The Squirting Donuts Read online

  “She hasn’t started,” Calvin says. “Tomorrow she might come home covered with jelly and flour and complain that it’s too hot with all those ovens on.”

  We’re by my house. Calvin holds my books while I get my key out.

  “She might say her boss is too grumpy or too bossy. Old people like my mother complain a lot. It’s too hot. It’s too cold. There’s too much traffic. Prices keep going up. Their backs and legs hurt.”

  My mom and dad don’t complain about all that stuff, and they certainly don’t complain about their jobs. Dad actually says he likes what he does, and he sells plumbing supplies. How can anyone like selling pipes and plungers?

  I open the door. Calvin gives me back my books and we walk in. Karen is in the kitchen having a snack. She has strange eating habits. She says, “You are what you eat,” and right now she’s a low-fat Greek yogurt.

  Karen’s school starts earlier in the morning and ends earlier in the afternoon than mine so that’s why she’s already home. She’s in the eighth grade. That’s almost high school.

  “Something is going on with Dad,” she says. “He came home a few minutes ago, went to his and Mom’s room, and closed the door.”

  Dad is never home from work this early.

  “And Mom called. She wants us to set the table and prepare dinner. We’re eating at six.”

  Something is definitely going on. Mom almost never asks us to make dinner.

  “I’ll make salad,” Karen says. “You’ll make spaghetti, and we’ll open a can of sauce.”

  Karen once filled a bowl with beans, chopped pickles and onions and tomato chunks, and called it a Health Salad. Well, it didn’t do any good for my health. I didn’t eat it and I don’t think I’ll eat the one she makes today. I’ll just eat spaghetti.

  I tell her about Mrs. Cakel.

  “Are you sure it was her? Were you in the right room?”

  “It was her,” Calvin says, “and she was really nice. I don’t think it’s a problem but your brother is worried.”

  “Yeah, that’s my brother. Danny is a real worrier.”

  “Do you know where she lives?” I ask.

  “Sure. Clover Street. I’m not sure of the number but it’s a small blue house.”

  I pass Clover Street on the way to the library. It’s just a few blocks away.

  “We’ll go later,” I tell Calvin, “after we do our homework.”

  First I have to find the homework that got mixed up with the gardener’s bill and put it in my book bag. Tomorrow I have to show it to Mrs. Cakel. She may no longer be in a lovey-dovey mood.

  My homework is on the small table in the hall. My lunch is there too. I take the gardener’s bill and the bag with Mom’s lipstick, mineral body lotion, face powder, and eyeliner and put in on the table. I put the homework in my book bag.

  Then I deal with my lunch.

  I put my sandwich and apple in the refrigerator. I open the small bag of pretzels and share them with Calvin. Then we sit together by the kitchen table and do our homework.

  I tell Karen, “Calvin and I are going for a walk.”

  “To Clover Street?”

  I nod.

  “Don’t let her see you. Teachers don’t like kids to know where they live. And be back in an hour, in time to help me with dinner.”

  Before I leave the kitchen, Calvin gives me his homework. “Put this in your book bag,” he says. “You can give it to me tomorrow in school.”

  I look at the top of his homework page. I want to be sure his name is on it. I don’t want to mix his papers with mine. Trust me on this. You don’t want to mix your work with Calvin’s.

  Last week one of our history questions was, “When was Benjamin Franklin born?” Calvin answered, “On his birthday.”

  “How much is 567 multiplied by 64?” was one of our math problems. “A lot,” is what Calvin wrote. The real answer is 36,288. I’m good at math.

  “Remember! Be back by five,” Karen shouts as we leave.

  “Where’s Clover?” Calvin asks.

  “It’s close. I’ll show you.”

  Calvin just moved here, so he doesn’t know all the streets. I’ve met his mother lots of times. Calvin says I may have even met his father.

  “Spies wear lots of disguises,” he told me. “The man who cuts your hair may really be my dad.”

  “No,” I said. “I’ve been going to the same barber for lots of years.”

  “He could be your bus driver.”

  “I don’t go to school by bus. You know that. We walk together.”

  “You’re missing the point. I’m saying you might have met my father and not known it was him because he’s a master of disguise. There was a park near my old house and once I was walking through it and someone called my name. I looked around and at first I thought no one was there. I heard my name again and recognized Dad’s voice. He was standing right next to me. He was disguised as a tree.”

  “A tree?”

  “A grapefruit tree,” Calvin said, “with lots of grapefruit hanging on its branches.”

  I don’t believe everything Calvin says, but still, since he told me that, I check out the trees whenever I’m in a park.

  We’re on our way to Clover Street.

  “I’ve been thinking about Mom giving jelly shots at the bakery,” Calvin says. “I bet before each shot, she’ll tell the donut, ‘This won’t hurt a bit.’ That’s what she always told me before I got a shot. She’ll say, ‘Now be a good little donut,’ and, ‘This will make you strong and healthy.’”

  I say, “I don’t think she’ll talk to the donuts.”

  “Oh, yes she will. She’ll start out talking about jelly shots. From there she’ll talk about gunshots and that she doesn’t like watching some television shows because of all the bang-bang noises, that she holds her hands over ears when she watches those shows and you have to be careful when you clean your ears.”

  That is how Calvin’s mother talks. She goes from one thing to the next. It’s fun listening to her.

  “Inside each ear is an eardrum,” Calvin tells me. “Mom will tell the donuts that. Then she’ll talk about how I play the drums and may become a rock musician.”

  I didn’t know Calvin plays the drums.

  “You know what Mom will talk about next?”

  I shake my head. I don’t know.

  “From rock music, she’ll move on to rocks and maybe even to rock climbing or that a diamond is a rock and that the baseball infield is called a diamond.”

  “Your mom is fun,” I tell Calvin.

  We’re on Clover Street. Now we look for a small blue house.

  There’s a big house on the corner with a few trees in the front yard. I check. None of the trees is Mr. Waffle.

  There’s a small house on the opposite corner, but it’s not blue. It’s red brick and the grass needs to be cut. I know it’s not Mrs. Cakel’s house because she wouldn’t allow her grass to grow that long. She probably has a sign on her front lawn with a whole list of rules her grass, bushes, and trees must follow.

  We walk slowly down the block and look at all the houses. One is blue-gray, but it’s not a really small house and it needs to be painted. We both don’t think it’s the one.

  “There,” Calvin says.

  He points to a small house that’s across the street and near the other end of the block.

  “I think that’s it,” Calvin says.

  The house is painted blue. The frames around the windows are white. The front lawn is cut and trimmed. Against the house is a row of those bushes that are always green and they’re trimmed into perfect rectangles. On one side is a long gravel driveway.

  There’s no sign on the front lawn, but I tell Calvin I think he’s right.

  “What do we do now?” I ask.

  “We make sure it
’s her house.”

  We slowly walk down the block until we’re right across from it.

  “There’s no car in the driveway and the windows are all closed,” Calvin whispers. “Whoever lives in that house is probably not home.”

  Calvin crosses the street and I follow him. He starts up the walk of the blue house toward the front door.

  “Hey! What are you doing?”

  “Sh!” Calvin says and holds his pointing finger to his lips.

  I follow him, but I’m not happy about walking on someone else’s property, especially if it’s Mrs. Cakel’s.

  There’s a small painted basket attached to the wall by the front door and it’s loaded with mail.

  “We’re in luck,” Calvin says and takes the mail from the basket.

  “Put that back,” I tell him. “Taking someone else’s mail is against the law. You might get us arrested.”

  “Her name is on the mail. This is where she lives,” he tells me, “and her first name is Beatrice. She’s Beatrice Cakel.”

  Calvin looks at the name on each of the letters.

  “Every letter is addressed to Beatrice Cakel, so I think she lives alone.”

  “Put that back and let’s get out of here,” I tell him.

  Calvin looks at me and says, “You would make a lousy spy.”

  He looks at the mail again.

  “There’s a news magazine, an electric bill, an advertisement for a new car, and a letter from some place called ‘Protect the Animals.’ She doesn’t like children but I guess she likes animals.”

  “Put it back.”

  Calvin puts the mail back in the basket.

  “Let’s just get out of here.”

  Calvin leaves the front door and walks around the side of the house. I should leave but I don’t. I follow him.

  Her backyard is neat too. There’s a tall white fence around it. The grass is dark green and short, like you’d see on a golf course. In one corner is a large patch of dirt with sticks and on each stick is a sign: Carrots; Cucumbers; Cantaloupe; Casaba Cauliflower.

  “Look at that,” Calvin says. “She only planted vegetables and melons that begin with the letter C. Cakel begins with C. My name begins with a C. Maybe that’s why she likes me so much.”

  I think he’s joking about her liking him.

  I wait by the back door as Calvin walks toward the back fence. He walks all along the fence and then returns to me.

  “I didn’t find anything,” he says. “I guess we can go.”

  Crunch! Crunch! Crunch!

  What’s making that noise?

  I look around the side of the house and see an old blue car coming up the driveway. I’m too scared to try and see who’s driving it but I’m sure it’s Mrs. Cakel.

  “We have to get out of here,” I tell Calvin.

  The fence has us trapped. The only way out of the backyard is the way we came in. We have to walk around the side of the house to the front.

  “We can’t leave now. She’ll see us,” Calvin whispers. “We have to hide back here until she goes in.”

  I look around. There’s just grass, the fence, and the vegetable and melon garden that right now is just dirt. There’s absolutely no place to hide.

  “Where?” I ask.

  “Come with me.”

  He lies down on the grass under one of the windows.

  “Even if she looks out, she won’t see us.” He smiles and says, “You’re lucky I’m here.”

  No, I’m not. If Calvin wasn’t here, I wouldn’t be lying on the grass and hiding. I would never have even walked up to Mrs. Cakel’s front door. I’d be on my way home.

  Home!

  I look at my watch.

  It’s already past five. I should be home now cooking spaghetti.

  We hear a car door close.

  “Next she’ll get her mail and go in,” Calvin whispers. “Then we can leave.”

  “Maybe she’ll come back here,” I whisper. “Maybe she’ll check on her vegetables.”

  We lie there really quiet for what seems a long time. Then we hear a noise from inside the house.

  Click!

  The noise is right above us. She’s about to open the window.

  We scoot out real fast. We run along the side of the house, across her front walk, and halfway down the block.

  I look back.

  No one is following us. I stop by a tree that’s between the sidewalk and the street and lean against it.

  Calvin leans against the tree and says, “That was fun.”

  “No. It wasn’t fun. It was wrong. And we still don’t know why Mrs. Cakel got weird, you know, nice.”

  I look at my watch.

  “I’ve really got to get home.”

  I look at Calvin and notice a sign tacked on the tree.

  “Lost dog. Reward.”

  Beneath the sign is a picture of a dog and a telephone number.

  It’s a big tree. Four signs are tacked onto it.

  There are lots of trees on this block between the sidewalk and the street. We look at them all. They all have the same Lost Dog signs. Each of the big trees has a few signs.

  At the corner we cross the street. There are signs on the next block too, but just one sign on each tree. On the block after that, only some of the trees have signs.

  “Do you know what this means?” I ask Calvin.

  “Someone lost a dog.”

  “Whoever put up these signs probably started on Clover Street. As she got farther away, she was running out of signs, so she put fewer up.”

  “She?”

  I tell Calvin, “I think Mrs. Cakel lost her dog.”

  Just ahead is another tree with a sign. I get real close and look at the picture of the dog. It’s one of those French dogs with fancy haircuts. Beneath the picture it says, “Lost Dog! Reward!” There’s a telephone number and then “Dog answers to the name Lollipop.”

  “No,” Calvin says. “This is too funny. Mrs. Cakel’s first name is Beatrice and she has a dog named Lollipop with a puffy, froufrou haircut!”

  I don’t know what froufrou is.

  “Maybe I’m wrong,” I say. “Maybe it’s not her dog.”

  “I’ll find out,” Calvin says.

  I don’t have a cell phone but Calvin does. He takes it out and calls the number on the sign.

  He waits.

  I hear the muffled sounds of someone answering his call.

  Calvin listens for a moment. He presses the Power Off button.

  “It’s her,” Calvin says. “It’s Beatrice.”

  We walk toward home and Calvin says the same thing again and again. He sort of sings it.

  “Beatrice lost her Lollipop.

  “Beatrice lost her Lollipop.

  “Beatrice lost her Lollipop.”

  It’s not good that Calvin found out Mrs. Cakel’s first name. Who knows what he might do with that. It’s not good, but it’s funny when he sings, “Beatrice lost her Lollipop.”

  I try to keep from smiling, but I can’t.

  I don’t look at Calvin.

  I don’t want to encourage Calvin Waffle. That’s just about the worst thing I could ever do.

  I think of Karen and that I’m already late for my appointment with the spaghetti pot, and that keeps me from smiling. We’re on our way home and I’m walking fast.

  Then I tell Calvin, “Some people get really attached to their pets. Mrs. Cakel must really miss Lollipop.”

  “I know what reward I want,” Calvin says. “I want no more homework for the rest of the year. I want to be allowed to chew gum, and slouch, and mumble. Just me. Annie will be so jealous that I’m allowed to chew gum and she’s not.”

  “We haven’t found Lollipop.”

  “We will find that Ca
ndy-On-A-Stick dog,” Calvin says. “And as a reward, she’ll let me sit in the back of the class and play computer games and chew hard candies. Maybe I’ll even wear a yellow headband.”

  I remind Calvin that we’re in this together. We’ll both look for her dog and I won’t do it for the reward.

  “That’s you,” Calvin says. “I’m buying the biggest box of gum I can. I’ll buy two. Once we find that Lollipop, I’ll be gum chewing and gum popping all day.”

  We’re on our block. We get to my house first.

  “We’ll start our search tomorrow, right after school,” Calvin says. “With my spy training, finding a dog will be easy.”

  I say good-bye to Calvin. Then I open the front door to my house and walk in.

  “Do you know what time it is?” Karen asks.

  She’s holding four dinner plates.

  I look at my watch.

  “Five thirty.”

  “Take these,” she says and gives me the plates. “Set the table. Make the spaghetti and heat up the sauce. We can’t serve it cold.”

  I put the plates on the dining room table.

  I take out a big pot and a small pot, a box of spaghetti, and a can of tomato sauce. I half-fill the big pot with water. I put a few long pieces in the water. I break the others into smaller pieces so they will be easier to eat. I put the spaghetti in the big pot, the pot on the stove, and turn on the burner.

  I open a can of sauce, pour it in the smaller pot, put the pot on the stove, and turn on the burner.

  Cooking is easy. Maybe I’ll become a chef.

  “Something is definitely going on,” Karen tells me. “Mom came home a while ago. She went right up to her and Dad’s room and closed the door.”

  I finish setting the table.

  I turn off the fires under the two pots.

  I take the spaghetti to the sink and pour it through a colander. That’s a fancy word for a metal bowl with lots of holes. The colander holds onto the spaghetti but lets the water drip out.

  Colander is not the only cooking word I know. I know spatula, sauce pan, poach, simmer, consommé, quiche, and confectioner’s sugar. I don’t know what they all mean, but right now I’m not a chef.