Silence. That’s what went on in the Pickles’ house the next day. If any of us needed to talk, we spoke in whispers. Which, of course, was very unusual around here. I wondered if Mr. and Mrs. Pickles noticed the quietness of the house. Actually, I was more curious about what they thought about it.
I was still mad at Danny. And quite frankly, I didn’t want to make up with him. Not yet, anyway. From this moment on, we weren’t friends anymore. I can’t say what the babies thought about this. But I was pretty sure they didn’t like what was going on.
Danny and Tommy were sitting on the living room floor, in the playpen, playing with Reptar action figures. Chuckie and Tucker were coloring on what were once blank pieces of white paper on the middle of the floor. And Phil, Lil, and I were stacking blocks on top of each other until they fell onto the ground on the other end of the living room. It sounded boring at first, but when the first block tower fell over, I decided it was actually pretty fun.
I was carefully placing two blocks on probably our fiftieth tower of the day (I have no idea what number block tower we were on. I lost count after eight.), when Phil asked me, “So, how was school today?”
I glanced up at him. ‘That’s weird.’ I thought. That was a question that only my parents ask me. Why was Phil so curious all of a sudden?
I tried my best to hide my confusion by keeping a straight face and shrugging my shoulders. “I don’t know. Okay I guess. How was your day?”
“Ineresting.” Phil said, also with a straight face. “Considering the fact that you and Danny aren’t friends anymo-, OW!”
Lil had just nudged her twin brother in the arm. She was glaring at Phil angrily. Right after Phil had made that little announcement to me, I knew that there had been a private conversation between the four babies this morning when Danny, Tucker, and I were at school. I wasn’t surprised, really. I mean, the babies had never experienced anything like this before. Of course they would talk about this behind me and Danny’s backs! Why wouldn’t they?
“Philip!” Lil cried. After that, she quickly turned back toward me with a big smile planted on her face. “What Phil means is, we wanted to know if you hads a good day. We was just wondering.”
I grinned at Lil. She always tries and corrects Phil when she thought he was saying something wrong. That’s one of the interesting things about Phil and Lil. They’re twins, but they have different personalities.
Phil was the silly twin who always cheered all of us up by sticking pretzel sticks halfway up his nose. Phil tells us all the jokes he’s heard, even if he doesn’t even get some of them himself. And whenever the twins are playing in the mud, Phil was always the one who wanted to play ‘muddy fights’.
Then there’s Lil. She was the one who always cheers us up by asking what’s wrong and talking about it. Lil always made us laugh by playing our favorite games. She occasionally gives in to the ‘muddy fights’, but most of the time she wants to make ‘muddy pies’.
Phil and Lil’s personalities help me tell them apart. Besides their voices and the bow in Lil’s hair, I mean.
I sighed loudly. Nothing was the same here anymore. I think Lil noticed the sad expression on my face because she turned to Phil and said, “Philip, don’t you have anymore of those Reptar Bars in your diapie?”
Phil turned toward his sister with a puzzled expression on his face. “What are you talking about Lillian? We don’t gots anymore-, OW!”
Lil had nudged her brother in the arm again. “We are trying to cheer Sam up here, Philip!” I heard her whisper.
“Uh….” Phil glanced at me, then at Lil, then back to me again. He put a big smile on his face. “I mean, sure! We gots a lot more Reptar Bars!” Phil stood up and yelled, “Does anybody want another Reptar Bar?” across the living room.
All of us raised our hands except for Danny.
Tommy glanced at him. “What’s the matter Danny?” he asked. “Don’t you wants another Reptar Bar? You can’t have just one and not have another one. Unless you don’t have a choice.”
“He doesn’t.” I stated.
“What do you means?”
“I mean, Danny can’t have a second Reptar Bar.” I said with no expression on my face. “He’s been allergic to those things since he was three years old.”
Danny glared at me. “SAM!” he cried.
“What?” I asked, pretending to be innocent. “It’s not like you told me not to tell anybody about this.”
Okay. Okay. I know it was kind of mean to tell Danny’s secrets in front of his playmates. But what was I supposed to do? Tommy asked Danny why he didn’t want seconds on Reptar Bars in the first place. Plus, we weren’t friends anymore, so what was the point in keeping his secrets anyway?
The babies stared at me with blank expressions on their faces.
“What does lergic mean?” Tommy asked.
Danny sighed. “It means I’m not allowed to eat more than one Reptar Bar before at least an hour or two.”
“How come, Danny?”
“Well, let’s just say rashes all over my body doesn’t work for the doctors, and they won’t work for me.” Danny mumbled.
Suddenly Chuckie stood up, walked over toward Danny, and patted his back encouragingly. “Don’t worry, Danny.” he said grinning. “I know what allergies are like. I’m lergic to bee stings, dampylions, catchshoes, cotton swaps-,”
Danny glanced up at Chuckie with a puzzled look on his face. “Cotton swabs?” he asked.
Chuckie shrugged. “The cotton part of it makes me sneeze a lots.” he explained. “Anyways, Danny, it’s no big deal.”
Danny smiled. “Thanks, Chuck. That makes me feel a whole lot better. You’re a pretty trustworthy kid.” He glared at me once again. “Unlike some people who can’t keep a person’s secrets!”
I gasped and stuck my tongue out at Danny.
Suddenly, Tucker cried, “Hey, you guys! Lighten up! It’s Valentines Day, remember?”
My eyes widened with surprise. I glanced at the calendar that Mrs. Pickles kept on the living room wall. It was Valentines Day! I completely forgot! With all the tension that had been going on since the day before, I guess it just slipped my mind.
“Oh my gosh!” I cried. “My parents must think I don’t care about them or something! I forgot today was Valentines Day! I didn’t make them a card or anything!”
“I gots mine!” Chuckie exclaimed. It was that white sheet of paper that he was coloring on a moment ago. Chuckie had drawn a heart (Or attempted to make one I guess you could say.) with a bunch of different colored scribbles in it.
“Sorry if you can’t reads it.” Chuckie said, looking at his weirdly shaped heart and rotating the sheet of paper in circles. “It’s aposed to say ‘I love you, Daddy!’ but I’m still having trouble with some of my motor skills.”
“That’s very sweet, Chuckie.” I said, smiling.
“Wait a minute!” Phil cried, as Chuckie set his work of art down on the coffee table, in front of the pink couch. “You mean we have to makes cards for our parents too?”
“Well, sure you do.” Danny said, answering Phil’s question. “It’s sort of a traditional type of thing.”
We all turned our heads toward Danny. “Why do you guys keep doing that?” he asked.
“Keep doing what?” I asked angrily.
“That!” he answered. “Every time someone asks a Valentines Day question and I answer it, you guys just start staring at me! So, stop it! It’s creeping me out!”
Like last time, all of us kept staring at him.
Suddenly, “Oh, man! Bladder attack!” Danny dashed down toward the hall. “Sorry, you guys! I’ll be right back!”
When I knew Danny was out of sight and out of earshot, I said, “Don’t you find this a little bit weird?”
“What do you mean?” Tucker asked.
“The fact that whenever we’ve been at Tommy’s house for the past two or three days, Danny always has to go to the bathroom whenever one of us mentions Valentines Day. Then he comes out of the bathroom like, half an hour later. Kind of suspicious, don’t you think?”
Tucker shrugged. “He’s probably having a hard week. Trust me, he’ll get over it!” He gave me a sly smile after he said that. The babies stared at me with happy expressions on their faces.
“What?” I asked.
Tucker smiled even more. “Are you saying you actually care?”
“What?” I tried my best to fake this. “No, way! Danny and I aren’t friends anymore. You know that, and I know that, and nothing’s ever going to change that! Ever!”
The babies suddenly started laughing. That was really unexpected.
“What’s so funny?” I asked. I was totally confused.
Lil smiled. “Are you even hearing yourself, Sam?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
The babies suddenly stopped laughing and frowned.
‘Weird.’ I thought. ‘First it was silence, then it was laughter, now they’re all hesitating. This is too strange.’ “Are you guys okay?”
Silence.
“Oh, come on!” I cried. “What the heck is going on?”
Still silence.
“You can trust me! I won’t tell anybody!”
The babies hesitated for a few more minutes until Tommy finally spoke. “Well, you see Sam,” Tommy started, “this is sort of about you and Danny.”
‘Of course.’ I thought. I nodded slowly, like I wasn’t expecting this. “Well, what do you have to say, Tommy?”
“Well…uh…you see…”
“Yes?”
“Well, err, we thinks yours and Danny’s friendship is way too strong for you guys to end it, and well, we uh, thinks you two should be friends again. That’s all.” he said nervously.
I was so mad when I heard this, but I tried my best not to show it. “Tommy, look. It’s not that I don’t want to be friends with Danny, but he hasn’t been treating me fair lately, and he’s getting on my last nerve. I need a break from him for awhile, okay?”
Tommy hesitated and glanced at his friends. A minute of silence passed before he sighed and said, “Well, okay, Sam.” Then, out of the blue, “Hey, you guys! I gotta idea for how we can make it up to our parents that we don’t gots any cards for them!”
“Sweet!” Tucker exclaimed. He always enjoys hearing Tommy’s plans. “Shoot!”
“Okay!” Tommy cried. “I mean, I won’t shoot anything, but I’ll tell you guys my plan.” He paused for a moment and then continued. “Me and Danny was looking ats this huge piece of coloring paper that had lots of pretty colors and words on it, and I asked Danny what it said. He said it’s for Valemtimes Day pictures! I was thinking maybe we could gets copies of the same pictures for our Mommy’s and Daddy’s today!”
“Hey, yeah!” Phil exclaimed, immediately standing up after Tommy explained his plan. “Let’s do it!”
The babies cheered.
“Wait a minute!” I cried. “Stop cheering you guys! Those pictures cost money you know!”
The babies suddenly became silent.
“B-But we don’t gots any moneys!” Lil said with a frown on her face. “Now we’ll never gets those pictures for our Mom’s and Dad’s!”
“Not necessarily.” I said happily. “All we need to do is a little math.”
I grabbed a blank piece of white paper and a black crayon, and started to figure out how much money we would need to buy some pictures. Here’s how I solved it:
7 x 2 = 14.00
9 x 1 = 9.00
= $ 23.00
“That looks real confoosing.” Chuckie said, pointing to the piece of paper.
I smiled up at him. “It isn’t really. You see, we need seven copies of the same picture. That is if Angelica’s gonna be at the dance. If I multiply seven by two dollars a copy, I get fourteen dollars. Now,” I continued, “if there’s gonna be nine of us in the picture and it costs one dollar for each person to be in picture, you multiply nine times one and get nine dollars. So, now I add fourteen dollars and nine dollars together and I get twenty three dollars total. We need twenty three dollars to pay for the pictures.”
Chuckie stared at me with a puzzled look on his face. “I have no idea what you just said.” he said, apologetically. “But, okay!”
“Twenty three dollars?!” Lil asked incredulously. “Sam, we don’t gots twenty three dollars!”
I nodded. “Maybe we don’t have twenty three dollars separately.” I said, happily. “But, as a group, maybe we could add all of our dollars and change together and use that money to pay for the pictures.”
“Hey, yeah!” Tommy cried. “That’s a great idea, Sam! All of us babies can looks for moneys at our houses. And whatever we finds, we’ll bring heres tonight afore the dance and counts the moneys up!”
I nodded again. “Your idea was good too, Tommy.”
Tommy beamed at what I had said.
The babies smiled. I assumed that they all liked Tommy’s and my idea. This was great! I love it when people listen to my ideas. No wonder Danny and Tommy were the leaders of our group!
J J J J
About half an hour later, Danny walked into the living room.
“Okay, then.” he said, rubbing his hands together. “What did I miss?”
Rugphan
