by Rachel Vail
Mom gave Dad his traditional Valentine’s gift of socks, and he gave her a Swiss Army knife and also two red velvet pillows that she put right on the corners of the couch, and they both giggled. (Mom and Dad. Not the pillows.)
They are kind of weird, I am starting to think. (Mom and Dad again. The pillows are just couch pillows, although red.)
Daisy and her dad came into the store to buy candies for her mom. Daisy didn’t really talk to me while they were ordering but before they left she whispered, “Happy Valentine’s Day.” I said, “You, too.” Her big brother came in later, by himself, and bought a small, red, shiny heart box with a bow on it and caramels inside. His face was red, too, and he kept looking at his sneakers. Xavier Schwartz’s big brother came in about half an hour later and bought the same heart.
I thought, What if they give them to each other? That would be funny.
If not, what if they both gave them to a girl, and it turned out to be the same girl? So then I started wondering which of those big gawky boys that girl would choose as her valentine. Also I wonder if I will ever look at my sneakers and buy a shiny red heart box full of candy for a girl when I am a teenager, and which girl would I do that for?
Probably I won’t.
If I bought a big box of candy with my own money, I might share it, but I would definitely want to keep some candy, plus the box, for myself.
And then Dad said, “Justin! Justin! Earth to Justin!” when I was just thinking about the future for one minute.
February 15, Monday
Hooray for vacation!
The dog already got taken to the kennel and our house is weirdly quiet. Was it always this quiet before we got him? I can’t decide if I love it or not so much. But I have no more time for that because I have to find my goggles or I won’t be able to swim in the pool in Florida at all.
I hope there are movies on the plane.
Also I hope the plane doesn’t fall out of the sky.
Oh, great.
Why did I have to even think of that?
I will try to worry about there being a bad movie on the plane. Sometimes a little worry can crowd out a big worry.
Now I am worrying about what to worry about.
February 16, Tuesday
The plane stayed in the sky the whole time it needed to, which has to do with physics and lift. Dad explained it to me but I still don’t fully get it.
What I should have worried about instead of crashing was the surprise Mom kept hinting about. I thought it was going to be something like gummy bears.
It wasn’t.
It was nothing gummy.
Unless you count Buckey. He is kind of gummy.
And he was in the seat next to Elizabeth on the plane that stayed in the air. Which meant that next to me was Montana C.
Because our families are such good friends, apparently, we had planned our vacation together.
I was not consulted, obviously.
And I was not sulking in the hotel room, either. I was drawing pictures of Wobble-butt, who I made up while I wasn’t sulking on the plane, and who has magical powers.
February 17, Wednesday
Montana C. saw me doodling Wobble-butt on the paper tablecloth.
I thought she was going to be like, Ew, you have an imaginary friend? You should go play with Elizabeth and Buckey.
But she didn’t. She said, “Who’s that?” and then she cracked up at his name and asked me to teach her how to draw him, so I did. And we made up a bunch of adventures Wobble-butt gets into.
Montana C. has a retainer for her crooked teeth that she hides under a teacup while she eats. (The retainer goes under the teacup, not her crooked teeth. That would be really weird.)
She said thanks for not thinking the retainer was gross, but I honestly thought it was awesome. It looked so disgusting.
Then we went down to the beach and we kept talking about Wobble-butt, and if maybe he is a superhero.
February 18, Thursday
Dad went to the store to buy us some stuff. Mom gave him a list. It had sunblock and bug spray on it but also, because we begged, cookies. Montana C.’s family has so much junk and we have nothing but a few granola bars. So Mom said okay. She gets very relaxed from the sound of waves.
We should not have sent that man to the store on his own.
The kind of cookies he bought were called Jaffa Cakes. According to the package, Jaffa Cakes have orange-centered yippie and also a squidgy bit. They are from England.
Apparently British children are weird.
February 19, Friday
Mom says it was from sunburn, but I know it was actually Jaffa Man.
I heard him come into our hotel room last night. I know it was him because he was making squidgy noises. Then I heard a very growly voice muttering, “Yippie. Yippie. Yippie.”
It is tough luck that I woke everybody up by turning on the light.
I think he was coming to get those darn Jaffa Cakes.
Which he can totally have.
I don’t even know what they really are.
February 20, Saturday
Elizabeth told Montana C. that I had a nightmare because of cookies.
“Cookies?” Montana C. asked. “You had a nightmare about . . . cookies?”
“They aren’t cookies!” I yelled.
“Well, what are they?” she asked.
“They are Jaffa Cakes!”
We just stared at each other for a while at that.
Then she asked, “What’s a Jaffa Cake?”
“It is a dessert from England,” I said, trying not to yell, “that my dad bought instead of normal cookies. They have a squidgy bit.”
“A squidgy bit?”
“Yes!” I said, kind of yelling. “And an orange-centered yippie!”
Montana C. backed up two steps. “Okay, now I’m afraid of it, too.”
“I am not afraid of it,” I yelled.
“But Elizabeth said . . .”
“I’m not!” I yelled. “I am only afraid of Jaffa Man!”
“Jaffa Man?” she yelled. “Jaffa Man is Wobble-butt’s archenemy!”
Which made me totally “thank you” Montana C.
February 21, Sunday
The best part of vacation wasn’t learning to boogie board, or cannonballing into the pool, or getting to go in the hot tub unlike kindergartners, or even the traps we made to catch Jaffa Man that ended up catching Elizabeth and Buckey instead (a total accident, I swear).
It was not even getting the ice from the ice machine.
It was when Montana C. lost her retainer at lunch today.
We were on our way back to the beach to check our Jaffa traps (with the squidgy bits at the bottom) when Montana C. slapped her hand over her mouth.
“What?” I asked.
“My retainer!” she yelled. “I left it . . .”
“Under the teacup?”
We zoomed straight to the restaurant. She got there first and yanked open the door. Just as the blast of air-conditioning hit us, we heard an old lady shriek.
We zigzagged to the table. Two old ladies were slanted back from the table, their faces stretched long, their hands up in the air like the retainer might jump off the saucer and bite them.
Montana C. reached past the one holding the teacup up, plucked the retainer off the saucer, and whispered quickly, “Sorry, thank you, that’s my squidgy bit, sorry.”
She popped the retainer into her mouth and clicked it into place with her tongue. The two ladies were blinking furiously, moving their mouths in search of some angry words to yell, but Montana C. and I are the two fastest kids in the whole third grade of W. H. Taft Elementary School, so we were out the door and cannonballing into the deep end and screaming “Orange-centered YIPPIE!” before they found a single nasty word.
February 22, Monday
Back to school!
Montana C. clicked her retainer during morning meeting and I had to go sit in the library corner until I could contain myself
.
I never knew how hard I was to contain.
February 23, Tuesday
What I am good at:
Math
Video games
Worrying
What I am bad at:
Push-ups
Violin
Being brave
Walking Qwerty, which is my responsibility on Wednesdays and Saturday mornings
Containing myself when somebody says the word squidgy
February 24, Wednesday
We had a big grade-wide meeting today. There is a new thing in our school for third graders and we are the first year it is happening to. That’s because Ms. Burns brought it from her old school, which was in New York City.
The big thing is called Dinosaur Day.
Each student has to do a research paper and a project about the dinosaur subject of our choice. (No groups, hallelujah.)
My idea, which I thought of right away, is to build a model of a stegosaurus (my favorite dinosaur, because of the stegs) and a model of a human, so you can see the differences between the circulatory systems, the digestive systems, the skeletal systems, everything. I think that will be a great project. Ms. Burns is the person in charge of Dinosaur Day, which will be next month and all the parents will come for it.
Ms. Burns said, “Think big. Be ambitious.” Then she winked.
Maybe I could also do a T. rex.
February 25, Thursday
Yesterday I asked Mom to come with me for my walking of Qwerty, and the reason was not because I am lazy or scared; it was because I wanted to tell her my great idea for Dinosaur Day. So eventually she stopped doing her million things she was frantically doing and came. I was thinking she would say she was so proud of me for having an interesting mind and thinking big.
What she said instead was no.
When I tried to explain why it was a good idea, she said, “Talk to your father about it. I am done parenting for the day.”
But when I tried to talk to them both about it again tonight and explain my big idea, they couldn’t listen to it because they were very busy watching Elizabeth practice her ballet routine for her ballet recital. Her ballet class is performing Cinderella. All the girls in her ballet class wanted to be Cinderella. So they all are. The teacher is playing all the other parts. The name of the show is going to be “The Twelve Cinderellas.”
Ballet is apparently much more important than homework in our family these days.
February 26, Friday
We had to hand in our plans for Dinosaur Day projects.
I had nothing else to write down, because of the “Twelve Cinderellas” issue.
So that is why I had to write down that I am planning to create scale models of the stegosaurus and the human being to show how they are similar and different. I left out the T. rex because there are limits.
Now it is too late to change it, because I wrote it down and handed it in. That is a thing Poopsie says is called “facts on the ground.”
But I have a little bad feeling in my stomach, because of that “no” Mom said to my idea when I mentioned it, and then writing it anyway.
February 27, Saturday
I didn’t say anything to Mom and Dad about the whole Dinosaur Day problem. I figured we would jump off that bridge when we come to it.
I didn’t want to tell Mom and Dad not just because I didn’t want to get in trouble, but also because they were already having a hard enough day dealing with me. They were pretty fed up from all my moping about having to walk Qwerty (which Dad eventually did instead), and then play basketball, and then sit through “The Twelve Cinderellas,” and then go out to dinner with Gingy and Poopsie, who brought flowers for “the best Cinderella,” who wore her tutu on her head all through dinner at the Chinese restaurant with the fish tank. Which smells funky.
So they’d had enough trouble from me already. No need to pile more on them.
February 28, Sunday
I had to tell somebody, though.
So I told Wingnut.
He may not be real, but he is an excellent listener. He thinks it will turn out okay. He doesn’t think I will get in trouble for promising to make a scale model of a stegosaurus and a human being. Even though I actually have no idea how to make a scale model. And I don’t know anything really about the skeletal or digestive or muscular systems of a stegosaurus or a human being. And I promised to do something my parents both said I was not allowed to promise.
Wingnut is confident it will all work out fine.
Wingnut is very loving.
But maybe not the smartest stuffty on the bed.
March 1, Monday
I got a “see me” on my Dinosaur Day proposal.
And for the sixth month in a row, I did not win the Superstar competition. This month it was Bartholomew Wiggins.
He is the only boy who has ever won. He also got a “great idea!” on his Dinosaur Day proposal, I happened to see.
I am starting to no thank you Bartholomew Wiggins.
March 2, Tuesday
I wasn’t in trouble. And the “me” I had to see turned out to be Ms. Burns. I had to go have a conference at her desk.
She was “impressed” with my “ambition.” (Seriously, she said those exact words.) But she thought maybe I could choose a system in each of the stegosaurus and the human being to do a comparison with.
My head kept nodding. It was a good suggestion, that’s why.
Then I was allowed to go down to lunch. All the boys gathered around me to find out what I had done wrong to have to stay in and get talked to.
I told them, “Nothing.”
They all kind of did the bobble-head thing of “oh, okay, whatever.”
I think they thought I had gotten in trouble and was just embarrassed about it. We had recess in the gym, after, because of the rain, and Xavier Schwartz picked me second for dodgeball.
If I actually had gotten in trouble, getting picked second for dodgeball by Xavier Schwartz really might have cheered me up. Too bad I was already cheered. Because of having impressive ambition and also because I didn’t have to get in trouble with Mom and Dad anymore. But I will try to save the cheered feeling for when I need it.
March 3, Wednesday
What I wish:
That I could speed-read all these boring books about dinosaurs
That I could be brave about walking Qwerty and the Way-Back of the basement (and even The Boiler) and everything else
That I didn’t have violin or basketball
That I could have flying and invisibility powers
That I still had playdates with Daisy
Although maybe not so much on that last one. I had a good time doing LEGOS and videos with Noah today.
I am not even sure what Daisy likes to play anymore.
But invisibility would be cool.
March 4, Thursday
I can’t find Wingnut.
March 5, Friday
Still no sign of Wingnut.
I have never lost him for so long before.
Stegosauruses have brains the size of walnuts. People have brains the size of their two fists combined.
But my big fat brain cannot remember where I had Wingnut last, no matter how much I try.
March 6, Saturday
Last day of basketball.
My team was in last place but we got trophies anyway. Uncle Jon came over for dinner, and after he walked Qwerty for/with me, he admired all my trophies. He said I must be a really excellent athlete.
I told him I truly am not.
He argued that only a great athlete could get so many trophies. He played Little League for, like, ten years and he only got one trophy in his life, and that was at a friend’s bowling birthday party when everybody got one. I tried to explain that they just give trophies out to all the kids now at the end of every season, no matter what.
I don’t think he was listening. He likes the idea of having a jock nephew, I guess, and he really didn’t want me to wreck tha
t for him.
Still no sign of Wingnut.
March 7, Sunday
Snakey looks awfully suspicious.
Bananas is questioning all the stuffties on the bed about when they last saw Wingnut.
Nobody said anything to me but I think I heard somebody in the back corner of the bed, where the rough stuffties hang out, whisper the name of Bad Boy.
March 8, Monday
So I am doing the Human Brain and Spinal Cord versus the Stegosaurus Brain and Spinal Cord.
I don’t even care.
Noah sat with me at lunch. I told him about Wingnut. He didn’t talk or try to cheer me up. He didn’t say, Well, where did you last play with him? And he especially didn’t say anything like, You still play with stuffed animals? even though he doesn’t anymore.
He just sat there with me all through lunch and recess, just sat there by my side.
March 9, Tuesday
What I wish I could invent:
A magical finder and you could whisper into it what you need it to find and then poof! The thing would be right there in your arms (or, if it was too big, like if you lost your car or grandfather, it could just appear in a convenient but obvious place). And the thing that was lost would be not good as new, which would be weird in the case of a grandfather or a stuffty that you love most in the world, but just like they were when you last saw the thing or person or whatever.
But I don’t know how to invent a magic finder.
And instead of trying to figure out how to invent one, I have to go make horrible noises on my violin.
