David Fleming - The Saturday Boy

“HI, PIGGY. HOW’D YOUsleep?” Mom said without looking up from the bowl of batter.

“Are we having pancakes?”

“How’d you know?”

“You’re using the green bowl,” I said. “You always use the green bowl to make pancakes.”

“I do?”

“Yeah.”

The ingredients were spread out over the counter. The flour canister was open. The milk was still out. So was the butter tub. There were eggshells in the measuring cup. I went to the fridge and got the orange juice out and poured a glass and sat at the table and watched her stir the pancake batter. I couldn’t remember the last time she’d made pancakes from scratch. She usually got the just-add-water kind.

“Why do you have to stir it so much?” I asked.

“So it doesn’t get lumpy.”

“Can I flip them?”

“When it’s time,” she said. “Do me a favor and get the griddle set up?”

I got the griddle from the cabinet and cleared off a spot on the counter, plugged it in, and turned it on. Mom looked over at me. At some point she must have rubbed her nose because there was flour on the end of it. Her face had new lines on it and when she smiled it seemed fake—like it was trying to trick the world into thinking everything was okay.

We ate breakfast and then I went and got my stuff for school and hugged Mom good-bye and went to the bus stop. Budgie was there. He was wearing a red-and-black plaid hat with earflaps. One of the flaps was pulled up and he had a cell phone pressed against his ear. I couldn’t believe it. Where’d he get a cell phone from? And who was he talking to this early in the morning? Pizza Jungle wasn’t even open yet.

“Hey.”

“I’m on the phone.”

“Sorry.”

“Dude, I’m on the phone!”

He turned a little bit away from me and covered his mouth with his hand so I couldn’t hear him. I bet there wasn’t even anybody on the other end. I bet he was fake-talking just so I would see he had a cell phone and think he was cool for having one. I didn’t, though, and it would take a lot more than just a cell phone for me to change my mind. He took the phone from his ear and pressed a button and put the phone in the pocket of his coat.

“Where’d you get the phone?”

“My mom and dad got it for me,” said Budgie. He had this expression on his face like he thought he was cool but the earflap of his hat was still up so it didn’t really work.

“It’s got apps on it and everything.”

“What’re apps?”

“They’re things that do stuff,” said Budgie. “Jeez, don’t you know anything?”

“I know things.”

“No you don’t.”

“I do. I know lotsa things.”

“Name one.”

“I know the rubber sheets on your bed aren’t so it’ll be more comfortable like you said.”

Budgie suddenly stopped trying to seem cool. Now he looked kinda nervous.

“Who told you that?”

“I asked my mom for some and she told me.”

“Why? Why? Why would you ask for some?”

“My bed’s uncomfortable sometimes,” I said. “I also thought if I had rubber sheets it’d be more like a trampoline.”

Budgie swallowed. He opened his mouth like he was going to say something but then he closed it, digging into his pocket instead. He brought out his cell phone, stood next to me, and held it so I could see it. Then he showed me what apps it had and what they did. They were mostly games. There was a race car one and one where you shot chickens from a cannon. There were others, too. We played them on the bus all the way to school.

That morning was good. Me and Budgie played together at recess and we sat at the same table during lunch. We were even on the same dodgeball team during gym class. It was good to be on Budgie’s team. He might not have been the best player but he threw the ball harder than anyone else. He even told me that one time he threw the ball so hard it knocked a kid out. I wasn’t sure I believed that part but I was glad I was on his team so I wouldn’t have to find out the hard way. Our team won three games to none and for a while everything was awesome.

It was after school at rehearsal when things started to be not so awesome. Mr. Putnam had Missy Sprout and Budgie and the rest of the helpers sit onstage while he did the roll call, and me, Violet, and the rest of the cast sat in the audience. Budgie’d lent me his cell phone and I was playing a game with the sound off and even though I was only listening to Mr. Putnam with half an ear I heard him call Budgie’s name. Then Mr. Putnam asked Budgie something from so far out of left field it made me stop playing and look up. In fact it made everyone stop and look up.

“So Budgie,” he said. “Were you named after the Duke?”

“Who’s the Duke?”

“You’ve never heard of the Duke? John Wayne?”

“My name’s not John.”

“John wasn’t his real name either,” said Mr. Putnam. “It was Marion. Like yours.”

I felt the color drop out of my face and I could see Budgie swallow from where I was sitting in the third row. Some of the kids onstage started to whisper to each other and giggle. Budgie licked his lips nervously.

“How did you—?”

Then his eyes fell on me and suddenly he didn’t seem so nervous anymore. I’ll say one thing about Budgie—for an idiot he could be awfully smart sometimes. This was big. And I didn’t think he would care that I didn’t really do it or that I had tried to fix it. Even though it was his parents who’d named him Marion, the way he would see it, I was the one who who’d let the cat out of the bag.

He sat onstage and stared at me like I was the only one in the room. His face had gone red and if he were a cartoon there would be smoke shooting from his ears. I sank down into my seat. How was I supposed to know Mr. Putnam knew of the only other guy in the world named Marion? It wasn’t fair that my day was being ruined by somebody I’d never heard of.

For the rest of the afternoon I kept expecting Budgie to do something for revenge but he didn’t. Mr. Putnam had him looking through the script and copying stuff onto a big piece of paper with a Magic Marker. I felt bad. I’d already heard a few whispered Marions, a couple of Mary Annes and even one Marilyn. I could have made a big scene and told everyone to cut it out but I was afraid that might make things worse. After rehearsal Budgie grabbed all his stuff and left quickly. Phoebe must have been right there waiting for him because by the time I’d gotten out to the turnaround in front he was gone.

I HAD TROUBLE SLEEPINGagain that night. I still felt bad that Budgie had been embarrassed and that the next few weeks probably weren’t going to go so great for him. I was pretty sure that by now the entire town knew what had happened and everybody, maybe even the grown-ups, were going to start calling him Marion.

Mom said if I felt bad, then I should say I was sorry and then it would be up to Budgie to forgive my mistake. I told her I didn’t think he would. I told her that now he probably thought I was a bigger archenemy than before. She hadn’t really known what to say about that, so I lay in bed for a long time wondering what was going to happen tomorrow—how Budgie would get his revenge and how many times he would get it.

But Budgie didn’t do anything. Not in the morning at the bus stop. Not during recess or lunch or rehearsal or anything. I couldn’t figure it out. I mean, I’m sure he hadn’t forgotten about it and even if he had, people were sure doing their best to remind him. They called him Marion on the bus. They called him Marion at recess and lunch. It seemed like me and the teachers were the only ones calling him Budgie. Even Barely O’Donahue was getting in on it until he came back from recess with a fat lip.