Hazy Bloom and the Pet Project

by Jennifer Hamburg

  Finally … FINALLY! We found The Baby.

  He was actually just on the front porch. But still, I was enormously relieved. I grabbed him in a big hug (a bear hug, I might say, if I hadn’t just imagined him being eaten by one). I’d never been so happy to see him in my life. And I was pretty pleased with Milo, too, for joining me in my freak-out.

  Then I realized this might not make me look like the best babysitter. Thinking fast, I scooped up The Baby and ran inside before anyone else could see what had happened.

  Mom was standing there. You’d think she’d look peaceful and calm since she’d just finished yoga, but instead she looked on edge and slightly enraged. “What’s going on here?” she demanded.

  I glanced at Milo, hoping he’d back me up.

  “Later,” he said, and sped off to his room.

  Gee, thanks.

  I explained to Mom that I’d simply been on my way to putting The Baby in time-out for terrible baby behavior when he’d had the nerve to exit the house without telling me, and thank goodness I was clever enough to find him before he was hurt or eaten, for real live.

  I’m not sure what I expected from Mom, but it was along the lines of “Congratulations for your bravery and quick thinking.”

  Instead, she said in a very serious tone, “You let The Baby leave the house?”

  “Of course not!” I said. “He left by himself.”

  “WHAT?”

  Mom told me to go to my room and that I was punished for the rest of the night.

  I didn’t even get a thank-you for possibly preventing a bear attack.

  16

  To make up for the Great Baby Escape—and also since I wasn’t allowed to leave my room on account of being punished—I decided to do my homework early and then use the rest of the evening to work on Pet Day.

  I took out some blank paper and was about to make the Pet Day schedule that everyone had been bugging me about, but my mind started wandering (not my fault!), and suddenly, instead of writing down a detailed hourly schedule, I found myself sketching an elaborate obstacle course for Fred. I know I shouldn’t have let myself get distracted, but on the bright side, it was a really cool obstacle course, for real live.

  I was almost finished with the last part—an extra-high climbing wall (don’t worry, iguanas can survive falls of up to fifty feet without sustaining injuries)—when the prickles and goose bumps came. Another tomorrow vision.

  Still holding my pencil, I scribbled down what I saw, even though it was hard to tell if they were letters or numbers. S0Z?… 50Z?… 502?… Then, two vertical dots appeared, and suddenly, it made sense: 5:02. As in, the time.

  Would something be happening at 5:02 tomorrow? What could possibly be going on that early in the morning? I needed to find out. That night before bed, I set my alarm for 5:02 a.m. Then I reset it for 5:00 a.m. so I’d have a couple of minutes to prepare.

  For what, I had no idea.

  * * *

  If you think it’s easy waking up at five o’clock in the morning, let me break it to you—it’s not.

  As my alarm clock blared and I fumbled for the button, I knocked over my lamp, which fell onto a cup of water, which spilled onto my head, which caused me to topple out of bed and onto the floor. At least the heap of clothes (which was now taking up about 9/10 of my room) cushioned my fall.

  I sat up and rubbed my eyes. Groggily, I stared at the clock as it flipped from 5:00 to 5:01, and then from 5:01 to 5:02. The time from my vision. I didn’t know what I expected to happen, but here’s what I did not expect: nothing. I thought for a second. Maybe it—whatever it was—would be occurring somewhere else in the house?

  I stood up, still sluggish, and made my way to the living room (well, after stopping in the kitchen to grab some yogurt—if I was up this early, I figured I might as well eat something).

  In the living room, I looked around expectantly.

  Nothing.

  I peeked out the window into the backyard.

  Zilch.

  I crept into Mom’s office and glanced around.

  Not a thing out of the ordinary.

  Seriously, if I’d gotten up this early for nothing, I was going to be super annoyed, for real live.

  Then I heard a noise outside Mom’s office door. I whirled around, grabbing a pencil off her desk for self-defense. True, the pencil was unsharpened, so I’m not sure how much it would have protected me, but it was better than nothing.

  I heard the noise again. I gulped, a little scared. Then I made my move.

  I lunged through the office door with a series of karate kicks and ballet spins that I’d learned one summer in camp. I waved the unsharpened pencil menacingly, and then, from around the corner … Mr. Cheese appeared.

  “Aah!” I screamed in surprise, which caused the dog to start barking madly, which caused The Baby to wake up and start screaming his head off. Within seconds, Mom, Dad, and Milo were awake and hollering and running down the hallway, demanding to know why all this commotion was going on before the sun was even up.

  17

  Breakfast that morning was not pleasant. Everyone was cranky from being woken up at the crack of dawn, and they didn’t even care when I told them I’d had a really good reason for getting up so early, for real live, and if I could tell them what it was, I would, but I couldn’t, so they shouldn’t blame me for all this hullabaloo. But instead of asking me where I’d learned such an impressive and sophisticated word like hullabaloo (a YouTube video about persnickity cats), my entire family ignored me in anger. Even Mr. Cheese seemed furious.

  The rest of the day was no better. At school, I was so tired from waking up early I could barely focus.

  During art, I put my markers away in the tissue box.

  On my math worksheet, I wrote my name so messily that Mrs. Agnes had to ask who “Hyzla Bglem” was.

  At lunch, I put ketchup on my bologna sandwich (which actually wasn’t half bad but made me queasy afterward).

  At recess I tripped and fell. While I was standing still.

  By the time my class had gathered for our Pet Day meeting after school, which I had totally forgotten about until Elizabeth reminded me at the last minute, I felt like a zombie but worse, because zombies are dead and therefore do not get exhausted. Trust me, I’ve been forced to watch way too many Halloween movies with Milo. I know zombies. So when Elizabeth suggested we start by going over the list of donations we still needed, I flatly told her I was in no mood.

  Who knew “I’m in no mood” would result in a ten-minute lecture on world leadership and human suffering?

  “Did Martin Luther King Jr. say he was in no mood to fight for civil rights? Did Eleanor Roosevelt say she was in no mood to stand up for women? Did Mrs. Buttonwaller say she was in no mood to get in her car and drive to work every day?”

  I blinked. “Who’s Mrs. Buttonwaller?”

  “My tap dancing teacher!”

  I sighed. I wasn’t sure I’d put tap dancing in the same category as fighting injustice and shaping American history, but I understood her point. Like it or not, I was the team leader. I needed to lead.

  I sat up straight and shook my arms out. I could do this. I just needed to concentrate for twenty minutes until the meeting was over, and then …

  “HAZY BLOOM, WAKE UP!”

  Oops. I must have fallen asleep. I knew this because Elizabeth was shaking me like a rag doll and also because I’d had a strange, quick dream about me, Martin Luther King Jr., and Eleanor Roosevelt at a tap-dancing convention.

  The point was, by the end of the meeting, I realized how much there still was to do for Pet Day and how little time was left to do it. I tried giving myself a little pep talk. You can do this, Hazy Bloom. You can handle whatever comes your way! Every cloud has a silver lining! There is light at the end of the tunnel! The sun will come out tomorrow! There are plenty of fish in the sea!

  I think that last one has something to do with getting married, but still. It worked. By the time I got home a
fter the meeting, I felt good. Exhausted, but good.

  Then Elizabeth called. “You did confirm the pet-portrait artist, right?”

  Gah! Well, that didn’t last long.

  With the final remaining ounce of energy I had (about 8 of my usual amount), I dialed the pet-portrait artist and left a calm, professional message.

  “HithisisHazyBloomandItotallymessedupforreallivebutcanyoupleasedopetportraitsonSaturdaythankyou!”

  Fine, maybe it wasn’t so calm and professional. But at least I did it.

  I sat down at my desk, determined to do as much Pet Day planning as possible before dinner, but I was so tired I had to hold my eyes open with my fingers. As I did this, I saw my clock, which was still on the floor from this morning when I knocked it over. It was blinking up at me from the heap of clothes. Then my stomach lurched.

  The clock said 5:02.

  At that exact moment, Dad came into my room, holding the phone. It was for me. I hadn’t even heard it ring.

  “Hello?” I said.

  It was the pet-portrait artist calling me back. She was sorry, but she wasn’t available. Unfortunately, I had called too late.

  So I’d been right. Something did happen at 5:02. The pet-portrait artist called me with the worst news ever. I was just wrong about which 5:02. It was 5:02 p.m., not a.m.

  I flopped down on my bed and started furiously pounding on my pillow. I was still terrible at my tomorrow power, just like I was terrible at planning this fundraiser and terrible at being responsible. Terrible at everything.

  And right now, there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. So I did the one thing I had been wanting to do since 5:03 this morning.

  I went to bed.

  18

  “Gooooooooood morning!”

  I gleefully skipped up to Elizabeth at the bus stop. You might be wondering why I was so happy, since as of yesterday, I was a failure as a team leader, a loser at home, and my iguana dreams had pretty much gone down the drain, or down the tubes, or whatever happens to dreams when they are yanked away from you forever.

  But you know what? I’d gotten twelve hours of sleep, which hadn’t happened since I was six years old. And I felt great!

  “Hazy Bloom, what’s with you?” Elizabeth demanded. “Why are you so happy?”

  “What, is being happy against the law?” I said, slinging my arm around her shoulders just because.

  “No,” she replied, which wasn’t necessary, because I already knew the answer. I explained to Elizabeth that I felt rested and refreshed, and I was ready to lead our class to FUNdraising victory!

  “And how are you planning to do that?” she scoffed. “Have you looked at your planning guide lately? No, you have not!”

  “I have too!” I snapped, completely offended. I reached into my backpack to take out the planning guide and prove to her how much I’d been looking at it. But it wasn’t there.

  Then Elizabeth held it up. “You left it at my house. It’s been there since Sunday.”

  Oops.

  I took the notebook from her and flipped it open to my to-do list. There were about twenty-five things still to do! And that was just page one. My cheery mood was quickly spiraling into free fall. How was I going to do all of these things by Saturday? That was two days away. There was no way. No way!

  At school, my classmates were bombarding me with last-minute problems: We needed more costumes for the fashion show. We needed more treats for the goody bags. We didn’t have enough drinks. We needed extra buckets for the pet wash.

  I also still needed to find a pet-portrait artist.

  Meanwhile, everywhere I turned—in the hallway on my way to lunch, at the water fountain, in a bathroom stall—I was forced to look at the beautiful posters for the Lipkin Luau. Even Summer’s handwriting seemed snooty.

  I couldn’t even discuss last-minute Pet Day planning with Elizabeth at lunch because I was still being forced to sit with Mapefrl, who was still working on his Burp Man comic. It was still really dumb. Although I was kind of impressed by how well he drew the Burpmobile. Very impressed, in fact. When I really looked at it, I could see that he had added a lot of interesting detail, and the vehicle actually looked like it was taking off into flight. Stop it, I said to myself. You should not be focusing on Mapefrl! You have a fundraiser to plan!

  But I was losing hope. I didn’t know how we’d ever be ready for Pet Day by Saturday. Mrs. Agnes had offered to help, but I didn’t even know where to tell her to begin. I kind of felt like giving up. I was a team-leader failure.

  After school, I plodded into my house and hung up my backpack, expecting to hear Dad’s power drill of doom. But I didn’t hear anything. Instead, Dad was in the living room waiting for me. Mom was there, too. They wanted to talk.

  Uh-oh.

  19

  As I sat down on the couch between Mom and Dad, I searched my brain trying to remember what I might be in trouble for. Unfortunately, there were many options: eating The Baby’s breakfast, calling Milo a chicken butt, forgetting to do my science homework, using Mom’s important papers to make an origami iguana. The point is, the chicken-butt thing was totally Milo’s fault because he started it. Anyway, I knew I was probably in trouble for one of those reasons. Maybe all of them. Based on how my life was going, I wouldn’t have been surprised.

  I braced myself for the lecture.

  “Hazel,” Mom began slowly, “we know you’ve been wanting an iguana for some time now.”

  Oh no. It was worse than I’d thought. They were going to tell me I couldn’t get Fred. Ever. They’d decided I was the most irresponsible person in the history of ever, even though it’s not my fault the laundry shrank or The Baby ran out the door or the plate JUMPED out of my hands and broke itself on the floor, or …

  Okay, fine. It was my fault. All of it.

  “So Mom and I had a chat…,” Dad continued.

  Were they still talking? What was the point? They should just come right out with it: You’re never getting an iguana, and to punish you for all of your irresponsible behavior, we’re making you change The Baby’s poopy diapers every day, forever—

  “Hazy, are you listening? Did you hear what we said?”

  I looked up.

  “We’re getting you an iguana.”

  WHAT?

  I stared at Mom and Dad as if they were playing a huge prank on me and any minute they’d say Gotcha! But they were smiling in a very nice and non-pranky way.

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “What about all that stuff I did wrong?”

  Dad pulled me onto his lap. “Here’s the thing, kiddo. We know you’ve been doing your best to show us that you’re responsible. And it’s true, things didn’t always go the way you’d planned. But we noticed how hard you were trying. And that counts for something. Actually, it counts for a lot.”

  “We’re proud of you, Hazel Basil,” Mom added. “And we know you’ll take great care of an iguana.”

  “I will! I really, really will!”

  I could not believe this. I was getting an iguana! I was getting Fred! I hugged Dad, maybe a little too tightly, and then I jumped over to Mom’s lap and hugged her, too. “Thank you, Mom! Thank you, Dad!”

  “You’re welcome, honey,” they both said, laughing.

  Then I asked, “When can we go to the pet store?”

  They looked at each other. “How about tomorrow?”

  I could hardly wait.

  20

  The next day, we went on a family trip to Critter City. Milo took The Baby to look at the kitty cats while Mom, Dad, and I followed the salesperson over to the reptile section. I peered into a giant cage, where about ten iguanas were scurrying around, playing, drinking, sleeping, waiting to be adopted. I couldn’t believe the time had finally come.

  “So, Hazel, who’s the lucky lizard?” Dad said playfully.

  I was trying to decide between one iguana who looked confident and brave and another who looked shy yet feisty when something caught my eye. The
same salesperson from before was now setting out a bunch of items in two big bins labeled CLEARANCE.

  Even from far away, I could tell that one bin was filled with dog costumes.

  “Just a sec, Dad,” I said.

  At the bins, I picked up a doggie tutu, a tiny sweater with candy canes on it, and a giant bow tie. They would be perfect for the Pet Day fashion show. In the next bin, I found a pink vest and a fireman’s hat. I started grabbing stuff. Lots of stuff. Then I saw that near the costume bin was a tray of dog treats, along with some toys filled with catnip. I scooped up some of those, too. Then I grabbed some squeaky toys, including a few that were shaped like trophies, and a couple of bottles of pet shampoo. Soon my arms were so full, the salesperson had to rush a shopping cart to me so I didn’t drop everything.

  Mom and Dad walked over.

  “Hazy? What are you doing? What about the iguana?”

  They were looking at me curiously, unsure what was going on.

  And then I said something I never thought I’d say in a million zillion years: “I don’t want to get an iguana today. Can I get this stuff instead?”

  At first, Mom and Dad looked like they might rush me to the doctor, because clearly I was losing my marbles. But I found myself explaining to them that I really needed all of these things, because Pet Day was tomorrow and there was so much to do, and I was team leader, after all, which was a job I took very seriously, for real live. Suddenly, Mom and Dad had these goofy, proud expressions on their faces, but I couldn’t pay much attention, because I had just spotted the cutest tiara that I had to get for the winner of the fashion show.

  The car ride home was different than I’d expected. I thought I’d be sitting in the back seat with Fred and a month’s worth of iguana pellets. Instead, I had six huge bags of stuff for Pet Day.