Mommy likes the man with the mustache. I can tell because she puts her hands on the sides of his head, one on each side like she does to me sometimes before bed.
From underneath the table she looks so tall, and with the man sitting, she looks like a giant, and he looks like a dwarf. I miss Mommy when she has parties, I miss her a lot. I like when she plays with me and reads books and watches the TV. I like especially when she helps me climb on the windowsill and I am spider-man. Mommy is a very good mommy, but I don’t have a daddy, so when she has a party, I have to keep myself entertained. Mommy says that, she says You need to get better at keeping yourself entertained. I think she is worried that when she’s not here, I will be sad. She’s right, but I’m O.K. I can handle it.
Mommy got me a pet rat. I named it Whiskers. He is not as good a friend as Mommy but pretty good. He likes to be pet, and he likes to eat peas out of my hand. Who knew rats like peas? It is funny because he doesn’t like cheese. Just peas.
I have Whiskers in the big pocket of my hoody right now. He is asleep. I reach into my pocket and feel the top of his head gently, it is very soft. I keep petting his head, and I can tell he likes it because he moves his teeth back and forth. I can still see Mommy from where I’m sitting through the crack in the table cloth. It’s getting late, and it is dark, and I know she can’t see me. She is still standing behind the man with the mustache and still has her hands on either side of his face, on his cheeks. The only difference between my face and his is that his has scratchy whiskers. I don’t know why Mommy wants to put her hands on Mustache Man’s scratchy whiskers. I pet Whiskers on the head. Ha ha! Whiskers and whiskers. I keep petting him. He likes it a lot, I can tell. He’s a good friend. I shouldn’t have said that he wasn’t as good a friend as Mommy because he might have heard me think it, and I don’t want to hurt his feelings. Even if he’s not as good a friend as Mommy. I wonder if Mommy thinks Mustache Man is as good a friend as me. I don’t think so. Every night before Mommy puts me to bed, she reads me a book. We have lots of favorites. When I was littler our favorites were Little Boy Blue and Winken, Blinken, and Nod. Then our favorites were Harry Potter, but Mommy read me all of them out loud already. Now my favorite is James and the Giant Peach, and I like it so much that we have read it all the way through five times. It takes us about one week of reading every night to read it all the way through. It always makes me sad that James has to eat the fish head for dinner. It’s not fair that he had to live with two evil aunts, and I have one really good Mommy. After we read for a long time, and usually get to the end of a chapter, we snuggle for a while and watch TV. Sometimes Mommy falls asleep before me because she is tired from work. She works a lot and I have a babysitter named Miriam. Miriam is cool. We do lots of fun things and she is better than my last babysitter Theresa who was sometimes mean and once brought her boyfriend over. She made me swear that I wouldn’t tell Mommy, but I felt bad keeping secrets and after a couple days I told her I had something I wanted to tell her but was nervous. She said I could tell her anything because we were tight like this, remember? and she held up two fingers twisted together. Like you and God, I said. She said yes. That’s because she used to joke that her and God were like this, and do the two twisted fingers. That used to make me laugh so hard. It still makes me laugh so hard. That and when she holds up her knuckles on her head and says When you mess with the bull, you get the horns, and then she charges and digs her knuckles into my stomach and it tickles. That’s all Mommy will do when she’s mad at me, and then it makes us laugh and we’re friends again. Anyway, I asked her if she would promise not to tell Theresa, and she did, so I told her that she brought her boyfriend over and made me promise not to tell. The next day Mommy didn’t go to work and watched me herself. It was fun and we got ice cream. Then Aunt Chris watched me for a couple days, which was O.K., but we did some good stuff like went swimming in the creek, which Mommy is usually afraid to do. Then the next week I had a new babysitter. So I know Mommy told Theresa and fired her. I didn’t know Mommy could lie.
Every night Mommy and I like to snuggle and I like to watch Forensic Files, but Mommy says it scares her, and someone my age shouldn’t watch it. But I always convince her. I like the murder stories best because they are very scary. Sometimes I don’t want to watch, but I can’t look away, and then I like to come up with my own stories about murdered people coming back as ghosts to take revenge. Mommy says I am a dark soul, but I just like the show. Mommy will sometimes write down my stories for me and occasionally read them back to me before bed even when they’re dark. I once wrote two stories, not in a row, where the mother gets killed. Mommy got offended, but I told her Mommmm, it’s not you, it’s just a story I made up in my head. She said, I know, I still love you, and then we both laughed. I usually like to sleep in bed with Mommy, but sometimes I wake up in my own bed because she carries me to bed in the middle of the night. A few times I woke up in Mommy’s bed, and she had already gone to work, and Miriam was in the kitchen making pancakes. But the important thing is that before we fall asleep every night, even if Mommy falls asleep first, she makes sure that she kisses me on top of the head, and she tells me, I only kiss you on top of the head, and do you know why? And then I say, No, why do you only kiss me on top of the head? I already know why, but this is our little game that we play every night before bed. And then she says, I only kiss you on top of the head because that’s how you know I love you.
But anyway, Mommy doesn’t have a lot of friends but sometimes she does, and they come over and have a party. I think they are her work friends from the bar. Mommy told me that people come to the bar to pay money for adult drinks that make them feel funny. During Mommy’s parties they drink adult drinks too. You think they’d get tired of all these adult drinks, giving them to people at work and drinking them at home.
Mommy got blocked from my view through the crack in the table cloth. Now there are a few other people standing in front of the couch talking about something boring, but I want to see Mommy. I can see that the TV is playing next to them and some of the light is shining on their legs. I can already tell that it’s the news. The people talking keep glancing over at it and talking more boring stuff. I can see a bit of the TV reflected in the window behind the couch, and I see heads talking and big colors behind them. That is definitely the news. Most adults like the news, but Mommy doesn’t really. We just watch fun stuff. Like forensic files.
Even from my secret spot I can see a hair on the leg of the pants of one of the people blocking Mommy. I know that I could find their DNA hidden in that hair and that it would tell me many things about them. It could tell that they are from another country and that they are on the run for robbing a bank. That would be cool, they would be less boring that way. I think if I had one of the whiskers of Mustache Man that his DNA would not be very good. I think it would show that he was an impostor underneath a mask, and that he really was all gross like a squished slug.
I brought three stuffed animals with me under the table. I would not say that they are my three favorites because parents don’t pick favorites, Mommy says, but she does get to pick favorites because I’m an only child and I’m her favorite so aren’t I lucky. Yes I am, I say. I’m very lucky. And you’re lucky that I don’t have a daddy, so I get to pick favorite parent. She didn’t look as happy as I thought she would when I said that. My three stuffed animals are Mrs. Crocodile, Dragony, who’s in my hood, Mrs. Panda—I have four actually, the fourth is Senor Platapusy. Mommy laughed very hard when I introduced her to Senor Platapusy, but I still don’t know why. I will figure it out. I am smarter than adults think I am, but Mommy thinks I’m smart, which is good. They are four very awesome stuffed animals, but not my favorites because I love all my stuffed animals equally. I just picked them to come sit under the table with me.
Jesse? asks Senor Platapusy.
Yes, I answer.
How long are we going to sit under here?
Until the party is over.
Why?
Yes, why? asks Mrs. Crocodile.
You’re on his side? I ask, offended.
Well, I’m not picking sides approximately, responds Mrs. Crocodile. She is a real smarty-pants, she wears glasses and owns a library.
Because we’re watching Mommy and making sure she’s safe.
Sh-she’s an adult, she’s safe, says Dragony, finally giving his cents.
Would you like to add to this conversation, Mrs. Panda? I ask her, wondering why she’s kept her silence so long.
I am Switzerland. This is what Mommy always says, Mrs. Panda has learned from the best.
Very well, I say. That may be a wise choice on your part, Mrs. Panda, because I very well may just banish the rest of you from the kingdom.
They all gasp as I expected. I try to hide my giggles.
Yes, you heard me right. Banish!
B-but, but-but, Jesse, you wouldn’t! says Dragony, his stutter even worse than usual.
You never know! I say, My anger is very bad.
They are all so nervous, and I like to make them wait before I tell them I am kidding. They are so silly. I love them like Mommy loves me, I would never banish them.
I’m just kidding! I say, and they all let out a big breath. You thought I was serious?
Mrs. Crocodile said, I was deeply awares of the scheme. I am not so sure though, I think she was nervous.
I-I was n-nervous! says Dragony. That w-wasn’t funny!
I’m sorry Dragony, I say. I didn’t mean to upset you, I was just playing around. You know I have a sick mind.
I kn-know. It’s O.K. I f-forgive you, Jesse.
I’m not actually sorry, it was too much fun. But I would never say that to Dragony. I have to be careful even thinking it because I can sometimes get thinking confused with the way we talk inside our heads. And I don’t want them to hear all my thoughts. Even Mommy doesn’t get to hear all those. They are special to me.
I lay down quickly onto the floor and look up at the bottom of the table. I still can’t see Mommy anyway, and I’m bored. I forgot that Whiskers was still asleep in my pocket. I woke him up. I feel him moving around now and trying to get out. I reach down and hold the sides of my pockets shut, so he can’t get out. He will fall back asleep in a minute.
Dragony, are you O.K. in there? I ask him because he’s in my hood and I’m laying my head on it.
I’m O.K.
You didn’t stutter. Maybe crushing you is the cure.
I d-don’t think so.
Don’t fake.
I’m n-not f-faking.
O.K. I’m just teasing you. But you are O.K. in there? It doesn’t hurt?
It doesn’t hurt.
O.K. good.
I look at the bottom of the table. It has some markings I made that are secret. It is a map. The square in the middle is our house. The things that look like clouds are trees because I didn’t know how to draw trees looking from above. The line is the trail to the treasure. It goes out from the back of our house, and between the two tall trees and to the edge of the creek. You have to go between the two tall trees because I hid the key to the box in the knot of the second tall tree, so if you don’t have the key you can’t open the box. In the box are my most secret things, Mommy’s boxes of cigarettes. I used to steal them and throw them away because Mommy should not smoke because it is bad for her. So then Mommy pretended like she stopped smoking, but I could smell it in her hair when we snuggle and watch TV. I actually like the smell. Every time Miriam smells like smoke it makes me think of Mommy. It especially makes me think of when she used to go to work and I would grab onto her leg, so that she wouldn’t go, and then we would do the giant walk where Mommy moves her leg up and down up and down like I am Jack and she is the beanstalk. I could always smell the smoke in her pants, and it smelled good. I stopped doing that because I think it made Miriam feel bad. But I still don’t want Mommy to smoke because I know it’s not good for her. So I found her cigarettes in the drawer next to the bed, and I started hiding them in my box next to the creek. I knew she would notice, and she did, but I lied and told her I didn’t do anything. She knew I was lying, but she didn’t get me in trouble. I think she wants to quit too. I have five boxes now in my secret box. I sometimes go down to the creek and put a scarf on and pretend that I am Mommy and put a cigarette in my mouth and play pretend. I spin around and talk at parties where my stuffed animals are the guests.
I sit back up, slowly this time so Whiskers doesn’t wake up again, and look back through my crack. I kind of forgot what I was doing. The people are still there, but they’ve moved a little bit, and I can sort of see Mommy. It looks like she’s not standing behind Mustache Man anymore, she’s sitting next to him, and they’re talking. I can’t see him because of the people standing. I don’t like him. He doesn’t make me feel good. I don’t think Mommy should like him either. He’s not awesome like she is. I see his hand reach out from behind the people and tap a cigarette into a bowl. He smokes too. I bet he doesn’t smell like Mommy.
The people standing all turn around and break their circle a little bit. I see that Mommy has just stood up and started talking to them. I can’t completely hear what she’s saying because the news is still on, but I’m pretty sure she’s telling them that she’s ready to go to bed. When she put me to bed tonight she told me that we couldn’t stay together because of the party, and I would have to sleep in my own bed. She doesn’t know about all the secret ways I can move through the house like a ninja. This is my most secret spot except for my box at the creek.
The people standing are putting their drinks down and saying things to Mommy. I can see their lips saying her name: Jennifer. She hugs them and says bye, and they go to the door and start to leave. Now they’re gone and she waves goodbye and closes the door. The man with the mustache has not left yet. I pet Whiskers in my pocket and rub the top of his head. He likes it. I scratch his chin. The man hasn’t left yet, and he’s not moving. He just looks at Mommy and is smiling a lot and looking happy, and I can see the news reflected in the window behind him. I pull on Whiskers’ whiskers and I can tell he’s woken up and is moving around. He doesn’t really like it when I pull on his whiskers, but I do it anyway, I don’t care. I have a sick mind, I guess. Mommy is walking over towards the mustache man, but I just wish he would leave. I don’t know why, but I want him to leave. Whiskers makes a tiny squeak when I pull on his whiskers this time, but I don’t care. Mommy has gotten to the couch and stands behind him and puts her hands on his cheeks again. I know she hates the way his whiskers feel, and I wish he would leave or he’s going to miss his ride with the other work friends. He puts his cigarette in the bowl and leaves it there. He looks up at Mommy who’s standing behind him and they’re both smiling a lot. Mommy leans down and kisses the top of his head.