The Saturday Boy

“Yes?”

“Can I come in?”

I got up from my chair and went to the door and opened it. Aunt Josie came in and bent down and gave me a hug. She squeezed me tight and her hair tickled my nose. It was blonde this time. So blonde it was almost white.

“You’re my boo and I want you to know that I’ll be here for you no matter what.”

“Okay.”

Aunt Josie put her hands on my shoulders, looked me right in the eyes, and brushed the hair out of my face with her fingers. Her face was serious.

“Honestly,” she said. “No. Matter. What.”

“Right. Gotcha.”

I nodded, hoping she’d let me go because I could smell garlic bread and garlic bread meant spaghetti and spaghetti was just about my favorite food in the whole universe. My stomach growled.

“What was that?”

“My stomach,” I said.

“That was your stomach?”

“Uh-huh.”

“You’re not hiding a lion under your bed?”

“It was my stomach.”

“Then we’d better put some food in it before it escapes and eats us all.”

I pictured my stomach bursting out of my body. It was all pink and red and slimy and had little arms and legs and a big mouth full of fangs. I imagined it chasing Budgie down the street, snapping at his ankles and growling all the way.

8

THE SMELL OF COFFEE woke me up. I reached over and lifted the blind a little and peeked out. The sun was just starting to come up and the world outside the window was full of shadows. I got out of bed and went to my closet and got my slippers and a hoodie sweatshirt and went downstairs to the kitchen.

Mom stood at the counter waiting for the coffeemaker to beep. She was wearing her purple robe and a pair of Dad’s slippers. Her hair was wild. I think she may have still been asleep, which would have been something because you could totally hear Aunt Josie snoring in the other room and it was pretty loud.

“Hey, Mom!”

“Hm?”

Mom looked over at me. Her eyes were half-shut and there were dark circles under them.

“Oh! Hi, Piggy. How’d you sleep?”

Her voice was all mumbly but I knew what she said. She’d been saying the exact same thing to me every morning for as long as I could remember.

“Okay, I think,” I said. “How did you sleep?”

“Hm?”

“How did you sleep?”

“Not well, sweetie. Not well at all.”

“Maybe you could take a nap later,” I said.

She smiled a little—the kind where it’s not really a smile at all.

“Maybe.”

The coffeemaker beeped and Mom got a mug from the drying rack and poured coffee into it. She took it to the table and sat down. I stood there in my slippers and sweatshirt and waited for something else to happen. When it didn’t I grabbed the last of the frozen waffles from the freezer and stuck them in the toaster oven and turned it on.

“Breakfast! You need breakfast,” Mom exclaimed suddenly. She got up out of her chair so fast she almost spilled her coffee. “I can’t believe I forgot! I’m the worst mother in the world.”

“I don’t know, Mom. The world’s a pretty big place.”

“Here, what can I get for you? Waffles? Let me get you some waffles.”

She opened the freezer and moved some things around. A bag of frozen chicken nuggets fell out and landed on her foot.

“Dammit! I’m so sorry about this, honey. It’s just… I’ve been—where the hell are the waffles already?”

“They’re in the toaster. Mom, it’s okay.”

“It’s not,” she said. “It’s really not.”

“They’re just waffles.”

“Annie? What’s going on?” Aunt Josie stood in the doorway, yawning and rubbing her eyes.

Mom picked up the bag of chicken nuggets and put it back in the freezer and shut the door. Then she leaned her forehead against it and closed her eyes.

“I forgot to fix breakfast for Derek,” she said.

“Come on. Come sit down. Have some coffee,” said Aunt Josie.

She took Mom’s arm and sat her down and put the coffee in front of her. Then she sat down also. She looked worried. I wondered if there might be something else going on besides waffles but I didn’t know what it was and I didn’t think it was a good time to ask. Instead I got a plate from the cabinet and when my waffles were ready I put peanut butter and Marshmallow Fluff on them and took them into the living room to eat in front of cartoons. A little while later I thought I heard my mom cry out. A little while after that I smelled bacon.

Mom came in while I was watching Dinoboy. She took the quilt from the back of the couch and unfolded it so it covered both of us. Then she curled up against me with her head on my shoulder and we watched TV for a few minutes like that without saying anything.

“Dinoboy, eh?”

“Yup.”

“And what does he do?”

“Oh, Mom, Dinoboy’s so cool! He’s this kid who can transform into any dinosaur! He can even be like part one kind and part another like a pterodactyl with the claws of a Therazinosaurus! Plus, did you know the Therazinosaurus was actually an herbivore? He used his claws to pull the leaves down from the trees and for self-defense. I think the Therazinosaurus is my favorite dinosaur or maybe the Compsognathus. He was only the size of a chicken! What’s your favorite dinosaur, Mom? Mom?”

But she was asleep so I ended up watching the rest of Dinoboy with her leaned up against me. She got heavy after a while and I couldn’t really feel my arm anymore but I was afraid to move it because I didn’t want to wake her and it wasn’t until a rerun of Ghost Patrol that she kinda rolled over a little and I was able to get out.

The rest of the morning went by okay. I went to my room and read comics for a while and then I got dressed and put on my jacket and played outside until I got cold. Mom was just getting off the phone when I came into the kitchen.

“Around 1:30 then? And you’re sure it’s okay?” she asked. “Great! Thanks, Helen!”

I didn’t like the sound of that. Helen was Budgie’s mom’s name.

“Mom?”

“Hey, Piggy! Hungry for lunch?”

She got bread from the drawer and then opened the fridge and found some ham and cheese and mustard and took them out and put them all on the counter. Then she squirted a blob of mustard on a slice of bread and spread it around with a knife.

“Could you do me a favor and smell the ham?” she asked.