I’ve Got a See-crud, Too
|
|
This
story is a ransom fan fiction, written to help raise money for the victims of
Hurricane Katrina, through Jixemitri. The Cameo did not receive a single
dollar from this effort, so Random House, please don’t sue me. *batting eyes*
Just consider the contribution of your characters a contribution to the Red
Cross. *G* |
|
“I’ve
Got A See-crud, Too” is written by AprilW, from
Mart Belden’s point of view. All the opinions in this story are the opinion
of Martin Andrew Belden, Esquire, and not necessarily the opinion of AprilW, Dark Orchid Productions, or The Cameo theatre.
However, both Mart and April agree on one thing: One the reader completes
this fanfic, he or she should proceed immediately to Jixemitri and
officially join the Underground Mart Movement, also known as UMM. To do this,
one must simply place the UMM smilie in their signature at some point in
time. To further explain, this smilie: |
|
I have suffered. I have
endured such flagrant excruciation that my comrades could never fathom.
Furthermore, the torture inflicted upon me was too graphic, too gruesome for me
to verbalize. For the welfare of my compatriots, I shrouded my bitter malaise
in the secret recesses of my heart.
Until
now.
This past summer, I was awarded an
assignment by the Y-chromosome-challenged commodore of our clan. With great
trepidation, I accepted my mission and pledged to perform it to the fullest of
my ability.
This perilous venture would prove to be
my most arduous, and would henceforth change my life forever.
Like prisoners held captive in a
constrictive bamboo hut, I, too, have seen the ugliness of war. Yes, dear
readers, I have stared the enemy square in the eye, and it was not a pretty
sight. I count myself blessed to even have emerged from this experience with my
sanity in tact.
Some have not been so lucky.
Long have I suffered in silence,
keeping the traumatic events in my past a secret. However, recently the monster
who inflicted such pain upon me divulged privileged information to the masses,
and I felt it was my sacred American duty to tell my see-crud, too.
I am Mart Belden, and I survived an
afternoon of Bobby-sitting.
Okay. Enough with the
ten-dollar words. I’m going to lay it on the line for you in plainspoken
English.
It was a sultry July afternoon.
Temperatures were so high that when the chickens laid their eggs, they came out
hardboiled. We were in the middle of a crazy heat wave, and there wasn’t much
going on in this one-horse town.
The Wheelers were away
on some ridiculously expensive vacation and, for some reason beyond my
comprehension, they had invited my dopey sister along to keep Honey company (and probably get her kidnapped sometime during the aforementioned
trip). So Trixie got to leave the country, yet
again, without having to contribute one lousy iota to the stinkin’ chores that were piling up around here.
Frankly, that just
sucked.
The beautiful Diana
had to go to
Yeah, that was a great idea.
Trapped.
In a minivan. With four small
children.
That’s my idea of a dream vacation. Apparently,
they had originally planned to fly to
Brian, Jim and Dan
were at a camp upstate. And yes, before you ask, they were camp counselors. I
mean, isn’t it a rule that we’ve got to baby-sit small fry at least once a
summer? So while I was dying of boredom in Sleepyside, my usual partners in
crime were applying countless applications of Calamine lotion, making thousands
of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and picking ticks off sweaty heads.
I would’ve given anything to be with them.
So where was I, and
why wasn’t I with them? Good question.
Well, I was supposed
to go to camp, but the day before we left, I was diagnosed with a nasty case of
strep throat. Dr. Ferris loaded me up on antibiotics
and gave me strict orders to stay in bed for the next couple of days.
No camp, no lake, no
nothing. Just confined to the house with Moms, Dad, and
Bobby.
That actually wasn’t so bad, because it
meant no chores. I was so sick the first couple of days that Moms brought me
homemade chicken soup in bed. I spent the whole day lying around, reading Cosmo
McNaught books, playing video games, and watching
television.
Not a shabby setup.
But then, I started
feeling better. By the end of the week, I was back to cleaning out the chicken
coop, making my room navigable, and taking out the trash. Little did I know
that the worst was yet to come.
The Garden Club called
Moms and told her she had been awarded the “Bronzed Bloom” award for the Bird
of Paradise she had grown. The prize was an all-day trip to a spa in
Bobby’s reputation
must’ve preceded him.
Moms,
in dire need of such a getaway, was ecstatic and called the spa
immediately to make an appointment. When I asked if Mrs. Vanderpoel
was going to watch the little shrimp during her excursion, she just laughed.
Much to my chagrin, I was assigned
the unwelcome task of Bobby-sitting.
A
fate worse than death, if you ask me.
The afternoon started
out uneventful enough. I gave the little twer… errr, prince a
highly nutritious lunch consisting of Cocoa Pebbles and Pop Tarts, with a
couple of Little Debbie snack cakes for dessert. After loading him up on junk,
I sent him upstairs and ordered him to leave me alone.
That’s when the
trouble began.
I settled on the couch
with a big bowl of popcorn and flipped on the television. The movie “Spiderman”
was supposed to come on HBO in a few minutes. While I waited, I cracked open a
cola and took a swig. A sudden tapping on my shoulder startled me so much that
I almost spit my drink all over the room.
After I wiped a few
drops of soda from my chin, I turned around to look my assailant in the eyes.
“What do you want, Bobby?”
“I’m bored,” he told
me with a pout. “There ain’t nothin’ to do.”
“There are a lot of
things to do in your room.”
“Nuh-uh.” Bobby shook his sandy curls in disagreement.
“Uh-huh,” I argued,
copying his vocal tone. “Dad told you to clean your room last night.”
“I did clean my room,” he challenged.
“No, you crammed all your junk under the bed instead of
putting it in your toy box.”
“So?” he said. Though
Bobby’s tone was still defiant, it was clear by the look on his face that the
kid knew he was beat.
“So if you’re bored,
go clean your room properly.”
Bobby wrinkled up his
nose to show his disfavor. “I don’t wanna do that.
Cleaning’s even boringer than doin’
nothin’.”
“More boring,” I
corrected with a roll of my eyes. “And with all the toys you have, you should
be able to find something to play with.”
“But what do I play?”
“Play with your Matchbox
cars,” I suggested impatiently. “Or set up your farm. Make little pens for your
horses and pigs and junk.”
“Will you holp me?” Bobby pleaded. “You play cars real good. ‘Member
when you played that the brakes on that truck wented
out an’ we runned over the chickens that gotted loose? An’ then we squirted ketchup on the floor pretendin’ it was the chickens’ blood…”
I smiled proudly.
“Well, that was particularly
brilliant.”
“But Moms didn’t like
it much,” Bobby pointed out with a frown. “She gotted
real mad when that red spot on the carpet wouldn’t come out. It looked real
bad, an’ it smelled yucky, too.”
“True,” I acknowledged
with a nod.
“But maybe we can
think of somethin’ else,” he proposed hopefully.
“Sorry, small fry, but
I have important stuff to do. I can’t play right now.” I ruffled his curls and
then turned back to the TV.
“What
kinda ‘pordant stuff?”
Bobby inquired. He was obviously stalling before he was forced to go up to his
room.
“Stuff that is none of your business,” I
answered in a harsh voice. “Now get lost.”
With an exaggerated sigh, Bobby stomped
away, loudly clomping up each step.
“This baby-sitting’s hard work,” I
muttered under my breath as I turned back to the television.
I settled back on the couch with my
popcorn. The movie had just begun when I heard a rustling sound on the floor. I
glanced down and saw Bobby wiggling on the carpet, inching closer towards me. I
quickly hit the power button on the remote so that he wouldn’t see what was on
and ask to watch.
“What do you want now?”
Bobby looked up at me, a pathetic
expression on his normally cherubic face. “I’m hungry.”
I shook my head slightly. “No, you’re
not.”
He wrinkled his freckled nose. “I’m
not?”
“You’re not.”
Bobby stood and shrugged his small shoulders.
“Okay.” Without another word, he skipped to the staircase and went back to his
room.
“Moms really should’ve gotten her tubes
tied after she had Trixie,” I thought as I took a slurp of my cola and turned
the TV back on again.
Just as I was beginning to think Bobby
had decided to leave me alone, I heard heavy breathing behind me. With a
frustrated groan, I quickly changed the channel before turning back to my
charge.
“Knock, knock,” he said, trying to
stifle a giggle.
Having been tortured, er… entertained
by Bobby’s knock-knock jokes before, I lifted my sandy brows critically. “What
is it now?”
Bobby shook his head, making his short
blond curls bounce. “Ya ain’t
s’posed to say”--- here he deepened his voice, and
then continued--- “ ‘What is it now?’ ” He placed his
chubby hands on his hips and frowned. “Yer s’posed to say, ‘Who’s there?’ Don’t you know nothin’, Mart?”
“Maybe I didn’t say ‘Who’s there?’
because I already know who’s there,” I answered grumpily. “You’ve told the
exact same knock-knock joke a thousand times.”
The little twerp sighed loudly, forming
his lips into a perfect pout. “Aw, c’mon, Mart. Ask ‘Who’s there?’.”
“Bobby, I hate to tell you this, but
your joke doesn’t make sense.”
“It makes sense to me,” he insisted indignantly. “Please, Mart?”
“If I ask ‘Who’s there?’, will you leave me alone?”
He nodded, his pout replaced by a
smile.
Desperate times call for desperate
measures. If I wanted to watch my movie in peace, I was going to have to submit
to a little torture. “Okay, squirt. Tell me the joke.”
Bobby happily bounced up and down.
“Knock, knock!” he drawled out dramatically.
I exhaled wearily, wondering why the
government hadn’t approved some kind of knock-out drops that would make small
children sleep for a few uninterrupted hours.
“Who’s there?”
“Ten thousand bōkōs.” Bobby was giggling so hard that he
could barely get the words out.
Stifling a yawn, I mumbled, “Ten
thousand bōkōs who?”
Bobby wheezed as he struggled to catch
his breath so he could give the punch line. “You tryin’ to scare me, huh, huh?”
I rolled my eyes, silently mouthing the
familiar words along with Bobby. “Ha, ha,” I droned as I gave him a gentle push
towards the steps. “Now go upstairs and quit bugging me.”
Bobby, still
chuckling from his pitiful idea of comedy, thankfully obeyed and hopped away.
“Ten thousand bōkōs,”
I muttered under my breath, hitting the recall button on the remote. “What’s a bōkō anyway? That joke makes zero sense.”
It wasn’t even five minutes later that
I heard a loud clambering down the stairs, mingled with hysterical shrieks.
I jumped up and rushed to Bobby’s side,
praying that he hadn’t done something as stupid as brushing his teeth with
Monistat 7 again.
“What is it?” I queried, searching his
body for any signs of blood or missing digits.
He immediately plopped down on the floor
and stuck his foot in the air. “Look, Mart! Look!”
I grasped Bobby’s foot and drew my face
near for a closer inspection. Wondering how something so small could smell so
bad, I held my breath and searched for a protruding splinter or nail. Aside
from the horrific odor, the sole of his foot seemed fine.
“I don’t see anything, Bobby,” I told
him, irritation edging my voice.
“That’s ‘cuz yer lookin’ in the wrong place,”
he informed me. “Look on my biiiig toe.”
With an exasperated sigh, I plucked the
sock fuzz from between Bobby’s toes and studied the big one carefully. “I still
don’t see an---”
“It’s right on the side!” he insisted
excitedly.
“What’s right on the side?” I asked, perplexed by what was bothering him.
“A great big ol’ wart! You just touched it a minute ago.”
I quickly dropped Bobby’s foot and
wiped my hands on my shorts. “I don’t want to see your wart! Go upstairs.”
“But Mart---”
“ ‘But Mart’
nothing,” I interrupted. “Go up to the bathroom and put some wart remover on
your toe.”
“All by myself?”
“Sure, why not,” I answered. “It’s only
17% acid. Now go get it and brush it all over your toe.”
Bobby’s blue eyes grew wide. “Why?”
“It’ll remove the wart,” I explained,
amazed that this child and I shared the same gene pool. “Hence
the name ‘wart remover’.”
“How does it make the wart come off?”
Bobby’s chin quivered slightly as his over-active imagination went to work.
I sighed and ran my fingers through my
short curls. “Wart remover contains acid. It kind of rots the warts off your
body.”
Huge tears pooled in Bobby’s blue eyes.
“I don’t wanna rot off my toe. I can’t wear sandals
in the summertime if I only got nine toes! I’d look like a moop…
a moot… a moo--- ”
“A mutant?” I supplied.
Bobby nodded his head, tears streaming
down his freckled cheeks. “I don’t wanna be a mootant, Mart. I don’t want that ol’
acid to rotted off my toe!”
“It won’t ro---”
“Please don’t make me rot off my toe!”
Bobby wailed. “I won’t bug you no more! I promise!”
“Will you go up to your room and leave
me alone?” I asked sternly.
Bobby nodded, wiping a chubby hand
across his cheeks to dry his tears.
“Okay,” I said, feigning reluctance. “I
suppose you can go to your room.”
Without another word, Bobby made his
getaway and bolted up the stairs.
“Silence truly is golden,” I whispered as I walked back into the living room and
crashed onto the couch. “I’ll have to remember that wart remover threat.”
Though I enjoyed my respite, I knew it
was temporary. Ten minutes later, I looked at my watch. “Five, four, three, two…”
“Hey, Mart.”
“Right on time,” I said with a rueful
grin. “What do you want now, small fry?”
“Can I play with Daddy’s power tools?”
“Play with Dad’s power tools?” I
repeated with a snort. “Are you crazy?”
“Please, Mart,” he pleaded. “I watched
Daddy build somethin’ Saturday, an’ I paid ‘tention real good.”
“Robert, as amusing as it would be to
see what sort of home improvements you could make with a circular saw and a
sander, I fear our maternal forebear would frown upon such activities. The loss
of any of your digits would prove to be detrimental to my health and
well-being.”
Bobby scratched his chin. “Is that a
yes or a no?”
“That’s a big fat no, little buddy,” I answered with a grin. “See ya!”
“You won’t let me do nothin’ fun,” he whined as he trudged up the stairs.
It wasn’t long until Bobby was racing
down the steps again, his spirits buoyed by some new scheme to bug me. I
watched as he breathlessly skidded into the living room, wondering what trick
he’d try next. I hurriedly turned off the TV as he gasped for oxygen.
“Lookie,
Mart!” he wheezed. He stuck out his arms for me to study. “I gotted the
chicken pops.”
Sure enough, Bobby’s arms were covered
with large red dots. However, his “chicken pops” were the exact same color as
Moms’ lipstick.
I chuckled in disbelief as I looked at
the little runt. “What did you say was wrong with you?”
Bobby exhaled loudly to express his
exasperation. “I gots chicken
pops.” He must have picked up on my confusion because he explained in a
scholarly manner, “You know, when big red bumps pop outta
yer skin?”
“Oh,” I said, scratching my chin
thoughtfully. “You mean chicken pox.”
“Yeah,” Bobby agreed with a nod.
“That’s what I said. Chicken pops.” With one of his chubby hands, he grabbed my
arm and tried to pull me to an upright position. “C’mon,
Mart. I’m sick an’ you need to come upstairs an’ play with me so I’ll
feel better.”
“Playing with me will make your
‘chicken pops’ go away?” I asked with a quirk of an eyebrow.
“Uh-huh,” he affirmed.
“So to cure your ‘chicken pops’, all I
need to do is play with you?”
Bobby’s thin, sandy brows furrowed as
he pondered his options. “Ice cream’ll holp, too,” he added with a hopeful smile.
“Well, Bobby, there’s just one problem
with that diagnosis,” I informed him with a grin. “Those aren’t ‘chicken pops’
on your arms.”
He shuffled his feet and lowered his
face, trying to hide his guilty expression. “They ain’t?”
“Nope.” I licked my
fingers and rubbed them against one of the “chicken pops”.
“Hey, quit it!” Bobby yelped as he
tried to wiggle out of my grasp before I could smear his rash.
“Sorry, squirt. The old
lipstick-chicken-pox-set-up is the oldest trick in the book.” I held up my
fingers, which were smeared with the proof. “Better luck next time, Bobster.”
“Rats,” he exclaimed with a stamp of
his foot. After one final loud “humph”, he angrily marched out of the
room.
I couldn’t help but smile as I watched
his huffy departure. Bobby may not be the sharpest crayon in the box, but the
little twerp didn’t give up quickly. I had to give him an “A” for persistence.
Once again, I settled back on the
couch. I became so enthralled with the plot of my movie that I didn’t hear the
faint pitter-patter of footsteps coming down the stairs.
Suddenly a pair of hands, smelling
suspiciously like Cocoa Pebbles, covered my eyes. “Guess who.”
“Gee, considering we’re the only two
people in the house, that narrows down the suspect list quite a bit,” I replied
sarcastically. “Get your grubby hands off my visual organs, squirt. I’m trying
to watch a movie.”
Bobby complied, his giggle showing he
took no offense to the “grubby hands” comment. He
climbed over the top of the couch and plopped down beside me.
“Whatcha watchin’?”
“Something rated PG-13,” I replied
sternly, wishing I had been able to change the channel, or at least turn off
the television, before he had entered the room.
“Is PG-13 like WD-40?” Bobby inquired. “ ‘Cuz I’ve holped
Daddy spray that before. It stinks.”
“PG-13 is a movie rating,” I answered.
The corners of my lips twitched as I tried not to laugh at Bobby’s question.
“What’s that mean?”
“It means you have to be thirteen to
watch it,” I replied, wishing Bobby would develop a sudden case of laryngitis.
“But you ain’t thirteen,” he argued.
“It means you have to be at least thirteen to watch it,” I
amended.
“Why?”
“Because there’s stuff in it that
little kids shouldn’t see or hear,” I explained. I was very proud of myself for
exercising such patience and not throttling the munchkin.
“What kinda
stuff?”
I sighed and rubbed my eyes. That
patience I mentioned earlier was quickly running out. “Well, violence and
obscenities and junk like that.”
“What’s vi’lence?”
“If you don’t sit down and shut up, I’m
going to show you exactly what ‘vi’lence’ means,” I
snapped brusquely.
“Cool!” Bobby happily exclaimed,
bouncing up and down on the couch. “Vi’lence sounds
neat. Can you show me ‘scenities, too?”
“Perhaps,” I responded through clenched
teeth. I had a feeling that this little monster could make the Pope curse. “Now
go away. I don’t want to get into trouble for letting you watch this.”
Bobby placed his thumbs in his ears and
wiggled his fingers while he stuck his tongue out at me. “Well, Mr. Smarty-Pants,
I already seed this movie. We rented it from the video store, an’ Moms letted me watch it.”
“Moms let you watch ‘Spiderman’?” I
questioned incredulously.
“Yup,” he answered with a satisfied smirk. “I
seed the whoooole thing. Daddy pushed the mood button
on the remote so I couldn’t hear the bad words.”
“That’s the ‘mute’ button, twerp, not
‘mood’.”
“That’s what I said,” Bobby argued.
“Whatever,” I said with a shrug. “Now
why don’t you go upstairs and play in Trixie’s room like a good boy?”
“Don’t wanna,”
he answered with a pout. “I wanna stay down here with
you an’ watch ‘Spiderman’. You promised that I could see the vi’lence an’ the ‘scenities, an’
you ain’t showed ‘em to me
yet.”
“I don’t know,” I said with a heavy
sigh. “Everyone knows that you can’t keep your trap shut during movies. I don’t
want you to bug me through the whole thing.”
“I won’t bug you,” Bobby promised, his blue eyes wide. “I’ll be quiet as a mouse. An’
not a mouse that got caughted in a trap neither, ‘cause they squeak and squeak an’ make a whole lotta racket. I’m a mouse that’s really, really quiet an’
don’t make no noise at all an’ just sits there, not sayin’ a word. Not one single, itty bitty word. I can be a
mouse real good, Mart. A real quiet mouse that don’t b---”
“Be quiet!” I exclaimed impatiently. I
had a feeling if I was going to have any peace at all,
I was going to have to let Bobby watch the movie with me. First, however, I’d
have to set a few rules.
“If you want to watch this movie,
you’re going to have to sit there and not say a word,” I ordered sternly.
“Can I scream like Mary Jane?”
“No,” I snapped.
“Can I laugh like the Green Goblin?” he
asked hopefully.
“No.”
“Can I tell you what parts I like?”
“No,” I said with a shake of my head.
“Can I ask what parts you like?”
“No.”
“Can I ask what’s goin’
on in case I get losted an’ don’t understand somethin’?” Bobby inquired.
“No,” I insisted wearily. “If you want
to watch this movie with me, you have to zip your lips. Do you think you can do
that?”
Bobby nodded and pretended to zip his
lips closed, lock them, and then throw away the key.
“All right,” I relented. “You can stay
as long as you don’t say a single, solitary word.”
“Okay,” he vowed. After a moment, he
wrinkled his nose and asked, “Hey, Mart, what’s sol’tary
mean?”
I growled and opened my mouth to send
him away, but he quickly clamped his chubby hand over his lips.
“I won’t say nothin’
else!” he promised, his voice muffled as he spoke with his hand covering his
mouth.
For about ten minutes, I actually
believed that Bobby was going to keep his promise. He sat silently on the
couch, totally enthralled while Spiderman shot webs around
I should’ve known that it wouldn’t
last.
It happened right after Spidey beat up the gang of would-be rapists that had
attacked Mary Jane. Bobby cheered as the cowards ran away, and that was okay. I
mean, Spiderman’s cool. If I wasn’t a sophisticated man of sixteen, I would
have been tempted to cheer also.
It was during the infamous kiss that
Bobby broke his pact of silence. His blue eyes bugged out when he watched Mary
Jane roll up the bottom of Spiderman’s mask and kiss
him while he hung upside-down. Bobby comically turned his head to match Spidey’s and studied the kiss from another angle.
“Gross!” he exclaimed in disgust. “MJ’s stickin’ her tongue in
Spiderman’s mouth! EWWW!”
“Bobby,” I said, trying to keep a
serious expression, “they’re kissing. Didn’t you see this part with Moms and
Dad?”
Bobby shook his head. “No, Moms tolded Daddy to hit the arrow that maked
the people go real fast,” he explained, wiggling his fingers around quickly to
illustrate.
Suddenly he gasped and covered his
eyes. “Yuck! It looks like they’re slurpin’ an ice
cream cone or somethin’! That’s worser
than puttin’ yer mouth on
the water fountain at school.”
“Kissing isn’t gross, Bobby,” I
informed him. “Grownups like it.”
Bobby’s freckled nose wrinkled in
abhorrence. “Well, I still think it’s
icky.”
“You’ll change your mind about that,” I
snorted.
A contemplative expression clouded Bobby’s features.
“Do you like kissin’,
Mart?”
I felt a burning sensation begin
creeping along my cheeks, moving on up to the tips of my ears. Wordlessly I
turned back to television. However, there was no escaping the little imp.
“You do like kissin’!” Bobby whooped. “I bet
you wanna kiss Di!”
I bit back a retort and focused on the
movie, hoping that Bobby would drop the subject. As if I’d be that lucky.
“Mart an’ Di-yiii,
sittin’ in a tree,” he chanted in a sing-song voice. “K-I-S-S-I-M-B!”
“That’s I-N-G, dork,” I snapped,
as I smacked him on the back of the head. “Now shut your pie hole and watch the
movie.”
“But I don’t wanna
watch it if it gots kissin’
an’ junk in it,” Bobby declared with a frown.
“Well, you don’t have to watch.”
“But what’ll I do?” he whined. “I’m
bored.”
“I know!” I exclaimed triumphantly.
“Why don’t you go upstairs and play Spiderman? That would be fun.”
Bobby chewed on his bottom lip as he
thought about my suggestion. “I guess so. But I don’t wanna
kiss no one.”
I pretended to seriously mull over his
request. “Well, I suppose you can
play Spiderman without kissing anyone. Just this once.”
“Okey-dokey!” Bobby, inspired by the scenes he had
just viewed, eagerly hopped up from the couch. He assumed a heroic stance,
pretending to shoot webs out from his hands. He dramatically clutched the end
of one of his imaginary webs and “swung” over to the staircase.
I breathed a sigh of relief and enjoyed
the remainder of my movie.
You may be wondering what the big deal
is. Where is the aforementioned “see-crud”? Well, the story’s not over yet.
That was just the background.
Now, I don’t want to give you the impression that I’m a mean big
brother. On the contrary, I do a lot for the little twerp. I had been planning
to go upstairs and play with Bobby after my movie, so when the credits began
rolling, I got up from my comfy position on the couch and climbed the steps.
I had just gotten to the top of the
staircase when I heard a desperate cry coming from Bobby’s room.
“Holp! Holp! Holp!”
Fearing the worst, I raced down the
hall and flung open the door. I was quite unprepared for the astounding sight
that accosted my line of visage. I was so shocked that I had to rub my eyes.
When I slowly reopened them, I stared in surprise as I took it all in.
There, mysteriously “attached” to the
wall of his bedroom, was Bobby, approximately six feet above the ground. An
overturned chair lay nearby, on which I assumed Bobby had been climbing. Only
his hands were stuck to the wall, allowing his legs to dangle helplessly. A
couple of now-empty tubes of superglue were scattered on the floor, giving me a
good idea of how Bobby got himself in this predicament.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, there was
the matter of what he was wearing. Or rather, what he wasn’t wearing.
Obviously Bobby was shooting for
authenticity, because he was clad in only his Spiderman underwear and its matching long-sleeved t-shirt. His short, chubby legs were bare, save for a
pair of red socks pulled over his knees. I’m guessing he swiped the socks from
Trixie’s dresser, since they looked way too big for him.
“Holp!” he
cried again, wiggling his feet as he dangled from his spot on the wall.
Honest to goodness, I tried not to
laugh. Really I did. But the sight of Bobby’s chubby, Spiderman-clad butt, not to
mention the colorful socks covering his feet/legs, was just too much. I hooted
with laughter until tears ran down my cheeks and I was wheezing to catch my
breath.
“It’s not funny!” Bobby wailed. He
kicked his legs to express his fury. “I’m stucked to
the wall an’ I can’t getted loose!”
With a snicker, I crossed the room to
appraise the situation more closely. I grabbed one of Bobby’s sock-covered legs
and gave it a hearty yank. Much to my surprise, he remained firmly glued to the
wall. “Yep, you’re stuck.”
“Mart!” Bobby
hollered, frantically moving his head from side to side so he could see what I
was doing. “Get me down from here!”
His inability to look at me only served
to amuse me further, much to his chagrin.
I took several deep breaths in an
effort to stop laughing. “Dude, why
are you hanging from the wall in your skivvies?”
“It’s not my skinnies,”
Bobby corrected. His voice hinted that he was on the verge of tears. “I’m wearin’ my Spiderman uniform.”
“Nice tights,” I teased as I pulled up
the drooping red sock covering his left leg.
“Quit makin’
fun of me!” With more indignation than I knew a six-year-old could muster, he
yanked his leg out of my grasp. I wasn’t sure if I should be amused, impressed,
or afraid.
I went with amused.
“Or what?” I challenged
with an evil chuckle. “You can’t exactly do anything about it, can you,
shrimp?”
The direness of the situation finally
sunk in, and the tears that had been suppressed finally poured down Bobby’s
cheeks. “I don’t wanna stay stucked
here! I’m hungry, an’ bored, an’ I gotta pee!”
I don’t know if it was
his panic-stricken voice or if perhaps it was the tears, but for whatever
reason, a wave of sympathy washed over me.
“C’mon, Bobby,” I said
in a soothing voice as I patted his back comfortingly. “We’ll get you down.
Don’t cry.”
“I-I-I can’t h-holp it,” Bobby sobbed as tears streamed down his cheeks.
“I c-c-can’t stop, an’ I g-gotted snot comin’ outta my n-n-nose, an’ I
can’t w-w-wipe it off.”
Upon closer
inspection, I saw that Bobby certainly did have a steady stream of yellow mucus
pouring out of his nasal cavity. Since he was currently glued to the wall, he
was unable to wipe his nose. As the gooey trail inched closer to his mouth, he
clamped it shut so nothing could get inside.
“Wipe it on the sleeve
of your shirt,” I suggested.
Bobby looked up at the
ceiling in an attempt to avert his snot trail. “I don’t wanna
get boogers on my Spiderman suit.”
I quickly retrieved a
tissue from the box sitting on top of the nightstand and hurried back to
Bobby’s side. “Hold still, kid,” I ordered. With a slight grimace, I clenched
my teeth and wiped his nose with the tissue.
It was a dirty job, but somebody had to
do it.
“Hey,
yer hurtin’ me!”
Bobby yelped.
“Would you rather eat
snot?”
“Noooo,”
he howled mournfully.
“Then hold still,” I
commanded as I wiped the remaining mucus away.
“Are you gonna get me loosed now?”
“I’ll do my best.” I
carefully examined Bobby’s face as best I could from this angle. Thankfully,
all of the gooey yellow junk had been removed from the vicinity of his nostrils
and mouth.
After I tossed the
tissue in the trashcan, I grasped Bobby around the waist and tugged hard. Much
to my surprise, he remained attached to the wall.
“Gee whiz, Bobby,” I
muttered. “How much of that crap did you use?”
“Only
a bottle.” Pausing slightly, he added in a whisper, “For each hand.”
“You used a whole tube
of superglue for each hand?” I snorted in disbelief. “Good grief! You may be
collecting social security here, dude. Why’d you glue yourself to the wall
anyway?”
“I was pretendin’ to be Spiderman,” Bobby said with a sniffle. “Yer the one who telled
me to play it.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t
tell you to use an extremely adhesive substance to become a permanent wall
fixture.”
“I hadta
glue myself to the wall,” he argued. “The Green Goblin was gettin’
away.”
“Well, I’m not a
superhero or anything, but I think it would be hard to catch the villain if
you’re attached to the wall,” I pointed out with a smirk. “Not being able to
move would certainly put you at a disadvantage.
“I wasn’t s’posed to get attached,” Bobby retorted with a scowl. “I
just thoughted the glue would make my hands sticky
an’ would holp me climb up to the ceiling. I didn’t
know it would dry so quick.”
I picked up one of the
containers of Superglue. “Quick drying,” I read with a quirk of a brow.
“I didn’t read the
corrections.”
“The ‘directions’,” I
amended.
“I didn’t read them,
neither,” Bobby snapped, his small angry features reminding me of a Chucky
doll. “Now can you get me down?”
“I’m trying,” I
retorted. I wrapped my arms around his waist once again and pulled and tugged
with all my might, but still Bobby remained glued to the wall.
Realizing I needed a
different method of attack, I stepped away and assessed the situation. Devising
a new plan, I ran to Moms and Dad’s room and found one of Dad’s belts. Once
back in Bobby’s room, I fastened the belt around his waist and grabbed the
extra length.
“Hold on to your
butt,” I muttered, quoting one of my favorite movie lines.
“I can’t,” he wailed
pitifully.
I yanked as hard as I
could on my end of the belt, hoping to dislodge Bobby from his prison. Using my
vast experience of playing tug of war, I rooted myself to the floor and pulled
on the belt as I stepped backwards. Sweat poured off my forehead as I expended
every bit of strength I possessed. I continued tugging on the belt as I walked
backwards.
“Is it working?” I
panted through clenched teeth.
“I dunno,”
Bobby gasped. The lower half of his body was lifted until it was almost even
with his upper half. “Yer hurtin’ my tummy.”
“Do you want to be a
permanent wall fixture?” I asked.
“Keep yankin’.”
I gritted my teeth,
ignoring the angry blisters forming on my hands. I squared my shoulders and
tried to go back farther.
Now Bobby’s toes were
even higher than his head. “Keeeeep yankin’…”
I continued to travel
backwards; however, with each step, I met a little more resistance. Finally,
the laws of physics were too powerful for me to combat. As I attempted to trudge
farther back, my sock-clad feet lost their footing on the slick wooden floor.
With a resounding THUD, I landed flat on my butt. I looked up just in time to
see Bobby crash against the wall with a loud thump. He hit the vertical surface
with such velocity that he appeared to bounce a few times after the initial
impact.
With great
trepidation, I walked over to my little brother. Much to my relief, he appeared
to be breathing and there was no profuse spurting of blood. “You OK, Bobster?”
“Owww,”
he drawled out slowly.
I grabbed one of his
ankles to stop the wall-bouncing. “Well, I guess I can try this agai---”
“No!” Bobby shrieked. “It hurted too much. Try somethin’ else.”
“Well, what am I
supposed to do?” I rubbed my forehead to try and ease my throbbing temple. I
had the feeling that if I left the little turd
hanging, Moms would be yelling at me.
“Maybe I can hack off
a piece of the wall with the ax,” I muttered under my breath. I walked over to
study exactly how Bobby was attached to the wall.
‘Wait a minute,” I
murmured as I inspected Bobby’s hands. “Are those socks on your hands?”
“Are you makin’ fun of me again?” he asked indignantly.
“No! I thought the red
things on your hands were part of your shirt, but if they’re socks, then I
think I know how to get you down.”
“All
right!” Bobby howled in frustration. “I putted red socks on my hands.”
“Then why didn’t they
come off when I yanked on your legs?”
For once, Bobby was annoyed by my questions instead of the other way
around. “I wrapped rubber bands ‘round my wrists so the socks wouldn’t come
off,” he explained with a frown. “I
wrapped ‘em real tight.”
“You shouldn’t wrap rubber bands around
your wrists, Bobby. They’ll cut off the circulation to your hands,” I rebuked.
“Do your fingers hurt?”
“Nah, they’re just numb.”
“I’ll be right back.”
I raced out of his room and into Moms and Dad’s. I knew the perfect instrument
necessary to extricate Bobby; the only question: Where was it? Fortunately, it
didn’t take long to find the tool I needed, and I returned to my little
brother’s room.
“All right, Bobby.” I
pulled up the cuff of his long-sleeved Spiderman undershirt to his elbow. Sure
enough, a long red sock, secured by a large rubber band twisted around his
wrist, covered his hand and most of his forearm.
“Here we go…” I
murmured as I began snipping through the red wool with Moms’ fabric scissors.
Slowly, the scissors made their way through the sock until they reached the
toe.
“You
gotted my hand out!” Bobby cried joyfully,
waving his left arm around. “Lookie how blue it is!
Cool!”
“That’s because there
was no blood getting to it. Now hold still while I work on the other one.” I
focused my attention on the sock covering his right hand. Finally, I cut
through Bobby’s bonds, allowing him to fall to the floor with a loud clatter.
“I’m free!” he whooped
excitedly as he jumped up and began hopping around. “An’ this hand’s blue, too,
an’ it tickles! Neat-O!”
“That’s the blood
returning to your fingers,” I informed him, slightly amused by how easily he was
entertained.
Suddenly, Bobby’s expression of joy was
transformed to one of desperation. Wordlessly, he hopped over to the door.
I grabbed him before
he could exit the room. “What? No thank you?”
“I
already telled you that I gotta
pee!” Bobby said, still dancing around.
“Go on,” I told him. I
gave him a gentle push towards the door. “I don’t want you to make a puddle.”
Bobby skidded out of
the room, not even waiting until he reached the private confines of the
bathroom to begin pulling down his Spiderman underwear.
With a rueful shake of
my head, I watched him go, knowing I’d never get a thank you out of the
ungrateful little squirt.
And there you have
it--- the “see-crud” that I’ve been keeping to myself all these months. I
hadn’t planned to tell anyone. I know if I had super-glued myself to the
bedroom wall, clad only in my skivvies and a couple of pairs of red socks, I wouldn’t want anyone to know.
However, having shared
my traumatic experience of Bobby-sitting, I do find it rather therapeutic. I
can’t speak for my little brother, but I know I feel a lot better after talking about our day together.
Watching Bobby for an entire afternoon
has been one of the most challenging tasked I’ve ever taken on. I’ve emerged a
better man. Stronger. Wiser. Tenacious. Strategic. Now that this
unfortunate event is out in the open, we can learn several lessons.
One, those who wear
Spiderman Underoos should not be so hasty to tell the
seecruds of others.
Two, it is not wise to
provoke your older brother to wrath, particularly when he has rescued you from
a rather compromising situation.
And
last, but perhaps most importantly of all, brotherly loyalty is temporary… but
Superglue is forever.
Biographer’s notes:
This story was penned by AprilW, under the
direction of Martin Andrew Belden, Esquire in payment of the ransom story
offered during Jixemitri’s Horrorcane
Fundraiser for the victims of Katrina. I’d like to thank all the Jixsters who pledged money to find out the dirt on Bobby.
The header featuring the legs wearing red socks was a stock photo.
The photos featured of “Bobby” are actually of my son, Sam, as if you didn’t
know. I’m very thankful that my little man is such a good sport. However, he
did draw the line at wearing his Spiderman underwear. *G* He informed me it
“was just too embarrassing”, so I agreed to take his picture wearing blue
shorts instead.
Thank you to my editors: Steph H, Kathy W,
and Kaye. I love you all, and I thank you for your hard work!
Ex-Lax is a well known laxative that induces bowel movements. I cringe just thinking about how the lavatory on the plane
smelled after Larry and Terry’s stunt… *shudder*
Spiderman is a trademark of Marvel Comics and is used without
permission. However, after all the Spidey merchandise
I’ve purchased the past several years (as well as the merchandise that my
in-laws purchased for Damon *G*), I believe I’ve earned the right to exploit
our friendly, neighborhood Spiderman.
Matchbox is a trademark of Mattel. And if you’re wondering if I have
permission to mention that product, see the above note and look at the floor of
Sam’s room.
The “ten thousand bōkōs” joke is
one that Sam made up when he was four. It’s so not funny that it actually is funny, if you know what I mean. We
found out recently that he meant “ten thousand volt ghost”, but couldn’t say it
properly when he was four. Even though he can it properly now, he still says
ten thousand bōkōs, and we wouldn’t have it
any other way.
For the Monistat 7 reference, read “A Day in the Life of Moms”.
Wart remover is in fact 17% salicylic acid in case you were wondering.
Mart is just full of interesting tidbits like that. J
I actually tried to fake the chicken pox by dotting red lipstick all
over my arms and face. And no, it didn’t work.
Your big brother’s company and ice cream will not cure chicken pox.
Chocolate cake… maybe.
I’m not sure if Mart ever showed Bobby what ‘scenities
are. He’s not allowed to use wirty dords around me. *wink*
Can one actually glue themselves to the
wall? According to my research, I would have to say yes. I read accounts of some
amazing things involving Superglue.
The Cameo does not recommend allowing small children to play with
Superglue. All stunts in this story were performed by professional actors and
should not be attempted at home. No children or small animals were harmed in
the filming of this story. However, a pair of red socks did suffer irreparable
damage.
Bobby’s costume was inspired by my darling husband. As a little boy,
he wore his Spiderman Underoos along with a pair of
red socks on his feet and his hands. He has passed that tradition down to Sam,
who likes to don a similar outfit when he’s battling bad guys.
“Hold on to your butt” was a line from the first
Mart included his thank you list, but sadly, it exceeded my web
space allotment and made my Spell Checker blow up. After all my preparations
for the holiday, I didn’t have the strength to correct his horrendous spelling.
As a reminder, if you have not joined UMM now, please go do so
immediately. You won’t regret it. And for the record, The Cameo is a 
.
My final ransom story, “A Stick Situation”, is finally showing on
the big screen. The Bob-White boys reluctantly participate in a fundraiser to
raise money for the Red Cross. Here’s your complimentary ticket, good for one free
show at The Cameo. Click on the ticket to see this hot, new feature!
Home | Other
Fanfic | Jix MB