Post by Emma “Emmz” Squalor on Mar 28, 2009 14:39:46 GMT -5
Author’s Disclaimer: I do not own A Series of Unfortunate Events or any of its characters or places. They belong to Lemony Snicket a.k.a. Daniel Handler.
Rating: G
Genre: General
Story-Type: One-Shot
Summary: Jerome Squalor and Esmé Salinger get to know each other over a hole, a pair of shovels, and a very potent flower.
Author’s Note: Yet another fic that originated from a conversation Jenny and I recently had. Enjoy.
Jerome Squalor was tentative when his mother had announced that they would be spending the afternoon in the park. For one thing, the six-year-old abhorred the idea of getting dirty, not to mention he was easily startled. The park would surely be filled with bugs that would crawl on him, and children who would find it indispensable to make a shrill racket. Jerome much preferred spending the afternoon in his room, playing with his dolls and looking through his picture books.
For a boy of six, he was incredibly shy and favored girls over boys any day of the week. He detested loud, sudden noises, but wouldn’t hesitate to bawl at the top of his lungs every time he saw or heard something that frightened him. Even though he was still a child, he was fully aware that his father was ashamed of him and that Maxwell Squalor secretly wished that Jerome had been born a girl. Jerome knew that playing with dolls and surrounding himself with girls were not things that a boy usually did. He knew that pleasing his parents was essential, but how was he supposed to do that when it meant sacrificing his own happiness?
Jerome was big for his age, and was often mistaken by strangers for seven or eight. His cheeks were almost always sore from being continuously pinched by people who marveled at how round and fat they were. Poor Jerome hated having his face squeezed even more than he hated being called “Jerry”, but was far too passive to speak up about either one.
Jerome looked down at Andrew, his new baby brother, who was sleeping peacefully in the stroller that Cora Squalor was pushing. The youngest Squalor was just one month old, and already his mother had made it quite clear that she preferred him over their eldest one. The morning Maxwell had taken Jerome to visit his mother and baby brother in the hospital, Cora had gone on and on about the simplicity of her labor. Because Jerome had weighed just slightly over ten pounds at the time of his birth, it had been necessary for Cora to undergo a cesarean. From what Jerome had been told, his mother now bore an unsightly scar where the incision had been made to deliver him.
Jerome’s eyes drifted to the paved sidewalk, and he barely avoided stumbling over a crack. Someone in his kindergarten class had told him that if he stepped on one, then his mother would break her back. Cora already resented him for the pain he had caused her during his birth, and he hated to think what her reaction might be if he hurt her again; intentional or not.
“Jerome,” Cora said forcefully. “Stop dragging your feet and keep up. We’re almost there.”
“But Mama,” Jerome answered. “I was onwy twying to—”
“I don’t want your excuses, Jerome. I get enough of those from your father every time I call his office to ask when he’ll be home for dinner.”
Jerome couldn’t help but feel that this was just his mother’s way of blaming him for his father’s frequent absences from their lives. He had recently overheard someone on the television say that all people were born bad, and Jerome couldn’t help believing that this must be true of him. He was a bad boy for causing his mother pain, and for making his father frown every time the little boy burst into tears.
The Squalors soon arrived at the park, and Cora wheeled the stroller over to a small wooden picnic table. Jerome trotted after her, and stood watching while she took Andrew out of his stroller. As their mother cradled the infant in her arms, Jerome merely chose to stand before them, waiting to receive instructions from his mother.
“I’ve brought you here today in the hope that you’ll make some new friends,” Cora said. “Honestly. You spend far too much time up in that room playing with your— never mind. Look around you at all of these other children. Surely if you wander around for a bit, one of them is bound to ask you to join in a game of jacks or hopscotch.”
“But I’m no good at jacks,” Jerome protested. “And wheneva I pway hopscotch, I aw-ways faw down.”
Cora sighed, and then glared at her eldest son right before the infant in her arms began to cry. Rather than force Jerome into socializing with the other children like her husband would have done, she went about calming little Andrew. Jerome took this as a sign that his presence was no longer wanted, and turned nervously to face the playground equipment.
As he strode along the bright green grass, he made sure to evade the large, swirly slide at all costs. Maxwell had literally forced Jerome to climb a similar one when he was three. But when he’d reached the top and looked down, Jerome had become so frightened that he’d wet his pants. The children behind him had roared with laughter, and as soon as he’d gotten home he had received a painful spanking from his father.
The swing-set was most certainly another thing for Jerome to avoid, as he had been accidentally thrown from one at the age of four by his nursery school teacher. He was so traumatized by the event that he had refused to set foot on a swing ever again, and would whimper every time he passed one.
He didn’t give a single solitary thought to the monkey bars, which he had never been able to master without the assistance of an adult. Firstly, the monkey bars were far too high off the ground in order for him to feel completely safe. Secondly, his weight (which was more than most children his age) made it difficult to move swiftly from one bar to the next. He usually ended up getting stuck somewhere in the middle, and the only way for him to get back down was to cry for one of his parents to come and help him.
The only piece of equipment on the playground that appeared to be even remotely safe was the sandbox. Sitting in it was a small girl around four years old, with little corkscrew curls the color of a midnight sky. She was wearing a white sundress with a yellow floral pattern, and black Mary-Jane’s over a pair of lacey white socks. The girl was using a bright pink plastic shovel to dig a hole in the sand, some of which she had already dumped into her lap.
Normally, Jerome would have preferred not to participate in an activity that meant he would have to get dirty. However, he sensed his mother watching him from the picnic table, and that made him realize he had best find some means of occupying himself. The last thing he wanted was for his mother to report to his father about how their eldest son had spent an hour at the park. If Maxwell discovered that Jerome had watched the other children engage in activity while he merely occupied a place on the sidelines, then for sure it would mean another spanking.
Taking a deep breath, Jerome approached the sandbox gingerly. He had no idea how the girl would feel about having someone else join her, as she seemed to be so closely focused on the task at hand. What if she found him irritating and told him to go away?
“Hewwo,” Jerome said, and felt his cheeks grow hot with tension. “Is it O.K. if I pway, too?”
The girl raised her head, and he was shocked by how strikingly pretty she was. Her eyes were the most startling shade of blue he had ever seen, and she had a tiny heart-shaped birthmark on the lower right side of her face.
“I’m not playing,” the girl answered matter-of-factly. “I’m digging a hole to China.”
Jerome supposed this was better than being told to go away, and he waited patiently for the girl to continue.
“You can sit down, you know.”
Jerome nodded, and plopped himself obediently down on the edge of the sandbox beside the girl.
“Do you wanna help me dig?” she asked.
Jerome shook his head again. “I guess so,” he replied. “But I don’t have a shovo.”
The girl smiled, and then reached for a green plastic bucket that was sitting beside her in the sandbox. She slipped her hand inside the bucket and produced a second shovel— this one being a bright shade of orange. “Here you go,” she said, and handed the shovel to Jerome.
As he accepted the item from the girl, he smiled and felt his face go red. He was more accustomed to being around girls than boys, but there was something about this particular girl who made him feel— well, funny. It was very similar to the feeling that overcame him whenever he suspected someone was going to pinch his cheeks, and he sincerely hoped the girl wasn’t going to do that. Usually, it was only adults who liked to pinch his cheeks, but he supposed he could never be too sure.
“I’m Esmé,” the girl said. “Esmé Gigi Genevieve Salinger. Who’re you?”
“Jewome,” Jerome answered, as he concentrated on helping to expand the hole. “Jewome David Squawa.”
Esmé smiled. “You remind me of the hamster we have at school. His cheeks get all fat like yours every time he stuffs food into his mouth. You aren’t hiding anything in your cheeks, are you?”
Of course, it was meant to be a term of endearment. And of course, Jerome blushed even brighter before looking away in embarrassment. Every time he turned his face to the side, his mouth— which was already quite tiny —would completely disappear between his two chubby cheeks.
“Are you here with your mommy,” Esmé asked, “or your daddy?”
“My mama,” replied Jerome. He set the shovel down, and pointed a few yards back to the table at which Cora was seated with Andrew. “She’s over dare with my bwudda.”
Esmé glanced over her shoulder and nodded in response. “Oh, I see ‘em.” She then lifted her arm, and pointed to a second picnic table that was close by. Seated at it was a man who was slightly younger than Maxwell Squalor, reading a newspaper. “I came here with my daddy,” Esmé said. “That’s him sitting over there.”
At the sound of Esmé’s voice, the man looked up from his paper and smiled at the two children. Jerome took notice of the man’s kind (and slightly goofy) smile, and knew at once how lucky Esmé must have been. Jerome wondered if she was an only child, or if she had a sibling like he did— if so, then perhaps she had more than one.
“Do you have any bwuddas or sistas?” he asked.
Esmé shook her head as she tilted the shovel downward so that the sand spilled into her lap. “No,” she replied. “It’s just me and my parents. We have a cat, though.”
“I don’t have any aminals. My mama says dare too much twouble. But I think I’d wather have a cat den a bwudda.”
“Really? I’d love to have a little brother or sister. That way, I’d always have somebody to play with. I mean, have you ever tried to play dress-up with a cat? It’s dangerous.”
Before Jerome could answer, Esmé held out her freehand. As he peered down, he saw that it was lined with pinkish scratches that appeared to be a day or two old.
“That’s what I got for trying to put my doll’s dress over Dottie’s head,” Esmé explained. “I guess there’s a reason why they don’t make clothes for cats.”
Jerome was just about to ask Esmé what sort of dolls she enjoyed playing with, when she suddenly did something he had only half-expected. Setting her shovel down, she stretched her hands out toward him and very gently squeezed his cheeks. It didn’t annoy him the way it did when an adult did it, and his heartbeat intensified as he stared back at her.
“I like you,” Esmé said softly, her small hands gently cupping his round face. “You know?”
Her words were enough to make him start blushing all over again. He dropped his shovel into the hole they’d been digging together, before reaching up to press her hands a little more firmly to his face.
“I wike you, too,” Jerome replied. As he said it, he couldn’t help himself from lowering his green eyes shyly to his lap.
“We don’t have to finishing digging our hole to China today,” Esmé told him. “We could stop for a while and go for a walk around the park.”
Still holding Esmé’s hands to his face, Jerome turned his head in the direction of his mother and brother. Cora was now holding Andrew in one arm while she gave him his bottle, and Jerome wondered if she had forgotten about her eldest son. It wasn’t as if it mattered anyway, as Jerome was much more interested in spending the remainder of the hour with Esmé.
“O.K.,” he said, and her hands slid away from his cheeks as he stood up. He offered her his hand, and smiled as she accepted it.
As Esmé got to her feet, Jerome was amazed to see just how petite she was. The fact that she was only four years old made him wary of all the dangers lurking around that might threaten her, which caused him to feel fiercely protective over her.
“Where would you wike to walk to first?” Jerome asked, as he and Esmé stepped out of the sandbox together.
“I saw some really pretty flowers over by the slide,” she said. “Do you wanna come with me and pick some?”
Jerome was optimistic that Esmé wasn’t going to ask him to go down the slide with her as well. He had grown quite fond of her within the brief time they’d known each other, and he would hate to modify her feelings for him by doing something babyish like wetting his pants.
Their hands still intertwined, Jerome led Esmé over to her desired destination. Not far from the slide was a place in which a large cluster of bright blue flowers was blooming. Their color was nearly identical to Esmé’s own bright blue eyes, which became obvious to Jerome after he had plucked a flower and was holding it out to her.
Esmé took the flower from him and lifted it up to sniff. No sooner had she inhaled its sweetly scented perfume then did she begin to sneeze. She did so six times in a row, the last sneeze sending her collapsing to her rear on the ground.
Terrified of what he had done— and even more of the idea that Esmé now hated him —Jerome began to cry. His father had been telling him for the last two years that he not only cried too much for someone his age, but for a boy. Jerome had always been an insufferably sensitive child, and the slightest upset was known to send him spiraling down into a bawling frenzy.
And so, he did the only thing he thought might help.
He ran away.
Because running had never been Jerome’s strong point (he had a tendency to tire easily and often tripped), he settled for crawling underneath the slide. He assumed that if Esmé wanted to argue with him, then she wouldn’t be able to do so if she couldn’t find him.
Jerome had just barely managed to get his tears under control, when the sound of gravel crunching underneath someone else’s feet captured his attention. Apparently, he hadn’t hidden himself as well as he’d thought. Drawing his hands away from his face only slightly, he looked up.
“Hi,” Esmé said in a stuffy voice. She was still clutching the flower Jerome had given her, while she used her other hand to rub forcibly at her nose. Her eyes were slightly swollen so that it looked as though she’d been crying, though they both knew she hadn’t. Even more shocking was the fact that she was smiling, which in turn caused the corners of Jerome’s mouth to turn up just a little. “You ran off before I had a chance to say thank you.”
“But I thought you were mad at me,” Jerome confirmed. “After I made you—”
Esmé had just enough time to shake her head in protest before she sneezed into the hand she’d been using to rub her nose. Jerome hadn’t noticed earlier, but Esmé’s sneezes were unlike anything he’d ever heard before. He didn’t suppose they could really be classified as sneezes, since their sound was more like that of a mouse’s squeaks. Just hearing them was enough to set the young boy’s heart beating at a rapid pace, and he scrambled to his feet to wrap his arms securely around the girl as she squeaked again.
Esmé sneezed a total of five times in Jerome’s arms, and every one caused his smile to deepen a bit more. She didn’t seem to mind the way her tiny body shuddered with every high-pitched sneeze, and he felt her arms curl securely around his waist just as the last one hit her.
“It’s always the blue ones that make me squeak,” Esmé explained, once her sneezing fit had dwindled. “But they’re so pretty and smell so sweet, that it’s worth it.”
“Esmé, it’s time for us to be heading home now.”
The voice forced Esmé to lift her head from its place on Jerome’s shoulder, and the two children could see Mr. Salinger watching them from the picnic table. “I guess this means it’s time for me to go,” Esmé said, a strong hint of regret in her voice
With great reluctance, Jerome loosened his arms from around her. He allowed them to fall to his sides, all the while being sure not to take his eyes off the girl’s sweet face. “Woo you be back tomowwow?” he asked.
Esmé nodded enthusiastically. “I will,” she swore. “I promise. Maybe tomorrow, we can build a sandcastle?”
“O.K.”
Esmé giggled, and then stretched as far to Jerome’s height as she possibly could on her tiptoes. It was there, beneath the slide of the public playground, where she placed a kiss on his plump cheek. His face instantly reddened, and his mind went blank as he touched his hand to the area her lips had been.
By the time Jerome found the motivation to look around, he was disappointed to find that both Esmé and her father seemed to have departed. When Jerome looked down at the ground, he saw that Esmé had left behind the blue flower he had given her. He decided to presume that she’d only dropped it, and that her father hadn’t forced her to discard it. Jerome bent down to pick up the flower, and tucked it into the buttonhole of his jacket the way he’d seen his father do on so many occasions.
Displaying a broad smile of confidence, Jerome stepped out from underneath the slide. Gripping the railing on each side of the attached steps, he put his right foot ahead of him, followed by his left, and then so on until he had reached the top.
Feeling his poise steadily augmenting, Jerome David Squalor positioned himself at the crest of the slide and then edged bravely forward.
He hoped Esmé was watching.
Rating: G
Genre: General
Story-Type: One-Shot
Summary: Jerome Squalor and Esmé Salinger get to know each other over a hole, a pair of shovels, and a very potent flower.
Author’s Note: Yet another fic that originated from a conversation Jenny and I recently had. Enjoy.
***
Jerome Squalor was tentative when his mother had announced that they would be spending the afternoon in the park. For one thing, the six-year-old abhorred the idea of getting dirty, not to mention he was easily startled. The park would surely be filled with bugs that would crawl on him, and children who would find it indispensable to make a shrill racket. Jerome much preferred spending the afternoon in his room, playing with his dolls and looking through his picture books.
For a boy of six, he was incredibly shy and favored girls over boys any day of the week. He detested loud, sudden noises, but wouldn’t hesitate to bawl at the top of his lungs every time he saw or heard something that frightened him. Even though he was still a child, he was fully aware that his father was ashamed of him and that Maxwell Squalor secretly wished that Jerome had been born a girl. Jerome knew that playing with dolls and surrounding himself with girls were not things that a boy usually did. He knew that pleasing his parents was essential, but how was he supposed to do that when it meant sacrificing his own happiness?
Jerome was big for his age, and was often mistaken by strangers for seven or eight. His cheeks were almost always sore from being continuously pinched by people who marveled at how round and fat they were. Poor Jerome hated having his face squeezed even more than he hated being called “Jerry”, but was far too passive to speak up about either one.
Jerome looked down at Andrew, his new baby brother, who was sleeping peacefully in the stroller that Cora Squalor was pushing. The youngest Squalor was just one month old, and already his mother had made it quite clear that she preferred him over their eldest one. The morning Maxwell had taken Jerome to visit his mother and baby brother in the hospital, Cora had gone on and on about the simplicity of her labor. Because Jerome had weighed just slightly over ten pounds at the time of his birth, it had been necessary for Cora to undergo a cesarean. From what Jerome had been told, his mother now bore an unsightly scar where the incision had been made to deliver him.
Jerome’s eyes drifted to the paved sidewalk, and he barely avoided stumbling over a crack. Someone in his kindergarten class had told him that if he stepped on one, then his mother would break her back. Cora already resented him for the pain he had caused her during his birth, and he hated to think what her reaction might be if he hurt her again; intentional or not.
“Jerome,” Cora said forcefully. “Stop dragging your feet and keep up. We’re almost there.”
“But Mama,” Jerome answered. “I was onwy twying to—”
“I don’t want your excuses, Jerome. I get enough of those from your father every time I call his office to ask when he’ll be home for dinner.”
Jerome couldn’t help but feel that this was just his mother’s way of blaming him for his father’s frequent absences from their lives. He had recently overheard someone on the television say that all people were born bad, and Jerome couldn’t help believing that this must be true of him. He was a bad boy for causing his mother pain, and for making his father frown every time the little boy burst into tears.
The Squalors soon arrived at the park, and Cora wheeled the stroller over to a small wooden picnic table. Jerome trotted after her, and stood watching while she took Andrew out of his stroller. As their mother cradled the infant in her arms, Jerome merely chose to stand before them, waiting to receive instructions from his mother.
“I’ve brought you here today in the hope that you’ll make some new friends,” Cora said. “Honestly. You spend far too much time up in that room playing with your— never mind. Look around you at all of these other children. Surely if you wander around for a bit, one of them is bound to ask you to join in a game of jacks or hopscotch.”
“But I’m no good at jacks,” Jerome protested. “And wheneva I pway hopscotch, I aw-ways faw down.”
Cora sighed, and then glared at her eldest son right before the infant in her arms began to cry. Rather than force Jerome into socializing with the other children like her husband would have done, she went about calming little Andrew. Jerome took this as a sign that his presence was no longer wanted, and turned nervously to face the playground equipment.
As he strode along the bright green grass, he made sure to evade the large, swirly slide at all costs. Maxwell had literally forced Jerome to climb a similar one when he was three. But when he’d reached the top and looked down, Jerome had become so frightened that he’d wet his pants. The children behind him had roared with laughter, and as soon as he’d gotten home he had received a painful spanking from his father.
The swing-set was most certainly another thing for Jerome to avoid, as he had been accidentally thrown from one at the age of four by his nursery school teacher. He was so traumatized by the event that he had refused to set foot on a swing ever again, and would whimper every time he passed one.
He didn’t give a single solitary thought to the monkey bars, which he had never been able to master without the assistance of an adult. Firstly, the monkey bars were far too high off the ground in order for him to feel completely safe. Secondly, his weight (which was more than most children his age) made it difficult to move swiftly from one bar to the next. He usually ended up getting stuck somewhere in the middle, and the only way for him to get back down was to cry for one of his parents to come and help him.
The only piece of equipment on the playground that appeared to be even remotely safe was the sandbox. Sitting in it was a small girl around four years old, with little corkscrew curls the color of a midnight sky. She was wearing a white sundress with a yellow floral pattern, and black Mary-Jane’s over a pair of lacey white socks. The girl was using a bright pink plastic shovel to dig a hole in the sand, some of which she had already dumped into her lap.
Normally, Jerome would have preferred not to participate in an activity that meant he would have to get dirty. However, he sensed his mother watching him from the picnic table, and that made him realize he had best find some means of occupying himself. The last thing he wanted was for his mother to report to his father about how their eldest son had spent an hour at the park. If Maxwell discovered that Jerome had watched the other children engage in activity while he merely occupied a place on the sidelines, then for sure it would mean another spanking.
Taking a deep breath, Jerome approached the sandbox gingerly. He had no idea how the girl would feel about having someone else join her, as she seemed to be so closely focused on the task at hand. What if she found him irritating and told him to go away?
“Hewwo,” Jerome said, and felt his cheeks grow hot with tension. “Is it O.K. if I pway, too?”
The girl raised her head, and he was shocked by how strikingly pretty she was. Her eyes were the most startling shade of blue he had ever seen, and she had a tiny heart-shaped birthmark on the lower right side of her face.
“I’m not playing,” the girl answered matter-of-factly. “I’m digging a hole to China.”
Jerome supposed this was better than being told to go away, and he waited patiently for the girl to continue.
“You can sit down, you know.”
Jerome nodded, and plopped himself obediently down on the edge of the sandbox beside the girl.
“Do you wanna help me dig?” she asked.
Jerome shook his head again. “I guess so,” he replied. “But I don’t have a shovo.”
The girl smiled, and then reached for a green plastic bucket that was sitting beside her in the sandbox. She slipped her hand inside the bucket and produced a second shovel— this one being a bright shade of orange. “Here you go,” she said, and handed the shovel to Jerome.
As he accepted the item from the girl, he smiled and felt his face go red. He was more accustomed to being around girls than boys, but there was something about this particular girl who made him feel— well, funny. It was very similar to the feeling that overcame him whenever he suspected someone was going to pinch his cheeks, and he sincerely hoped the girl wasn’t going to do that. Usually, it was only adults who liked to pinch his cheeks, but he supposed he could never be too sure.
“I’m Esmé,” the girl said. “Esmé Gigi Genevieve Salinger. Who’re you?”
“Jewome,” Jerome answered, as he concentrated on helping to expand the hole. “Jewome David Squawa.”
Esmé smiled. “You remind me of the hamster we have at school. His cheeks get all fat like yours every time he stuffs food into his mouth. You aren’t hiding anything in your cheeks, are you?”
Of course, it was meant to be a term of endearment. And of course, Jerome blushed even brighter before looking away in embarrassment. Every time he turned his face to the side, his mouth— which was already quite tiny —would completely disappear between his two chubby cheeks.
“Are you here with your mommy,” Esmé asked, “or your daddy?”
“My mama,” replied Jerome. He set the shovel down, and pointed a few yards back to the table at which Cora was seated with Andrew. “She’s over dare with my bwudda.”
Esmé glanced over her shoulder and nodded in response. “Oh, I see ‘em.” She then lifted her arm, and pointed to a second picnic table that was close by. Seated at it was a man who was slightly younger than Maxwell Squalor, reading a newspaper. “I came here with my daddy,” Esmé said. “That’s him sitting over there.”
At the sound of Esmé’s voice, the man looked up from his paper and smiled at the two children. Jerome took notice of the man’s kind (and slightly goofy) smile, and knew at once how lucky Esmé must have been. Jerome wondered if she was an only child, or if she had a sibling like he did— if so, then perhaps she had more than one.
“Do you have any bwuddas or sistas?” he asked.
Esmé shook her head as she tilted the shovel downward so that the sand spilled into her lap. “No,” she replied. “It’s just me and my parents. We have a cat, though.”
“I don’t have any aminals. My mama says dare too much twouble. But I think I’d wather have a cat den a bwudda.”
“Really? I’d love to have a little brother or sister. That way, I’d always have somebody to play with. I mean, have you ever tried to play dress-up with a cat? It’s dangerous.”
Before Jerome could answer, Esmé held out her freehand. As he peered down, he saw that it was lined with pinkish scratches that appeared to be a day or two old.
“That’s what I got for trying to put my doll’s dress over Dottie’s head,” Esmé explained. “I guess there’s a reason why they don’t make clothes for cats.”
Jerome was just about to ask Esmé what sort of dolls she enjoyed playing with, when she suddenly did something he had only half-expected. Setting her shovel down, she stretched her hands out toward him and very gently squeezed his cheeks. It didn’t annoy him the way it did when an adult did it, and his heartbeat intensified as he stared back at her.
“I like you,” Esmé said softly, her small hands gently cupping his round face. “You know?”
Her words were enough to make him start blushing all over again. He dropped his shovel into the hole they’d been digging together, before reaching up to press her hands a little more firmly to his face.
“I wike you, too,” Jerome replied. As he said it, he couldn’t help himself from lowering his green eyes shyly to his lap.
“We don’t have to finishing digging our hole to China today,” Esmé told him. “We could stop for a while and go for a walk around the park.”
Still holding Esmé’s hands to his face, Jerome turned his head in the direction of his mother and brother. Cora was now holding Andrew in one arm while she gave him his bottle, and Jerome wondered if she had forgotten about her eldest son. It wasn’t as if it mattered anyway, as Jerome was much more interested in spending the remainder of the hour with Esmé.
“O.K.,” he said, and her hands slid away from his cheeks as he stood up. He offered her his hand, and smiled as she accepted it.
As Esmé got to her feet, Jerome was amazed to see just how petite she was. The fact that she was only four years old made him wary of all the dangers lurking around that might threaten her, which caused him to feel fiercely protective over her.
“Where would you wike to walk to first?” Jerome asked, as he and Esmé stepped out of the sandbox together.
“I saw some really pretty flowers over by the slide,” she said. “Do you wanna come with me and pick some?”
Jerome was optimistic that Esmé wasn’t going to ask him to go down the slide with her as well. He had grown quite fond of her within the brief time they’d known each other, and he would hate to modify her feelings for him by doing something babyish like wetting his pants.
Their hands still intertwined, Jerome led Esmé over to her desired destination. Not far from the slide was a place in which a large cluster of bright blue flowers was blooming. Their color was nearly identical to Esmé’s own bright blue eyes, which became obvious to Jerome after he had plucked a flower and was holding it out to her.
Esmé took the flower from him and lifted it up to sniff. No sooner had she inhaled its sweetly scented perfume then did she begin to sneeze. She did so six times in a row, the last sneeze sending her collapsing to her rear on the ground.
Terrified of what he had done— and even more of the idea that Esmé now hated him —Jerome began to cry. His father had been telling him for the last two years that he not only cried too much for someone his age, but for a boy. Jerome had always been an insufferably sensitive child, and the slightest upset was known to send him spiraling down into a bawling frenzy.
And so, he did the only thing he thought might help.
He ran away.
Because running had never been Jerome’s strong point (he had a tendency to tire easily and often tripped), he settled for crawling underneath the slide. He assumed that if Esmé wanted to argue with him, then she wouldn’t be able to do so if she couldn’t find him.
Jerome had just barely managed to get his tears under control, when the sound of gravel crunching underneath someone else’s feet captured his attention. Apparently, he hadn’t hidden himself as well as he’d thought. Drawing his hands away from his face only slightly, he looked up.
“Hi,” Esmé said in a stuffy voice. She was still clutching the flower Jerome had given her, while she used her other hand to rub forcibly at her nose. Her eyes were slightly swollen so that it looked as though she’d been crying, though they both knew she hadn’t. Even more shocking was the fact that she was smiling, which in turn caused the corners of Jerome’s mouth to turn up just a little. “You ran off before I had a chance to say thank you.”
“But I thought you were mad at me,” Jerome confirmed. “After I made you—”
Esmé had just enough time to shake her head in protest before she sneezed into the hand she’d been using to rub her nose. Jerome hadn’t noticed earlier, but Esmé’s sneezes were unlike anything he’d ever heard before. He didn’t suppose they could really be classified as sneezes, since their sound was more like that of a mouse’s squeaks. Just hearing them was enough to set the young boy’s heart beating at a rapid pace, and he scrambled to his feet to wrap his arms securely around the girl as she squeaked again.
Esmé sneezed a total of five times in Jerome’s arms, and every one caused his smile to deepen a bit more. She didn’t seem to mind the way her tiny body shuddered with every high-pitched sneeze, and he felt her arms curl securely around his waist just as the last one hit her.
“It’s always the blue ones that make me squeak,” Esmé explained, once her sneezing fit had dwindled. “But they’re so pretty and smell so sweet, that it’s worth it.”
“Esmé, it’s time for us to be heading home now.”
The voice forced Esmé to lift her head from its place on Jerome’s shoulder, and the two children could see Mr. Salinger watching them from the picnic table. “I guess this means it’s time for me to go,” Esmé said, a strong hint of regret in her voice
With great reluctance, Jerome loosened his arms from around her. He allowed them to fall to his sides, all the while being sure not to take his eyes off the girl’s sweet face. “Woo you be back tomowwow?” he asked.
Esmé nodded enthusiastically. “I will,” she swore. “I promise. Maybe tomorrow, we can build a sandcastle?”
“O.K.”
Esmé giggled, and then stretched as far to Jerome’s height as she possibly could on her tiptoes. It was there, beneath the slide of the public playground, where she placed a kiss on his plump cheek. His face instantly reddened, and his mind went blank as he touched his hand to the area her lips had been.
By the time Jerome found the motivation to look around, he was disappointed to find that both Esmé and her father seemed to have departed. When Jerome looked down at the ground, he saw that Esmé had left behind the blue flower he had given her. He decided to presume that she’d only dropped it, and that her father hadn’t forced her to discard it. Jerome bent down to pick up the flower, and tucked it into the buttonhole of his jacket the way he’d seen his father do on so many occasions.
Displaying a broad smile of confidence, Jerome stepped out from underneath the slide. Gripping the railing on each side of the attached steps, he put his right foot ahead of him, followed by his left, and then so on until he had reached the top.
Feeling his poise steadily augmenting, Jerome David Squalor positioned himself at the crest of the slide and then edged bravely forward.
He hoped Esmé was watching.
~The End~