How to Eat Fried Worms Read online

  Alan and Joe galloped up the hill through the high grass, yelling, “Here he comes! Get out of the way!”

  And then Billy stopped hopping, and climbing up on the stump, called in a shrill, girlish voice, “Oh, boy-oys, where are you go-ing? Id somefing tare you, iddle boys?”

  Alan and Joe stopped and looked back.

  “Id oo doughing home, iddle boys?” yelled Billy. “Id oo tared?”

  “Who’s scared, you lunk?” called Alan.

  “Yeah,” yelled Joe. “I guess I can go home without being called scared, if I want to.”

  “But ain’t oo in a dawful hur-ry?” shouted Billy.

  “I just remembered I was supposed to help my mother wash windows this afternoon,” said Alan. “That’s all.” He turned and started up through the meadow, his hands in his pockets.

  “Yeah,” said Joe. “Me, too.” He trudged after Alan.

  V

  The Gathering Storm

  ALAN and Joe stopped in the orchard by the pile of fresh dirt.

  “You think he’ll be able to do it?” asked Alan, biting his thumbnail.

  “I don’t know,” said Joe.

  “He can’t do it,” said Alan. “How could anybody eat fifteen worms? My father’ll kill me. Fifty dollars? He ate that one awful easy.”

  “Forget it,” said Joe. “If he doesn’t give up himself, I’ll figure something out. We could spike the next worm with pepper. He’d eat one piece and then another, talking to Tom—Then all of a sudden he’d sneeze: ka-chum! Then he’d sneeze again: ka-chum! Then again: ka-chum ka-chum! A faint look of panic would creep over his face; he’s beginning to wonder if he’ll ever stop. He clutches his stomach; his eyes begin to water. Ka-chum! Ka-chum!”

  “Billy’s awful stubborn,” said Alan. “Even if it was killing him, he might not give up.”

  “Ka-chum! Ka-chum!” cried Joe. “He falls to the floor. I bend over him. ‘Gawd,’ I say. ‘Call his mother. It’s the troglodycrosis.’ His eyes bleat up at me. Ka-chum!”

  “Remember that business last summer?” said Alan, gnawing on his thumbnail. “When it was ninety-five degrees in the shade and I dared him to put on all his winter clothes and his father’s raccoon coat and his ski boots and walk up and down Main Street all afternoon?”

  “Ka-chum! Ka-chum!”

  They went off through the orchard, Joe sneezing, sighing, rolling his eyes—pretending to be Billy suffering from a dose of peppered worm; Alan moaning to himself about how stubborn Billy could be—fifty dollars?

  VI

  The Second Worm

  BILLY sighed. On the plate before him lay the last bite of worm under a daub of ketchup and mustard.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Tom.

  “I don’t know,” sighed Billy. He picked up the fork again.

  “Does it taste bad?”

  “No,” said Billy wearily. “I just taste ketchup and mustard mostly. But it makes me feel sort of sick. Even before I eat it. Just thinking about it.” He sighed again and then glanced at Joe and Alan, talking to each other in whispers over by the window.

  “What are you whispering about?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Then what are you whispering for?”

  “Nothing. It’s not important. Just something Joe’s father told him last night.”

  “What?”

  “Come on. Finish up. It was nothing. We’ll miss the cartoons.”

  Billy shut his eyes and popped the last piece of worm into his mouth, chewed, gagged, clapped his hands over his mouth, gulped! gulped! toppled backward off the orange crate. Sprawling on his back in the chaff, he gazed peacefully up at the ceiling.

  Joe and Alan stood over him.

  “Open up.”

  Billy opened his mouth.

  “Wider. See any, Joe?”

  “Naw, he swallowed it.”

  “Okay, let’s go.”

  VII

  Red Crash Helmets and White Jump Suits

  AFTER the movies, Tom walked home with Billy.

  “Tomorrow I’ll roll the crawler in cornmeal and fry it. Like a trout.”

  “It’s not really the taste,” said Billy. “It’s more the thought. When I start to eat it, even though it’s smothered in ketchup and mustard and grated cheese, I can’t stop thinking worm. Worm, worm, worm, worm, worm, worm: gaggles of worms in bait boxes, drowned worms drying up on sidewalks, a worm squirming as the fishhook gores into him, the soggy end of a worm draggling out of a dead fish’s mouth, robins yanking worms out of a lawn. I can’t stop thinking worm.”

  “Yeah, but if I fry it in cornmeal, it won’t look like a crawler,” said Tom. “I’ll put parsley around it, and some slices of lemon. And then you can concentrate, think fish. All the time you’re waiting in the barn, all the time you’re eating it, keep saying to yourself: fish fish fish fish fish fish fish fish; here I am eating fish, good fish.

  “Trout, salmon, flounder, perch,

  I’ll ride my minibike into church.

  Dace, tuna, haddock, trout,

  Wait’ll you hear the minister shout.

  “Fish fish fish fish fish fish fish fish fish fish fish fish fish fish.

  “Shark, haddock, sucker, eel,

  I’ll race my father in his automobile.

  Eel, flounder, bluegill, shark,

  We’ll race all day till after dark.”

  Billy cheered up.

  “Think how they’d all stare. I’d rev up the aisle, zip around the front pews, down a side aisle under the stained-glass windows. My parents would kill me. Reverend Yarder’d peer down over the bible stand. ‘William,’ he’d cry. ‘William, you take that engine thing out of here this minute!’ ”

  “Yeah, and then they’d come chasing out after us,” said Tom.

  Billy laughed. “Waving their arms and yelling. And we’d lead them zigzag round and round and in and out among the gravestones and monuments in the cemetery and then roar off down the Sandgate Road, leaving them draped over tombs, panting and shaking their fists.”

  “Hup hup!” yelled Tom, dancing around and boxing the air.

  “And that Monday we’d smuggle it into class disguised as Raymond Dwelley, because he’s so fat, and hide it in the coat closet. And then when Milly Butler said anything, anything at all, even something like ‘excuse me,’ or if she even sniffed, we’d dump a whole bottle of ink over her head and run for the coat closet, overturning chairs and desks behind us to slow up Mrs. Howard. She’d come after us, fuming and shouting threats, and suddenly the doors of the coat closet would slam open, and out we’d roar on our minibike in blood-red crash helmets and white jump suits, our scarves streaming out behind us! And we’d roar round and round the classroom while Mrs. Howard knelt among the overturned desks and chairs, sobbing helplessly into her hands, and then rhum-rhum out the door and up the hall, thumbing our noses at the monitors. Brackety-brackety-brackety up the stairs, stiff-arming tacklers, into Mr. Simmons’s office—up onto his desk! Broom! Broom!—a backfire into his face, and zoooom! out the window as he topples backward in his chair in a hurricane of quiz papers and report cards. And then, crunch, landing on the driveway, we roar off down the highway to Bennington and join the Navy so Mrs. Howard and Mr. Simmons and our parents can’t punish us.”

  VIII

  The Third Worm

  TOM ran out of the kitchen of Billy’s house, holding the sizzling frying pan out in front of him with both hands, the screen door banging behind him.

  Alan threw open the barn door when he saw him coming. Tom thumped the frying pan down on the orange crate.

  “There!” he said breathlessly. “Done to a T. Look at her, all golden-brown and sizzling. It looks good enough to eat.”

  “Yeah,” said Billy. He poked the worm with his fork.

  Tom took off the pot-holder glove he was wearing. “Think fish,” he said. “Remember: think fish.

  “Trout, salmon, flounder, perch,

  I’ll ride my minibike into church.


  Eel, salmon, bluegill, trout,

  Wait’ll you hear the minister shout.

  “Clam, flounder, tuna, sucker,

  Look out here we come, old Mrs. Tucker.

  Lobster, black bass, oyster stew,

  There goes New Orleans, here comes Peru.”

  He leaned over Billy and whispered in his ear, “Fish fish fish fish fish fish fish fish fish, go on, take a bite, fish fish fish fish fish, okay, second bite, fish, fish, fish, fish…. ”

  IX

  The Plotters

  GEEZ, you think it’ll work?” said Alan to Joe. “Suppose it doesn’t? He didn’t seem to pay much attention today.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Joe. “We got him thinking. It takes time. I got it all doped out. Trust me.”

  X

  The Fourth Worm

  BILLY ate steadily, grimacing, rubbing his nose, spreading on more horseradish sauce. Tom bent over him, hissing in his ear, “Fish fish fish fish fish fish.”

  Billy paused, watching Alan and Joe whispering by the door. He swished the last bite round and round in the ketchup and mustard. All of a sudden he said, “That’s not fair. They can’t act like that anymore. Every time I swallow they lean forward as if they expected me to keel over or something! And then when I don’t, they look surprised and shrug their shoulders and nudge each other.”

  “Come on,” said Joe. “Cut it out. We can watch you, for cripes’ sake. We’re just standing over here by the window watching you.”

  “No, you’re not,” said Billy. “You’re whispering. And acting as if you expected something to happen every time I swallow.”

  “It’s nothing,” said Joe. “Forget it. Look, we’ll turn around and look out the window while you swallow.”

  “What do you mean, it’s nothing?” said Billy. “What’s nothing?”

  “Oh, come on,” said Alan. “It’s just something Joe’s father told him the other night. It’s nothing.”

  “What? What?”

  “It’ll just worry you,” said Alan. “It’s crazy. It’s nothing. Forget it.”

  Billy tore the napkin away from his throat.

  “Tell me!”

  “It’s nothing,” said Joe. “You know how my father is. He’s always yelling about something.”

  “Tell me or it’s all off.”

  “Well, look, it’s nothing, but the night before last, I was telling Janie about you eating the worms and my father was on the porch and heard us. So he threw down his newspaper and says, ‘Joseph!’ So I says, ‘Yes, Pa?’ And he says, ‘Have you et a worm, Joseph?’ And then he grabbed my shoulders and shook me till my hands danced at the ends of my arms like a puppet’s. ‘It’s for your own good,’ he says. So I stuttered out, ‘It’ssss nnnnot going to ddddo me any ggggood if IIIII sssshake to pppppieces, is it?’ Janie was wailing; my mother was chewing her apron in the doorway. ‘Alfred,’ she cries, ‘what’s he done? You’ll deracinate him. Has he hauled down the American flag at school and eaten it again? Has he—’ ”

  “So what’s the point?” yelled Billy. “Get to the point! What’s it all have to do with me?”

  “I’m coming to it,” said Joe, wiping his nose. “But I wanted to show you how important it was, my father nearly killing me and all.”

  He sneezed. And then Alan began to sneeze and finally had to hobble off into one of the horse stalls, hugging his stomach, to recover.

  “Anyway,” said Joe, wiping his nose again and hitching up his Levi’s, “so my father told my mother he thought I’d eaten a worm. ‘A what?’ says my mother, dropping her apron and clutching the sides of her head. ‘A worm,’ says my father, nodding solemnly. So my mother fainted, collapsed all helter-skelter right there in the doorway, and lay still, her tongue lolling out of her mouth, her red hair spread out beautifully over the doorsill. So I—”

  “Will you cut it out?” Billy yelled. “Who cares about your mother? What does it have to do with ME?”

  “I think he’s lying,” said Tom. “Whoever heard of someone’s mother fainting and her tongue hanging out?”

  “All RIGHT!” yelled Joe apoplectically, stamping around. “ALL RIGHT! Now I won’t tell. You can die, Billy Forrester, and you’ll have to carry him home, Tom Grout, all by yourself! Nobody says to me: ‘Who cares about your mother.’ ALL RIGHT! I’m going. Alan,” he yelled, “they’re insulting my mother. I’m going.”

  “Don’t,” said Alan, running out of the horse stall and grabbing Joe by the shirttail. “Don’t. You got to tell him. Even your mother’d say so. Mine, too. No matter what he said. Ain’t it a matter of life and death?”

  “I won’t,” said Joe, starting toward the door.

  Alan pulled him back. “You got to. How long have we known poor Bill? Six, seven years? For old time’s sake, Joe, because we were all once in kindergarten together. Think of the agony he’ll face, Joe, the pain and the blood and the gore.”

  Billy was on his knees by the orange crate, wringing his hands, not daring to interfere. But when Joe glanced sullenly back at him, he whispered, “Please, Joe? For old time’s sake?”

  “Well, will you apologize for insulting my mother?”

  “I do,” said Billy. “I do. I apologize.”

  So Alan and Joe began to sneeze again and this time had to bend over and put their heads between their legs to recover.

  Tom, who had been watching them suspiciously, trying to make out what was going on, started to say something. “Shut up!” hissed Billy fiercely, turning on him. “You keep out of it!”

  So Joe went on with his story: how his mother had been carried upstairs to her room; how the doctor had come, shaking his head; how his aunt had sobbed, pulling down all the shades in their house; how that morning his mother had finally come downstairs for the first time leaning on his aunt’s arm, pale and sorrowful; how …

  “Yeah,” said Tom. “Sure. So why? What does eating worms do to you?”

  “Nobody will tell me,” said Joe, opening his eyes wide. “It’s been three days now, and nobody’ll say. It’s just like the time my cousin Lucy got caught in the back seat of her father’s Cheverolet with the encyclopedia salesman. Nobody’ll tell me why there was such an uproar.” He wiped his mouth. “But one thing’s sure: it’s worse than poison. Probably—”

  “Crap,” said Tom.

  “Oh, yeah?” said Joe.

  But then he and Alan had another sneezing fit, sprawling helplessly against each other.

  “Look at them,” said Tom to Billy. “They’re not sneezing—they’re laughing. Come on. Eat the last piece and let’s get out of here.”

  “You really think so?” said Billy doubtfully. The sneezing did look an awful lot like giggling.

  “Sure. Look at them.”

  Tom gave Alan and Joe a shove. They collapsed in a heap, sneezing uncontrollably.

  Billy watched them. Yeah, sure, they weren’t sneezing—they were laughing…. Weren’t they?

  “Hay fever,” gasped Alan, “hay fever.”

  “Aw, you never had hay fever before,” said Tom. “How about yesterday or the day before? Come on, Billy. Open up.”

  So Billy, half believing Tom and half not, glancing doubtfully at Alan and Joe, allowed Tom to poke the last bite of worm into his mouth and lead him out of the barn.

  * * *

  Alan and Joe sat up.

  “It didn’t work,” said Alan.

  Joe began to brush the chaff out of his hair.

  “You wait. He wasn’t sure. Tom was, but he isn’t eating the worms. You wait. Billy’s worried. He was before, that’s why he said he felt like he was going to throw up. But now he’s really worried. Suppose I wasn’t lying? Did you see his face when I said my father shook me? I thought his eyes would bug right out of his head.”

  Alan laughed. “Oh, geez, yeah. And when you said your mother fainted.”

  Joe stopped brushing the chaff out of his hair. “Except why’d you laugh so much, for cripes’ sake? If you’d kept a straight face even T
om wouldn’t have guessed.”

  “Aw, you laughed first. What do you mean?”

  “Me? I laughed first? I did not.”

  “You did so. You laughed when he yelled at you the first time. You wiped your nose.”

  They went off through the meadow, arguing.

  XI

  Tom

  BILLY pushed the frying pan toward Tom.

  “Okay, fink. If it’s not supposed to hurt you, you eat a piece.”

  “Oh, no,” said Alan. He and Joe were lying on their stomachs in the hayloft, watching. “If he eats a piece, you lose, Billy. The bet was you were going to eat fifteen worms, not you and him together.”

  Billy didn’t look up, his eyes fixed grimly on Tom.

  “All right. Then I’ll go dig another worm, just for him. He’s so big, telling me: ‘Hurry up, hurry up, I can’t wait around all day—don’t be a sissy.’ All right. Now—”

  “I didn’t say sissy,” said Tom uncomfortably. “I just said if the first four worms didn’t kill you, this one wouldn’t. I can’t help it if my mother told me to be home by two today. She’s going shopping, so I have to mind my brother.”

  “Yeah?” said Billy. “Okay. So we’ll just have time for you to eat a worm before you go. Come on. Where’s the shovel?”

  “Here,” said Alan from the loft. “We brung an extra today.”

  A worm dangled squirming from his fingers. He dropped it to Billy.

  “It’s not cooked,” said Tom.

  “I’ll do it, I’ll do it,” said Joe, scrambling down the ladder. He took the worm from Billy and ran out, then ran back and grabbed the frying pan.

  Tom sat down on an overturned pail to wait. He didn’t want to eat any worm. It wasn’t his bet. He glanced at the door creaking in the wind. Maybe he should make a break for it.

  Of course, he could see Billy’s point. Billy didn’t believe Joe’s story, but still … he’d find it reassuring if Tom ate some worm, too.

  “He’ll eat it,” Billy was saying to Alan.