The Big One-Oh

by Dean Pitchford

  When Mrs. Cleveland saw the lights in our house flashing on and off, she didn’t stop to think that Cougar might be flicking them on and off, keeping time with the radio music.

  Oh, no.

  She assumed that my victims were desperately signalling for help.

  And when Mrs. Cleveland heard people shrieking at the tops of their lungs, she didn’t stop to think. Instead, she picked up the phone and called the cops.

  And the hospitals.

  And the fire department.

  And Mom at work.

  In all the time it took to tell my story, not one of those people in my living room moved. Not even the dogs. And now that I had run out of things to say, they all stared back at me in silence.

  Finally, I turned to Mom and shrugged. “So, can you see now? How one thing leads to another?”

  Mom was still pretty stunned. She had already had to deal with a lot that afternoon, and after the police had kicked in our front door and back door, I was sure that she was going to make me live in a cardboard box in the backyard for the rest of my childhood.

  But I had to make her understand.

  “I’m really, really sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean for it to happen like this. But I didn’t know what to do. I had no one to help me. And nowhere to turn.” I started to choke up, but I was determined to finish. “And besides, it’s . . . it’s my Big One-Oh.”

  I think I might have been able to control myself if only Mom hadn’t nodded. But, once she did, once she showed that she understood, I couldn’t help it. And, as much as I tried to stop them, I could feel the salty tears leaking out of the corners of my eyes and rolling down my cheeks.

  There was a long moment when I felt about as dumb and embarrassed as a kid can feel without totally exploding with shame, but then I realized that people around the room were sniffling, too. And it wasn’t just my family or the kids from my school.

  No.

  Cops were clearing their throats. Policewomen were swiping at their eyes. Darryl’s mom even took a pill, she was so moved.

  Finally Mrs. Cleveland, with tears streaming down her face, broke the awful silence by throwing a hand up into the air and crying, “Lord Almighty!”

  We all turned to her. I was afraid she was going to announce that I had a nuclear weapon or something, but instead she surprised us all by shouting, “Hasn’t this child suffered enough?”

  And, in that moment, I could’ve kissed her.

  Because, you know what? Everybody agreed with her: I had suffered enough.

  “Poor kid!”

  “What a nightmare!”

  “All that he went through!”

  “And it’s his Big One-Oh!”

  And that changed everything. People turned to each other and began chattering away. Neighbors and policemen and classmates and ambulance drivers all seemed to forget that they didn’t really know each other, and they behaved as if they were at . . . well, at a party.

  Mom blew her nose on a cake napkin, stood and turned to the crowd. “Hello, everyone?” she called.

  “Hello!” they all called back.

  “As you have heard,” she said, “it’s my son’s birthday. And I’m so glad that you could all make it.”

  Everybody laughed. Even I laughed.

  “I’m just so sorry that I don’t have any cake to offer you,” she said.

  “Oh!” Garry called out. “I’ve taken care of that.”

  By the time Garry had run back to his place and returned with his cake, people had started to help Mom and me clean up.

  A few of the policemen put the doors back on their hinges, and some of the parents mopped up the mud that had been tracked in when the house was stormed.

  Tables and chairs were turned over and put back in place; one of the ambulance drivers gave Scottie something to settle his stomach; and I took Cougar upstairs and loaned him a pair of clean underwear.

  Garry’s cake was amazing. It was decorated all over with rubber fingers and noses and eyeballs staring up out of the frosting. When Mom saw it, I thought that she’d freak out, but instead she exclaimed, “Did you make that?!”

  Garry nodded. “Blame Charley. He once told me that if I could reach the sink, I could cook, so . . .” He gave a little shrug.

  Mom patted her chest the way she does when she’s trying not to cry. She looked at Garry gratefully, and she quietly said, “Thank you.”

  They stayed like that, looking at each other, until Lorena waved a hand between their faces and said, “Whaddya say we cut that cake?”

  Everybody gathered around and sang “Happy Birthday to Charley!” Mom took a picture as I blew out the ten candles and everybody cheered.

  I sliced the first piece, and people screamed in surprise when the cake spurted “blood” that tasted like strawberry syrup. But then they all laughed about having been scared, and they clapped Garry on the back, saying things like, “Oh, man! You really got me!”

  It was everything a birthday party’s supposed to be.

  And it was mine.

  It was early evening by the time everybody left. The sky was clear after the rainstorm, and the sun was setting behind a fiery red fan of clouds.

  The policemen and policewomen shook my hand, wished me a Happy Big One-Oh, and then they left without arresting anyone. The ambulances followed the patrol cars out of the traffic circle, and the neighbors-we-never-met wandered back to their houses at the far end of the street.

  Mrs. Cleveland hugged me before she took her walking stick and started her nightly patrol.

  Leo tried to high-five me, but I didn’t know how to respond, so he and Scottie and Cougar and even Darryl crowded around and gave me a crash course.

  When they left together, Dina and Dana and Donna pecked me on the cheek, and they waved out the window until their car disappeared down the block.

  When Jennifer stepped up, I extended my hand, like I wanted to shake. She looked disappointed that she wasn’t going to get a kiss like the other girls, but she shook my hand anyway. Then when she saw what I had slipped into her palm, she gasped, “Oh! Oh! Oh!”

  She held up my latex eyeball—the one Garry had given me—and she examined it like she was looking at the world’s largest diamond. She smiled so hard I was afraid her braces would sproing! off her teeth. Her eyes got shiny, and she threw her arms around my neck, hugged me and whispered in my ear, “Thank you, Charley! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!”

  “No,” I said. “Thank you.”

  I stood on the front lawn until the last cars pulled away. Mom and Lorena had gone inside, and I thought I was alone.

  But when I turned around, Garry was there. He had cleaned off his face and changed out of the high boots that had made him so tall when he was my Monster.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “Hi.”

  “You really scared my friends.”

  He smiled and kind of looked down—really bashful, really pleased. “Y’think?”

  And I could tell that Garry wasn’t thinking about North Carolina anymore. Hearing my classmates’ screams and watching them running around like drunk chickens had made him a really happy man.

  Then I remembered something.

  “Hey! What happened at your audition?”

  “Oh. I called them and told them I’d come at another time.”

  “Why?” I gasped.

  “ ‘Why?’ ” he laughed. “Because. It’s not every day my friend turns ten.”

  On a day of so many memorable moments—some of them horrible, most of them wonderful—that’s the one that stands out.

  My friend. Garry had said the words. My friend.

  And that was big.

  Bigger than the Big One-Oh.

  I put my head down as Garry and I headed back to my house so Garry wouldn’t see that my eyes were getting wet again.

  “You like Chinese food?” he asked.

  “Lots.”

  “Cuz I had an idea: it’s your birthday. You don’t want to have to coo
k. You think your mom would like it if I go and pick up some chop suey?”

  “Yeah. Mom likes Chinese food even more than I do.”

  And so that’s what we did.

  After we ate our Chinese food and opened our fortune cookies (mine said: “You will get some new clothes,” which doesn’t sound like a fortune handed down from ancient China), Lorena and I cleaned up while Mom and Garry talked and laughed at the dining room table.

  When we got into the kitchen, Lorena rolled her eyes and groaned, “Now we’ll never get rid of him.”

  I’m hoping that she’s right.

  It had been a long day, and I was feeling really wiped out, but I wasn’t ready for my birthday to end. That’s why I came up here to my bedroom, pulled out my Birthday Notebook, and, with Boing Boing resting his head in my lap, I wrote down everything that happened, just like I told everybody it did.

  I also wrote a thank-you note to Dad. Not just for the balloons and the issues of Monsters & Maniacs. But also for sending me the wrong birthday card on the wrong date and for writing the ten words that had changed my life: “What are you going to do for your big day?”

  I still had one more thing to do. I flipped to the middle of my Birthday Notebook, and I reread what I had written under THINGS TO DO FOR MY PARTY:

  #3 was FIND A THEME. I found a pretty good one, don’t you think?

  #2 was WATCH PEOPLE WITH FRIENDS TO LEARN HOW. I had done a lot of watching. And a lot of learning.

  And finally, #1 was MAKE FRIENDS. I’ll have to wait until school on Monday before I can be sure of the others, but right now, I’m feeling pretty good about Garry.

  And, y’know, it’s funny, looking at that list now, I feel like I wrote it another lifetime ago. Because all of a sudden, as late as it is and as tired as I am, I feel like a different person. I feel like I’m less afraid of the world than I used to be. I feel taller.

  Stronger.

  Maybe a little wiser, even.

  But, c’mon! Is that so surprising?

  After all . . .

  I am 10.