EllRay Jakes the Recess King!

1
THE TERRIBLE TRUTH
“What’s so great about going to the grand opening of the park tomorrow?” I ask my sister Alfie, as I make a snow angel on her fluffy bedroom rug. “So they fixed it up a little. It will still be the same old boring place.”
My name is EllRay Jakes, and I am eight years old. I know this kind of stuff.
“Nuh-uh,” four-year-old Alfie argues, scowling. “It said ‘new’ on the sign in the post office, didn’t it? And signs don’t lie. It’s against the law. There’s gonna be fwee hot dogs, Mom said, so we each get to ask a fwend.”
“Fwee” means “free” in Alfie-speak. And “fwend” means “friend.” Alfie’s r’s sort of come and go.
I sigh. “A park’s not new just because they plant better grass, and change the benches so people can’t sleep on them, and paint over the graffiti. Dad said that’s all they were going to do. And it’s January, Alfie. It might be raining.”
“But there’s probably a better play area now,” Alfie says, ignoring my weather forecast.
The old play area at Eustace B. Pennypacker Memorial Park only had one swing set, and one tetherball pole that has been missing its actual ball for almost a year, I remind myself. So it would be hard to make the play area any worse.
“Listen, Alfie,” I say. “We already saw the so called new park the other day, didn’t we? When Mom got lost on the way to Trader Joe’s? We drove right by it.”
Our mom sometimes goes a different way to the store when traffic gets too crowded. She also likes to park our Toyota with plenty of space on each side, even though the car is older than I am.
Mom is a very careful driver.
I am going to have the coolest car ever, when I grow up! It will always be new, and it will have flames painted on the sides. Or at least skinny stripes.
“But when we saw the park, it didn’t have a wibbon in fwont of it for our queen to cut with giant scissors, EllWay,” Alfie says, as if I have just missed the most obvious point about Oak Glen’s newest old park, which is opening tomorrow morning, like I said. Saturday.
“EllWay” is Alfie’s version of “EllRay,” which is a shorter and less awful-version of “Lancelot Raymond,” my full, official name.
My mom writes love stories for ladies, see, about dead or imaginary kings and queens. I guess she got a little carried away naming me when I was born. Moms sometimes do that, in my opinion. And my college professor dad was probably too busy studying weird rocks to put up an argument.
Later, as time went by, my too-fancy name was shortened first to L. Raymond, and then to L. Ray.
But now, everyone just calls me EllRay.
And I won’t do much more translating for Alfie, I promise.
“This is California, Alfie,” I remind her. “Oak Glen doesn’t have a queen. That lady you’re talking about is our new mayor. She just acts like a queen.”
The new mayor shows up everywhere, wearing a fancy hat. It is the only ladies’ hat in Oak Glen, I think. She also waves a lot.
I try not to sigh again as I click my robotic insect action figure already cool enough!-into a deadly-looking tank. I start rolling it toward the lavender pony whose long blond tail Alfie is combing. imagine destroying its golden corral.
C-R-R-R-U-N-C-H!
Nothing personal, lavender pony. “That lady is too the queen,” Alfie informs me. “Just because she doesn’t wear hey queen-hat all the time,” she adds, shaking her own head so hard that her three soft, puffy braids swing back and forth.”You probably think she should wear it to bed, don’t you?” she continues. “Or when she goes swimming? But real queens don’t do that. I asked Mom once, and she said no. So, hah.” Alfie has recently discovered sarcasm, I am sorry to say. “You’re mixing stuff up,” I tell her. “First, it’s called a crown, not a ‘queen-hat,'” I begin. “And second–” But Alfie has moved on. “You don’t have any one to invite to the park,” she interrupts. “Because you’re running out of fwends.”I feel my cheeks get hot, because what Alfie just said is basically the terrible truth. And I’m her big brother, and she needs to look up o me! “What? I am not running out of friends,” I argue, but I don’t sound very convincing. “Well, I have Suzette, Arletty, and Mona to choose from,” Alfie says, setting aside her star-spangled horse to argue with me. “And you just have Corey, only he’s always busy swimming. “My best friend, Corey Robinson, is an eight-year-old swimming champion. He will probably be in the Olympics some day, everyone says. I don’t know what his plans are after that. Neither does he. His parents haven’t told him yet. “I have other friends, too,” I tell Alfie. “What about Kevin?” Kevin McKinley is the only other boy with brown skin in Ms. Sanchez’s third grade class at Oak Glen Primary School, in Oak Glen, California. He has been one of my two best friends for a couple of years. But lately, he’s been hanging out a lot with a couple of kids who live on his street, but who go to private school. I don’t even know their names. It’s too risky for me to ask Kevin to come to the park tomorrow, even though he really, really likes hot dogs. He might say no! Or he could tell the other guys in our class that it’s babyish for an eight year-old to care about a new play area in some lame new-old park.
And then our friendship would really be over.
“I thought you said Kevin was sometimes
Jared’s fwend now,” Alfie says.
Jared Matthews, my part-time enemy.
“I never told you that,” I object. “Anyway, it changes around. And since when do you keep track of my life? Mind your own business, Alfie. You’ve got enough problems.”
“You need a spare fwend,” Alfie tells me, ignoring what I just said about problems. “You know,” she says, grabbing another horse to brush. “The way Mom’s car has a spare tire.”
Both of us were in my mom’s car last week when it got a flat tire on San Vicente Street, which is al ways super busy. Mom steered our wobbling car over to the side of the road. She told us to stay put while she called for help. But it was scary, waiting in the backseat as all that traffic whizzed by. I pretended it wasn’t scary, though, because of Alfie.
I look out for her-in secret.
The spare tire that the auto club guy put on our car looked like it belonged to a clown car, it was so little. I was embarrassed for our poor Toyota.
I don’t want a spare friend like that!
I’m already the smallest kid in my class, aren’t I? I could use someone big.
“You know,” Alfie continues. “A spare. For emergencies, like this one.”
“For your information, Alfie, going to Penny packer Park for a free hot dog isn’t an emergency,” I tell her, getting to my feet.
Alfie and her goofy opinions can just stay here playing with sparkly fake horses, I tell myself. I am trying to ignore the voice in my head that is saying she’s a little bit right.
“You should hold an audition,” Alfie announces before I can escape. “That’s what we’re doing at my school. It was all Miss Nancy’s idea.”
Alfie goes to Kreative Learning and Daycare, even though they spell “creative” wrong, which drives my dad bonkers. “You’re auditioning friends at daycare?” I ask, tossing in a little sarcasm of my own.
“No,” Alfie says, calm as anything. “We auditioned for our spring show last week. The best part of the show is called Brown Bear, Brown Bear. And I’m gonna be the star. Mom already started making my costume.”
“You’re the bear?” I ask, my forehead wrinkling. Because usually, Alfie is more of a kitty or a bunny or a sparkling pony kind of girl.
She might make an exception if she could be a panda, but Ms. Sanchez says pandas aren’t really bears. Anyway, they’re black and white, not brown.
“I’m the goldfish,” she says, sighing at having to explain something so simple. “I want to be the last animal everybody sees, so I’ll get all the clapping. I figured it out.”
“Good luck with that,” I call over my shoulder as I leave Alfie’s pink and purple palace. I mean room. “At least I have fwends!” Alfie yells after me.