Cool Zone with the Pain and the Great One

by Judy Blume

  Later, we got to ask Marco’s dad questions. I asked, “Do you ever make flops?”

  “Flops?” Marco’s dad said.

  “Yes,” I told him. “Flops. Like when my mom says, ‘This dinner was a flop.’ ”

  “Oh, you mean mistakes?” Marco’s dad said.

  I nodded.

  Marco’s dad said, “We try not to make flops. But every now and then . . .”

  Marco shouted, “Like that time there was too much salt in the soup!”

  Marco’s dad looked unhappy. He said, “But that only happened once. We learn from our flops!”

  Then the waiters taught us how to take orders and serve the food.

  The maître d’ showed us the reservation book.

  The manager told us her job is really hard. She has to worry about everything. Whenever something goes wrong, the manager has to fix it. I never want to be a manager.

  After, we sat at a long table and had lunch. I ate plain pasta. Plain pasta is my favorite food. No tomato sauce for me. My teacher says I’m going to turn into a noodle. If I do, I hope it’s a really long noodle, like the one Marco’s dad was making in the kitchen.

  The night before the Breaf-kast Café opened I said, “I have to go to bed now. When you’re a waiter at the Breaf-kast Café, you have to get a good night’s sleep.”

  “It’s not breaf-kast,” the Great One said again. “It’s breakfast. Why can’t you get that right?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “He never listens to me,” the Great One complained to Mom and Dad. “Why doesn’t he ever listen?”

  I do listen. I just pretend that I don’t. Waiters have to be good listeners. Tomorrow the Great One will find out what a good listener I really am.

  That night I dreamed I dropped ten plates of scrambled eggs. The eggs flew through the air and landed everywhere. In Mom’s shoes. Inside Dad’s pants. In the Great One’s hair. Then they turned into baby chicks. The chicks ran around the classroom. I tried to catch them and stuff them in my pockets. You are going to be in so much trouble! the Great One shouted. Then the police came. I hid under a table. They told my teacher it’s against the law to have chicks at a restaurant. They closed down the Breaf-kast Café. They took my teacher to jail. Everyone blamed me. Jake, Jake, Jake! they shouted, trying to pull me out from under the table.

  “Jake, Jake, Jake—wake up!”

  I opened my eyes. It was morning. “Time to get up, honey,” Mom said. “You don’t want to be late today.”

  I jumped out of bed so fast I scared Fluzzy. Fluzzy likes to play in the morning. “Sorry, Fluzz,” I told him. “But today is a special day!”

  For once I got into the bathroom before the Great One. I remembered to brush my teeth without Mom reminding me. Waiters need to have clean teeth. They have to smile at all the customers.

  At school, our classroom was decorated to look like a restaurant. A big sign said WELCOME TO THE BREAKFAST CAFÉ. Every table had a bunch of flowers in the middle. The place mats were the ones we’d made.

  When the bell rang, Mary called a class meeting in the hall. She said, “I know you’re all going to do a great job!” Then she helped the waiters put on their long blue aprons.

  The chefs got to wear tall white hats. When I saw them I wondered if it would be more fun to be a chef. They don’t have to write. They don’t have to worry about spelling cereal wrong. Then I remembered I don’t have to spell it. I can just write C for cereal. I felt better. As soon as my apron was tied, I started jumping up and down.

  Mary put her hand on my head. “Let’s all take a deep breath. That will help us relax.”

  So we all took a deep breath.

  “Okay,” Mary said. “Let’s open for business.”

  Soon, the Breaf-kast Café had its first customers. Maggie, the maître d’, showed Mom, Dad, and the Great One to my table.

  “Good morning,” I said when they were seated. “Welcome to the Br . . .” I started to say. But I didn’t finish. I didn’t want the Great One telling me I was saying it the wrong way again. Instead, I skipped that part. “My name is Jake,” I told them. “I’ll be your waiter this morning.”

  “My name is Abigail,” the Great One said, as if I didn’t know. “I’ll be your customer this morning. What do you have? I’m starving.”

  I said, “We have scrambled eggs, juice, water, coffee, bagels, muffins . . .”

  “What kind of muffins? Dad asked.

  “Blueberry,” I told him.

  “Okay,” Dad said. “I’ll have a blueberry muffin and coffee.”

  Mom ordered scrambled eggs and coffee.

  The Great One pointed to the next table. “How come that person is having cereal?” she asked. “And how come that person is having fresh fruit? Don’t you have a menu or something?”

  Uh-oh! Maggie was supposed to hand out menus but she forgot. I spun around and ran across the room. But before I could get to the menus, I smashed into Riley. He was carrying two plates of scrambled eggs. Crash! Now the eggs were all over the floor.

  Riley shouted, “Look what you did!”

  “It was an accident,” I told him. Any minute I thought the scrambled eggs would turn into chicks like in my dream.

  I kneeled down to help Riley clean up the mess, but he called, “Mary . . . Jake is trying to do my job!”

  Mary came over to see what was going on. “Jake, you can get back to your table now.”

  “But Maggie forgot to give my customers menus.”

  “Okay—give them menus,” Mary said. “Then get your order in. We’re getting very busy.”

  I ran back to my table and handed the Great One a menu. She took her time reading it. Finally, she said, “I’ll have cereal with banana. What kind do you have?”

  “All the bananas are the same.”

  “I mean what kind of cereal do you have?” she said.

  “It’s homemade,” I told her. “The cereal chef makes it.”

  The Great One looked over at Lila, the cereal chef. Boxes of cereals were lined up in front of her. She mixed some from each box into a bowl.

  “She’s putting her hand into the cereal box!” the Great One announced to the whole room. “She’s touching the cereal with her fingers. Ewww . . .”

  “Abigail . . .” Mom said.

  “What?”

  “You know what.”

  But it was too late. Lila was already crying. “Now look,” I said to the Great One. “You made Lila cry.”

  “Well, I’m sorry,” the Great One said. “But I don’t want her sticky little fingers in my cereal.”

  “Order something else,” Mom told her.

  “I’ll have a bagel,” the Great One said. “Make that a toasted bagel. With strawberry jam. And orange juice. I’ll have a big glass of orange juice.”

  I wrote BT/J for bagel, toasted, with jam. I wrote OJ for orange juice. “Will that be it?” I asked.

  “That’s it,” Dad said, looking at his watch.

  I took my order to the kitchen. The kitchen was set up in the back of our classroom. Marco’s dad was scrambling eggs. He handed me a full plate. I carried it very carefully and set it down in front of Mom. “Eat while it’s hot,” I told her.

  Then I brought everything else, including a big blob of strawberry jam for the Great One’s bagel. “Will that be all?” I asked.

  Dad said, “Yes, thank you. I think we have everything we need.”

  Then I stood there, watching them eat. “How’s your food?” I asked.

  “Very good,” Mom said.

  “Do you have to stand over us?” the Great One asked. “Don’t you have another table to wait on?”

  I looked around. The Breaf-kast Café was buzzing. Every table was full. There were no seats left except one, at my table. That’s when Mrs. Foxworth walked in. She’s the school principal. That meant I was going to wait on the principal.

  The Great One sat up straighter in her chair when Mrs. Foxworth sat down at the table. “Hmmm . . . every
thing looks so good,” the principal said. “What do you recommend?”

  “The eggs are very good,” Mom said.

  “So is the blueberry muffin,” Dad said.

  Mrs. Foxworth thought it over. “Okay. I’ll have scrambled eggs, a muffin, and orange juice.”

  I wrote that down. Then I jumped as high as I could and spun around.

  “You’re a little jumping bean, aren’t you?” Mrs. Foxworth said.

  The Great One laughed. “I’d say he’s more like a fava bean.”

  “I’m not a fava bean!” I said. I don’t know what a fava bean is. I never even heard of a fava bean. But I know I’m not one. I’m not any kind of bean.

  I wanted to step on the Great One’s foot for calling me a fava bean. But her feet were under the table. Besides, I know the rules. No matter how much a waiter wants to step on a customer’s foot—or even throw a plate of food in the customer’s face—the customer is always right.

  I went to get Mrs. Foxworth’s food. I was next in line for scrambled eggs when I heard a shriek from across the room. Everyone turned to see what was happening.

  “There’s a fly in my jam!” a voice called. I’d know that voice anywhere. I’d know it on another planet. I picked up my order of eggs and ran back to my table. I served Mrs. Foxworth. Then I looked at the Great One’s plate. There was a fly stuck in her strawberry jam.

  I raced across the room to get Dylan because he’s a manager. Managers have a really hard job. They have to fix all the problems. I grabbed his hand and dragged him back to my table. Then I pointed to my sister’s plate. “What seems to be the problem?” Dylan asked the Great One. He sounded very grown up.

  “The problem is, there’s a fly in my jam!” the Great One told him.

  Dylan looked at me. “The customer is always right,” he said. “If the customer says there’s a fly in her jam . . .”

  “But there is a fly in her jam!” I told him.

  “Waiter . . .” Dylan said, as if he didn’t know my name. “Take away that plate and bring the customer something else. Would you like another bagel?” he asked the Great One. “Why not try it with cream cheese this time?” He tried to snap his fingers but no sound came out. “Waiter . . . the customer will have a bagel with cream cheese.”

  “Don’t forget to toast the bagel,” the Great One called.

  I took away the Great One’s plate. I brought her one with cream cheese. Mrs. Foxworth was finished eating by then. She’d left half her blueberry muffin on her plate. “Can I bring you something else?” I asked her.

  “No, thank you,” she said. “I’m full.” She patted her middle.

  “Then can I have the rest of your muffin?”

  The Great One gave a big hoot. “I thought you only eat white food.”

  “I’ll pick out the blueberries,” I said.

  Mom said, “Jake!”

  “What?”

  Dad said, “Waiters don’t eat leftover food off the customers’ plates.”

  “But I’m hungry,” I said.

  “Well, of course you are!” Mrs. Foxworth said. “You’ve been working hard. Your whole class has been working hard.” She stood up and clapped her hands to get everyone’s attention. The room grew quiet. “Boys and girls . . .” She smiled at all of us. “This is a wonderful restaurant. You’ve done such a good job!” Then Dad started to clap and Mrs. Foxworth clapped with him. All the other customers clapped too. Even the Great One clapped her hands!

  “Now I’ve got to get back to work,” Mrs. Foxworth told us.

  I said, “Thank you for coming to the Breakfast Café, Mrs. Foxworth.”

  “The pleasure was all mine.” Mrs. Foxworth shook my hand.

  “Did you hear that?” the Great One asked Mom and Dad. “Did you hear what he just said?”

  Mom and Dad looked at each other. “Hear what?” Dad said.

  “Jake said breakfast,” the Great One told them. “He finally got it right. He put the k sound before the f sound.”

  “I did?”

  “Yes, you did!” She held up her hand for a high five. I gave her a hard one. Then she said, “Now if only you would listen to me about everything . . . I could teach you so much!”

  “Not as much as I could teach you!” I sang. And I started jumping up and down again.

  FLUZZY FOREVER

  I could teach them so much if only they could read my mind.

  They say they can.

  They say they always know what I’m thinking.

  So how come they don’t know I need a new name?

  I don’t feel like a Fluzzy.

  I don’t look like a Fluzzy.

  So from now on when they call Fluzzy, I won’t come.

  Maybe then they’ll get it.

  Fluzzy . . . where are you?

  Come on, Fluzzy. . . .

  He’s hiding.

  He’s probably under the bed.

  Fluzzy . . . supper!

  This is hard.

  I’m hungry.

  I want my supper.

  But if I come out now I’ll never get a new name.

  We have to get that cat a bell!

  A bell—yes, that’s a good idea.

  A bell—then we’ll always know where he is.

  Tomorrow I’ll get a bell for his collar.

  A-bell! That must be my new name.

  A-bell! I like it.

  Soon the mom puts something on my collar.

  It makes music when I run.

  It makes music when I groom.

  It even makes music when I use my litter box.

  But now I can’t hide from them.

  I make music wherever I go.

  A bell was such a good idea, they say.

  He can’t hide from us since he has a bell.

  A bell really did the trick.

  Yes, I’ll show them that A-bell can do tricks.

  Watch this!

  I jump so high I land on top of the bookcase.

  Two books fall down.

  That’s a good trick!

  So how come at night when I’m on his bed, he says,

  Fluzzy, be quiet.

  Fluzzy, stop moving.

  Fluzzy, that bell is driving me crazy!

  Does that mean they can’t read my mind after all?

  Does that mean they’ll call me Fluzzy forever?

  Oh, well—it could be worse.

  My outside friend is called Kitty!

  Also by Judy Blume

  Soupy Saturdays with the Pain and the Great One

  Cool Zone with the Pain and the Great One

  Going, Going, Gone! with the Pain and the Great One

  Friend or Fiend? with the Pain and the Great One

  Judy Blume spent her childhood in Elizabeth, New Jersey, making up stories inside her head. She has spent her adult years in many places, doing the same thing, only now she writes her stories down on paper. Her twenty-six books have won many awards, including the National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.

  Judy lives in Key West, Florida, and New York City. You can visit her at www.judyblume.com.

  James Stevenson has written and illustrated more than a hundred books for children. In forty years at the New Yorker, he has published more than two thousand cartoons and covers, as well as numerous written pieces. His illustrated column “Lost and Found New York” frequently appears on the op-ed page of the New York Times.