“We’re drawing!” Humphrey exclaimed, breathlessly, as soon as he opened the door.
“Oh—goody!” I said. But Humphrey had already turned around to run toward the back of the house. It was Wednesday, my third week of babysitting.
“Come on!” he yelled over his shoulder.
It was raining hard. I left my umbrella outside, propped against the house next to the front door. My sneakers were wet; I slipped them off.
Humphrey and his mother were at the kitchen table, which was covered with pencils, crayons, colored pencils, erasers, rulers, a protractor, and sheets of copy paper. Humphrey was wearing his pajamas. Mrs. Danker was not.
“Do you like to draw?” Humphrey asked me.
“Sure,” I said, lowering myself into an empty chair.
“Here,” he said, pushing paper and pencils my way. “You can join our marathon.”
“Your marathon,” I said.
“Our marathon is about drawing twenty-six drawings,” Humphrey said. “They have to be good drawings. Not just scribble-scrabble.”
“Wow, twenty-six pictures,” I said.
“Drawings, not pictures,” Humphrey corrected.
“Got it,” I said.
“Humphrey, sweetheart, Mommy has to go now,” said Mrs. Danker. “I’ll see you a little later, okay?”
“Okay,” Humphrey said.
“Danielle, there’s a nice watercolor set and painting easel that Humphrey’s daddy set up in the basement,” Mrs. Danker said. “Maybe Humphrey will want to do some painting after he gets tired of drawing.”
“I never get tired of drawing!” Humphrey said.
The completed drawings were spread out on the kitchen table. They were all in pencil and colored pencil; no crayons. Some of them resembled—roughly—architectural or engineering drawings; others looked more like maps with lots of landmarks.
“Wow, Humpty Dumpty,” I said. “These look cool. Want to tell me about them?”
“Wait,” he murmured, barely audible, not looking up from the sheet in front of him. “I’m in the middle of a very important …” He trailed off, his pencil moving furiously.
After a minute or two, Humphrey sighed heavily. “It’s getting harder,” he said, still not looking up.
“Want to show me?” I asked.
“No! I want to crumple it up and throw it away. I want to throw them all away!” But he didn’t.
“Maybe you just need a break,” I said. “Every artist needs a break sometimes.”
“I’m not an artist,” Humphrey said. “These aren’t pictures. They’re drawings. They’re supposed to be for inventions. Inventions for space exploration.”
“Show me.”
He was too busy.
“Do the space-cars park outside?” Humphrey said, bending over the papers. “But then how do the people get inside? Or do they drive right into the space station, like into a garage? But then it has to be so giant. That’s not how it would be in real life. A space station can’t be so huge. But then why’d I draw all these space-cars driving there? There’s no room for them. My ideas aren’t good! I hate this!”
I had no experience with whining kids. A minute ago, he’d been all happy and excited: We’re drawing! I love this! Now, five minutes later—I hate this!
“But these are amazing, Humphrey,” I said.
“No, they’re not,” he said. “They’re stupid.” He laid his head down on the table.
“Only if it’s Opposite Day,” I said. “If you catch my drift.”
It was as if you could see the gears turning in Humphrey’s head. Opposite Day.
“Look at the sun shining out there!” he said, pointing toward the window.
“It’s a beautiful day for playing outdoors,” I said.
Pause. Gear shift. Then: “I got dressed as soon as I woke up this morning,” Humphrey said.
“And look at me,” I countered. “I walked out of my house still in my pajamas.”
“I had chicken for breakfast,” Humphrey said.
Hmm. “Is that an opposite? I mean, what would be the opposite of that?”
“I had chicken for dinner!” Humphrey said.
“Not—I had cereal for breakfast?”
Click, click went the gears. It was like looking through a kaleidoscope and seeing all the tiny shapes fall into place. Did all little kids have brains that were so—clickable?
Humphrey agreed to get dressed. Afterward, in the kitchen again, he gave me a tour of his drawings. They most certainly were not just pictures, I agreed. They were designs for a wondrous exploration.
“So, is the idea to build a city on the moon,” I asked, “or to build a space-station city?”
“Silly, that’s not the moon!” Humphrey said. “Do you think that looks like the moon?”
“Uh—yeah, no,” I said. Last week we’d agreed that “yeah, no” was the perfect thing to say when you didn’t know what to say.
“It’s Thrumble-Boo, silly!” Humphrey said.
The rain didn’t let up. After a while, when I could tell Humphrey was running out of steam, I suggested a nap.
“You know I don’t take naps,” Humphrey said after we climbed the stairs.
“How about breaking into those watercolors your mom mentioned?”
“Too messy,” Humphrey said.
“And you’re such a neat person?” I said. I gestured around. We were in Humphrey’s room, which was, as usual, in a state of confusion.
He explained. He didn’t mind the kind of mess his room was in. It was the messy mess of painting he didn’t like.
“This is a clean mess,” he said. “Painting is a dirty mess.” He looked at me. “If you catch my drift.”
“So you’re fastidious,” I said, “but not fussy.” I waited for Humphrey to say that yes, indeed, he knew the meaning of “fastidious,” and, by the way, here are sixteen other interesting f words his father had recently mentioned.
“Okay, let’s paint,” he said.
I was surprised. We went to the basement and painted. Humphrey’s paintings were uninspired and unplanned—the opposite of his drawings—just random brushstrokes on the page.
“This is fun,” he said. “Look at my beautiful pictures.” His voice was listless.
I figured I should encourage him. “It is fun,” I said. “I don’t even mind the mess, do you?”
“No,” he said. “I love it.”
“Humphrey?”
“I love it if it’s Opposite Day,” he said.
We heard the front door open and close.
“Shall we go say hello?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Let’s say good-bye.” He put down his brush and started toward the stairs.
It was Mr. Danker.
“Are these your shoes?” Mr. Danker said to me.
“Oh—yes.” My shoes had been on the hall rug since that morning.
“Let’s move them out of the way next time,” Mr. Danker said. “I almost tripped on them.”
“I’m sorry!” I said. But I couldn’t help but wonder—really? He didn’t see, he almost tripped on, my chartreuse size eight-and-a-half sneakers?
“Where’s Mommy?” Humphrey asked.
“She’ll be home shortly. What have you done on this rainy day, Humphrey?”
“Nothing,” Humphrey said.
Way to go, Humpty, I thought. That makes me look just great.
“Nothing?” his father said. “That’s not good. What’s all this on the kitchen table?”
“They’re just pictures,” Humphrey said. “They don’t mean anything.”
Either I’ve created an Opposite Day Monster, I thought, or something is strange here.
“Very well. If they don’t mean anything, let’s clean them up, shall we? Mommy doesn’t need to be cleaning up messes when she comes home.”
Zing.
“It’s Opposite Day, Daddy,” Humphrey said. “Danielle said so. So that means Mommy wants to clean up messes when she comes home. It’s her favorite, favorite thing to do. Right, Danielle?”
Yeah, no.
“If that’s the case, Opposite Day is over,” Mr. Danker said. “Thank you, Danielle. We appreciate your help today.”
From the way he said “appreciate,” I was pretty sure Opposite Day was still in effect. At least for the duration of his sentence.