There was too much not to think about. I was tired from not thinking about it all. I wanted to go home and ignore my brother and watch Meet Me in St. Louis and cry when sweet lit le Margaret O’Brien bashes the snowman to bits (best part). I wanted to not think about Fiji or Florida or anything—or anyone—else. If “Boomer” wouldn’t reveal Snarl’s name or probably anything else about him, what was the point of my being here?
As if he knew I might need a morale boost, Boomer handed me a box of Sno-Caps. My favorite movie candy. “Your friend,” Boomer said.
“He sent this for you. As a deposit on a later gift. Potentially.”
Okay okay okay, I’d play. (Snarl sent me candy! Oh, how I might love him!) I sat down at the worktable. I decided to make a Muppet that looked like how I imagined Snarl looked. I chose a blue head and body, some black fur styled like an early Beatles hairdo, some Buddy Holly black glasses (not unlike my own), and a purple bowling shirt. I glued on a pink Grover nose shaped like a fuzzy golf ball. Then I cut some red felt to shape the lips like a snarl, and placed that onto the mouth position.
I remembered when I was ten—not too long ago, now that I thought about it—and loved going to the American Girl store beauty parlor to get my doll ’s hair xed up, and how one time I asked the store manager if I could possibly design my own American Girl. I’d already gured my girl out—LaShonda Jones, a twelve-year-old roller boogie champion from Skokie, Ill inois, circa 1978. I knew her history and what clothes she’d wear and everything. But when I asked the store manager if they would help me create LaShonda right there inside the American Girl palace, the manager looked at me with such an expression of sacrilege you’d have thought I was a junior revolutionary politely asking if I might blow up Mat el, Hasbro, Disney, and Milton Bradley headquarters at the same time.
Even if his name was classi ed information, I wanted to hug Snarl. He’d inadvertently made one of my secret dreams come true—allowing me to build my own doll while in a toy mecca headquarters.
“Do you play soccer?” Hermione asked me while she folded away the clothes I didn’t use for my Muppet. Her folding was so expert I wondered if she was a store employee on loan from the Gap.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Thought so,” she said. “I’m a freshman at college now, but last year, when I was a senior, I think my high school played yours. I remember you because your team’s not that great, but you’re such a power goalie it didn’t mat er much that the rest of your team seemed more interested in touching up their lip gloss than playing, because you were so determined not to let the other side score. You’re a captain, right? So was I.”
I was about to ask Hermione what school she played for when she dropped this one on me: “You’re di erent than So a. But maybe more interesting-looking. Is that your school uniform shirt you’re wearing underneath that reindeer cardigan? Weird. So a wears the most gorgeous clothes. From Spain. Do you speak Catalan?”
“No.”
I said no in Catalan, but since the word sounds the same in English, Hermione didn’t notice.
I was starting to wonder what language they spoke in Fiji.
“Time’s up!” Hermione said.
I held up the Muppet. “I christen thee Snarly,” I told it. I handed Snarly over to the guy named Boomer. “Please give this to He of the Unknowable Name.” I also handed over the red Moleskine. “This too. And don’t read the notebook, Boomer. It’s personal.”
“I won’t!” Boomer promised.
“I think he will,” Hermione murmured.
I had so many questions.
Why can’t I know his name?
What does he look like?
Who the heck is Sofia and why does she speak Catalan?
What am I even doing here?
I figured I would get answers in the notebook, if Snarl decided to continue our game.
Since Grandpa wasn’t here this year to take me to my favorite Christmas sight—the way way waaaayyyyy over-the-top decorated houses in Dyker Heights, Brooklyn, which this time every year were lit up to such an extreme that the neighborhood was probably visible from space—
I gured the least Snarl could do would be to show up himself and tell me about the experience. I’d already dared him to in the notebook, leaving him a street name in Dyker Heights and these words: The Nutcracker House.
I realized I wanted to add something to the instructions I’d writ en in the notebook, so I tried to take it back from Boomer.
“Hey!” he said, trying to block me from my own Moleskine. “That’s mine.”
“It’s not yours,” Hermione said. “You’re just the messenger, Boomer.”
Soccer captains look out for one another.
“I just want to add something,” I told Boomer. I gently tried to extract the notebook from Boomer’s grip, but he wasn’t let ing go. “I’ll give it back. Promise.”
“Promise?” he said.
“I just said ‘Promise’!” I said.
Hermione said, “She said ‘Promise’!”
“Promise?” Boomer repeated.
I was starting to see how John got his name.
Hermione snatched the notebook from Boomer’s grip and handed it over to me. “Hurry, before he freaks. This is a lot of responsibility for Hermione snatched the notebook from Boomer’s grip and handed it over to me. “Hurry, before he freaks. This is a lot of responsibility for him.”