It was Saturday. It was raining. It was too cold to go out in the rain even between rains. (To sail things down the street by the curb. Acorn lids were too teeny, too tipsy, though they sometimes spin good. Red and yellow leaves go fast but then they slip under and stick on the cement and the water runs right over. Wadded-up newspaper’s best. Dry to start with. Although it bobbles too much. But you can see it pretty far, and run after it and see how it gets stuck at the grate, and bobbles harder and harder, until finally it’s too wet, it sinks through, it goes down the sewer forever and ever. Neat.)
“Mom, can Denny come over?”
“Okay—I’ll call his mother as soon as I finish this.” (Mom was baking ‘rolled jell cake’—but I liked peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches just as well.)
“Can he stay for lunch?”
“I’ll ask his mother.”
“Can he stay for dinner?”
“I think lunch is enough.”
“Ah, Mom.”
“But, honey, you’ll still have all afternoon to play, before he goes home for dinner. That’s enough.”
“Okay.” I waited. Roll, roll, jell, jell, cake, cake. “Are you gonna call?”
“I said I would—just let me finish.” (I can’t tell time when I’m waiting for something. I can read time now, but who wants to stand by the clock and watch the skinny line go around.)
“Now?”
“Okay, okay, let me wash the flour off my hands—”
I raced into the living room and climbed on the sofa, I had my face next to the front window waiting to see when Denny came out his door across the street. Swoosh-swish, swoosh-swish, Mom was dialing the phone. Mom was talking to Denny’s mother. Mom was agreeing that Denny would stay for lunch—he must be coming!
But, Mom kept on talking and I didn’t think the message was getting through, what did Dad’s new car and milk-not-going-to-be-delivered-anymore have to do with Denny? I was ready to give up and Mom was still on the phone when I saw Denny’s door open and Denny come out! I guess Denny doesn’t have to wait for his mother to cross the street. I guess he’s a year older than me and he knows to stop and look both ways and they trust him not to get run over. But my mother was still on the telephone. She knows I can’t open the front door (it sticks). She knows he’ll have to ring the doorbell. Or go to the back door. Or go home because she’s still talking and talking—
Back door—good! I can open the back door.
“Denny’s coming over!” my brother yells down from upstairs. He’s supposed to be doing his book report for fourth grade. How’s he doing a book report if he’s looking out the window? Denny’s coming over to play with me, not Gary. (I can’t even read yet, I’m supposed to play.) This alarm from upstairs is a hint that Gary’s going to want to play too. I don’t like it.
In the basement we were okay for about fifteen minutes. Then I heard my brother thumping down the stairs.
“I have a game we can play!”
I knew Gary wouldn’t leave us alone. Here he is, taking over.
“We’re watching the Three Little Pigs,” I complain.
“It’s not even a movie,” Gary sneers.
From the look on Denny’s face I guess he agrees. And Gary’s already sliding the blue toy chest Grandpa made out from behind the furnace room door.
Gary’s ‘game’: You get up on the toy chest and take off all your clothes and dance. Or you take off all your clothes and get up on the toy chest and dance. Or you dance and you take off all your clothes on top of the toy chest. Three things, but I don’t get the order and I don’t know why we do it.
“I’ll work the spotlight. You can go first!”
“Tell me again.”
“Just get up there!” Gary yanks out the circle of little pictures (The Three Little Pigs, I think they look like real pigs—only with clothes), and my brother aims the light at the chest. Then he puts the tower from his tin fort under it so the light aims up higher.
Just get up there! I just get up there.
It’s a silly game, I say, but because Gary thought it up it’s supposed to be a lot more fun than watching stories on The View Master.
I guess it was fun sort of. I got up on the toy chest and Gary pointed the light in my face and I pushed down my pants and danced without music, clucking to myself to keep time, stomping on the chest, and the noise I guess is the reason Mom came down to see what was making that sound. Or Gary going, “Ooh-la-la!” like a duck quacks. Or Denny laughing and throwing plastic Cowboys and Indians at me. Anyway, with the light in my eyes I didn’t know anything about Mom coming down until I heard her gasp.
The projector fell on the floor.
I fell off the toy chest.
Not how I expected a show should end but I also didn’t have any idea how a show should start but I also didn’t know what a show was about. I mean, I certainly couldn’t dance with my pants and underpants balled up around my ankles; from the start I couldn’t turn around without clump! clump! clump! hopping. And I couldn’t step down, either.
Yeah, it was over so, kind of that’s why I fell. The floor was cold. And prickly with Cowboys.
“Exactly whose idea was—?”
“We were just—”
“Gary, you get upstairs. To the den. And you wait there for me. Now.”
“We were just—”
“NOW!”
What were we just doing?
Mom’s head swiveled like the top of a tank. Really. “Denny, you put on your coat and— And just go home.” Denny started to— “Wait by the curb until I see you across.”
Up goes Denny. Up goes Mom.
Hey—what about me?
I couldn’t roll over (too many toys) but I had to sit up. The projector—too hot to touch, I’d have to unplug it. The beam of light now hit on the wall with the carom board and the painting of Mount Something—Rainier—with the hole poked in it. And on the table that in summer we have on the back porch.
Hey, the table’s pretty sturdy.
Hey, we could have used that for a stage, bigger, higher up, more like a real stage. We could have—
No. Even I knew this wasn’t a good time to think about making anything better, that I should just pull up my pants, unplug the projector, and keep my mouth shut. I’m not as dumb as I look (that’s what Dad always says).
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ID: 273911150