Ben There

Chapter 15
Into May; Knights, Fairs, Naps

Chapter Description: Benji goes to a May Day festival.

Into May; Knights, Fairs, Naps

So it came to pass in those days that a decree went throughout the realm telling those of every degree to come forth on the first day of May (or the Saturday just before) to the big park and there make merry.

The Collins family did so come forth, and Benji was wearing his new suit of armor: silver polyester chainmail with sterling silver plastic breast plate, wellingtons, shin guards, thigh pads, helm with a visor he couldn’t see through, a back thingy, and deals on his upper arms and shoulders (the gauntlets just got in the way, especially the thumb part, and were left in the car). Kathy also had a costume, a baby blue dress with lots of white lace and funny sleeves and one of her tall, pointed hats. Vicky said she was in costume too, but it just looked like a white and green dress and some flowers in her hair to Benji, though he thought it was real pretty. (His mama and daddy just wore regular clothes.)

Benji saw him first! Probably because he had the best vantage point: on his daddy’s shoulders and right behind Growl, who was riding on his daddy’s head. There he was, right there in the parking lot over by the ticket booth: The King, the real king! He was a real fat guy with a red beard, and Benji knew it was the king because he had on a crown with lots of jewels and a red cape longer than Superman’s.

And Benji’s daddy just walked right towards him and yelled, "My Liege, hail!"

And the king turned around and talked to Benji’s daddy and said, "Well met, my good lord, and hast thou broughtest me a young knight to enter into my service?"

"I hast indeed, Sire."

"Dismount thy noble steed, squire, and be bedubbed a knight in the service of Ericward, King of Norbyegonebria," the king said, and his daddy put Benji on the ground and told him to kneel.

Then the king said, "And howest art thy called, Sir Knight, that thy feats be correctly entered in the annals of the kingdom?"

Benji thought kings sure did talk funny and wasn’t sure what he was asking, but everyone else understood, and Kathy answered first with Ben-ben, and was followed by his daddy, then his mama, and then Vicky.

As the King drew his sword (the no-weapons rule obviously not applying to royalty), the king said, "His renown is so great he hast a thousand names. Holdst very still lest I behead thee whilst I beknight thee."

His daddy knelt too and helped Benji be still. Benji knew what the king was going to do with the sword because he had seen it in a cartoon just a week or two ago.

The king tapped Benji twice with the sword and said, "I dub thee Sir Ben-ben the Puddin’head, Knight Companion of the Most Esteemed Antiquated Order of the Golden Kudzu. Arise, go forth and quest for glory, Sir Knight."

Benji finally found the nerve to talk to a king, and a grownup stranger, and he said, "What’ qwest mean?"

"To hunt, to seek, to search for honor!"

"Maggie says I great hunter. She call me bwana."

"Aha! A hunter is needed in the realm! And a Beast Master too, I see," the king said pointing to Growl. "And a puppy and bug master as well, mayhapst. Lord Chamberlain, hie thee here!" The Lord Chamberlain was a skinny girl about eighteen who was wearing tights and a doublet and carrying a big bag full of chains.

The king said, "I proclaim Sir Ben-ben the Puddin’head Sheriff of Northwest Norbyegonebria Forest and Master of the Hunt. Present him the symbol of office at once."

And the Lord Chamberlain pulled a solid gold chain of paperclips from her bag and placed it around Benji’s neck, and he was awe stuck to be given such an honor. He said, "The sheriff! A knight can be a cowboy too?!"

His daddy, mama, sisters and the king all laughed for some reason, so Benji chuckled too as his daddy picked him back up, and the king said, "Of course, if it is the Royal Will. Lord Chamberlain, take heed, no more sheriffs or marshals under eight."

Kathy and Vicky got royal honors as well. Kathy was named Katherine, Princess Royal of the South Farthing, but she only got a purple paperclip chain, and Vicky was named Lady Victoria, Maiden of the Glenn, but all she got was more flowers for her hair. Benji thought he had done better than either, but than of course he was a knight.

Just inside the gate there was a guy with harlequin tights and a hat with three long wiggly parts and bells, who was juggling eggs and a running chainsaw, and there was a guy in wizard’s robes that could breathe fire and throw it way up into the air too. And then there was a guy holding an eagle and another with a hawk that was flying around. But Benji saw none of this; he was a knight on a mission, a quest, to find the picnic grounds, because the first order of business was the Teddy Bear Picnic (It was a morning snack picnic, not a lunch time picnic.), and he had the best bear in the realm.

Finally their mama and daddy let Benji and Kathy run ahead and follow the special Bear signs alone, and they were already inside the roped off area when the rest of the family got there. You had to have a bear to get inside, so only Kathy and Benji could go in, and only they got to show off their bears, eat cookies, sing songs, and do the special may-polls that were shorter then the ones bigger people would use in the afternoon. And Benji got to be a partner with his newest friend, Colin, too.

There were still several more songs to be sung, and everyone was dancing a rondel when Benji needed to be excused; something that happened to him more often now than it had even last week. He saw his mama talking to a bunch of ladies just beyond the rope. He ran to her and pulled her down so he could whisper and said as softly as he still could, "I gotta go to those, mama," pointing to a row of porta-johns near the woods.

His mama said in just a regular voice, "OK, puppy. Let me tell Kathy, so she doesn’t get worried. Vicky ran away with some friends, and your daddy is off watching the blacksmith."

"I just go. It right there. Gotta go!" Pretending to be a little boy was OK, but this was urgent, and he knew his real age and didn’t think he needed an escort to go across the soccer field.

Amber was one of the people talking to his mama, and she was dressed for the fair too, with flowers in her hair like Vicky, a full length white and gold cape (that twelve weeks ago Benji would have recognized as Arwen Undómiel’s.), and a green dress that was long and cut close, so she probably didn’t need to wear denim shorts under it in case she wanted to sit on the grass, the way Benji’s sisters had had to.

Benji hadn’t noticed her until he heard her say, "I can take him potty, Mrs. Collins. That’s one of my duties when I help at the preschool."

"Would you, Amber? Please, and I think you’d better hurry."

Benji was torn. He knew boys don’t go to the bathroom with their girlfriends, or with any girls, at least ones not their sisters, even if it had to be to the girl’s bathroom; not even little boys did, did they? Plus, she had said ’take him potty’, a baby word, and he knew it, and right in front of other ladies. It was sooo embarrassing. But he had to go and go now; this was no time for a fight. Those thoughts ended when Amber picked him up and said, "Com’on, B.B. Let’s go. Can you hold it?"

Benji thought he could, but he was squirming now. Amber didn’t have trouble carrying him, but she couldn’t go fast with him, and it was getting more and more important to get there with each step. After twenty-five yards, he pulled himself out of her arms and took off at his top speed; Amber loped easily beside him, and she opened the door to the festival facility, and Benji rushed in, and he pulled his chainmail trousers down to his knees, and he started to pull his underpants down just enough, and then he noticed that this kind of place had weird toilets; they stunk, and they were a lot taller than the ones at his home or at his school; they were higher than his waist.

And he had started to dribble because he had been all set to go as soon as he got inside and couldn’t stop now, not even by holding his parts tight. So, without any thought of his real age or his dignity, he yelled, "Amba’, he’p!"

Amber came in and saw what was happening. She pushed his underwear down some more and lifted him from under his armpits in time for some of his pee to go into the outhouse pot.

Some; maybe half? Maybe more than half. But not all. Too much got on his underpants and on his legs. He did the only reasonable thing he could think of; he cried.

And Amber did what she had to do; she hugged him.

"It’s OK, BB. You almost got there in time."

"It too high."

"That’s right, it was just an accident, so don’t feel bad, best boyfriend, OK? And we can get you all fixed up in no time."

She said that, but she wasn’t really sure how. She had taken care of this kind, and (yuck) the other kind, of accident in the preschool before, but there there was always a change of clothes in the nearby cabinet. Now, there were no clean clothes handy, but she kept thinking while she hugged her little boyfriend. She took off his silver boots and his costume pants. She was in luck; they were fine, maybe a drop or two on them but hard to even see. Then she slipped Benji’s underwear down his legs. They weren’t sopping, but were much too damp to put back on a little boy.

She used some rough toilet paper to dry his eyes, but that didn’t work because he was still crying too hard, so she sat on the toilet lid to hold him and rock him.

"It wasn’t accident, because I got to the potty, but it too high!" He had spent enough of his time with the kindergarten and younger groups lately to have a fixed idea about what ’accident’ meant.

"That’s right. It wasn’t that kind of accident at all; it was just an unfortunate incident, right, cutie?" Amber said as she started rubbing the outhouse TP between his legs.

"Yeahhh!" Benji said with all the forcefulness he could muster.

Amber lifted his chainmail and sterling shirt and poked his little bellybutton.

Benji giggled around his sobs. "Why people always push me there?"

"’Cuz it’s just sitting there waiting to be pushed," Amber said and poked it again, which meant that Benji giggled again, and then she said, "Your pants didn’t get hit much. We can put those back on you, or I can wrap you up in my Queen of the Elves cloak?"

Benji said, "’K." He didn’t deal well with multiple choice questions now.

Amber put his pants back on him, though she really would have liked to carry him around wrapped in her cape. However, polyester chainmail can be very uncomfortable, especially when there is nothing underneath it in certain areas, and soon Benji was pulling at his pants. He said, "They itchy," and Amber picked him up. She jostled him as she carried him, and he was all smiles when he got back to the picnic area, the unfortunate incident well in the past.

The picnic was over, and only the small group of people Benji’s mama was talking to were still near the enclosed area. Amber carried him to the group and passed him over to his mama’s arms. Then she told the sad tale of what happened in the porta-potty, but she made it real clear to everyone that Benji had made it in time and had not wet his pants. Therefore, Benji didn’t feel embarrassed about it at all.

He said, "But armor real itchy there, Mama."

"Oh no, Puppy. We will run home and get you some underpants on real fast, OK?"

Benji knew he would miss stuff, and he didn’t want that. But the lady that was holding Colin said, "Nope; I’ve got the answer."

She sat Colin down, and she had on a vest with tons of pockets like photographers wear, and from a back pocket she pulled out a pair of Pull-ups. She also had a plastic bag of baby wipes and a small bottle of talcum too. She said, "Now listen, Colin hasn’t needed these very often since way before last year, but we still use them for places like this, just for situations like this."

Benji’s mama said, "Great idea! I wish I had thought to do that. Come on, little puppy dog, let’s go over here and get you all set."

She took Benji over to a table away from the busiest part of the fair and sat him on the bench to take his clothes off of him. Only Colin and his mommy and another lady came with them. While his mama got him cleaner than Amber could do without any water in the porta-potty, Kathy showed him the special picnic basket pin Growl got for coming to the picnic, and she and Colin told him about the last songs, and he and Colin talked about the knight fighting they were going to see. And all Benji could think about was getting on with this day (there were horses near here, and he was a sheriff!).

But the first thing his mama wanted to do was get his face painted like the puppy dog he really was. Colin had to go and find his daddy, but the lady that didn’t have a kid walked with Benji, Kathy and their mama back towards the fairgrounds. She said, "Do you remember me, Benji? It’s been a long time."

His mama said, "You remember Ms Vanderjung, don’t you, puppy?"

Benji hadn’t recognized her, he had only seen her a few times and that was months ago and that seemed like a very long, long time to him now. He remembered that she was a school lady, but not a teacher, teachers were nice, but the kind of school lady you saw when there was a problem or you were in trouble. Instead of nodding, he put his arms in the air in front of his mama, in the universal signal for ’Pick me up’.

The school lady said, "Well, I certainly remember you, Benji. I’ve been keeping tabs on you, and all your teachers keep telling me what a hard worker you are!"

Benji had his head on his mama’s shoulder only peeking at the woman, because this was a powerful person he was talking to, but he had a big smile around the thumb he had in his mouth too; he wanted to be a hard worker.

"But you’re mama tells me you’ve had a hard time with reading lately, sweetie."

Benji nodded. The books he got at school kept getting harder and harder.

Ms Vanderjung said, "From what your mommy has told me about it, Benji, it might be your eyes that are having the problem. I told your mommy about a special eye doctor, but until you see her, I think you should just not try to read at all, OK?"

"I not gotta grow new eyeballs, like with teeths, am I?"

"No, sweetheart. Nothing like that," the lady said.

"Puppy, Ms Vanderjung thinks that the size changes have made your eyes change shape a little bit and, when you get real big again, they will go back to the right shape and you won’t have any reading problems. But we have to see the doctor in a few weeks. OK?"

Benji looked right at Ms Vanderjung and said, "I only got three more shots. Then get all big again."

"That’s right," the lady said smiling at him, "won’t be very long now."

"I never cried."

"Really! You must be very strong! But it’s OK to cry sometimes. So no reading for a little while, alright, Benji? Not until those eyeballs are ready. And don’t make the teachers give you too much work either. It’s May now, and they don’t like to have lots of papers to grade this time of year."

"’K," Benji said.

Kathy had been listening to all this serious talk as they walked towards the fair grounds, and she said, "I’ll read to you, Ben-ben."

Benji still thought of Kathy as his baby sister and knew that the idea of her reading to him should offend him, but it didn’t; it sounded like a real nice thing to do.

Kathy said, "Let’s go see if they’ll let us try this rope thing. Can we, Mama? Will you hold my hat?"

Benji was glad to get away from the school lady and serious talk too, and he found out that he could do the rope thing (a web of ropes and sticks with pivot points along the center line) better that Kathy, and lots better than most of the real big kids there. He, and some of the spectators, didn’t realize this was another advantage to being small; he had to get far away from the center of the wed to make the pivots turn and dump him off, while big kids had to keep half their weight on each side of the middle of the web all the time.

After doing that a few times, to much applause which made him feel very shy and he would have run and hidden without Kathy’s encouragement, he was ready for the next really important thing, knight fighting! But his mama told him that didn’t start until after lunch and his nap.

Benji said, "Nap! I don’t gotta take naps!"

"Well, sometimes puppies do, so we will see. Let’s say rest time, like you do at school, but if you fall asleep that will be OK, because you’re pretending to be a little boy all day long, right?"

"Rest. Not very long."

"We’ll see how tired you are this afternoon, little puppy dog."

Benji didn’t get to argue very much, because this time he did notice the fire breathing wizard, and chainsaw juggling jester, and sword swallowers, and magicians with real rabbits, as he walked up the park path. Then they got to the face painters, and he was turned into The Puppy Knight, and Kathy had violets put on her cheeks.

His daddy took him to the talk about falconry, and he got to get real close to the birds, but didn’t even get to pet them, and his daddy said he might be able to have one of his own when he got big again.

When they found his mama and Kathy, Kathy was riding in a stroller that his mama had borrowed from a booth, and that looked like a carriage. Kathy’s legs were sticking out way over the sides, and Benji laughed at her and said, "Get out. I show you how to ride in it." Benji fit in it just fine, and he knew that he could do it better only because he was all shrunken, but it was just one more good thing about having to pretend to be a little boy.

Then they saw a real funny puppet show where the puppets hit each other a lot, and then the guy that blew real glass bubbles with his own mouth, and Kathy got to get a pink one to keep. And there were toy selling guys giving demonstrations of hoops and spinning plates on sticks and Benji got a new wooden toy that had a man that did flips when you squeezed the sticks.

When they saw Colin and his mama and daddy, Colin was in a carriage stroller too, and they had a race where they whipped their houses -- their mamas wouldn’t really run but just strolled along pushing the strollers the regular speed, but that didn’t really matter. He spotted Danny with a bunch of boys and he got to show off on the rope crawl thing, and they were really impressed!

Then came lunch, King Ericward’s Gold Medallions, which tasted a lot like frozen chicken nuggets. After that came his fight with his mama.

He did not see why she thought he needed rest time. He wasn’t really a little boy! And Kathy got to learn to do Morris dancing with Danielle and Monique, and he wanted to too (whatever that was), and Vicky and his daddy were going to see parts of old time plays, and he wasn’t getting too, and he wanted to go see the big birds again, and the fire breathing guy, and he didn’t want to have a rest, he wanted to see the knight fights and ride horses, and he was a big boy, and puppets hitting, and he didn’t want to be little any more, because it was all unfair, and he wanted to do stuff with his daddy, not rest, ever, not.

And when Vicky caught up to them with the blanket and books she had gotten from the car, his mama made Vicky push the stroller, and she picked him up. And he didn’t mind being carried, but he did keep telling her that he wasn’t tired at all and wanted to do lots of things and not rest, and he wasn’t little at all, but even his tears were futile, because she just kept walking towards the copse near the playscape where she planned to have the rest time.

But his mama agreed with him about all he could be doing. She kept saying, "That’s right ... uh-huh ... Yes, you could," to everything Benji said, and she reached under his shirt with its sterling silver plastic plate armor and rubbed his back, and then she started humming between each of her interjections of agreement. She hummed "Green Sleeves", which seemed fitting, but Vicky started singing "What Child is This" though it was nowhere near Christmas time. But that didn’t bother Benji; he finally yawned and sighed and fell fast asleep in his mama’s arms, because they had completely and remorselessly taken advantage of his little body, and the facts that he was absolutely exhausted and totally wired, and had unfairly not even argued with him.

It took less than an hour of sleep to turn Benji into a boy who didn’t mind pretending to be a little boy again. He sat up and, like the good knight he was, did an immediate three hundred and sixty degree scan of his environs. There were many children using the grove for rest times, and he saw Colin sound asleep only a few feet from him with his tunic still on but his silver pants off (That made Benji feel validated, because his pants were still on him, though his armor plated top had been taken off, and Colin’s pull-ups showed while Benji’s were hidden, and because Colin took his rest period with the older kids that took a rest period at school, and he, like Benji so far, hardly ever fell asleep there.)

The next thing he saw as he looked around was a little, tiny girl being held with her head towards her mama’s chest, and her mama had her shirt unbuttoned and opened. Then, at last, he saw his own mama sitting next to that little girl and her mama, and Benji smiled, and he got a big smile back.

He crept over to his mama’s lap, and he lay in it almost the same way the little girl was lying in her mama’s, except he was looking up and she was facing inwards. His mama put a finger to her lips and whispered, "Shssss, whisper. Cyndi doesn’t like to be distracted while she eats like this, and she hasn’t even started her nap yet."

Benji held his finger up to his own lips (and his own passie which was still in his lips) and said, "Is that the Cyndi that got the shrinking shots?"

"Uh-huh. Her mama makes special milk for only her."

Benji tilted his head to get a look at her eating special milk, but something more important was on his mind, and, because he didn’t mind pretending to be a little boy just now, he didn’t mind saying it out loud. "I got to go potties; poops." This was a concern for him because of the morning’s events and the stinkiness of the porta-potties.

But his mama wasn’t worried at all. She said, "We thought that might happen, puppy (regular little boys being somewhat predictable), and Angela, that’s Cyndi’s mama, and I are all ready for you. She and Cindi go jogging a lot, and they have this that Cyndi sometimes uses on their runs."

The ’this’ was a small, plastic, blow-up inner tube with a small garbage bag over it, which his mama pulled from under a high-tech stroller with big wheels.

Benji said, "But where I go?"

His mama already had his pants and his pullups pulled down and was pulling his feet out of them too, so she didn’t need to answer, but she said, "You know Growl wouldn’t worry about going in the woods, would he? And you’re so good at pretending to be a good little boy, I bet you can pretend to be a good bear and go right here in the woods too."

And he did. And he growled as he went, and he laughed too, because he was outside with nothing on and going poop right in the woods with people there. But his poops smelled worse because it didn’t have any water to land in, and he pinched his nose when he said, "I done. What wipe with?"

His mama stood him up and used some baby wipes that Mrs. Cyndi’s Mama had given her and wiped his bottom, and Benji did so well at pretending to be a little boy that none of the other mamas or daddies or kids having rest time in the woods thought it was unusual.

While Benji was getting cleaned, Cyndi finished her lunch and said, "Hi! You Benji. Wemember me?"

"Uh-huh," Benji said. And the little girl came over and hugged him, and Benji blushed and smiled and laughed and hugged back. He liked her. She had looked cute while drinking her mama’s special milk.

Cyndi said, "I saw. You use’ my go-go potty and made it stinky."

Benji didn’t have an answer for that, but he said, "You done with shots? You getting big again now?"

It was Cyndi’s mommy that said, "She’s all done with those shots, sweetie, and getting so big so fast I can’t keep track."

Cyndi said, "Yeah. Day hurt. Gotta get big now."

And as she said that, her mama had put her on her back and removed her panties and started putting cream on her bottom and her front parts and said, "You are, and all too soon, pumpkin, but we need to get your nap diaper on you so you can get to sleep. Don’t be a wiggle worm, sweetcake."

Cyndi said, "I being!" And she wiggled real fast, and then she giggled real soft, but then she got still and stuck her legs up into the air.

Benji was very happy to hear that Cyndi had already started getting bigger and was growing very fast, though she still seemed real small, and she still didn’t seem to have to pretend to be little, the way he did all the time. He crawled across the blanket and gave Cyndi a good night, or good nap, kiss. Then his mama dressed him, and he got into his carriage stroller and rolled off to see the puppets again, or the big birds, and soon - soon! - the knights fighting on horses. And they might let him try because he was a knight, and he was a sheriff too!