not been carrying a gun before.
Letting the drapes fall back into place, turning away from the glass
doors, he smiled at Charlotte and Emily. “You kids okay?”
“Yes, sir,” Charlotte said. “This is a great show.”
“You need anything?”
“No thanks, sir,” Emily said. “We just want to watch the show.”
“It’s a great show,” Charlotte repeated.
As Mr. Delorio left the room, both Charlotte and Emily turned to watch
him until he was out of sight.
“Why’s he have a gun?” Emily wondered.
“Protecting us. And you know what that means? Mrs. Sanchez must still
be alive and on the loose, looking for someone to eat.”
“But what if Mr. Delorio goes berserk next? He’s got a gun, we could
never get away from him.”
“Be serious,” Charlotte said, but then she realized a physical education
teacher was just as likely to go berserk as any cleaning lady.
“Listen, Em, you know what to do if he goes berserk?”
“Call nine-one-one.”
“You won’t have time for that, silly. So what you’ll have to do is,
you’ll have to kick him in the nuts.”
Emily frowned. “Huh?”
“Don’t you remember the movie Saturday?” Charlotte asked.
Mom had been upset enough about the movie to complain to the theater
manager. She’d wanted to know how the picture could have received a PG
rating with the language and violence in it, and the manager had said it
was PG-13, which was very different.
One of the things that bothered Mom was a scene where the good guy got
away from the bad guy by kicking him hard between the legs. Later, when
someone asked the good guy what the bad guy wanted, the good guy said,
“I don’t know what he wanted, but what he needed was a good kick in the
nuts.”
Charlotte had sensed, at once, that the line annoyed her mother.
Later, she could have asked for an explanation, and her mother would
have given her one. Mom and Daddy believed in answering all of a
child’s questions honestly. But sometimes, it was more exciting to try
to learn the answer on her own, because then it was something she knew
that they didn’t know she knew.
At home, she’d checked the dictionary to see if there was any definition
of “nuts” that would explain what the good guy had done to the bad guy
and also explain why her mother was so unhappy about it.
When she saw that one meaning of the word was obscene slang for
“testicles,” she checked that mysterious word in the same dictionary,
learned what she could, then sneaked into Daddy’s office and used his
medical encyclopedia to discover more. It was pretty bizarre stuff.
But she understood it. Sort of. Maybe more than she wanted to
understand. She had explained it as best she could to Em.
But Em didn’t believe a word of it and, evidently, promptly forgot about
it.
“Just like in the movie Saturday,” Charlotte reminded her. “If things
get real bad and he goes berserk, kick him between the legs.”
“Oh, yeah,” Em said dubiously, “kick him in his tickles.”
“Testicles.”
“It was tickles.”
“It was testicles,” Charlotte insisted firmly.
Emily shrugged. “Whatever.”
Mrs. Delorio walked into the family room, drying her hands on a yellow
kitchen towel. She was wearing an apron over her skirt and blouse.
She smelled of onions, which she had been chopping, she’d been starting
to prepare dinner when they’d arrived. “Are you girls ready for more
Pepsi?”
“No, ma’am,” Charlotte said, “we’re fine, thank you. Enjoying the show.
“It’s a great show,” Emily said.
“One of our favorites,” Charlotte said.
Emily said, “It’s about a boy with tickles and everyone keeps kicking
them.”
Charlotte almost thumped the little twerp on the head.
Frowning with confusion, Mrs. Delorio glanced back and forth from the
television screen to Emily. “Tickles?”
“Pickles,” Charlotte said, making a lame effort at covering.
The doorbell rang before Em could do more damage.
Mrs. Delorio said, “I’ll bet that’s your folks,” and hurried out of the
family room.
“Peabrain,” Charlotte said to her sister.
Emily looked smug. “You’re just mad because I showed it was all a lie.
She never heard of boys having tickles.”
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