Or the fact that a headless cockroach can survive for more than two weeks.
Or the fact that when a horned toad gets mad it shoots blood from its eyes.
I want to be an animal scientist. I’m not sure what kind. Right now I really like bats. I also like cheetahs and cats and dogs and snakes and rats and manatees. So those are some options.
I like dinosaurs, too, except for them all being dead. For a while, my friend Marisol and I both wanted to be paleontologists and search for dinosaur fossils. She used to bury chicken bone leftovers in her sandbox for digging practice.
Marisol and I started a dog-walking service this summer. It’s called See Spot Walk. Sometimes when we’re walking dogs, we’ll trade nature facts. Yesterday she told me that a bat can eat 1,200 mosquitoes in an hour.
Facts are so much better than stories. You can’t see a story. You can’t hold it in your hand and measure it.
You can’t hold a manatee in your hand either. But still. Stories are lies, when you get right down to it. And I don’t like being lied to.
I’ve never been much into make-believe stuff. When I was a kid, I didn’t dress up like Batman or talk to stuffed animals or worry about monsters under my bed.
My parents say, when I was in pre-K, I marched around telling everybody I was the mayor of Earth. But that was just for a couple of days.
Sure, I had my Crenshaw phase. But lots of kids have an imaginary friend.
Once my parents took me to see the Easter Bunny at the mall. We stood on fake grass next to a giant fake egg in a giant fake basket. When it was my turn to pose with the bunny, I took one look at his paw and yanked it right off.
A man’s hand was inside. It had a gold wedding ring and tufts of blondish hair.
“This man is not a rabbit!” I shouted. A little girl started bawling.
The mall manager made us leave. I did not get the free basket with candy eggs or a photo with the fake rabbit.
That was the first time I realized people don’t always like to hear the truth.
3
After the Easter Bunny incident, my parents started to worry.
Except for my two days as mayor of Earth, I didn’t seem to have much of an imagination. They thought maybe I was too grown-up. Too serious.
My dad wondered if he should have read me more fairy tales.
My mom wondered if she should have let me watch so many nature shows where animals eat each other.
They asked my grandma for advice. They wanted to know if I was acting too adult for my age.
She said not to worry.
No matter how adult I seemed, she told them, I would definitely grow out of it when I became a teenager.
4
A few hours after my Crenshaw sighting at the beach, he appeared again.
No surfboard this time. No umbrella.
No body, either.
Still. I knew he was there.
It was about six in the evening. My sister, Robin, and I were playing cerealball in the living room of our apartment. Cerealball is a good trick for when you’re hungry and there’s nothing much to eat till morning. We invented it when our stomachs were grumbling to each other. Wow, I would love a piece of pepperoni pizza, my stomach would growl. And then hers would grumble, Yeah, or maybe a Ritz cracker with peanut butter.
Robin loves Ritzes.
Cerealball is easy to play. All you need are a few Cheerios or even a little piece of bread all torn up. M&M’s would be good too, if your mom isn’t around to say no sugar. But unless it’s right after Halloween you probably don’t have any.
In my family those guys go really fast.
First you pick a target to throw at. A bowl or cup works fine. Don’t use a wastebasket, because that might have germs. Sometimes I use Robin’s T-ball cap. Although that’s probably pretty gross, too.
For a five-year-old, that girl can really sweat.
What you do is throw your one piece of cereal and try to make a basket. The rule is you can’t eat that piece until you score. Make sure your target’s far away or you’ll finish your food too fast.
The trick is that you take so long to hit the target, you forget about being hungry. For a while, anyway.
I like to use Cheerios and Robin likes Frosted Flakes. But you can’t be picky when the cupboard is bare. My mom says that sometimes.
If you run out of cereal and your stomach’s still growling, you can always try chewing a piece of gum to distract yourself. Stuck behind your ear is a good hiding place if you want to use your gum again. Even if the flavor is gone your teeth get a workout.
Crenshaw showed up—at least he seemed to show up—while we were busy throwing my dad’s bran cereal into Robin’s cap. It was my turn to throw, and I got a direct hit. When I went to take out the cereal piece, I found four purple jelly beans instead.
I love purple jelly beans.
I stared a long time at those things. “Where did the jelly beans come from?” I finally asked.
Robin grabbed the cap. I started to pull it away, but then I changed my mind. Robin is small, but you don’t want to mess with her.
She bites.
“It’s magic!” she said. She started dividing up the jelly beans. “One for me, one for you, two for me—”
“Seriously, Robin. Stop kidding around. Where?”
Robin gobbled down two jelly beans. “Shlp tchzzzn muh,” she said, which I figured meant “stop teasing me” in candy-mouth.
Aretha, our big Labrador mutt, rushed over to check things out. “No candy for you,” Robin said. “You are a dog so you eat dog food, young lady.”
But Aretha didn’t seem interested in the candy. She was sniffing the air, ears cocked toward the front door, as if we had a guest approaching.
“Mom,” I yelled, “did you buy some jelly beans?”
“Sure,” she called back from the kitchen. “They’re to go with the caviar.”
“I’m serious,” I said, picking up my two pieces.
“Just eat Dad’s cereal, Jackson. You’ll poop for a week,” she answered.
A second later she appeared in the doorway, a dish towel in her hands. “Are you guys still hungry?” She sighed. “I’ve got a little mac and cheese left over from dinner. And there’s half an apple you could share.”
“I’m fine,” I said quickly. Back in the old days, when we always had food in the house, I would whine if we were out of my favorite stuff. But lately we’d been running out of everything, and I had the feeling my parents felt lousy about it.
“We have jelly beans, Mom,” Robin said.
“Well, okay, then. As long as you’re eating something nutritious,” said my mom. “I get my paycheck at Rite Aid tomorrow, and I’ll stop by the grocery store and pick up some food after work.”
She gave a little nod, like she’d checked something off a list, and went back to the kitchen.
“Aren’t you gonna eat your jelly beans?” Robin asked me, twirling her yellow ponytail around her finger. “Because if you want me to do you a big favor I guess I could eat them for you.”
“I’m going to eat them,” I said. “Just not … yet.”
“Why not? They’re purple. Your favorite.”
“I need to think about them first.”