Friend Or Fiend? (5 page)

I didn't come out till I was sure they were gone.

Tonight when the big booms came again

And the sky lit up

And the water came falling down

I hid in my secret place.

In the closet, way in back,

On top of the towels.

I didn't come out for a long, long time.

When I did he said,

Guess what, Fluzz ... you're having a party!

Party! I tried to remember what party

means.

It didn't sound good.

She tried to put a hat on me.

I knew party wasn't a good word!

No hats for Fluzzy! I told her. But she didn't get it.

So I shook off the hat. And I bit it a hundred times.

She said, Stop that, Fluzzy'-He laughed.

No hats for Fluzzy!

I said again. This time they understood.

They wore hats, but not me.

When they started fighting about who I

love best

I ran around them in circles.

I love it when they fight over me.

Then I let the two of them stretch me out.

She held my front end.

He held my rear.

I brushed his face with my tail.

They started singing a song.

I think it was about me.

They smiled when the dad snapped

picture. So I smiled too.

I'll stay with them forever.

As long as they remember:

No hats for Fluzzy!

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[Image: a boy on the floor]

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Judy Blume spent her childhood in Elizabeth, New Jersey, making up stories inside her head. She has spent her adult years in many places, doing the same thing, only now she writes her stories down on paper. Her twenty-eight books have won many awards, including the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.

Judy lives in Key West and New York City. You can visit her at www.judyblume.com.

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James Stevenson has written and illustrated more than a hundred books for children. In forty years at the New Yorker, he published more than two thousand cartoons and covers, as well as numerous written pieces. His illustrated column “Lost and Found New York” frequently appears on the op-ed page of the New York Times.