The Fighter

Chapter 26: Getting Garbonzoed

Sneaking into my house is a delicate procedure, one that I'd never gotten to properly flesh out before. I mean I didn't exactly have a love life before this year... if you can call what I had at this point a love life. 

My stomach rumbled at the thought of what was next, and either it was a result of the fears that surrounded Xavier's situation or the pure joy in considering the fact that it was breakfast time. 

Don't judge me.

It was a cold October morning and I had just finished walk-of-shaming my way to where I lived. Again, it is so not me. This would be a Josh thing surely, not a Sophie thing. At least Xavier gave me a sweatshirt to wear, and it was only the emerald dress flowing around my bare feet that gave any indication that I had spent the night at a special someone's.

I ducked toward my house and made my way to the side that is shaded by a single oak tree. Though it was early in the morning on a Saturday it was not early enough. I could see, just barely past the glare in the windows, that my mother was shlepping around the kitchen making herself some coffee and breakfast, and that meant my father was also definitely up and running as well. 

My mother scratched her bedhead as she glanced out the window in front of her and I dropped down swiftly. The good thing was that my parents were both in the kitchen, and if I went through the backdoor and straight up the steps to my room, I'd avoid a very awkward entrance. 

I wasn't really sure if they had noticed that I didn't come home the previous night, but I was hoping that they had underestimated my nightlife and just didn't bother to check.

Being careful not to step on any leaves, I hopped stealthily toward my back door. 

"Makin' my way downtown, walking fast, chase his path and I'm home now." 

I heard him before I saw him, but I knew just from the way that he messed up the lyrics --making them somewhat stalky now that I think about it-- that it was none other than Sal Garbonzo. 

"Doo-doo-duh-doo-duh-doo-doo," he mumbled clumsily, crunching heavily on the leaves that led to the back of my house. 

I took a second too long to wonder up at the heavens why a grown man was singing this song which was popular twenty years ago and also why said man was visiting us on a Saturday and --

"Sophie Pokey!" He said upon 'making his way downtown,' to my house.

--and why Garbonzo was deciding to enter my house through the back door. 

"Shhhhh!" I said angrily. 

He mimicked my crouched posture. "Why are we shushing?" 

I tried to come up with an excuse that wouldn't be reportable to my mother. "Uhh, it's early we don't want to wake the neighbors."

Garbonzo began to nod but his eyes were scanning me and my ridiculous outfit. He gasped exaggeratedly as he studied me. "Sophie Edward Taylor! Are you sneaking into your house?"

"It's actually Edna --you know what forget it." I muttered. 

"Is this because you spent the night at a guy's?" 

"What? No," I mumbled looking around cautiously. 

"And whose sweatshirt is that?" He asked before he gasped exaggeratedly again. "That's Xavier's sweatshirt isn't it!" 

"Shhhhhhhhhhhh shshhh," I said urgently. 

"And you and Xavier did the dirty last night!" He said very loudly. I was surprised at how Garbonzo could really put two and two together, though for him it makes five. 

"Shut up!" I muttered. "We did not 'do the dirty,' or whatever you think we did. It was late and, well, he asked me to sleep over and so..."

"I've been wondering, how is that boy." Garbonzo was calm now, as if we weren't in my family's backyard trying to avoid being detected. 

"He has cancer," I said.

"Mother of God," he responded. "That's terrible." 

"Shhhhhhhh shhshhhh shshshshshshh," I said. "This is not the time right now. I need to sneak into my house because I don't want to get punished." 

"I gotchu," he said, flicking up his collar and smoothing down his greasy head of hair. "Here's what we'll do. I'll go inside, and you hide behind me as I distract your motha."

And for the second time in my life I felt like we were in a Scooby Doo episode. Just in case you were wondering, Garbonzo was Scooby. 

"That won't work," I whispered, but he was already at the backdoor of my house knocking. We had a doorbell back there by the way, but leave it to Garbonzo to just... do that.

He waved for me to hide behind him, and having nothing else to go for I did what he said. 

"Lorraine hello!" He said. 

"Sal, what are you doing here?" She responded.

I rolled my eyes as I crouched behind his back. Now my mother asks the question I've been asking for months. 

"I bought some parenting books, you know for your troubled little one." That was when I noticed that he had a plastic bag (from Food Wealth may I add), filled with books. 

I covered my mouth. He was delivering parenting advice for parenting... me?

"Wow, thank you Sal, why don't you come in?" 

Sal slipped inside the house, leaving the door slightly ajar. I waited for him and my mother to get into the kitchen before I entered in myself and scurried up the stairs. 

Sal Garbonzo was a double agent and I couldn't wrap my mind around it. 

I managed to get to my room and slip out of my dress and switch into pajamas before my mother called up the stairs to get me to 'greet Sal'. 

I took some deep inhalations. "You can do this," I said to my own reflection in the mirror before making my way to the kitchen. Either Sal was on my side or my mother's and I was about to find out.

"Good morning to you all." I said, which came out a little forced as I entered into the bright and fragrant kitchen. 

Everything was like it normally was. My father was sipping his coffee reading the newspaper and my mother was preparing a plate of breakfast for Garbonzo (I mean normal considering the circumstances).

Garbonzo winked at me as I joined him at the kitchen counter and I shuddered in response. Gross, gross, gross. 

"Sophie, Sal and I were thinking that you could do some errands with him today," she said. "We never really punished you for your behavior a couple of weeks ago, and we determined that helping others would be really beneficial." She cleared her throat. "Right Ed?"

My dad grunted behind his newspaper. 

"Great," I muttered. 

"Yeperoni," Garbonzo said. "I can't wait to show you my technique for washing my car." 

And that's when I realized that I had been tricked, or rather, that I had been 'Garbonzoed.'

...At least he didn't tell. I was grateful for that. 

******

Hello peeps! 

Just thought I'd include a pic from a Scooby Doo episode for reference. 

Let me know what you think!

Vote, Comment, Add!

xoxo Soni2468