Shoebag Returns Read online

  “No, they cannot,” Stanley insisted, “unless they have a lot of money.”

  “You cannot buy your way into this club!” said Josephine. “You don’t know beans about this club. You don’t know anything about such a secret club!”

  “Why should I?” Stanley answered. “Where I come from clubs are not secret!”

  “But you are here now,” said Josephine. “And here there is one! And the one that there is, is the most important club in Miss Rattray’s School for Girls … and now one boy.”

  “Then possibly I’ll join it,” said Stanley, looking around for someplace to sit where there wasn’t a masked doll in the way.

  “Join it?” said Josephine Jiminez, her eyes narrowing, her skinny body leaning forward. “JOIN IT?” she thundered. Then she let out a hoot of ridicule.

  “I have to go back to my room,” Stanley said, for he realized that he must have said something very laughable, or very sad, or very stupid … and possibly all three.

  As he left the room, Josephine Jiminez was rocking back and forth on her bed filled with masked dolls, stamping her feet, holding tight to her freckled arms, laughing while she tried to exclaim:

  “He thinks … he’s … ha-ha … going to join the Better Club!”

  Five

  YOU HAD TO BE asked to be a member of the Better Club.

  Even Under The Toaster had to laugh at the idea of anyone thinking he could join the Better Club, and Under The Toaster was not a big laugher.

  Father of so many roaches he could not count them all, father of so many roaches he only remembered the ones who’d been felled by fatal accidents, when Under The Toaster did laugh, he roared.

  No one in roachdom wanted him to laugh.

  It was dangerous when he laughed.

  On the rare occasions he was unable to keep from laughing, the yellow kitchen cat roused himself from his sleep and went on the prowl for any cockroaches scurrying around. This sent everyone scampering up walls and into floorboards.

  Drainboard predicted that one day Under The Toaster would die laughing, or else he would be laughing while one of his own died.

  Still, at their late-night picnic beside the hall night-light, Under The Toaster could not help himself.

  “He thinks he can just join that club — har-de-har-har!”

  And a moment after he’d roared at what Stanley Sweetsong had said, he blew a stale bread crumb at Shoebag’s antennae and declared, “Even you were a smarter boy than that one, back when you were Stuart Bagg!”

  “I was not a dumb boy, Papa.”

  But Under The Toaster could not forget, or forgive, that when Shoebag was a boy, he often saved teensy greasy morsels just for Drainboard. What kind of son broke the old roach rule that fathers always ate first and had their pick of choice treats?

  So spitefully, Under The Toaster often teased his son about the time he’d changed into this tiny person.

  “I remember when you were Stuart Bagg. You had to wear clothes!”

  “I liked wearing them, Papa.”

  “But you couldn’t wait to get back to being a roach!”

  “It was not the clothes, though. It was because I missed you and Drainboard, and my brothers and sisters.”

  “Family is everything,” said Under The Toaster. “I am head of the family so I am more than everything!”

  “This is true, Papa,” Shoebag agreed.

  It was Gregor Samsa, a roach once himself, who had given Shoebag the formula to change back to a roach.

  And it was Gregor Samsa who had gone back and forth from roach to human, before he decided to abandon roachdom for stardom.

  Shoebag had never wanted to be a star. Besides missing his family, he had also missed having six legs, a shell, and antennae. He had missed the late-night picnics, like this one, too.

  Still, there were times when he remembered sleeping in a bed, eating at a table, attending school — all the things he’d done when he was a tiny person. And Shoebag wondered at such times if it was possible for him to go back and forth just once more. Gregor Samsa had warned him never to do it without having a good reason.

  Shoebag munched on the stale bread crumb his father had tossed his way and thought about it.

  Down the hall, Josephine Jiminez was calling out, “Curtain Up!”

  Shoebag had always enjoyed hanging out in Josephine Jiminez’s little room with all the dolls. He liked to sleep there in the ear of a masked Kewpie doll named Monroe. The room was always nicely dark, too, for it was a theater. There were bits of food everywhere, as well, for Josephine Jiminez had a big appetite like Under The Toaster. She was always eating.

  The catch (and there is always a catch when a roach finds a safe and agreeable place to dally) was the plays she put on in there.

  “Curtain up!” she would call out, just as she had done a moment ago, and then the play would get underway.

  The same old thing, time after time.

  She made the Cast of Characters speak in various voices.

  Monroe was the featured player, so Shoebag would have to hop out of the Kewpie doll’s ear, and run off to the pencil sharpener on the wall.

  The same old dialogue, time after time.

  “You say you want to be a member of the club?” Monroe would ask in a deep and very stern voice.

  Then Alexandria, the wooden doll with the rouged cheeks would answer, “Yes, please, can I get in?”

  “You think you’re good enough?” Monroe again.

  “Yes, please, can I get in?” were the only lines Alexandria had, the only lines any of the bit players had.

  Then Monroe would bark, “Well, you’re not good enough!”

  Next came the terrible moment when Josephine Jiminez reached out for the wooden doll.

  And next came the vengeful voice which Josephine Jiminez gave to Monroe, shouting the lines:

  “IF YOU’RE NOT IN, YOU’RE OUT!”

  While Shoebag shivered inside the pencil sharpener, Josephine Jiminez would smash Alexandria against the wall.

  WHACK! WHACK! WHACK!

  “YOU ARE JUST NOT GOOD ENOUGH, ALEXANDRIA!”

  They never were, were they?

  The doll named Sam Houston wasn’t. The doll named Arlington wasn’t. The doll named Heidelberg wasn’t. Nor was the doll named Seoul, the one named Washington, or the googly-eyed doll named Huntsville.

  Just like Josephine Jiminez herself, not one doll in her collection was good enough to get into the club.

  Not even Monroe was, really, for the play would always end with Monroe bellowing, “NONE OF US ARE GOOD ENOUGH! IF YOU’RE NOT IN, YOU’RE OUT!”

  Even at that moment, the wall-whacking was in progress.

  “What is that noise?” Drainboard asked.

  “It’s the Doll Smasher, that’s all,” Under The Toaster replied, his mouth full of half a pea.

  “No, I mean that other noise,” Drainboard said.

  “What is it?” Under The Toaster said. “It’s too low to be sobbing.”

  But it was not too low to be sobbing, when it was a small boy sobbing. Shoebag remembered that sound from his school days in Brooklyn when some little boys broke down and cried … and tried to hide it from big people and girls.

  Shoebag had even made that sound once himself, when he was human, muffling it with a pillow.

  Poor Stanley Sweetsong.

  Shoebag’s small roach heart went out to him, for Shoebag suddenly had a clear memory of his first night as a tiny person, naked, under bright lights in strange surroundings. … It was not always easy to be a little boy.

  “Never mind. Eat up!” said Under The Toaster, and he pushed a wilted sprig of parsley at his wife, for he was full, finally, and ready to crawl behind the light socket for a nap.

  Shoebag would wait until his family was asleep.

  Then he would crawl down to Stanley Sweetsong’s room. Even if he could not make him feel better, he would be there for him. He would try to send him some cosmic cockroach message that
would help him get through his misery.

  Six

  YOU COULD NOT MISS a Better.

  For one thing, a Better wore a white button with red letters which said WE’RE BETTER!

  For another, a Better wore one red sock on the right foot, the regulation white one on the left.

  Stanley Sweetsong noticed the Betters that morning in assembly. The Betters always had the better seats, down in the front row.

  There were half a dozen of them there as everyone stood and sang the school song.

  We are Miss Rattray’s girls,

  We are Miss Rattray’s pearls,

  Royal Blue to say we’re true,

  White to show delight,

  At being in Miss Rattray’s School,

  Hoo-rah, hoo-ray, We start our day

  Sing-ing,

  Sing-ing

  Sing-ing!

  After the assembly, Miss Rattray herself confronted Stanley Sweetsong as he started down the hall toward his first class.

  “Why weren’t you singing, Stanley Sweetsong?”

  “I am not a girl. I could not sing that I am one, when I am the only boy.”

  “True,” said Miss Rattray frowning, her head held high as always. Stanley stood next to her like a little bird towered over by a long-legged crane.

  Stanley wore the royal blue blazer with the gold buttons, the white shirt, blue tie, and white pants.

  “We will have to change the song,” said Miss Rattray, “even though we have sung that song for one hundred and fifty years.”

  Just then a Better passed by and Miss Rattray caught her arm. “Patsy Southgate,” she said, “please tell the Betters that we need a better song … We need a song that includes Stanley Sweetsong here.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Patsy Southgate, the only Better from the Lower School. “The Betters will write a better song.”

  “The Betters,” said Miss Rattray to Stanley, “can do anything. That’s why they’re better.”

  “Could I ever be better?” Stanley asked her.

  Both Miss Rattray and Patsy Southgate shook their heads doubtfully.

  Both said, at the same time, “Oh, dear, I doubt that!”

  This made Stanley Sweetsong very angry, for he had never in his entire life been told it was doubtful he could be better.

  He always thought he was the best.

  He had always been told he was.

  He had been told he was the best by his mother, by his father, by his tutor, and by Tattle, the chauffeur.

  His first class that day was science.

  “As you know,” said Mr. Longo, “the Science Club is the only other club at Miss Rattray’s.”

  Stanley raised his hand.

  He said, “How would I know that?”

  “Because I am telling you! There are only two clubs in this school. The Better Club and the Science Club.”

  “Can I join the Science Club?”

  “You may if you win a prize. … Look up here at the two prizewinners from last year.”

  Mr. Longo had a mustache that drooped above his upper lip. He was bald, plump, and he carried a pointer.

  He pointed at two tanks in the front of the room.

  “In this one we have the snake,” he said. “A king. … And in this one,” he pointed to the second tank, “we have an African frog, who has buried himself in the mud.”

  “Why are they prizewinners?” Stanley asked.

  “Because they have been captured, and put into environments similar to their own.”

  “Similar to their own?” Stanley said. “But the snake cannot unfurl, the tank is so small … and the frog has no sun, the way an African frog probably has.”

  Some of the girls giggled — not at Stanley’s remark, though he didn’t know that — but at the very idea of speaking up that way to Mr. Longo. No one ever answered Mr. Longo back.

  Then a voice rang out, “Stanley’s right!”

  It was a familiar voice.

  It was a familiar face at the back of the room, with familiar freckles and familiar red hair.

  “If Stanley’s right,” Mr. Longo asked Josephine Jiminez, “what does that make me?”

  “Wrong?” she asked.

  Mr. Longo smiled so very sweetly, and he purred at the girl, “I beg your pardon, Josephine. Did I hear you say that I was wrong?”

  “No, sir,” she backed down. “I did not say you were. I asked if you were.”

  “Stanley Sweetsong, answer Josephine Jiminez. Am I wrong?” Mr. Longo’s mustache quivered. His eyes were fixed like little black beads on Stanley’s face.

  A hush fell over the room.

  “It looks that way to me,” Stanley Sweetsong answered.

  And Mr. Longo asked, “Do you know how your chances of ever getting into the Science Club look to me, Stanley Sweetsong?”

  “Not very good?” Stanley suggested.

  “Not good at all,” Mr. Longo replied.

  On my first day of school, Stanley wrote in his diary that night, I did not do good at all, but at least I am not imprisoned in a tank. At least I have sunlight.

  Then while he was saying his prayers beside his bed (“Please, Lord, get me out of here!”) he saw a small roach by his right knee and he reached for one of his Doc Martens to swat it.

  Hand raised, the sole of the shoe ready to come down on the tiny critter, Stanley could not kill it.

  “Just go away!” he told it.

  He must have been very tired, and possibly only half-awake, for that was when the mind played tricks.

  “If you want me to, I’ll be your pal,” he heard a voice say.

  Now, it wasn’t God’s voice. It was too small and shaky to come from the Almighty, too much like Stanley’s own voice when he’d prayed to the Lord to get him out of there!

  And Stanley Sweetsong had never heard of such a thing as a talking roach. Even though there was not one single roach in residence at Castle Sweet, he knew none could speak.

  “Who’s there?” Stanley scrunched down and peered under his bed. Nothing there but some dust balls.

  “My name is Stuart Bagg.”

  “Where are you, Stuart Bagg?”

  “Hold your horses! First tell me if you need a pal.”

  “I do. I need one badly.”

  “Then you’ll be seeing me,” said the voice.

  But he did not say when, or where he was, and he did not speak again that night.

  Seven

  COOK HATED ONE THING at Miss Rattray’s School for Girls.

  Cook hated the new computer.

  It sat on a table right around the corner from the kitchen, near the Changing Room, which led into the swimming pool. It was a gift from the family of Josephine Jiminez.

  Cook was a giant of a woman with frizzy yellow hair, the same color as the cat who slept by the rag mop. Both of them had green eyes, too. Though both of them had names, probably, no one called them by their names. The cook was Cook, and the cat was Cat.

  This morning Cook was complaining about the computer to the only one within earshot: Cat.

  “Ask me why I need a computer, and I will tell you I need a computer for the same reason a fish needs a bicycle. What am I to do with a computer?”

  Now, Cat did not like questions. Questions woke him up. Questions needed answers and Cat had none. Cat put a paw across his eyes and tried to get back to the dream he had of his other paw holding down a rat.

  Cook was imitating the lilting tones of Miss Rattray when she had shown Cook the computer.

  “Now you will be able to plan healthy meals, Cook, and keep track of when you served which one. Now you will have all your wonderful recipes right in front of you. Now you will know exactly how much fiber is in every meal, and how much protein, fat, and carbohydrates!”

  Cook punctuated her imitation of the headmistress with a curse word.

  The cat’s tail swished angrily, for the cat could not bear profanity.

  When Cook let loose more nasty words in a venomous tone
which the cat had never before heard, the cat sat up.

  He would have to give up his spot by the rag mop, and go elsewhere to rest.

  It was then that the cat saw the roach.

  The cat had seen him before, for he was a hungry pest, always foraging for food in the kitchen. Sometimes he was accompanied by his wife, who waited for him to toss her a few leftover crumbs.

  Now, however, the roach was headed around the corner, to the room where the computer was.

  “Ah! You see something!” Cook cried out. “What do you see, Cat?”

  Cook watched the cat crouch down and slowly move away from the rag mop.

  Then Cook saw what the cat saw.

  “A cockroach! Eat him!”

  But the roach was too fast. Out of the kitchen it went. Up one table leg it went. And into the computer.

  “Good!” the cook said to the disappearing critter. “Go make a nest in there! Invite all your six-legged friends to join you! Have babies in there! Make yourself right at home!”

  It was a hot autumn morning, and Cook was perspiring from the weather, her work at the stove, and her anger at the computer.

  She struggled out of the T-shirt she was wearing over her sleeveless blouse. It was an old Hootie & The Blowfish T-shirt, a rock group whose music the cat did not enjoy. Mozart was more to the cat’s taste: Bach, Beethoven.

  Cook giggled as she put the T-shirt over the computer.

  “I’ll just cover it up!” she said. “Then I don’t have to look at the thing!”

  But the cat decided to keep looking at the computer, even though Hootie & The Blowfish stared back at him.

  The cat believed that eventually the roach would reappear. Even though Cat was finicky about what he ate, as all cats are, he liked to bat roaches around. And Cat wouldn’t mind having something real under his paw, instead of a rat in a dream.

  Eight

  AFTER CHURCH, AND BEFORE Sunday dinner, the students at Miss Rattray’s were allowed to make phone calls.

  “How is everything going?” Mrs. Sweetsong asked.

  “Not great,” Stanley said. “There are only two clubs here and it looks like I won’t be asked to join either one.”

  “You already belong to the best clubs anywhere,” said his mother. “The Bucks County Country Club and the Red Fox Hunt Club. They are the best clubs.”