The Butterfly Jar

by Jeff Moss

  She walks in and stands with her Dad for a while

  And then Ted, her boyfriend, comes in down the aisle.

  His hair is all combed and he’s wearing a tie,

  And right then his Mom starts to sniffle and cry.

  And now it comes time for the get-married part,

  The minister says that we’re ready to start

  So he talks and he talks about some boring things,

  Then my little cousin Pete steps up holding two rings.

  He gives one to the groom and one to the bride,

  Then his Dad, Uncle Bill, pulls him off to the side.

  Then Carol and Ted kind of look at each other

  And another big sniffle comes from Ted’s mother,

  And Carol and Ted put on the gold rings

  And they talk and they promise each other some things.

  They promise that they’ll love each other a lot

  And help one another no matter what

  And be with each other the rest of their life.

  Then the minister says, “Now you’re husband and wife.”

  Then everyone’s in such a big happy mood

  And you go to a party with very much food

  Where you dance with some grown-ups and taste someone’s wine

  And then do a conga-dance in one long line

  ’Till Carol and Ted drive off in a car

  And everyone’s thinking how happy they are.

  So we all yell good-bye and throw handfuls of rice.

  Then the whole thing is over. Weddings are nice.

  LEMONADE PITCHER

  (A Cheer)

  Lemonade pitcher, you’re so great!

  Pitch that lemonade over home plate!

  Lemonade pitcher, ready, set, go!

  Grab that lemonade and throw, throw, throw!

  Throw it at the batter!

  Throw it on the grass!

  When the game is over,

  Throw it in a glass!

  Lemonade pitcher, sweet and cool!

  Best old pitcher in the whole darn school!

  Lemonade, lemonade, sis, boom, bah!

  Lemonade pitcher, rah, rah, rah!

  THE TREE

  When Elizabeth was only three,

  She and her father planted a tree,

  As small a one as you’ve ever seen.

  But now that Elizabeth’s past thirteen,

  The tree is as tall as the top of the door.

  Her Dad says the tree will keep on growing.

  She asks how tall. “There’s no way of knowing,”

  He says, “But you can bet it will

  Reach as high as the windowsill

  Of the bedroom up on the second floor.”

  And Lizzie says, “Someday when I’m grown

  With a job or a family of my own,

  I can come by and look at the tree.”

  And her Dad says, “Then maybe you’ll think of me

  And the day we planted it years before.”

  TWOS

  Lots of things come in twos—

  Ears and earmuffs, feet and shoes,

  Ankles, shoulders, elbows, eyes,

  Heels and shins and knees and thighs,

  Galoshes, ice skates, mittens, socks,

  Humps on camels, hands on clocks.

  And heads on monsters also do

  Like that one …

  Right in back of you!

  WHO DID THAT?

  I don’t know who did it.

  I don’t know if my brother did it.

  I don’t know if the dog did it.

  I don’t know if some big hairy monster did it.

  I don’t know if a burglar snuck in and did it.

  I don’t know if a ghost came back to life and did it.

  I don’t know if some huge yucchy wad of slime oozed in through the window and did it.

  All I know is

  Absolutely …

  Positively …

  One hundred percent for sure …

  I

  DID

  NOT

  DO IT!!!!

  So leave me alone!

  NO MATTER WHAT ANYONE SAYS ABOUT ME AND JONATHAN’S SISTER

  I never kissed her.

  THE BANANA KING

  A king I knew got tired

  Of salad, cheese, and meat

  And decided that bananas

  Was the only food he’d eat.

  Just boiled bananas, baked bananas,

  Scrambled bananas, fried,

  Broiled banana burgers

  With banana juice on the side.

  Now the king so loved bananas

  That he made a royal decree:

  “My subjects, too, shall only eat

  Bananas just like me.”

  Mashed bananas, pickled bananas,

  Hot banana stew,

  Banana soup and sandwiches,

  Banana pizza, too.

  So the king and all his subjects

  Ate bananas, nothing more,

  Till they ran out of bananas.

  And then they went back to eating all the normal stuff they ate before.

  (Which was good because with so much banana-eating, everybody was all sick to their stomachs anyway.)

  ROCK ’N’ ROLL STAR

  I dreamed I was a rock ’n’ roll superstar

  With a zillion fans and a long purple car.

  I gave a monster concert in the gym of our school

  And Peggy Rashmore thought I was awesome and cool.

  She sat way up front and she led all the cheers

  And boy, was she sorry she’d made fun of my ears.

  ERIC

  Part I: Things That Eric Knows

  1) The capital of Outer Mongolia

  2) How to spell eleven different kinds of dinosaurs

  3) Who won the World Series every year since 1955

  4) The difference between a stalactite and a stalagmite

  5) How to bake a cake

  Everybody says how smart Eric is.

  He is the smartest kid in the school.

  Even everybody’s parents say how smart he is!

  Part II: What We Think About Eric

  Do you think everybody loves Eric?

  (Make a check in the box.) Yes No

  Do you think everybody hates Eric?

  (Make a check in the box.) Yes No

  If you thought everybody loves Eric, you are wrong.

  If you thought everybody hates him, you are also wrong.

  What we think about Eric is: He’s okay.

  Not great, not cool, not ratty, and not nerdy.

  What we think Eric is, is okay.

  Some people like him, and other people think he

  happens to be a little boring.

  That’s it about Eric.

  RHODA

  My friend Rhoda is always very busy.

  She is always moving.

  She does everything fast.

  You can never say to Rhoda, “Hey, look at that pretty flower,” because Rhoda has already run past it.

  You cannot say to Rhoda, “Look at that weird puffy cloud

  that’s shaped like a blowfish,”

  Because if she looked up at the sky, Rhoda wouldn’t be able to watch where she was running.

  Even when she washes dishes or sets the table or gets dressed or reads a poem, Rhoda does it fast.

  It’s hard to just sit around and have a chat with her.

  But if you want to have a race or double-jump rope or see how quick you can change into your pajamas,

  Rhoda is a great friend to have.

  And, after all, there are other friends to do slow things with.

  THE LOCKED CLOSET

  There’s a closet where nobody goes.

  What is lurking inside no one knows.

  Like a body that’s dead,

  Or a weird shrunken head,

  Or my mother’s old high school prom clothes.

  DAD AND ME

  Up in hi
s closet, my Dad has a very old baseball glove

  That was his when he was a kid.

  In my closet, I have an old blanket called Softie

  That was mine when I was very little.

  Dad never uses his glove anymore

  And I don’t use Softie.

  But Dad doesn’t want to throw his glove away

  And I don’t want to throw away my blanket either.

  We just want to keep them.

  If you ask us why,

  We say we don’t know why, we just do.

  STEPHEN

  Stephen couldn’t read well.

  Some of the kids said, “He’ll probably have to leave here

  And go to another school because he’s such a bad reader.”

  Some of the kids laughed at him.

  Callie said, “There’s nothing funny about it.

  Everybody isn’t good at something.

  Steffie is bad at math,

  Benjamin isn’t fast.”

  Callie herself can’t dance almost.

  So a lot of us stopped making fun of Stephen.

  Then, after vacation, he wasn’t there anymore.

  They had to send him to a different school

  Because of his reading.

  When we talked about it, we said it was sad.

  After a while we mostly forgot about Stephen.

  But I have a birthday coming soon.

  I told Mom I’d invite Stephen,

  And she said, “Good. I hope he’ll come.”

  TWO AGAINST ONE

  Two against one

  Isn’t much fun

  Especially if you

  Aren’t part of the two.

  WHAT MOLLY THINKS WHEN HER PARENTS ASK HER TO SING FOR COMPANY ALL THE TIME

  Why do they always just tell me, “Go to it!”

  Without ever asking if I want to do it?

  I wonder if they’d think that things were so fine

  If they had to sing at parties of mine!

  NASTY DAN

  Nasty Dan was the meanest man I ever knew,

  He’d stomp and scream and be real mean the whole day through.

  He frowned a bunch, ate nails for lunch, and he’d never laugh,

  He’d just jump and yell and I heard tell he never took a bath.

  He lived alone in a nasty home with a big iron door,

  It was thirteen years since he’d washed his ears or swept the floor.

  When he went outside, everyone would hide, both big and small,

  And the only words he ever said were, “I don’t like you at all.”

  Now Nasty Pearl was a nasty girl who met Dan somehow.

  She said, “You’re like me, rotten as can be, let’s get married now.”

  So they went and did and had a rotten kid, and I must confess

  That today they’re living just as snug and cozy as could be …

  In their nasty happiness.

  NOT THE BEST FEELING

  If someone socks you in the eye

  And they don’t even tell you why,

  And then you try to climb a tree

  But you fall down and hurt your knee,

  And then your brother spills the glue

  But your father yells at you,

  You will not be feeling glad,

  But you will be feeling …

  … in the mood for door-slamming and pillow-bashing and not seeing anybody anymore, which is the same as saying.…

  You’ll be feeling.… MAD!

  MEETING STRANGERS

  I don’t like meeting strangers,

  I don’t know what to say.

  I guess I’m not the kind

  That people take to right away.

  They act like I’m a monster,

  When I’m the one who’s new.

  They never smile at me and say,

  “Why, hi there, how are you?”

  Oh, why don’t strangers like me?

  Is it anything I’ve said?

  Or is it just my five large eyes

  And three horns on my head?

  Oh, just because I’m nine feet tall

  With green fur on my face,

  Why must the kids yell, “Help us!

  It’s a thing from outer space!”

  I don’t like meeting strangers,

  I don’t know what to say.

  ’Cause whenever I see strangers,

  They just scream and run away.

  TURNING OFF THE FAUCET

  If you don’t turn the faucet off tight

  When you’re done in the bathroom,

  You’ll be wasting water.

  Also, the sink might fill up

  And overflow and flood the bathroom,

  And then the bathroom would fill up

  And overflow and flood the bedroom,

  And all your clothes would get soaking wet,

  And when you wore them, you’d catch a horrible cold

  And have to stay home from school

  And you couldn’t learn anything

  Or see your friends.

  And after you’d missed school long enough,

  All your friends would forget you

  And you would be so sad and wet

  You’d probably just stay in bed

  Wearing your sad, wet clothes

  With your sad, wet head

  On your sad, wet pillow

  Until you just shrivelled up and wasted away.

  And nobody would care.

  Except your parents

  And they’d be all sad and wet

  And shrivelling and wasting away, too,

  Because you didn’t turn the faucet off.

  THIS AND THAT

  THIS is big compared to THIS

  THIS is small compared to THAT

  THAT makes THIS

  Seem big and tall

  But

  THAT

  makes

  THIS

  seem

  very small.

  FAVORITE COLORS

  I asked Sue

  She said blue.

  I asked Ed

  He said red.

  I asked Eileen

  She said green.

  I asked Ray

  He said gray.

  I asked Jack

  He said black.

  I asked Lillian

  She said vermilion.

  I asked Dwight

  He said white.

  I asked Isolde

  She said gold.

  I asked Diane

  She said tan.

  I asked Othello

  He said yellow.

  I asked Charlotte

  She said scarlet.

  I asked Bruce

  He said puce.

  I asked Binky,

  She said pink-y.

  Asking your friends their favorite color,

  Sometimes it’s interesting and sometimes it’s duller.

  TOENAILS

  Toenails are one thing

  There’s just no good use for.

  They aren’t even worth

  Trying to make an excuse for.

  All I can think of

  As I sit here and scribble

  Is that some disgusting people

  Occasionally use their toenails for …

  A little nibble.

  (I’m not saying who

  But I’m sure it’s not you.)

  IN BETWEEN

  My sister goes out to the movies

  My brother stays home in his crib.

  I’m too young to go with my sister

  And too old for wearing a bib.

  Too grown-up to be baby-sat for,

  But too young to go baby-sit.

  So if there’s one age that is lousy,

  I’ll tell you for sure, this is it.

  A LOT OF KIDS

  There are a lot of kids

  Living in my apartment building

  And a lot of apartment buildings on my street

  And a lot of streets in
this city

  And cities in this country

  And a lot of countries in the world.

  So I wonder if somewhere there’s a kid I’ve never met

  Living in some building on some street

  In some city and country I’ll never know—

  And I wonder if that kid and I might be best friends

  If we ever met.

  THE ICE CREAM PAIN

  Where the back of my throat meets the bottom of my brain

  Comes the incredible ice cream pain.

  When I swallow wrong with a bite of ice cream,

  It hurts so bad that I almost scream.

  It freezes so bad that I want to howl

  Or drink boiling water or eat a towel.

  Beware of ice cream! It could drive you insane—

  With that (Oooh! Owww!) incredible ice cream pain!

  DUST

  My little brother asked me:

  “Where does dust come from?”

  I told him maybe God keeps emptying out

  Some big vacuum cleaner bag in the sky.

  Now I have to find somebody who knows the right answer.

  ABBY’S DIARY (Thursday)

  Dear Diary,

  Read the following and then make a check (√) in the box at the bottom of the page next to the wishes you think I hope will come true.