My Homework Ate My Homework (3 page)

“Usually, when Bandito gets out of his cage at school, he just goes back in on his own,” I say, though it’s not true. We usually have to trap him or coax him back in. I don’t, of course. I let my classmates do it. I pretend to help when really I’m silently praying they never find him, that he
got out of the building and will never be seen again.

Now, I’m not an animal hater or something. To me a lovable animal is a cat or a real dog, not some dinky yapper or some stinky weasel. That thing really
stinks
.

“We’re not at school,” my mother says, which is so obvious I can’t help rolling my eyes. She hates when I roll them. “We’re at home,” she says, raising her voice, though I was hearing her just fine, “and I don’t want a ferret running loose, leaving his scent and chewing things up.”

“I don’t want that, either, Mother! You think I want that?” I always call her “Mother.” It’s more dramatic than “Mom.” I also call my father “Father.” “Dad” is just silly.

“Wum!” Abalina says, pointing at the door.

My mother and I look at the door, but there’s no one there, so we look at the bed and the beanbag chair. No “dog.” There’s growling coming from somewhere. And a clucking sound.

“Fur!” Abalina says.

“For the last time, Abalina, Bandito is a
ferret
!” I say.

“Don’t yell at her,” Mother yells. “Go find them! Don’t let them fight!”

I stare at her. “You mean get between them? I don’t want to get between them. I don’t want to go anywhere near either one of them.”

Mother stomps her foot on the carpet, which is childish.

“Okay, okay, I’m going,” I say, and hurry out of the room to search for the animals I never wanted and stop them from killing each other.

I find Wormy in the living room,
ARF-ARF-ARF
ing at my parka.

“Shut up, Wormy!” I say, but does he? No.

ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF!

That’s when I see my parka move.

“Mother!” I scream. “He’s in my coat! I can’t ever wear it again!”

Bandito pokes his masked face out of one of my parka sleeves.

“Fur!” Abby says.

“He’s probably after my stroopwafels,” I say. “I have a full box in the pocket.”

Stroopwafels are syrup-filled waffle cookies from Holland that cost a lot of money and are my very favorite treat in the world. I like to set them on a cup of hot tea and let the syrup melt. Yum.

And now the mustelid is licking them. Yuck.

“Just get him, will you, Zaritza?” Mother whines. “I’ll deal with Wormy.”

Wormy is snarling now. I bet he thinks he’s scary. Pathetic.

“Oh, sure. You take the easy job!”

“The ferret is your respons—”

“Okay, Mother, I’ll get him, I’ll get him. Just
please
don’t say the R-word again.”

Mother snags the “dog” and locks him in the coat closet, where he whines and scratches at the door. Meanwhile, I tiptoe toward the trembling parka. I bend over slowly and quietly, then grab hold of its furry hem and pull it toward me. It slides easier than I thought it would, considering there’s a mustelid in it. It’s probably because the outside of the parka is made of that material that makes
whish-whish
sounds when you move your arms.

I give the parka a quick shake, but Bandito doesn’t come out, so I jerk it hard and yell, “Get out of my coat, fur!”

My mother says, “Pick up the parka with him inside and take it to your room and transfer him to his cage.”

“
Transfer
him? Does that mean cram the stupid weasel in, then go wash my hands with acid to get the smell off?”

“Put the parka sleeve through the cage door, then close off the other openings. He’ll have to come out eventually.”

It’s not a bad idea. I just wish someone else would carry it out.

“Okay, here goes.” I scoop up my coat and feel a hideous, muscular wriggling inside it, like I’ve captured a giant fish. The fish hisses. I want to scream and drop it on the floor, but I don’t. Mother would just make me chase it down again. I grit my teeth, and hustle down the hallway to my room.

My mother, with Abalina in her arms, comes in behind me. “That’s it. Now slip him into the cage.”

“I’m going to shove the whole parka in!” I scream. I don’t know why I’m screaming. Probably because I’m freaking out. “He can use it for a bed. I’m never wearing it again anyway. It stinks like ferret.”

“Fur!” Abalina says.

“
Ferret
, Abby! Ferret, ferret, ferret!”

I’m glad I left the cage door open. I try to shove the parka in, but it’s too puffy. Bandito panics and starts scrambling. I feel his claws through the parka.

“I can’t hold him!”

Mother rushes toward me, but since she’s still holding Abalina, she can’t do anything.

Bandito slips out of the parka and disappears the second he hits the floor. His claws scratch at the carpet as he scurries away.

Mother starts to freak. “Where’d he go? Where’d he go? Where’d he go?”

“I don’t know! I don’t know! I don’t know!”

Abby points under my bed. “Fur,” she says.

My mother sets Abby on the bed, then she and I kneel down and peek under it. No mustelid. He must have slipped out.

“Where’s the fur, Abby?” I ask.

She points a chubby finger at the door.

“He’s out again,” Mother groans.

“Well, why didn’t you close the
door
?”

She glares at me, her face all red and wrinkly. I guess that’s what happens to your face when you have a second kid at thirty-seven. My mother’s a doctor. She should have known better. I have no idea why some people are never satisfied with what they have.

She mouths,
Find the ferret
.

“Okay, okay! It’s always me! ‘Find the ferret!’ ‘Pick up the ferret!’ ‘Transfer the ferret!’ ”

“Fur!” Abby says.

I whirl around to correct her again. but, with an innocent face, she says, “Uppy!”

“Can’t right now, Abby,” I say. “I have a fur to trap.”

That’s when I notice the crumbs in my parka pocket.

“My homework ate my stroopwafels!”

We search under the couch, chairs, and tables, in the shower and tub, behind the stove and fridge. No weasel.

“Shut up, Wormy!” I yell every time I go by the coat closet. I also bang on the door with my fist.

“It’s not his fault,” my mother tells me. “Maybe Bandito went back to your room.” Her eyes shifted side to side. This doesn’t mean she’s guilty. Casting your eyes sideways can also read “scared.” She’s afraid of the ferret.

“We already checked there and you shut the door after we left, right?” I ask.

She doesn’t answer.

“You
did
shut it after we left, didn’t you?”

“I don’t think I did,” she says, raising her shoulders.

“When are you going to learn to close doors?”

“Just be glad I haven’t locked myself in the car till this thing is caught.”

In my room, I say in a heavy, parent-style voice, “Close the door behind you, please.”

She does.

“Thank you. Now everybody be quiet. I know this creature. He keeps me awake every night. He’s never quiet. Ever. So
shhhh
!”

In the silence I hear Wormy whining in the coat closet. I hear a car door slam.

“Duh!” Abby squeals.

I hiss for her to shut up.

“Duh,” she whispers.

“I know Father’s home,” I say to her. “Mother, don’t let him in. He’ll make too much noise. Stand in front of the door.”

She does.

The front door slams and my father calls out, “Hello? Anyone home? The man of the house has returned! Where are my pipe and slippers? Wormy? Fetch my newspaper, boy! Well, not my newspaper boy. We don’t even have a newspaper
boy. Ha! Are you listening, family? Family?”

I don’t have much time before he gets here. I close my eyes and listen. I hear my father’s footsteps in the hall. I hear the furnace shutting off, and the warm air stops puffing out of the grate on the wall. I hear paper being crumpled. No, not crumpled.
Chewed
.

I creep toward the sound, which is coming from my rolltop desk, the one Grandpa Jack gave me. The rolltop is open slightly. Mr. O. says that ferrets can squeeze through surprisingly small openings. Hunters use them to “ferret” rabbits out of their hiding places. What is Bandito ferreting out of my desk? I do have more stroopwafels in there.…

“Is he in there?” my mother whispers behind me.

“Just keep Father out,” I whisper back.

There’s a musical knocking on the door. “Jingle Bells,” I think.

“Santa’s here!” my father says in a deep, jolly voice. “Ho, ho, ho!”

He turns the handle, but Mother leans hard on the door.

“Not now, Paul,” she whispers through the keyhole. “Keep quiet for a minute, please.”

“Okay,” he whispers. “Girl stuff, eh? I’ll leave you to it.”

I flash my mother a thumbs-up, then move closer to the desk. I peek through the crack. Should I slam the rolltop shut, trapping him inside? I don’t really want him trapped in my desk. He’s already eating something. And then there’s the opposite end of that: I don’t want to find ferret droppings in there.

The other option is to pull open the rolltop, but that would mean I’d have to grab the squirming, hissing mustelid and wrestle him into his cage. I don’t want to do that.

I don’t see another way, unfortunately. Sometimes you just have to man up and get ’er done. Am I right?

No, that’s just dialogue from some stupid action movie I saw. I’m no action hero.

But … I am an actor, just like the guy who read that line. I can play the part. I can act like I’m brave. Acting is what I do best.

“Okay,” I say to my mother, my eyes all squinty
like a movie cowboy. “Keep the child back. I’m going in.”

I stand up straight and take a fearless step toward my desk. I hook my fingers under the rolltop and fling it open. The ferret is in there, cowering under the little cubbies. He’s feasting on one of my notebooks. It’s my
math
notebook.

“Oh, no!” I shriek in horror. “My homework ate my ……”

(Did I mention I love dramatic pauses?)

“My homework ate my homework!” I exclaim.

“Don’t yell! Get it! Grab him!”

“Here now, what’s all the screaming about?” my father says in a deep voice. “Everything all right in there? Back away from the door. I’m going to break it down.”

He doesn’t mean it. My father’s an actor, too. A drama king.

“Let him in,” I say to my mother. “We’ll let the big, strong man catch the wild beast.”

Mother opens the door wide enough for Father to slip inside. He’s wearing casual clothes, not school clothes, since it’s vacation. He’s got on blue jeans and his T-shirt that says
MY BIKE TIRE IS
Ь on the front and
I MUST HAVE RUN OVER SOMETHING
# on the back. When there’s school he wears a
short-sleeve, button-up shirt, usually in a pastel color, with a tie. His ties usually have a musical theme, like notes, or clefs, or piano keys. Father studied theater in college and has acted in a lot of plays, a few of them in Seattle, in fact, but he’s also a singer and a musical genius. He’s taught choir at the high school since I started first grade.