“What do you think of our idea, Sydney?” said Mr. Hiroyuki.
“I think I’d be a good dragon,” I said. “Well, you’ve been one hell of a good Roach, I’ll tell you that,” said Mr. Palmer.
I stayed with Mr. Palmer while he had an after-dinner brandy, and Mr. Hiroyuki bowed good-bye.
“Sydney,” Mr. Palmer said. “Twinkle Traps and Palmer Pest are going to produce these little Roach Ranches that’ll make roach pastes and roach sprays obsolete. Now, if you’ve finished with your pie, I’ll go into it. You’ve finished with your pie, haven’t you?”
“I’m finished,” I said.
“These Roach Ranches are so effective I’m a fool to have any part in their production because they’ll wipe out more roaches overnight than Palmer Pest could eradicate in a month. Thank God roaches are prolific or I’d be as obsolete as my roach bombs before you could say exterminator. Smile at that blond lady across the room, Sydney, she’s watching us and may want a little nightcap with us for the novelty of it.”
“What are Roach Ranches?” I asked.
“You see that blond lady over there? Give her a wink.”
I looked across at a woman with a fur-collared white sweater over her shoulders, raising her brandy snifter in a salute as Mr. Palmer raised his.
“She sees us. I’ll tell the waiter we’d like her to join us,” said Mr. Palmer. “Roach Ranches are plastic traps that lure the roaches inside with a powerful odor roaches can’t resist. It’s their last roundup, so to speak. You’d be something like a little roach cowboy. Appeal to you? Part of the time you’d be a dancing pink dragon with smoke pouring out of your nostrils and a long flaring tail, and part of the time you’d be a Roy Rogers type roach. In between the two you could get your high school diploma right here in La Belle.”
Then Mr. Palmer snapped his fingers for the waiter, smiled down at me, and sang softly, “We’ll be heading for the last round-up. Yip-pee, tie, yea!”
After the blond lady joined us, Mr. Palmer told her I was The Roach, and she kissed the top of my head and told me she worked for the La Belle library.
“This kid reads more books in a month than I’ve read in a lifetime,” said Mr. Palmer.
She told me I should read the poems of someone named Don Marquis, who wrote as a cockroach leaving messages in the typewriter of a newspaper office.
“His roach was named Archy,” she said, “and there was a cat named Mehitabel who was always saying wotthehell!”
“Wotthehell!” Mr. Palmer laughed and he gave me the eye, meaning he was cutting the bait; he’d handle things from that point on without me.
14: Little Little La Belle
ON OUR WAY TO the Lakeside Inn that night my mother said, “I feel a lot better now that I’ve had a rest and a hot shower, and that’s why you’re down in the dumps, Little Little.”
“I’m not down in the dumps because you’ve had a rest and a hot shower,” I said.
“I didn’t mean you were down in the dumps because I’ve had a rest and a hot shower,” she said. “I meant you didn’t give yourself time for a rest and a hot shower, and you know that’s what I meant. You’re in one of your moods, honey, and if you don’t slow down we’ll be killed right here on Lake Drive before you reach age eighteen.”
“I’m not in a mood because of that,” I said.
“Not just because of that, no, but a rest and a hot shower would have helped, and I bet you would have seen to it that you had both if Little Lion was going to be here tonight.”
“That’s not it either,” I said.
“Then what is it?”
“These TADpole meetings always remind me of New Year’s Eve. You feel duty bound to have a good time. How can you have a good time if you feel duty bound to have one?”
“I don’t feel duty bound to have one, and I intend to have one,” my mother said. “If we live to get there.”
I slowed down.
“Everyone’s gone to a lot of trouble to get here,” said my mother. “Jarvis Allen and his mother came all the way from Missouri.”
“That’s what I mean,” I said. “I’m duty bound to have a good time because Jarvis Allen and his mother came all the way from Missouri. He’s so Sara Lee sometimes I want to throw up in his hair.”
“Lit-toe! Lit-toe!” my mother exclaimed. “Jarvis Allen is one of the nicest young men in TADpole or any other organization and what does ‘Sara Lee’ mean? Did you say Sara Lee, like Sara Lee the cake?”
“Sara Lee means Similar And Regular And Like Everyone Else.”
“Jarvis Allen?” my mother said.
“Jarvis Allen.”
“With that little twisted leg of his?”
“Twisted leg and all, he’s a Sara Lee,” I said.
“Well, I don’t know where you got your Sara Lee theory, but I’d take it back to wherever you got it and get a better one. Jarvis Allen has overcome a great deal to become what he is, and you of all people ought to appreciate that. You ought to thank God you’re p.f. and didn’t have to overcome what he’s had to.”
“What he’s become is a bore,” I said. “It hasn’t got anything to do with being p.f. or not p.f. A bore is a bore.”
“Besides,” my mother said, “I don’t see anything wrong with being similar and regular and like everyone else.”
“I know you don’t,” I said.
“Oh, Little Little, this is no way to begin your birthday weekend. Little Lion will be here tomorrow morning and you’ll feel a lot better!”
I pulled into the circular drive in front of The Lakeside Motel, where there was a banner reading:
WELCOME TO THE AMERICAN DIMINUTIVES.
“I hope the silverware arrived,” my mother said. “Let me off at the front door, and while you’re parking the car, park that bad mood you’re in.”
“Okay,” I said and stopped the car
