to crawl, too. He’d move across the floor flat on his belly, and Tootsie would chase him, laughing. Turtle and Tootsie were friends.
I kept the door to my room closed at all times. I wasn’t taking any chances. Dad put up a gate at the top of the stairs, and another at the bottom.
You had to be careful not to step on Tootsie. She was almost always underfoot. “Put her in the playpen,” Fudge wailed one day after she got into his Legos and scattered them.
“She needs the freedom to explore,” Dad explained.
“Well, too bad if she gets in my way,” Fudge said. “She’ll just have to learn that I’m her big brother!” And clunk, he stepped on her arm and Tootsie screamed.
* * *
On the following Saturday, Jimmy Fargo came to visit.
“Wow . . . I can’t believe how much the baby’s grown!” he said when he saw Tootsie racing across the living-room floor. “When you moved, she was about the same size as my cat, and now she’s a . . . she’s a regular baby.”
“Putta . . . Putta . . .” Tootsie said, pulling herself up on my legs.
“What’s she saying?” Jimmy asked.
“Nothing . . . just baby talk,” I told him.
Jimmy was even more impressed with Uncle Feather than with Tootsie.
“Wow . . . that’s some bird,” Jimmy said.
“He speaks French. Say bonjour,” I told Jimmy.
“Bonjour, birdie,” Jimmy said.
“Bonjour, stupid,” Uncle Feather answered.
I laughed. Jimmy didn’t.
“Hey, turkey brain . . . my name’s Jimmy. Can you say that? Jimmy.”
“Say that . . . say that . . .”
“No, dumbo! It’s Jimmy!”
“Dumbo Jimmy . . . dumbo Jimmy . . .”
“No . . . it’s just plain Jimmy!”
“Plain Jimmy . . . plain Jimmy . . .”
“I give up, you turkey brain!”
“Turkey . . . turkey . . . Jimmy turkey . . .”
“Stop it!” Jimmy shouted.
“Stop it . . . stop it. . . .”
“I quit!”
“Quit . . . quit . . . quit . . .”
Jimmy finally laughed. “Some bird!”
Alex came over to meet Jimmy. He said, “So you’re the great Jimmy Fargo.”
“Who said I was great?” Jimmy asked.
“Well . . . the way Peter’s always talking about you . . .”
“Yeah . . . well the way he’s always talking about you, I figured you must be the great Alex Santo.”
“I am,” Alex said.
“Well, then I’m the great Jimmy Fargo.”
After that, it was downhill all the way. It’s hard to be caught in the middle between your two best friends.
I think Mom knew I was having a hard time, because she said, “How would you boys like to go to the movies this afternoon?”
“What’s playing?” Jimmy asked.
“Superman,” Mom said.
“I already saw it,” Jimmy said.
“So did I,” I said, “but I wouldn’t mind seeing it again.”
“I saw it twice,” Jimmy said.
“I never even saw it once,” Alex said.
“It was better the second time,” Jimmy said.
“And I’ll bet it will be still better the third time,” Mom said.
“Okay,” Jimmy said. “I’ll go.” He bent down to tie his shoelaces.
Mom said, “Wonderful! And the three of you can take Fudge and Daniel.”
I had a quick conference with Alex and Jimmy.
“I don’t care if Fudge comes with us, as long as I don’t have to sit next to him,” Jimmy said.
“Same for me,” Alex said. “And I won’t sit next to the other one either. The other one is a nerd.”
“Same for me,” Jimmy said.
I went back to Mom. “Okay, we’ll take them, but we won’t sit next to them.”
“That’s reasonable,” Mom said.
“It’s a deal,” I told Alex and Jimmy.
We walked into town. We were too early to buy tickets, so we showed Jimmy his father’s painting in the window of the gallery.
“I dressed up as Anita’s Anger for Halloween,” Alex said. “My costume was outstanding, if I say so myself.”
“You don’t think you’re too great, do you?” Jimmy said.
“I’m just telling the truth,” Alex said.
“I can’t believe this guy,” Jimmy whispered to me.
“He’s usually not like this,” I whispered back.
I never should have gotten the two of them together, I thought. They really couldn’t stand each other. And they were making me miserable.
“Hey, let’s go in and introduce Jimmy to Beverly,” I said, trying to sound cheerful.
Beverly greeted us. “Well, if it isn’t Alex and Peter and Fudge!”
“And Daniel Manheim,” Daniel said. “I’m six. I live at 432 Vine.”
“Glad to meet you, Daniel,” Beverly said.
“And this is Jimmy Fargo,” I told Beverly. “You know . . . Fargo. . . .”
“Frank’s son?” Beverly asked.
“That’s right.”
“I just love your father’s paintings,” Beverly said. “They’re so original.”
“He’s working on a new one,” Jimmy said. “It’s called Salamis on Parade.”
“Sounds fascinating!” Beverly said.
“My father likes salami,” Jimmy said. “Salami and onion sandwiches are his favorite.”
“I don’t eat anything with onions,” Daniel said.
“We know,” I said.
“Salami and onions,” Jimmy said, “my father could just about live on salami and onions!”
Beverly laughed. “I’ll bet he doesn’t do much kissing.”
“That’s right,” Jimmy said. “My mother’s the one who likes kissing. That’s why she moved to Vermont.”
“Well,” Beverly said, “I’d certainly like to meet your father someday.”
“Maybe we can arrange that,” I said, thinking that Beverly and Mr. Fargo might really like each other.
And Jimmy must have been thinking the same thing, because he said, “He doesn’t eat salami and onions every day. On Sundays, he likes lox and eggs.”
“I don’t eat anything with onions or lima beans or peas,” Daniel said. “I hate crust on my bread, and I only drink chocolate milk.”
“You’re a fussy eater,” Beverly said.
“That’s right,” Daniel said. “You want to make something of it?”
“No,” Beverly said. “I certainly don’t.”
“We have to go now,” I said. “We’re going to see Superman.”
“Have a good time,” Beverly called.
I wondered if anybody ever went into the gallery besides us. I’d never seen a customer in there.