Big Mouth Read online

  Still, Lucy had graphed out a pretty tight game plan for me. “Maybe I should check with Lucy first.”

  “You don’t need to check with Lucy. How can you be a big star if you can’t even make a simple decision about ice cream? Quit stalling and start eating. Or don’t you think you can?”

  “I can.” I gazed upon my creamy paint set. Cocoa brown, minty green, banana yellow…a rainbow of temptation.

  Gardo chanted softly: “Thuff, Thuff, Thuff…”

  I didn’t know why I was wimping out. It wasn’t like Lucy would know. Who would tell her? It was just me and Gardo.

  “…Thuff, Thuff, Thuff…”

  I didn’t want to reverse in front of him, though.

  “…Thuff, Thuff, Thuff…”

  But then, he was right that I needed practice.

  “…Thuff, Thuff, Thuff…”

  And I did love ice cream.

  “…Thuff, Thuff, Thuff…”

  Who said I’d have a reversal of fortune anyway? Ice cream wasn’t hot dogs. I didn’t have to chew it; it would just slide down. “Okay, let’s do it.”

  “Atta boy!” He slam-dunked the empty spoon into the trash can, then rubbed his hands together, making me think of the Del Heiny Junior 13 janitors. “All right, then, here we go.”

  I took a huge metal spoon from the drawer behind me and set it in the heated water trough that hung along my side of the display case. Wet metal always slid through ice cream easier than dry metal. “Okay. How much do I eat?”

  “I don’t know. What are you asking me for?”

  “Lucy didn’t make graphs for ice cream. I need to establish a base number.”

  “I’m sorry, did I miss something? Are we in math class? Just eat the ice cream until you can’t eat anymore.”

  “I need a time goal, at least. Twelve minutes, just like the pros.” I scanned the colored rows. “Which flavor?”

  “Whichever flavor. Will you start already?”

  “You won’t tell Lucy?”

  “Shermie, look who you’re talking to.”

  I crossed my arms. He’d watched Galactic Warriors enough. He knew that the most successful missions were the top-secret ones.

  He sighed heavily. “Fine: No, I won’t tell Lucy.” He pretended to lock his mouth and throw away the key. Through squeezed lips he mumbled, “I’ll keep my big mouth shut.”

  “Good.”

  As my spoons warmed, I studied the open barrels. Should I go with Bing Cherry? Its fruity sweetness was smooth going down, but the frozen cherries could choke a horse. Mint Chocolate Chip? No, the dusty chocolate flakes probably wouldn’t clog my throat, but the mintiness always crept up the back of my nose. Fudge Brownie? That was always a good fallback when I couldn’t decide what flavor my mood was. Wait, no, not Fudge Brownie. Grampy had started ordering the kind with walnut brownies, and walnuts taste like dirt. Maybe Spazzy Monkey? In the Sherman T. Thuff Book of Good and Tasty Things, that was the King Kong of ice creams: rich banana ice cream, delicate shards of toffee that packed deep into my molars with just the lightest chew…. On second thought, if I didn’t chew enough during this speed session, those shards could shred my throat. Maybe I should steer clear of chunks altogether. After all, chewing would only slow me down, and I certainly didn’t want to choke. I’d stick with straight ice cream, then…. Something with a chocolate base was always good…. Heck, I’d just do straight chocolate. No mucking around.

  My flavor choice made, I put my right hand on my waist and leaned to the right, stretching my left hand to the sky. I could feel the blood coursing faster through my brain. I repeated the stretch on my left side, then did five jumping jacks and two squats.

  “For crying out loud, Shermie, you’re eating ice cream, not sprinting in the Olympics. Let’s do this already.”

  “Stuff it, crank. If I’m going to be a pro, I need to train like a pro. Athletes always stretch. Lucy said so.” Maybe stopping wasn’t such a bad idea, though. I was getting short of breath.

  “Athlete? What are you talking about? You’re eating ice cream, not wrestling.”

  Just for that, I did an extra squat. The up part was harder that time. “Eating’s a sport that takes training and physical stamina, so I’m an athlete. Don’t argue with me, I didn’t make the rules. That’s just the way of it.”

  “Fine. You’re an athlete.” He dropped down into a chair to wait, gnawing another empty spoon.

  He was looking right at me, so I leaned right then left one more time before I pulled my spoon from the water. I tried not to let him see that I was breathing hard.

  The spoon was hot and drippy now, so it would probably slide right into the ice cream. Dropping my arms down by my sides, I shook them to be sure they were totally relaxed. Then I climbed on my footstool, planted my feet a shoulder’s width apart, hunched over the display case, and poised my spoon directly above the chocolate tub. “Okay. Go.”

  “Go where?”

  “Funny.” I adjusted my feet. “Announce me. Do my play-by-play.”

  “Oh, jeez…”

  “We do this right or we don’t do it at all. C’mon, my spoon is cooling off.”

  Gardo stood up and cleared his throat. But just as he opened his mouth to say something, he suddenly leaned around the display case, swiped his finger across the Triple Chocolate Fudge, then smacked a dark line under each of my eyes. Smack, smack.

  “Ow!”

  “Now you’re an athlete,” he said. Then he planted his own feet and unleashed a ring announcer voice that put Vince McMahon to shame. “Ladies and gentlemen…sports fans…food lovers everywhere. Welcome to the mecca of competitive eating, the Ground Zero of Gluttony, the icing on the top of the ice cream cake…the one, the only, Glutton Bowl Two!”

  He did a fake crowd cheer and whistled through two fingers.

  “We’re here in lovely Scoops-a-Million,” he continued, smiling now, “where Cinderella underdog Sherman ‘Thuff Enuff’ Thuff has reached the final round. Now he’ll go spoon to spoon against the reigning champion of ice cream…” He looked at me questioningly.

  “Cookie,” I prompted.

  “…the reigning champion of ice cream, Cookie Jarvis. Our judges will set the clock for twelve minutes.” I pointed to him, then to the wall clock behind him. “Aaaaaand GO!”

  I jammed my warm, wet spoon into the hard-packed ice cream, then rocketed it to my mouth. I swallowed the instant the cold ice cream hit my tongue, barely even tasting chocolate. Holy jeez, that’s a serious lump of cold! The image of a snake swallowing a huge frozen mouse crossed my mind, but I pushed it out. I had ice cream to eat.

  I jam-and-rocketed again.

  And again.

  And again.

  And again.

  My throat was numbing from the freeze. The roof of my mouth, too. Don’t think about that, Thuff. Focus on technique. Jam and rocket…jam and rocket…

  Sugary spit collected under my tongue. Cold chocolate lumps choo-chooed down my food pipe, trailing a slippery, sugary residue.

  Jam and rocket, jam and rocket…

  My wrist started to burn. My forearm threatened to cramp. That’s when I realized that I was a total idiot. I should’ve let the ice cream get soft and melty first. The pros probably knew that. At least I’d stretched. Maybe I’d tell Lucy to add weight lifting to her graphs.

  Jam and rocket, jam and rocket…

  Every movement became automatic. Tuning out the burn and the freeze, I concentrated on my form. My shoulder and upper arm were tucked against my ribs, my wrist and hand worked the scoop, and my elbow bent like an automatic hinge, bringing the spoon up to my mouth and back down to the chocolate tub again, over and over. I unhinged my jaw as best I could—open wide, stick in spoon, clamp down, pull off with lips…open wide, stick in spoon, clamp down, pull off with lips…open wide, stick in spoon, clamp down, pull off with lips…

  The muscles in front of my ears were burning.

  “Two minutes down!” Gardo hollered.

>   That’s all?

  “Ten to go.”

  Autopilot was kicking in, and my mind started to wander. I heard some voices, so customers were probably coming in. But I didn’t want to look up, I didn’t want to move my head one iota. If customers were coming in, so be it. They could wait. History was being made.

  Jam and rocket, jam and rocket…

  Two of the voices sounded familiar. I think they belonged to my afternoon regulars, Fudge Ripple and Butter Pecan, two ninth graders from my school.

  Jam and rocket, jam and rocket…

  Yeah, that’s who it was. Who was with them?

  Jam and rocket, jam and rocket…

  “Four minutes left!” Gardo hollered. “Four minutes!”

  Four more minutes? I didn’t know if I could keep it up.

  Jam and rocket, jam and rocket…

  More voices. The shop was filling. Someone shouted, “Go, Thuff!”

  My lower face muscles burned as I opened, shut, opened, shut, opened, shut. I started to seriously regret this whole thing as my stomach started objecting. It was cold, it was stretched, it was not happy. It felt like I’d just downed a whole gallon of milk—and not the wimpy nonfat kind, either. No way could I keep up this speed for twelve whole minutes. No way. Maybe I was a sprinter, a two-minute speed eater. Twelve minutes was a mistake.

  Jam and rocket, jam and rocket…

  Ugh. So that was what it felt like to swallow a whole Thanksgiving turkey…when it was still frozen. And there was still a ton of ice cream in the tub. Where would I fit it all? There just wasn’t enough room. Maybe if I threw up—No! No. Reversals of fortune were for wimps. I wanted to be champion, I could do this.

  I’ll catch a burp. That’ll free up space. Without pausing my arm and mouth, I hopped and wiggled and shook like Tsunami did when he was trying to settle the hot dogs to the bottom of his stomach. A burp was in there, I knew it, caught under the ice cream. I just…had to…dislodge…the…ice cream…

  “Go, Thuff!” someone yelled.

  “You can do it!”

  “Pack it down, big guy!”

  BURRRPP!

  Total silence in the room, then laughing and more cheering.

  Oh man, that does feel better. Way better. I shook my head like I’d just regained consciousness. Three and a half minutes left. I could last three and a half minutes. That burp was the ticket. C’mon, Thuff! I redunked the spoon in the water, splashing everywhere, then jammed it into the ice cream once again.

  Jam and rocket, jam and rocket…Yes! I got me a second wind, baby! Thank the Gods of Gas for burps…. Jam and rocket, jam and rocket…

  I’d excavated a crater in the center of the chocolate ice cream. My whole lower arm disappeared as I stabbed in for another scoop, then another, then another.

  Jam and rocket, jam and rocket…

  My bulging stomach had gone past prickly cold, right into numb. My throat was totally numb, too, and the icy numbness was traveling upward, into my head, into my br—

  “Ow-ow-ow!” I screamed, dropping the spoon and clutching at my forehead.

  The crowd gasped. In a tone of hushed horror, Butter Pecan named my pain: “Oh no. He’s got brain freeze.”

  I doubled over, trying to duck the ice pick that was spearing my frontal lobe from the inside. Brain freeze, my rear end. This is brain death! I was two seconds away from pushing up daisies, I just knew it. I should have stuck with HDBs. The worst thing you could do with those was choke. That couldn’t be nearly as agonizing as having your brain matter frozen into solid rock.

  Then, just when I couldn’t take another dig of the pick, the freeze slid away. Easy as that. It was as if a glaze of warm chocolate flowed right over the hardening brain tissue, thawing it instantly.

  Slowly, I stood up straight. My legs were wobbly, but no one could see that because the display case hid my lower body. My shaking hands were visible, though, so I hurriedly dunked them in the warm water trough.

  Someone clapped. Then more people clapped and Gardo whistled. I wiped my eyes with my sleeve and focused on the crowd. There in front of me were Gardo, Fudge Ripple, Butter Pecan, Leonard from science, and five other guys, all regulars, all in yellow, all grinning and clapping and coming toward the counter to lean over and thump me on the shoulder.

  “Way to go, Thuff!”

  “I can’t believe you ate all that.”

  “Look at that tub, man. You dug halfway to China!”

  “Awesome!”

  Gardo’s shout drowned them all out: “Gentlemen, I give you the new Ice Cream–Eating Champion of the Universe, Sherman ‘Thuff Enuff’ Thuff!”

  He leaned over the counter and grabbed my hand, lifting my arm up above our heads, my victory smashing and complete. “Are YOU Thuff Enuff?”

  “I AM!” I thundered.

  “Thuff, Thuff, Thuff!” Gardo started the chant, then the other guys kicked in, cheering and laughing and whistling. It was even better than I’d imagined. Way, way better.

  I knew it, I’d found my calling. In facing Gardo’s ice cream challenge, I’d revealed The Truth: My destiny wasn’t in a big metal scoop, after all. It was in my big mouth. And I hadn’t suffered a reversal of fortune proving it. Glory be and hallelujah! Move over Cookie Jarvis, there’s a new ice cream eater in town: Sherman “Thuff Enuff” Thuff!

  “Thuff! Thuff! Thuff!”

  * * *

  Next, on SportsWorld—The Fastest Spoon in the West…

  “Good evening, sports fans. Tonight, big things afoot in the world of sports—table tennis’s Jim Nguyen shatters his long silence about bigger paddles, angler Wayne Juster hauls in a big catch at the World Bassmaster Invitational, and wishful hall-of-famer Pete Rose releases early excerpts from his new book, Nothing But the Truth: I Lied When I Lied About Lying About Gambling.

  “But first, belly up to the ice cream bar, folks, there’s been a biiiiig upset in America’s hottest new sport—competitive eating. Today, rookie eater Sherman ‘Thuff Enuff’ Thuff froze out veteran record-holder Cookie Jarvis, the reigning Big Cheese of Ice Cream. Let’s go to Chuck LaChance on the ice cream–eating floor. Chuck?”

  Thuff! Thuff! Thuff! Thuff! Thuff! Thuff! Thuff!

  “Thanks, Rick! I’m here at Scoops-a-Million, site of an astounding upset in professional eating. Rookie Sherman ‘Thuff Enuff’ Thuff has just become the new Ice Cream–Eating Champion of the Universe! As you can hear, the crowd is going wild.”

  Thuff! Thuff! Thuff! Thuff! Thuff! Thuff! Thuff!

  “Thanks for talking with us, Thuff Enuff. First, congratulations on your amazing victory.”

  “Thanks, Chuck. I couldn’t have done it without my fans.”

  Thuff! Thuff! Thuff! Thuff! Thuff! Thuff! Thuff!

  “Let me ask you, Thuff Enuff, we know you’re only a rookie, but you ate that ice cream like you’ve been training all your life. What was going through your brain as you powered through those final spoonfuls?”

  “Well, Chuck, I knew that if I just gave it my best one hundred and ten percent, I’d go all the way, there’d be no stopping me. So I got in the zone, then gave myself over to the ice cream. All I could do was my best and make the most of my chance to show that I do have what it takes to eat at the big boys’ table.”

  “Well, you certainly proved that today! One last question, Thuff Enuff: You just won the Super Bowl of ice cream eating, what are you going to do now?”

  “I’m going to Disneyland!”

  Thuff! Thuff! Thuff! Thuff! Thuff! Thuff! Thuff!

  “There you have it, Rick. This is Chuck LaChance reporting for ESPN. Back to you in the studio.”

  * * *

  CHAPTER 6

  Okay, so maybe-20 °F was a bit cold for a nap. It hadn’t seemed like a stupid idea when I was outside the Scoops walk-in freezer. But lying there on the frigid cement floor turning into a Shermie-sicle, I was definitely rethinking my ice cream headache remedy.

  By the middle of my shift, the brain freeze from my ice cream
victory had blossomed into a full-grown interskullular glacier, and every little thing made it worse. The click-click of Arthur’s metal scoop in the water trough. The tippy-tap of the customers’ shoes on the brittle linoleum. Even the air itself was a torment—the pore-clogging film of sugary ice cream, the choking dust of crumbled chocolate toppings, the heavy fumes of one hundred percent pure vanilla extract dumped into waffle cone batter. Normally that sweet combination drifted through the store like fine cologne, but tonight I could’ve scratched it off my skin. Pound, pound, pound. My head had throbbed in tune to my heartbeats.

  Then I remembered that Lucy’s dad got rid of his migraines by lying in a dark room. The only thing close to a dark room at Scoops was the walk-in freezer. Voilà, Shermie in the-20 °F icebox, freezing his gonads off.

  What a dink. I sat up, which made my stomach lurch sickeningly. My eyes were inches away from a tub of Chocolate Fudge Brownie. I nearly reversed my ice cream-a-thon then and there.

  Lining the shelf next to the Chocolate Fudge Brownie were more pale brown, rounded tubs, each with a colorful label identifying the equally colorful ice cream inside: emerald Mint Chocolate Chip, orange Pumpkin Pie, pink Bubble Gum, fuchsia Bing Cherry, purple Berry Bonanza, yellow Banana Colada, scarlet Red Raspberry Ripple…. All around me, floor to ceiling, were labels and more labels, tubs and more tubs, shelves and more shelves. Everything was dusted with snow-white ice crystals.

  Lining the floor under the Chocolate Fudge Brownie shelf was a row of square brown boxes filled with toppings. The labels were just as colorful as those on the tubs of ice cream, and the contents even more scrumptious: chocolate jimmies, crumbled Butterfingers, rainbow jimmies, brownie chunks, nonpareils, M&M’s, Haribo Gold-Bears—

  Hey! We weren’t out of gummy bears. Arthur was such a liar.