Death by Eggplant (8 page)

“Please, put your math books away,” she said. She waited till the rustling and chair-scraping quieted. “Only three days remain till the end of the marking period this Friday,” she continued. “Make-up homework from a few of you is still due, as well as some
special
projects.” Her eyes narrowed and she looked back and forth between Dekker and me. “Other than that, our academic work for the year is finished. So over the coming days, I've arranged for a few guest speakers during my classes with you. Some parents have very generously interrupted their busy day to talk to you about their careers.” She gestured toward the door as it started to open. “Please welcome our first guest, Mr. Peter Hooks.”

Dad? My
dad was giving up work to talk about work?
He hadn't said a word to me this morning on his way out the door. Maybe he had wanted to surprise me.

It was weird seeing him in class. It took me a few moments, then it hit me. I didn't
feel
weird, my father
looked
weird. He looked strange, unbalanced, not like my father at all. If I passed him on the street, I might not recognize him. Why?

“Mr. Hooks is, of course, Bertram Hooks's father,” Mrs. M. said.

My father frowned when he saw Cleo on my desk. What was he thinking—that he had seen her face somewhere before, or that his newborn must be a genius to already be in eighth grade? He would be signing Cleo up for actuarial science, too.

Waving a hello to the class, he saw the second flour sack slumped on its side on Dekker's desk. My father did a double-take like from a Saturday morning cartoon. I could almost see the thought balloon over his head:
“Cleo has a twin?”

“It's a class project, Dad,” I tried to explain.

“And yours is named Cleo,” Dekker cooed. “Soon to be Dolly.”

“Shut up, Shorty,” I answered.

Mrs. Menendez held up a warning finger to both of us. My father took that as his signal to start.

“Hi. I'm Peter Hooks, as you heard, Bert Hooks's father, and I would like to talk to you about insurance.
Most people think that insurance is boring, but it isn't, not at all. In most ways, it's all about protecting people and property, but on some levels, it's actually an exciting life-or-death gamble!”

My father's face glowed with enthusiasm, while mine glowed with embarrassment. I sank a little lower in my chair.

“Now my job is to figure out exactly what the chances are that any given accident, no matter how strange, might actually happen,” he continued. “It may look like I'm only playing with numbers. But I'm really speculating about life; making up stories, even. It's a little like being a fiction writer and a little like being a detective, a detective of
future
events. Of course, I do have to translate all these strange tales into numbers, probabilities. So by the time I'm finished with the stories, rock star Head Cracker—”

The class gasped at the name and leaned forward eagerly.

“—becomes a statistic of .02379 percent in certain instances and 94.9 percent in others, depending on a whole set of variables, like whether he took his meds that day or whether the hotel maid gave Head Cracker ten pillows instead of his mandatory eleven pillows when she made up the room.”

I heard murmurs of “Wow” and “How cool is that?” For
my
father?

“What's more, if you think about it,” he said, “I also
contribute to either the decline of Western civilization or to the promotion of the arts, depending on your view of Head Cracker's music, since without his being insured to the gills, he wouldn't be allowed to play.”

Beep-beep!
At the sound, my father began to pat himself.

“And I, uh . . . can't even begin to tell you . . . um . . . about the consequences of a misplaced decimal,” he said distractedly, patting first his shirt pockets, then his pant pockets.

Beep-beep!

His phone! My father was looking for his cell phone! No wonder I thought he had looked lopsided. I rarely saw that side of his head. When he checked in at the school office, he must have noticed the sign that read “No cell phones, no pagers, no beepers,” thought it meant him, and turned his cell over to the secretary for safekeeping.

Now he wanted to answer the call of a digital watch.

As the guilty student fumbled to turn off the alarm, Mrs. Menendez glared. No beeps of any kind were allowed in class.

“Dad!” I waved my hand in the air to get his attention.

“Yes, son?”

“You can stop looking for your phone. That was a watch beeping.”

“Oh,” he said. He folded his hands in front of him. “Thank you. I guess I'm done, anyway. Questions anyone?”

Two dozen hands shot up, no doubt desperate to know more about Head Cracker. One voice jumped in without waiting.

“So, Mr. Hooks, your job is to pay up when freak accidents happen?” Dekker asked, his smile sneering and suspicious.

“Well, to help
determine
the chances that a payout will be neces—”

“So how much did you have to pay when your son was born?”

“Mr. Dekker,” Mrs. M. said. “I'll remind you that Mr. Hooks is a parent.”

“Oh, and that reminds me that
Mrs
. Hooks is a parent, too. I guess to get your son, you had to cross Mrs. Hooks with a—”

“Mr. Dekker, report to the principal's office at once!”

“What? What did I say?” He gave an exaggerated shrug.

She fixed him with a stare.

My father shifted uncomfortably from one foot to another.

“It's okay, Mrs. Menendez.” He gave a nervous wave. “Really.”

“No, Mr. Hooks. I have been unforgivably lax of late. As a result, the class has come to believe that the foolishness that goes on among themselves is acceptable elsewhere. It is not. I am so very sorry.” She turned to Dekker.
“Go.”

For a very long moment, they stared at each other. Then Dekker stood up, shoved the flour bag off his desk, and stamped out of the room. The bag landed with an
oof
and a cloud of white dust.

Mrs. M. sat down.

“I apologize again, Mr. Hooks,” she said. Her voice had a strange little hiccup to it. “Please, go on.”

My father didn't answer, but only looked at her.

I raised my hand and waved it furiously.

“Dad! Dad!”

“Hmmm?” He turned to me.

“Dad, you said something about how important the decimal is.”

He nodded.

“So why don't you tell us the story about the guy whose pen leaked? And there were decimal points everywhere?”

“That's right!” Relief made him look all rubbery. “That's a good one.”

Instantly understanding, my father moved inch by inch to the left as he talked. This just happened to be farther and farther away from Mrs. M.'s desk at the right. When he had all the kids laughing, Mrs. Menendez took out a tissue and quietly blew her nose.

Despite the weakness betrayed by that soggy Kleenex, she recovered quickly. At the end of the story, she stood up, slam-dunked Dekker's flour sack into his knapsack, and
picked up the bag. Then, in her sternest voice, she said, “Class, I'm escorting Mr. Hooks out. Not a word from any of you. Judy Boynton, you're in charge.”

Mrs. M. and my father left. All of us stared at the open door.

For those last ten minutes, the class was perfect. No spitballs, no notes, not even whispers. Every so often, some frowning face would sneak a glance at me. No doubt people were wondering what Mrs. Menendez would say and do tomorrow, after today's disastrous parent visit.

Meanwhile,
I
was wondering how much Dekker's trip to the principal's office was going to cost me.

Sometimes, life is simple, and it's easy to figure people out. Are you a cat person or a dog person? Do you like deep-dish pizza or thin crust? Are you trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent—or Nick Dekker?

Almost as clear a division: Do you like your puttanesca sauce with anchovies or without?

Since I was making puttanesca for supper, the topic occurred naturally. Besides, it was easier and less stressful to think about cooking than about what had happened at school today. So I wondered, what is it about anchovies that is so divisive?

I minced the garlic that every recipe for puttanesca began with. Then I chopped up a good-sized onion, which was called for in some, though not all, recipes. But no one fought over onions.

When the garlic-onion mixture was sautéed nicely, I
stirred in both sun-dried and plum tomatoes. Many chefs used only plums. But no one fought over tomatoes.

Next, I threw in a half cup each of sliced green olives and sliced black olives. Some chefs insisted on only black olives in their puttanesca—Kalamata olives at that—yet no one really fought over olives.

But anchovies—that's where the line is drawn.

My father hated them. But anchovy-less puttanesca was a favorite of his, so it was no coincidence that I was making it tonight. I had a zillion questions to ask him when he came home from work.

What had happened after my father left class today? He had had to go back to the principal's office to get his cell phone. Did he get to hear Mrs. M. yell at Dekker? Was she going to suspend Dekker, maybe even expel him? And what about the rest of us? Had she said anything about there being consequences for the class? Did it involve terrible things like gym floors and toothbrushes?

And even these things were easier to wonder about than what the kids had thought of my dad today. Maybe that was the real reason I was making one of his favorite dishes. It was a guilt offering.

I pushed the thought away and measured out two tablespoons of capers, at last an ingredient that all recipes had in common. I tasted the puttanesca, adjusted the herbs, then put water on to boil for pasta. Fusilli, not spaghetti. The little curves hold the sauce better.

But all my chopping, slicing, and stirring were for nothing. My father didn't come home for dinner. He was working late, Mom explained, because of the time he had taken off that afternoon.

“I would have gone in his place, if Mrs. Menendez had only asked,” Mom said. “Maybe she didn't think of it when we saw her on Sunday. Or maybe working in an insurance office is just more interesting than what I do. You know how some people are. It's the surface glamour that appeals to them.”

Surface glamour? I almost choked on my fusilli, which, if you think about it, is pretty hard to do because it's so soft. Dad more interesting than Mom? Statistics more glamorous than astral projection? Good thing Mrs. M.
hadn't
asked her; Mom would have taught the kids bilocation. Then they could cut class without ever leaving the room.

“You know how much I love you, don't you, Bertie?” my mother asked without warning, staring down at her plate. Now I really
was
going to choke on my fusilli.

Was she a mind reader, too? Did she know how I had betrayed her yesterday in the schoolyard? Maybe her astral body
had
been there, hidden behind the angry French ghosts, hearing me deny both cooking and her. All of a sudden, my guilt about my father doubled and included her. When was my next appointment with Dr. Zimmerman?

“Uh, yeah,” I said, starting to push my fusilli around.

“Well, um . . . uh, good,” she said, imitating my movements. “What I mean is, you're very . . . very young, you know, and it's easy to make mistakes at that age, um . . . Ooops!” Some olives slid off her plate.

My ears must have been the color of the sauce.

“But sometimes we can catch our mistakes
before
we make them,” my mother added hurriedly, wiping up the spill, still studying her plate. “And then everything's all right. Because the mistakes were never made. It's like erasing the past, except that particular past never happened, you see? It's almost like psychic time travel.”

My embarrassment turned to confusion, which at least felt more familiar.

“Huh?”

She looked up at me and smiled widely. “I'm so relieved we had this little talk.”

After dinner, I moped around for a bit, wondering about what she had said and why. Then I started thinking about Dekker's next attack. I had temporarily flustered him by calling him “Shorty” yesterday and again today in class. He got back at me through my father. But that backfired and Dekker had gotten in trouble, which meant his next attack would be direct. I had to take preventive action now.

It was eight o'clock. With the time difference between here and the West Coast, I just might catch someone still in the mill office. I brought Cleo to the living room and
turned her bottom-side up. “Sorry,” I whispered, hoping the blood didn't rush to her head, and then dialed the long-distance phone number stamped on her fanny.

“Granny Greta's Merry Mill,” answered a man's gruff voice.