Sweet Sixteen

Normally, I post new stories on Friday. But today is special. Today is Sarah Kroh's birthday. And in honor, we're moving Friday's post up to Tuesday night. This... is a special reposted story in honor of her big day.

Sweet Sixteen

"Surprise!" my mother and father shouted in unison, laughing gaily. I stared at the photograph in my hands. My throat was dry. My hands shook with tension. I gripped the picture so hard that my fingers almost tore through the page. Did I need glasses? Was I losing my mind? Or – worse – were the words I read a true portent? 

Just a moment before, I'd excitedly opened the pink box, now discarded on the floor near my left ankle. A sixteenth birthday only comes around once in a lifetime. All day, I’d imagined the fancy party later that evening; charming, cleanly shaved boys, beautifully groomed girls, delicious finger sandwiches, strobe lights. Well, I thought grimly, maybe the strobe lights will distract the other guests. 

All I'd wanted from my parents was a new convertible. Not a Porsche or anything - a nice, current model, one that was fast and had good mileage and made my ass look like a dream when I stepped out. I'd even planned on it. When I invited the kids from school over to my sweet sixteenth, I handed out embossed invitation cards that read "Come see my hot new ride!" Everyone was envious.

And when I'd stepped down to breakfast, after dreaming all night of speeding around quiet neighborhoods with the bass up and the top down, I’d seen it on the kitchen table. A fancy pink present topped with a tasteful green bow. I’d squealed and ran to open it.  But instead of car keys in the little box, there was only a picture. Frowning distastefully, I had pulled it out, gripping it loosely between forefinger and thumb like a used sheet of toilet paper. 

The photograph showed a greasy man with a hideous smile on his face. His lips curled hatefully, reminding me of two slugs performing a ballet on a salt lick. His lank, insipid hair draped a wrinkled, nasty face with squinty eyes. And just in case I could not recognize the man, he'd helpfully autographed the bottom of the page: 

"OWWWW! LOOKIN FORWARD TO THE HOTTEST SWEET SIXTEENTH EVER! PLAN ON A REAL PAR-TAY!

(Pictured here was a series of four hearts hastily sketched and an ‘XOXOXO’)

STEVEN TYLER."

* * *

            "HONEY," my mother shouted as she banged on my bedroom door. I’d dead-bolted it shut while I fashioned a little hobo stick out of a few paper towels and the stick off a little American flag. Inside were all of my important possessions - a little plastic saxophone, a cassette tape of Tommy Tutone's greatest hits, a small handful of candy corns. It was time to blow this Popsicle stand.

I opened the window and stared out at the concrete below, trying to figure out the best way to descend from the second story. I wished there was a trellis to climb down. 

I heard a noisy rattle at the door, and then my father began to yell. "We paid a lot of money for this, and you aren't going to ruin it! Your friends are going to be here in an hour and imagine what they're going to say if Steven Tyler is here and you aren't!" I cringed and then crouched, preparing to leap. I might die, I reasoned, but that was better than the alternative. I was just about to jump when the doorknob turned and the door opened. 

"Sorry," Mom said, smiling that bullshit fake apologetic smile that grown-ups get whenever they screw you over. "I had a key." 

"This is the worst day of my life," I yelled, breaking the hobo stick across my knee. "Why is it whenever anything important happens in my life, Steven Tyler has to be there?" 

"Baby," Dad said, "you love Steven Tyler. He's been your hero since you were ten years old."

"When I was ten years old," I said, gritting my teeth, "I used to pick my nose and save the boogers for my collection. That's just what little kids do." 

My parents both looked at each other, and Mom sighed.

"Sugarplum," she said, "it would be rude to not let Mr. Tyler come to your party. He's really excited. I'm making his favorite kind of cake." 

"What kind?" I asked.

"It's a lemon coconut cake with cocoa sprinkled on top."

"That sounds disgusting. I want a chocolate cake."

"This is close enough, and Mr. Tyler loves this cake," she said. She raised an eyebrow.  "And you'd better be polite. He'll be here any minute."

* * *

Two hours later, I stood scowling by the front door, shaking everyone's hand as they entered. At first, I was apprehensively excited, but after the fifth person asked where my sweet new ride was, I grew tired of greeting guests. How should I explain it? "No, sorry, I didn't get a convertible. But Steven Tyler is going to show up later and eat some birthday cake!" I hoped that when he showed up, no one would recognize him and I could play it off. Maybe I could make everyone believe that it was my father's lover, come to exact some sort of hateful retribution for a sex crime so dastardly that it didn't even have a name. 

"Wassup?" announced another anonymous androgyne as it stepped through the front door. It sported a backwards cap and hairless baby chin. With its shoulder length hair and squeaky voice, I couldn't tell if it was a particularly ugly girl or a particularly girlish boy. I silently pointed towards the large bowl of Chex mix in the middle of the living room, sighing heavily. 

Actually, things were beginning to look up. No one had been creative enough to bring me any sort of present, but a few kids had palmed me a ten dollar bill as they walked in, so I was holding roughly seventy dollars in my pocket. The stereo in the living room was playing some good music, some sort of hip hop electronica, and everyone was starting to dance. Well, sort of. We were at the uncomfortable age when everyone was afraid to dance with members of the opposite sex, so everyone was bobbing up and down separately while holding canned sodas. But so far, my sixteenth birthday party was really happening. Everyone seemed like they were having a nice time. 

And wonder of wonders! Steven Tyler hadn’t even showed up. I looked at my watch. According to Dad, he should have arrived around 45 minutes earlier. Please, don’t let him be fashionably late, I wished. Please say he took the money and split. Maybe this would be the best sweet sixteenth in the world. 

These thoughts had just swarmed through my mind like a hive of bees, and as if God had heard them and wanted to make a mockery of the honey in my brain, the front door slammed open and a - I hesitate to say "man", more a disheveled mass of hair and lips - walked in. 

"YEA-AHHHH!" shouted Steven Tyler. He took a swig from a bottle of whiskey he was holding, belched, and held up a hand to silence the already silent crowd. "WHAT UP, EVERYONE! HOW YOU ALL DOIN! LET'S MAKE THIS THE MOST ROCKIN SWEET SIXTEENTH BIRTHDAY EVER, C'MAWN!" 

My throat closed up and all of my dreams faded away. Blackness covered my peripheral vision, and I swayed. I felt my knees buckle. Was I going to faint? 

Just then, one of the androgynous boys snickered, pointed at Steven, and said "Check out the birthday surprise! It's that sweet new ride we've all been hearing about." Everyone started to laugh. Steven Tyler looked surprised for a moment and then he said, "I'M THE SWEETEST! YuhAAYUH!" After shouting this last (word? I’m still not sure what it was), he strode over to the stereo and poked the eject button. 

"Hey, come on!" someone protested angrily. Steven Tyler picked up the CD in the same disgusted way I'd picked up his autographed picture that morning. "A BURNED CD? ELECTRONICA MIX? WHAT’S ALL THIS!? YOU CATS NEED SOME REAL MUSIC AT THIS PARTY, UH YEA YEA YEA-AH!!" He slipped in a disk and pressed play. 

Immediately, the opening strains of "Love in an Elevator" began shaking the house. "GOO WINNG DOOWWWN," howled the studio recorded Steven Tyler. The real Steven Tyler stood in front of us, smiling with giant liver lips. He closed his eyes and lip synched along. 

One girl started crying, and several kids walked outside to call their parents and say they needed to be taken home. I didn't blame them. I bit my lip with frustration. Would Steven Tyler ruin every party ever? It seemed that the answer was yes, absolutely. 

"WHERE’S THAT CAKE YOUR MOM PROMISED!" Steven Tyler yelled out to no one in particular. He didn't even know whose birthday it was. I wanted to pretend that I didn't know either, but someone looked at me and said “Yeah, where's that cake?” 

Steven Tyler walked over and hugged me. "HAPPY BIRTHDAY, YEA-AAHUH!" I felt greasy and misused. "LET’S GO GET US SOME CUH-YAH-UKE!!!" he yelled and sang at the same time. 

Mom brought out the cake. As expected, it was mildly yellow with a brown powder sprinkled on the top. The words “HAPPY BIRTHDAY” were scribbled in icing. Actually, it really didn't look that bad. Sort of like an overripe banana. I'd almost convinced myself to try the cake when Steven Tyler stuck his nasty finger into the cake, pulled it out, and licked it. 

"EAT THE CAKE!" he sang. "THERE'S ONLY ONE THING THAT IT'S GOOD FOR!" Then he laughed hysterically. "THAT CAKE’S AMAZING, MRS COMBS!!!!" he told my mother, who was busy trying to light all the candles on the cake. 

"Thank you, Steven," she said, smiling and blushing. I remembered that she'd once told me that she had a huge crush on Steven Tyler in her youth and I felt sick to my stomach. 

The stereo was still playing Aerosmith tracks. That - along with the ragged hole in the top of the cake - eliminated any hunger I might have. I did not even want to look at the birthday cake, which - due to Steven Tyler's disgusting finger - now read "HAPPY BIRTRDAY". But everyone crowded around and sang, and I had to blow out the candles. "Make a wish!" Mom exclaimed. 

"HERE, LET ME HELP!" chirped Steven Tyler, and he blew on the candles. His fish-like lips flapped like a heavy, damp curtain in the wind. Spittle flew everywhere, and the candles were extinguished. "YUH YEAAH-AAH!" he shouted, and everyone clapped politely. Mom cut everyone a piece, and it tasted exactly like it sounded. Like a lemon coconut cake with unsweetened cocoa and Steven Tyler spit on top. I couldn't even eat two bites, and I noticed a lot of untouched slices sitting around the house later. Steven Tyler ate five pieces while he drank half the bottle of whiskey. 

Half an hour later, he was crawling around on all fours and dry-heaving. I never actually saw him get sick, but there was a rancid smell from behind the potted plant in the corner. He stood up every few minutes and ate another plateful of cake and had another swig of whiskey (just watching the rising and falling levels in the bottle, I estimated at least three bottles consumed during the birthday party) and then he crawled around on the floor and talked to himself some more. About the only times he walked like a normal human being were when he was hitting on the fifteen-year-olds from my class or when he was putting in a new Aerosmith CD. After the first CD ended (he announced that it was a mix of his very favorite tracks), he started on the very first Aerosmith album and went through them all chronologically. 

Somewhere after “Night in the Ruts” but before “Get a Grip,” Steven Tyler came up to me and asked if he could borrow five dollars “for a magic trick.” When I opened my wallet and said all I had was a bunch of tens, he said “YUUAAYUH! LET’S TRY EM OUT!” and took them all. Then he tucked them in the waistband of his leather pants. I didn’t even try to get it back. That was all the cash I had in the world and the only birthday present I got, other than Steven Tyler’s presence.

* * *

Steven Tyler stuck around at my Sweet Sixteenth for nine hours. Long after all the other kids had made sad, fake excuses and left early, Steven Tyler told me he was going “to make sure [I] got my money’s worth.” Then he passed out for a few minutes, whiskey bottle still in hand. When I finally went to bed, he was still listening to his own albums and staggering around. 

The next morning, I woke up feeling ill. My stomach ached and I couldn’t stop thinking about the evening before. Would anyone ever talk to me again? 

When I walked downstairs, I saw the worst sight ever. Steven Tyler was passed out in the living room. His thick lips were smeared with the remains of the birthday cake, and some icing was on his nose. The remains of his last bottle of whiskey were spilled on the carpet and he smelled like he’d pooped himself. I wanted to push him a little with my foot so he’d wake up, but I was also uncomfortable about rousing him. 

When I turned off the stereo, he snorted and woke up a little. When he realized I was the one walking around, it was like an electric shock hit him. His eyes lit up. “WUH-YAAAYUH,” he shouted at me. “HAPPY BIRTHDAY! WAWNA BIRTHDAY SONG?” 

“My birthday was yesterday, Mr. Tyler,” I said, but he didn’t care. “TAWKIN BOUT THANGS THAT NOBODY CARES,” he yelped like a kicked puppy. “WEARIN OUT THANGS THAT NOBODY WEARS.”

 I backed out of the room and went back to bed. And as I covered my head with a pillow, hoping that he’d quiet down and hoping the neighbors couldn’t hear, I felt a little sad. My parents had believed that hiring Steven Tyler was a smart and considerate thing. They thought that they were making my birthday an affair to remember.

And who was to say that they hadn’t? As I listened to Steven Tyler’s shrieking in the living room, I realized that I was now an adult, that Steven Tyler had somehow ushered me through childhood and into maturity. And, remembering the way that my mother had blushed while looking at Steven Tyler’s freak show lips, like two painted goldfish wriggling for air in the middle of his face, I hoped to God that I’d been adopted.

THE RADDEST BIKER IN THE WORLD

I really don't know anything about this. Really. I found this in a "My Documents" folder. It was modified in October of 2006. I don't remember anything about it. As soon as I finish this post, I'm going to read this story for the first time in five-and-a-half-years. This could be exciting.


A Hog. A Sled. A Harley.

From the time I turned thirteen, all I wanted to do was to ride a motorcycle. To live the exciting life of a biker. To race down the streets at night, the smell of burning rubber and gasoline in my clothes.  To grow my hair long and unkempt, a Santa Claus style beard flowing down my chin like so much spilled soup. To ride with the big boys, to wolf-whistle at the ladies. Sometimes when I was walking up to the drug store to get a bottle of Snapple, I thought about how incredible I’d look with the wind flowing through my long hair as it fluttered around my face like the tassels on my handlebars.

Actually, I’d tried growing out my hair a few years back. Unfortunately, it was curly and bristly, and all I could manage was a sincerely impressive afro. And my beard would only grow to the level of intense stubble – patchy stubble at best. I had several places I couldn’t even grow hair on my face. And it was a completely different color from my hair, more a dirty blonde than brunette. Instead of looking like a biker, my mother told me, I looked like a homeless bum who’d somehow blipped in from the 70s – an impression made worse by the fact that I often took to wearing Hawaiian shirts and capris out in public.

But I was damned if I was going to let my dream go. I was twenty seven, and it was time to live my life. I was going to become a biker, and I was going to look incredible. And so I looked at myself as an uncarved mound of stone: to sculpt out a biker, I would have to cut away everything that didn’t look like a biker. The first was my hair.

I could not trust anyone to help me – the last time I’d asked my friend Dave to give me a haircut, he’d used the electric razor to sculpt the words “CHARLES IS GAY” in the back of my hair. Only he wasn’t really proficient enough to make it legible and it just looked like I had a large, unwieldly bald spot. No, I would have to manage this on my own. I carefully used a pair of scissors to cut away chunks of my hair as close to the scalp as possible, then I used an electric razor to finish it off. I was bald, which sort of looked biker-y, but I wanted long, flowing hair.

I’d previously looked around at the local wig shop and found what looked to me to be a dream wig – it looked sort of like Jane Fonda’s hair in Barbarella. It looked badass, totally like a biker. When I slid it on and looked in the mirror, I just smiled. “Oh, man,” I said out loud. “You are one bad ass.” I tasted the dirty word in my mouth and liked the way it sounded. “Bad – ASS,” I repeated. Just four years ago my mom would have washed my mouth out with soap for saying it, but now – I was a biker.

I’d also purchased a fake beard and spirit glue, and I now pasted the beard on. Only the wig was golden yellow and the beard was a Santa Claus style beard from Target and the two didn’t look so good together. I shrugged and said to myself, well, bikers aren’t known for having exquisite personal appearances.

I had a blue jean jacket I’d picked up from Goodwill, and I also had an old tattered pair of blue jeans I’d worn when I was seventeen. The jeans didn’t fit so well any more and I couldn’t button them, but I also had a really cool extra large t-shirt from Joe’s Crab Shack, so I left it untucked and so no one could tell that my pants were not completely closed. I looked in the mirror in a full-length mirror and I jumped up and down and squealed. I looked pretty much totally like a badass biker!

          

But what is a biker without a posse? He’s nothing; worse than nothing, he’s a target for other biker gangs. I needed to join a gang, and fast. But there was a big problem.

My mom made me promise three things when I moved out. ONE: I must never eat leftovers that were more than a week old, TWO: always wear a clean pair of underwear EVERY day, and THREE: never ever EVER ride on a motorcycle. I hadn’t broken any of the promises yet, and as much as I wanted to this time, it would be disrespectful to my mother. So until she was dead, I had to stick with my 12 speed Huffy. Now, some people think that a Huffy isn’t as cool as a motorcycle. They’re wrong. Maybe because it isn’t as big, or isn’t as loud – that’s what they’ll tell you. But two months before, I’d taken a big roll of duct tape and taped on a bunch of stuff to the bike and spraypainted the whole thing black – a couple of broomsticks, some empty cans, a Troll doll, and an AM/FM walkman with mini speakers. The effect was so amazing, it looked incredible. If you saw me driving down the street and you heard death metal blasting through the mini speakers you’d totally slow down and say to yourself, man, I have got to stay out of that badass’s way.

I got on my bike and started pedaling down the street, blonde hair waving in the wind. My Santa Claus beard was a little askew; I told myself next time I’d use more spirit gum. It was a pleasant June morning and it wasn’t too hot yet, but it was just hot enough to make my blue jean jacket completely unnecessary, which is why it looked so cool. Mr. Fonders down the street squinted at me nervously, but I waved to him and said “It’s just me, Mr. Fonders,” and he said “Hi Charles” and went back to watering his lawn. It was incredibly empowering.

I thought about yelling, “WHAT UP, BITCH,” just like I saw this guy do on television, but Mr. Fonders was pretty cool in his own way. Some old guys have those stupid things in their gardens that look like ladies bent over and you can see their big flowery underpants, but not Mr. Fonders. He grew tomatoes and peppers, and once he brought over three pink tomatoes and some peppers and asked if I could use them. I said yes, and when he left I ate half a pepper and threw up. Then I took the tomatoes back up to my high school and threw them at the brick wall and laughed like crazy. So Mr. Fonders and me were cool.

“Get a bike and join my cool gang, Mr. Fonders!” I yelled at him, and he looked up from watering and waved to me again. I didn’t have time to wait, so I just kept pedaling. It was a really nice morning.

I turned the corner and kept biking. My Santa Claus beard kept making my face itch, so I scratched it a little and kept on going. I thought about biking up to the drug store and getting another Snapple, but then I thought, how many bikers have you ever seen drink a Snapple, dumb ass? They drink root beer, right from the bottle.

They didn’t have bottles of root beer at the drug store, but at the dollar store next door they had some, only they weren’t cold. I thought, probably bikers have to drink warm sodas too sometimes – they don’t have a cooler on their bikes. That gave me a really good idea. What if I taped a little cooler to the back of my bike so if I wanted a soda later I could have one? I figured I’d do it when I got home.

On the way out, I saw these two kids with these really crummy bikes. The guys looked like they were twelve, and one had a orange girl’s bike, and the other had a blue Mongoose bike from Toys R Us.

“Those bikes are terrible!” I said, pointing proudly to my bike. “This is what you’re lookin for! Something totally awesome like this.”

The two boys just looked at me. I felt really sorry for them.

“You guys wanna go join my biker crew?” I asked. “We can go down the main way peel out toss down a few skynners and then smoke a dirvy.” I said it gruffly, just like I imagined a biker would say.

The two boys looked at me a little longer. The one with the orange girl’s bike said, “What’s wrong with your beard?”

“Nothing,” I said.

“It’s sort of falling off,” he pointed out.

I quickly adjusted the beard.

“What’s all that mean?” asked the other boy. “Peel a… dirvey and all that?”

I shrugged. “Motorcycle code, my man. You’ll figure it out along the way. You guys wanna ride out? We goin all the way down the junction, son, all engines open and flyin like skeedles.”

The two boys looked at each other, then at me. “No,” finally one admitted. “We’re watchin Pokemon in fifteen minutes.”

“You aren’t invited to see it,” the other boy informed me, and they both got on their bikes and rode away. Sissies, I thought. They weren’t tough enough for the biker lifestyle – but I would always be tough enough!

I spent the next two hours trying to find someone cool enough to ride with me. I saw one guy on a Vespa and I tried to ride with him, but after two blocks he turned down a sidestreet. I saw another guy on a bike, but he was wearing those skin-tight clothes and wearing a helmet - obviously a professional bicycler, and NOT the kind of compadre I wanted in my motorcycle club. I saw two biker guys downtown on some really cool Harley Davidson motorcycles, and I asked if I could ride with them, and they laughed and said sure – only to drive way faster than I could, leaving me behind. I was so mad I tried to memorize their license plate numbers so I could call the cops on them for speeding, but they went too fast and my eyesight is kind of bad. Also, my wig kept flapping in my face and it made it hard to see.

Finally I just rode to my best friend Chester’s house. Chester’s mom answered the door, and she gave me my first real laugh of the day. She looked scared and said, “OH NO, A BIKER! GO AWAY, YOU BAD BIKER!”

“Ha ha!” I said to her. “It’s just me, Mrs. Larrington!” Chester’s mom was a hoot. For the longest time she called us the CHUHs, because Chester and Charles both started with a CH. But after we graduated high school, Chester said she had to stop. I was always disappointed that she didn’t call us the CHUHs any more.

“Goodness, Charles,” she said, covering up her heart. “It’s you! You almost scared me half to death! Hold on, I’ll get Chester.” 

Finally after what seemed like half an hour Chester came downstairs. He was still wearing pajamas, even though it was 3:45 in the afternoon!

“Who the fuck?” he said – then he realized who it was. I couldn’t believe he said the “F” word right in front of his mom.

“Hey, Charles,” he said. “What up?”

“Hey, man,” I said. “I’m just… you know, bikin around, getting a biker club together. You want to join?”

“Naw, fuck it, not today,” Chester said. “Let’s do it tomorrow. Today is pajama day.” Then he trudged back upstairs.

I just stood there for a while, feeling sad. Finally, Mrs. Larrington gave me a hug. “Chester hasn’t been feeling himself today,” she said to me, rubbing my hair with one hand. “Come back over tomorrow, okay, dear?”

“I sure will,” I said, and hoisted one leg over the bike’s frame. “That’s cool! Here I go, Mrs. Larrington – watch me!” And I switched on the AM/FM radio, turning it to the hard rock station, and pedaled down the road towards home – a vision in black and blue, a demon of the road, hell on wheels.

THE YOUNG MAN WHO TRAVELED THROUGH TIME

This is another one of my Most Favorite Things I've ever written. This is my Boswell story. I was a really, really gullible kid. Once, this kid at summer camp told me that the camp counselors kept him in the basement where they were making him build a nuclear bomb so they could take over the United States. He convinced me that he was extremely knowledgeable about building nuclear explosives and that I had to help him or the world would soon be under the control of our camp counselors.

This has been a recurring theme throughout my life.

---

Mike was just a regular guy - he liked his hamburgers with mustard, his reality shows with animal-testicle devouring, and his centerfolds with big hineys. At night, he'd feed his chihuahua, grab a frosty beer, and sit back in his easy chair to watch the latest sitcoms. He never really laughed at the sitcoms, but he felt compelled to watch them - "The storyline," he told me once, though the shows had no real continuity and there was only a tenuous connection between one scene and the next.

Yes, Mike was just a regular guy. A regular guy, that is, until one soul-scarring day when he went back in time.

Later, when he tried to think back on how he had traveled some two hundred odd years into the distant past, he couldn't remember. Mike couldn't always recall the precise details of the incident, but he sure did like to tell me about all it. "One time," he confided in me, "I banged this, like, old England broad with a big ass."  He nodded at me with big eyes, showing his utter sincerity. "Daayyumnnnn," Mike concluded, raising one eyebrow.

I feel that it is my duty to document Mike's adventures for posterity. Perhaps it may seem silly now, but I believe that we should all nod our heads solemnly and listen to the story of MIKE, the greatest time traveler of all ... well, of all time!

Without warning, Mike found himself in the 18th century, the most dangerous century of all time. Fighting for his life, no way of knowing where to go or what to do! Quickly he adopted a British accent so that no one would know his true identity. I wouldn't believe it myself if he hadn't told me.

"Lewwwk heeeyahh, loove," he told a beautiful young American woman who was walking next to him. Actually, it wasn't really America yet - from the way he explained it to me, it was actually a collection of 'colonics.' So if I understand him correctly, it was really a colonical girl. "Lewwwk heeayh, loove," he told the colonical girl. "Oyyy am een Loove wif yeww." She smiled at him and they began making out right there.

Suddenly, an enraged George Washington drove up in his horse and buggy. "Bitch," shouted Washington,"I'm going to fuck your shit up!"

"Neeeew, Moyyk," shouted the beautiful colonical girl with the large breasts. "We've ewwwnly joost met and oym fawwling in LEWV wif yewww!"

"I shall defend thou honor!" yelled Mike, and pulled out his gun, shooting George Washington in the face repeatedly until the gun only clicked, clicked. "My God," someone cried, "Who will sign the Declaration of Constitution now?"

"I will," said Mike, quickly forging Washington's signature on the now bloodstained paper. "To arms," he cried, "let us kill the damned British!" Grabbing some tea, he threw it in the Gulf of  Mexico to rally his half-man, half-android troops. They all came - one by one - with giant rayguns and uzis.

The British began oozing up from the soil. Hideous shapes that seemed to come from a heavy metal album cover. They oozed and grimaced, occasionally stopping to vomit a heavy stream of sewage onto the American soil. Mike cringed at the sight - he felt his sanity slowly draining away. "QUICK, MY ROBOT LEGIONS," he told his army, "ATTACK THE BRITISH!" And they did, tearing off the horrors' heads with surprising ease like popping the tabs off of a Coke can. But the British kept coming. Mike knew that he must do something!

Quickly he rolled his twelve-sided die and summoned a level 15 mage to attack. The mage cast FireAsh(+2 Demon protection) on the evil British army and suddenly they all began melting and shrieking, a high-pitched noise that would haunt Mike until the end of his days - or so he told me. "Personally," he said, "I think I could get over it - in time." At this, he smirked and crossed his arms, indicating that the story was over.

Sometimes he would elaborate on the stories - certain elements would change, mysterious details were added. At one point, he defeated the British by rolling over them with a "Super-armored magical tank." It was a damned exciting story. Yet I would always feel that I was missing entire important scenes. He would sometimes allude to a mysterious incident in which he shook Batman's hand.  Once, he told me that he made out with "something like, twelve, maybe twenty British colonical chicks." He also hinted that perhaps he had died and they had sent back a robot in his place - and then he had risen from the dead, "just like Lazarus," and defeated the robot clone using incredibly awe-inspiring Ninja powers.

Mike was pretty much all I talked about for about a week until he got fired. Apparently he couldn't work because of a "ninja-related injury" and spent all his time drinking coffee and drawing pictures of girls with large behinds. He also flexed his muscles quite a bit. After Mike disappeared, I got very excited and figured that he must have gone back in time again. But my manager told me, no, he just got fired.

I cannot begin to explain how scientifically important a time travel venture is. I hope you can begin to imagine the implications of such a journey. Let us remember Mike and his fantastical journeys always. Perhaps these writings will outlast even me so that my children and their obnoxious children can learn of Mike, the Time Traveling Hero of the Twenty First Century.

MY BODY IS A WONDERLAND

My birthday is in two days! I am doing some special stuff. WHILE I AM GONE: Here is a story I wrote. Remember in 1816, when those three boring people sat together and wrote some books? It was like that. Rebecca, Sarah, and I all wrote stories about Deep Sea Creatures. This was mine.

I think everyone should know straight up that "Anglerfish (I Have A Light)" is probably the best song I have never written. I sing it in my head all the time, even though it barely has words.

The Rise and Fall of the Swizzlers

by Robert P Chatham

with much debt and thanks to Ms. Sarah Stephens

"do you believe in unicorns," she asked me
No I said
but in my heart
I heard a whispering
'yes...'
in my dreams, he is pink and muscular
his horn twisting from his forehead
he is magnificent
magnificent!!!

            Pete stared at his notebook, barely able to hide his excitement, half-gnawed pencil  in his sweaty hand. His first book, The Unicorn Diaries, was definitely going to be the best thing he’d ever written. He wondered if it would be good enough to read to Francis, when he was finished. Francis was Pete's favorite imaginary unicorn. Francis was not pink or even purple, but was a deep, majestic orange. His horn was about two feet long and could harness the power of the Daisy Forest Glen to defeat any Horde Minister who were invading on the Lords’ land. Pete was very proud of Francis.

            He carefully closed his notebook and placed it at the very bottom of his knapsack. He knew that if anyone else read his book, carefully printed on the wide-ruled notebook paper, they would be intensely jealous to learn of his special relationship as Ambassador to the Lordship of the Unicorns, and probably they would drop a dead bug in his lunch sack. He had seen it happen before. “Why don’t you play with your gay unicorn friends,” his school mates would laugh and jeer once they knew. But Pete would roll his eyes. They didn’t know. He only had ONE unicorn friend, and it happened to be his best friend. And he also knew that he was best qualified to be Ambassador, seeing that he had earned the Unicorn Fealty Badge and that he was the lead guitarist for The Swizzlers.

            The Swizzlers!!! Pete quickly glanced at his watch and looked at the time. Oh no, 12:15 already!! Mr. Jeff was going to be so mad!!!  He threw his knapsack over his shoulders and dashed for Music Tutoring, hoping he wouldn’t be too late.

            But there was Mr. Jeff, arms crossed, tapping his foot, his ponytail bouncing along. He looked stern and unforgiving. “Pete,” he began, looking perturbed.

            “Mr. Jeff!” cried Pete. He'd prepared an excuse on his way from the lunchroom. “I'm really really sorry I'm late but I was just thinking about The Swizzlers's first album!” He had been. He'd filled 12 pages of his notebook about the concept album he'd envisioned, tentatively entitled “Deep Sea Creatures” – two LPs featuring songs inspired by a dream he'd had where he'd ridden a Manta Ray down to the bottom of the sea and become best friends with a squid named S.L. Inky. It was probably the coolest dream he'd ever had – well, second coolest, right after the one where Francis had given him a ride through the Misty Meadow.

            “The Swizzlers won't be able to make a first album without a lot of practice, Pete,” Mr. Jeff said with a frown. He turned around and sat down on the top of his desk and crossed his arms. Pete noticed for the first time that Mr. Jeff was starting to lose his hairline. There was a long, uncomfortable silence. “Have you been practicing?” Mr. Jeff finally asked.

            Pete hadn't been, but he couldn't say that. “Well, kind of,” he admitted.

            “Let's jam a little now,” said Mr. Jeff confidently. “Come on, Pete!” He smiled and looked almost three years younger. “Let's rock this out, guy!”

            “Louie Louie”! Maybe the most classic rock riff in existence, certainly the coolest. Pete picked up the classroom guitar and frowned as he tuned the strings by ear the way Mr. Jeff had taught him. He contorted his fingers, getting ready for the first chord. Play three times... and then move the fingers again. He fumbled on the next chord, and then did okay on the third and fourth. And then repeat. He started over, gaining assurance. He closed his eyes and imagined The Swizzlers's first rock show. The crowd roaring, screaming, spotlight on him as he began plucking out the first notes of Louie Louie before slowly easing into the first track from “Deep Sea Creatures”, tentatively titled “We are the Octo-Posse.”

            He messed up the next chord and grimaced. Mr. Jeff crossed his arms again and looked frustrated.

            “Pete,” he said. “If you aren't practicing, you're wasting MY time and you're wasting The Swizzlers's time. Do you think that Toby and Jordie aren't giving this their all?”

            Toby was the bassist of The Swizzlers. He was really thin and asthmatic. He typically wore a black t-shirt that implied he was crazy, or that he was fond of crazy things. Jordie was a fat curly-haired boy who'd, as a joke the month before, improvised on the bongos one morning before music class and had thus been 'elected' by Mr. Jeff to be the class drummer.

            The three had not ever actually met or had a band practice together. Sure, they'd seen each other in the halls, but Pete, Toby, and Jordie were barely acquaintances. Mr. Jeff had formed the band as some sort of class project – Pete was not entirely sure why.

The real reason, actually, was that Mr. Jeff really liked the song “Louie Louie”, liked it to the point where he wanted – to some extent – to recreate The Kingsmen, as he'd been born the same year that The Kingsmen had formed and his mother used to bounce him on her hip, one cigarette tucked in the corner of her mouth, as they listened to the song on the radio. Two years later, she'd died of tuberculosis. Some psychiatrists would say he was still trying to please his mother nearly 40 years later, others would say that it was his way of connecting to the only time in life when he'd been happy. But the real reason was that he'd always had a fantasy of playing “Louie Louie” in front of his classmates at the school talent show when he was seventeen, but had lost the chance when his drummer contracted infectious mononucleosis a week before and they had to sit the show out. He'd never forgotten the disappointment, and so he'd finally decided that if he wasn't going to do it, he'd find someone whom he could play vicariously through.

            Mr. Jeff peered closely at Pete, who was still staring blankly at the floor. “Pete?” he said. “I asked you a question. Don't you think the other Swizzlers are giving this their all?”

            “Yes,” sighed Pete, shuffling his feet. “I think they're giving it their all.”

            “Of course they are,” Mr. Jeff said, leaning back, looking cool. He looked almost like he was on a motorcycle instead of a big wooden desk with a picture of a vase of tulips on it. “'Cause Swizzlers never say die, right?”

            “Yeah,” muttered Pete.

            “RIGHT?” repeated Mr. Jeff.

            Pete thought about riding Francis in on his first show and how cool it would be to play “Louie Louie” on the back of an orange unicorn. “Yeah!” he shouted enthusiastically. “Swizzlers never say die!!!”

            “That's right!” yelled Mr. Jeff. “Now play it again, Pete-oh!” And Pete picked up the guitar and started playing again, better this time. Mr. Jeff sang along:

            Louie Louie

            A-aahohhh baby

            Eehgghaa gooo.

            And both of them shouted along, “YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH!”

            the sea is beauty

            octopus: eight tentacles

            four more than i have

           

            Pete decided the third track on “Deep Sea Creatures” would be an acoustic song, the lyrics consisting of several haikus. He did not want Jordie or Toby playing on this track because he'd left notes in their lockers asking if they liked haikus and both had returned the notes with the box checked “No”. This meant that they were not as cool as he hoped they were. He could not share the radical secret of Francis with his band mates yet. He'd put away The Unicorn Diaries for now, hiding it in the special place under his mattress in his room, but he knew for sure that one day he'd go back and finish the book. One day, when The Swizzlers were famous, the entire world would know of his secret world of Unicorns and High Faeries, who did not live in harmony and yet had not warred in over eight thousand septanias.

            Toby and Jordie looked funny, but Pete was okay with that. He wondered if Peter Gabriel had ever realized how silly Phil Collins looked, back when they played together with Genesis. Probably, Pete thought. But Phil Collins was a really good drummer, and also, Peter Gabriel got all of the girls because no one wanted Phil. I hope that one day Jordie's okay as a drummer, he thought to himself.

            He'd spent the night before making a really cool website for The Swizzlers. Their first show together was tomorrow, and he wanted to leave fliers for all the music label reps who would come see their gig. They were going to play “Louie Louie” at the school talent show. The website just had a centered JPEG that said “THE SWIZZLERS” in a pretty font, and then underneath that in plain text:

ARE CRAWLING OUT FROM THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA! THIS MARCH

            He knew that would get the Swizzlers's fans all excited about the gig as well as spread new word of mouth. He had spent two hours drawing a picture of a fish on a piece of notebook paper he ripped out, and he wanted to use his dad's scanner so he could put that at the bottom of the page, but his dad was busy working on the computer, so he couldn't. Pete was disappointed.

            Still, he took 20 index cards and, on each one, carefully printed:

            www.myspace.com/theswizzlersband7694

           

That night, he barely slept.

Ten minutes before The Swizzlers began playing at the talent show, Pete's heart was in his throat. The truth was, he'd just met Toby and Jordie a week before and they'd practiced the song twice together. Pete felt a big lump in his throat when he realized that the band was finally coming together at last. “The Herbs,” as they'd been instructed to call Mr. Jeff (because, as he told them with a big smile, his last name was Herbertson), was going to sing at their first show. Mr. Jeff said that he planned to move from his role as manager to being the band's lead singer until Pete's voice stopped cracking.

            Pete tuned and retuned his guitar nervously. They hadn't figured out a way to get the entire drum kit out to the stage, so Mr. Jeff had hauled in the bongo drums and brought a pair of drumsticks for Jordie. “This will work for now,” he said dismissively. “'Louie Louie' doesn't rely too much on drums.”

            Pete sat and watched the talent show from backstage as one girl clumsily twirled a baton, one boy played a song on the piano (“Yesterday” by John Lennon; he played it like he was attempting to play whack-a-mole using the keys as the moles and his own oafish fingers as a mallet), and two girls acted out a skit they'd obviously gigglingly written the night before. It was apparently about seeing a spider in the bathroom, and there were hinted repeated references to their best girl friends as well as a sly knock at the school's principal. Pete barely paid attention; he knew that this was The Swizzlers's big chance for success; these guys were nowhere near coming close to his class act. “Only 15 and already a mega-star,” he whispered to himself, liking how the words tasted in his mouth.

            “And now,” said Principal Werner smoothly, causing Pete to jerk out of his daydream, “I would like to introduce... Mr. Jeff and the Twizzlers!” The auditorium politely applauded. Pete's heart was in his throat as he picked up his guitar and stepped out onto the middle of the stage.

            “Uh,” said Mr. Jeff into the microphone, and feedback shrieked from the amps into the audience. “Sorry about that. Uh, we're the Swizzlers, not the Twizzlers.” Pete felt an enormous burst of pride almost split his heart in two. Mr. Jeff was seriously awesome. Seriously.

            Jordie tapped out a beat, one two three four, and then the problem began. Pete thought they started playing ON four, but Toby thought it was four GO, and so they started off one beat and Pete had to stop playing so he could catch up. He felt really embarrassed and saw Mr. Jeff swear to himself, but they were playing pretty loudly and no one could hear. Pete was really in the groove, really feeling the song, and he hoped Mr. Jeff was too!

            Mr. Jeff started singing. “A fine girl, she wadder me. Me mmm mmm mmm cross the sea.” It was painfully apparent to Pete that Mr. Jeff did not really know the words to the song and was just humming the parts he'd forgotten. Then Pete, who had really gotten into the rhythm of the song and started trying to sort of dance a little, accidentally pulled the cord out of the guitar amp! He felt really bad and had to stop playing and bend over and pick it up and plug it back in, and also he hit the neck of the guitar on the stage when he bent over fast and it was a little out of tune after that.

            But despite these minor flaws, the song went pretty well. The auditorium mustered semi-enthusiastic applause for the band. Pete wished they'd gotten to play the song he'd written last Friday called “Anglerfish (I Have a Light.)” That was a love ballad that would have brought the house down as an encore. Mr. Jeff bowed and then motioned to the rest of The Swizzlers. Pete bowed, and Jordie raised his drumsticks and bowed. Show off, thought Pete. Toby took a hit off his asthma inhaler and then waved feebly to the audience. Pete swore he could hear someone that sounded like Toby's mom yell out “We love you Toby!” Watching his bassist's face turn beet red, he thought he might have heard correctly.

           

            The Swizzlers had a celebratory meeting at the McDonalds a mile away. Over hamburgers and french fries (Mr. Jeff had treated them all), they discussed the next phase in The Swizzlers's career.

            “I think that we should totally do a world tour!” shouted Jordie, slurping through his third hamburger. Pete thought it was a distasteful idea. He thought they should be writing and recording for the “Deep Sea Creatures” album, and he had said as much when they first arrived and ordered their food. But Mr. Jeff had been dismissive of the idea when he'd brought it up, saying “Let's just eat our hamburgers, okay, Pete? Can we do that right now?”

            “I still don't understand why we didn't win,” Toby muttered, picking at his fries. He'd cried for half an hour, even after Principal Werner had explained that acts involving teachers were not suitable for judging. “It wouldn't be fair to the other participants,” he'd explained to a tearful Toby and the remaining solemn Swizzlers. But it could have been worse. At least the baton twirler hadn't won.

            “I think,” Mr. Jeff said carefully, wiping his mouth with a little napkin, “that we did awesome. And I think that The Swizzlers need to have a break. We've had our first gig and we don't want to move too fast. Maybe we need to take some time off, practice on our own.”

            “But that isn't right!” Pete shouted. Some of the people in the McDonalds were looking over. “It isn't right,” he said more quietly. “I mean we have a website and a fan base, right? We need to make an album! We need to get critical approval!”

            “Sounds like someone's been reading too many internet websites,” Mr. Jeff said heartily. “No, trust me, this is the right step. I've been in several bands before.” He winked at the waitress at the counter, who chewed her gum lazily at him. “Several bands, my Swizzlers.”

            And though no one at the table could possibly know it, that was the last meeting of The Swizzlers, hot on the heels of their first and last concert. Pete remembered it always, especially when he quietly sang his favorite track off “Deep Sea Creatures” to himself (in the memory of Francis, who had died the summer before of Foot and Mouth disease) as he sat in 10th grade Biology class:

            “Mmm-mmm

            Coral reef

            In the deep      

            Ocean blue

            I love you.

            Oh Francis,

            How I miss

            Your pretty horn

            Good night, my unicorn.”

Rebecca's first official Mother's-Day-As-A-Mom was this year. I wrote her this as a Mother's Day present. It's  about being both a daughter and a mother, and it's about everything that's going on in her life right now, and it's also about how we met. It's also sort of a story about ducks, so we can read it to Audrey when she's old enough!

Webby, the Sure-Footed Duck

A Mother’s Day Story

By Robert Chatham

2012

Mr. and Mrs. Duck studied the beautifully blue egg.

“You did a nice job,” said Mr. Duck. “Firm. Symmetrical. Ovoid. It’s absolutely perfect.”

Mrs. Duck did not answer. She already knew the egg was perfect. As usual, Mr. Duck was simply stating the obvious.

“So now, we need to come up with a name,” said Mr. Duck. “May I make a suggestion? Henry Duck, Jr. I think that’s the one.”

“It’s a girl,” said Mrs. Duck.

“But how do you - ”

“Mother’s intuition.”

“What about Violetta? After my grandmother?”

“No. Her name will be Webby.” Mrs. Duck’s voice was firm.

“Well…” Mr. Duck leaned his head to the side, considering. “I suppose it has a nice ring to it. But maybe we should think about it for a while. You remember our disappointment after Billy was born..."

Mrs. Duck shook her head. "No. Definitely Webby. I have a good feeling about it."

*

Mrs. Duck sat on the egg day and night for an entire month. At last, the egg began to quiver. From within came a tapping noise. Mr. and Mrs. Duck crowded together to watch, and Billy ran to tell all of her friends that, at last, her new baby sister was hatching.

The two parents gently helped the chick peck away the shell. And, at last, the baby duck lay before them, a little fuzzy ball of happiness. A perfect face, a perfect bill, a perfect round little body, and beneath…

“What’s wrong with her feet?” asked Mr. Duck.

Mrs. Duck stared. Where there should have been two webbed feet, Webby Duck had ten little, fully formed toes. 

*

Dr. Quackers took a long look. “Yes,” he said at last. “Those are definitely human toes.”

“Oh my god,” her mother cried. “What can we do?!”

“Well, not much. She’s just a baby duck; too young to have surgery. Her toes might grow together crooked and she’d swim in circles all the time. But this is truly nothing to worry about. It shouldn’t hinder her swimming abilities much, if at all.”

“There has to be something we can do!” said Mr. Duck. “All the other ducklings will laugh at her.” Webby looked down at her feet sadly.

“And what if her feet end up attracting the attention of duck-eating dinosaurs?” asked Mrs. Duck.

“Well…” Dr. Quakers rubbed his bill thoughtfully. “I could build a pair of artificially webbed feet. She’d look normal, at least.”

Mr. Duck sighed heavily. “I hoped we wouldn’t have to go through this again.”

“Will they be as expensive as Billy’s synthetic beak?” asked Mrs. Duck.

“I’m afraid so,” said Dr. Quackers.

Mr. Duck shook his head in surrender. “Just put it on our bill.”

*

And so Webby, only a week old, was given prosthetic webbed feet. Dr. Quackers was a genius; they looked just like the real thing. When Webby went to school, none of the other ducklings had any idea that her feet really had ten perfectly formed human toes. Just as no one knew that underneath Billy’s cute, upturned prosthetic bill was an enormous penguin-like nose. There was only one problem: Webby hated her false feet.

The flippers itched. No matter how careful she was to dry them out every night, little droplets of water managed to work their way between her toes, and she always had athletes’ foot. The plastic smelled like the tires she occasionally saw floating in the lake. She could swim faster without the artificial webbed feet. And they never quite fit; her real toes grew so fast that no matter how often Dr. Quackers altered her so-called shoes, they were always just a bit too tight. “Once you’re fully grown, then I can make you a permanent pair that should fit the rest of your life,” he promised. But that didn’t cheer Webby up.

She wanted to throw them away at least three times a week. Only one thing stopped her: she didn’t want the other ducklings to laugh at her. They would. Some of the ducklings were mean.

“Bullies aren’t the worst of your concerns,” said her mother. “If you don’t wear those feet, the duck-eating dinosaurs might get you.”

“What are dinosaurs?”

“Enormous, duck-eating lizards. They lurk around ponds like this looking for weak, helpless ducks. If they knew you didn’t have real webbed toes, you’d be their number one target.”

“I haven’t seen any dinosaurs before,” said Webby.

“Exactly,” her mother said firmly. And that was that. Webby would wear the feet, no matter how uncomfortable they were. End of discussion.

*

When Webby was six months old, her parents threw her a surprise party. “You’re a grown-up duck now,” said Mr. Duck proudly, handing her a box filled with gourmet watercress and chocolate-covered ladybugs.

“That doesn’t mean you have to leave the nest,” said Mrs. Duck. “You know that you’re welcome to stay as long as you’d like. Your sister’s still here, and she’s nearly a year old!”

Billy made a face, and Mrs. Duck shuddered. “Billy, why aren’t you wearing your little beak?”

“Because it’s dirty. I’m tired of smelling dirty plastic all day.”

“But if you don’t wear it, you’ll never attract a handsome mate. You remember what happened to little Caroline. She ended up marrying one of those big honking geese. Now she’s laying Cadbury eggs somewhere in California.”

“Cadbury eggs? How is that even possible?” asked Webby.

“It just is,” her mother said firmly. Billy sulkily went to get her prosthetic bill.

Mrs. Duck took out another box. “I have another gift for you, Webby,” she said.

Webby opened it to find a very, very fancy set of prosthetic webbed feet. “Oh, thanks,” she said wearily.

“Now that you’re an adult, Dr. Quackers made you an extra special pair. These should last you for years and years.”

Webby put on the webbed feet, which still seemed a little too tight. “They’re great,” she sighed.

*

 Late at night, after everyone had gone to bed, Billy sneaked into Webby’s room. “It’s too late,” said Webby. “I already ate all the ladybugs.”

“Don’t be a jerk. That’s not what I was going to ask,” said Billy.  “This summer, I’m planning to visit Pyramid Pond. Do you want to come with me?” Pyramid Pond was a famous pond many, many miles away. Wilma and John Mallard, friends of their parents, had once brought them an entire slice of sourdough bread they’d scrounged on a vacation. Webby had never tasted anything so good, and she was already salivating at the thought of more. Still…

“I don’t know,” said Webby. “I’ve never left our nest before.”

“Don’t worry,” said Billy. “I’ll take care of you, little sis.”

*

Mr. and Mrs. Duck weren’t happy that their daughters were going on vacation alone. Still, they understood that their girls were growing up. With heavy hearts, Mr. and Mrs. Duck flapped goodbye.

It was a long journey, and not very exciting. Billy and Webby flew over mucky swamps, small towns, and busy highways for many, many hours. At last, they saw a triangle-shaped body of water below and descended. The two ducks landed in an empty corner of the pond. “Hooray!” cried Billy, popping off her fake beak.

“What are you doing?” cried Webby.

“Letting loose. I don’t need this thing.”

“But mom said…”

“Mom’s not here, is she? We’re on vacation, miles and miles away from home. We can do whatever we want!”

Webby shrugged nervously.

Billy’s head whipped around. “Oh, my. Canadian geese. I’ve heard about them! I have to go check them out. I’ll meet you back here tonight!” And with a flap, Billy flew away.

Webby’s heart sank. So it was going to be that kind of holiday. Billy would flit around until she was ready to go home while Webby would sit around, bored. At least I brought a book, she thought, pulling a copy of "The Trumpet of the Swan" from under her wing.

She was right in the middle of a good part (Louis was attacking a particularly annoying boy named Sam Beaver) when someone said, “That’s my favorite book.”

She looked up. The duck in front of her looked like nothing she’d ever seen. He was tall and had a tuft of hair just below his beak. He was incredibly attractive, in a strange way. She opened her mouth, flabbergasted, and realized that she had no idea what to say.

“Second favorite,” he amended. “I like 'Duckleberry Finn' even better.”

“I’ve read that,” said Webby. “My favorite is the 'Drakes of Wrath'.”

“You know, there’s this little place around the corner that has fantastic millet. Sometimes, even sourdough crumbs. You want to go?”

“Okay,” said Webby.

*

The moustached duck’s name was Wobblert. “Because my egg wasn’t perfectly round,” he told her.

“My name is Webby,” she said.

“I guess I know why they named you that,” said Wobblert.

Oh no, thought Webby. Her parents had warned her about bad ducks like this. Now, he would try to ogle her legs. 

 “Because they’re really into Spider-Duck, right?” Wobblert said with a smile. Webby grinned.

Webby and Wobblert spent the whole day together. They splashed in the pond and played hide-and-go-seek in the reeds. They ducked underwater and snarfed minnows. They explored all of Pyramid Pond together.

Webby squinted at the shore. “There’s something really big over there.”

“Oh, boy! A bunch of humans,” said Wobblert. “Want to go see if they have any bread?”

“Okay,” said Webby. She followed Wobblert onto the shore and up to a crowd of enthusiastic third graders. They wolfed down the wheat crusts that the children tossed.

When they finished eating their fill, they climbed back into the water. Wobblert was very quiet.

“I’m having a really good time,” said Webby.

“Me too,” said Wobblert.

“I guess my sister’s probably looking for me,” said Webby.

“Can I ask you something?”

Webby shrugged.

“Is something wrong with your feet?”

Webby froze. “What? Why do you want to know?”

“For a minute, it looked like you were kind of waddling funny.”

“Oh. Uh…”

“Sorry,” Wobblert said. “That was probably rude of me.”

“No. I guess I should have mentioned it before. These… these aren’t my real feet. They’re made of plastic.”

Wobblert smiled. “That’s why they look kind of… shiny.”

“They’re a little tight. That’s why I limp.”

“Why don’t you take them off?”

“I don’t know,” Webby said uneasily. “What about the duck-eating dinosaurs?”

“Dinosaurs?” Wobblert laughed. “All of the dinosaurs went extinct millions of years ago!”

Webby took off the fake feet. It was the first time anyone outside of her family (besides Dr. Quackers) had seen her toes.

Wobblert’s eyes widened. “Those are so cool,” he said. “They aren’t all connected like mine. I bet you could do all sorts of things that I can’t! You could pick up little bugs or cook tasty pancakes…”

Webby blushed. “No, I couldn’t. My parents said that I have to wear these plastic feet all the time.”

“But why?”

“Well…my real toes look weird.”

“I think they’re adorable,” said Wobblert.

Webby heard an enormous flapping, and then Billy landed in the lake. She was wearing her prosthetic nose again. Webby quickly hid her toes in the water. “What a vacation! I’m exhausted.”

“Billy, this is my new friend Wobblert,” said Webby.

“Cool,” said Billy. “Are you ready to go home?”

“Not yet.”

“Well, too bad. It’s time to go.”

“But…”

Wobblert piped up. “Excuse me. I’ve always wanted to go on vacation. Would you mind if I came with you?”

Billy shrugged. “Entirely up to you.”

“Then I think I will.”

Webby smiled a big smile.

*

Mr. and Mrs. Duck were not very impressed with Wobblert. For one thing, they’d never seen a duck with a moustache before. For another, he didn’t seem to respect the idea of duck-eating dinosaurs.

“I don’t know,” said Mr. Duck. “The boy seems nice enough, but he seems to think that tuft of hair gives him license to do whatever he likes. It’s the kind of behavior that attracts the duck-eating dinosaurs.”

“Maybe once he goes home he could be your pen-pal. By the way, have you noticed how much Victor McDuck’s grown since you left?” asked Mrs. Duck. “He’s such a nice duck, and his uncle is so wealthy, and he has such a crush on you.”

But Victor was gross; he was the kind of duck who ate the kelp that collected between his toes after he swam. Webby was not impressed. “I like Wobblert,” said Webby.

 “Some duck,” sniffed Mrs. Duck. “He’ll make a fine meal for the dinosaurs, and then where will you be?”

“When’s the last time anyone saw one of these dinosaurs?” asked Webby.

Mrs. Duck shook her head and pursed her bill. “A very, very long time. We’ve been lucky.”

But Webby didn’t think it was just luck. Lately, when she and Wobblert played together, she’d started taking off her prosthetic feet. And no matter how long she left them off, they still hadn’t seen any duck-eating dinosaurs.

Wobblert insisted that the dinosaurs didn’t even exist. “Even if they did,” he said, “Why would wearing these weird fake feet keep them away? Wouldn’t they want to eat you no matter what?”

“I don’t know,” said Webby. “Maybe we just don’t understand. We could ask my parents…”

“Look, if you don’t like those feet, you should throw them away. They’re cramping your style.”

“But…” Webby didn’t know where to begin. Her parents had spent a lot on the fake feet, and she’d worn them since she was just a chick. It seemed like it was better to not rock the boat.

“You can do what you want,” said Wobblert. “I just think they’re a little ridiculous.”

Webby didn’t say whether or not she agreed, but as time went by, Wobblert noticed that she wore the feet less and less.

*

One night, Webby tried talking to Billy about everything. “I mean, maybe we could both tell Mom and Dad that we don’t want to wear this junk any longer. And we could explain to them about how there aren’t any duck-eating dinosaurs…”

Billy shook her head. “No way. We’re totally not having that conversation.”

“But aren’t you tired of wearing that smelly beak?”

“Of course I am. But imagine how mom and dad would feel. You know how much they gave up to buy it for me?”

“But you didn’t wear it when we went on vacation…”

“Exactly. And the next time we go on vacation, I’ll take it off again.”

Webby didn’t understand.

*

Wobblert and Webby played together all the time. They baked watercress pies together. They listened to Swan Lake. Every week, they visited a duck market two ponds away and stocked up on cheese and brown bread. They were wild about crusty bread. After a long while, Wobblert and Webby decided to get married. It seemed like a good idea. Webby proudly told her parents the good news.

Mr. and Mrs. Duck were shocked. “What kind of father is he going to be?” demanded Mrs. Duck. “He doesn’t even think you should wear those feet. I’ve seen you splashing around without them. Can you imagine how he’d take care of a baby duck? The dinosaurs would eat it up in two seconds flat! Snap, snap, snap!”

“Your mother is right,” said Mr. Duck.

 “I already talked to Wobblert about it,” said Webby. “He said that if you’re so afraid of duck-eating dinosaurs, we should all go to Pyramid Pond. There’s never been a dinosaur attack at Pyramid Pond.”

Mrs. Duck opened and closed her mouth, flummoxed. “But… but…”

Webby waited patiently.

“But… if you’re going to marry him, then who’s going to make sure you wear your prosthetic feet?”

“Nobody,” said Webby. “I’m tired of wearing them. From today on, I’ll feel the water between my toes!”

“But your name is Webby. If you don’t wear your webbed feet, then...”

“That’s not my fault,” said Webby.

*

A week later, they were wed on the roof of a nearby chapel. Webby wore a beautiful blue dress, and – though the groom threatened to wear his Donald Duck outfit – Wobblert wore a nice suit. Webby didn’t say anything, but she secretly thought it made him look like a penguin. Mrs. and Mr. Duck attended, though both wore an air of distaste.

Wobblert and Webby didn’t end up moving to Pyramid Pond. They stayed in the lake where Webby was born. She never wore her prosthetic feet again, except during fancy dinner parties, and they were never attacked by the duck-eating dinosaurs. Eventually, Billy married Victor’s brother Huey, and she ended up taking off her artificial bill. Mr. and Mrs. Duck were disappointed, but they eventually stopped complaining. Still, every Ducksgiving, Mrs. Duck gave her daughters boxes of Dino Repellant.

One day, several months after they were married, Webby laid an egg. A symmetrical, ovoid, perfectly beautiful blue egg.

“What do you want to name it?” asked Wobblert.

“I think we’ll wait until she’s born and see,” said Webby.

“We have to call her something,” said Wobblert. “I can’t spend a whole month referring to our future chick as ‘the egg.’ Maybe we could call her Eggy. Or Shelly.”

“Absolutely not. I don’t want to give her a name that she can’t grow into.”

“Then what?”

Webby thought a while. “How about something simple… like Audrey?”

“That,” said Wobblert, “is why we’re best friends.”

The End

What is Rugby?

I guess they all can't be winners. This is one of the first stories I ever wrote. I was twenty, and I had no idea what rugby was. Back then, simply not knowing the definition of a word was enough to make me write a story.
 
"Boy!" shouted Henry's father, "to-day, you shall be a rugby player. You will be the finest rugby player the world has ever known, and you will play rugby with a concentration and skill that no one else has. You will learn to love and hate rugby, and you will play rugby viciously. You will be a rugby God!"

Henry listened to this speech with, at first, surprise and delight, and then dull boredom. He stared blankly at his father's yammering mouth and wondered to himself, "What is Rugby, now?" After the long speech, he excused himself from the breakfast table and got ready for school. He slowly walked to the bathroom and snatched up his toothbrush. He put some toothpaste on the toothbrush and then rubbed his teeth with the toothbrush. He washed his face and hands and put on a lovely perfume. He did these things exactly three times each, because he had obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Henry went to the bedroom, opened his window, and jumped out, landing two stories below. He then walked to school. He did not like to use the front door, because his father said that the front door was for girls and sissies. He was neither. "I wonder if rugby is like dancing," he thought to himself.

Henry trudged to school and pulled his backpack on the ground, scraping it all up. His backpack was going to wear out soon if he kept this nonsense up. Maybe he should stop it, because he was going through something like three backpacks a year and how would his poor mother keep up with all of it? Meanwhile, something snapped and growled at the back of his mind, trying to tell him something. What was it? Oh. He remembered. Then he forgot again, and kept walking."Err... Rugby," his mind went on. "What is it? Rugby. Isn't that a horrid looking person? Er, no. That's ugly. Duckling?" He continued in the same manner for a while, and anyone who was trapped inside his mind would have screamed in anguish long before.

When he got to his school, he sat next to his best pal Edmund. "Edmund," he leaned over and asked, "what is rugby?"
"Quiet," snapped the teacher. "No talking during class."
"Rugby," explained Edmund, "is when one salmon likes another salmon, and they go off to the mating grounds."
"No," replied Henry, "I think that's spawning. Dad says he wants me to take up rugby."
"Does it have anything to do with tubas?" asked Edmund, a spark appearing in his eye. Edmund was wild for anything having to do with tubas.
"No," admitted Henry. "I don't think so."
"Please, Henry and Edmund, hush!" exclaimed the teacher.

Henry stopped at the bakery on the way home and bought a donut. He tried to ask the local bakery shop owner what rugby was, but he was too busy counting his money exactly three times before handing it over. He ate the donut rather quickly and had a tummy ache.

Finally, Henry got home. His dad was in the easy chair, passed out, a bottle of whiskey in one hand. "Dad, dad, wake up," said Henry. He shook his father. "Wake up, dad." "Whaadyya want," mumbled Henry's dad. "I toljda I DIDN'T FINISH THE REPORTS BOB, SO Y'CAN SHOVE IT."
"Aren't I supposed to play rugby, father?" asked Henry. "Aren't I supposed to be a rugby hero?"
At this, his father woke up, glaring angrily at his son. "Yes, you are! Where did you hear that?"
"From you!" yelped Henry.
"Oh, that's right," said his father.
"Well," asked Henry, "can I ask you what rugby is?"
"Son, I don't know," admitted his father. "Let's play cards!" And they did.

Regrets and Snippets

Without the looming expectations of a large readership, I should feel free to post whatever I want.

So why don't I? I need to man up and post something stupid, because Should is a word for losers. Will is a word for winners. I probably should wait until I finish my coffee before writing this blog post, because I might regret how ridiculous it is later. But I'm a winner, so I will go ahead and finish this before the baby wakes up.

TWO STORIES. Two very short stories written in my late teens / early 20s. Just as an object lesson in how far I've come.

#1

Oswald was a brave, cheerful teacup whose only real flaw was his ambition. He wished to be more than a simple, chipped teacup: maybe, he dreamed, a teapot.
Unfortunately, his dream failed because he simply could not hold 5-10 cups of water.

#2

As Julie sat at the breakfast table, she smiled at her new husband. He was certainly handsome and charming. His teeth were straight and pearly white. Still, there was something about him - something that unnerved her. Her hand shook briefly as she reached across the table for the salt. Dan smiled at his new wife, picked up the pancake syrup, and poured himself a tall glass. Julie stared at him for some time. She cleared her throat several times. He kept staring at her - that same blank, mindless grin on his face. Her heart began to thump. Thump. Thump. As if it would break in two.

"Did you...?" she asked, and then shook her head, clearing her throat again. "Why did you pour  yourself a glass of pancake syrup?"

Dan stared at her for several seconds, his smile fading into a curious frown. "Pour myself what?"

"Pancake syrup."

"This..." he shook his head, confused. "This isn't pancake syrup. This is rum and coke."

"Rum and coke," Julie repeated.

"Yes," said Dan. He didn't like the way the conversation was going. Maybe he should divorce her  immediately, he thought.

"I saw you pour that syrup in your glass," said Julie.

"Jesus Christ jumped up on a pony," shouted Dan. "TRY it. I'm just having a rum and coke!"

"I'm not drinking syrup," Julie told him. "And why the hell would you drink a rum and coke at 7:30 in the morning?"

"Because I like it," Dan shouted. "What the hell business is it of yours?"

"I'm just wondering," seethed Julie, "why exactly you poured yourself a tall glass of syrup."

Dan glared at her for a long, long moment. Finally, he grabbed the glass, still staring at her, and chugged it down. Immediately, he coughed and retched, his last mouthful of the syrup covering their brand-new tablecloth.

"Jesus Christ," he sputtered, "that's SYRUP."

Both stared at each other in silence, unsure of what to say. Julie felt a tear slide down her cheek. Finally, she picked up the breakfast dishes and took them to the sink, where she began to wash the plates.

It was going to be a beautiful day.