Invisible Inkling

“My family’s shop needs you!” I yell in the mayhem. “These pies are made by a mean, not-organic lady who doesn’t care about the neighborhood. We have killed her with kindness and it didn’t work. We have tried to learn her secrets and it didn’t work. We have asked her to move to another corner and it didn’t work. Big Round Pumpkin has hardly any customers because of her. I can’t believe you’re all buying ice cream at her truck when your halfway friend Hank Wolowitz has an ice-cream store right in front of your nose!”

Silence but for a few whoopie pies still rolling.

We stare at one another. Everyone is covered in cake and ice cream but me.

“What do you mean, halfway friend?” Chin finally asks. “That’s not a very nice thing to say, Hank.”

He’s Not a Nudnik

I stomped out of Chin’s apartment like an angry jerk. Now I am lying facedown on our couch. The door creaks open and shut. Inkling taps my leg.

“They’re having pizza downstairs, Wolowitz. With green peppers. But I came up here to be with you.”

“You biffed Patne!” I scold, pushing myself up on my elbows. “You can’t go biffing people!”

“What about you? You just screamed at everybody and left without helping clean up the mess. How is that a better solution?”

“I wouldn’t have needed to help clean up if you hadn’t biffed Patne and thrown whoopie pies.”

Inkling clucks his tongue. “I thought you’d be grateful.”

“Grateful?” I bury my face in the couch again. “Why would I be grateful?”

“You were grateful when I bit Gillicut on the ankle, back when he used to take your lunch. You were grateful when I bit Patne on the finger that time he tried to take your money. That’s what I do. When the situation calls for it, Inkling takes action.”

“This is not the outback!” I moan. “This is Brooklyn!”

“That Patne is a nudnik!” Inkling says. “He deserved the pop-out and biff.”

“He’s not a nudnik,” I say, sitting up. “He’s my halfway friend.”

“You just screamed at him.”

“I know I screamed at him, but the reason I was mad about the pies is ’cause he’s supposed to be my friend.”

“Really?” Inkling crawls onto the couch next to me. I try to explain.

“It’s true that Patne goes off with Kim at recess and in the locker room. It’s true he was a jerk about going in my pocket for my money. But I think he’s funny and sometimes he’s nice, like when he helped clean up the pumpkin splat,” I say. “And frankly, I could use a friend who isn’t a girl or a bandapat. You know? Also, Reptiliopolus would never beat Lord Baldy in a supervillain battle, so instead I am trying to kill him with kindness.”

There is silence. Inkling coughs. “Whatever makes you happy,” he says finally. “But he seems like a nudnik to me.”

I start laughing. I laugh and laugh.

It’s hard to stop, and I fall off the couch.

Inkling laughs, too.

“I think you really just wanted to pop out and biff somebody,” I say, lying on the floor. “After you couldn’t do Betty-Ann.”

He grunts.

“You had all this pop-out-and-biff energy stored up,” I explain. “You had to let it out, even if it wasn’t the right target.”

“No way,” says Inkling. But then he chuckles.

I want to go back downstairs now, but I can’t figure out what to say. I should apologize for screaming at everyone and not cleaning up, I know. But I’m also glad they know about the whoopie pies of evil. Truth is, I kind of want them to come upstairs and tell me they’re sorry they bought pies from Betty-Ann when Big Round Pumpkin needs customers.

Inkling flicks on the TV. We watch a bit of a documentary called Snakes of Terror. But it is nothing new to a guy who knows as much about venomous reptiles as I do, and I’m not even supposed to be home alone.

Eventually I get up. I have an idea of what I might say. “You coming?” I ask Inkling.

“Nah,” he says. “I want to see what they’re going to say about Peruvian snakes. I bet they don’t know half of what really lives in the Woods of Mystery.”

“I’ll bring you a piece of pizza if there’s any left over,” I tell him.

I walk downstairs and knock on Chin’s door. Bam bada bam! Bam bada bam bam! That’s how I always knock, so she knows it’s me. From the other side, she knocks back: Bam bada bam bam!

Then her dimply face is peeking out from behind the door.

“My dad is working at Big Round Pumpkin,” I tell her. “You and Patne wanna go down and get free ice cream?”

It’s as close as I can get to sorry.

“Sure,” she says. And I’m pretty sure it’s as close as she can get to sorry, too.

Fried Potato and Onion in Your Ice Cream

When we walk into Big Round Pumpkin, who is there but Henry Kim, The Holy Terror. He’s at the back table with his parents and two little sisters. They are the only customers, but they’re all eating sundaes with hot fudge and butterscotch sauce, whipped cream and pistachios, so Dad looks happy.