Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing (3 page)

“He wanted to fly,” I said. “He thought he was a bird.”

“I don't think he'll try to fly again,” my mother said.

“Me neither,” I told her.

Then we both laughed and I knew she was my real mother after all.

The Birthday Bash

I got used to the way Fudge looked without his top front teeth. He looked like a very small first grader. Dr. Brown, our dentist, said he'd have to wait until he was six or seven to get his grown-up teeth. I started calling him Fang because when he smiles all you can see are the top two side teeth next to the big space. So it looks like he has fangs.

My mother didn't like that. “I want you to stop calling him Fang,” she told me.

“What should I call him?” I asked. “Farley Drexel?”

“Just plain Fudge will be fine,” my mother said.

“What's wrong with Farley Drexel?” I asked. “How come you named him that if you don't like it?”

“I like it fine,” my mother said. “But right now we call him Fudge. Not Farley . . . not Drexel . . . and
not
Fang!”

“What's wrong with Fang?” I asked. “I think it sounds neat.”

“Fang is an insult!”

“Oh . . . come on, Mom! He doesn't even know what a fang is!”

“But
I
know, Peter. And
I
don't like it.”

“Okay . . . okay. . . .” I promised never to call my brother Fang again.

But secretly, whenever I look at him, I think it.
My brother, Fang Hatcher!
Nobody can stop me from thinking. My mind is my own.

Fudge is going to be three years old. My mother said he should have a birthday party with some of his friends. He plays with three other little kids who live in our building. There's Jennie, Ralph, and Sam. My mother invited them to Fudge's party. Grandma said she'd come over to help. My father couldn't make it. He had a Saturday business appointment. I wanted to go to Jimmy Fargo's but my mother said she needed me to supervise the games. The kids were invited from one until two-thirty.

“That's only an hour and a half,” my mother reminded me. “That's not so bad, is it, Peter?”

“I don't know yet,” I told her. “Ask me later.”

The kitchen table was set up for the party. The cloth and napkins and paper plates and cups all matched. They had pictures of Superman on them.

Right before party time Grandma tried to change Fudge into his new suit. But he screamed his head off about it. “No suit! No suit! NO . . . NO . . . NO!”

My mother tried to reason with him. “It's your birthday, Fudgie. All your friends are coming. You want to look like a big boy, don't you?” While she was talking to him she managed to get him into his shirt and pants. But he wouldn't let her put on his shoes. He kicked and carried on until my mother and grandmother were both black and blue. Finally they decided as long as he was in his suit his feet didn't matter. So he wore his old bedroom slippers.

Ralph arrived first. He's really fat. And he isn't even four years old. He doesn't say much either. He grunts and grabs a lot, though. Usually his mouth is stuffed full of something.

So the first thing Ralph did was wander into the kitchen. He looked around for something to eat. But Grandma was guarding the place. She kept telling him “No . . . No . . . must wait until the other children come.”

Jennie arrived next. She was wearing little white gloves and party shoes. She even carried a pocketbook. Besides that she had on dirty jeans and an old sweater. Her mother apologized for her clothes but said she couldn't do anything with Jennie lately—especially since she had taken to biting.

“What does she bite?” I asked, thinking about furniture or toys or stuff like that.

“She bites people,” Jennie's mother said. “But you don't have to worry about it unless her teeth go through the skin. Otherwise it's perfectly safe.”

I thought,
poor old Fudge! He can't even bite back since he hasn't got any top front teeth
. I looked at Jennie. She seemed so innocent. It was hard to believe she was a vampire.

Sam came last. He carried a big present for Fudge but he was crying. “It's just a stage he's going through,” his mother explained. “Everything scares him. Especially birthday parties. But he'll be fine. Won't you, Sam?”

Sam grabbed onto his mother's leg and screamed, “Take me home! Take me home!” Somehow, Sam's mother untangled herself from Sam's grip and left.

So at five after one we were ready to begin. We had an eater, a biter, and a crier. I thought that two-thirty would never come. I also thought my mother was slightly crazy for dreaming up the party in the first place. “Doesn't Fudge have any normal friends?” I whispered.

“There's nothing wrong with Fudgie's friends!” my mother whispered back. “All small children are like that.”

Grandma got them seated around the kitchen table. She put a party hat on each kid's head. Sam screamed, “Get it off! Get it off!” But the others wore their hats and didn't complain. My mother snapped a picture of them with her new camera.

Then Grandma turned off the lights and my mother lit the candles on Fudge's cake. It had chocolate frosting and big yellow roses. I led the singing of “Happy Birthday.” My mother carried the cake across the kitchen to the party table and set it down in front of Fudge.

Sam cried, “Too dark! Too dark!” So Grandma had to turn on the kitchen lights before Fudge blew out his candles. When he was finished blowing he reached out and grabbed a rose off his cake. He shoved it into his mouth.

“Oh, Fudge!” my mother said. “Look what you did.”

But Grandma said, “It's his birthday. He can do whatever he wants!”

So Fudge reached over and grabbed a second rose.

I guess fat Ralph couldn't stand seeing Fudge eat those yellow roses because he grabbed one, too. By that time the cake looked pretty messy. My mother, finally coming to her senses, took the cake away and sliced it up.

Each kid got a Dixie Cup, a small piece of cake, and some milk. But Jennie hollered, “Where's my rose? Want one too!” Because her slice of birthday cake didn't happen to have one.

My mother explained that the roses were only decorations and there weren't enough to go around. Jennie seemed to accept that. But when Grandma stood over her to help open her Dixie, Jennie bit her on the hand.

“She bit me!” Grandma cried.

“Did it break the skin?” my mother asked.

“No . . . I don't think so,” Grandma said, checking.

“Good. Then it's nothing to worry about,” my mother told her.

Grandma went into the bathroom to put some medicine on it anyway. She wasn't taking any chances.

Ralph was the first one to finish his food. “More . . . more . . . more!” he sang, holding up his empty plate.

“I don't think you should give him any more,” I whispered to my mother. “Look how fat he is now!”

“Oh, Peter . . . this is a party. Let him eat whatever he wants.”

“Okay,” I said. “Why should I care how fat he gets?”

My mother served Ralph a second piece of cake. He threw up right after he finished it.

Me and Grandma took the kids into the living room while my mother cleaned up the mess.

Grandma told Fudge he could open his presents while his friends watched. Jennie brought him a musical jack-in-the-box. When you turn the handle around it plays “Pop Goes the Weasel.” When you reach the part of the song about Pop, the top opens and a funny clowns jumps up. Fudge loved it. He clapped his hands and laughed and laughed. But Sam started to scream, “No! No more. Take it away!” He hid his face in his hands and wouldn't look up until Grandma promised to put the jack-in-the-box in another room.

Fudge opened Ralph's present next. It was a little windup car that ran all over the floor. I kind of liked it myself. So did Ralph. Because he grabbed it away from Fudge and said, “MINE.”

“No!” Fudge shouted. “MINE.”

When my mother heard the racket she ran in from the kitchen. She explained to Ralph that he had brought the car to Fudge because it was
his
birthday. But Ralph wouldn't listen. I guess my mother was afraid he might throw up again, and this time on the living room rug. So she begged Fudge to let Ralph play with the car for a few minutes. But Ralph kept screaming it was
his
car. So Fudge started to cry. Finally, my mother took the car away and said, “Let's see what Sam brought you.”

Fudge liked that idea. He forgot about the little car as he ripped the paper and ribbon off Sam's package. It turned out to be a big picture dictionary. The same kind the Yarbys brought me a couple of months ago. Fudge got mad when he saw it.

“No!” he yelled. “NO MORE BOOK!” He threw it across the room.

“Fudge! That's terrible,” my mother said. “You mustn't do that to the nice book.”

“No book!” Fudge said.

Sam cried, “He doesn't like it. He doesn't like my present. I want to go home . . . I want to go home!”

Grandma tried to comfort Sam while my mother picked up the book. She gathered the wrapping paper and ribbons and cards together. Fudge didn't even look at any of the birthday cards. Oh well, he can't read, so I guess it doesn't make any difference.

“Peter,” my mother said, “let's start the games . . . now . . . quick!”

I checked the time. I hoped the party was almost over. But no, it was only one-thirty. Still an hour to go. I went into my room where I had blown up a lot of balloons. My mother had the party book and it says three-year-olds like to dance around with balloons. When I got back to the living room Mom started the record player and I handed each kid a balloon.

But they just stood there looking at me. I thought,
either the guy who wrote that party book is crazy or I am!

“Show them how, Peter,” my mother said. “Take a balloon and demonstrate.”

I felt like one of the world's great living fools dancing around with a balloon, but it worked. As soon as the kids saw me doing it, they started dancing too. And the more they danced the more they liked it. Until Jennie's balloon popped. That nearly scared Sam right out of his mind. He started yelling and crying. Fortunately I had blown up two dozen balloons. I was hoping they'd dance around the rest of the afternoon.

Fudge got the idea of jumping up and down on the furniture. The others liked that too. So instead of dancing with their balloons, that's what they did. And soon they were running from room to room, yelling and laughing and having a great time.

Then the doorbell rang. It was Mrs. Rudder. She lives in the apartment right under us. She wanted to know what was going on. She said it sounded like her ceiling was about to crash in on her any second.

My mother explained that Fudge was having a little birthday party and wouldn't she like to stay for a piece of cake? Sometimes my mother is really clever! So Grandma entertained Mrs. Rudder in the kitchen while Fudge and his buddies jumped up and down on his new bed.

It was delivered this morning. Fudge hasn't even slept in it yet. So naturally when my mother found out what they were up to, she was mad. “Stop it right now!” she said.

“New bed . . . big boy!” Fudge told her. Was he proud!

“You won't have a new-big-boy-bed for long if you don't stop jumping on it,” my mother told him. “I know . . . let's all sit down on the floor and hear a nice story.” My mother selected a picture book from Fudge's bookshelf.

“I heard that one!” Jennie said when she saw the cover.

“All right,” my mother told her, “let's hear this one.” She held up another book.

“I heard that one too,” Jennie said.

I think my mother was starting to lose her patience. But she chose a third book and said, “We'll all enjoy this one even if we know it by heart. And if we
do
know it by heart . . . well, we can say it together.”

That's just what Jennie did. And when my mother skipped a page by mistake Jennie was right there to remind her. If you ask me, my mother felt like biting Jennie by that time!

When the story was over it was two o'clock and Ralph was sound asleep on the floor. My mother told me to put him up on Fudge's new bed while she took the rest of the children back to the living room.

I tried and tried but I couldn't lift Ralph. He must weigh a ton. So I left him sleeping on Fudge's floor and closed the door so he wouldn't hear any noise. On my way back to the living room I wished the others would fall asleep too.

“Peter,” my mother suggested, “why don't you show them Dribble?”

“Mom! Dribble's my pet.” You don't go around using a pet to entertain a bunch of little kids. Didn't my mother know that?

“Please, Peter,” my mother said. “We've still got half an hour left and I don't know what to do with them anymore.”

“Dribble!” Fudge hollered. “Dribble . . . Dribble . . . Dribble!”

I guess Sam and Jennie like the way that sounded because they started to shout, “Dribble . . . Dribble . . . Dribble!” even though they didn't know what they were talking about.

“Oh . . . all right,” I said. “I'll show you Dribble. But you've got to promise to be very quiet. You mustn't make a sound. You might scare him . . . okay?”

They all said “Okay.” My mother went into the kitchen to chat with Grandma and Mrs. Rudder. I went into my room and came back carrying Dribble in his bowl. I put my finger over my lips to remind Fudge and his friends to be quiet. It worked. At first nobody said a word.

I put Dribble down on a table. Fudge and Sam and Jennie stood over his bowl.

“Oh . . . turtle!” Jennie said.

“Yes, Dribble's a turtle.
My
turtle,” I said in a soft voice.

“See . . . see,” Fudge whispered.

“They can all see,” I told Fudge.

“Nice turtle,” Sam said.

I wondered why he wasn't afraid this time.

“What does Dribble do?” Jennie asked.