Don’t Want to Go to School

The alarm went off in his bedroom, but he did not want to listen.  He was in the middle of a pleasant dream.  When the electronic scream to get out of bed went out, he slapped the stupid button hard to punish the rude intrusion.  He hoped to permanently silence the nasty beast, but when Mom came into the room, he realized that it would not work.  He did not want to go to school; he did not want to get up.  He just wanted to lay in bed.  His dream was all he wanted.  

But Mom stood hovering, and so he said, “Mom, I feel sick.”  

But Mom said nothing; she wasn’t buying it.  Instead, she yanked the covers off his nestled body, letting the cold air do her dirty work.  He put himself in a fetal position, trying to regain the pleasant place he had left behind.  Finally, he could not handle it; the shivering made him ache.  And so, he got out of bed.

He tripped over the bedding that had now covered the floor, kicking at the grabbing covers.  In the end, he won the wrestling match, refereed by his big stuffed bear.  And then, he tried for twenty minutes to get his clothes on, but his shirt and pants also tried to wrestle, especially his underwear and socks.  They went on in twisted ways or stuck, so he grabbed hard and wrenched and unwound.  At least, the bedding and his clothes all wanted him to stay. 

Sounding like the voice came out from under his bed, his mom called, “Breakfast!”  And taking in the news, he finally felt himself again.  But when he tried to leave his room, his stuffed bear and friends grabbed a hold of him and sat down on his bedroom floor.

“Please, don’t go.  We have to talk, we have to explore.  It is what we are all made of.  Please, don’t go,” said the big stuffed bear.

“But I have to.  I have school,” said the boy, not wanting to go.

The tiger jumped into his lap and purred, “But what about the explorations.  You might miss a discovery.”

“My mom and dad both say that school has plenty of that sort of thing,” said the boy.

“Edward!  Breakfast!  Get down here now or your pancakes will get cold!” Yelled the voice from under the bed.

“Sorry guys.  I have to,” said the boy, who was now torn between staying and, well, pancakes.

“No, you don’t.  You can come with us,” said the defiant stuffed yellow bear.

“But Mom fixed pancakes,” whimpered the boy, who was not sure if he was liking his polyester filled friend any more.

“Sure, whenever your mom makes pancakes, you have no time for us,” snorted rabbit with holes in its ears and scratches on its button eyes.

“Come on, guys.  This isn’t fair,” whined the boy to the crowd who now stood around him.

“Life isn’t fair,” snarled an unrecognizable thing with ears and red bid overalls.  It pointed to its head.  “Just look at what happened to me.  Stuck in the toy box.  Waiting for you to rescue me.  It’s a good thing that I only have stuffing upon there.”

“Yeh, and then you stopped playing with me as soon as I lost my wheel,” said a small metal car on the floor by his feet.

“You just don’t play with us any more,” said a red little pup with a big bow on its head.

“Yeh, it’s like you just don’t care,” said the big stuffed bear.  

“Stop it!” Screamed the boy.

“Edward?  Is everything all right up there?” Asked the voice from under the bed.

“Yeh, Mom!” He responded back.

“Well, hurry up.  Your pancakes are getting cold, and the bus will be here soon,” said Mom.

“Okay,” he called back.  And then, he looked at the gathering, fiber-filled crowd.  “You can just stop it, right now.  You know that I have to go,” said the boy as he yanked his arm back from the bear.

“But what are we supposed to do when you go away?” Asked the bespectacled owl with the black robe and cardboard hat.

“Whatever you guys do when I’m not here,” said the boy, getting up off the floor.

“But it is not quite the same,” said the bear.

“Well, it will have to do.  Maybe after I get back...”

“You’ll have homework, then,” sniffled the big old yellow bear.

Finally, unable to handle the guilt, he said, “I have pancakes.”

From under the bed came a different voice then before, a silly little voice, “Pancakes?  Did somebody say pancakes?  I would like to have a bunch.”

And very quickly, from a tangle and a tumble, Quiggly the Pink Pig with blue overalls and lapping tongue dug himself out from under the bed.  He missed the call for the intervention and looked around at his friends in confusion.

“Did I miss them?  The pancakes?  I would be really sad if I had,” said Quiggly, trying to lighten the apparent “heavy” moment. 

“They are downstairs,” said the now standing boy.

“You’re on!” Said the eager pig.

And so, the pig and the boy left the room and closed the door.  The entire fiber-filled gathering stared at the door, listened as the thumping, racing feet took off down the hallway and then down the stairs.

“Well, that didn’t work, bear,” said the tiger in disgust.

“Next time, we’ll try it my way,” added a gray, dusty lion.

“Hey, you still got some of that stash you were talking about the other day,” said the tiger to the lion.

“Yeh, I think so,” said the lion.  “Anyone want to hang out on my shelf is welcome.”

With a lot of okays and certainly’s, the crowd disbanded, leaving the bear and the bespectacled owl staring at the door.

“It should have worked,” said the bear.

“You didn’t make reference to the dream.  I told you that you should have used the dream that you whispered into the boy’s ear, but what does an owl know compared to a bear?” Huffed the owl as he left.

In his solitary stance, the bear said, “Yeh....I should have picked something other than pancakes.”