The Stories Huey Tells

by Ann Cameron

  Banana Spaghetti was not the way I had imagined it.

  It wasn’t yellow. It was brown. It wasn’t happy. It looked miserable.

  It looked worse than turnips, worse than eggplant, worse than a baked fish eye.

  “Maybe it’s better than we think,” Julian said. “When you don’t like some stuff, Mom always tells you it’s better than you think.”

  “Will she eat it?” I asked.

  “She’ll eat it because we made it,” Julian said.

  “That might not be a good enough reason,” I said.

  Julian, Huey, and Gloria

  books by Ann Cameron

  The Stories Julian Tells

  More Stories Julian Tells

  Julian’s Glorious Summer

  Julian, Secret Agent

  Julian, Dream Doctor

  The Stories Huey Tells

  More Stories Huey Tells

  Gloria Rising

  Contents

  Blue Light, Green Light

  The Rule

  Chef Huey

  Tracks

  My Trip to Africa

  My brother, Julian, isn’t scared of the dark. Nighttime doesn’t bother him. He just gets into bed, puts a pillow over his head, and goes to sleep.

  Not me. I don’t like the dark, and I get scary dreams. One I dreamed lots of times, and every time I dreamed it, it got worse. Finally I told it to Julian.

  “I was walking in a high place. Then all of a sudden I went over a cliff. The whole world just dissolved. I was falling straight down to the bottom of the universe. I was going to hit it and die”

  “Then what?” Julian asked.

  “I woke up.”

  “That’s nothing!” Julian said. “I’ve had much scarier dreams than that! Once I dreamed a lion licked my face. But I wasn’t even scared!”

  “A lion is not like falling!” I said. He made me mad. He always acts like nothing I say is important.

  “It’s no use telling you anything!” I said.

  I told my mom my dream—how when I was falling, it was like my stomach climbed up into my head.

  She said maybe the dream wouldn’t happen anymore if my body had more calcium. She said she’d fix me warm milk with honey before I went to bed.

  I told my dad my dream.

  “I was falling through nowhere,” I said. “There wasn’t one solid thing anywhere! And I just kept dropping faster and faster all the way to the bottom of the universe.”

  “Huey,” my dad said, “the universe doesn’t have a bottom. So you can’t hit it. And there isn’t any nowhere! Everyplace is somewhere”

  “In the dream, it’s like I’m paralyzed. And it seems like I’m nowhere.”

  “Maybe your mattress is too soft,” my dad said. “I’ll put a piece of plywood under it.”

  And he did. But the next night, even with calcium and plywood, I was falling just the same.

  “Plywood didn’t fix it,” I told my dad. “I still feel like I’m falling through nowhere.”

  He had just come home from work. “Give me time to think,” he said.

  He went into the house and sat in his favorite chair. He put his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands. He shut his eyes and pulled his hair. He sighed.

  Then he opened his eyes and smiled.

  “I have just what you need in the basement!” he said.

  He ran down the basement stairs and came up with something in a bag.

  “Come on!” he said.

  We went straight upstairs to my bed. He reached into the bag like a magician.

  “This is the answer!” he said.

  He pulled out a brand-new brick.

  “How is that going to help me?” I asked.

  “Feel it!” Dad said.

  I felt it.

  “This brick,” my dad said, “is solid.”

  He set it down in the middle of my bed.

  “Now,” he said, “try it.”

  “Try it?” I said.

  “Yes,” he said. “Lie down on it!”

  “Lie down on it?!” I said.

  “Yes!” he said.

  I didn’t really want to try it, but I did. I lay back. I could feel the edges of the brick against my spine. I could even feel the three round holes in the middle of it. I sat up.

  “How did it feel, Huey?” my dad asked.

  “Hard!” I said.

  “See!” my dad said. “That’s how the world really is. Hard! Full of hard stuff. You really can’t just fall away to nowhere. If you sleep on this nice new brick, it will tell your body that!”

  “Dad,” I said, “if I lie on that brick, I will never sleep again!”

  My dad looked disappointed.

  “Anyhow,” he said, “maybe your body will remember how it felt and not forget the world is solid. Or, if you wake up, maybe just touching it will help.”

  He put it next to the lamp on my night table.

  “What’s that?” Julian asked when he saw it.

  “It’s a present from Dad,” I said.

  “Why didn’t he give me a present?” Julian asked.

  “You don’t need one,” I said.

  When I woke up at night, I touched the brick. It made me feel better, but it didn’t stop my bad dream.

  Julian and I have a friend, Gloria. I was scared to tell her about my dream. I was scared she’d nothing it, like Julian. But one day when Julian wasn’t around, I told her anyway.

  “That’s a horrible dream!” she said. She sounded like she really understood how it was. Even though she was understanding a horrible thing, her understanding made me feel good.

  “Do you get scary dreams?” I asked.

  “Sometimes,” she said. “Real bad ones.”

  And she told me about them.

  The worst was about some bad guys with guns trying to break down the door to her house. She and her mom and dad pushed and pushed against the door to hold the bad guys back. And then the door broke, and she and her folks started running.

  But they couldn’t run fast enough…

  ’That dream is as bad as mine!” I said.

  “Yes!” Gloria said. “And when I wake up, I feel scared and kind of sick to my stomach. And I don’t want to go back to sleep. I can be brave when I’m awake—but it’s hard to be brave when you’re asleep.”

  “I wish we could signal each other when we wake up at night,” I said. “So we could tell each other that we are okay.”

  “With lights in our bedroom windows, we could do it,” Gloria said. “I could see yours shining, and you could see mine.”

  “We should do it,” I said.

  So we asked our folks for permission to buy lights and hang them in our windows. Gloria’s folks said she could do it if I could. My folks said I had to ask Julian.

  I thought he would say no. But he didn’t. He said it was a good idea.

  My dad drove us to a hardware store. We bought reflector lights with strong clamps and colored reflector bulbs. Gloria bought a green bulb. Julian and I bought a blue one.

  My dad let the three of us out of the truck at Gloria’s house. The clamp on the light was hard to open. Gloria’s mom and dad clamped it to the windowsill for her. Gloria screwed in the bulb and plugged in the light. It worked!

  At our house we got our light fixed up just like Gloria’s, and Gloria stayed for supper. Afterward, she went home so we could test our signals.

  Julian and I went up to our room. Exactly at nine, we screwed in the bulb. Our blue light shone out. Down the street there came an answer—a green light glowing in Gloria’s window.

  “It works!” Julian said. “And it isn’t quite so dark in here. Sometimes it gets too dark. That’s why I sleep with a pillow over my head.” />
  I was surprised. “I thought you liked the dark,” I said.

  “A whole lot of it is too much,” Julian said.

  I thought. Maybe it wasn’t just me and Gloria that didn’t like the dark. Maybe it scares everybody a little.

  “If it gets too dark,” I told him, “you can come and get in bed with me sometimes.”

  And now, sometimes he does.

  There’s one good thing about the dark. In daylight our signals don’t show up. It’s the dark that makes them beautiful.

  I don’t have falling dreams anymore. I don’t know why. Maybe the reason is the plywood. Maybe it’s my brick. Maybe it’s hot milk with honey. Maybe it’s because I know everybody is scared sometimes.

  Now when I wake up at night, there’s a blue glow in our room. I know our light is shining strong to Gloria’s house. I get up and go to the window. Beyond lots of dark houses I see Gloria’s green light. It is steady and bright, like a beam from a lighthouse that guides ships away from danger.

  I know from her house, ours is that bright too. I stand a long time at the window looking out from our light to hers, feeling happy.

  We are okay. Me, and Julian, and Gloria.

  My mom and dad have a rule. At every meal, Julian and I have to eat at least a little bit of everything on our plates.

  Julian doesn’t mind. My mom says that ever since he was a baby he liked to eat every single vegetable and all kinds of strange foods.

  When I was born, my mom thought that I would be like Julian. I’m not. It’s because of me that they made up the rule.

  Because of the rule, I have eaten a little bit of oysters and asparagus. I have eaten a little bit of eggplant and turnips.

  I have eaten a piece of radish so tiny that afterward I had to use a magnifying glass to show my parents there was something missing from that radish.

  Because of the radish, they added to the rule. You cannot use a magnifying glass to prove you tasted something. You have to eat more of it than that.

  There is one other part to the rule. It is about restaurants. That part is:

  Food in restaurants is expensive. In a restaurant, if you order something, you better eat it all.

  One day my mom and dad decided to take me and Julian out for dinner. They invited Gloria to come too.

  My mom told us to dress up for the restaurant, with dark pants and white shirts and our best Sunday shoes. Julian tried to dress to look grown up.

  I was worried about the rule. I tried to dress the best way for getting hungry. I fastened the belt on my best pants very tight. I hoped that would make me hungry.

  We stopped and picked up Gloria, who was all dressed up too. She had on a pink dress and new shoes with bows on them.

  The name of the restaurant was King Henry’s. There were lots of cars parked out front, and there was a red carpet leading inside. A man as dressed up as us opened the door and took us to a table.

  Our waiter was very tall and thin. He looked like he could eat ten dinners at once and they would just disappear inside him. He probably knew the right way to wear his belt for getting hungry.

  When he brought us menus, I scrinched my neck around so I could see his belt. It was very loose! I loosened mine three notches. Right away I felt hungry.

  The menu was in a leather holder. It was very big, with fancy gold and black writing. I looked for words I knew. A little card was pinned right in the middle of the first page:

  “Special” is my favorite word. I also like the words “giant,” “fresh,” and “rivers.” The words made me very hungry. I loosened my belt one more notch.

  “What’s trout?” I asked my mom.

  “It’s a fish,” she said.

  “That’s what I want,” I said.

  “Are you sure?” my dad asked. “Are you sure you don’t want a hamburger? That’s what Julian’s having. Or maybe you’d like the chef’s salad? That’s what Gloria’s having.”

  “I’m sure” I said. “I want the Special.”

  “You know you’ll have to eat it when it comes,” my mom said.

  “I will,” I said.

  The thin man brought Julian’s hamburger, Gloria’s salad, and my mom and dad’s chicken. He brought me the Special.

  The giant mushrooms were all around the plate, just like a forest. The trout was in the middle. He still wore his skin and his head. His mouth was open as if he was gasping for air. His eye was big and white and sad and cooked. It looked right straight at me.

  “Sorry,” I said. I looked away.

  I looked at the giant mushrooms. Their tops were like wings. They looked like a dark forest. They were a little mushy, but they still looked like rooms. Probably elves had lived under them and danced around them in the moonlight. If I ate one, I could be eating an elf’s house.

  But I had to do it. “Sorry,” I said.

  I took my knife and fork. I cut myself a bite. It tasted like a buttered forest. I liked the taste. I ate all my mushrooms.

  “Huey ate all his mushrooms!” my mom said.

  “But,” my dad said, “he hasn’t touched his fish.”

  “I will,” I said.

  I didn’t want to touch it with my finger. I touched the tail with my knife.

  The eye of the fish looked at me. I stopped touching its tail.

  I wondered if I was supposed to eat the eye. If I had to, I would eat the tail first. I would save the eye till last.

  I could eat the fish if I didn’t look at it.

  But it is hard to eat your food if you don’t look at it. You keep missing the plate with your fork.

  There were mirrors on two sides of the room. I could see my fork miss the plate two ways. I could see the heaps of salad left on Gloria’s plate.

  “Mrs. Bates,” Gloria said, “do you mind if I don’t eat all my salad?”

  “Of course not, honey,” my mom said. “You’re a guest.”

  I turned around in my chair and looked at the back of the room. There was an aquarium! It was full of purple fish, live ones with frilly tails like ballerinas’ dresses. They were watching me. It looked like they were talking to each other. They wanted to see what I would do.

  “Sorry,” I muttered to the purple fish. I put my fork in my lap.

  “Huey,” my dad said, “we’re almost done.”

  “Sorry” I said.

  “You don’t have to eat the head or the tail or the skin,” my mom explained. “Just break the skin open and eat the flesh.”

  “Flesh!” I said.

  “Meat,” my mom said.

  “Huey—if you finish your fish, you can have ice cream,” my dad promised.

  I moved my legs. My fork slipped out of my lap and so did my napkin. Right away the thin man saw. He picked them up and took them away. Then he put a clean fork by my plate. He handed me a fresh napkin.

  I remembered something I saw once on TV—a live heart operation. The doctors didn’t look at the patient. They kept him covered up with a cloth. My mom said they did it so they could forget he was a person and cut.

  I took my fresh napkin and threw it over my whole fish, all but the middle.

  Julian almost choked on a piece of bread. “Huey’s napkin!” he said, pointing.

  “Yuck!” Gloria said. “Huey!” my dad exclaimed. “Your manners!” my mom reminded.

  I didn’t listen. There wasn’t time.

  I picked up my fork. I took a big chunk out of my fish’s side, and chewed it, and swallowed it.

  I swallowed three times extra for safety. I ate nine more big bites.

  “Huey ate almost all of it,” Gloria said.

  “Huey has to eat it all” Julian said. “That’s the rule!”

  I looked at Mom and Dad. “Do I have to?” I said. I felt awfully full.

  “Julian,” my mom said, “rules aren’t absolute. People make rules to make life better. If a rule doesn’t work, it can be changed.”

  My dad said, “Huey ate a lot of good food tonight. If he eats more, he might
burst.”

  My mom said, “I’m proud of Huey. He ate two new foods. He was adventurous.”

  It sounded like I was a hero. An explorer maybe.

  “But what about the rule?” Julian protested.

  “Maybe we don’t even need it anymore,” my mom said. “What do you think, Huey?”

  I looked at my plate. The mushrooms were all gone. I’d eaten almost all the fish. Julian never ever ate that much. If he ever tried it in a restaurant, he could never do it.

  “Let’s keep the rule,” I said.

  Food should be different from the way it is,” I said to my mom. “Then I wouldn’t mind eating it.”

  “How should it be different?” my mom asked.

  “I don’t exactly know,” I said.

  “Maybe you will figure it out and be a chef,” my mom said.

  “What’s a chef?” I asked.

  “A chef is a very good cook who sometimes invents new things to eat,” my mom told me.

  The next day we went to the supermarket. I saw pictures of chefs on some of the food packages. They were all smiling. I wondered if when they were little they had to eat what their parents told them to eat. Maybe that’s why they became chefs—so they could invent foods that they liked to eat. Probably that’s when they became happy.

  The chef with the biggest smile of all was Chef Marco on the can of Chef Marco’s Spaghetti.

  “Please get that can,” I said to my mom. “I want to take it home.”

  I wanted to invent something with it, but I wasn’t sure what.

  At first I couldn’t think of anything it went with. Instead, I thought of cakes like pillows. I thought of carrots that would be fastened together around meat loaf to make skyscrapers. One night I did tie some carrots around a meat loaf my dad made—but the strings that fastened them came loose in the oven, and the skyscraper fell down.

  It was the night before Mother’s Day when I thought of a brand-new food.

  I could see it in my mind. Something yellow. A happy yellow food. One that didn’t mind being eaten.

  In the morning, Julian and I were going to bring my mom breakfast in bed. Julian was going to fry eggs. I told him I had a better idea.