A, My Name Is Ami, page 11
I don’t know who wins when Mom and Dad go at it, but Dad has an advantage, like Mom says, in any argument—excuse me! discussion—because of being a psychologist. He can always rip out some big word describing your personality, or your emotional tendencies, or your character flaws. Not that he does, very much. He’s really sort of a gentle person.
His favorite thing to talk about, actually, is Multiple Personality Ripples, which is his own discovery. He’s going to write a book about it someday. People with MPR are basically normal, but (my father says) they don’t have a really fixed personality. Their personalities bop around, so they’re one way one time and another way another time.
Now this could be a description of my mom. Last night, I was in the bathroom washing my hair over the tub, and she came in to brush her teeth. “Did you rinse all the soap out?” she said, and she turned on the shower.
“Mom!” I screamed. “Cold water! That’s sadistic.”
“You have to get all the soap out, honey.”
“I’m doing it. I’m doing it!” I stood up and wrapped my head in a towel.
She started toweling my hair dry. “You have such pretty hair, Bunny. It’s so thick and healthy.”
See what I mean about MPR? Now she was being really nice. I leaned against her, and I don’t know how it happened but we got to talking about my problems, such as my teeth, my height, Dad’s attitude about makeup, and etcetera.
Mom listened for a while, then she said, “Look, Bunny, I want to tell you something. There’s no use moaning about your problems.”
I straightened up. “I’m not moaning.”
“Well, chewing them over, or whatever you’re doing. I don’t even think most of them are problems, but since you do, why not think of them like a bunch of bananas. You don’t try to rip off all the bananas at one go, do you?” She started brushing her teeth, which was what she originally came in for.
Bunny: “But, Mom—”
Mom (with a mouth full of foam): “You take one banana at a time, right? It’s the same with whatever bothers you. You have six problems? Same as having six bananas. Take one off. You have five left.”
“Mom, that’s a really neat comparison, but bananas get ripe, then they get rotten.”
“My point exactly! So do problems if you don’t attack them.”
“But when bananas get rotten, you throw them out.”
Mom (rinsing her mouth): “Same with problems. Think of them like bananas. Visualize them! Imagine you’re throwing them out.”
“Okay, I’m throwing out bananas.” I started pitching imaginary bananas over my head. “Oh, Mom, sorry, that one splatted on the wall!”
“Sweetie! Everything with you is a joke. This visualization might really work.” She went off to find my father and see what he thought about it. I went downstairs and phoned Emily.
Chapter 2
I like to make people laugh. I might be a comedian, someday, someone like Phyllis Diller or Joan Rivers. I don’t know if I can, but I think about it. I get in a certain mood and I can’t be serious about anything. I crack jokes or make remarks, which I HOPE are funny. Sometimes I do this, even when I don’t want to.
And then sometimes—not too often, I admit—I’m totally serious. I don’t want to tell any jokes. I don’t want to hear any jokes. I might just lie on my bed and listen to music and think about things. When Emily’s parents got divorced last year, I was like that. Emily and I were both sad for a long time. And even after weeks had passed and I didn’t think about what happened to her so much, I couldn’t stop thinking about how lucky I was to have my parents and my family.
But my main personality is to be lighthearted and have a good time. I like trying out my jokes and practicing routines in my room. I haven’t gone public yet. So far the person I most make laugh is Emily. She’s really easy. I’ll give you an example.
Yesterday, she asked me if I noticed the new guy in math class.
Bunny: “What new guy?”
Emily: “You didn’t see that new guy? He was sitting right across from you.”
Bunny: “I didn’t see anyone.…” Pause. “Unless you mean the guy with the wave in his hair? Was wearing a green shirt with white stripes? Mickey Mouse watch on his left arm? Had tiny ears? Dirt smudge on his right cheek?”
I was ready to go on, but Emily was laughing too hard to hear anything, anyway.
One trouble with being a funny person is that sometimes people don’t know when you’re being serious. You’d think my father, being a psychologist, could tell the difference, wouldn’t you? Last night, after supper, he asked me to help him clip the privet hedge in front of our house. What he really wanted was to get me without my mother around, so he could lecture me about growing up too fast.
“Bunny. I know you are basically a sensible girl, but sometimes you—I mean, not necessarily YOU, but someone with another person—can get carried away and do things that are not necessarily in that first person’s—OR the second person’s—best interest. Do you follow me?”
Sure I did. I’ve had all my life to figure out what my father is talking about when he gets going on a subject. 1. Growing up too fast means I wore eye shadow to school. 2. “Someone” refers to me. 3. The “other person” has to be Emily. As to getting carried away, my question is, Where?
Maybe he worries because I am sort of impulsive, but I don’t think I’m a dope. And I know Emily isn’t! I’ve even heard my mother say, “For a girl her age, she has both feet on the ground.”
“Are you listening to me?” my father said.
“Sure, Dad.”
“What I’m saying is not for your amusement.”
Was I smiling? I put on a stern expression. “Sorry, Dad!”
“I’m trying to have a talk here with you, Bunny.”
“Yes, Dad!”
“Okay, okay, listen to what I’m saying. I don’t think makeup is appropriate for your age—and while I’m at it, I don’t want you to get involved with dating for a very long time.”
Did he really have to say it? Emily and I have talked about dating and boys and all that stuff, and we’ve decided we’re never going to act desperate, like some girls do. Ohh, ohhh, I don’t have a boyfriend. What will I do? Who will I go to the movies with? There’s a party coming! I don’t have a date!
We think this is really stupid. What’s wrong with going to the movies with your girl friend? Do you have to have a date for a party? If Emily and I go to a party together, we just have a lot of fun. And we don’t think it’s the end of the world if we dance with each other.
A lot of girls feel like they have to have a boyfriend for status, or something. Their life isn’t complete without a boyfriend. It’s not like they fall in love. Mari Champion, who’s the biggest flirt in our class, is always falling in love. So she says. I say, Gimme a break! At our age, you don’t fall in love. I mean, everybody knows that. Emily and I agree that really falling in love is different.
We talk about all this stuff, we talk about everything. There’s nobody else I can talk to like Emily.
But even Emily reads me wrong sometimes. Today we were in the cafeteria, eating lunch, and I happened to ask her what her mother’s real name was. Right away, she wanted to know what was the joke.
“No joke. What’s your mother’s real name?”
“You know. Ann Boots.”
“I said her real name.”
“Is it a riddle?”
“Emily, this is a question in the spirit of curiosity. Scholarship can’t flourish without curiosity,” I said, quoting my father. And I threw in a little nose snort, the way he does.
Emily giggled.
“Thank you,” I said. “Now, don’t you know what your mama’s name was before she married your papa?”
“Oh! That! Why didn’t you say so? Her name was Simpson.”
“Well, that’s a perfectly lovely name. Why did she change it to Boots?”
“Bunny, she got married!”
“She didn’t have to marry your father’s name. She only had to marry him.”
“Bunny, when you get married—”
“IF I get married.”
“—you can keep your name.”
“That’s when I throw my name away, Emily. Good-bye, Bunny! But, I’ll keep Larrabee.”
“Well, when I get married, I’m going to take my husband’s name.”
“No! That’s so unliberated.”
“Bunny, you can do things your way. I’ll do things my way!”
Mom says the way Emily and I bicker, we are like an old married couple. One thing I know, we’ll never get a divorce. We are friends for life. I can’t even imagine life without Emily. It’s like trying to imagine life without my mom.
Chapter 3
“Hello, who’s this?”
“This is Bunny. Is this Christopher? Is Emily there?”
“This isn’t Christopher. It’s Wilma.”
“Sorry, Wilma, I thought you were Chris. Will you get Emily for me?”
“Who?”
“Your sister.”
“Who’s this?”
“Who do you think it is, Wilma? I just told you. It’s me, Bunny.”
“This isn’t Wilma, this is Christopher.”
“Wilma!”
“Don’t call me Wilma. That’s not my name. Who is this? Why do you sound so unfriendly? I don’t think this is Bunny.”
“Take my word for it, this is Bunny Larrabee. Who is this, Wilma or Christopher?”
Silence.
“Christopher? Wilma? Whichever one you are, will you get your sister? I’m asking you nicely. Will you please call Emily to the phone?”
Silence.
“Christopher.”
Silence.
“Wilma.”
Silence.
I drummed my fingers on the table. I whistled. I hummed. I thought I could outwait whichever Boots twin it was. My guess, Wilma. She was always up to something. Chris was mostly her follower.
“Wilma, want to hear a stupid joke? There are these two girls and their names are Fort and Snort.”
I thought I heard a little giggle. “Snort ate Fort’s strawberry pie. Fort got mad and said, ‘Snort! You are the dumbest, most selfish, stingiest, greediest person in the world!’ ‘Well, SAME TO YOU,’ said Snort. ‘Oh,’ said Fort, ‘what a low-down thing to say to your best friend!’”
I waited. Not even a snicker. “You’re right, it’s a crummy joke. But don’t blame me, I got it off a bubble gum wrapper. Now will you get Emily. PLEASE!”
“Don’t yell! You’re hurting my ears.”
“You know what, Chris Boots? Or Wilma Boots? Or whoever you are? If you don’t get Emily right away, and I mean pronto, I’m going to come over there and haunt you.”
BANG! Down went the phone. She—or he—hung up on me. Poor Emily! She always gets stuck taking care of the twins. Her mom is a nurse, and her father lives in Chicago with his other family. I guess Mrs. Boots doesn’t have a lot of money and can’t afford baby-sitters too often.
Sometimes I feel guilty thinking about how much Emily has to do and how I don’t have to do half as much. Sure, I take care of Shad, but he’s nine and that makes a big difference. He doesn’t even like the idea that I’m baby-sitting him.
I waited a couple of minutes, then I dialed again. This time when the phone rang, Emily picked it up. “Who answered the phone before?” I said. “Was that Chris or Wilma?”
“Wilma. Was that you calling? What’d you say to her, Bunny? She was yelling, ‘Don’t let her! Don’t let her!’ What’d you tell her you were going to do?”
“Haunt her.”
“Bunny! That’s mean.”
“Em-ily, you don’t even know what happened. I was provoked. She wouldn’t get you, just hung on the line, breathing. You know I like Wilma, but she can be a real brat sometimes.”
Emily didn’t say anything for a moment. Then, very quietly, she said, “Well, don’t you think it was kind of bratty of you to scare her, Bunny?”
I hate it when Emily gets that quiet, quiet voice. It always makes me feel stupid and in the wrong. “It was just a little joke.”
“Not a very funny one.”
“How did I know she was going to get spooked?”
“She’s only a little kid.” Emily still had her quiet voice.
I started to feel really punk. I was mad, and my thoughts were mean thoughts. Emily was so righteous. I couldn’t even make a small mistake without her getting on my case. What would she say if Wilma hit me over the head with a shovel? There’d be blood dripping down my face and Emily would say in her quiet voice, “Well, Bunny, we have to understand that she’s just a curious child.”
One of my Personality Ripples is a tendency to act first and think later. I said, “If that’s the way you feel, why don’t we just forget it!” And I did to Emily what Wilma had done to me—hung up on her.
The phone rang again about two minutes later. I was sure it was Emily. I let it ring three times before I picked it up. “Hello, Emily,” I said, “do you have something to tell me?”
“Bun?” It was my sister.
“Star! Hi! Where are you? You sound like you’re right across the street. Are you here?”
“No, I’m in Rhode Island. What would I be doing there? Is Mom home? I want to talk to her.”
“Star, what are you doing? I mean, how’s school? Are you doing a lot of painting?” When Star graduated high school she got a medal for being the best all-around artist.
“Everything’s okay,” she said. “Is Mom around? Will you get her for me?”
She didn’t ask me anything, not one thing about myself. On top of Emily, that was too much. I called Mom to the phone, then I went into the kitchen and attacked a carton of Heavenly Hash. Here’s where it’s a real drag to have a father who’s a psychologist. I can’t pig out without G-U-I-L-T, because I know what Dad thinks of eating to make yourself feel better. With every delicious spoonful, I could hear his grave voice in my head, “Sublimating your negative feelings with food.… Using food as a substitute for affection.…”
I pretty much demolished the carton. Suddenly, just as I gulped down the last ice-cold spoonful, I got this really vicious throbbing over my right eye. Maybe I had a brain tumor. They’d have to operate, open up my skull, dig out the tumor with sharp knives. With my luck, the operation would be a failure. Sudden death on the operating table. Or maybe I’d live, but my mind would be affected permanently. My brains would be scrambled, my memory gone. I could see myself in the hospital, my head covered in a white bandage. I was all alone. Oh, of course Mom and Dad would come to see me—Shad, too—but no one else.
Shad came into the kitchen. “What’re you eating?”
Ordinarily, I wouldn’t even answer an obvious question like that. But since Shad was visiting me in the hospital when I was on my death bed, I felt kindly disposed toward him. “I’m sorry, there’s hardly any left. Here.” I held out the carton. “Take the rest.”
He looked in the carton. “The rest of what?”
“Shad,” I said in my sweetest voice, “had I known you desired some Heavenly Hash, believe me, I would have left you a large portion.”
Shad pushed his glasses back on his nose. “Did you and Emily fight again?”
“What kind of question is that?”
“What’d you fight about this time?”
“Shut up, please. It’s none of your business.”
“Make me some cinnamon toast.”
“Why?”
“Because you didn’t leave me any ice cream.”
“That doesn’t make sense, Shad!”
“It does to me.” He sat down at the table. “I’ll explain it to you, Bunny. See, there are some things in the house that just belong to one person, like my animals belong to me. And there are some things that don’t belong to just one person, like tv and ice cream. And when someone hogs them—”
See what I mean about being relentless? I know Shad. He would sit right there and talk the ears off me until I did what he wanted. I made cinnamon toast.
I went up to my room, but I didn’t feel like doing homework. I was just thinking about Emily. When you’ve been friends as long as Emily and I have been, it makes you feel really strange to not be friends, even for an hour.
I decided to call her. I wasn’t going to be humble, but if she wanted to make up, I would, too. I picked up the phone. Mom and Star were still on! I heard Star saying, “But, Mom, I don’t fit into—Is somebody on? I heard a click.”
“It’s me,” I said. “I just wanted to see if the phone was free.”
“It’s not, so please get off. Mom and I are still talking.”
“Well, excuse me, my beloved older sister. Pardon me for taking up your precious time.”
“Bunny, what’s your problem? I can’t talk to you right now.”
“Don’t give it a thought. I know you won’t.” I hung up.
Later, when I called Emily, she said she’d been trying to call me, but our phone was busy every time. “I guess you were right about Wilma,” she said.
“No, you’re right, she’s a little kid. I shouldn’t have teased her.”
“Mom left me a note, saying I should make tuna cheese casserole for supper,” Emily said. “I must have used the wrong cheese. It was one of those strong cheeses. You know what Wilma said when she tasted it?”
“Let me guess. She said, ‘This casserole tastes like dirty socks! And I ain’t eating it.’”
“I hate to tell you how close you are,” Emily said.
Buy B, My Name Is Bunny Now!
About the Author
Norma Fox Mazer (1931–2009) was an acclaimed author best known for her children’s and young adult literature. She earned numerous awards, including the Newbery Honor for After the Rain, the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award for Dear Bill, Remember Me?, and the Edgar Award for Taking Terri Mueller. Mazer was also honored with a National Book Award nomination for A Figure of Speech and inclusion in the notable-book lists of the American Library Association and the New York Times, among others.
