the suit out of the box. “What the heck? This isn’t no sparerib. This isn’t even a pork chop.”
“It looks like a hot dog,” Grandma said. “I guess it was all Larry could get on short notice.”
“This don’t work,” Lula said. “How can someone be the Flamin’ dancing hot dog when we’re cooking ribs?”
“It could be a pork hot dog,” Grandma said.
“That’s true,” Lula said. “A pork hot dog’s pretty close to a rib. It’s sort of like a ground-up rib.”
She held the suit up. It looked to be about six feet from top to bottom. The hot dog was in a padded bun and was enhanced with a stripe of yellow mustard.
“It’s a real colorful costume,” Grandma said. “I wouldn’t mind wearing it, but then no one would know who I was when I was on television.”
That sounded like a good deal to me. “I’ll wear it,” I said.
There were holes in the bottom where my legs could stick out, armholes in the sides of the bun, and part of the hot dog was made of mesh, so I could sort of see. I got the thing on, and Grandma zipped me up.
“This is disappointing,” Lula said. “It’s not as good as Mister Clucky.”
“She’s got a saggy bun,” Grandma said.
Connie squished my bun. “It’s foam. It needs reshaping.”
Everyone worked on the bun while I stood there.
“It’s hot in this thing,” I said. “And I can’t see through the hot dog skin. Everything’s brown. And there’s only a little window to look through.”
“I can’t hardly hear what you’re saying through all that padding,” Grandma said. “But don’t worry, we got you looking pretty good.”
“Yeah,” Lula said. “Dance around. Let’s see what you got.”
“What kind of dance?” I asked her.
“I don’t know. Any kind of dance.”
I jumped around a little and fell over.
“This is top-heavy,” I said.
“It don’t look top-heavy,” Lula said. “It’s all one size top to bottom. Imagine if we got a pork chop instead of a hot dog.”
I was on my back, and all I saw was brown sky. I rolled side to side, trying to flip over. No luck. I was stuck in the stupid bun. I flopped around, flailing my arms and kicking my feet. I got some decent momentum going rocking back and forth in my bun, but in the end, it didn’t get me anywhere.
Lula looked down at me. “Stop clownin’ around. You’re scarin’ the kids. You’re even creepin’ out the big people. It’s like someone threw away a giant twitching hot dog.”
“I can’t get up!”
“What?”
“I can’t fucking get up. What part of that don’t you understand?”
“Well, you should have said so instead of just layin’ there thrashin’ around.”
Connie and Lula grabbed my arms and hauled me to my feet.
“This might not be a good idea,” I told them. “This suit is unwieldy.”
“You just gotta get used to it,” Lula said. “I bet Al Roker will be here any minute. Anybody seen Al Roker?”
Some people stopped to look at me.
“What is it?” a man asked.
“It’s a dancing hot dog,” Lula said.
“It’s not dancing,” the man said.
There was a kid with the man. “I want to see the hot dog dance,” the kid said.
I did a couple moves and fell over. “Shit!”
The kid looked up at the man. “The hot dog said shit.”
Everyone hurried away.
“Dancing hot dogs don’t say shit,” Lula said to me, pulling me upright.
“What do they friggin’ say?”
“They say oops.”
“I’ll try to remember.”
“And that’s a cranky tone I’m hearing,” Lula said. “Hot dogs are happy food. If you was a brussels sprout, you could be cranky. Or maybe a lima bean.”
“I don’t feel happy. I’m sweating like a pig in this thing.”
“Hey,” Lula said. “You were the one who wanted to be the hot dog. Nobody made you be the hot dog. And you better learn how to dance before Al gets here, or you’re going to miss your chance at having a national television debut.”
My stomach got queasy, and I felt my skin crawl at the back of my neck. “What’s out there that I can’t see?” I asked. “Spiders? Snakes?”
“It’s Joyce Barnhardt,” Grandma said.
I turned around, and sure enough, it was Barnhardt. Her red hair was piled high on her head, her mouth was high-gloss vermilion. Her breasts were barely contained in a red leather bustier that matched skintight red leather pants and spike-heeled red leather boots.
“Who’s the hot dog?” Joyce wanted to know.
“It’s Stephanie,” Grandma said.
“Figures. I suppose you wanted her to be the hot dog so it would