by Jim Benton
“There-are-starving-people-in-China-you-need-this-to-grow-up-big-and-strong-if-you-don’t-eat-it-you-won’t-get-dessert-or-be-allowed-to-use-your-playthings-or-will-get-spanked,” she said in a single breath.
Her mom and dad looked at her speechlessly. Then they looked at each other. Her dad narrowed his eyes. He looked skeptical.
“Where did that come from?” he asked.
Maggie felt a tension. That wasn’t just a simple question. She was being interrogated. She knew the feeling. Her parents’ voices took on a different tone when they were trying to get to The Bottom of Something. And this was that tone.
She smiled.
“That’s what you guys always tell us, right?” she said, and began eating. “Mmm. Good,” she added, hoping the compliment would push Mom off balance. It did.
“It is good, isn’t it?” Mom beamed. “You know, I added a can of blah blah soup to the hamburger and added in a little blah blah blah blah blah blah …”
Maggie didn’t hear anything she said. She was thinking about how her parents had reacted when she had quoted the Secret Parent’s Handbook. Did they know the book? Had they read it?
After dinner, Maggie and Sean argued about what to watch on TV.
“You always get to watch what you want,” Maggie shouted.
“I haven’t gotten to pick in a million years!” Sean yelled back.
“You don’t even know how long that is.”
“I do, too. There were dinosaurs a million years ago,” Sean said confidently to Maggie, while casting an uneasy look toward Dad for some verification.
Their dad shook his head. “No dinosaurs,” he said. “Most people say they went extinct sixty-five million years ago.”
“Were there cavemen?” Sean asked.
“Yeah, I think so,” Dad said.
“Was there Grandma?” Sean asked.
“You’re such an imbecile,” Maggie said unpleasantly.
“At least I’m not all in love with Jack, the nude sleeper, like you are,” Sean said, adding, “and you’re fat,” just in case the stuff about Jack wasn’t annoying enough.
Maggie blushed. She wasn’t in love with Jack. She knew that love could take a person DAYS to fall into. But the subject was still embarrassing and she didn’t feel like fighting anymore.
“Watch whatever stupid show you want. I’m going up to my room to read,” she said, and she stomped up the stairs.
Once inside her room, she quietly closed her bedroom door and grabbed the box from underneath her bed. She began to read an entry titled “Broken Necks.”
* * *
The child most likely has never seen a person with a broken neck, and the term “broken neck” might imply to the child that its head will fall off and is, therefore, effective in frightening it.
Perhaps the child is engaged in some sort of risky behavior. Ask it, “Do you want to fall and break your neck?” The fact that you have asked a question suggests to the child that it has a choice in the matter and is not merely being told to stop. Telling the child to stop doing anything can result in an argument, and so asking this question, however ridiculous it is, is a better way to confuse and frighten it.
Avoid ever asking the child any questions about a medical condition it has actually seen. For instance, if the child has met somebody that has broken his or her neck, change your example to broken back, or something of that nature.
* * *
Maggie thought the writing sounded old-fashioned.
“When was this written?” she whispered.
She kept reading. The book had all sorts of suggestions:
* * *
If the child asks for something expensive, reply, “Do you think money grows on trees?” That way you will have saved yourself from the unpleasantness of saying NO and will have inflicted on the child a confusing question that will temporarily distract it from thinking about the object it has requested.
* * *
With every page, Maggie became more and more convinced that her parents had read this book. They might have even memorized it.
“Jack is going to want this book back,” she whispered. “But I’m keeping a copy for myself.”
She sat down at her computer and turned on her scanner. She riffled the pages. It was a long book.
“This is going to take a while,” she said, and began a long night of scanning.
“Sit up straight,” Maggie’s mom said.
Maggie sat up. She had been up late and was looking a bit wilted. She stared at the unappealing bowl of cold cereal in front of her.
“And finish your breakfast. You know, it’s the most impor—”
Maggie cut her off. “Important meal of the day? You’re right. I wonder how that makes lunch and dinner feel. They’re trying their best, too, you know—they try to be important, but there’s breakfast, always the most important. Mom, don’t you feel a little sorry for lunch?”
“She feels sorry for lunch,” Mom repeated, and laughed. “You’re funny in the morning, Mags. I have to call Alice and tell her this one.”
Maggie smiled. She had remembered a segment in the book:
* * *
The Breakfast Strategy: If the child will not eat its breakfast, tell it that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, as if to suggest that it has been proclaimed to be King of Meals. Children are not often persuaded by the fact that something is merely “important,” but they often can be compelled by anything that is the Most Important. If the child argues, punish the child until it does as instructed.
* * *
She knew that if her mom had read this Secret Parent’s Handbook, she would have punished her for not eating breakfast, like a reflex. But since Maggie had reacted with something totally unexpected, her mom just dropped the subject and watched Maggie dump the cereal in the garbage disposal.
Sean got up from the table and prepared to dump his out, when their mom stopped him.
“What do you think you’re doing, young man?” she said.
“I don’t want mine, either,” he said, and weakly pointed at Maggie’s bowl.
“It’s the most important meal of the day,” she said. “You sit down and eat it.”
“But I don’t like it and you let Maggie—”
She cut him off before he could go on. “You eat that breakfast, young man, or no TV for you tonight,” she yelled.
Sean sat down resentfully and started eating the soggy cornflakes. He listened as his mom picked up the phone and called her friend Alice to tell her Maggie’s funny observation about feeling sorry for lunch.
A confused young Sean chewed slowly as Maggie walked past him, smirking triumphantly.
She kissed her mom and walked outside.
Maggie carried the book in a backpack swinging freely in her hand. Mike was already out in his driveway, busily missing basketball shots.
“Hey, Maggie, if I make this shot, you owe me forty dollars, okay?”
He looked at her backpack and pulled his hair from across his eyes. He looked around quickly to make sure nobody was listening in on them.
“Is that the book in there?” he asked, turning down the volume of his voice. He looked away from her as he spoke because he had seen spies do that in movies.
“Yup,” she said, and smiled. “I used it this morning to keep my mom from freaking out over breakfast.”
Maggie recalled the earlier events to Mike.
“So, just by knowing the strategy she was using, you knew what to do to destroy it?”
“Yup. She depends on the rules so much, I don’t think she has a plan B.”
“Does that book have anything about video games?” Mike asked hopefully. “My dad is really strict about video games.”
“Probably. It seems like it has something about everything.”
Mike rolled the basketball onto the front lawn, and the two of them sat down in his driveway and read from the book.
There were entries on grounding, handwashing, kissing your
grandma, and spinach.
After a while, they stopped reading, looked at each other, and laughed.
“It’s amazing,” Mike said.
“It’s totally amazing, right? Because it’s like you can almost hear your parents saying these exact things.”
“No, I meant it’s amazing that I read for a whole ten minutes and didn’t fall asleep,” Mike said. “Are all books this good?”
Maggie laughed.
Mike looked at her with no expression. He meant it.
“Oh,” she said. “That was a real question. Well, there are lots of different kinds of books, Mike, and you would probably like some books and not like oth—”
“Hey, here comes Jack,” he interrupted, jumping to his feet and grabbing his basketball. “Jack, if I make this shot, you owe me forty bucks, okay?”
Jack shook his head no.
Mike threw up a shot and missed.
“I thought I could make that. Well, too bad for you, Jack. I was going to give you forty bucks if I missed, but you didn’t take the deal.”
Maggie handed Jack the book, and as he took it, he concealed it under his arm.
“Maybe we should keep this thing hidden,” he said. “Wallace is pretty hot to get it back.”
“I think I understand why,” she said. “Mike and I even found some stuff that could help him get his video games back.”
“Now, that would be something. Mike’s dad hates video games,” Jack said, and ducked without looking as Mike missed another shot.
Maggie was impressed. “Good reflexes,” she said.
“Yeah, well. You’ll get them, too, hanging around with us,” he said, and then he gulped hard as he suddenly realized he had issued something like an invitation.
“Not that—you know,” he stammered. “Not that, you know, you were planning on hanging around with us because you probably have a lot of girl things to do like, uh, moisturize, or, you know, whatever. Your makeup and stuff.”
“Moisturize?” Maggie said.
“I don’t know,” Jack began, and started to redden. “Like conditioners you put in your hair and lotion stuff.”
Maggie laughed hard and punched him in the shoulder. “Not all girls are doing as much moisturizing as you might think, Jack.”
Mike continued to take shots and miss. “Moisturize.” Mike giggled at the sound of the word as he repeated it.
Maggie pointed her finger at him and said forcefully, “And of course I’m hanging around. We have this book to figure out.”
Jack smiled. He rubbed where she had punched his shoulder. It was hard enough to hurt, but he kind of enjoyed it. Maggie’s punches are like hot sauce, he thought.
“I went over that whole book last night from beginning to end. It has a chapter on everything: mittens, flossing, crushes.”
“Crushes?” Jack said.
“Oh. Y–yes,” Maggie stammered. “Yes. I mean, and mittens. Flossing, too, was in there. With the crushes. Stuff like mittens. And the, um, crush stuff. Also vaccinations, I think.”
She swallowed hard and turned as red as Jack had a moment ago.
The two laughed nervously. They had not noticed that Mike had been standing there watching their entire exchange. He looked slightly sick to his stomach.
“Does the book have anything about vomiting on your driveway because your friends are getting all cutesy-wootsy with each other?” he asked.
Maggie pretended to look at something in a tree as Jack started flipping through the pages. “Uh, let me check if vomiting is in here …”
Mike chuckled. “Forget that. You know what you should look for, Jack. See what it says about cleaning your room.”
Mike turned to Maggie. “Jack’s room is like if hogs fought a hog war in there and they used, like, underpants and socks for weapons.”
Jack blushed. “It’s not that bad, Maggie.”
“Not that bad?” Mike roared. “I’m a slob. I mean it. I am a total slob. Really. And when I go into Jack’s room, I’m, like, offended, you know? His room is so messy it actually hurts my feelings, like the whole room talked it over and decided to make me feel sad.”
Jack loudly interrupted him.
“I found a huge section on room cleaning. This is going to come in handy. My mom has been on me for a while to clean it.”
The three of them went into Mike’s garage and took turns reading. Jack shared one entry that somebody had underlined with a pen.
* * *
Regarding Selfishness: The child is, without question, the most selfish creature in your home, and possibly, in the world. Know that it will always avoid work, responsibility, sharing, and hygiene. You must be fully prepared to respond to these disagreeable qualities, as it will display them constantly.
* * *
“Well, that’s kind of insulting,” Mike laughed.
“Yeah, but you see? That’s all that they’re prepared for. They’re not ready for everything,” Maggie said. “They don’t know what to do when you don’t act according to the book.”
The three continued reading and sharing entries, and the longer they read, the stranger the book became. They read right up until they heard their parents calling them in for dinner.
Mike studied his dad carefully. He was sitting as he always did after dinner, in his chair, watching the news, and this was precisely the wrong time to try to ask to play a video game.
“Hey, Dad,” he said. “Can I switch off the news so you and I can play a video game?”
“What?” his dad said. “No. I’m watching the news here, Mike.”
Mike opened his mouth to start complaining, but thought carefully about the Handbook and secretly glanced at a piece of paper with notes Jack and Maggie had given him.
“And if you think you’re going to waltz in here and—” his dad continued.
“Oh, right. Sorry,” Mike said, and slowly started walking out of the room and around the corner.
“I knew that wouldn’t work,” he said, wadding up the notes and jamming them in his pocket. “And who waltzes?”
Mike’s dad sat for a moment and thought.
“Hey, Mike,” his dad called to him. “Come here for a sec.”
Mike walked back into the room.
His dad had a faint smile on his face. “Did you say you and I could play a video game?”
“Yeah. But you’re watching the news. I’ll go do something else.”
“Hang on. Yeah, okay, the two of us. We can play. You’ll teach me, right?” his dad asked, and he smiled broadly at his son.
Mike turned and secretly uncrumpled his cheat sheet to read one final note.
“Sure, Dad, but you’ll probably beat me.”
At that moment, across the street, Jack carried in his plate from the dinner table and set it on the counter next to where his mom and dad were rinsing off the dishes in the sink.
“Don’t go running outside, Jack,” his mom said. “Remember I told you I wanted you to clean your room today, and you didn’t pick up a single thing.”
“That’s where I’m heading right now,” he said, and he made sure to sound pleasant.
His mom blinked a couple times. The pleasantness had thrown her, just as they had predicted it would. “Yeah, well. You just see to it that you do, young man,” she said. Her voice sounded a bit angry, but only because she had anticipated an argument and had gotten herself worked up in advance.
“Could you please hand me a garbage bag?” Jack asked. “Seriously, it looks like a hurricane hit up there.”
She numbly handed him the bag. He could tell that she suspected something. It was time to employ the strategy that the three of them had worked up.
“I mean, how do you and Dad manage to keep your bedroom so neat all the time?” he asked. “There are two of you messing it up.”
Jessica swiveled her head around. “Yeah. That’s right. How do you guys do that?”
“Well,” Jack’s mom began. “It’s probably because one of us works very hard to ke
ep it nice and neat.”
Jack’s dad smiled awkwardly. This was the critical moment of the strategy, and Jack and Maggie had predicted two possible outcomes here: The first possibility would be that Jack’s mom and dad would argue and then maybe forget about Jack cleaning his room altogether.
But that’s not how it went. It went the way of the second outcome they had predicted:
Jack’s dad said, “She does a great job, too. Doesn’t she, kids? Jack, let’s you and I go up and clean your room together. I probably need to do a little more of the cleaning around here anyway.”
And he grabbed the bag and quickly dragged Jack up to his room.
They got up to his room and Jack’s dad sat down on the bed. He handed Jack the bag.
“Here you go, buddy. Get to it. Clean this disaster up.”
Jack knew that the whole strategy could have unwound here, but he stuck to his plan.
“Okay, Dad,” he said. “Thanks for the help. I know this means you’re missing the game.”
It was summertime, and Jack knew that somewhere somebody was playing baseball on TV and that missing a game would make his dad nuts.
“Yeah,” his dad said. “The game. I’m missing the game.”
He grabbed the trash bag from Jack and began swiftly stuffing trash into it. He got faster and faster, tidying up this and straightening out that. He grabbed mighty armloads of laundry, running all the way down to the basement, starting the load, and sprinting back with paper towels and spray cleaner.
He changed the sheets on Jack’s bed, then dusted, arranged, and organized so hard that Jack very nearly thought about helping him.
It had taken him no more than twenty minutes to accomplish what would have taken Jack six hours. Jack’s room looked almost as if it had never been lived in. His dad sat on the edge of the bed to catch his breath at the precise moment his mom came around the corner and peeked in.
“OH MY GOSH,” she said. “This is really amazing, Jack. Great job!” and she hugged him. She cast a glance over at his dad still sitting on the bed.