Daddy’s supposed to be home tomorrow from a trip to Detroit. It’ll be good to have him home. Mom’ll be less nervous. Boy, she’s always so uptight when he’s away. And of course with Daddy gone, I had to take a bus to get to my recorder lesson on Monday instead of Daddy driving me.
My recorder teacher gave me the bass recorder to take home for a couple of months. It’s the only one of the recorders me and Larry don’t have ourselves. She wants me to practise so she can count on me to play the bass parts in our group. I’d love to, but Lanky Larry keeps taking it out of my room so he can use it. I complained to Mom, but she’s no great help. I don’t see why I should let him use it. He never lets me use his recorders. And whenever we play a duo he always criticizes my playing. He thinks he’s so great, a real virtuoso.
I get so mad at him! He knows I hate being called fat, yet he keeps calling me Fatty Rascoon. Like, it was okay when I was a kid, but I’m growing up now and even if I am plump I don’t want him calling me that baby name any more.
He thinks he’s so great, just because Bianca - that’s our recorder teacher - invited him to play in her advanced Saturday morning group. That’s supposed to be for exceptionally good music students. He has all the luck. It’s not so much that he’s better than me, even if he says he is, it’s just that he has more nerve than me. And we fight about that, too.
“You don’t practise enough!”, he always tells me.
“I’ve got other things to do with my time. There’s more to life than playing music. You’ll get dry rot on the brain from staying in your room all the time just playing music.”
“I’m dedicated to my music”, he says, the pious nit. He thinks he’s so great, and grown up and everything, and he’s not even two years older than me. “If you don’t intend to take music seriously, don’t complain that you’re not getting ahead.”
“Who wants to?” I tell him snottily. Like, I don’t care, that he gets all that praise and attention from Bianca. But I do, I do. I’d love to have Bianca tell me I’m good enough to join the Saturday group. Still, I’m not prepared to spend all my precious time practising. Dammit.
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When Daddy arrived home late this afternoon, Mom looked so happy, like I felt. He brought back goodies for all of us, because he was away a little longer than usual this time. A record of Baroque recorder music for Larry, a book on tree identification for Brian and a whole lot of stuff for me and Mom.
For me two long strands of beads and a sweater and a blouse and for Mom a gold chain and two bodysuits. Everything fits great. I don’t know how he does it. (The bead strands are awful, but the beads are great. What I’ll do is, I’ll let a little time go by, then I’ll cut the strands and take the beads off to make my own jewellery with. Dad’ll never know. Gee, I’m awful.)
To celebrate Daddy’s home-coming, Mom had bought clams and made them for dinner. She made a dip to go with the clams. The dip was great, but the clams were so-so. She was really disappointed that we weren’t more enthusiastic. Me especially, I guess.
“Well”, she asked, smiling all around the table at us: “what do you all think of the clams?”
“They’re … all right”, I tried to answer truthfully … well almost. We’re always supposed to be truthful at home. I don’t know why we bother, because no one ever seems to want to hear the truth. “They’re not bad”, I said cautiously. “I like the dip fine, though.” The dip helped to disguise a squishy taste I didn’t like.
“Well, that’s nice”, Mom said sarcastically. “You liked them well enough when we had them in Saint John. What’s wrong with these?”
“I can guess", Dad said. “The ones we had in New Brunswick were deep-fried. These are steamed.”
“These are healthier for you”, Mom said defensively. “They’re better for you steamed than fried.”
“Well, they don’t taste the same”, I said. “I like them fried better.” I wanted to be honest, but still I felt bad because Mom would be hurt, thinking I didn’t appreciate her cooking.
“Listen, Fatty-Rascoon”, dear Larry said, waving his fork at me. “Greasy fried food is fattening. You can’t afford to eat fat food.”
“Listen yourself, fat-head”, I said, “I’m no fatter than you.” Now why did I say that? He’s long and lean and I’m not. Oh, I get so mad at him. Here’s Daddy just home from a long trip and he makes me fight with him. I could just kick him!
“Who’re you calling fat-head?”, fat-head asked. But I didn’t have time to answer because Brian told him to cool it, and give Mom and Dad a break.
And so there was some peace for about two seconds, until Brian had to show off how much he knows. Like, we all knew what he was thinking, but who wanted to know anyway?
“Did you cook them live, Mom?” He just had to ask.
“No”, came the curt reply. I started to squirm, and I wanted him to shut up but it didn’t do any good, he just went on. I knew, I just knew, if he made her say it, I wouldn’t be able to eat the damn things.
“But I thought that shellfish were bought live and dropped that way into a pot. Aren’t they?” Isn’t he clever? “How did you cook them, then?”
Mom never did really answer him. I was kind of looking down at the shells on my plate, wondering how I’d get out of eating the little rascals, but I glimpsed Mom mouthing a “shut up!” at Brian out of the corner of my eye. Just as I suspicioned. Yech! Maybe if I eat all my mashed potatoes and salad, no one would ask about the clams I didn’t eat. Better yet, I’ll leave a little bit of potato and salad and mound them over the clams.
“Why did you decide to get clams today anyway, Mom?” I asked innocently.
“I thought I’d have a go at a new culinary effort. Introduce you to some sophisticated food. Educate you gastronomically.” I wish she wouldn’t use those damn big words.
"What’s gastron … well, whatever it is? And you’re pronouncing culinary wrong.”
“Gastronomy - that’s the art of eating, appreciating fine foods. And it is an art, of sorts”, Daddy said to us. “We should be appreciative that your mother’s such a good cook. And", he said, turning to me “how would you pronounce the word?”
“Culinary”, I said, giving the U a hard sound.
“You’re wrong, Dear.”
“Well, that’s how Mom usually says it.”
“She does?”
“Sure, she’s always telling me to put the … uh … cutlery on the table.”
“It’s not the same thing Dummy!” dear Brian snorted. “Cutlery means tableware.” How come he knows words better than me, anyway … he’s younger than me. It’s just not fair. Anyway, while everyone was so busy talking, I pushed some of my potatoes over the clams. The pile looks bigger than I thought it would. It doesn’t look very convincing at all, like I have a huge pile of potatoes left over.
“Oh well, anyway”, I said. “I hope we don’t have too many more experiments with new foods. This is one I could do without.”
“Have you no sense of adventure?” Larry says, waving his fork with a poor little creature skewered on it. Heartless slob. All he thinks about is his stomach. What does he care if some mother clam is crying her heart out at the bottom of some ocean. I hope I never get so hard-hearted.
“Listen, Crumb”, I tell him, “you're the one who won’t eat mushrooms and rhubarb so where do you get off telling me what I should eat?”
“It’s good to be home again”, Dad said, laughing and squeezing Mom’s hand. “That’s the sound I’ve been missing.”
“Brian, don’t eat those hard bits”, Mom told my stupid little brother. Anyone else wouldn’t have to be told, but there he was, chewing away at the hard little pieces; what else?
“Hey, I wonder what part of the animule it is?” Brian said. Trust him.
“Don’t know, maybe the head”, mother suggested helpfully, and I thought that would be the end of the post-mortem.
“Know what it looks like?” he asked. Like, who wants to know? I wish, I WISH, he would just shut up!
“No Dear”, Mom answered absent-mindedly, getting out dessert dishes for the apple crisp. I’ll have two helpings of that. With ice cream, too.
“A penis. It looks just like a penis.” Oh boy, just what I needed Now for certain-sure I’m not eating any more.
“You’re gross! You’re just sickening!” I yelled. “Mom, can’t you do anything about the way the boys behave? It’s just disgusting!”
I gave up. Mom laughed. Dad laughed. And Brian’s sticking out his chest like he said something smart. Larry’s doing his best to think of something smart-alecky to say to upstage Brian.
What am I doing in this sweet little family group? What gross mentalities. Like, there must have been a mistake in the hospital. I must really belong to some other, genteel family group. Normal people, you know? “Why do we have to put up with that kind of icky-talk? How come he can get away with something like that? It’s disgusting and vile and revolting!”
“I think it’s amusing”, Mom said. “What’s wrong with Brian’s observation? It was quite imaginative.”
I give up. I really do. Mom thinks a good healthy imagination excuses any excesses. That’s a healthy imagination? Unless of course, I had said it, then probably the ceiling would fall down on my head.
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