It’s hard to decide which bird is uglier, Vera my vulture or my newest but X-tinct stuffed dodo, which I decided to name X-it because there are no names I can think of that start with X. X-it is a word that I think sort of sounds like a first name anyway.
I
t was late when Grandpa bumped up our driveway. Ike and I slumped in the backseat, exhausted from our adventurous day. Slowly, we got out of the car. Mom was thrilled to hear about our new carousel record. She awarded hugs and kisses, and called, “Wash up and get into your pj’s,” as we slouched into the house.
“We had extra-large sodas . . .”
“. . . and big salt pretzels,” I added, trying to signal Ike to end the list of food right there by having my voice go up on the “zels” in “pretzels,” but Ike Sense prevailed.
“And then three candy bars . . .”
“Ike . . .” I tried to stop him as Mom’s smile slow-vanished with each of Ike’s boasts.
Hearing the day’s completely sugarcoated menu, Mom shot us a Swishback frown that made me want to dry up like a fallen leaf.
“Well, Grandpa said it was okay,” shouted Ike, and stormed off to avoid her glare.
This was the first example of excellent Ike Sense I had ever witnessed, since I was now alone to hear and bear, “Esmerelda, you should know better.”
That night, because of all the day’s excitement, I couldn’t get comfortable in my bed. I plumped and pushed my pillow until it was bruised black-and-blue.
And that night, because of all the day’s sugar, I couldn’t fall asleep.
I tossed and turned, tight-twisting the sheets.
That night, because of a bad dream, I couldn’t stay asleep.
I opened my eyes and sat up like a wound-up, popped out jack-in-the-box.
I couldn’t really say exactly which it was that awoke me: the day’s excitement, the candy’s sugar, or the night’s bad dream. It was probably an awful mixing of all three.
Half awake, I reached for my blankie and got a handful of rough washcloth instead.
Just then, a long-fingered black hand scratched at my window. Now, wide-woken by this scary sound, I caught my breath. It was only a branch that tap-tapped at the pane. I squeezed Vera hard.
Footsteps? My head swiveled to the door. Silence. There are no such things as ghosts. I know that. Ike probably couldn’t sleep either. In four seconds I would hear the rush of his pee shooting into the toilet bowl. Please, Ike, lift up the seat, I thought.
I stared at the knuckle-sized night-light plugged in next to my dollhouse at the base of the wall. It made the miniature doll kitchen glow a warm fuzzy orange as if the sun were setting outside its window. Inside, all my dolls were fast asleep. One — two — three — four. Nothing. Total night quiet. It must be Ike. Maybe he was sick. Better check. I side-slid from under my covers. I heard the muffled sound of some of the animals in my bedzoo tumbling to the floor. It must be Ike. My bare feet shuffled across bristled rug. It must be Ike. I opened wide the door. Darkness, nothing more, no Ike, no Mom, no . . . maybe Dad came home early! The thought tingled down from the tip of my head to numb my toes. What day was it . . . ? What night . . . ? I glanced over my shoulder at my moon-streaked calendar. No. There were too many empty days left to circle. It couldn’t be Dad.
I padded past the family photos that hung on the wall: me cuddled in a carriage in Korea, Ike swaddled in a bright-colored blanket in Kenya, Ike and me enjoying Germany, uniformed Dad hugging bundled Mom in Alaska. . . . Tick-tock, tick-tock, could that cuckoo clock be any louder? I froze. Grandpa McCarther and my newly uniformed dad shaking hands. Big smiles. Mom and Dad dressed to marry. Bigger kisses. Grandma Swishback and me with the big pink-and-blue-striped blanket. I wished I had it now. I unfroze and quick-turned into my parents’ room. Deep into dark I stared. Maybe he came home early? Maybe the war was over? Maybe the war wasn’t over and they sent him home early because he was . . . hurt? Soldiers get hurt. A million maybes. The rustling of the purple curtains broke my fearful silence.
“Dad,” I hardly whispered. No reply.
I noisily moved to the bedside. When I was little, I would crawl between the two long sleeping mounds. When I was sick or scared of thunder they would let me sleep in that warm green-blanketed valley between them.
In the dim light I struggled to see. Needlepoint pillows propped against the headboard, cool sheets flat — no mounds of snoring grown-ups rising off the bed. No valley. I was alone in my parents’ room.
And then I was really scared.
As I ran out and down the hall, a scream leaked down the back of my throat. Just before it spurted out, the fluttering lamp glow at the bottom of the stairs plugged it. I was safe. The kitchen light was on. Gripping the smooth banister with both hands, I single-stepped down. A still shadow stretched long across the floor.
Asleep, hair pulled in a long pony just like mine, head slumped over table, cradled on crossed slender arms just like mine, surrounded by crumpled wads and piled paper, was my mom. Napoleon raised his floppy head from the floor and stared back at me as if awaiting an order. I didn’t know whether she would want me to wake her or not. I hate that feeling when you’re not sure what a parent would want you to do. What was the right thing? Should I wake her so she could go to her bed or let her sleep because she was so tired? Sometimes you can seesaw back and forth on a problem like this until your head, heart, and stomach start to hurt.
“Mom,” I breathed. I didn’t mean to, it just skated out.
She looked so alone. So tired. I started to inch back to my room. Her eyes slow-lifted.
“Hey, pumpkin . . . you okay?”
“I couldn’t fall asleep. I had a bad dream.”
She cat-stretched, stood, put her arm around my shoulder, and gently turned me around.
“Come on, baby, I’ll tuck you in.”
Whenever my dad comes into my room to kiss me goodnight and I happen to be holding Wallace my walrus, he sings, “I am the walrus, coo-coo-ka-choo.” He is not a walrus. I don’t know why he sings this. He says it is a line from a famous song. I think that it must be a very funny song because walruses can’t really sing and because of the “coo-coo-ka-choo” part.
T
he sheets had gotten cold without me and I shivered a little as Mom pushed the edges tight under, then returned the fallen members of my bedzoo — Mandrake, Tililah, Reginald, and Gabriella — at my feet.
“Esme? You okay?”
As I nodded, my chin pushed the blanket down, and the back of my head dug deeper into the feathery pillow.
“You okay?” I parroted, squeezing my vulture.
She nodded.
“Why were you sleeping in the kitchen?”
“Just too tired.”
She smiled but not a happy type, ran her hand down her ponied hair, and then sat on the side of my bed. Unlike Dad, she barely pressed down into the mattress. The just-replaced animals at the foot of my bed didn’t move — not even a shudder or shake. They just stared.
“More importantly, missy, why weren’t you sleeping?”
“Not too tired.”
“It’s hard sometimes, hmm. You know, you have done quite a bit for our country. You realize what that makes you, don’t you?”
I didn’t.
“A hero.”
“No. Daddy is a . . .”
“Esme, you are my hero. You have been so brave and sacrificed so much during these last few months.”
I felt tears creeping from the tops of my cheeks.
“Sometimes moms are sooo busy that they don’t have time to tell you that they have noticed, but I have. I have. When Daddy comes back we’ll have a grand ceremony and give you a medal.”
“I don’t want a medal. I just want . . .” And I stopped, barely letting “want” dribble out. I figured that saying what I wanted wasn’t necessary and wouldn’t be at all brave.
“Before you know it he’ll be the one tucking you in.”
She smoothed the covers where she had just sat, as if not to leave a trace, and planted a good-night forehead kiss.
“How do you know for sure?” I soft-asked.
She tapped her forefinger forcefully against the side of her head as she drifted toward the door and replied, “Kidneys, my girl, kidneys.”
I wasn’t so sure what she meant by it, because that is where we keep our brains, not our kidneys. She smiled to let me in on the joke. I smiled to tell her I thought it was funny. So we both were smiling.
As my mother, Penelope Lulu Swishback McCarther, backed away into the black darkness of my room and I faded down into the grays of sleep, I realized that my dad, August Aloysius McCarther the Third, was only the second strongest, bravest person alive.
X-tinct, x-it, x-actly! Ms. Pitcher taught us that all these X words in real life are spelled E-x, not just the letter X. She used the word extra as an exciting example. I still call my Dodo X-it. Sometimes I can be awful stubborn.
A
rocket ship countdown can be really exciting: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 — BLAST OFF!!! The engines burp fire and launch the astronauts into the blue sky, heading to the moon. My countdown isn’t as exciting. 1 week, 7 days, 168 hours, a mess of minutes, lots and lots of seconds (more “than you can shake a stick at”) — DAD’S HOME!!!
It’s less like my head going into the clouds and more like having the ocean in my stomach. Some days the waves are so rough it makes me seasick. I feel like running into my bathroom, lying over the toilet, and throwing up. But I can’t. I hate that feeling when you want to puke but you can’t. Ugh.
Martina’s mom was stuck in Mobile tending her sick grandmother for the weekend. This was bad for her mom and even worse for her grandma but great for Martina and me since she got to sleep over.
Mom was making pasta for dinner and we were super hungry. Standing on chairs staring down at the pot of water on the stove, Martina and I watched, waiting for it to boil so we could drop in our handfuls of spaghetti.
“A watched pot never boils,” Mom warned, then wandered away.
“You think it knows we are watching?” asked Martina.
“How could water know if it is being watched? That’s silly.”
We peered in for a second more, then at the same time both of us inched backward on our chairs and ducked down below the pot’s edge, out of sight of the water.
“Whatcha doing?” asked Ike when he entered.
“Shhhhh,” we showered down on him. His ears turned Ike-red and he moved double time to find Mom. After a few moments we inched up, and sure enough, big bubbles were shooting off the bottom.
“It’s boiling!” I squealed.
“Mrs. McCarther! It’s boiling!” Martina reeled.
“Penny,” my mom corrected, and helped direct the paths of our hard pasta into the pot’s erupting center.
“Hmm, I guess a watched pot does boil.”
Martina and I nodded and smiled but did not offer anything to make her think different. Sometimes it is better for parents not to know they are almost always right.
After dinner we all got into our pj’s, cuddled up on the couch in the den under a huge Grandma Swishback quilt, made loads of popcorn, and watched an ancient not-color movie about a woman who really, really likes a ghost and also really, really likes a real live man. Partway in Ike got bored and grumped up the stairs, mumbling, “Dumb movie.” I was happy about him leaving because it made the movie better and left us more popcorn.
For sleepovers, Dad would carry the mattress from the downstairs guest bedroom and set it on the floor next to my bed. I always thought this task must have been awfully easy because with little fuss the mattress always appeared, sheets hospital-cornered, pillows plumped, ready for my friend to be tucked in. I was wrong. It was way easier for Dad to do than to actually be done.
The three of us dragged the flopping mattress down the hall and lifted it onto the first step. With our backs bent, Martina and I gripped the top and Mom the bottom.
“Pull,” Mom commanded, and we did.
“Push!” we called down, and she did.
It took about a hundred pulls and pushes, combined with several laughs, a bunch of giggles, and many more grunts to gradually, step by step, inch by inch, make it to the top of the stairs. Sweaty-wet, Mom flopped onto the mattress. We followed.
“Your dad is going to pay when he gets home! This is entirely one hundred percent his job.”
“Yeah, he’s going to totally pay,” I agreed.
“Absolutely pay,” chimed Martina, not wanting to be left out.
Pushing and pulling the mattress to its proper spot next to my bed, we listed every job we would have Dad do when he returned.
Mom tucked the pink sheets under the corners and went to get the extra pillow.
I handed Martina Karl the monkey from my bedzoo.
“Want to borrow him for the night?”
“Oh, Karl! How have you been getting along?” She put his puckered mouth to her ear. “Really! Wonderful.”
It was true, he had gotten along with all, from Alvin to Zelda — even though his first name did not start with an M.
Safely sandwiched between the sheets, I positioned my kind-of-ugly dodo, whose turn it was for me to cuddle. I explained exactly why the dodo bird really started with the letter X and Martina gasp-laughed at Grandpa’s problem-letter solution.
“You know odd is almost dodo spelled backward,” I reminded her.
“Almost,” agreed Martina.
“Okay, you two. Time to quiet down and get some sleep.”
Mom swept in, tucked the covers to our chins, and gave us kisses.
“Are you all right, Martina?”
“Yes. Thank you, Mrs. McCarther.”
“Penny,” my mom corrected, and flipped the lights. “Sleep, ladies. No more talking.”
Both of us squeezed our eyes shut. The door creaked closed. Slippered footsteps traveled the stairs. Our eyes popped open. No more talking, indeed, I thought to myself. Then why bother having a sleepover! I turned on my left side, and Martina turned on her right side to face me. Lit only by the tiny flicker of the night-light, our super-serious sleepover whisperings began. Voices barely louder than breathing, we chatted about our spaghetti dinner, the ghostly movie, and my pesky Ike. Then, after several exhausted yawns, we went silent and tried to fall asleep.
I couldn’t. Wondering if Martina could, I leaned over. Ulrich my unicorn, Gabriella my goat, and a small herd of other fluffy animals that I could not exactly identify hopped from my bedzoo to the floor. I stared down into the dark shadows. The watery whites of Martina’s open eyes glistened. She was most definitely awake.
“Martina?” I whispered. There was no response. “Martina?” I slightly raised the volume.
“Will they come home?”
“Soon for you. Eighteen days.” We all knew each other’s parents’ return dates better than our multiplication tables.
“Seventeen, it’s after midnight.”
I glanced at the glowing red numbers that sat on my desk. It was way past my bedtime.
“Richie C. said that when you see a single shoe, sneaker, or boot hanging from a tree or sitting in the street it’s because a lot of soldiers come home only needing one and they throw the other out. Do you think that is . . .”
Her voice slid short to silence. I clear-remembered our wonderful day parading around the neighborhood collecting scrap metal and laughing at the sidesplitting stories we had made up about all those single shoes.
“Fustilug.”
“You called old Mr. Wormser that. What is that? What’s a . . . ?”
“Fustilug — it rhymes with crusty bug.”
Martina quarter-chuckled at my one-line poem. Then I told her about the deep dark jungle of Nostomania and the bandy-legged blue bugs that live there.
“They crawl into asleep people’s ears, people who don’t think very much even when they are awake, and spin brain webs that gum up the whole thinking works.”
Martina’s mouth slow-slacked open and her eyes became full mooned.
“Then forever after, they have to say out loud whatever comes into their head, no matter how hurtful it is to others.”
“Wow. I didn’t know. . . .”
“Fustilugs live miserably, wandering from town to town without friends, ’cause whatever they think, they say. It is all so very sad and we really must feel sorry for them.”
“Fustilugs.” Martina yawned and closed her eyes.
I felt tiredness tug at me as well, and whole-closed my eyes. Before falling deep into my nightly dream I barely heard Martina whisper, “You’re a good storyteller.”