So that’s how we met Mr. G. And after that first day it was cool to wave to him and say hi. Allan and I talked him into another three-sided game of catch a few weeks later, and he gave us some pointers about pitching. He was a lot calmer than Coach Hanson at school, and when I asked him if he’d ever played for real, he just grinned, all shy.

“I’m flattered, but no—a little in high school and college, a few games on weekends here and there.”

“But you’re good—way better than even my coach.”

“Thank you, but I’m nothing special. Just someone who loves the game,” he told me. I respected how modest he was about that—like it was no big deal that he still had a good throwing arm for an old guy.

M.A. liked him too. She and the Pudge sometimes went over to borrow eggs or sugar from him for Mrs. Sanchez, our babysitter. Then M. A. would bring him back a little of whatever Mrs. S made, to thank him. Usually it was cookies—Mrs. S makes these great Mexican wedding cookies—but sometimes it was cake or banana bread. M. A. told me that Mr. G told her stuff about bugs.

“Like what?”

“You gotta keep flies away because when they land on stuff they throw up and eat it again, just like Pepe.” That grossed me out—Pepe was Mrs. Sanchez’s Chihuahua, and he did that a lot—the recycling his dog food thing. Mrs. Sanchez said it was because he was old, but I think it was because he was always getting into Charlie’s cat food and wolfing it down. Dumb dog.

I promised myself I’d wash off any food of mine a fly touched from now on. M. A. kept talking. “An’ he showed me his running bugs and let me help feed them dog food because the store doesn’t make bug food. And I got to see his married picture up on the wall.”

That wasn’t right. I shook my head. “Mr. G’s not married, M. A. He’s like dad.”

M.A. stuck her chin out, and picked at the Band-Aid on her knee. “He used to be, like daddy. I saw it on the wall. GilGrissle all dressed up in a black dress and lots of people there.”

Now I knew what she was talking about and cracked up. She’s such a kid, you know? “Is it the one where he has like a flat thing on his head, with a string?”

“Yep.”

“That’s his college picture. He’s graduating, not getting married, dummy. Gina has a picture like that too, over her fireplace, remember?

Gina is my dad’s girlfriend. She’s a nurse out at Desert Palms. M. A. and I, we like her a lot. She takes care of us in the afternoons until dad gets home. We have Mrs. Sanchez in the morning and Gina at night, and usually she stays over unless she’s doing a night shift.

“But Gina hadda white dress and GilGrissle hadda black one. That’s MARRIED pictures.” M.A. shouts. She can be really stubborn sometimes. I just shook my head.

“Nuh uh. It’s just college pictures. Mr. G’s not married.”

“I want him to get married,” M. A. told me. “Then he can have a baby girl and I can have somebody to play with.”

Right. I hoped she never said that to Mr. G.

*** *** ***

For a few weeks I didn’t see Mr. G much—I had practice three afternoons out of the week, and had to make up for homework on the other two. The real bummer was the extra stuff piled on by Ms. Herman. She’s a good biology teacher I guess, but Allan and I were starting to have some trouble with keeping up. My dad wasn’t much help—he’s good with math and Econ—so I was stuck until he told me to go ask Mr. G.

I hated to ask, but I’d lose my eligibility to play if I got a D in Biology, so I went over to Mr. G’s house. He was home.

“Peter. Are you all right?” I guess it kind of showed on my face. I took a deep breath, and just let it out.

“Mr. G, I’m screwing up in Biology and Mrs. Herman’s going too fast so I can’t keep up and if I get a D I’ll have to drop baseball and that would suck really, really bad so my dad said to ask if you knew anything about DNA.”

He gives me this look, all serious and for a minute I think he’s going to tell me he can’t help; that he’s got things to do. I bite my lips because I’m not going to beg, but if he says no, I’m really, really screwed at this point . . . .

“I know something about DNA,” he tells me with a nod, and I suck in a deep breath, feeling kinda dizzy. Mr. G grins a little at me, and holds a hand out. I give him my big fat textbook and follow him inside.

His house is still tidy, but I can see he’s been fixing dinner or something, because he’s got some dishes and utensils out in his kitchen. He waves for me to sit at the table as he thumbs through my book. My homework assignment falls out, but he catches it without even looking. “Orange juice? I’m out of milk—“

“Oh! Um, sure. Thanks.”

“So this is your assignment?” he asks and looks over the sheet as he pours an orange juice. No pulp, yeah! I drink up, and it tastes really good.

“Yeah. I’m supposed to extract DNA from something and bring it in tomorrow, but part of the directions got lost, so---“

“—So I have an idea. We’re going to need my blender, and some gloves, I’m pretty sure I have some meat tenderizer and some test tubes—Peter, what were you going to extract this DNA from?”

“M.A.” I tell him jokingly, and Mr. G sort of grins, but shakes his head.

“No. Not only is it a tad unethical, I refuse to deal with your little sister’s mucus on any level. How about some—“ He thinks for a minute, and I can tell he’s going for something easy. “--Dried peas?”

“We have some at home—“ I slide off the stool and run back home. Dad helps me find the bag in the pantry and reminds me to thank Mr. G. Like I was going to forget—the guy’s saving my grade, you know? When I get back he hollers for me to come in, and I do, putting the bag of dried peas on his kitchen counter. Mr. G looks at me over his glasses.

“Notebook. You’re going to need to record this.”

I pull out my notebook and put the heading on the page, then lay out the procedural like Mrs. Herman likes it. Mr. G hands me some plastic gloves. I pull them on, and for a minute I wonder where he got them from. Then he points to the blender.

“Measure out half a cup of peas and about a cup of cold water. I need to get some test tubes---“

He heads out to his garage, and I do what he says. The peas are weird—some float, but most of them sink. I write it all down in the notebook, and try to draw it, since Mrs. Herman gives extra credit for illustrations. Mr. G comes back and he’s got test tubes and a rack to hold them, just like the lab at school.

“You have test tubes? In your garage?” Okay, it comes out kind of rude, but I thought he just studied bugs. I didn’t think he had any scientific stuff. Mr. G sets the rack up and looks at me from the corner of his eyes.

“I have test tubes. Part of being a scientist is having the right equipment.” He looks at the blender full of wet peas. “Mostly.”

“Okay. So—now what?”

“Now, we need meat tenderizer, salt, and dishwashing soap,” he tells me.

Weirder and weirder. I’m helping him add the salt when the doorbell rings. Mr. G. and I look at each other.

“M. A. probably,” I sigh. Mr. G. motions with his head for me to answer the door. I yank it open, all set to yell, but it’s not M. A.

Whoa. There’s a lady there, looking just as surprised as me, and I can smell her perfume. She’s tall and pretty, and has sunglasses on the top of her head and she’s pretty and has this sort of gap in her teeth and I look up at her.

She’s pretty.

“Grissom?” she says. I shake my head.

“No, I’m Peter . . . “ what is my last name? From behind me in the kitchen I hear Mr. G.

“—Meyers. Sara?”

“Grissom.” Her smile gets bigger and she looks at me again. “Peter.”

“Uh . . . “ Could I sound like any more of a doofus? I let her in, and she walks past me. Nice perfume, like Kylie Arnstein’s in my English class. I follow her into the kitchen and she sets a folder down, then looks at the blender of peas. Mr. G has a little smile on his face and all of a sudden I think maybe she’s his girlfriend because it’s just the same sort of smile my dad gets around Gina.

Oh well. I slump on my stool.

“Needed you to sign off on the McAllen case since Ecklie’s making us submit all the evidence. So—making dinner?” she says.

“Extracting DNA. Peter asked for some help,” Mr. G says and he takes the folder. It looks funny to see it in his gloved hands. The Sara lady gives a nod and holds out a hand to me.

“I’m Sara Sidle and I work at the crime lab with Grissom.” I shake her hand.

“Crime lab? I thought you were a bug scientist?” Suddenly Mr. G is a WAY lot cooler than I thought he was. A crime scientist! Whoa! Wait until I tell Allan!

“I’m still an entomologist. I just happen to work for the police as well,” he murmurs, and hits a button on his blender. The peas go spinning and for a moment all three of us stare at it. A big green gooey tornado under glass. If Charlie was here he’d want to eat it.

Who am I kidding? M.A. WOULD eat it. Mr. G turns it off and picks up the pitcher part. Ms Sidle is grinning again. “DNA frappe?” she says.

“Decidedly. Peter, hand me that strainer hanging on the hook by the fridge.” I do and watch him pour the stuff in, letting the thin part run through. He winks at me. “This is exactly what the four thousand dollar centrifuge does at the lab, for far, far less. Now we need to add the dish soap.”

“Dish soap?”

“Dish soap,” Ms Sidle says. “The blender separated the cells, but now you have to break up the nuclei to see the DNA.”

Double brains helping me—I am SO going to ace this assignment! Mr. G hands me some of the tubes and makes me pour the pea juice in them, about one third full each. We have three now, and he sets them in a rack, then hands me a bottle of Joy.

“A few drops, then we wait.”

I manage to squirt some liquid soap in each tube, and just when I’m finishing up, the doorbell rings again. This time it HAS to be M.A. I just know it.

It is. She marches right past me into the place, her stupid Barbie in one hand something little in the other one. She looks up at Ms. Sidle.

“Hi.”

“Um, hi.”

“GilGrissle I gotta another bug for you,” my sister tells him and now I know what what’s in her hand. Gross. But Mr. G doesn’t even seem freaked out; he just gets one of the empty test tubes and puts it against M.A.’s dirty hand by her thumb and pointer finger and she lets the bug go. It sort of wobbles down into the tube. A lady bug who looks kind of . . . squashed. Mr. G puts a cap on the tube and looks at it. He is wincing a little, and Ms. Sidle has a hand over her mouth but I can tell it’s so she doesn’t laugh.

“Thank you, Mary Alice. This is a nice specimen of Hippodamia convergens.”

“No, it’s a ladybug.” M. A. tells him, then she looks at Ms. Sidle again. “My name is Mary Alice and I have a cat. And a Barbie.”

“Pleased to meet you. My name is Sara Sidle and I have a badge. And a plant.”

Mr. G gives her this sharp look, and I can tell he’s surprised a little, but I don’t know why. I scope out the test tubes and then glare at my sister.

“Come on, M. A., beat it all right? I have to do get my experiment done!”

“Well I NEED to give the ladybug to GilGrissle because Charlie tried to EAT it and I had to wipe all the spit off her,” M. A. says and then she’s climbed up on one of the stools and is looking at Ms. Sidle again, waving her stupid Barbie. “This is Dora’s mom. Do you think she’s pretty?”

“She’s . . . interesting,” Ms. Sidle says, and this time Mr. G’s mouth is twitching and I’m about to start laughing too. Bald Barbies with nothing on but a pair of shorts are NOT pretty, but you can’t tell my sister that. I look at Mr. G and sigh.

“I should take her home.”

“We’re almost done. She can stay,” Mr. G tells me and he’s handing me a shaker of meat tenderizer. “Add some of this to each tube—just a pinch.”

“What is it?” I do what he says. The pea juice was cloudy but now it’s getting clearer. M. A. is looking at the blender and before she can reach up and push the button on it, Ms. Sidle catches her hand.

“Hey!”

“Hey yourself—there’s no lid on the blender right now. We’d have peas flying everywhere, kiddo. And I look terrible with green hair.”

Mary Alice giggles. Mr. G takes the mushed peas and pours them down his garbage disposal with a big gloopy sound. Mary Alice giggles again, dopey kid. “I want green hair. I wanna be a mermaid and have green hair in the bathtub.”

“You want hair that looks like boogers?” I tell her, and then I remember we’re not at home and look at Mr. G and Ms. Sidle. “Sorry, that was gross, I know.”

“I’ve worked with worse,” Mr. G says. “Now we need some rubbing alcohol and some swabs. And in answer to your question, we’ve added enzymes, which speed up the chemical reaction.”

“Oh.” I grab my notebook and write that down, taking a minute to catch up on the pictures. M. A. is making her stupid doll swim in the air.

“Now Dora’s mom is a mermaid, but she needs a tail.”

“Welll--I could make one for her—“ Ms Sidle says, kinda softly. I look at her. Mr. G looks at her. M. A. looks at her. She shrugs. “All I need would be a green sock, some duct tape and a marker—Grissom?“

“—I’m fairly sure I have a sock I can sacrifice to the cause,” he says, and I can see he’s almost smiling that way again at her.

Grown-ups are weird.

Mr. G goes off to the back of his apartment and I poke at one of the test tubes with my pencil. M. A. is still looking at Ms. Sidle.

“Can I see your badge?” Boy my sister is pushy.

“Sure.” Ms. Sidle fishes it out and I take a look myself. It’s not like Gina’s from the hospital; this one has the police emblem, and in her picture, Ms. Sidle looks pretty, but tough. M. A. touches it.

Mr. G comes back and he’s got the sock and tape and marker and some rubbing alcohol too, that he gives to me, along with a bunch of Q tips.

“Time to extract some DNA. Sara, your ichthyic necessities—“

“Ickky--?” My sister wrinkles her nose.

”--Fish stuff,” Ms. Sidle says. “Let’s make a mermaid and let your brother finish his homework, Mary Alice.”

So with Mr. G’s help I manage to pour some alcohol in two of the tubes. He swabs one out, and I do the other; we get this long white stringy goo on the Q-tips. Mr. G carefully spreads it out on one of his dinner plates and I poke at it a little. “That’s DNA?”

“That’s DNA. The soap and meat tenderizer helped the cells to break up and layer into the water, which is heavier, and the alcohol, which is lighter. You can keep some of strands in a test tube of alcohol if you need to show them for your teacher.”

“Oh that would be very cool, Mr. G. And can you sign off on the bottom that you helped me with this?”

Mr. G nods, and I can tell he’s pleased to be asked. I clear my throat a little. “Thanks. A whole lot. I really needed this.”

“Glad to help.” He says in a low voice, and it’s kind of cool because I know he means it for real-- Mr. G liked doing the experiment. Mary Alice runs over and grabs him by the hand right then.

“Gotta see! Dora’s mom is like Ariel!”

And whoa, she is. The dopey doll really DOES look like a mermaid. The sock is up over her legs to her hips, and taped at the waist so it stays on, and there’s another piece of it for like, a bra on her chest. Ms. Sidle even drew scales on the sock, and down at the bottom she used tape to make little fins on the sides.

Even Mr. G is impressed. I see him look at Ms. Sidle but he doesn’t say anything. She smiles and they’re doing that grown up thing again.

“Your talents never cease to amaze me,” he tells her. She grins again and it’s so pretty that I wish she’d do that at me.

“Good to know, Mr. Wizard. I have to get going—dinner break’s going to be over soon.”

M. A. pulls on Ms. Sidle’s hand and makes her bend down so she can whisper in her ear. My sister says thank you like that—right in your ear. She says it’s because it’s because thank yous are only for one person at a time, like a secret, and I can kinda understand that. Then she hugs her doll and just when I think it’s going to be okay and I pick up my notebook---

“Are you going to marry GilGrissle and make a baby for me yet?”

I so want to kill her sometimes.