Jeremy Fink And The Meaning Of Life Part 8

Lizzy grabs her briefcase, and we hurry from the room and back into the elevator. Neither of us speaks as we press the b.u.t.ton for the lobby. It's just as well that he made us leave before calling them. I wouldn't have wanted to hear Mom's reaction. I'll hear it soon enough.

"What were you thinking?" she demands as I walk in the door an hour later. "How did you get home?"

"The bus," I told her. The return trip on the bus had been much smoother. We got quarters from a hot pretzel vendor, and Garlicman was nowhere in sight (or in smell, as the case may be). We sat in the front of the bus and I tried to eat my peanut b.u.t.ter sandwich while Lizzy ate a pretzel. It wasn't easy to choke down the sandwich after our experience, but just in case Mom punishes me by only serving something healthy for dinner, I had to eat while I could. Even still, I could only eat half.

"I'm sorry we lied about going to the post office," I reply sheepishly. "I know we should have told you where we were going. I was afraid you'd say no."

"Come sit down," she says, and leads me over to Mongo. We pa.s.s a painting on an easel that she must have been working on today. It's covered with cloth now though, so I can't tell what it is. We sit down, and she takes my hand in hers. "I know this is hard for you," she says gently. "You want to follow your dad's instructions, but we just might have to find another way."

"Lizzy and I have already tried everything else," I tell her. "The only way to get in is with the keys. Otherwise we'll ruin the box."

"I don't want that to happen either," she says. "But now you have to put that aside and deal with this community service mess you've gotten yourself into. You can't s.h.i.+rk your responsibilities with this man."

"What if he's some sleazy p.a.w.nbroker guy who just wants free labor?"

"He's not," she a.s.sures me. "I made Officer Polansky give me Mr. Oswald's phone number to check him out. I wasn't going to let my baby be whisked away by just anyone."

I groan. "Mom!"

"Sorry," she says. "I wasn't going to let my almost-teenaged son be whisked away by just anyone."

"That's better."

"He's a very interesting man. And I think you'll find this job-"

"It's not a job," I remind her. "A job is where you get paid."

She shakes her head. "A job is where you are a.s.signed a task and you complete it to the best of your ability. Money or no money. Anyway, as I was saying, I think you might actually enjoy working with Mr. Oswald. You may find you have a lot in common."

"Like what?" I ask, but I'm not really interested. My stomach is growling. Now that I know Mom isn't going to punish me, my appet.i.te has returned.

"The man has spent his life around other people's stuff. Sound like anyone you know?" Without waiting for an answer she stands up from the couch and says, "And by the way, you're grounded for a week. It would be more, but I figure you're already being punished. You'll do the community service, and then come straight home."

I sigh dramatically. "It's almost like you don't want me to find the keys."

"You know that's not true," Mom says. "It will all happen the only way it happens." She heads into the kitchen, and I follow.

"What does that mean?" I ask. Before she can answer, the phone rings. The caller ID shows it's Lizzy's dad. She picks up and she says, "Yes, he's grounded for a week. Yes, I'll wait until the car comes tomorrow and call you at the post office. Thanks, Herb." She hangs up. "Hey, you got off easy. Lizzy's grounded for two weeks."

Poor Lizzy. She was only trying to help me. I'm sure this isn't how she planned to spend her summer, either.

"What do you want for dinner?" Mom asks, already reaching into the cabinet for the box of macaroni and cheese.

"Why do you ask if you already know?"

"I always hope you'll surprise me."

"Not tonight."

After years of trying to get me to eat normally, Mom has given up. Dinners are now a choice between four meals-macaroni and cheese, hot dogs, fish sticks, or pizza if we're going out. Mom once tried frying some chicken and pressing it into the shape of a fish stick, but I knew better.

She puts a pot on the stove and pours in the water. "You're going to drive me to drink with your finicky eating habits," she says.

Seeing as our house is an alcohol-free zone, unless I'm going to drive her to drink chocolate milk, I'm not too worried.

"You'll be thirteen in a few weeks," she says. "It's time to expand your horizons. I'm going to introduce one new thing each Monday night."

After what happened today, I don't dare argue. "Sure, Mom," I say, hoping she'll go easy on me and won't jump right to the broccoli.

"And since today's Monday," Mom says, swinging open the refrigerator door, "we might as well start tonight. But don't worry, I'll go easy on you." She pulls out a gla.s.s bowl covered in cellophane. I approach with caution and peer inside.

Broccoli!

Chapter 8: The Old Man.

Mom, Lizzy, and I are sitting on the steps of our building waiting for Mr. Oswald's driver to pick us up. I didn't get any notes from Lizzy last night and I didn't write any either. I'm afraid she's mad at me. At least she's back in her ponytail and shorts again. No skirt and long hair blowing around.

"You've both got the notebooks that the policeman gave you?" Mom asks.

We shake our heads.

"I got the impression you're supposed to bring them," she replies. "Go on up and get them. I'll wait in case he comes."

As Lizzy and I climb the stairs, she asks if I'm mad at her.

Relieved, I shake my head. "I thought maybe you were mad at me. After all, you wouldn't be in this mess if it weren't for me and the box."

"And you wouldn't be in this mess if it weren't for me," she counters.

"Do you think we'll still be able to find the keys in time now?" I ask.

"We'll keep our eyes open," she says firmly. "We won't let this stupid community service thing ruin our plans."

We're about to shake on it when the new kids come out of their apartment. "Don't let us interrupt you," Rick says, gesturing to our imminent handshake.

We both pull our hands away quickly. "How's it going?" Lizzy asks in a high voice that's almost a squeak. She says it to both of them, but looks only at Samantha.

"Good," Samantha says. "We're almost all moved in."

"Cool," Lizzy says. Then she blurts out, "I like your earrings."

Samantha puts her hands up to her ears. "I'm not wearing any earrings."

Rick laughs. That kid is NOT getting any nicer, and I'm just about done feeling sorry for him for having to move to a new place.

Lizzy turns beet red. "I mean the ones you were wearing yesterday."

"Oh, thanks," Samantha says. "They were a gift from my grandmother."

"Cool," Lizzy says, and nods. "If you want to come over sometime, I can tell you about the neighborhood, that sort of thing."

"Sure," Samantha says. "Whenever."

"Cool," Lizzy says. I want to alert her to the many other words at her disposal besides cool, but I think she would punch me.

"Can we go now?" Rick asks, pulling his sister down the hall.

"Bye, guys," Samantha calls out.

"Bye," Lizzy says, waving a little.

"Since when are you so friendly?" I ask her.

"What do you mean?" she says innocently.

"You know what I mean."

"I'm just trying to be nice," she says, putting the key in her door. "You know, neighborly, like you said. I'm allowed to make new friends, you know."

"Who said you weren't?" I reply, hurrying into my apartment before she can respond. I grab my notebook and head back outside, not bothering to wait for Lizzy. She sits down next to me on the stoop a minute later. She has taken out her ponytail. I don't know why it should bother me, but it does. I pull out my book and bury my nose in it.

"This must be him," Mom says, standing up and shading her eyes.

I look up to see Lizzy staring, her mouth hanging open. Coming down the street toward us is no less than a limo. It pulls up right in front of our building. A limousine is in front of our building! Like the kind movie stars take. The driver steps out and tips his hat at us. He is wearing a real chauffeur's uniform! I didn't think people did that in real life!

"Jeremy Fink and Elizabeth Muldoun?"

We nod vigorously. Usually Lizzy is quick to correct anyone who dares to use her full name, but I can tell she's too excited to bother.

"I'm James. I have come to take you to Mr. Oswald," he says. "And you are Mrs. Fink, I gather?"

Mom says yes, and asks to see some paperwork from the community service people. Exchanging wide-eyed glances, Lizzy and I scramble off the steps and wait by the car until Mom gives us the all-clear.

"You two behave," she says, stepping back onto the curb.

I'm surprised she's not more shocked by the limo. Mr. Oswald must have told her that's how we'd be traveling. Did she somehow forget to tell me?

"Do you have your sandwiches?" she asks.

"Yes, Mom," I say, reddening as James looks on. When she steps aside, James opens the back door for us. Lizzy scrambles inside, and I follow her into the cool interior. I can't believe we're actually going to be driven around the city in a limo!

The seats are cream-colored, and I've never sat on anything as soft. Even though it's a bright, sunny day, the inside of the limo is dim because the windows are tinted. A small refrigerator is built into the wall, along with a television set and a radio. Another long seat faces us, and I immediately put my feet up on it. Lizzy can't reach that far. We pull away from the building and I wave at Mom as we go, but she probably can't see us through the windows.

Lizzy swings open the door of the fridge. "Look! Strawberries! Juice! Soda in gla.s.s bottles! Can you believe this?"

I shake my head, leaning back against the cool seat like I'm used to a life of luxury.

"Man oh man," Lizzy says. "If I had known doing community service was gonna be like this, I'd have gotten us in serious trouble years ago!"

At the first red light, the window dividing us from James slowly lowers. He turns his head to look at us. "I imagine everything is satisfactory?" he asks, a small smile on his face.

Lizzy unscrews the top of a c.o.ke bottle and asks, "Is Mr. Oswald really really really super rich?"

James laughs. "He's pretty well off."

"I didn't realize p.a.w.nbrokers made so much money," I say.

James turns back to the road and shakes his head. "Oh, that's just a sideline. Used to be his family's business. Mr. Oswald's main job is selling antiques. He has a knack for finding antiques, restoring them, and selling them for much more than he bought them."

"Where does he find them?" I ask, interested.

"All over," James says. "Flea markets, antique fairs, auction houses. Sometimes even on the streets. People don't know what they have, and they just throw it out."

Lizzy turns to me, and I know what she's going to say before she says it. "Sounds like he and your dad would have hit it off."

I nod. "But my dad never fixed up anything to sell, only to use."

"Maybe he would have," she says.

I watch as the window divider slowly goes back up.

"Maybe," I say, closing my eyes. When Dad first died, I used to keep a list of all the things that happened to me that he wouldn't get to see. Like when I hit a home run in gym cla.s.s (only happened once, but it did happen), or when I won an award for a short story in sixth grade about a boy who burned an ant with a magnifying gla.s.s, and that night his house burned down, and he knew it was all his fault. But the list was all about me. I had never considered what my dad would or wouldn't have done with his own life if he'd gotten the chance. Maybe he would have sold some of the stuff he found and made a fortune. Or expanded Fink's Comics into a whole chain. I might even have a brother or sister by now. I bet he had dreams I never knew about. Is that what's in the box? Dreams of a life he never got to live?

The car stops, and I open my eyes to see Lizzy happily munching on a strawberry. "Want one?" she asks, holding out the box.

I shake my head. Real fruit only makes me think of fruit-flavored candy like Starburst or Mentos, and the fact that I don't currently have any.

James opens the door, and we emerge onto the bright sidewalk. I had expected him to be taking us to a p.a.w.nshop in a less-than-desirable part of town. Instead, we're in front of a three-story brownstone on Riverside Drive on the Upper West Side. Before I can voice my surprise, the front door opens, and a tall old man appears wearing a brown striped suit with a matching hat. He is puffing on a pipe. For some reason his clothes don't seem to match the rest of him. With his round, ruddy face, shouldn't he be wearing overalls and a straw hat?

"You must be the little truants," he says sternly. His twinkling eyes tell me he's not really being mean.

Never one to take an insult lightly, Lizzy says, "I think to be a truant you have to be skipping school, and school's out for summer."

"How right you are, young lady," he says, c.o.c.king his pipe at her. "I shall have to be more careful with my vocabulary."

"All right, then," she says.

"Come." He steps aside so we can enter. "Let us get to know each other."

James ushers us up the stairs and into the house. A small entryway leads to a huge room crowded with large boxes and packing crates. It looks like most of the place is already packed up. A few paintings still hang on the walls, but all the furniture is gone. The wood-paneled ceiling is so high that the whole brownstone must be just this one floor, not three separate floors like I had a.s.sumed. A huge fireplace on the back wall actually has a fire going in it, even though it's almost July.