Tub held up a single finger. He sat tall, carefully picked up the paper cup of water, sipped it daintily, swished it around his cheeks, and then spit into the basin. He repeated the routine with fastidious care: sip, swish, spit. Then he took up the end of his paper bib and dabbed at his mouth until he was all clean and sat back in the chair. He sighed and turned to look at me. He parted his lips to speak and I squinted as the fluorescents shone off his mouthful of new metal.

“Are you nuts?!”

14.

Tub shouldered open the door. A knitted cat above the peephole rang its belled tail.

“Grandma! I’m home!”

Somewhere between fifteen and twenty cats, live ones, coordinated their assaults from ground and aerial positions. As always, I flinched from their overenthusiastic claws and desperate mewling. Tub, though, had mastered the art of harmlessly toeing aside felines without even looking. They hissed with annoyance and leapt to the plastic-coated sofa and the coffee table that no one was allowed to put coffee on. The whole place was decked out in the gewgaws of classic Americana: framed cross-stitches imploring God to bless this house, shelves containing ceramic miniatures of angelic cats, and endless baubles of wicker and crystal, none of which, under any circumstance, were you to touch. Adding unity to the hodgepodge was a fine layer of cat hair and the delicate bouquet of cat urine.

“Tub,” I pressed. “What are we going to do?”

“Do? We? Well, I’m going to go lock myself in my room until I can come up with some way to hide these deal-breakers on my teeth. I think Grandma’s got some thread, maybe I can just sew my lips shut. Leave a little gap for a straw. Live on liquid meals. I mean, what girl is going to be seen within ten feet of me now? These things on my teeth look like bullets. Bullets, Jim. Girls hate bullets!”

“Tobias, you took off your shoes?” The voice came from the kitchen.

“Yes, Grandma!” Tub shouted. With two practiced kicks, both shoes rocketed down the hall. I bent down to untie mine. I hated this part. Shoe removal was mandatory in the Dershowitz household, which was a real shame, considering how the shag carpet was soggy with hairballs. Also, possibly, dung.

“Hey,” Tub said. “You about to lay down some dope rhymes?”

“What?”

He indicated his braces. “Bling don’t impress me, J-Fresh.”

I looked down at my chest. While I’d been working on my second shoe, the medallion had slipped from under my shirt. I caught it in my fist.

“Yes! Look! This is proof, right here! One of them gave this to me.”

“Which one? King Kong? The Incredible Squid? Or Mr. Roboto?”

“Mr. Roboto,” I said, then shook my head in irritation. “You have to listen to me!”