Bruno for Real (3 page)

Whoops! Bruno tumbled off the couch and hit his head. “Ow!”

Now he
really
felt bad.

“Mom!” he yelled.

She came running. “What happened? My poor baby! Let me get the mitten!”

“No!” Bruno wailed, holding his head. “I think I need a kiss!”

When Bruno turned seven, he invited twelve pirates to his party. He wore a pirate scarf and an eye patch. He drew sword slashes on his arms and face. Instead of real blood, he bled jam. Dad made a birthday cake in the shape of a treasure island.

As soon as the other pirates arrived, they had a sword fight. “Be careful! Please be careful!” Mom said. But only one pirate got hurt, and he didn't even bleed.

“We need more jam!” Bruno called.

Next they had a treasure hunt. Dad gave them a map made from a paper bag. He wrinkled it so it looked old. It was a map of the backyard.

They found the treasure and ate it. It was chocolate coins. Then Bruno blew out the candles on the treasure island, and they ate that too.

Bruno got lots of presents, even a real treasure chest filled with colored stones. Everyone walked the plank. Afterward, the parents of the tired pirates came to pick them up.

That night Bruno told Dad, “Today was the best day of my life.”

“I'm glad you had fun. You only turn seven once in your life.”

“I wish every day was my birthday,” Bruno told Dad.

At breakfast the next morning, Bruno told Mom, “Today is a very special day.”

“Is it?” Mom said.

“Yes. Today I am seven-and-one-day old. Did you know you are only seven-and-one-day old once in your life?”

“I've never looked at it that way,” Mom said. “What should we do about it?”

“I think we should bake a cake,” Bruno said.

Mom said she was too tired after yesterday's party. “Why don't I put a candle on your pancake?”

Mom lit the candle on Bruno's pancake. Bruno made a wish and blew the candle out. He wished that it could be his birthday every day. But he didn't tell Mom his wish. He wanted it to come true.

The next day was Monday. “Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me,” Bruno sang.

“What?” Dad said. “Is time moving backward?”

“No,” Bruno said. “I'm seven-and-two-days today!”

“How wonderful!” Dad said.

“Can I stay home from school?”

“No,” Dad said.

When he got to school, Bruno told his teacher that he was seven-and-two-days. Ms. Allen pointed to the calendar. “Class, today Bruno is seven-and two-days old. How old will he be on Friday?”

“Seven-and-six-days,” someone said.

“Very good! And how old will he be next Wednesday?” Ms. Allen asked.

They talked about Bruno's birthday for a long time. Bruno was happy until he realized they were doing math. He put up his hand and said, “If we talk about this any more, Bruno will be dead.”

Every night Bruno gave himself a birthday present. He put one of the stones from his treasure chest under his pillow. In the morning, he looked under the pillow to see what he had got for turning seven-and-three-days, seven-and-four-days, and seven-and-five-days. At dinner, Mom and Dad sang “Happy Birthday” to Bruno. Mom put a candle in his bun. She put a candle in his peach. She put a candle in his soup.

“What's floating in my soup?” Bruno asked.

When Bruno turned seven-and-eleven-days, Mom and Dad sat him down for a talk. “There are 365 days in a year, Bruno,” Dad told him. “You can't have 365 birthdays.”

Bruno said, “Why not?”

Mom said, “Because there aren't any candles left.”

So they stopped singing “Happy Birthday.” For a while, Bruno remembered to put a stone under his pillow. Soon he lost count of his age. Was he seven-and-twenty-two-days or seven-and-twenty-four-days?

When Bruno was about seven-and-twenty-six-days old, he noticed Mom looked sniffly. “Are you crying?” he asked.

“Yes, I am,” she said.

“Why?”

“Because I'm forty today!”

Bruno knew it was her birthday because he and Dad had gone out to buy her a special present. “What's the matter with forty?” Bruno asked.

“It's old,” she said.

“You're right,” Bruno said. “But two hundred is older.”

Mom laughed and blew her nose.

“Don't you want your birthday?” Bruno asked.

“No,” she said.

“Can I have it?” Bruno asked.

Mom thought this was a great idea. She baked a cake for Bruno. That night, Dad made a special dinner. Mom and Dad sang “Happy Birthday” to Bruno. Before he blew out the candles, Bruno asked, “What about the present?”

“It's yours,” Mom said. “No birthday is my present.”

Bruno closed his eyes and made a birthday wish. He wished that when he opened the present, it wouldn't be a frilly nightie. The wish came true, of course. Birthday wishes usually do.

“A pirate scarf!” Bruno cheered.

He tied it around his head.

Bruno got home from school hungry. He was so hungry he fell down on the kitchen floor. Dad emptied Bruno's lunch box. “No wonder you're hungry,” Dad said. “You didn't eat your sandwich.”

“There was green in it,” Bruno said.

“Then why didn't you swap it?”

Bruno sat up. “Swap? What's
swap
?”

“You know—trade,” Dad said. “When I was a boy, I always swapped the things I didn't like in my lunch.”

“For what?” Bruno asked.

“For a better lunch.”

Bruno said, “I'll swap you my green sandwich for some macaroni.”

“It's a deal,” Dad said.

The next morning, Mom made Bruno's lunch. Bruno asked her to please, please, please put lettuce in his sandwich.

“Call nine-one-one!” Mom shouted. “Quick! We need an ambulance!”

But she did what Bruno asked. She sent him to school with a very green sandwich.

At lunch, Bruno opened his lunch box and took the sandwich out. He looked around at what all the other kids had. Some of them had green in their sandwiches too. But some of them were eating sandwiches Bruno liked: cheese sandwiches, ham sandwiches, ham-and-cheese sandwiches. His friend Ravi had something even better.

“Is that a macaroni sandwich?” Bruno asked Ravi.

Ravi said, “Yes.”

“Is it good?”

“Yes. But I've had macaroni sandwiches for three days in a row.”

“I'll swap you,” Bruno said. He showed Ravi the inside of his sandwich: ham and butter and six pieces of lettuce. They took the sandwich apart on the desk. They counted all the leaves.

“That's not dirt,” Bruno told Ravi. “That's pepper.”

“It's a deal,” Ravi said.

The macaroni sandwich was good. It was so good that the next day Bruno asked Mom for a macaroni sandwich. It was his favorite sandwich now. At lunch, he didn't want to swap it.

But after he ate the macaroni sandwich, he was too full to eat his cookie. He went up to Ms. Allen's desk. “Ms. Allen? Would you like this cookie?”

Ms. Allen smiled. “Aren't you sweet, Bruno.”

“I want to swap it,” he said.

“Oh.” Ms. Allen's smile went away. “All right then, Bruno. What do you want to swap it for?”

Ms. Allen's pencil sharpener was on her desk. It was one of Bruno's favorite things in the classroom. It was electric and whirred so loudly that everyone jumped when a pencil got sharpened. It also had a window that showed all the shavings inside. Bruno asked to trade the cookie for the pencil shavings.

“That cookie,” Ms. Allen said, “for those pencil shavings?”

“Yes,” he said.

“It's a deal, Bruno.”

Bruno collected pencil shavings. When he got home from school, he added his class's pencil shavings to his collection. The box was nearly full!

He was so happy he looked around for other things to swap. He found an eraser shaped like a heart in his toy box and plastic teeth under his pillow. The teeth had been there for a long time. The tooth fairy was probably never going to come. And he had three of the same hockey cards!

The next day was very busy. When you are busy, the day goes by very fast. Usually school lasted forever. Today school lasted a minute and a half. Already, Bruno was back home eating supper with Mom and Dad.

“Where did you get that funny hat?” Mom asked him.

“I swapped for it,” Bruno told her.

Dad looked proud. “Did you? What did you swap?”

“I swapped Mom.”

Mom put down her fork. Her face turned white.

“Don't worry,” Bruno told her. “I got you back.”

Dad said, “Thank goodness! I like your mother.”