Beetle Boy by Margaret Willey Page A

“I’m ten.”
    She smiled. “Why do I sometimes feel like you’re the same age as me?”
    I thought a moment. “Maybe because we both hate being authors together. It’s our bond.”
    She smiled. “Right you are, Charlie. My point is that you can come over and see me any time you need to. Any time you need to escape your … situation.”
    My situation. Who else knew about it? Who else knew how difficult it was, living with the two amigos, hating them both, hating school, having no friends, and being the world’s youngest and most neurotic and annoying and unloved children’s book author.
    â€œWhy don’t you bring that brother of yours over here sometime?” she asked. “I would very much like to meet him.”
    â€œOh sure,” I agreed. But thinking, Never .
    The very next Saturday, I knocked on her door again. When she opened it, I said, “Any champagne left?”
    This made her laugh. Mrs. M. laughed! Her laugh was an explosion of craziness. More of a bark than a laugh.
    I had brought my Beetle Boy costume with me in a plastic grocery bag because I had decided that I was also going to retire. If it was making Mrs. M. happy, maybe I could get happier too. Mrs. M. could see right away what I had brought with me—the pipe-cleaner antennae were curling out of the bag.
    â€œWere you planning on performing for me?” she asked.
    â€œI was planning on burning it in your fireplace.”
    She asked me if I’d had dinner. She said she’d made a meatloaf. I’d never had meatloaf before. That was the night of the bonfire in her alley. She thought my costume would make too much smoke for the house, so she rolled an empty metal barrel away from her garage and put in papers, kindling, and her own black cape. Then my costume. Then she went back into her house and came out with the red wig on her head and a folder of half-finished firefly stories. Everything went into the barrel. We were laughing and hollering, and one of her neighbors actually yelled out the window for us to keep it down. That made us laugh harder. When it started getting dark, she offered to take me home before somebody called the cops on us for disorderly conduct.
    â€œI don’t want to go home,” I said. “I’ll have to tell my dad I don’t have a costume anymore. He’ll kill me.”
    Then there was a long silence—no more laughing. “Does your father ever hurt you, Charlie?” Mrs. M. asked. “You need to tell me if he does.”
    â€œHe doesn’t hit me,” I said, and it was true. I wasn’t counting the yanking and pushing and grabbing. Or the names he called me— idiot, retard, pussy. “He just gets me to do whatever he wants because … because … he just gets people to do what he wants. I can’t explain it. He just always has crazy ideas, and we have to go along with them. That’s how it’s always been.”
    â€œBut you are planning to tell him that you won’t be Beetle Boy anymore, right?”
    I shrugged. I was suddenly feeling a deep sense of defeat. What was I thinking? “Maybe I’ll just tell him I lost the costume.”
    She shook her head, disagreeing. “He’ll get someone to make you another one, Charlie. You know that. You’re going to have to be more clear than that.”
    â€œI hardly get any jobs anymore anyway,” I said. “Dad says I’m getting too old, and it’s spoiling the effect.”
    She listened with grave concern. “It sounds like you’re just hoping that the whole Beetle Boy thing will just go away by itself.”
    I nodded. It honestly did seem vaguely possible. Because of my size. Because of my actual age. Because my voice was changing. Because I wasn’t cute anymore.
    â€œYou’re forgetting someone,” Mrs. M. said.
    I didn’t answer.
    â€œCharlie, you’re forgetting