My Miserable Life

by F. L. Block

  Our neighborhood was lit up with orange jack-o’-lantern lights, and there were vats of dry ice and dangling skeletons and blow-up witches and cobwebs getting caught over my mouth, and it was all pretty cool, in spite of my mom’s wings and my dog in his too-small bun.

  As I was walking along the street, I saw Joe Knapp from school. Joe Knapp wears big glasses with thick lenses. His name is embroidered on his jackets and his backpack. His lunch box and backpack match; they are both in the shape of books. So I wasn’t surprised to see that for Halloween he was dressed as a dictionary. His dad was dressed as a giant baby in fuzzy footsie pajamas. I didn’t feel as embarrassed about my mom’s wings after that. Joe waved to me but then ducked his head, maybe when he realized that I was looking at his dad.

  I filled a pillowcase with candy and was really excited to go home and eat some. I figured my mom might be nicer this year, because of all the hardship I had recently endured, and maybe let me eat a few extra pieces and keep the rest for the following weekends. Actually, if we followed her two-pieces-per-weekend rule, the candy would last me for a year’s worth of weekends. I could almost taste the hard sugar crackling against my teeth and the chocolate melting on my tongue.

  But when we got home, Mom said, “Time for the Halloween Fairy.”

  I looked at her with dread.

  “You can keep three pieces for tonight, okay?” she added, smiling like she was doing me a big favor.

  “Seriously, Mom? Seriously? You’ve got to be kidding me, Mom?” I was so upset I was talking in question marks like she did.

  “Okay, would you like five pieces? The Halloween Fairy will give you a gift certificate if you leave her the rest, okay, Ben?” She picked up a basket she’d set by the door. “Would you like an apple?”

  Hadn’t she heard that you can’t give out apples for Halloween? No one in their right mind gave out apples! I had barely eaten any candy, and I felt like I was going to throw up.

  I was trying not to cry.

  “What five pieces do you want, Ben?” my mom asked.

  I picked the biggest candy bars and stuffed them into my mouth. I didn’t even enjoy them. The whole night was ruined.

  And if you think that was bad, wait till you hear what happened next. The doorbell rang, and my mom ran to answer it. She was holding the apple basket, and her wings were getting caught on furniture and dripping feathers everywhere. Monkeylad was following her in his hot-dog bun. I heard her talking to the kids at the door, and then she called out, “Ben, can you come here?”

  I don’t know why I did it. I was like a robot. I walked slowly toward the door, and there were three trick-or-treaters standing on the step. There was a boy dressed as a werewolf, a girl dressed as a vampire with tiny plastic fangs and a red velvet cape, and a kid with the same costume as mine. Only better. It was the version with the beating, bleeding heart and the blood that spurted out and dripped down the mask face when you squeezed the pump. And the kid? It was Rocko Hoggen. He was with Leif Zuniga and Serena Perl.

  “Hi, Ben,” Serena said. She had glitter around her eyes, and it sparkled in the porch light. “I didn’t know you lived here. Your dog is cute. Are you okay?”

  “Hey,” I said, looking down at my feet, away from her glitter eyes, away from her dimples, away from her braids, away from her fangs.

  A cop came up behind them. He was over six feet tall and bald. “Excuse me, ma’am, are you handing out apples to these kids?”

  My mom took a step back and almost dropped the apple basket.

  The man laughed and adjusted his black stretch pants. “Just kidding. I’m not really a cop. But some kids are going to use the apples to bomb cars. You really can’t give out apples on Halloween anymore,” he said.

  “Well, at least they’re healthy,” my mom said. “You gave me a little scare there. I think our kids know each other?”

  “I’m Peter Hoggen,” the cop said. “Nice to meet you.”

  My mom shook his hand and smiled. “I’m Ben’s mom,” she said. “Basically I just go by that now. Ben’s Mom. Angelina’s Mom.”

  “Looks like our boys have the same costume, Ben’s Mom,” Peter Hoggen said. “Almost.”

  Rocko pressed the button that made his heart light up and seep blood.

  Was I in a bad monster movie? Was I in ten-year-old-boy hell? No, I was in my own miserable life.

  “Are you sure you don’t want an apple?” my mom asked.

  The cop had already walked away, waving his hand over his head and chuckling to himself. “An apple a day doesn’t keep the cops away on Halloween.”

  “Uh, that’s okay,” Rocko said to my mom’s apple. “Our bags are kind of full. Bye, Ben. Nice costume. Hope that cakewalk cake was good.”

  “Bye, Ben,” said Leif Zuniga. “See you in class.”

  Serena Perl looked back at me and flashed her little fangs with a worried look in her eyes before she disappeared into the fog that had crept up like a ghost.

  I ran into the bathroom and looked at myself. My eyes showed through the mask. The eyeliner Angelina had applied to make me look scarier was streaked from my tears. And Serena Perl had seen.

  * * *

  My mom tried to talk to me while I lay in bed with the sheet over my face.

  “Are you a ghost?” she said.

  I didn’t answer.

  “Should we cut out some eyes so you can be a ghost?”

  I threw the sheet off. “I told you I’m not five years old anymore, Mom.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know you’re too old to believe in the Halloween Fairy. That’s why I dressed up as her, because it’s part of the joke. And I’m sorry I gave out apples, too. I promise I won’t do that again.”

  I didn’t say anything back to her.

  “But I still don’t want you to eat too much candy.”

  Now I really wasn’t going to speak.

  In the morning there was a piece of paper under my pillow. Guess what it was? A gift certificate to the Lurning Bush school-supply store. There were a few pigeon feathers scattered on the sheet beside it.

  NOVEMBER

  MY MISSION STATEMENT

  by Ben Hunter

  Did you know that early Californians lived in mud huts and that missions were their first real buildings? Missions are interesting to me for several reasons.

  Since building my own mission, I’ve learned how difficult they must have been to build. My mom took me to the Lurning Bush, and we bought Popsicle sticks and sticky white clay. The clay kept sticking to my fingers and not the Popsicle sticks. I wonder if the people who built the missions had this much trouble.

  Another reason missions are interesting is that the people who built them wanted to be self-sufficient. They had to produce crops and maintain livestock and develop their own water systems.

  For me, being self-sufficient is serving myself cold cereal and milk when my mom has an early-morning meeting and can’t force me to eat oatmeal. So I think self-sufficiency is good. Sometimes I imagine what it would be like to run away and be entirely self-sufficient. I would eat candy on weekdays, run through sprinklers in the morning instead of taking showers, and hang out with stray cats if I needed company. But I guess I would miss my mom and my sister and especially my dog, even though he gets demon eyes.

  A third reason missions are interesting is that they were built close enough together so people could use them as rest stops on long trips. My family and I went on a long camping trip two summers ago, and we had to stop at rest stops. When you have one mom, two kids, and a dog, someone has to pee pretty often. Bathrooms at rest stops usually smell bad. My sister complained that there weren’t any mirrors for her to look at herself or hot water to wash with or paper towels to dry her hands. My sister would not have done very well in mission days.

  CHAPTER 6

  AN IMPOSSIBLE MISSION

  After I turned in my report, I learned more about missions. I learned from Ms. Washington that the Native Americans didn’t just l
earn how to build big fancy whitewashed adobe buildings with tiled roofs overnight. They were conquered by the Spanish, who then tried to convert them to Christianity and made them work really hard at the missions.

  My mission didn’t come out very well, but I was still proud of it, since I made it without a kit. Angelina had told me that when she was in fifth grade, her class had to make missions and every-one except her used a kit. She got the best grade because hers was handmade.

  When I arrived at school, I saw a playhouse-sized building standing in the middle of the class-room. It had a red roof, real glass windows, and a bell tower.

  Rocko Hoggen stood at the entrance, ushering people inside. Only three kids could fit at a time, so the rest of the class lined up, trying to get back in again, except for Joe Knapp, who was sitting cross-legged on the floor reading. He looked up through his dorky glasses for a second and wiggled his fingers in the air at me in what might have been a wave.

  “Hey, Ben,” Rocko said. “You want a turn? Can I see your mission?”

  I wanted to hide it behind my back. It was a gooey blob. Some of the clay hadn’t stuck to the Popsicle sticks, and they were showing through. I backed away, and the mission slid off the piece of cardboard I’d put it on and fell onto the floor. Ms. Washington helped me pick it up.

  “You did a good job, Ben,” she said while we were crouched on the ground together. She smelled like butter, cocoa powder, and sugar. “I see you made it all by yourself.”

  Unlike some people, I thought.

  I looked up from my broken mission to see Serena Perl; she was ringing the real bell in Rocko’s bell tower.

  When I got home from school, I went into my closet and took out my SECRET BOX. It has all the things that are important to me, like ticket stubs from the Darters baseball games my mom used to take me to before money got tight, my straight-A report cards, and some pictures of me playing baseball and eating ice cream cones with my mom. Those were the good old days, before my mom was stressed out and worried so much. I moved everything aside and took out what I was looking for. It was a red paper heart with puppy stickers and glitter writing (she has always been all about the sparkle) that said I LOVE YOU BEN HUNTER. It was a valentine from Serena Perl from kindergarten.

  There had been a time, before Rocko Hoggen existed to me, before he broke my clavicle and it had to fuse itself back together again (probably unevenly), before I lost my baby curls and got big front teeth, a time when Serena Perl said she loved me. Now it was all over. Forever. My mission had failed.

  WHAT I AM GRATEFUL FOR

  by Ben Hunter

  I am grateful for many things. Well, some things. Well, three things.

  I am grateful for the Darters because they are a good team, and they are my team, and my mom used to take me to see them play. Because it was a special occasion, my mom let me eat Darter Dogs, frozen lemonade, and ice cream, and I explained each play to her.

  I am grateful for my teacher, Ms. Washington, because she is the best teacher ever. She pays attention, listens, and understands.

  I am grateful for my grandmother for not being afraid to put her hands inside a turkey, for putting marshmallows on yams, for not using the word bad except in extreme situations, and for playing ball with me.

  These are the things I am grateful for.

  But sometimes I forget.

  Dear Ben,

  I’m grateful to have you in my class.

  Happy Thanksgiving,

  Ms. Washington

  CHAPTER 7

  GRATEFUL FOR GRANNY

  Thanksgiving is a pretty good holiday. There isn’t an endless supply of candy that you aren’t allowed to eat. There is pumpkin pie, which you can eat because it is technically a vegetable. Best of all, my grandma, Minnie, always comes from Date Palm Oasis to celebrate with us.

  My grandma is super cool. She has more energy than any old person I know, even more energy than my mom. Grandma hikes and swims every day. She never gets mad at me, and she lets me talk to her about sports for hours and doesn’t get bored. She says, “Ben, the way you reel off those Darters statistics is really impressive. I think we have a genius on our hands.”

  One time I got to visit her in Date Palm Oasis all by myself. She lives in a little cabin boat on a lake in the middle of the date palms. You have to walk on a swaying bridge to get to it—so cool! Rabbits play and roadrunners run on the banks of the lake at dawn. My grandma’s house is filled with games that she actually plays with me and a TV and my favorite DVDs, and she makes me breakfast for dinner. She says she enjoys living in the desert because the air is better and there isn’t any traffic, but I think she just likes to have a little distance between herself and my mom.

  This Thanksgiving she drove in from the desert and ran back and forth from her car unloading everything, kissing me each time she came inside. “Oh, Ben, you are so wonderful. You are the most adorable young man I have ever seen.” She brought these scented candles that smelled like apple pie and pumpkin pie, and bouquets of orange and yellow and red flowers, and all these pots and pans and serving dishes and groceries. My mom gets grossed out by cooking turkeys, but my grandma just reached right inside that bird and pulled out all the innards and whistled while she did it. And she made mashed potatoes with lots of butter and cream, and yams topped with marshmallows, and pumpkin pie.

  But on Thanksgiving night, my family were up to their old tricks.

  “Oh, Mom, why did you put marshmallows on the yams? Aren’t they plenty sweet as it is?” my mom said to my grandma.

  My grandmother continued to merrily scoop yams with marshmallows onto my plate. “It’s a special occasion! And besides, it might get them to eat some vegetables. Vitamin A! Would you like some, Angelina?”

  “No thanks, Grandma. Yams make me vomit,” Angelina said. She sipped her mineral water.

  “Angelina!” my mom said. “Is that a way to talk at dinner?”

  “Well, it’s true.”

  Then I heard the sound of a Lady Blah-Blah song, very softly coming from under the table. Angelina was receiving a text, even though she wasn’t allowed to have her phone at dinner, but I saw, and before I could tell, she started crying.

  “What’s wrong, sweetheart?” my grandma asked.

  “Amanda Panda sent me a link about the brutal treatment of Native Americans by the Pilgrims. This is a barbaric holiday,” she said. She got up and ran out of the room. I think it was just because she hates green beans and yams, even with marshmallows on top.

  A little while later, my grandma announced that there was pie with vanilla ice cream, and Angelina came back in. She didn’t seem too upset anymore. Just as we were going to eat dessert, there was a commotion in the bushes outside the window and Monkeylad leaped inside onto the table, whisking his tail through the gravy bowl. In his smiling mouth was what looked like an alien baby. Angelina clutched her stomach and ran out again, saying she was going to vomit. My mom screamed after Angelina not to keep using the word vomit at the dinner table, and she screamed at Monkeylad that he was a bad dog.

  My grandma said you shouldn’t call anyone bad because there was no such thing as bad except for Hitler and racists and terrorists and murderers and global warming. And then, of course, there was a knock on the door and it was our neighbor Mrs. Finkelstein.

  “That animal of yours stole my Cornish hen,” she shrieked.

  She was wearing a flowered housedress and was bent almost in two over her cane.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” my grandma said. “Come in and have some dinner with us. I guess Monkeylad was just trying to invite you over in his own special way. I’m so sorry about your hen, but we have lots of turkey and pie.”

  She guided Mrs. Finkelstein inside, sat her down, and prepared a plate for her while Monkeylad skulked under the table because he had been called bad, as in global warming and Hitler, when he only wanted to give my mom an alien baby as a present.

  “Hey,” I said when we were finished, “why don’t we all
go outside and throw the ball?”

  “I have to do the dishes,” my mom said. “Look how many of them there are. Maybe afterward.”

  Grandma and Monkeylad were walking Mrs. Finkelstein home, and Angelina had already disappeared into her room.

  I really wished I had someone to play ball with. Or someone to watch football with in a dark Man Room that smelled of potato chips and dirty socks. Instead I had to walk around the backyard in circles, throwing the ball in the air and reciting baseball stats.

  “Ben?”

  I turned around. It was my grandma, standing under a tree that blooms red flowers in the spring.

  “Would you like me and Monkeylad to play ball with you?” She is really short, with eyes that crinkle up when she smiles. She always wears pink, and she has pink tortoiseshell glasses that turn up at the corners and have little sparkles on them. She looks like a storybook grandma. And she can throw a ball, too, my granny. Monkeylad caught it in his mouth.

  “You’re a good dog, Monkeylad,” Grandma said. He seemed very proud.

  DECEMBER

  CHAPTER 8

  THURSDAY IS CRAZY

  Not only did we have to stay at home for winter break instead of going on a vacation like a normal family, but my mom’s friend’s daughter came to stay with us.

  “Why does she get my room?” I yelped when I found out.

  “Why does he have to stay with me?” screamed Angelina.

  “I’m really sorry, you guys, but Amy’s having a hard time, and she needs some help. We have to show her how a happy family functions.” There were no question marks, so we knew my mom wasn’t going to back down. “Besides, she was the cutest little girl. I haven’t seen her in years, but when I held her in my arms and she called me Aunty, that was when I knew I wanted kids of my own.”