David Fleming - The Saturday Boy

“What about the play? I didn’t do my scene yet.”

“You’re hurt.”

“But Mr. Putnam always says the show must go on.”

“I hate to tell you this, honey, but I think it’s going to have to go on without you.”

“No!”

I stopped walking and ducked out from under her arm. I couldn’t believe it. How could she do this? She knew how important this was to me. She’d even helped me put my costume together by turning an old pair of my pants into the knickers I was wearing. The silver foil buckles on my shoes had been her idea also. Now that I thought about it, she’d actually done more for the play than I had. I mean, all I did was memorize five words.

“Derek.”

“No! I wanna go on! I wanna do it!”

“Come stand in the light. I need to check your pupils.”

“Stop it!”

“But you’re hurt.”

“No I’m not!”

“Sweetheart, you’re bleeding.”

“So?”

“I’m just trying to protect you.”

“From what? My life?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know,” said Mom. Tears ran down her face, slipping out each time she blinked. She tried to wipe them away with her hands but there were just too many. “All I know is that seeing you and Budgie up there fighting like that… it was awful. I was horrified. If I was any kind of mother I’d have done something so that it never would’ve happened in the first place.”

“You couldn’t have done that,” I said.

“Why not?”

“Because nobody can see into the future.”

“You’re right. You can’t see the future. That’s why the world is a monster, Derek. It gets its teeth in you and just… shakes until—until there’s nothing left. And a lot of times you don’t even see it coming. Is it so wrong that I want to protect you from that—even a little?”

“I don’t even know what you’re talking about,” I said. “What teeth?”

“Think of it this way,” she said. “If you find a baby bear in the wild what should you not do?”

“Mess with it.”

“And why is that?”

“Because the mama bear is probably close by.”

“And?”

“Mama bears are very protective of their babies.”

“Exactly,” Mom said. She was crouched down in front of me and looking in my one good eye. The other one was pretty much closed from all the punching. “And right now the world is messing with my baby bear. So if I’m the mama bear, what am I going to do?”

“Rip the world’s face off?”

“Yes, I—no. But what I am going to do is roar. This mama bear is going to roar so long and so loud the world will think twice before messing with you again. And I’m going to stand up and roar every time I think you’re in danger no matter what it is or how old you are. The world makes us all grow up so fast and I just want… I want you to be a baby bear— my baby bear—for as long as you can, okay?”

“Okay.”

“And I’m sorry for thinking you’d want to leave after what happened with Budgie back there. You’re a lot tougher than I give you credit for sometimes. Your dad would be—well, he’d be very proud you didn’t give up.”

It hurt to smile but I didn’t care.

“Derek, there you are. Are you okay?” said Mr. Putnam.

“My mouth tastes like pennies.”

“How are they?”

“Okay I guess.”

“You must be Derek’s mother,” he said, putting his hand out. “I’m John Putnam.”

“Annie Lamb.”

“Pleased to meet you, Annie. Would you mind if I borrowed Derek for a little while? We’re going to take a mulligan and start again.”

“But he’s just been in a—yes. Yes, of course. Borrow away.” Mom hugged me tight and kissed my cheek and smiled, whispering in my ear, “Good luck, baby bear.”

“Actors don’t say ‘good luck,’ Mom.”

“Oh, they don’t, do they?”

“No. They say, ‘Break a leg.’”

“Considering what just happened I’m not going to do that. Is there anything else you can say?”

“Dancers have been known to say, ‘ Merde ,’” said Mr. Putnam helpfully.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“It’s French,” Mom said, giving Mr. Putnam a look.

“Does it mean good luck?”

“It means poop,” said Mom.

I burst out laughing. I tried to stop because it hurt my face but I couldn’t.

“He’s all yours,” said Mom.

She gave me another quick hug and told me she’d be in the front row. Then she went through the backstage door and into the theater. Mr. Putnam had me go back to the green room and this time I stayed until Missy Sprout came to get me. I took my place onstage. I said my lines. I embraced Violet and remembered to let her lead me off. I even sneaked a little wave to my mom as we disappeared into the wings.

“WHO WAS YOUR FAVORITEperson in the play?”

Me and M om were driving home. It was dark, and snow was blowing around outside the windows. I was still thinking about how Mr. Howard had come backstage after the play and when he was done congratulating everybody he took me aside. He told me he was proud of me and that I had showed a lot of character, pun intended. I beamed. I couldn’t help it. Then he’d said we were going to have to talk about what had happened but not until after vacation. I still beamed. Only a little bit less. I fogged up the window with my breath and wrote my name in it.

“You were.”

“I was?”

“Of course you were.”

“What about Scrooge?”

“Didn’t care for him.”

“What about the ghosts?”

“Nope. No way. You were by far my favorite. It was really neat seeing you up there, Derek, and I’m so proud of you I could burst.”

I smiled, looking out the window at the passing neighborhood. Christmas lights blinked in the trees and around front doors and along fences. Light-up icicles dangled from gutters. Robot Santas waved from front yards. In one yard, the two deer I thought for sure were fake suddenly bolted away when the garage door opened and light splashed out into the driveway. They were beautiful, crossing the next- door neighbor’s yard in three big leaps and disappearing into the woods. My heart raced. I’d seen deer at the zoo before but this was way better. I was still thinking about them when Mom pulled into our driveway a few minutes later.

“Notice anything different?” asked Mom as she turned off the car.

“No, I—hey, you put lights up!”

They blinked and winked in the bushes next to the door and they flashed where they wound up the light post. The last time my dad was home for Christmas he’d gotten up on a ladder and run colored lights all along the gutters as well. That was a couple years ago though, and because Mom was afraid of heights we hadn’t had them up there since.

I stood in the driveway and stared at the gutters, trying to remember exactly how they had looked all lit up for Christmas but I couldn’t—at least not exactly. I pulled my coat tight and shivered. My mom was standing next to me and I could tell by the way her head was tilted that she was looking at the darkened gutters, too.

“Your lights look nice, Mom.”

She looked down at me and smiled and put her arm around my shoulders. We stood like that in the driveway in the cold and looked at them until Aunt Josie opened the door and called us crazy for being outside for so long.

“Oh my God, Derek, what happened to your eye?” Aunt Josie asked once she saw my face.

“Me and Budgie threw down.”

“Threw what down?”

“Nothing. We got in a fight. Y’know—threw down? Like they say on TV?”