The Vaccine
I DON’T WANNA GO TO KINDERGARTEN! Kip didn’t have to do this!
Yes he did, says momma. All kids do if they want to go to kindergarten. Think of the clay art Kip brings home. And the big-kid books he gets to read, that you always want to read. It’s just one little pinch before you get to go to kindergarten.
NO NO NO NO NO NO. I CHANGED MY MIND. I will stay home and be good and help you with errands and not complain or interrupt when you have to have grown-up conversations. I will clean my room every day, and take Nutter out for walks.
Sorry, kiddo. You have to do it. Just shut your eyes and count to ten. You can hold your breath if it helps.
I shut my eyes. My tears taste salty. It smells like when momma cleans the bathroom. There’s something on my arm. It feels like Nutter only not slobbery. Maybe it’s not so bad. I open my eyes.
NO NO NO NO. LET ME GO! GET IT OFF. There’s a giant black thing crawling on me. Bigger than my hand. I can’t squish it. It’s got furry legs. A lot of them. It’s going to eat me. They don’t want me to go to kindergarten, they want to feed me to this monster. They’re going to watch as it eats me. It’s so it won’t eat them. It’s because I tried to ride Nutter like a pony and because I lied when I said I brushed my teeth and because I threw away my vitamin when momma wasn’t looking and because I spilled grape juice in Kip’s bed and didn’t tell anyone and now he has a rash and because I took the knobs off the radio in the car to play with them and then dropped them in the front yard and because I told dad I hadn’t watched any TV when mom went to her book club even though I really had. It was starting to eat me now. It hurt and it was because all the bad things I did and now they were feeding me to the spider and he was eating me and momma won’t let me move my arms.
There, see? Not so bad. It’s all over. The tarantula venom prevents you from getting a rhinovirus so you won’t get sick when you go to Kindergarten. Momma smiled at me. Her teeth were shiny, and big. And bigger. They grew and grew from her nose to her chin. And her face was really round and long and broken, and looked like that time Kip broke the bathroom mirror. And here hair was soft. Only now there was lots of it. Soft hair everywhere. On her head, in her hears, down her shoulders, in her nose, no her hands. She hugged me with her soft arms, all of them and there were lots, not just two like before. She kissed my head. I think she is going to eat me.
