My Miserable Life

by F. L. Block

  Sincerely,

  Ms. Washington

  CHAPTER 16

  BEN HUNTER IS THE CATERPILLAR’S SPATS

  Today when I came to school, Ms. Washington announced, “We’re going to do a special project. Every day, one of you will get up in front of the class, and the rest of us will take turns writing on the board one thing about you that we admire.” I slid down in my chair. Awesome but embarrassment-inducing Ms. Washington, please don’t call on me.

  “Ben,” Ms. Washington said.

  I didn’t move.

  “Ben, please come to the front of the class.”

  I got up and walked slowly from my desk. I was pretty sure my face was red because of how hot it felt. The solar system planets hanging on strings from the ceiling spun around and made me dizzy.

  “Ella Bean,” Ms. Washington said, “please begin.”

  Ella Bean walked up, took some chalk, and wrote BEN HUNTER IS WAY SMART. Then she sat down. I cringed, waiting for laughter. But no one laughed.

  Kennedee Jones wrote BEN HUNTER IS A FAST RUNNER.

  Aurora Richards wrote I LIKE BEN HUNTER’S EYES.

  Regina Mendez wrote BEN HUNTER IS CUTE. What? I didn’t know Regina Mendez thought that. It was nice, but I cringed again, and this time there were a few giggles. Then it was over and Ms. Washington called on Mercy Keating, who wrote BEN HUNTER’S MOM HAS AN INTERESTING JOB.

  Joe Knapp wrote BEN HUNTER IS MY FRIEND IN THIS CLASS, AND HE IS THE MAN.

  Leif Zuniga wrote BEN HUNTER IS A GOOD ATHLETE.

  Rocko Hoggen wrote BEN HUNTER IS A TEACHABLE SPELLER WHEN HE IS NOT INTIMADATED.

  This time everyone laughed, but I think they were laughing at Rocko’s spelling.

  The last person Ms. Washington called on was Serena Perl. She came up to the front of the class, turned, looked straight at me as if she was thinking about something, smiled, turned back, and wrote BEN HUNTER IS AWESOME. OH, AND I THINK HE LIKES DOGS! Then she sat down.

  “Thank you, class,” Ms. Washington said. “Everyone will get a turn. And a special thanks to the parent who helped come up with this exercise. She didn’t want her identity to be revealed, but maybe you can guess.” She looked at me and winked.

  Just then, my mom walked into the classroom.

  “Oh, hi, Ms. Hunter,” Ms. Washington said.

  “I just wanted to stop by and see if I could help with anything. I brought some supplies from the Lurning Bush.” She held up a bag of fuzzy pencils and those Japanese erasers in the shapes of cars, food, and little animals. The kids in my class love those erasers, especially the girls. I wasn’t thrilled about the cute animal ones, but no one seemed to think they were a problem. The girls were really excited, squirming in their seats like they had to pee.

  “Oh, thank you,” said Ms. Washington, looking kind of surprised and confused. “I didn’t expect you.”

  “I also brought some cupcakes,” my mom said. “They’re made with real sugar and butter and white flour.” She smiled at me and held up a large pink cake box. I guess most bakeries insist on pink cake boxes. No one seemed to mind this either.

  “Would you like to help pass out the erasers and cupcakes?” Ms. Washington asked me.

  “Sure,” I said.

  “Thank you, Ben. You are the caterpillar’s spats.” She went over to the board and wrote BEN HUNTER IS THE CATERPILLAR’S SPATS. I’m not sure what that means, but I think she meant it as a good thing. “Would you like to ask two friends to help you?”

  “Joe Knapp and Serena Perl,” I said. Mercy Keating was staring at my mom like she was the Japanese eraser Mercy wanted the most. Or one shaped like a book if that was an option.

  While we were eating the cupcakes, my mom went over to the board and wrote I LOVE BEN HUNTER SO MUCH THAT IF THERE WAS A LOVE METER, IT WOULD REGISTER SO HIGH IT WOULD EXPLODE.

  Everyone laughed. Great. Thanks, Mom. But the cupcakes were good, and Serena Perl liked her Japanese eraser. It was shaped like a puppy. She said she would never actually erase anything with it so the puppy wouldn’t get worn out.

  * * *

  When I got home that afternoon (which was not a Thursday), the girl Thursday was in my room on a stepladder, painting the walls white. The room smelled like paint fumes, and music was blasting.

  “Hey,” Thursday said when she saw me.

  “Hey,” I said.

  Her hair was a little longer and dyed pink, and she had on a pair of light blue cutoffs and a lavender T-shirt. She wore less makeup, and I could see a few freckles on her nose. She actually looked kind of pretty. Her eyes were green, which I hadn’t noticed before.

  She stepped off the stepladder, put her hands on her hips, and looked at me.

  “I’m sorry I painted your room black.”

  I noticed that the black paint was still showing through the white paint.

  “Black paint is hard to cover,” she said, reading my mind. “Just like the way we try to cover up the dark side of life. But you can’t give up trying. Darkness is real, but so is light.”

  Wow, she had really changed. Maybe it was because her hair was pink? She told me that her new look was “pastel goth.” So probably her hair was dyed pink because she was feeling better and not the other way around.

  “No prob.” She went back to painting, and I took a brush and helped her, because in some ways, she was kind of cool.

  My mom ordered pizza for dinner that night, and Thursday stayed and even helped Mom set the table. Tree came by with his salad. And just as we were about to sit down, there was a knock on the door. Grandma! She had brought homemade cookies and a large container of ice cream.

  “Ben!” she said, hugging me. She smelled like honey graham crackers and vanilla and roses. “How is my adorable, wonderful young man? I love you so much. Oh, how I’ve missed you!”

  She sat next to me, and we fed Monkeylad snacks under the table. But somehow, when we weren’t looking, he must have escaped, because there was another knock on the door and the Grump was standing there with Monkeylad on a leash.

  “He tried to eat my dinner again!” the Grump shouted. “But this time I caught the little monster!”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” said my grandma. “Please forgive us. Maybe you could join us for dinner, Mr.… Oh, please remind me of your name. I find myself forgetting things lately.”

  The Grump paused and frowned at her. Then he said, “Mr. Fishnik. Frank Fishnik.”

  No wonder he’d never told us his name. But leave it to Grandma to get it out of him.

  “Oh, please come in, Mr. Fishnik. I had a friend with that same last name from the Midwest. Are you from the Midwest?” She kept talking and talking, and pretty soon he was sitting at our table eating pizza with us. My grandmother is a miracle worker.

  After dinner Grandma suggested we play charades. There was no way anyone else in the world could have gotten cooler-than-thou Angelina and even-cooler-than-that Thursday and the grumpy Grump to play. But Grandma did.

  My mom got Get On to Hades, Angelina got the Darters, my grandma got Incarnation, Thursday got Hellwig Plum, Tree got the Dustin Peeper song “I Love You, Baby, You Pretty Little Girl,” and the Grump got Hey! Bunny Rabbit! You could see they were all struggling because they didn’t know what they were acting out. Especially the Grump. I couldn’t tell what charade he’d come up with. Maybe he was a closet Hellwig Plum fan. I got How to Be a Hottie, which I had seen once at my grandma’s. I nailed it when I walked like the host, Tawny Money, and everyone laughed—even Thursday, who never laughs. But I didn’t mind, because they were laughing with me, not at me, since I was laughing, too.

  MAY

  Dear Ms. Washington:

  I am smart, handsome, athletic, and a good speller. I am smart, handsome, athletic, and a good speller. I am smart, handsome, athletic, and a good speller. I am smart, handsome, athletic, and a good speller. I am smart, handsome, athletic, and a good speller. I am smart, handsome, athletic, and a good speller. I am smart, handsome, athle
tic, and a good speller. I am smart, handsome, athletic, and a good speller. I am smart, handsome, athletic, and a good speller. I am smart, handsome, athletic, and a good speller. Oh, yeah, I am also kind and a good friend. I think Joe is getting awesome at handball. He just needs a little more confidence to realize that.

  Is this better? Thank you for helping me. You are the best teacher in the whole universe.

  Sincerely,

  Ben Hunter

  Dear Ben,

  It’s such a pleasure to have you in class. I’ve learned a lot from you. Sometimes life can be hard, can’t it? But you have a lot of people who love and believe in you, and I can see that you believe in yourself more now, too. I’m going to miss you when you go to middle school. Please come visit me.

  Yours truly,

  Ms. Washington

  CHAPTER 17

  CRAZY HAT DAY

  Today was crazy hat day. Last night my mom told me she’d heard me talking in my sleep. She ran into the room.

  “Ben? Ben, what’s wrong?”

  “Don’t make me wear the butterfly hat!” I’d said. But I don’t remember saying it.

  My mom had promised that I didn’t have to, and I went back to sleep.

  In the morning I put on my Darters cap because that’s as crazy as I get in the hat department.

  Serena Perl wore a red beanie decorated with black dots and antennae to look like a ladybug. After school they were selling Long Pops, and when my mom came to pick me up, she’d brought a dollar bill and told me I could get one for me and one for a friend.

  Serena Perl was standing behind me in line. I asked her if I could buy her a Long Pop, and she said sure. We walked out together licking our pops. It made our tongues neon red. I told her that was my favorite color, and she said it was hers, too. My mom was waiting by the front gate with Monkeylad in his Halloween costume.

  “I thought he might behave better in his hot-dog bun,” my mom said, “even though it’s not Halloween.”

  I bent down to pet him, and he kissed my face like a maniac.

  “Oh, wow, he loves you so much!” Serena said. “Does he sleep with you? If I had a dog, I’d always want him to sleep with me.”

  “Sometimes,” I said. “My sister and I share him.” This was actually true. Angelina had started letting me have Monkeylad every other night.

  My mom had brought some Chix Stix with her, and she asked Serena Perl if she would like to see Monkeylad do a trick.

  “Do you want to hold up the treat for him?” my mom asked.

  Serena did, and Monkeylad jumped to get it but then settled down onto his haunches and just sat like a little man. After she gave him the Chix Stix, he still sat there. And sat there some more.

  “I love dogs,” Serena said. “I want to be a veterinarian.”

  I hadn’t known that about her. How could I not have known? Although she had written her Career Day thank-you note to Dr. Knapp, and she did have a lot of shirts with dogs on them.

  “He’s still sitting there!” Serena said.

  “Would you like to come over and hang out with us sometime?” my mom said.

  “Sure. That would be great. See you later, Ben. Thanks for the Long Pop.”

  She walked away, and Monkeylad fell onto his front paws. He looked exhausted from sitting up for so long. That couldn’t have been easy, with a hard curly monkey tail like that under your bony butt.

  My mom smiled at me. “Monkeylad, you little Chix magnet,” she said. She held up another Chix Stix and gave it to him. “Get it, Ben, a Chix magnet?”

  Then she took something out of her purse. Something dreaded that should not appear in public at any time in a kid’s life. “Ben, I think you need to reapply some sunscreen before we go home. Monkeylad licked it all off you!”

  “Seriously, Mom? Seriously? There is no way I’m putting that on now.”

  She didn’t make me. Even she realized how embarrassing that would be.

  * * *

  Later that night, while Angelina was at Twinkle Knoll’s, I asked my mom if we could watch a movie together.

  “Sure,” she said. “That sounds like fun.” She’d been more relaxed lately. Maybe it was because she hung out with Tree and meditated and got acupuncture.

  I picked a DVD of this movie Scaranormal Activity that Thursday had left in my room. It was supposed to be funny but also pretty scary. I showed the cover to my mom.

  “No way,” she said.

  “Please, Mom.”

  She thought about it for a minute. “I don’t know. I don’t want you to have nightmares.”

  “If it gets too scary for me, I’ll let you know,” I said. “And we can eat chocolate to comfort us.” Angelina had convinced my mom to buy us real, sugar-sweetened chocolate eggs for Easter, and we had a few left over since, luckily, there is no Easter Fairy who steals chocolate. But we were supposed to have the chocolate eggs only on weekends, which actually just meant Saturday night, and this was a Friday.

  My mom laughed. “Okay,” she said. “But you have to tell me the truth. If you get too scared, we’re turning it off.”

  So we got the chocolate eggs and sat down to watch the movie with Monkeylad sleeping on my feet. The movie got pretty scary, and at one point, without looking away from the screen, I took my mom’s arm and draped it over my shoulders.

  “Are you okay?” she asked. “Should we turn it off?”

  I bit into another chocolate egg without moving my eyes from the movie. “No,” I said. “It’s the best thing I’ve ever seen!”

  After I finished my chocolate eggs, Monkeylad jumped up and sat in my lap, and that made me feel less scared, too.

  When the movie was over, my mom admitted she’d liked it, and we talked about what made it good.

  “I cared about Scary Gary,” I said. “He was intrepid in the beginning, which made me like him, but it also got him in trouble, which was good for the story.”

  “Good use of the word intrepid, Ben. He changed and grew, just like in a good book,” Mom said. “Maybe we’ll go to the library tomorrow and find you some funny, scary novels.”

  I told her that sounded like a cool idea.

  CHAPTER 18

  A PERFECT DAY FOR BEN HUNTER

  Tree and I have been riding our bikes to see the sunset. He’s actually a pretty good guy. He told my mom I’m a really safe bike rider. I told her I had a friend to ride bikes with and could he come over so we could ride together. She finally said yes!

  Today Joe Knapp came over. Turns out he loves bike riding as much as I do. His dad, the vet, dropped him off and communicated with Monkeylad. Dr. Knapp said that Monkeylad was probably traumatized in the shelter, just like I thought, and that the best thing for him was lots of exercise and slow socialization with very gentle, older dogs. Monkeylad was almost as obsessed with Dr. Knapp as with Serena Perl. My dog went right up on his haunches and just stared at Dr. Knapp for what seemed like minutes on end.

  After Dr. Knapp left, Joe and I went for a ride through the neighborhood. The trees were blooming with pinkish-purple flowers, and the air was warm and smelled almost as good as cup-cakes. Joe and I rode to Serena Perl’s. She got on her red bike with the glittery seat, and we all rode together around the park. Then we rode to Bigbucks coffeehouse and got chocolate Big Wippucinos. My mom even gave me money for one. She says she’s trying to be less strict.

  When we rode home, the warm breeze was in my face, blowing the worries of the world right out of me.

  JUNE

  WHAT I LEARNED IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

  A Graduation Speech by Ben Hunter

  I learned a lot during my years in elementary school. When I started, I was just a little pipsqueak. I was excited and scared at the same time. I wanted to make friends and play, and learn cursive and math. Now, as I look back, I realize that as important as my teachers’ assignments were, the things I learned about life from my teachers, especially Ms. Washington, and from my family, friends, and frenemies were even more importa
nt.

  One thing I learned is to be nice to other people. Even when they make you mad. Usually they’re not really trying to be mean. They’re just thinking about themselves. Or sometimes, like with parents (and a shout-out to my mom here), they love you and are only trying to take care of you, even if they drive you crazy.

  The second thing I learned is that if someone is being mean, you can find someone else to hang out with—“Go where the love is,” like my sister, Angelina, says.

  Another thing I learned is that you have to be nice to yourself. Maybe you have to be nicer to yourself when other people aren’t nice to you. Don’t be too hard on yourself. Life is hard enough.

  But there are great things to look forward to. Like dogs, even when they act crazy, and baseball, even when you strike out, and watching scary movies with your mom while eating chocolate, and riding your bike with your best friend. I wish everyone a great summer full of all the things you love to do and only a few of the things you don’t. See you in middle school!

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR & ILLUSTRATOR

  F. L. Block, the author of many acclaimed and bestselling adult and young adult books, lives in Los Angeles with two kids and a dog that bears a mysterious resemblance to Monkeylad. You can sign up for email updates here.

  Edward Hemingway is the creator of Bump in the Night, Bad Apple: A Tale of Friendship, and Bad Apple’s Perfect Day. He has written features for GQ magazine and comics for Nickelodeon, and his artwork has been featured in The New York Times and Nickelodeon magazine. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

  edward-hemingway.squarespace.com. Or sign up for email updates here.

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