The Family Dog
from Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume
I won Dribble at Jimmy Fargo’s birthday party. All the other guys got to
take home goldfish in little plastic bags. I won him because I guessed
there were three hundred and forty-eight jellybeans in Mrs. Fargo’s jar.
Really, there were four hundred and twenty-three, she told us later.
Still, my guess was closest. “Peter Warren Hatcher is the big winner!”
Mrs. Fargo announced.
At first I felt bad that I didn’t get a goldfish too. Then Jimmy handed
me a glass bowl. Inside there was some water and three rocks. A tiny
green turtle was sleeping on the biggest rock. All the other guys looked
at their goldfish. I knew what they were thinking. They wished they
could have tiny green turtles too.
I named my turtle Dribble while I was walking home from Jimmy’s party. I
live at 25 West 68th Street. It’s an old apartment building. But it’s
got one of the best elevators in New York City. There are mirrors all
around. You can see yourself from every angle. There’s a soft, cushioned
bench to sit on if you’re too tired to stand. The elevator operator’s
name is Henry Bevelheimer. He lets us call him Henry because
Bevelheimer’s very hard to say.
Our apartment’s on the twelfth floor. But I don’t have to tell Henry. He
already knows. He knows everybody in the building. He’s that smart! He
even knows I’m nine and in fourth grade.
I showed him Dribble right away. “I won him at a birthday party,” I
said.
Henry smiled. “Your mother’s going to be surprised.”
Henry was right. My mother was really
surprised. Her mouth opened when I said, “Just look at what I won at
Jimmy Fargo’s birthday party.” I held up my tiny green turtle. “I’ve
already named him … Dribble! Isn’t that a great name for a turtle?”
My mother made a face. “I don’t like the way he smells,” she said.
“What do you mean?” I asked. I put my nose right down close to him. I
didn’t smell anything but turtle. So Dribble smells like turtle, I
thought. Well, he’s supposed to. That’s what he is!
“And I’m not going to take care of him either,” my mother added.
“Of course you’re not,” I told her. “He’s my turtle. And I’m the one
who’s going to take care of him.”
“You’re going to change his water and clean out his bowl and feed him
and all of that?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said. “And even more. I’m going to see to it that he’s happy!”
This time my mother made a funny noise. Like a groan.
I went into my bedroom. I put Dribble on top of my dresser. I tried to
pet him and tell him he would be happy living with me. But it isn’t easy
to pet a turtle. They aren’t soft and furry and they don’t lick you or
anything. Still, I had my very own pet at last.
Later, when I sat down at the dinner table, my mother said, “I smell
turtle. Peter, go and scrub your hands!”
Some people might think that my mother is my biggest problem. She
doesn’t like turtles and she’s always telling me to scrub my hands. That
doesn’t mean just run them under the water. Scrub means I’m supposed
to use soap and rub my hands together. Then I’ve got to rinse and dry
them. I ought to know by now. I’ve heard it enough!
But my mother isn’t my biggest problem. Neither is my father. He spends
a lot of time
watching commercials on TV. That’s because he’s in the advertising
business. These days his favorite commercial is the one about Juicy-O.
He wrote it himself. And the president of the Juicy-0 company liked it
so much he sent my father a whole crate of Juicy-0 for our family to
drink. It tastes like a combination of oranges, pineapples, grapefruits,
pears, and bananas. (And if you want to know the truth, I’m getting
pretty sick of drinking it.) But Juicy-0 isn’t my biggest problem
either.
My biggest problem is my brother, Farley Drexel Hatcher. He’s
two-and-a-half years old. Everybody calls him Fudge. I feel sorry for
him if he’s going to grow up with a name like Fudge, but I don’t say a
word. It’s none of my business.
Fudge is always in my way. He messes up everything he sees. And when he
gets mad he throws himself flat on the floor and he screams. And he
kicks. And he bangs his fists. The only time I really like him is when
he’s sleeping. He sucks four fingers on his left hand and makes a
slurping noise.
When Fudge saw Dribble he said, “Ohhhhh … see!”
And I said, “That’s my turtle, get it? Mine! You don’t touch him.”
Fudge said, “No touch.” Then he laughed like crazy.
Nobody ever came right out and said that Fudge was the reason my father
lost the Juicy-0 account. But I thought about it. My father said he was
glad. Now he could spend more time on his other clients—like the
Toddle-Bike Company. My father is in charge of their new TV commercial.
I thought maybe he could use me in it since I know how to stand on my
head. But he said he wasn’t planning on having any head-standers in the
commercial.
I learned to stand on my head in gym
class. I’m pretty good at it too. I can stay up for as long as three
minutes. I showed my mother, my father, and Fudge how I can do it right
in the living room. They were all impressed. Especially Fudge. He wanted
to do it too. So I turned him upside down and tried to teach him. But he
always tumbled over backwards.
Right after I learned to stand on my head Fudge stopped eating. He did
it suddenly. One day he ate fine and the next day nothing. “No eat!” he
told my mother.
She didn’t pay too much attention to him until the third day. When he
still refused to eat she got upset. “You’ve got to eat, Fudgie,” she
said. “You want to grow up to be big and strong, don’t you?”
“No grow!” Fudge said.
That night my mother told my father how worried she was about Fudge. So
my father did tricks for him while my mother stood over his chair trying
to get some food into his mouth. But nothing worked. Not even juggling
oranges.
Finally my mother got the brilliant idea of me standing on my head while
she fed Fudge. I wasn’t very excited about standing on my head in the
kitchen. The floor was awfully hard in there. But my mother begged me.
She said, “It’s very important for Fudge to eat. Please help us, Peter.”
So I stood on my head. When Fudge saw me upside down he clapped his
hands and laughed. When he laughs he opens his mouth. That’s when my
mother stuffed some baked potato into it.
But the next morning I put my foot down. “No! I don’t want to stand on
my head in the kitchen. Or anywhere else!” I added, “And if I don’t
hurry I’ll be late for school.”
“Don’t you care if your brother starves?” “No!” I told her.
“Peter! What an awful thing to say.”
“Oh … he’ll eat when he gets hungry. Why don’t you just leave him
alone!”
That afternoon when I came home from school I found my brother on the
kitchen floor playing with boxes of cereals and raisins and dried
apricots. My mother was begging him to eat.
“No, no, no!” Fudge shouted. He made a terrible mess, dumping everything
on the floor.
“Please stand on your head, Peter,” my mother said. “It’s the only way
he’ll eat.”
“No!” I told her. “I’m not going to stand on my head anymore.” I went
into my room and slammed the door. I played with Dribble until
suppertime. Nobody ever worries about me the way they worry about Fudge.
If I decided not to eat they’d probably never even notice!
That night during dinner Fudge hid under the kitchen table. He said,
“I’m a doggie. Woof … woof … woof!”
It was hard to eat with him under the table pulling on my legs. I waited
for my father to say something. But he didn’t.
Finally my mother jumped up. “I know,” she said. “If Fudgie’s a doggie
he wants to eat on the floor! Right?”
If you ask me Fudge never even thought about that. But he liked the idea
a lot. He barked and nodded his head. So my mother fixed his plate and
put it under the table. Then she reached down and petted him, like he
was a real dog.
My father said, “Aren’t we carrying this a little too far?”
My mother didn’t answer.
Fudge ate two bites of his dinner.
My mother was satisfied.
After a week of having him eat under the table I felt like we really did
have a family dog. I thought how great it would be if we could trade
Fudge for a nice cocker spaniel. That would solve all my problems. I’d
walk him and feed him and play with him. He could even sleep on the edge
of my bed at night. But of course that was wishful thinking. My brother
is here to stay. And there’s nothing much I can do about it.
Grandma came over with a million ideas about getting Fudge to eat. She
tricked him by making milk shakes in the blender. When Fudge wasn’t
looking she threw in an egg. Then she told him if he drank it all up
there would be a surprise in the bottom of the glass. The first time he
believed her. He finished his milk shake. But all he saw was an empty
glass. There wasn’t any surprise! Fudge got so mad he threw the glass
down. It smashed into little pieces. After that Grandma left.
The next day my mother dragged Fudge to
Dr. Cone’s office. He told her to leave him alone. That Fudge would eat
when he got hungry.
I reminded my mother that I’d told her the same thing—and for free!
But I guess my mother didn’t believe either one of us because she took
Fudge to see three more doctors. None of them could find a thing wrong
with my brother. One doctor even suggested that my mother cook Fudge his
favorite foods.
So that night my mother broiled lamb chops just for Fudge. The rest of
us ate stew. She served him the two little lamb chops on his plate under
the table. Just the smell of them was enough to make my stomach growl. I
thought it was mean of my mother to make them for Fudge and not for me.
Fudge looked at his lamb chops for a few minutes. Then he pushed his
plate away. “No!” he said. “No chops!”
“Fudgie … you’ll starve!” my mother cried. “You must eat!”
“No chops! Corn Flakes,” Fudge said. “Want Corn Flakes!”
My mother ran to get the cereal for Fudge. “You can eat the chops if you
want them, Peter,” she told me.
I reached down and helped myself to the lamb chops. My mother handed
Fudge his bowl of cereal. But he didn’t eat it. He sat at my feet and
looked up at me. He watched me eat his chops.
“Eat your cereal!” my father said.
“NO! NO EAT CEREAL!” Fudge yelled.
My father was really mad. His face turned bright red. He said, “Fudge,
you will eat that cereal or you will wear it!”
This was turning out to be fun after all, I thought. And the lamb
chops were really tasty. I dipped the bone in some Ketchup and chewed
away.
Fudge messed around with his cereal for a minute. Then he looked at my
father and said, “NO EAT … NO EAT … NO EAT!”
My father wiped his mouth with his napkin, pushed back his chair, and
got up
from the table. He picked up the bowl of cereal in one hand, and Fudge
in the other. He carried them both into the bathroom. I went along,
nibbling on a bone, to see what was going to happen.
My father stood Fudge in the tub and dumped the whole bowl of cereal
right over his head. Fudge screamed. He sure can scream loud.
My father motioned for me to go back to the kitchen. He joined us in a
minute. We sat
down and finished our dinner. Fudge kept on screaming. My mother wanted
to go to him but my father told her to stay where she was. He’d had
enough of Fudge’s monkey business at mealtimes.
I think my mother really was relieved that my father had taken over. For
once my brother got what he deserved. And I was glad!
The next day Fudge sat at the table again. In his little red booster
chair, where he belongs. He ate everything my mother put in front of
him. “No more doggie,” he told us.
And for a long time after that his favorite expression was “eat it or
wear it!”
Peter finds Fudge harder and harder to take—as you will discover by
reading the rest of Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, as well as the
sequel, Superfudge. And if you still want a good laugh, try another
of Judy Blume’s books, Freckle Juice.
