“Tees,” Tootsie said.
“Yes, sweetie pie,” Grandma said, “trees.” She bounced Tootsie on her lap.
“Muriel . . .” Sheila said. “Can Libby and I be your bridesmaids?”
“I’d be honored,” Grandma said.
“I’ve always wanted to be a bridesmaid!” Sheila gushed. “But we need dresses . . . long, fluffy dresses . . . maybe pink or lavender.”
“Oh, let’s not bother with dresses,” Grandma said.
“But all we have up here are jeans,” Sheila said. “We can’t be bridesmaids in jeans!”
“You can if you’re creative,” Grandma told her.
“What about me?” Fudge said. “I’m creative. Can I be a bridesmaid, too?”
“You can be the ring bearer,” Grandma said.
“What’s the ring bear?”
“It’s like a bird breather,” I told him.
“Really?” he asked.
“No,” Mom said. “Peter’s just being very silly.”
“The ring bearer carries the rings,” Grandma said. “On a pretty little pillow.”
“What rings?” Fudge asked.
“The wedding rings, Turkey Brain. I thought you knew all about getting married.”
“All I know is you get to sleep in the same bed.”
“That’s the best part,” Buzzy Senior said.
Mom shook her head. “Really, Buzzy . . .”
* * *
Grandma and Buzzy Senior decided on a Saturday morning wedding so they wouldn’t interfere with the Sunday ball game. Every time they went to town they invited someone else. Mom said they had to tell her how many people were coming, and soon. How else could she plan the wedding barbecue?
“Oh . . . just figure everyone is coming,” Grandma said.
“Everyone?” Mom said. “What does that mean?”
It meant the guy from the hardware store, the butcher from Sawyer’s Market, Dorothy of Oz, and the couple from the jewelry store, who sold them their wedding rings. It meant the Ickles from the ice cream parlor, Bicycle Bob, Isobel from the library and—Mitzi, Mrs. A and Big.
* * *
Mom worried about the weather but when we woke up on Saturday morning it was clear and warm. We all helped decorate the yard. We tied pink ribbons around the swing tree and set pots of pink flowers in Fudge’s garden.
Sheila and Libby showed how creative they could be by sewing beads and ribbons all over their jeans and T-shirts. At the last minute Sheila decided we should dress up our animals, too. She tied a pink satin bow around Jake’s neck. Then she asked me to tie one around Turtle’s.
“You do it,” I said. “I’m not that good with bows.”
“I can’t do it,” Sheila said.
“Why not?”
“You know . . .”
“Because he’s too smelly and disgusting for you to touch?”
“He’s not that smelly anymore.”
“Then why can’t you do it?”
Sheila took a deep breath. “All right,” she said. “I’ll do it. But you have to hold him still.”
I think Sheila’s still scared of Turtle, but now that he and Jake are going to be stepdogs, she’s making an effort to get along with him. Turtle wasn’t crazy about having a pink satin bow tied around his neck. He tried to eat it.
Next, Sheila decorated Uncle Feather’s cage. “Olé!” she said, snapping her fingers.
“Olay . . .” he answered.
The guests began to arrive at ten-thirty. Big wore his Red Sox uniform, but not his spikes. He gave Grandma and Buzzy Senior an autographed baseball for a wedding present. Mitzi brought them a bottle of monster spray, just in case. And she had one for Fudge, too. “Grandma just made it,” she said, “so it’s nice and fresh.”
Actually, the bride and groom got a lot of interesting gifts. Matching bike helmets from Bicycle Bob. A book called How to Survive Your First Year of Marriage from Isobel. A set of hand-painted rocks from Sheila and Libby. A painting called Baby Feet Go to a Wedding from Mr. Fargo. The only copy in the entire world of Tell Me a Fudge, by Farley Drexel Hatcher. And a twenty-five-foot banner from Jimmy and me. We’d been working on it all week. It said:
WHO CAN EXPLAIN IT, WHO CAN TELL YOU WHY?
MURIEL AND BUZZY
AUGUST 28
SOUTHWEST HARBOR, MAINE
Grandma and Buzzy Senior liked it a lot, even though we forgot to include the year. Grandma said it was better that way.
Just before the ceremony Fudge asked Mitzi to help him be the Ring Bear. He showed her the lace pillow with the gold wedding bands resting on it. Then he whispered something in her ear and they giggled.
The judge was the last one to arrive. She pulled up in a shiny red pickup truck, wearing her judge’s robe. She looked familiar. But I couldn’t remember where I’d seen her until she said, “What are you doing here, junior?”
It was When in Rome!
“You’re the judge?” I said.
“That’s right, junior.”
“My name is Peter,” I told her. “Not junior. And my grandmother is the bride.”
“Well, isn’t that something!” she said. “I hope you behave yourself today.”
“When in Rome . . .” I told her.
This time she laughed.
The ceremony began a few minutes after eleven. The bride wore a white jogging suit. She bought it at the sports store where Fudge got his mitt-sy. She had a pink flower tucked behind her ear. The groom wore a black jogging suit. He had a pink flower pinned to his sweatshirt. They kept smiling at each other.
When in Rome started off by reading some love poem. I almost laughed, because I had this picture in my mind of her playing first base in her judge’s robe. Then she got down to the important stuff, like the Do you take . . . question. She asked Grandma first. “Do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?”
Grandma said, “I do.”
After that Buzzy Senior was supposed to place the ring on her finger. But just as he was about to take it from the lace pillow, the Ring Bear and his helper sang, “Surprise!” And they started twirling, holding the pillow between them.
We were surprised all right. Because as they twirled, the rings flew off the pillow and landed somewhere in the grass. “Oh oh . . .” the Ring Bear said.
Everyone got down on their hands and knees to search.
“Suppose we can’t find them?” Sheila asked. “Can Muriel and Grandpa still get married?”
“Don’t worry,” When in Rome said. “I’m here to marry them one way or another.”
“Here’s one!” Dorothy of Oz called, holding up a gold band.
It took a few more minutes before Bicycle Bob found the other.
“Okay,” When in Rome said. “Let’s give it another try. And this time, no surprises!” She looked at Mitzi and the Ring Bear.
“But surprises are fun!” Mitzi said.
“Next time you try that kind of surprise you’re going to get a big surprise from me!” she told them.
They got the message.
On the second try everything worked. When in Rome pronounced Grandma and Buzzy Senior husband and wife. Then they kissed and everyone cheered. Well, almost everyone. A few people, like Mom, got teary-eyed.
The wedding barbecue was a huge success. Big helped Dad and Mr. Tubman tend the grills. Tony Ickle had brought gallons of ice cream. And Mrs. A had baked a blueberry wedding cake. So we all wound up with blue teeth. All except Fudge. He still won’t go near a blueberry.
The party lasted for hours. Everyone was having too much fun to go home. Finally, the bride and groom fell asleep on lawn chairs. I knew how they felt because I was pooped out, too. Only the Fudge-a-maniacs were still going strong.
/> Sheila yawned and sat next to me on the porch steps. “Wasn’t that the most beautiful wedding?” she asked.
“Yeah . . .” I said. “It was the best wedding I’ve ever seen.” It was also the only wedding I’ve ever seen.
Sheila smiled at me. “I just want you to know, Peter . . .” she said, in her kissy-face voice, “that even if we are related, I’ll always hate you.”
“That’s a relief,” I said. “Because I’ll always hate you, too.”
“Promise?” she asked.
“Promise,” I said.
“Let’s shake on it.”
I put out my hand.
She grabbed it.
Then we shook.
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Double Fudge
The Miser
When my brother Fudge was five, he discovered money in a big way. “Hey, Pete,” he said one night as I was getting out of the shower. “How much would it cost to buy New York?”
“The city or the state?” I asked, as if it were a serious question.
“Which is bigger?”
“The state, but all the good stuff is in the city.” People who don’t live in the city might disagree, but I’m a city kind of guy.
“We live in the city, right?” Fudge said. He was sitting on the open toilet seat in his pajamas.
“You’re not doing anything, are you?” I asked as I toweled myself dry.
“What do you mean, Pete?”
“I mean you’re sitting on the toilet, and you haven’t pulled down your pj’s.”
He swung his feet and started laughing. “Don’t worry, Pete. Only Tootsie still poops in her pants.” Tootsie is our little sister. She’ll be two in February.
Fudge watched as I combed my wet hair. “Are you going someplace?” he asked.
“Yeah, to bed.” I got into clean boxers and pulled a T-shirt over my head.
“Then how come you’re getting dressed?”
“I’m not getting dressed. Starting tonight, this is what I wear instead of pajamas. And how come you’re still up?”
“I can’t go to sleep until you tell me, Pete.”
“Tell you what?”
“How much it would cost to buy New York City.”
“Well, the Dutch paid about twenty-four dollars for it back in the sixteen hundreds.”
“Twenty-four dollars?” His eyes opened wide. “That’s all?”
“Yeah, it was a real bargain. But don’t get your hopes up. That’s not what it would cost today, even if it were for sale, which it’s not.”
“How do you know, Pete?”
“Believe me, I know!”
“But how?”
“Listen, Fudge . . . by the time you’re twelve there’s a lot of stuff you know, and you don’t even know how you know it.”
He repeated my line. “There’s a lot of stuff you know and you don’t even know how you know it!” Then he laughed like crazy. “That’s a tongue twister, Pete.”
“No, that’s just the truth, Fudge.”
* * *
The next day he was at it again. In the elevator he asked Sheila Tubman, “How much money do you have, Sheila?”
“That’s not a polite question, Fudgie,” she told him. “Nice people don’t talk about their money, especially in these times.” Sheila gave me a look like it was my fault my brother has no manners. I hope she’s not in my class this year. I hope that every year, and every year she’s there, like some kind of itch you can’t get rid of, no matter how hard you scratch.
“I’m nice,” Fudge said, “and I like to talk about money. You want to know how much I have?”
“No,” Sheila told him. “It’s nobody’s business but yours.”
He told her anyway. I knew he would. “I have fourteen dollars and seventy-four cents. I mise my money every night before I go to sleep.”
“You mise your money?” Sheila asked. Then she shook her head at me like it’s my fault he thinks mise is a word.
Henry, who runs the elevator in our building, laughed. “Nothing like having a miser in the family.”
“You don’t have to be a miser, Fudge,” Sheila said. “If you like counting money so much, you can work at a bank when you grow up.”
“Yeah,” Fudge said. “I can work at a bank and mise my money all day long.”
Sheila sighed. “He doesn’t get it,” she said to me.
“He’s only five,” I reminded her.
“Almost six,” he reminded me. Then he tugged Sheila’s arm. “Hey, Sheila . . . you know how much the Dude paid for New York City?”
“The Dude?” Sheila asked. “Is this some kind of joke?”
“Not the Dude,” I told Fudge. “The Dutch.”
“His name was Peter Minuit,” Sheila said, like the know-it-all she is. “And he paid the Wappinger Indian tribe in trinkets, not cash. Besides, the Indians thought they were going to share the land, not sell it.”
“Sharing is good,” Fudge said. “Except for money. I’ll never share my money. My money is all mine. I love my money!”
“That’s a disgusting thing to say,” Sheila told him. “You’re not going to have any friends if you talk that way.”
By then the elevator reached the lobby. “Your brother has no values,” Sheila said as we walked to the door of our building. Outside, she turned and headed toward Broadway.
“How much do values cost?” Fudge asked me.
“Not everything’s for sale,” I told him.
“It should be.” Then he skipped down to the corner singing, “Money, money, money . . . I love money, money, money . . .”
That’s when I knew we were in big trouble.
BOOKS BY JUDY BLUME
The Pain and the Great One
Soupy Saturdays with the Pain and the Great One
Cool Zone with the Pain and the Great One
Going, Going, Gone! with the Pain and the Great One
Friend or Fiend? with the Pain and the Great One
The One in the Middle Is the Green Kangaroo
Freckle Juice
THE FUDGE BOOKS
Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing
Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great
Superfudge
Fudge-a-Mania
Double Fudge
Blubber
Iggie’s House
Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself
Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret
It’s Not the End of the World
Then Again, Maybe I Won’t
Deenie
Just as Long as We’re Together
Here’s to You, Rachel Robinson
Tiger Eyes
Forever
Letters to Judy
Places I Never Meant to Be: Original Stories by Censored Writers (edited by Judy Blume)
Judy Blume, Fudge-a-Mania
(Series: Fudge # 4)
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