Brian Meehl - Out of Patience

TWO HOT DOGS WITH EVERYTHING
Paul Haven

LIZZIE BRIGHT AND THE BUCKMINSTER BOY
Gary D. Schmidt

HOW ANGEL PETERSON GOT HIS NAME
Gary Paulsen

BOYS ROCK!
Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

DONUTHEAD
Sue Stauffacher

for my mother and father,
who introduced me to toilets
and so many other wonderful things

it came from above

Like most twelve-year-olds, Jake Waters was a collector of head bonks. He'd gotten most of the standard ones. From the one you get when you're learning to walkthe coffee-table uppercutto the one you get when there's nine gloves on a baseball field and only one ball to catchthe who's-got-it confusion-cracker.

But in the long history of head bonks, this was a first.

Jake didn't see it coming because he was wearing his KSF baseball hat pulled down low. It bounced off his head and flopped on the burnt-out grass. The sudden blow was startling, but not as surprising as what delivered it.

A toilet plunger.

As he rubbed his head and stared at the plunger lying on the yellow grass, lightning almost struck twice. Another toilet plunger pogo-sticked off the ground. His eyes shot upward as two more plungers sailed out the window, arcing toward him like rubber-tipped missiles. This was nofreak accident. This was a full-fledged plunger attack. He dropped his bike and scurried out of range. More plungers shot out the window and flopped on the grass.

Then the plunger barrage stopped.

He squinted at the upstairs window as his father's voice drifted out. It was surprisingly calm for a man whose toilet plunger collection had just been chucked out the window. Are you finished?

The woman who answered seemed insulted by the pass-the-ketchup ease of the question. No! she exploded.

It was Jake's stepmother, Wanda.

Then his father shouted, Not that!

A new object spun out the window. It looked like a super-sized Frisbee. It skipped off the porch roof and landed in the tumbleweed hedge the wind had a way of planting around the house. It was a dark wooden toilet seat.

Jake looked up as his father's back blocked the window. He was wearing his usual blue T-shirt with WATERS & SON PLUMBING on the back. That's enough, he said.

You got that right, bub! Wanda spit the last word like she wished she had one more plunger. The one she wanted to drive through his heart.

Jake heard her clomp loudly down the stairs in her clogs. For the three years Wanda had been his stepmother, he remembered her being more loud than not. It wasn't her fault. She was from a loud city: Las Vegas. She met Jim Waters while he was in Vegas at a weeklong plumbers' convention. They got married before the end of the week.

The screen door blew open. Wanda stomped out on theporch, lugging a big suitcase and a boom box almost as big as the suitcase. She wore blue jean cutoffs and a tank top with curlicue pink letters: THE MIRAGE . It was the name of the casino in Vegas where she had been a showgirl.

She spotted Jake in the yard and pulled up short. Why aren't you at the game?

I left my glove on the porch, he said.

I was gonna come say goodbye there. She bumped her suitcase down the porch steps. Sorry, Jake, I was hoping you wouldn't have to see this. I was hoping I wouldn't have to see this.

Jake wasn't sure what to do. His father had taught him to help women carry heavy things. But asking your stepmother if you could help her with her suitcase when she was leaving didn't seem like a good idea. She looked mad enough as it was. He decided to do the thing that had worked for six generations of Waters men. When in doubt, don't move.

Wanda lurched by him, then dropped the suitcase and the boom box behind her battered red Mustang. She stabbed the trunk with a key. Aren't you gonna ask me?

Jake blinked. Ask you what?

Why I'm leaving the most worthless man I've ever married. And believe me, I've married some worthless men.

Why? It wasn't the first time he'd heard her rank his father among what she referred to as the Three Stooges.

He did it again, she declared.

What?

What he promised he'd never do.

This was one of the things Jake wasn't going to miss if Wanda was really leaving for good this time. Asking her a direct question was like doing a search on Wanda.com and getting a dozen pop-ups. He tried again, even though he knew the answer was several pop-ups away. What did he promise he'd never do again?

She glared at him. Are you gonna help me with these or stand there like a stump?

That was pop-up number two. But Jake was glad to finally have a reason to move. He grabbed the suitcase and hefted it into the trunk. Then he wedged the boom box next to it. He barely got his hands out before she slammed the trunk.

He got on eBay again, she blurted, getting to the point in record time. I just found out he used the grocery money to buy another one of them plungers! She flailed her hands at the plungers scattered in the yard. I mean, what kind of man collects useless old toilet plungers?

The kind of man who did appeared behind the screen door in the shade of the porch.

I don't know much about cooking and being a mother, she shouted toward the house. But the best cook in the world can't turn a plunger into a pot roast! She grabbed Jake's shoulders and locked on his eyes.

He tried to meet her fiery gaze, but he couldn't stop staring at the purple vein bulging in her forehead.

Her voice softened. Jake, listen to me, and listen good.

Her vein deflated. He found her eyes. They were different from the eyes he'd seen all summer. They weren't sador angry anymore. They were filled with the bright clarity of someone who'd wrestled her demons and won. Her demons included fourteen plungers and an old wooden toilet seat.

I want you to do two things, she declared. You run yourself to the nearest mental hospital and get your daddy some help. When he's safely locked up, learn to drive, and then you do what no Waters man has done in a hundred ;n forty years. Get out of this dried-up cow pie of a town.

Jake knew there was a lot he was going to miss about Wanda too. Her loud music. Her leftover-spaghetti-scrambled eggs, which were much better than they sounded. And she told great stories about other parts of the country. Big cities like Las Vegas and Los Angeles. She'd even traveled to foreign cities. She had stories about Tijuana and Acapulco.

Wanda squeezed his shoulders. Promise me, Jake. You're gonna get outta here and see the world.

I promise, he whispered.

Her red lips stretched into a smile. Good. And when you get your goinagoin, you come n see me in Vegas.