Ben There

Chapter 7
Late March; Spring Break!

Chapter Description: Ben has five whole days of vacation. Some of it's great fun -- some of it not so much.

Late March; Spring Break!

"Benjamin Appledetalamus Collins! Daniel William Stewart! Get down from there!" Maggie yelled.

Ben wasn’t real sure what the maid was doing yelling at a fifteen year old like that, but he did jump off the kitchen counter very quickly, and then he just stared at her.

"What were you two doing up there? Are you monkeys?"

"We were just gettin’ a glass? Why’d you call me that?"

Maggie said, "I needed a middle name real fast, and I don’t know yours yet. There is a step stool right over there that Kathy uses all the time, and if that doesn’t work, you can ask someone. Don’t climb on the counters. I was right there in the laundry, and Vicky is in the den; weren’t we?"

Danny said, "That’s the way I always do it at my house."

"Be that as it may, Danny, I don’t want Benji to get in the habit of climbing on things when no one is around. Someday he could have a bad fall."

"I would not," Ben said.

"Maybe today you wouldn’t, but someday you could. Now, what do you want to drink? There’s milk; apple, grape, and orange juice; and water."

"We’re gonna get sodas," Ben announced.

"That’s not on the menu just now, Benji. - You’re going to be out of school all week and spending time with me, and someday we’re going to be the greatest of friends, so we are. Let’s not start out on each’s bad side, alright?"

Ben was getting mad at this mad woman that yelled at him and told him what he could drink. But he couldn’t think of anything to do about it.

She was almost as tall as his dad, which meant the top of his head was several inches below her shoulders these days, and those shoulders seemed even wider than his dad’s too. She wasn’t fat, nothing stuck out way in front or behind (except in the way things were supposed to on ladies.); she was just somehow big, and she always wore strange dresses with flowers all over them and usually had her real long hair, which had a lot more grey in it than his mom’s, in a braided ponytail, and that looked weird on a grownup too.

She wasn’t physically intimidating though, that wasn’t the problem, and yelling those two names was as close to angry as he’d ever seen her. He just hadn’t figured out how to deal with her. When he tried to get her to do something, she either ignored him or made it a joke. When she wanted something from him, he always wound up doing it because she either made it a joke or acted like he already had.

So he didn’t want to have a go round with her today in front of Danny. He already had enough problems, and he didn’t need that one.

He’d known it was going to happen but hadn’t liked actually seeing that his girlfriend’s little brother was now taller than him. And though Danny hadn’t said anything at all about his size, and they had been having fun for two hours already, and Danny had even picked up Higgins gently and without making fun of his being on the bed, the reason Ben had gotten onto the counter, rather than use the step stool, was because he had been afraid Danny could reach the glasses that he couldn’t, and he hadn’t wanted to give him time to try. He had been glad that Danny had climbed up there too.

But now Danny betrayed him by saying, "Apple juice is OK. How come you know my middle name?"

"You don’t recognize me, Dan-the-pan-man? I always make a point of knowing someone’s middle name before I clean their bottom. I haven’t had to clean Benji’s yet, so I didn’t know his."

"It’s Christopher, not Apabadaba-platypus." He wanted to tell her that she wasn’t ever, never coming anywhere close to his bottom too, but he had a stronger desire to just not talk about that any more.

Danny said, "You’re that Maggie!?!"

"I am that very one. It’s been some time, hasn’t it, Danny? (She hugged Danny then, and he didn’t seem to mind at all.) But I’ve been keeping track of you though. No more rotten egg bombs in the house, you hear?"

"It was just I spilled some sulfur stuff by mistake, Maggie!"

"Which you weren’t supposed to be using alone, Pan-man. Do you know why he’s Dan-the-pan-man, Benjamin Christopher? It’s because there was a time when his favorite thing in the wide world was to pull all the pots and pans out onto my kitchen floor and bang on them with big spoons; sometimes I didn’t know how I was going to get the family’s supper. Did you become a drummer, Danny?"

Danny said, "No. But I play the piano. I’m better than Amber at it. And played second to last at my last recital."

"Did you indeed now!? I knew I had me a musician at the time."

Ben thought he’d figured it out and said to Danny (not Maggie), "She was your nanny?"

"Uh-huh."

"I took care of Danny from before he was three until he was almost through kindergarten, and I expect to do the same with you, Benji. So you better be nice to me."

"You can’t, ’cause I already did kindergarten a long time ago."

"Well, that’s right, but I might be with you through similar times. Now, here’s your juice. You two drink it at the table, not in Benji’s room. What he has up there is a thing of marvel and amazement for sure, but it doesn’t need a spill seeping under it for me to clean up, and Benji’s going to get on my case tomorrow when I have to vacuum that room, but I want to wait on that."

Ben said, "It’s a’ airport."

"Yes, it is! But it is a wonder as well, and I heard that the Easter Bunny nearly broke his neck getting around it, and it has grown since, but it will still have to be picked up tomorrow, so you’ve been warned. Do either of you want a cookie for that juice to wash down?"

Ben felt lucky when Danny knelt on the chair. He could reach the table sitting, but felt a lot better with his knees on the chair and hadn’t wanted to draw attention to his height by being the only one to do that.

Danny said, "I only really remember her a little bit, but Maggie was real neat."

"Ugh-yeah."

"You don’t like her?"

"She’s bossy and treats me like a kid all the time. I guess it was different when you were a little kid though."

"Yeah, but Amber really liked her too, and she was nearly my age when Maggie was still with us. Since you’re gonna have to tear it up, wanta stop working on the airport."

"Yeah, ’guess, but let’s go take a bunch of pictures of it, OK?"

"’K. You got your own camera?"

"On my phone, uh-huh."

"You’ve gotta a phone!!? One of your own?"

"’Course, remember I’m as old as Amber. Everyone in our grade’s got one."

"Oh yeah, I keep forgetting because you’re cooler than most of her friends. They just want to sit and talk mostly all the time."

"But they’re all girls, right?"

"Yeah, mostly." (That wasn’t the answer Ben had hoped for, but he wasn’t sure how to ask a follow up without appearing to be jealous and worried.)

And Ben had forgotten about something too. He had forgotten that he had forgotten his phone everyday for almost two weeks so, when they finally found it the battery was dead, and it wouldn’t be able to take the pictures for hours. He and Danny spent the rest of the afternoon driving the remote control trucks through the new flower bed. Which was a good thing, because sooner or later his mom or dad would probably plant stuff there and ruin it forever.

*********************

Absolutely no one should have a Tuesday like Ben’s Tuesday, and especially not during a vacation.

It began with the demolition of the airport that he, Kathy, and Danny (and even Vicky and his dad) had spent four days building.

Then he had to go to the doctor’s to get his weekly shot and, as if that and having to ride in the backseat weren’t bad enough, he found that the booster seat that Kathy used in his Dad’s car had been moved to his Mom’s. Now he would be riding behind Vicky and in the same kind of seat as his really little sister.

Of course, his mom told him that the seat was only there for his safety, and Ben did a pretty good job of acting like it didn’t really matter.

None of this however would have bothered even Ben if he’d known what he was in for that afternoon and evening. Because soon after lunch he went to the dentist and had six teeth removed.

It didn’t take the dentist very long to do the dirty deed (Ben was done before Kathy and Vicky were done with their check-ups), and on the ride home he felt numb and dizzy, and couldn’t talk without mumbling, but it wasn’t horrible, yet.

His mom actually told Kathy, the only one in the backseat with him, to watch him and remind him to keep his fingers out of his mouth.

At home she told him he had to be careful not to suck on anything, like the soup that was the only thing he could eat that night, nor a straw, nor his teeth, nor the paddings and teabags that would be packed onto his gums. And then she painted some horrible tasting stuff on his thumbs and fingers and said it was so he wouldn’t suck on them!

"I don’t do that!" he said; he would have yelled it instead of saying it, but that would have made his mouth and head hurt.

"I know you don’t very often, Benji, but sometimes, when you are tired or thinking real hard or when you are sleeping, you put the tip of your thumb in your mouth. Usually you just chew on the nail, but we have to make sure you don’t accidentally suck on it for tonight. OK, honey? The good news is that you heal very quickly these days, and the dentist said those holes might be closed up by this time tomorrow."

Before dinnertime Ben learned that having a numb mouth wasn’t so bad. That was when the pain started. His mom gave him a little pill, but he thought it didn’t make the pain go away; it just made him so fuzzy and so groggy that he didn’t care about anything, not even the pain.

He just watched TV with his mom and dad all night that whole night till bedtime, and after his second pill his mom walked upstairs with him, and she said, "I think you learned one nice thing tonight, Puppy Dog."

Ben, even as fuzzy as he was, could have named three things he’d learned. But he wouldn’t have talked about any of them ever, even if he would have ever talked at all right then.

One thing he had learned was taught by the yucky stuff on his fingers, and that was that his thumb did go up to his mouth a lot for a fifteen year old boy, but he blamed that on feeling so horrible.

The second thing he learned was that dads had real good laps, even better than mom-laps, at least when you were the size he was right then, because his head came up just right to land on his dad’s shoulder, and dads had big arms that you could lean back onto too and know you weren’t going to slip off. With moms, it was better to sit next to them with your legs across their laps. That way your head was right below their shoulders and you could lean on the softest spot. But, if you were on their knees, you kept getting a face full of hair.

He also learned that it felt nice when moms or dads rubbed your back or arms or legs or toes, but in two totally different ways, but he was unsure how to explain the difference.

His mom said, "I think you learned that being smaller makes it easier to feel bad, doesn’t it, Puppy? If this had happened two months ago, you would have wanted to spend the evening in your room feeling lonely, grouchy and miserable. Now, at least you could spend it with others being comforted, sweet and miserable."

If Ben had felt just a modicum better, he might have smiled or nodded, because he did think this was a better way to feel awful - if you had to feel this awful at all.

His mom pointed to a new lamp on his bedside table and said, "The Tooth Fairy might need this tonight so she doesn’t have the problems the Easter Bunny had, even though you’ve picked up your floor. Let me show you what it does."

The lamp was bright blue with a big red shade, and on the stand there was a model of a race car. When she pushed a button the head lights, tail lights and inside lights of the car came on dimly.

"We can leave those on while you sleep so there will be a bit of light when she comes for all those teeth. What do you think of it?"

Ben just almost shrugged. The second pill was kicking in now, and Ben didn’t pay much attention to the new lamp or his mom’s words right then. He also didn’t notice that his mom had taken his shirt, shoes and socks off of him, or that she had unbuttoned his jeans and help him get them off his legs, or that she was still in the room when he changed his boxers. He didn’t notice that she put Higgins under his arm and pulled the covers up around him. He didn’t notice that she sat on his bed and rubbed his back until he was asleep either, but he noticed her smell and her touch and that someone was humming a song, and he liked that.

*****************

Wednesday was a lot better than Tuesday; it just about had to be.

When he woke up, Ben’s mouth still hurt but not nearly as much as the night before, and at lunchtime Maggie, after a thorough examination of its insides, pronounced it healed enough to handle macaroni and cheese. She even made a second batch just for him. Then he started to build a giant space station, which would have the advantage of being mobile, which the airport hadn’t been, and he let Kathy and Vicky help.

Thursday was even better than Wednesday. He finally got to go on a date with Amber. It was only an afternoon date, but at least at last it was a date. Unfortunately, or maybe luckily, her little brother had come along with them. That meant they couldn’t make-out during the movie, and that might have been lucky because Ben wasn’t really sure that he wanted to do that, but he assumed that Amber would have expected it if Danny hadn’t been there. And when he tried to put his arm on her shoulder it didn’t work because, even sitting, his shoulders were half way to her elbows. He did, however, get to hold her hand sometimes while they walked through the mall. And though he hadn’t really thought he’d get to give her a good-bye kiss either, she insisted on one when her mom dropped him off at home.

But Ben would later think the best part of the whole vacation was Friday afternoon, which he spent with just his sisters.

They rode their bikes to the big park, and it had a giant playscape with lots of monkey bars and two slides that went down the side of a hill, and that Ben thought might have been two or three stories high, with tubes you went through.

And Ben realized that the only reason that he’d ever decide that places like that were so uncool was because they were always built for shorter people. Even Vicky, whose chin wasn’t above the top of his head, couldn’t go down the slides as fast as he because her sides kept hitting the tube’s sides, and when she tried to go along the really long row of monkey bars her feet almost touched the ground, while Ben had nearly a foot of air under his toes when he hung from them.

A boy almost Ben’s current size came over and said, "Hey, want to have a brachiating contest, dude?"

Ben said, "What’s that?"

"Where ya’ go from bar to bar, like how orangutans go through trees. Let’s see who can go furthest."

After three turns each and no clear winner (and while Ben and the boy were hanging from the bars and discussing how remiss the city fathers were in not building two rows of bars side by side so they could have races), Kathy came over from the jungle gym next to them and said, "Benji, come on, we’re going to the big slides again."

Ben said, "Go ahead. I’ll stay here."

But then Vicky said, "No, Benji. Maggie said for us to stay together, remember? And you can keep up with Kathy better than me too."

Ben huffed. In fact he huffed three times, but then he said, "I gotta keep an eye on my little sisters. Wanna come."

"Nah, I gotta stay here while my mom pushes my brother on the swing over there."

"’K, see ya."

"Yeah, laters, dude," the boy said.

One of the slides was real steep and straight, and the other had lots of wiggles and turns, and they ended right next to each other right on the ground in a pile of mulch and sand. Ben got into the fast one, and realized that he could flip himself over and come out head first.

Vicky was waiting for Kathy at the end of the other slide and yelled, "Ben, Don’t Do That Again!"

Ben yelled back, "Shut up! You’re not the boss of me!" And he started running back up to the top of the hill.

Vicky caught up with him and grabbed his arm and said, "Benji, come over here. I got to tell you something real important."

Ben yanked his arm away, but he followed Vicky over to a bench and sat next to her.

She said, "Benji, I’m not trying to be the boss of you..."

"Then don’t tell me what to do and follow me around. I’m not a little kid. I’m fifteen an’ a half!"

"I know that, but you keep forgetting how small you are right now, and..."

"No, I don’t! I never forget that, and people are always reminding me anyway too about it." And with that he started to stand up, and Vicky took his arm again.

"Please, listen for a second," she said.

Ben glared at her still standing.

"OK. I know you don’t like to talk about it, and that you think about it all the time, but you do forget how it changes some things. -- Benji, there’s a sign at the top of the slide that says don’t go down head first."

"I went in feet first and changed, so I did what the sign said."

"And it’s there because you could get hurt going down that way. You could break your neck or bash your head at the bottom. What you keep forgetting, or won’t admit, is how much more fragile you are now than you used to be, Benji. So, I’m not telling you not to do that. I’m just asking, because I really, really don’t want you to get hurt. So please, don’t do risky stuff until you’re all big again. OK?" And she hugged him, and he let her even though there were kids that could see it.

"But I still don’t see why I got to stay right with you and Kathy when I’m older."

"That’s because you’re smaller too. If you do get hurt, you would need help quicker. But also what if someone tried to grab you and kidnap you, Benji? That’s more likely when you’re small, and you couldn’t fight or run away as good now."

Ben hadn’t thought about any of that before and, now that he did, it sent him into full throttle worry mode.

"I hate being little," he said and leaned into Vicky to get another hug.

Vicky patted his back and said, "Yeah, I know you do, and I don’t blame you. But sometimes you really like it. Because you can swing from the monkey bars better and slide faster, for instance, right?"

Ben nodded, and he hadn’t forgotten some other nice parts either, but he didn’t want to be kidnapped or get hurt.

"Will you do the twisty slide double with me? Even though I’ll slow you down?"

"Yeah; ’K."

A little later they were on the swings, and Ben was trying to see how high he could get and how far he could jump if he jumped out at the top of a swing (or maybe he was just trying to see how high he needed to go to get Vicky worried enough to tell him to stop), and the boy he’d brachiated with ran up and said, "Hey, look what I caught, dude!"

Ben looked in the plastic margarine tub the boy held and said, "What are those?"

"Ain’t you seen salamanders before? They’re all over the creek down there."

"Nah, I just moved here; we didn’t have those where I used to live."

Kathy was looking in the little tub too and said, "Ew, yuck. They’re all slimy, squiggly. Can we go look for some too, Vicky?"

"I don’t think mom would want to keep those, Kathy."

A woman, who was carrying a very little boy and had followed the bigger boy, said to Vicky, "They’re a lot more fun to catch than to keep. We’ll let those go before we leave the park. But you better think of what your mother would say, because they can’t be caught without getting muddy and wet."

The boy said, "Yahh. You gotta look under the rocks in the shallows and the muddy parts are the best hunting places."

Ben said, "I’m gonna go catch some. Want ’a come, Vicky?" That was as close to asking Vicky for permission as he could come, though he knew he wouldn’t go there without her.

Vicky remembered that they were going to the Doucet’s for dinner that night, but the boy they were talking with didn’t look that dirty, just his hands and pants legs were muddy, and she wanted to do something nice for Benji then too, so she agreed.

The woman with the baby said, "It’s Greg’s brother’s turn to pick an activity, so we’re heading to the sand pits. Good luck."

"Yeah, good hunting, dude," the nine year-old said as he walked away.

Vicky didn’t know of all the dangers that awaited salamander hunters, or she wouldn’t have been so reticent to disappoint Ben.

The creek was teaming with salamanders at that time of year, and on just his third rock Ben found some. It wasn’t long before he’d learned how to spot the likeliest places and had taught Kathy to too. Then he developed the knack of turning the rock over at just the right speed so the prey didn’t dart away (too fast) or bury themselves in the mud (too slow).

In what seemed to him and Kathy like no time at all, he had caught (and released) four of them, and Kathy had just nabbed her first to shouts of joy from herself, Ben and Vicky. Kathy spotted a great spot twenty yards upstream, and ran through the water towards it until her foot got caught in some deep mud with water flowing under it.

It sucked her foot in, and she yelled, "Help! Quicksand!"

Ben dashed to her rescue and grabbed her arm and started pulling, but he was in the same mud now; he lost his balance and fell forward onto his knees and knocked Kathy onto her bottom.

The water was only a few inches deep, but they kept slipping or getting stuck in the mud every time they tried to stand. Vicky, who had been standing on the bank until this time, ran up and yelled, "Are you alright?" Then she saw their smiles and heard theit giggling, and she didn’t need an answer.

Ben had managed to crawl on his hands and knees over to some rocks and was trying to help Kathy get out, but she got a foot stuck again, and he went back to sit in the water and pull her leg to get it unstuck. And then Vicky walked into the creek and managed to carry Kathy out of the water.

Once Kathy and Ben were sitting in the grass, Vicky wanted to get really, really, really mad at both of them, but when she looked at them sitting there she started laughing, and they laughed about it too, and she just said, "Mom’s going to kill us, and me twice. You’re two mud creatures! We better get home fast."

"But my shoes!" Kathy said.

"Oh, no! And, Ben, you’ve only got one!"

"Mine’s right there. I threw it to the shore. I’ll go look for Kathy’s."

"No!!! Sit right there and get your shoe on. Kathy, do you have any idea where you lost them?"

"One’s out there. Floating. And the other’s where I first got stuck."

Vicky hoped she was big enough not to become mired herself, and felt it was her duty to kneel in the mud and dig out the shoe.

******************

Two blocks from their home they saw Maggie at the bus stop, and Kathy hollered, "Hi, Maggie. Why are you leaving so early?"

Maggie said, "Good Goodness! What in the whole wide happened to you three?"

Ben started riding in circles around the bus stop, which was kind of hard because his bike was too big for him now, and Vicky rode over to Maggie and said, "There was a boy there that found some salamanders, and Ben wanted to look for some. Then Kathy got stuck in the mud, and Ben went to help her."

"Well, of course he did! He is a valiant young knight for certain! But what’s your excuse, Vicky."

"I had to go shoe mining in the creek."

Maggie laughed and said, "You do remember you’re all having dinner at your mama’s new boss’s, don’t you? And she’s already home and waiting for you."

Kathy said, "We’re going to Monique’s house tonight."

"Her daddy is mom’s new boss, Kath. -- We didn’t have those at our old home, Maggie. I didn’t know it would end up like this! The boy we saw just had muddy shoes and pants cuffs, is all."

"Well, I don’t want none of those shoes or cuffs in my kitchen, hear me? You had better skedaddle home; I’ll call your mama and tell her the creatures from the Black Lagoon are on their way."

As they started off, Maggie said, "And Sir Benjamin, how many salamanders did you catch today?

Ben kept riding in circles and said, "Four - and almost two more, and Kathy got one."

Maggie said, "Four! And on your very first safari too! I’m going to have to call you Bwana, I think."

"What’s that mean?" Ben asked on one of his orbits.

"Great Hunter," Maggie said.

Ben beamed all the way home -- until he saw his mom standing on the back porch.