How to Be Bad

From HOW TO BE BAD, by E. Lochart, Sarah Mlynowski and Lauren Myracle. In stores May 6, 2008.

THE SET-UP: Vicks, Mel and Jesse are on a road trip in Florida. Armed with Vicks' guidebook to weird and wonderful sights of the sunshine state, the girls have come from a disappointing visit to the world's smallest police station, and have now snuck in to a shuttered museum that houses a large, taxidermied alligator.

The girls are going south to Miami to visit Vicks' boyfriend, Brady -- who hasn't called in the two weeks since he started college. Vicks is narrating:

The museum basement is practically pitch dark—it's only got those tiny windows up high at ground level. I reach the bottom of the stairs and shine my light into the center of the room: Old Joe is sitting in a glass case –sixteen feet long, nose to tail, and grinning an enormous toothy smile that says “I love you, baby” and also “I could eat you alive if I felt like it”—both at the same time.
Mel squeals as my flashlight shines into the gator's mouth, but Jesse walks straight up to the glass case. She kneels down and stares at him, real intent.
I stride up beside her and say, “Howdy, Joe. We came to see you. How you doing there? Wow, you're a big boy, aren't you?"
Jesse follows my lead. “Aw, who's a giant reptile, eh?” she says. “You are! You are!"
“Come to mama!” I coo. “What big teeth you have! And not a single cavity. What a good boy!”
I'm so happy, 'cause it's me and Jesse, like how we've been all summer, working at the Waffle. Us in sync, playing off each other's jokes. Like how it was up until, I don't know, a couple weeks a month ago when she got so sour.
Or maybe I got sour, when Brady left.
Anyway, the two of us are right up near old Joe, kneeling down with our faces close to his big, carnivorous grin—but Mel is hanging back, with a sick look on her face. Suddenly I feel sorry I pushed her so hard when any idiot can see that even a dead gator is making her nearly wet her shorts. “Come on,” I say, “You don't have to pet him. I'll keep him away from you. Joe? Sit. Stay. Good boy. Stay…”
I grab Mel's hand and walk her over to a spot about five feet from the case. We sit down cross-legged on the floor, just looking at him, shining the flashlight along his bumpy green body. Jesse comes and joins us.
We admire Old Joe in silence. Mel’s breathing a little hard, but otherwise she's okay.
“He may be dead,” I say eventually, “but he's a badass.”
“He is," says Mel.
“He's like a god,” I say. “He's like the god of the badass. Look at him.”
“You should watch your mouth, saying stuff like that.” Jesse smacks my arm, playfully.
“What?” I ask again.
“He can hear you!”
“Who?” I ask. Then I get it. “God?” I say. “You're worried God can hear me?” She's such a Christianpants.
“Listen, I’m all for being a bad...bottom—”
I hoot. “You? You?” To Mel, I say, “She said ‘bad-bottom.’”
Mel giggles.
“But it's a sin to worship false idols," Jesse reminds me.
"I'm an atheist," I explain to Mel, "My family worships pretty much nothing besides the glories of the potato."
“The gator is not a god and neither is a potato," Jesse tells me. "You shouldn't worship them."
“I'm joking," I say. "Hello? And besides, God – if he or she is up there – God is way more pissed about us breaking into the Wakulla Springs museum than about me calling the gator a 'god of badass.' Any real god wouldn't get mad about minor stuff like that when there are actual laws being broken.”
“I think God would be okay with us being in here,” puts in Mel.
Jesse turns to her. “How come?”
“Technically we're breaking a law, but we're not hurting anything. We're just —well, you two are appreciating the gator. And that's what it's here for, right? To be appreciated."
"Tell that to the world's smallest policeman,” I say.
“What?”
“The one who works in the World's Smallest station. Cause you know no normal size policeman could really work in that phone booth we visited."
Jesse smiles.
I continue: "God might be fine with us breaking and entering to appreciate Old Joe, but the itty bitty policeman's gonna have a hissy fit.”
“How tall do you think he is?” asks Mel. “Is he like, yay big? Four foot tall? Or smaller?”
“Oh, way, way smaller. He's the World's Smallest,” I say.
“I think he's like six inches,” says Jesse.
“What?” says Mel. “That's not even human. That means he's a leprechaun.”
For some reason this strikes us all as incredibly funny.
“Of course he's not a leprechaun!” I cry. “He's a human being! Give him some respect!”
“He's an officer of the law!” giggles Jesse. “He's six inches tall and he's like the policeman for cats, he makes the cats stop fighting.”
“Cats and those—what are they called, those yappie dogs?” I say.
“Yorkies," says Jesse, child of a dog-grooming-lady.
“Yorkshire terriers," says Mel, child of a rich man.
“Yeah, he's breaking up Yorkie fights," I say.
“And he hits them with a popsicle stick if they don't listen to him,” adds Jesse.
“Oh, and he doesn't eat donuts on his break,” cries Mel. “He just eats the little donut holes.”
“The munchkins.” Jesse nods. “That's so perfect.”
I raise my finger in the air, dead serious. “He's gonna barge in here any second wielding a miniature club and pointing an itty bitty gun at us and yelling, 'Put your hands on your head and back away from the gator!'”
Mel is wheezing she's laughing so hard.
“But when he does that," I go on, "we'll just pick him up and cuddle him to death!” More laughter. “I'll squash him between my boobs!" I cry. "He'll die happy!”
We can barely breathe.
“Not to death,” chokes Mel. “If you boob-squash him to death we could get life in prison for murder of an officer.”
“Oh, he's like a twelfth tenth of a full-size officer,” I say. “They'll be lenient.”
“You think?” Jesse wrinkles her brow.
“Oh, for sure," I say. "You saw the man's police station. It's a freakin' phone booth. He's got no respect in the community. They barely count him as a police officer. No way will we get life. And besides, we can say the death by cuddling was an accident. It'll only be, like, accidental manslaughter.”
“Okay then,” says Mel. “We have a strategy.” She says it with a completely straight face, and at first Jesse and I think she's missed the entire joke, but then we realize that's cosmically impossible and bust out laughing again.
When I get my breath, I want to make it up to Jesse. “I don't mean he's like a god,” I say. “What I mean is, he's like a role model.”
“Old Joe?”
“Or the smallest policeman?” Mel makes me laugh again, even though I'm trying to be serious. Because of course I wouldn't boob-squash my role model to death. “No, the gator. Look at him. He isn't afraid of anything."
“He's dead, that's why,” says Mel.
“No, he wasn't afraid when he was alive. He's like a symbol. He was never
scared a day in his life, he was ugly as sin, and he just rested in the sun, lapping up the goodness of the tropical air and knowing that he could bite clean through anybody tried to mess with him."
"He didn't care what anybody thought." Mel puts her hand to her cheek.
"Exactly. Don't you kind of have to admire the guy?”
“Yeah,” says Jesse, after a minute. “I do. We should sing to him.”
“What?” Singing was not part of my plan, here. “This isn't a cookout. It's Badass Admiration.”
“No,” she says. “I mean we should do like a ritual. To show Old Joe some love.”
“I'm not gonna sit here with you two and sing ‘I love you, you love me ,’ like you do at campfire girls or whatever. That is way too hokey. Old Joe would not like it.”
“No, no,” Jesse says. “It'll be good. Mel, you’ll sing with me won’t you?”
Mel plays with her fingers. “I probably won’t know whatever you’re going to sing.”
Jesse rolls her eyeshuffs. “You have an iPod with a two-thousand-song capacity. I think you'll know it."
"I meant, I don't know any church songs or anything. I’m Jewish."
Jesse looks surprised for a second, but then says, "Shh. Let me think of something.”
So we are quiet for a minute, and then Jesse begins.

From this valley you say you are leavin'
I will miss your blue eyes and sweet smile
For they say you are takin' the sunshine
That has brightened my path for a while—

And then Mel takes a breath and joins in:

Come and sit by my side, if you love me
Do not hasten to bid me adieu
But remember the Red River Valley
And the cowgirl who loved you so true.

Mel has a real voice, a singer's voice. Bright and shiny– like a sweet apple. Jesse looks as surprised as I am, and stops singing to let Mel have a solo.
“Won't you think of the valley you're leaving—” Mel sings, but then stops as soon as she realizes she’s on her own. “Jesse?”
She shakes her head. “You go.”
“I don’t like to sing alone.”
“Oh come on,” I say. “Old Joe wants you to. Al Roker wants you to."
She crosses her arms in front of her chest, closing herself off, like she’s about to say no.
"Please?" says Jesse. "You sing so pretty."
And Mel keeps going:

Oh, how lonely, how sad it will be—
Oh, remember the heart you are breaking,
And be true to your promise to me.

I feel my throat closing up. The girl in the song, her guy goes away and takes the sunshine. He might not remember his promise. Hell, he might not even remember the valley he's leaving, once it's out of sight.
They say you are taking the sunshine. That's exactly how it's felt since Brady went to Miami. He took the sunshine.
Why hasn't he called me? How could his feelings change so fast? Why does he have to jump into my brain even when I'm doing everything possible to keep from thinking about him?
And why can't I make my own sunshine?
I don't want to start sobbing about my love life in the middle of our Badass Admiration Ritual, so I swallow hard, dig in my bag and pull out a mango. “Let's leave him a token of our appreciation,” I say, handing the flashlight to Mel. I walk forward on my knees, bow, and lay the mango at the foot of Joe's case. “Old Joe Gator, you great Badass of Wakulla Springs, fearless symbol of our road trip, we thank you. For your inspiration. You were uglier than a cactus and never sorry about it. You were fierce. And you had some honking big teeth. Yet you were peaceful and made people happy. Long may you rock.”
“Long may you rock.”
“Long may you rock.”
“Oh, and we hope you like the mango. It looks like a juicy one.”

###

By the time we leave the museum, it’s officially night. The street is dark. From the shadows, a voice rings out to us. “Find anything good?”
There is a guy sitting on the hood of the Opel.