A Semester in the Life of a Garbage Bag Read online

  “The whole class really liked them,” said Ashley. “I think everyone’s favorite part was the initials thing. They thought it was clever.”

  Raymond looked up at the ceiling. “Oh, it was.”

  After Ashley had gone, Sean turned to Raymond. “What’s eating you?”

  “The initials — the word!”

  Sean stared at the posters. “What word? I don’t know it.”

  “Sure you do! You’re sitting on it!”

  Light dawned on Sean. “Oh, now I remember. Gramp sometimes says that. It means —”

  “Yeah! And we have to get it out of there!”

  Sean flipped through the stack. The posters were identical, and apparently, the artists had all given special attention to those first four letters, using bright colors, stripes and polka dots. One enterprising soul had even highlighted it with sparkles.

  Sean’s eyes darted from Raymond’s morose face to the poster he was staring at with horror and loathing. Sean snickered.

  “Don’t laugh, Delancey,” said Raymond, clearly in agony. “This isn’t funny.”

  “I think I’m going to laugh, Raymond.”

  “A terrible thing has just happened to Jardine. Don’t laugh.”

  Sean thought he was going to burst. “I’ve got to laugh, Raymond! I’m starting to laugh!” He put his head down on the table and roared with mirth. “I’m sorry! It’s so funny!”

  Raymond cast him a withering glare. “Okay, laugh. You can laugh even harder when the teachers ask Eckerman who put up the posters with the word, and he tells them Jardine. And they say, ‘Jardine? Isn’t that the guy who formerly had a chance to go to Theamelpos, until now?’ Man, is that going to be funny!”

  Sean managed to get himself under control. “Oh, come on, Raymond. She meant well. And the posters are great. So what’s one little word?”

  “Nothing, after we paint it over. Now — what can we put instead?” He leaned over the table and pulled several jars of poster paint and some brushes off a shelf.

  “Raymond, you can’t. Ashley’s really proud of the initials thing. You’ll hurt her feelings.”

  Raymond dipped a brush into the background color and looked at the poster critically. “Jardine’s heart bleeds for Ashley’s feelings.”

  “Well, at least we can do something like this.” Sean grabbed the brush and painted over the “E.” Then he took a fresh brush and, in red, drew another “E” at the beginning of the word. “See? We keep the initials, we change the word, and we tell Ashley we had to do it because Eckerman insists on his initial being first.”

  “Yes, but now it says EARS,” said Raymond.

  “It does? Hmmm. Kind of stupid, huh? Well, at least it’s better than what it said before.”

  Raymond sighed heavily. “EARS it is. It might even get us the sympathy vote for Theamelpos you know, ‘Let’s send the EARS guys. They’re so stupid they deserve a break.’ And it just occurred to me that, since Ashley’s doing ninety percent of the work for this party, it’s a good idea to keep her happy.”

  “That’s a terrible attitude,” said Sean. “Ashley’s a good friend of ours.”

  Raymond pulled the second poster from the pile and began working on it. “Good friends of Jardine don’t fall in love with Cementhead.”

  Sean glared at him, but deep in his heart he agreed.

  ***

  The next Monday, Sean arrived at school to find Raymond taking down his old Cooking with Cabbage poster and replacing it with one that read:

  COOKING WITH CABBAGE CANCELLED DUE TO LARYNGITIS CONTRACTED BY GUEST CHEF MONIKA VON KALBEN

  Sean smiled sardonically. “A lot of people are going to be heartbroken over this.”

  “Forty-six names,” said Raymond in disbelief. “I stopped by the guidance office just to check the sign-up sheet for my fake cabbage symposium, and there were forty-six names on there. Forty-six. Springsteen wouldn’t get that kind of turnout from this school. What’s the matter with these people? And guess who, too? Ashley was on it, and Amelia Vanderhoof, Miss Ritchie, your sister, Cementhead … Why does Cementhead want to know about cabbages? They don’t come in barbells.”

  “Come on, don’t call him Cementhead.”

  Mindy O’Toole came rushing down the hall, peering in doorways. She spotted them and ran over. “Hi, I’ve been looking all over for you guys. You’re helping Danny with the Halloween party, right?”

  “No,” said Raymond. “We’re doing the party while Danny sits on his derriere.”

  Mindy looked at Sean strangely for a moment, then continued, “Well, Danny wants to know why it says EARS on all his posters.”

  “We don’t know anything about his posters,” Raymond said icily. “If he’s asking about our posters, tell him it’s none of his business why they say EARS. Tell him he should be grateful they don’t say NOSE, as in ‘punch in the.’”

  “They were supposed to say ‘Danny Eckerman Invites You,’ you know.”

  “We thought it over,” said Raymond, “and we decided that EARS was more appropriate.”

  “Well, I’ll tell Danny, but he’s not going to like it.”

  “He doesn’t have to like it,” said Raymond. “It’s not his party. If it wasn’t open to the whole school, he wouldn’t be invited. And you can tell him one more thing: Jardine is not pleased with him.”

  She turned to Sean. “What’s going on? Why’s he talking like that?”

  Sean was really enjoying the look of dismay on Mindy’s face. “I don’t have the slightest idea.”

  Mindy looked confused and ran off.

  “Wow!” exclaimed Sean. “What is this — clamp-down week?”

  “This,” Raymond replied, “is aggravation. Allow me to tell you what else Jardine saw in the guidance office this morning. Two more names on the Theamelpos list — the Sap family.”

  “You mean the Sapersteins? They’re not a family. They just happen to have the same name.”

  “I figured that out,” said Raymond, pulling a sheet of paper out of his clipboard. “I raided their files, which, incidentally, were right next to each other.”

  SAPERSTEIN, MARK/MARLENE,

  3567/3568, Seniors

  Description: Just look for two people joined at the lips.

  Grade point average: Mark — 2.65/ Marlene — 3.5

  Extracurricular activities: each other. Have been engaged since kindergarten. Also president and vice-president of the Dental Hygiene Club.

  Comments: will set up cozy little dental practice, preferably with no snapshots from Theamelpos mounted on the wall. Only hope is that if she makes it, he doesn’t, she won’t go without him, leaving spot open for Jardine.

  Sean looked up from the paper. “Your mind works in some very strange ways.”

  “I don’t like it,” said Raymond. “Vanderhoof gets the first spot, Cementhead nails down the second. If the Sap family makes it, that leaves only two spots for us. Which means all it takes is one bozo with a flashy record to come along to send Jardine for another summer of fish guts.”

  “Calm down, idiot,” said Sean patiently. “You’re forgetting the party, which, thanks to Ashley, is going to be fantastic. She’s already got the music, the lights, the food, and the drinks. It’s going to be a big success and make us look really good.”

  Raymond slapped his forehead. “I forgot to tell you! Another nice little tidbit, sent special delivery from them” — he glanced at the ceiling — “to Jardine. Last week I visited every store in the mall to ask them to donate a prize for the party in exchange for a plug in the school newspaper. Well, they must have found out we don’t have a school newspaper, because, so far, the only thing we’ve got for the super mystery prize is a tire gauge from Nick’s Auto Shop. Retail value: $2.95. Man, if I got myself dressed up like an egg salad sandwich and spent my night bouncing up and down on a trampoline so well that I beat out all the other bouncing egg salad sandwiches, I’d kill the burger who tried to slip me a tire gauge!”

  Sean
was appalled. “We’ll look like idiots if you can’t get something better than that! Is there a chance anything decent’ll come up?”

  Raymond was skeptical. “The only thing that’s going to come up is Jardine’s number when he has to present the super mystery prize. For anything else, he’s not holding his breath.” He sighed. “Anyway, I’ve got a meeting with Miss Ritchie. She wants to see me about my Pefkakia project. Like it’s my fault King Phidor bit the big one.”

  “Well, you’ve got to admit it was worse luck for Phidor than it was for you,” said Sean with a grin.

  “I’m not too sure about that,” said Raymond. “Before the revolution, Phidor was a king; Jardine was, is, and always will be just Jardine.”

  Five

  Ashley Bach was a genius at organization, especially when what she was organizing was her favorite thing in the entire world, a party. Showing the style of a consummate professional, she took charge of the Halloween extravaganza and, with a combination of her friendly charm with people and her Manhattan contacts, lined up an October 31 designed to bring the house down.

  Raymond and Sean were pathetically grateful. Their own contribution to the affair still stood at a tire gauge, if one did not count nerves. Raymond’s anxiety came from the fact that he judged this party to be yet another river to cross on the road to Theamelpos. Sean wasn’t quite sure why he was so uneasy — possibly because he’d never spent much time at school parties, and didn’t particularly want to spend any at this one, either. Certainly, walking around in public dressed in Gramp’s World War I Doughboy uniform, was ample reason for a few butterflies in the stomach. Not to mention the fact that, if something went wrong tonight, it was Sean’s public image on the line.

  The party was scheduled for eight o’clock, but Sean came to school right after dinner to help set up the DeWitt gym. He needn’t have bothered. Ashley had her art class there already, hanging streamers, blowing up balloons, and setting up the food and drink tables. He felt a twinge of guilt as he regarded the papier-mâché pumpkins, witches, skeletons, and countless other decorations that had been produced by this group, which had apparently forgiven Ashley the doctoring of the original posters and pledged to follow her anywhere. His mind kept coming back to himself and Raymond, and their measly little tire gauge.

  Ashley was at the far corner of the gym, helping Zeke Decibel set up a sound system that would have blown the roof off of Madison Square Garden. Zeke (whose real name was Reginald Ipswich, but who preferred the pseudonym because it had more flow) boasted a show with flash bombs, bubbles, mist, and over sixty colored lights. The lights were already in place, attached to two enormous arcs that had been fastened to the lower horizontal beams of the gym ceiling.

  Spying Sean, Ashley dragged him over to Zeke, introduced him, and whispered, “We were lucky to get him on a big party night like this. He has mist!”

  By seven o’clock, all was in readiness after Sean and a few of the art students had pulled out the school’s trampoline and positioned it in the beam of Zeke Decibel’s biggest spotlight. All manner of chips and soda sat waiting on the buffet tables, with the pizza and create-your-own-banana-split fixings residing in the nearby home ec room. By this time, the first of the students had begun to trickle in, and the workers were retiring to washrooms to change into their costumes.

  When Sean saw Ashley, it was all he could do to keep from going into cardiac arrest. She was done up as a devil, in a red leotard, with sheer red stockings, and red spike heels. She had a forked tail and matching horns, and in her hand she carried a red pitchfork. She was, in Sean’s eyes, arresting, devastating, fabulous, stunning, and totally great. Had he not spent the last two weeks listening to her list the virtues of Steve Semenski, he would have proposed marriage on the spot.

  As he looked around at some of the other students, he decided that his own costume was boring and unimaginative, not to mention moth-eaten. Of the early arrivals alone, there were already a few standouts. One boy was dressed in a full scuba suit, complete with oxygen tank and shark repellent. Two girls had gotten together and built a two-person cardboard replica of a Boeing 747. They had come with their boyfriends, who were dressed up as a horse. There was also a Marie Antoinette in a hoop skirt so huge and a wig so tall that, by land or air, no one could get within shouting distance of her. Behind her was a boy costumed as a ball of string. Apparently, a lot of people had taken great care with the selection of their outfits. Sean knew that Nikki and her two best friends hadn’t spoken to each other in over a week so as to maintain security while they worked on their own creations. Even he didn’t know what his sister would be wearing that night.

  Sean hefted his small duffel bag and headed for a nearby washroom to change. No sooner was he inside than the door of the center stall swung open, and out stepped a thirties-style gangster in a loud pinstriped suit and a white hat with a black band. The costume was so striking that it took Sean a few seconds to realize who it was.

  “Raymond! You look good!”

  “Don’t be sarcastic, Delancey. I feel ridiculous enough as it is.”

  “No, seriously. For a minute I thought it was Al Capone himself coming out of that stall.”

  Raymond snorted. “I’ll bet Al Capone never dropped his machine gun in the toilet.” He opened up the black violin case he was carrying to reveal a glistening wet plastic toy tommy gun. “I borrowed this from the kid across the street — which is, of course, in the next town. He said, ‘Jardine, if you wreck my gun, I’ll kick your butt.’ I’d better get to Theamelpos fast. That kid can get nasty.”

  Sean changed into his Army outfit and stood in front of Raymond for inspection. “What do you think?” he asked defiantly.

  “I think it’s fairly decent when you consider maybe they didn’t have mothballs in 1918.”

  “Give me a break, huh?”

  “Nothing personal. I mean, it’s a little big, too, but who cares if your shoulders sag during a mustard gas attack?” He fiddled with Sean’s helmet; muttered, “Hmmm. Lucky these things come with chin-straps;” and adjusted his own white tie, which stood out against his black shirt like forked lightning on a moonless night. “Let’s go, Delancey. We’re the hosts.”

  “Have you got the prize?” Sean asked.

  “Yeah, it’s in my pocket. You know, it may not be worth big bucks, but it’s a handy gadget. It told me that my back tire needed some air.”

  Sean was appalled. “You used it? Raymond, it’s a prize! Somebody’s going to get a used prize!”

  Raymond shrugged. “And if it was new, he’d be impressed?”

  Sean bit his lip and followed Raymond out to the party.

  The gym was gradually filling up, although the party was not to begin officially for twenty minutes yet. The staff supervisors had arrived, and were standing in a group, talking, laughing and glancing ravenously at the buffet tables. Sean was surprised at the turnout, and toyed with the idea that he might get a lot of credit for pulling off such a well-attended party. A festive atmosphere prevailed as friends engaged in good-natured laughing at each other’s costumes.

  People continued to arrive in a steady stream right up until eight, by which time the gym was mobbed. It seemed that many students had misinterpreted the EARS logo, as there were quite a few rabbit suits in the throng, and one boy had actually dressed himself in gigantic, foot-high cauliflower ears.

  At five after eight, a group of Ashley’s art classmates brought out the pizza and the ice cream, and when the five staff supervisors fell on it like wolves, Ashley gave Zeke Decibel the thumbs-up signal. Zeke grabbed his microphone and let out a bloodcurdling scream. The music started up full-blast, and colored lights blazed in all directions. A string of flash bombs went off, one so close in front of Sean that he staggered backward into the arms of Ashley (which pleased him enormously). Thousands of bubbles filled the air, and as the partygoers rushed to the dance floor, a layer of mist formed at their feet and began rising. A roar of appreciation went up.

 
Ashley grabbed Raymond and Sean by the arms and hauled them out to join the dancing. The music was far too loud for anyone to hear Sean say, “No, thanks. I don’t dance.” His attitude was, If you’re not Baryshnikov, dancing can only make you look silly. But he was doing pretty well until Raymond, really getting into the swing of things, bonked him over the head with his violin case, knocking the World War I helmet into the pouch of a girl wearing a kangaroo suit. Ashley found the resulting melee hilariously funny, and Sean was positive that her smile lit up the mist, which was now up to waist level.

  “Hey, everybody!” bellowed a foghorn voice that very nearly drowned out the music. “Make way for the windmill!” Into the crowd charged Howard Newman, dressed up to fulfill his life’s purpose — making a mockery of SACGEN. Somehow he had managed to come up with a windmill costume, incorporating a Styrofoam wrap extending from shoulders to knees, and painted to look like an old stone mill. A huge windmill blade was attached to his forehead by a heavy rubber band, and he twirled this with flailing arms. His stone body was pierced with two knives and an arrow, and perforated with bullet holes. He wore a noose around his neck, and on his back he had spray-painted in huge letters NUKE ME. Applauding, the dancers formed a circle around Howard, and Zeke Decibel obligingly threw him a spotlight. Even the teachers interrupted their eating for a few cheers.

  When Sean and Raymond finally managed to communicate to Ashley that they were exhausted and had to take a break, they scrambled away from the dancing and found themselves staring into the used-car-salesman eyes of Danny Eckerman. Either Danny wasn’t wearing a costume or, Sean guessed, he was going as himself, since there was no way the subject matter could be improved upon.

  “Raymond,” said the president, managing to sound earnest even though he had to shout to be heard, “Mindy tells me that you feel I haven’t been pulling my weight for this party.”

  “That depends on how much you weigh,” said Raymond shortly. “For example, if you weigh zero, then you’re pulling your weight perfectly.”