Scurvy Goonda Read online

  “You messed me up pretty good, Scurv,” said Ted.

  “A lad needs scars.”

  Then came a pounding at the bathroom door and the sound of Jed shouting on the other side:

  “Get back to work, Merritt! Whatever you’re doing in there, you can do on your break!”

  “Sorry, sorry.”

  Ted opened the door. Jed stood right in front of him. The night manager’s eyes flicked from the bruises on Ted’s arms to the raspberry on his forehead.

  “Man, somebody beat the crud out of you,” said Jed. “Kinda wish I had seen that.”

  “I just fell off my bike,” said Ted.

  “Guess that makes more sense. If you got into an actual fight, you’d probably be dead.”

  “I get into fights all the time.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you and your pirate pal are quite the dynamic duo.”

  “Give me three minutes and I’ll turn him into chum,” whispered Scurvy, poking the night manager’s voice box with the tip of his dagger. “We’ll fish for marlin with the scraps.”

  “Get back to work, Merritt,” said Jed.

  Ted knew that other kids were spending their vacations driving around in Jeeps with cute girls, or teaching tennis to the children of summer people for thirty dollars an hour, or sitting in lifeguard chairs and blowing their whistles at the bronzed and the bikinied. He wondered if his job would be more fun if he had the chance to blow a whistle every now and then. It would definitely be more fun if there were more bikinis around the Stop to Shop.

  All of a sudden, Scurvy smacked him across the face.

  “Snap out of it!” said Scurvy. “You only need tah do this job fer three months!”

  “Don’t hit me!” said Ted.

  He grabbed a liverwurst pack and used it to cuff Scurvy on the ear.

  “How do you like it when I smack you?” said Ted.

  Ted stomped on Scurvy’s tricorne hat, grinding it into the freshly waxed supermarket floor.

  “And see that? That’s for knocking me off my bike!”

  “ME HAT!” Scurvy roared. He struck back by putting his head down and ramming it into Ted’s chest, bull-rushing him into the next aisle, where they scraped and clawed each other into a tank of lobsters that crashed to the floor with a terrific explosion that sent water gushing and crustaceans scurrying toward the dairy section. Ted grabbed Scurvy’s beard and wrapped it around his neck, but with a quick flip Ted was on his back and Scurvy was sitting on his chest.

  “For tha past three hundred and twenty-five years,” said Scurvy, breathing hard, “that hat has been through wars and battles and monsoons without losing its fine, handcrafted shape! Which ya’ve now ruined!”

  “It serves you ri—” said Ted, but he never finished his sentence. Over Scurvy’s shoulder he could see Carolina Waltz and the rest of the popular girls. They were all laughing at him.

  “What are you DOING?” said Carolina.

  “Oh. Hi, Carolina,” said Ted.

  “God, that’s what its voice sounds like?” said Carolina’s friend Bridget Skoke, which Ted thought was an awful name. “I didn’t know it could talk!”

  “I’m not an it,” said Ted.

  “Maybe that’s his pirate voice,” said Carolina.

  “It’s my normal voice,” said Ted, who didn’t think there was anything weird about the way he spoke.

  “He talked again! He sounds so weird!” said another of Carolina’s awful friends.

  Sprawled on his back, Ted could see new girls continually popping into his sightline—he imagined girls piling up throughout the supermarket, clawing over cereal boxes and packets of toilet tissue, just to see him on the ground, looking stupid.

  “You are so weird, Ed,” said Carolina.

  “My name is Ted.”

  “Little Teddy!”

  “Carolina has a teddy!”

  “That’s not a teddy, that’s underwear!”

  Then a booming voice drowned out all the other voices. “Merritt!” shouted Jed.

  With that, Ted knew he had been fired from his summer job. He also knew that Carolina Waltz would never, ever be his girlfriend. He didn’t even notice when Scurvy—broken and bruised from the fight—put his arm over his shoulder.

  “There are other fish in tha sea, Ted,” said Scurvy, who often knew what Ted was thinking. “I’ve seen them many times. I’ll get ya a mermaid.”

  VIII

  Ted and Scurvy sat across from one another on the back porch of the house. Ted was sipping the can of Coca-Cola he was using to keep himself awake. He wanted to make sure he had the energy to yell at Scurvy. Scurvy was crushing a few strips of bacon between his molars. Ted had burned the bacon on purpose, a subtle punishment for Scurvy’s actions at the supermarket.

  Inside the house, Grandma Rose glanced out the window at Ted, who appeared to be yelling at a lawn chair.

  “YOUR POOR BOY IS LOOPY,” declared Grandma Rose. “AND I THINK HE’S BEEN CHEWING ON THE CARPET.”

  “The mice are doing the chewing, Mom,” said Debbie.

  “Ted is not loopy!” said Adeline, seated on the living room floor, reading a book with Eric.

  “Quiet, Adeline,” said Debbie.

  Outside on the porch, all the caffeinated blood in Ted’s body was rushing to his head.

  “Which means that when school starts, Carolina is going to tell everybody about how she saw me on my back fighting some invisible—”

  “I’m not invisible,” said Scurvy, calmly eating another strip of bacon. “Ya know that. I could make meself visible tah everybody anytime I want. I choose not tah.”

  “Do you know how many times I’m going to get beat up because of last night? Because you had to pick a fight with me?”

  “I know what ya look like when yer fallin’ into one of yer funks. I tried tah smack ya out of it.”

  “That is not the way you deal with somebody who is feeling depressed.”

  “On tha contrary, boy-o-mine! On me ship, tha Gallows Swan, smackin’ was tha second most popular way we cured our men from fallin’ into depression. Tha first was rum, but ya seem tah be a bit too yellow fer liquor’s sweet cure.”

  “I’m only fourteen, Scurvy. I’m not allowed to drink.”

  “By the time I was fourteen, I had wives on three continents—and that includes Antarctica. But that was only because I left one of them there when she started nagging me about my personal appearance. Cindy tha See-Saw, they called her.”

  “Scurvy, you embarrassed me in front of Carolina Waltz!”

  “And yer better off!” said Scurvy, popping the final blackened bit of bacon into his mouth. “She’s a wicked girl, that one, but yer too blinded by her looks to see that. I did ya a favor.”

  Looking at the bits of bacon plummeting from Scurvy’s lips into his wild beard, Ted began to ponder something that he’d never truly pondered before: why the heck was he putting up with this guy?

  Thoughts flashed through Ted’s mind:

  The reason I got hurt yesterday is because SCURVY refused to do what I told him to do! And the reason I was fired is because I got into a fight with SCURVY. I got into that fight because he was trying to slap me out of my depression. But the reason I’m depressed isbecause I don’t have any friends and I’ve never had a girlfriend and everybody thinks I’m crazy because of SCURVY!

  Carolina would never, ever hold his hand. All because of Scurvy.

  But if Scurvy’s existence was all in his mind, like his family insisted, if Scurvy wasn’t around anymore—heck, if Ted didn’t have an imagination at all—the other parts of his life would fall into place. Some of the most popular kids in his school were the dumbest and least imaginative.

  His life could only be better if Scurvy—if his whole imagination—wasn’t involved in it.

  Ted didn’t think he could get rid of his entire imagination, but he was beginning to think he might be able to do something about Scurvy.

  “Are ya okay?” asked Scurvy, staring uneasily at
Ted. “Yer face just got a wee bit strange.”

  “I’m fine. I’d say I’m great, actually,” said Ted, giving Scurvy a big smile.

  “Ya don’t seem angry anymore.”

  “I’m not angry anymore.”

  Scurvy studied Ted’s suddenly serene expression. Pirates were in the business of deception and Scurvy was, of course, a master of the trade. He couldn’t figure out what exactly was going on inside Ted’s head, but he knew he was lying.

  “Feel like some more bacon?” said Ted.

  “Ya complained when I asked ya tah cook me tha first batch.”

  “I’m feeling domestic,” said Ted, smiling again in a way that Scurvy had never seen him smile before.

  “Well, if yer offerin’, perhaps just a slab … or ten?” Ted walked into the house. Scurvy saw him lean over and tell his mother something that prompted Debbie to throw her arms around her son, and Ted to hug her back. But young Adeline scrunched up her face like she was about to cry and then ran off to her bedroom.

  Scurvy was right. Something was up indeed.

  IX

  “And how long has zis pirate been vith you?” asked Dr. Winterhalter. The thin, tweed-jacketed, foreign-accented doctor would occasionally jot something down on the yellow notepad sitting on his lap, but his decisions about when and when not to take notes seemed odd—for example, he made a note when Ted said that he needed to use the bathroom.

  “About the last seven years,” said Ted. He’d always thought that when you talked to a psychiatrist, you had to lie down, but there were no couches in this office. Instead, they were both sitting in hard-backed chairs, four feet apart from one another.

  In the far corner of the room, Scurvy was leaning against the windowsill, shaking his head. Ted avoided eye contact with him—he had asked the pirate to stay away, but Scurvy had insisted on coming.

  “Do you remember ze moment he first appeared?”

  Ted did.

  Though he had been only seven at the time, the memory of Scurvy Goonda’s arrival was etched clearly into Ted’s mind. He’d been walking around the cranberry bog with his mother, shortly after his father had left the family. His mother had started to put on weight, and she wanted the exercise. She was crying, but Ted didn’t yet understand why she was so sad, so he was just holding her hand and watching the swans on the pond next to the bog.

  And then, all of a sudden, there was Scurvy navigating a one-man frigate on the lake, hoisting up a Jolly Roger and roaring his way to the shore. He was completely scary, but also quite fantastic.

  Reaching the bank of the pond, Scurvy leaped out of his boat, removed his hat, and bowed to the young Ted:

  “Good Master Ted, Scurvy Gordon at yer service—Scurvy fer tha year and a half I went without fruit in tha East Indies, which cost me some of me teeth but none of me spirit, Gordon fer me dear late father.”

  “Goonda,” said seven-year-old Ted, who had an ear infection and couldn’t hear too well what Scurvy was saying.

  “Gordon.”

  “Goonda.”

  “Gordon.”

  “GOOOON-DA!”

  “Fine, Goonda. Whatever ya want.”

  “Hi.”

  “Hello there, Teddy m’boy.”

  “Who are you talking to, Ted?” asked Debbie.

  “Goonda,” said seven-year-old Ted. It was fun to say.

  “Oh,” said his mother. “Okay. Let’s keep walking.”

  Ted still remembered Scurvy’s big leather boots squashing the mud next to him and his mother, who had to stop every few minutes to stifle a cry or blow her nose or curse. Ted felt so safe next to those boots.

  “You know, come to think of it, I don’t exactly remember when he showed up,” said Ted.

  “Lies!” said Scurvy from the back of the room. “We’ve talked about that fateful day many times. Ya’ve never been one fer falsehoods, Ted. Deception doesn’t suit ya.”

  Dr. Winterhalter must have seen Ted’s eyes flick over to the pirate, because he twisted in his chair to see if anything was there and then turned back to Ted.

  “Is zis,” started Dr. Winterhalter, searching his notepad, “er, Scurvy Goonda in ze room vith us right now?”

  Ted nodded.

  “And he is doing vat?”

  “He’s painting a skull and bones on the front of your desk using some of his own blood.”

  Indeed, it appeared that Scurvy had cut the tip of his finger using a letter opener and was now drawing symbols of his trade on the doctor’s office furniture—swords, lusty wenches, Jolly Rogers, and so forth—though Ted wasn’t quite able to discern some of the depictions. Scurvy had flair, but no true artistic talent.

  “If yer giving him yer money, ya might as well give him me blood!”

  “Quit it!” said Ted. “The way you’re acting right now is the reason we’re here.”

  “The reason we’re here is that ya want tah get rid of me! I know what happens in these offices! They give people new brains! Pop out tha old and pop in tha new!”

  “Can you blame me for being here? Look how you’re acting!”

  “So it’s true, it is! Mutiny!”

  “This can’t be a mutiny because you’re not in charge, Scurvy! I am the captain! Captain Ted! I’m the leader of my entire fleet! And I can’t have you constantly following me around and getting in the way and making people think I’m out of my mind!”

  “Then if yer so burdened by me and me company, be a man and ask me tah leave!”

  “LEAVE!”

  As soon as it popped out of his mouth, Ted couldn’t believe what he’d just said—and neither could Scurvy. He just stared at Ted, arms slumped to his sides, blood dripping from his fingertip onto the carpeted floor.

  “Ya … ya tellin’ tha truth when ya say that?” said Scurvy, wounded.

  Ted took a deep breath. “I am.”

  Scurvy took off his hat and held it over his chest.

  “I’ll start behaving, I will,” said Scurvy.

  “I’ve asked you to behave a thousand times.”

  “I don’t want tah go.”

  “You aren’t leaving me a choice here, Scurvy,” said Ted. “I’m sorry.”

  Ted turned his attention to Dr. Winterhalter, who was staring at him over his glasses, slack-jawed.

  “So I guess you think I’m nuts now too,” said Ted.

  “Do you always have zese arguments vith ze pirate?”

  Ted took a deep breath. “I’ve been having a lot more of them recently.”

  Dr. Winterhalter tapped his pen against his notepad.

  “Sorry about him staining the rug,” said Ted.

  “Vat do you mean?”

  Ted pointed to a spot on the floor, and the psychiatrist leaned in close to see what he was talking about.

  “Zere is no stain on zis carpet.”

  Ted got up from his chair to get a better look, and he saw that what the doctor was saying was true. On the spot where it had looked like Scurvy was bleeding, there was nothing except for clean, well-vacuumed carpeting.

  “But it looked like blood was dripping from his finger,” said Ted, quietly.

  “Dripped on me boot, it did,” said Scurvy.

  “Is your family in ze vaiting room?” said the doctor.

  “My mom should be out there,” said Ted.

  “Zen I’ll be right back.”

  X

  Debbie stood next to Dr. Winterhalter in a sterile white office, looking at his elegant hands.

  “Hold on. It’s around here somevere,” said Dr. Winterhalter, opening and shutting drawers.

  Debbie’s nostrils were being overrun by some sort of masculine smell, and she was trying to figure out if the smell was after-shave, or deodorant, or perhaps a moisturizer the doctor applied each morning after getting out of the shower—he did seem to have good skin. And that accent. He was so dashing.

  Snap out of it! thought Debbie.

  She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been this close to a man, and
she was letting her senses get the best of her. She looked down at the shiny wedding ring on her finger. She always kept it polished. She loved her husband and still considered herself a married woman, even if he was gone.

  “Here it is,” said Dr. Winterhalter. “Zis should do ze trick.”

  The doctor held up something in front of Debbie that looked a bit like a Band-Aid, except that it was round and had a quarter inch of puffy thickness to it. It was printed with a picture of some kind of monster that had been circled and cut in half by a red slash, like a NO SMOKING sign.

  “What is that?” asked Debbie.

  “A rep from ze pharmaceutical company—a strange-looking man—came by vith zem last week. Zey are brand-new. Zey are called Ab-Com Patches. Interesting, no?”

  “What do they do?”

  “Well, according to zis representative, zey don’t do anything at all.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Frequently, kids who have zese imaginary friends are very intelligent, and ze friend is simply a by-product of zeir overactive minds. Ze last thing ve vant to do is put zese kids on medication to slow zeir brains down—and zat’s vere ze Ab-Com Patches come in. Ven ze kids vear zem, zey start to really believe zat zey are getting medicine to get rid of zeir imaginary friends—and because zey vant to get rid of zeir friends, ze friends simply go away. It’s all a trick of ze mind, no drugs necessary. Look here.”

  Dr. Winterhalter picked up a pair of scissors and cut the Ab-Com Patch open. The patch lost its shape, and Debbie could see that there was nothing inside but a little bit of powder.

  “See? Just a vee bit of placebo powder inside. Completely harmless.”

  “Extraordinary.”

  “Ted will be my first recommendation for ze Ab-Com Patch. But ze rep said zat ze patch vas nearly one hundred percent effective in ze test trials.”

  “What drug company makes it?”

  “Ze rep said it vas a small subsidiary of one of those larger conglomerates—Middlemost Pharmaceuticals, I zink he called it.”

  Debbie looked at the Ab-Com Patch.

  “Does it work on pirates?” she said.

  “If it is one hundred percent effective,” said the doctor, “zen you can be sure it vill vork on a pirate. And more good news: zey are as cheap as a box of bandages. You can pay at ze front desk.”