BUD, NOT BUDDY

CHRISTOPHER PAUL CURTIS

WINNER OF THE NEWBERY MEDAL

​

CHAPTER 15

"Now, Bud," Miss Thomas said, "This is what we call Grand Calloway
Station." She parked the car in front of a big house and got out so I grabbed my
suitcase from the backseat and jumped out too.

Even though I was still real embarrassed and quiet about all the crying I'd just
been doing at the Sweet Pea I knew I was going to have to start talking sooner
or later so I asked her, "How come this house has got a name, ma' am?"

She said, "Mr. Calloway said a long time ago that there were so many different
people in and out of here at so many different hours of the day and night that it
reminded him of that train station in New York City, Grand Central Station.
The name kind of stuck."

As soon as we got inside Miss Thomas said, "I’ll show you around the place
tomorrow, tonight it's late and we're all pretty tired, so I’ll take you right up to
where you're going to be sleeping."

I followed her up a staircase and we walked down a hall. Miss Thomas opened
a door and we went in. On one side there was a bed and a window with some
curtains, and on the other side were two little doors. Sitting in the space
between the two doors was a chair and a little table like the kind you see in the
moving pictures that women use to put lipstick on, it had a long skinny drawer
that went across the bottom and a big round mirror stuck right on top. Next to
the bed there was a little table with a lamp that had a picture of a skinny little
black horse right in the lampshade.

Miss Thomas turned on the lamp and the horse got all bright, now I could see
he was brown. Miss Thomas said, "We're going to have to talk to Mr. Calloway
about where you can put your things, Bud, I don't think you'll be able to fit
anything in those closets." She pointed at the two little doors. "There're a lot of
old things in there that he really needs to clear out. For now just put your
suitcase there." She pointed at the table with the mirror on it.

I said, "Yes, ma'am, thank you, ma'am." She smiled and said, "OK, I guess
that's it. The first door in the hall on the left is my room, the second door is Mr.
Calloway's, and the door on the right is the bathroom. Do you think you'll be all
right?"

I would, except that those two little doors were starting to make me nervous.
They looked like they were just the right size for a young Frankenstein or
wolfman to come busting out of once all the grown folks left the room, and
since there was only one chair in the room I wouldn't be able to block both of
the doors off.

I said, "I’ll probably be OK, ma'am, but there's one thing I'm wondering about."
"What's that, sweetheart?"

I pointed at the doors and said, "Are those locked?"

I was going to have to try to make a better first impression on Miss Thomas,
she had to think I was pretty babyish what with me crying my eyes out before
and now being scared of some little monster-size doors.

She laughed and said, "I don't think they're locked, Bud, there's nothing in there
but girl's clothes and toys."

I said, "Won't the girl get mad if she comes back in here and I'm sleeping in her
bed?"

Miss Thomas waited a second like she had to think. She finally said, "No, Bud,
I don't think you have to worry about that, she's gone."

Uh-oh! That was two things to get nervous about in one sentence! The first
thing to worry about was Rules and Things number 547, or something, that was
the one about when a adult tells you, "Don't worry." The second bad thing was
Bud Caldwell's Rules and Things to Have a Funner Life and Make a Better Liar
Out of Yourself Number 28, that was a real short one:

RULES AND THINGS NUMBER 28
Gone = dead!

I don't know why grown folks can't say someone is dead, they think it's a lot
easier to say "gone."

That meant I was going to have to spend the night in the room of a little dead
girl, that meant I wasn't going to be getting much sleep at all. I could jam the
chair up against the one door's knob, and I'd have to scooch the table with the
minor over up against the other one. I don't buy it when people tell you that
closets are the only way a ghost or monster can get into your room. Shucks, I
bet you they got ways to come up from under your bed, or if they want to get at
you real bad, I bet they can even slide out of a drawer that you think is shut
good and right.

Miss Thomas said, "I’ll see you in the morning, you get a good night's sleep."
She closed the door and was gone just like that.

Before you could say Jack Robinson I had the chair jammed up underneath the
one doorknob and was trying to figure out the best way to push the dresser
thing when I heard some loud voices coming from out in the hall. It was
Herman E. Calloway and Miss Thomas going at each other pretty good.

They argued back and forth so I sat on the bed and put my suitcase in my lap
hoping that Mr. Calloway would win the argument and they'd give me some
other place to sleep. I can never get why grown folks will put a kid all alone in
a bedroom at night. It's just like they give the ghosts a treasure map and instead
of there being a big pot of gold where X marks the spot, there's some poor kid
that's sound asleep.

The door banged open and Herman E. Calloway stood them huffing and
puffing like the big bad wolf, only with his belly it looked like he'd already
eaten the three little pigs. I wasn't too worried because I could see the toes of
Miss Thomas's shoes in the doorway.

Herman E. Calloway looked at me sitting on the bed and rushed over to the first
little closet door. With one mighty huff he swiped the ghost-blocking chair
away and stuck a key in the lock. Then he stomped over to the other closet door
and locked it too.

He kind of whispered so Miss Thomas couldn't hear. "You've got the rest of
them fooled, but not me. There's something about you that I don't like. I'm
going to find out what your game is and you believe me, scamp, you're going
back where you belong."

He stuck the key back in his pants pocket, walked out of the room and slammed
the door.

The door wasn't even done shaking from being slammed so hard when it
jumped open again. Herman E. Calloway pointed a finger at me and said, "And
you better not do any snooping around this room or anywhere else in this
house, I know where every single thing belongs and I can tell right away when
something's missing. I've got little secret bells all over everything and when
something's stolen the bell goes off and only I can hear it, so watch your step."

The poor door got slammed again.

Miss Thomas said, "You know, Herman, half the time I don't know if I should
laugh at you or just feel sorry for you."

What Herman E. Calloway said reminded me of what they used to tell us when
they'd take us kids from the Home to the YMCA to go swimming.

Before we'd start swimming the white lifeguard made us sit on the edge of the
pool with just our feet in the water. He'd say, "We've had problems with you
children urinating in the pool in the past, we've begged you and pleaded with
you to stop but you don't seem to get the message. This has forced the Y to
spend a great deal of money to put a special new kind of magic chemical in the
water.

"This chemical reacts to turn water contaminated with urine a bright red.
Therefore, if you urinate in the pool a bright red cloud will surround you and
we will be able to tell who has relieved themselves. The chemical also causes
severe burns to the skin of the urinater.

"So if a red cloud appears around any of you people you will be arrested by the
Flint police, you will go to the hospital to fix your burns, you will go to jail and
then your name will go on the list that says you can't swim in any pool in any
building anywhere in the world.

"If a red cloud appears around any of you people you will from that moment on
be swimming nowhere but in the Flint River."

Shucks, nothing makes you want to pee in a pool more than someone who
thinks you're stupid telling you not to do it, and nothing makes you want to
steal something more than having somebody who doesn't even know you're
honest telling you not to steal.

Herman E. Calloway didn't have to worry, I was a liar, not a thief. The only
thing I'd ever stole was food out of someone's garbage can.

He was so doggone mean and hard to get along with it just didn't seem like it
was true that he could be anyone's daddy. The way he was so worried about me
stealing stuff from him before he even knew if I was honest or not made me
wonder if someone who was so suspicious could ever be kin to me.

I looked around the little dead girl's room and could see that even a hard-up
thief wouldn't find nothing much worth stealing in here.

The best thing in the whole room was one wall that was covered with pictures
of some horses cut out of a bunch of magazines and stuck on the wall with
thumb-tacks. It looked like someone went through a lot of trouble to do it, each
picture was held up with four thumbtacks and there were so many of them that
they were like wallpaper from the floor to the ceiling.

There might've been something good in the closets, but even before Herman E.
Calloway'd locked them shut I sure wasn't about to peek in them.

I set my suitcase on the dressing table and looked at the first drawer. Like I
said, someone telling you not to do something will sure make you want to do it.
I listened real careful to make sure Herman E. Calloway wasn't sneaking up on
me, then I pulled the drawer open.

There were three boxes of thumbtacks, and one of those doggone Ticonderoga
pencils. Looking at it made me smell rubber all over again.

I walked over to the bed and sat on the edge and flopped back into the mattress.
Man! It was the softest thing I'd ever felt in my life, I rubbed my arms up and
down on the blanket and pulled the pillow out and put it underneath my head.
The bed had two sheets on it, just like Teddy boy's!

It was strange, even though this was the bedroom of some little girl who'd
kicked the bucket, I wasn't feeling scared or nervous at all. I took in a deep,
deep breath and it felt like I was sleeping with my own blanket wrapped around
my head. I took in a couple more deep breaths and I could hear Momma
starting to read another story to me.

I wanted to climb under the covers to see what it felt like to sleep with two
sheets, but before I could even move -- woop, zoop, sloop -- I was sleeping like
a dead man. The last thing I remember hearing was, "Not me," said the horse.

"Not me” said the sheep.

"Not me," said the werewolf.

I knew I was going to have a great sleep 'cause even though a monster had gone
and snucked hisself into the story, I didn't care, nothing could hurt me now.