“What’s a stork?” Fudge asked.
“It’s a big bird,” I told him.
“Like Big Bird on Sesame Street?”
“Not exactly.”
“I like birds,” Fudge said. “I want to be one when I grow up.”
“You can’t be a bird,” Grandma said.
“Why not?”
“Because you’re a boy.”
“So what?” Fudge said, and he laughed like crazy and turned somersaults on the floor.
Fudge never stopped talking about his favorite subject. He told his preschool class, and his teacher was so impressed she phoned and asked Mom to come to school. The children had a lot of questions for her. So Mom went to Fudge’s class and enjoyed it so much she offered to come to my class too. I told her, “No thanks!”
I hadn’t told anyone she was going to have a baby, except Jimmy Fargo. I tell him just about everything. And Sheila Tubman knew, because she lives in our building and could see that Mom was pregnant.
“She’s very old to be having a baby, isn’t she?” Sheila asked one afternoon.
“She’s thirty-four,” I said.
Sheila opened her mouth. “Oh, she’s really old!”
“She’s not as old as your mother,” I said. I had no idea how old Mrs. Tubman was, but Sheila’s sister, Libby, was thirteen, so I guessed that Mrs. Tubman was older than Mom.
“But you don’t see my mother having a baby, do you?” Sheila asked.
“No . . . but . . .” I couldn’t think of anything else to say. I didn’t understand what she was getting at anyway.
When I went upstairs I asked Mom, “Isn’t thirty-four old to be having a baby?”
“I don’t think so,” Mom said. “Why?”
“Just wondering.”
“Grandma had Aunt Linda when she was thirty-eight.”
“Oh.” So my mother wasn’t the oldest woman in the world to be having a baby. And Sheila didn’t know what she was talking about, as usual.
* * *
On February 26, while my fifth grade class was on a trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, my sister was born. Later I found out that she was born at exactly 2:04 in the afternoon, just as we were in the Egyptian Room, studying the mummies.
They named her Tamara Roxanne, but for weeks everybody called her The Baby. “The Baby is crying.” “The Baby is hungry.” “Shush. . . . The Baby is sleeping.”
Soon, instead of calling her The Baby, Mom started saying dumb things, like “How’s my little Tootsie-Wootsie?” as if The Baby could answer her. “Does my little Tootsie-Wootsie need to be changed?” Yes, almost always! “Does my little Tootsie-Wootsie need a feeding?” Yes, almost always!
And Mom’s little Tootsie-Wootsie never slept more than two hours at a time. Every night I’d wake up to her howls. Turtle, who slept at the foot of my bed, woke up too. Then he’d howl along with her. A regular duet!
* * *
By the time she was one month old, everybody was calling her Tootsie. Right away I could see that there would be problems. I tried to warn my mother and father. “When she goes to school with a name like that, the kids are going to tease her. They’ll call her Tootsie Roll. Or worse!”
Mom and Dad just laughed. “Oh Peter, you’re so funny.”
Only I wasn’t being funny at all. I knew what I was talking about. But there was nothing I could do about it. I had a brother called Fudge. And now I had a sister called Tootsie. Maybe what my parents really wanted was a candy factory. I wondered how come I got off so easy.
Tootsie was much smaller than I’d expected, but she was tough. I found that out when Fudge tried to pull off her toes. “I just wanted to see what would happen,” he explained when Tootsie screamed.
“You must never do that again!” Mom told him. “How would you like it if Peter tried to pull off your toes?”
I couldn’t help laughing at that one.
“Peter knows my toes don’t come off,” Fudge said.
“Well, neither do Tootsie’s!” Mom said.
* * *
One afternoon when I came home from school, Tootsie wasn’t in her crib. I figured Mom was feeding her, so I went to her bedroom to say hello. Mom was lying on her bed with her hands over her eyes. “Hi,” I said. “Where’s Tootsie?”
“In her crib, asleep,” Mom muttered.
“No, she’s not.”
“Of course she is. I just put her down a few minutes ago.”
“I looked in her crib and I’m telling you, she’s not there.”
Mom took her hands away from her face. “What are you saying, Peter?”
“Mom, Tootsie’s not in her crib. That’s all I’m saying.”
Mom jumped up. “Then where is she?”
We both ran down the hall and into the area where we used to eat. Mom looked into her crib but Tootsie wasn’t there.
“Oh, no!” Mom cried. “She’s been kidnapped.”
“Who’d want her?” As soon as I said it, I was sorry.
“Call the police, Peter . . .” Mom said. “No, wait, call Dad first . . . no, call the police . . . dial 911. . . .”
“Wait a minute, Mom,” I said. “Where’s Fudge?”
“Fudge? In his room, I guess. He was listening to tapes when I put Tootsie down for a nap.” She looked thoughtful for a minute. “You don’t think . . .”
We raced down to Fudge’s room. He was sitting on the floor playing with his Matchbox cars and listening to “Puff the Magic Dragon.”
“Where’s Tootsie?” Mom said.
“Tootsie?” Fudge asked, sounding a lot like me when I’m trying to get out of answering a question.
“Yes, Tootsie!” Mom said, louder.
“She’s hiding,” Fudge said.
“What are you talking about?”
“We’re playing a game,” Fudge told her.
“Who’s playing a game?” Mom asked.
“Us,” Fudge said. “Me and Tootsie.”
“Tootsie can’t play. She’s too young for games.”
“I help her,” Fudge said. “I help her hide.”
“Fudge,” Mom said, and I could tell that in another minute she’d really let him have it, “where is Tootsie?”
“I can’t tell. She’ll be mad.”
Just as my mother was about to explode, I had an idea. “Let’s play Hot and Cold,” I said to Fudge. “You follow me, and when I get close to Tootsie, you say hot; and when I get far away from her, you say cold. Get it?”
“I like games,” Fudge said.
“Okay . . . ready?”
“Ready.”
“Let’s go.” I walked down the hall to the living room.
“Cold . . . cold . . . cold . . .” Fudge sang.
I went into the kitchen. “Cold . . . cold . . . cold.”
I walked into the front hall.
“Hot . . . oh, hot!” Fudge cried.
I opened the guest closet.
“Very hot . . . watch out, you’ll get burned.” He jumped up and down, clapping his hands.
Tootsie was on the floor of the closet, fast asleep in her infant seat. Mom scooped her up in her arms. “Oh, thank goodness, my little Tootsie-Wootsie is all right!” Mom put her back into her crib. And then she really let go. “That was a very naughty thing to do,” she shouted. “I’m very angry at you, Fudge.”
“But Tootsie likes to play.”
“Have you hidden her before?”
“Yes.”
“You must never do that again. Do you understand?”
“No.”
“You can’t carry her around that way.”
“She’s not heavy.”
“But babies have to be carried in a special way.”
“You mean like mother cats carry their kittens?” Fudge asked.
“That’s right,” Mom told him.
Fudge laughed. “But you don’t carry Tootsie in your mouth.”
“No, I don’t. But I do carry her very carefully, to protect her.”
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“Do you love me, Mommy?”
“Yes, very much.”
“Then get rid of Tootsie,” Fudge said. “I’m sick of her. She’s no fun.”
“Someday she’ll be fun. And she’ll be able to play Hide-and-Seek with you. But you have to wait. She’s not ready yet.”
“I don’t want to wait. I want you to get rid of her. Now!”
“Tootsie is our baby. . . .”
“I’m your baby!”
“You’re my little boy.”
“No, I’m your baby.”
“All right,” Mom said, “you’re my baby, too.”
“Then pick me up, like you do Tootsie.”
Mom opened her arms and Fudge jumped up into them. He rested his head on Mom’s shoulder, shoved his fingers into his mouth, and slurped on them.
I know it’s stupid, but just for a minute I wished I could be Mom’s baby again, too.
* * *
After that, whenever we had company, Fudge tried to sell Tootsie. “You like the baby?” he’d ask.
“Oh, yes . . . she’s just adorable.”
“You can have her for a quarter.”
When that didn’t work, he tried to give her away. “We have a baby upstairs and you can have her for free,” he’d say to anyone on the street.
When that didn’t work, he tried to pay to have someone take her away. “I’ll give you a quarter if you take her to your house and never bring her back.”
He tried that with Sheila Tubman.
“My mother told me when I was born, Libby wanted to get rid of me, too,” Sheila said.
Who could blame her? I thought.
“But she got over it and so will you,” she told Fudge.
Fudge kicked Sheila. Then he ran down the hall.
Sheila stood over Tootsie’s crib. “Lucky for her, she doesn’t look like you, Peter.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I said.
“Look in the mirror sometime. Cutchie-cutchie-coo . . .” she said to Tootsie.
“We talk to her like she’s a regular person,” I said.
“But she’s not a regular person,” Sheila told me. “She’s a baby.”
“So . . . you don’t have to make those stupid noises at her.”
“But she likes them. Watch this . . . if I tickle her under her chin, she smiles.”
“It just looks like she’s smiling, but really, it’s gas.”
“Oh no . . . Tootsie is smiling just for me, aren’t you, you precious little thing?”
It did look like Tootsie was smiling. But why would anybody smile at Sheila Tubman, even a baby?
That night, Fudge climbed into Tootsie’s crib. “I’m the baby,” he said. “Ga ga ga.”
Dad lifted him out of the crib. “You’re a big boy. You sleep in a big-boy bed.”
“No, I’m not a big boy. I’m a baby. Waa waa waa. . . .”
I decided it was time to have a little talk with the kid. So I said, “Hey, Fudge . . . you want me to read you a story?”
“Yes.”
“Okay . . . get into bed and I’ll be right there.”
I brushed my teeth and put on my pajamas. When I got to Fudge’s room, he was sitting up in bed with his favorite book spread out across his lap. Arthur the Anteater. “Read,” he said.
I sat down next to him. “Aren’t you tired of acting like a baby?” I asked.
“No.”
“I thought you wanted to be like me.”
“I do.”
“Well, you can’t be a baby and be like me, too.”
“Why not?”
“Uh . . . because babies can’t do anything. They just eat and sleep and cry. They aren’t even interesting.”
“Then why does everybody think Tootsie’s so great?”
“Because she’s new. They’ll get tired of her pretty soon. It’s better to be older.”
“Why?”
“We get more privileges.”
“What’s privileges?”
“It means we get to do things she can’t do.”
“Like what?”
“Like staying up late and uh . . . watching TV . . . and all sorts of things.”
“I don’t get to stay up late. You do.”
“That’s because I’m the biggest brother. But you’ll get to stay up later than Tootsie.”
“When?”
“When she’s four and you’re eight. Then you’ll get to stay up a lot later. And you’ll go to school, and you’ll know how to read and write, and she won’t. And uh . . .”
“Read,” Fudge said, sliding down under the covers. “Will you stop trying to be a baby?” I asked.
“I’ll think about it.”
“Well, that’s better than nothing,” I said.
Fudge fell asleep before I’d finished the book. I pulled up his covers and turned out his light. Then I went into the bathroom and studied myself in the mirror. What was Sheila Tubman talking about? I looked the same as always. And why did she think Tootsie was lucky not to look like me? Unless it was my ears. Lately, they seemed too big. I tried holding them flat against the side of my head. Not bad, I thought. Maybe I could tape them back every morning before school. But that would be a lot of trouble. If I grew my hair longer I could hide them. Yes, that’s what I’d do. Grow my hair until it covered my ears. I yawned. When I yawn while I’m looking in the mirror, I can see my tonsils.
I went to my room, got into bed, and fell sleep. Who cared what Sheila Tubman thought, anyway!
3
Another Something Wonderful
Life at our house had definitely changed. Dad would come home at night with an armful of grocery bags and fix our dinner. The washing machine was always running. Every time Tootsie had a feeding and was burped, she’d spit up. She had to be changed about six times a day. Fudge started wetting his pants again, and then his bed. Mom and Dad said he was just going through a phase and that if we were patient, it would pass. I suggested putting him back in diapers but nobody else thought that was a very good idea.
One afternoon, Mom started to cry. Right in front of me. “What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I’m just so tired,” she said. “There’s so much to do. Sometimes I think I won’t be able to make it through the week.”
“That’s what you get for having another baby!” I told her.
That only made her cry harder. I don’t like to see my mother cry. I feel sorry for her, but at the same time she makes me angry.
Grandma came over a few days a week to help. And Mom hired Libby Tubman to take care of Fudge after school. I stayed at Jimmy Fargo’s until dinnertime. Nobody seemed to miss me around the house, anyway.
* * *
By the middle of May, life had improved. Tootsie was sleeping four hours at a clip during the day, and even longer at night. Dad and Mom were fixing dinner together. And Mom talked about going back to college to get a degree in art history, which surprised me. Because before I was born, she worked as a dental assistant.
“Why art history?” I asked.
“Because it interests me,” she said.
“What about teeth? Aren’t you interested in teeth anymore?”
“Well, yes,” Mom said. “But not as much as art history. I think I’m ready for a change.”
“Isn’t having Tootsie enough of a change?”
“Yes, but someday she’ll grow up and go to school, and I’ll want to have a career.”
“Oh,” I said, not sure that I really understood.
* * *
On the last day of school we had a class party, with cupcakes and Island Punch. I drank eight cups of it. Island Punch is my favorite drink. Mom says I’m addicted to it. And I tell her, “That’s right. If you cut me open, you’ll find seven natural fruit flavors running through my veins.” After drinking eight cups in a row, then walking home from school, then waiting for the elevator, then digging out my key and unlocking the door to our apartment, then dashing down the hall to the bathroom, I really
had to pee. I mean, really.
But Fudge was already in there, sitting on the toilet, turning the pages of Arthur the Anteater.
“Hurry up,” I told him. “I’ve got to go.”
“It’s not good for me to hurry,” Fudge said.
So I ran to Mom’s room, but the door to her bathroom was locked. “Mom . . .” I called, banging on the door.
“Can’t hear you . . .” she called back. “The shower’s running. I’ll be out in five minutes. Check on Tootsie, would you?”
So I ran back to my bathroom but Fudge hadn’t moved. “Come on,” I said. “This is an emergency. I drank eight cups of Island Punch this afternoon.”
“I drank two glasses of Choco.”
“How about getting off for just a minute?”
“It wouldn’t be good for me,” he said.
“Come on, Fudge!”
“I can’t think when you’re in here,” he said.
“What do you have to think about?”
“Making!”
I could have lifted him off. But now that he’s stopped wetting, we’re all supposed to encourage him to use the toilet. So I ran down the hall again, thinking Tootsie has it easy. She just lets it out wherever and whenever.
Then I remembered that my teacher had read us a book about life in England in the eighteenth century. People used chamber pots instead of toilets way back then. I wished we had an old chamber pot handy. I was getting desperate. I ran into the living room and looked around. We have a big plant over in the corner. It stands more than five feet high. Should I? I wondered. No, that’s disgusting! I thought. But when you’ve got to go, you’ve got to go, I reminded myself. I loosened my belt buckle.
As I did, Fudge called, “Okay, Pee-tah . . . I’m done. You do the flush.”
Fudge refuses to flush the toilet. He’s afraid he’ll go down the drain too. But this wasn’t the time to try to convince him he was wrong. I raced down the hall and relieved myself. Fudge watched. He was really impressed. “I never saw so much at once,” he said.
“Thanks,” I told him.
* * *
That night we were all sitting around in the living room, watching TV. I was holding Tootsie on my lap. She let out a soft little sigh. She’s a lot like Turtle when he’s asleep. I can tell what kind of dream he’s having by the noises he makes. And sometimes, when he’s having a nightmare, he cries out and shakes. Then I pet him until he’s calm again.