My Miserable Life

by F. L. Block

  But things had changed. Amy was not a cute little girl anymore. In fact, she was not a normal person.

  “Hi. You must be Amy?” my mom said when the person with black hair and black clothes and black boots with spikes came to the door.

  Angelina ran to pick up Monkeylad so he wouldn’t get hurt from the spikes.

  “Hey. It’s Thursday,” said the person.

  “Thursday? Isn’t it Monday?” said my mom.

  “No. My name. It’s Thursday.”

  “Your name is Thursday?”

  The person rolled her eyes, which were lined with black stuff. “I was born on a Thursday. Every Thursday I feel like hell and want to die.”

  “Then why did you name yourself after that day?” Angelina asked.

  The person ignored her. She glared at me. “Don’t you have a day of the week you hate?”

  “Sunday,” I said.

  “What day were you born?”

  I looked at my mom. “Sunday?” she said sheepishly.

  “See? I rest my case. Where do I sleep?” the person said.

  I felt an invisible baseball slam into my gut as the truth fully hit me: I was getting kicked out of my room.

  Our scary guest stomped away in her spike-studded black boots.

  “I can’t believe this,” I said.

  Angelina stomped off as if she, too, had on giant black spiked boots. I shook my head and squeezed my eyes shut. It all just kept getting worse and worse, and it wasn’t even Sunday.

  * * *

  From MY room, I could hear music so loud it made my teeth chatter.

  “I’m sorry, Ben,” my mom said. “It’s only for a little while. I feel sorry for her.”

  “Aren’t you going to tell her to turn off the music?”

  “In a little while. I want her to settle in and feel at home. Why don’t you knock on her door and see if she needs anything?”

  I didn’t want to do this, but I went and knocked anyway. I was surprised that Thursday let me in.

  “My mom wants to know if you need anything,” I said.

  Thursday was sitting cross-legged on my bed, painting her fingernails black. “Nah, I’m good,” she said. “As good as a person can be in this life. Which isn’t great.”

  “What’s that music?” I asked.

  “G.O.T.H. It stands for Get On to Hades. You like?”

  “Not bad, not bad,” I said, because I wanted to sound cool. “You like the color black a lot, I guess.” This did not sound cool, but Thursday didn’t seem to mind.

  “You might not like black now, because you’re just a happy kid, but when you’re older, say, around thirteen, you’re going to like black because it will express how you feel. Your life will be miserable every day. Not just on Sundays.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  * * *

  “Maybe we can find something fun for you to do this vacation?” my mom said when I came back. She was looking up camps on the computer. “Something sports related maybe?”

  “Not 4 Kids Only,” I said.

  “We have to have you do something, though? Won’t you get bored?”

  “I can play video games,” I said.

  “How can you play them all day? Won’t it make your eyes hurt? And what will you do when I have to work? Maybe you can show Amy—uh, Thursday—around?”

  Anything but that. My mom smiled at me like she could tell she’d won.

  “How about this camp?” She handed me a flyer with a picture of some kids in baseball caps. SUPER SPORT BASEBALL CLEAT CAMP.

  I love baseball. That chalk diamond on the green grass as the sun sets over the hills. The smell of grilled nitrate-filled hot dogs that your mom never lets you eat. Sliding into home. (Except when you’re tagged out.) Mud permanently ground into your knees. (Except when you have to use a washcloth to scrub them clean in the bath.) Candy and chips with hydrogenated oils in them that your mom has to let you have because everyone else is eating them. (Except when it’s her turn to be in charge of snacks and she brings tangerines and organic almonds.)

  I’ve been in Little League for four years, and this spring will be my fifth. My problem with Little League was that if I didn’t do well, I got really mad at myself and threw my glove. Then my mom came running into the dugout to talk to me, and this made everything worse. The coaches had to tell her not to interfere.

  “But it’s so hard for me to watch Ben that upset,” my mom said.

  They reassured her that they’d take care of me and made her go sit back down.

  I guess her behavior kind of worked, because toward the end of the season, I’d stopped doing it just to avoid her running into the dugout with a pack of tissues.

  My thing is I really, really, like to win. And I really, really, really, a hundred million reallys, hate to lose. It makes me feel like a giant failure.

  I looked at the picture of the smiling kids. Maybe Super Sport Baseball Cleat Camp would give me an edge over the other kids in Little League when spring came.

  And I didn’t want to stay home with Angelina over vacation. She would torment me with Lady Blah-Blah and Dustin Peeper songs, cheers, and running around the house screaming while Monkeylad tried to lick the lotion off her legs. Plus, I got enough of her when I had to sleep in the cot in her room and asphyxiate on perfume and nail polish while Dustin Peeper watched me with his beady eyes and too much hair. Worse, I could get left with Thursday, having to show her around, having to hear her talk about how life was hell, having to listen to her music. So I said yes to my mom.

  CHAPTER 9

  CHRISTMAS COFFIN

  My mom’s new friend came by for Christmas Eve dinner with my family and Thursday.

  “This is Tree,” my mom said. “He’s my yoga instructor. He also does acupuncture and is a nutritionist.”

  Our new roommate smirked. I kind of agreed with her. Tree? Seriously? But then I remembered that her name was Thursday.

  “Your name is Tree?” Angelina said.

  “Angelina,” my mom said in the voice that means Rude! Stop!

  “That’s okay,” said Tree, smiling secretively with just the corners of his lips. Tree is a skinny but muscular guy with a shaved head. “It might sound strange. My name was Daniel Zimmerman, but I changed it.”

  “Tree is great,” my mom said. “Would you like some chicken tamales?”

  “No, thank you. I brought my special delicious salad. I’m a raw foodist.” Tree gave us that same smile, took a large container full of salad from his backpack, and began to pour ingredients from smaller containers onto it. “Spirulina, flaxseed oil, lemon juice, raw organic sunflower seeds, sprouted almonds…” He listed each thing as he put it in. My mom watched with her hands clasped together as if it was the best thing she had ever seen.

  Thursday made a gagging face behind their backs and pretended to stick her finger down her throat.

  “Why don’t you do the dishes, kids,” said Tree when Thursday, Angelina, and I were done eating tamales and Tree and my mom had eaten the raw-food salad. “I can give your mom an acupuncture treatment while you clean up.”

  Thursday said she was really sorry but that she was allergic to dish soap, and disappeared into her (my) room. Angelina and I just looked at each other. Even Angelina was speechless. We went into the kitchen while my mom lay on the couch. Tree stuck needles in her body. Every so often she would make little ouch sounds and I’d run in to see if she was okay.

  “Oh, yes, it’s helping a lot,” my mom promised.

  I didn’t see how getting stuck with sharp needles really did anything except hurt and get you out of doing the dishes.

  We heard a banging sound, and I ran back in to see if Tree was doing something weird to our house, but the sound was coming from my room.

  Tree knocked loudly on my door. “Excuse me, we’re doing a healing session out here.”

  “So am I,” Thursday answered without opening up. She always kept my room locked.

  “Maybe it will keep her o
ut of trouble,” my mom said.

  I figured the acupuncture would keep my mom out of the kitchen long enough for Angelina and me to find some sugar (maybe some old candy the Halloween Fairy had hidden?), but there wasn’t any around.

  Angelina and I didn’t brush our teeth, take baths, or even put on our pajamas, and Mom was too busy with Tree to remind us for once. Angelina sat Monkeylad on her lap and made him “sing” a Dustin Peeper song like a ventriloquist’s dummy.

  “‘I love you, baby, you pretty little girl.’”

  “But you’re not as cute as my friend the squirrel,” I added.

  This cracked us both up. I had actually made Angelina laugh!

  “Angelina, can I have Monkeylad tonight?” I asked.

  “Sure.”

  I couldn’t believe it. I got up and took Monkeylad in my arms and brought him back to my cot. He snuggled up next to me with his snout tucked into my armpit. He felt so warm.

  “What do you think of Tree?” I asked my sister after we’d turned off the lights. Monkeylad had started to snore softly into my armpit, and it tickled.

  “What do you think I think?” she said, but she didn’t sound mean like she sometimes does.

  “That he’s crazy, like all of Mom’s friends?” I said.

  “Yes,” said Angelina. “How about you?”

  “I think he’s crazy, too,” I said.

  But secretly, I was kind of glad to have another guy around, since I’d never had a dad. Monkeylad and I sometimes got tired of being the men of the house. It was a pretty big responsibility.

  “Can Monkeylad still sleep with me sometimes when I move back in my room?” I asked Angelina.

  “We’ll see,” she said.

  * * *

  In the morning I had this tingly feeling in my stomach that might have actually been happiness. I guess that’s where the expression that Christmas-morning feeling comes from.

  I tiptoed into the living room at 5:45 A.M. The air in the house was cold, and the room smelled like pine needles from the Christmas bush. My mom said she was saving money this year by getting a bush instead of a tree. When she brought it home, she reminded me of Monkeylad bringing us unwanted meat: all proud and happy, and Angelina and me just staring at him like, What the heck are you doing, please get that thing out of here.

  Beside the Christmas bush (not under it, because it was too short) was something wrapped awkwardly in newspaper. I could tell right away what it was.

  “Mom!” I yelled. “Angelina! Monkeylad!” I couldn’t even act cool. I almost wanted to call for Thursday.

  My mom came in first in her red footsie pajamas that she likes to wear on Christmas, and Angelina in her Hey! Bunny Rabbit! pajamas.

  “Did Santa bring you something good?” my mom asked.

  I was too excited to be mad at her for talking baby talk. I started ripping off the newspaper wrapping. A brand-new red bike! When I sat on it, my knees didn’t touch my elbows like with my old one. It was extremely AWESOME.

  After we ate whole wheat pancakes, I asked if I could ride my new bike. My mom said, “Not by yourself. Maybe Angelina will go. Or maybe Tree will go with you later. He’s really into bikes.”

  But Angelina wasn’t going to ride bikes with me. And I didn’t want Tree to go. I didn’t even know him. Rocko and Leif Zuniga were probably riding bikes together around their neighborhood while their not-so-safe mothers were home watching lots of TV and eating some of the cookies they had baked for their children.

  I wanted to tell my mom that it was more dangerous inside our house than outside, because there were crazy people trying to stick you with needles and creepy people in shoes with real spikes sticking out of them, ready to impale you.

  I told my mom she was mean. Why couldn’t she be a less safe mom?

  The thing about my mom is, no matter how angry I get at her, she’ll usually just hug and kiss me and tell me she loves me. And usually I let her. Angelina doesn’t. When Angelina gets mad at her, my mom usually ignores it and says “I love you” and tries to hug her, and Angelina runs away screaming and crying and slamming doors. So this time, when my mom tried to hug me, I wouldn’t let her. I decided to be more like Angelina, because that seemed to work out better for her.

  * * *

  Tree came over, and we rode bikes to the top of the hill together, and we watched the sun setting over Filmland, making the sky pink and orange and purple. You could see a thin crescent moon. The sunset was cool, and Tree was pretty nice, actually, but it wasn’t the same as being with my nonexistent friends.

  CHAPTER 10

  SUPER SPORT BASEBALL CLEAT CAMP

  The first day of Super Sport Baseball Cleat Camp, my mom drove me up the hill to the field. We passed the dog park, where we can never, ever take Monkeylad because he will go crazy and bark at all the other dogs until we are thrown out. We passed ladies in matching shirts, race-walking. My mom beeped the horn at them and pumped her fist in the air. “Go, ladies!” she said. I slid down in my seat. We passed the now-deserted snack bar where I’m never allowed to get a hot dog.

  We parked, and my mom had to walk me over to the dugout to meet my coach, Terrence Hoof, and pay him for the camp.

  A really tall man in a Genies hat was tying his cleats. He looked up and smiled at me big. His chompers made mine look small.

  “You a Darters fan?”

  I nodded.

  “I’m a Genies guy myself.” He stood up. He was really tall. “How’s it going?” he said. “I’m Coach Hoof.”

  I shook his hand.

  “Not like that,” he said. “Give me a real grip.”

  I tried to grab on tighter.

  “That’s better. What’s your name?”

  “Ben,” I said.

  “I can’t hear you. What did you say?”

  “Ben?” I said louder.

  “You don’t sound so sure. Are you not so sure what your name is?”

  “Ben.”

  “Oh, Ben,” he whispered, imitating me. “Ben, you have to raise your voice so people can hear you. Now go on and warm up.”

  I just stared at him.

  “Go on,” he said, taking off my cap and ruffling my hair, then putting my cap back on. “Get out of here, Mr. Darter.”

  I ran off. I wasn’t sure what I thought of this guy.

  “Bye, Ben,” my mom said, but I noticed she wasn’t looking at me with the sad expression she has in her eyes whenever I go off to do something new. She was playing with her hair and staring at Coach Hoof the way my sister looks at her posters of Dustin Peeper.

  * * *

  Coach Hoof was really hard on us. He made us run up a hill until it felt like my lungs were going to pop. Then he made us do thousands of sit-ups and push-ups. My back sagged during the push-ups, and then Coach told me to put my knees down, which I refused to do because that is for wimps. I gritted my teeth so hard that my jaw pounded, and I kept doing the push-ups the real way.

  All the other kids had chips and cookies and Island Mist juice drinks in their lunches, and I only got a sandwich, fruit, and water. My feet and ankles and knees hurt.

  On the second morning, my heel hurt so badly I could hardly walk, but my mom made me go to camp anyway. She said it was because she didn’t want to waste the money and she had to work and I could sit out if I wanted to. Coach made me run, even with a hurt heel. He said athletes had to learn to deal with pain.

  On the third day, we were practicing our swings in the batting cage, and I kept missing. I threw down my glove, and Coach Hoof just ignored me and went on to the next kid. Basically, camp was eight hours of physical and mental torture. On top of that, we hardly got to play any baseball.

  “There will be plenty of time for that later,” Coach said. “Now we’re conditioning.”

  The only good thing was that at the end of the day, he gave us Long Pops, and when my mom came to pick me up, she was so busy smiling at Coach Hoof that she didn’t even notice I was eating sugar on a weekday.

&
nbsp; But the Long Pop didn’t make up for the fact that a little Peeper-haired bully whose name rhymes with socko showed up at Super Sport Baseball Cleat Camp on the fourth day. And of course he was wearing a Genies hat.

  “You’ve got good taste in teams, young man,” Coach Hoof said when he saw Rocko Hoggen. He and Rocko high-fived. “I can tell you’re a serious ballplayer. Let’s see how fast you can run.”

  Rocko took off up the hill.

  “What are you doing standing there, Darter? RUN! See if you can catch up with Genie, there.”

  All I could think of was 4 Kids Only and how Rocko had pushed me down and broken my clavicle.

  “Go on,” Coach said again. So I ran, but Rocko had a head start, and he got to the fence first.

  He was standing there, smiling at me so his perfect little teeth showed. “Hey, Ben. Don’t run too hard. You might fall and break something again.”

  I turned to Rocko Hoggen with my hand clenched into a fist, but someone was holding my arm. Someone strong.

  “Okay, Darter, that’s enough. Run it off,” Coach Hoof said.

  And I did. I tried. By the time my mom came to pick me up, I could barely walk. Her hair was all smooth and straight. She had on makeup and tight jeans and high heels. I knew this had to do with Coach Hoof. Oh, man.

  At least it turned out that Rocko wasn’t in camp the next day, because his family had decided to go on a last-minute trip to Hawaii. I didn’t have to deal with him until school started again. But he’d managed to ruin baseball for me anyway. I decided not to sign up for Little League in the spring. I just wanted to take a break from organized activities and ride bikes with a friend. Not that that was going to happen either.

  * * *

  The day before we went back to school, Thursday left. I opened the door of my room, expecting to feel relief as soon as I was able to sink onto my mattress away from the floating, fluffy-haired faces of Dustin Peeper.

  But I never made it to my bed.