Matty and Mabel

“No,” she tells me, shaking her head, but with an apologetic smile.

I am determined to change her mind.

“But, I’m this many,” I say as I struggle to hold up three, and only three, of my pudgy fingers to remind Mommy how old I am.

I don’t like that I have to wait for her to give me most of the things I want. Why is everything so far up? I can only reach some blocks, a box of crayons, a handful of cars, and my truck. But she is a giant. She can reach the good things. She can reach everything!

My Daddy sometimes tells me that I am actually “three anduhaff”, but I don’t know what that word means.

My hand is out, I make my bestest smile, and my big, wet, blue eyes are begging, “pleeeease?”, but she still shakes her head no, like my age doesn’t even matter.

I do my boo boo lip, fold my arms across my chest really hard, and umph all my airs out. I am mad. So mad.

Why shouldn’t I get another cookie? Besides being a big boy, I was being good, too. I played quietly this morning, but ‘cept when I was playing with my truck, because you’re not ‘upposed to be quiet when you crash it into the blocks! When we went for a walk, I stayed with Mommy, but ‘cept when the ice cream man came because you have to run to him if you want to be first in line! And I ate all my breakfast, but ‘cept for the really cold oatmeal at the end, because that is icky, icky poo-poo!

She moves past me to gather all the things she needs from the culberds, drawers, pan-tree and ‘frigerator. She sets everything down on the counter, where I can barely see, and where I cannot reach. She tells me she is about to make her macaroni and cheese casserole; it’s the one with her “secret hagreedy ant”. I always look, but I have never found any kind of bug in mine.

“Perhaps after dinner, Matty,” she offers.

After dinner?! I might as well never have another cookie again. Ever! I plop down in the middle of the kitchen floor too hard. At first, I try to betend like I don’t feel the pain but the tears are coming whever or not I want them. Still pouting, I look alllll the way up at Mommy, and shout, “But you said I was a good boy today!” I pause to sniff and with even more mad this time, I shout, “You SAID!”

Mommy sent me to my room.

I don’t deserve this and I tell her so. “I HATE TIME OUTS!!” I shout at the top of my lungs, once I get down the hallway and in front of my bedroom door. Realizing what I have just done, I hurry inside and fall-sit down on my mappy rug and betend to drive my cars around the city.

Mabel comes to me. She licks my hand. She always makes me feel better. She is the bestest dog in the whole, wide world. I like how her skin is brown and black and white… mine is only pink. I like when things are more colory. But, mostly, what I like about Mabel is how when she gets really happy her tail wags really fast, but in a circle, going ‘round and ‘round. Sometimes when I watch it, I get dizzy. It makes me laugh. Thinking about this makes me love her! I give her a big, ol’ hug around her neck.

Mabel is my best friend and she knows all of my secrets. I tell her that I am on a time out and start to tell her why. As I do, I ‘member that I am still mad about this, so I make my mad face and I fold my arms again. Just medium-hard this time—not all the way hard. I tell her, very loudly, “I can’t WAIT to grow up and be big enough to get my OWN TOYS, and my OWN SNACKS, my OWN JUICE in my favorite TOMBEE TIPPY TOES CUP… and,” throwing my arms back, “AS MUCH COOKIES AS I WANT!”

I realize that my bedroom door is open. I should be worried about Mommy coming, but I am just so mad, I don’t even care if she hears me. In fact, I kind of hope she does!

Kind of.

Maybe not.

I can’t hear her coming, but to be safe I slowly peek my head into the hallway to make sure. She is staying in the kitchen to make dinner. Phew! I feel safe.

But I am still grumpy. I will color to make myself feel better. I can’t find my favorite color or my favorite coloring book…

…I like the picture I made on the wall by my bed, even though my grass is lellow.

After me and Mabel finish looking at my art I start feeling… somesning. I pull myself onto my racecar bed and lay down. Just for a minute. Because I will not take a nap. I don’t want a nap. I don’t need a nap. But it is hard for me to keep my eyes open any more. My whole body feels heavy as I can barely even call out, “and I hate naps!” before falling asleep.

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Mabel is a clever dog. I have heared Mommy and Daddy say so.

When I wake up I can see she has maked us a plan. I don’t know what it is yet, but she keeps taking two or three steps and then looking back at me to make sure I am following her. Prolly I am ‘upposed to stay in my room until Mommy says, but I do not feel like a “Mr. Grumpy Pants” anymore.

I hear Mommy in the living room talking on the phone with another giant, Aunt Lala. Aunt Lala talks so loud I can hear her through the phone when I get close enough.

Me and Mabel walk-run down the hallway. I am a little scared, so I get the giggles as we start into the kitchen.

Mabel walks right up to the oven then turns to look at me with her weird doggy smile. I start to smile back but her smile makes my tummy worry. I still don’t know what she is going to do.

I stand next to her and watch as she uses her paws and her big snout to wedge her way behind the drawer, then tug and drag open the biggest of these drawers, the one on the bottom. It takes her a loooong time to get it all the way open.

I feel a little fidgety; I sit “criss-cross applesauce” and decide to sing a song to myself.

Mabel gets to work on the next drawer. I get all the way to “the wipers on the bus go swish, swish, swish,” before the second drawer is mostly open. That takes a super long time.

I am singing and moving my arms and hands when I should, while Mabel tries again and again to open the most hardest drawer, way up at the top. The other drawers are giving her trouble. She has to keep moving from one drawer to another pulling them back open as they try to close, like some super mean “Whack-a-Mole” game. I just move my head from side to side to keep the beat in my head and slap my hands down at a make-believe steering wheel while I sing “the horn on the bus goes beep, beep, beep…”

Finally, she gets the last drawer about halfway open, without the other drawers closing. That takes a really super long time. I stop singing, I can’t ‘member any more words, anyways.

Mabel starts to climb up and into the bottom drawer. She slips on the lids stored inside, but she puts one paw into each corner of the drawer and holds the top of the next drawer with her chin.

I see it now! She has made us some stairs. I grab her around her middle to help her get up to the next step.

Grunting, I tell Mabel, “you are more heavier than you should be, girl.” This is not easy; the drawers keep moving.

Finally, I help get her to the second “step” which has folded dish towels in it. It is easy for her to get onto the “junk drawer” from there and then the rest of the way onto the counter by herself. Now it’s my turn.

I crawl very slowly and real careful, but I slip on the lids, too. I hurted myself a little when I pinched my fingers in the next drawer up. But not so hard. I made my “ow-ee” face.

I look up to see Mabel waiting for me, so I go more slow and more careful the rest of the way.

From up on high, I look down and my head feels a little swirly. I tell Mabel, “I do not love this.”

Mabel licks my hand and points her nose toward the top of the ‘frigerator. I look to see what she is pointing at. Seeing my cookie jar, I say aloud, “Maybe it’s not so scary up here, huh, Mabel?”

Still, I do not want to look down. Staying on all fours I oh-so-carefully crawl past the flour, sugar, and coffee jars. They are not what me or Mabel want, so I keep moving. I get to the ‘frigerator, put my hands flat on it, then walk my hands up the side until I am standing. I can see two cookie jars now—Mabel’s and mines.

Her cookie jar is shaped like a doghouse; asleep on top of the doghouse there is a “famebus” dog named Hanoopy, or somesning like that; I never say it right. Hanoopy only has white and black on him, so I think Mabel is way better.

When I look at Mabel, I see her tail wagging so fast she reminds me of a hello compter! I am glad that I can make her this happy. She’s a good girl and she deserves to have a cookie, too.

I have to stretch up high on my tippy toes. I grab with both of my hands and pull Mabel’s cookie jar to the edge of the ‘frigerator. It’s not too heavy for a big boy like me!

I move my hand to get a better hold of Mabel’s cookie jar, but when I do that, the lid shifts out of place. My eyes get big, and my mouth opens while I try to set it down on the counter before I drop it. It stays right side up, with the lid still on, but it makes a kind of loud clinking sound. Mabel looks at me with her tongue out. I freeze and hold my breath. Only my eyes move, waiting to see if Mommy will show up with her hands on her hips. After a looong time, she doesn’t. I breathe out hard.

Back to the taxi hand, as Mommy always says…

With both hands, I lift the lid ever-so-quietly and grab a “cookie” for Mabel. She is very happy when she takes it from my hand with her mouth. She drops it onto the counter, holds it in place with her paws, and begins to chew on it. You know, I tasted one of Mabel’s cookies before—they are really hard and I think they taste even worser than cold oatmeal. I will eat my own cookies, thank you. Very quietly I put the roof back onto the rest of the house.

My cookies are inside a much better jar than Mabel’s. Mines is bigger, and cookier. It looks like a white bunny rabbit, with veeeery long pink ears and veeeery large pink paws ‘specially her feet ones. She also wears a small hat with little flowers on it, between her ears. I think to myself, “She could prolly eat Hanoopy, I bet. She’s waaay more bigger.” I think this, but I do not say it out loud because I don’t want to hurt Mabel’s feelings.

Looking again at the rabbit cookie jar, I lean my head to one side and think, “she sits funny, for a rabbit.” So, I decide to call her “Funny Bunny”. I am so pleased for making up this rhyme all by myself that I clap my hands and giggle.

My tummy rumbles and I ‘member why I am here. I see now that, while I was getting that dumb ol’ Hanoopy, I pushed my own cookie jar farther back. “Ugggggh!” I say.

I stand up on my tippy, tippy toes this time. I make several attempts at stretching and reaching and jumping before I finally get my hands on her feet paws. Even then, I still have to work really hard to inch it closer and closer to me.

Just as I get it to the edge, pulling it one way then the other, Mabel begins to ask for more of her cookies. I stick my tongue out and sigh loudly. My curly blonde hair is wet and sticking to my face and head because I am sweaty. I go to take off the roof from the doghouse again. Mabel says “thank you” by licking my hand so much it pushes it, making it hard to get the lid off. Using my elbow, I nudge her out of the way so I can remove the lid. “Here you go, girl,” I tell her as I set the top down real soft and push the rest of the doghouse to her so she can help herself.

When I turn back, I see the bunny’s feet sitting just over the edge of the ‘frigerator. Still hot and sweaty, I wonder how long we have been at this. I guess aloud, “this has prolly taken hours!” I tell myself, “You can do this,” and I stretch my arms up once more.

My hands grab onto Funny Bunny. My right hand holds her feet paws, while my left hand is holding onto somesning at the back. I pull it closer to me to get a better look and see my left hand is on her round ball of a tail. I didn’t even know she had a tail!

I gasp. What’s that noise? My head turns real fast. Uh-oh, that’s the garage door opening! My eyes widen almost to the point of popping out as I loudly whisper, “Daddy’s home!”.

My heart pounds, I breathe really, really fast, and I start to sweat even more.

I know Mommy heard the garage door, too, and will be getting off the phone any second now.

Time seems to slow down. Quickly, I make a plan. I hold what I came for in my hands. I know what I have to do—I just need to be fast. I decapitate Miss Funny Bunny.

As I hurry to get to the cookies, I drop her ceramic head and it falls to the kitchen floor, breaking into pieces. Really scared, because I know I’m in trouble now, I turn myself so my back is to both doorways, squat and move my arms up to show, “these are mines and I am not sharing!”

I do the only thing I can do—with my small, chubby hands, I scoop as many cookies, as fast as I can into my mouth. I gobble them up as best I can before grabbing more. Going as fast as Mabel’s wind-up tail, I check over my shoulder every half second.

Mommy and Daddy appear in the kitchen at the same time. He enters from the garage, a bag of groceries in his arm, and whistling a tune I don’t have time to try and figure out. I barely notice the bag of candy poking out between the broccoli and the frozen fish sticks. Mommy comes into the kitchen through the living room entrance, looking only for Daddy. Happy to be together again, they smile at each other… at first.

At the same time, they both notice somesning is wrong. They look at me and Mabel. Mabel whines then hangs her head in shame. I am covered in cookie crumbs and cookie mush, but I do not feel shame; I will keep eating until I am pulled away.

Mommy freezes in place, blinking, deciding how to react. Daddy… just starts to laugh.

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I have a belly ache while I lay in bed. I rub my tummy in slow circles while Mabel lays next to me. I tell her, “I will never do this again.”

After several minutes my tummy starts to feel better. Now I can finally go to sleep. I drag the back of my fingers across my closed eye and yawn.

I smile as I dream about me and Mabel’s haventure. I ‘member how it was so scary to be so high up. I wish things I want were more downer. That’s when my dream starts to change…

I wake up while it is still dark outside and I loudly whisper to Mabel, “We have to go back to the kitchen. I know where we can get a whole bag of candy!”