Technically, what Pearl brought home from day care was a medal and not a trophy. But what’s the difference, really? They are both golden and special and prove you’re a champion.
Jude and I were in our room, getting ready to do our homework after school. Jude was sitting at his desk, sharpening all his pencils to perfect points. I was lying on my bed, putting kitten stickers on my math notebook because the notebook looked a little boring and because I didn’t feel like starting my work.
I heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs, and then Pearl burst into our bedroom, with Mom right behind her. Pearl was holding her favorite stuffed rat, Ricardo, in one hand and a shiny golden thing in the other hand.
Ricardo looked different. Here’s why: He was wearing a pair of Pearl’s underwear. It was pink with bunnies all over it. Even though Pearl’s underwear is itsy-bitsy, it was still humongous on Ricardo, so somebody had made it tighter with a safety pin.
Ricardo has been dragged around everywhere with Pearl since she turned two. He had already lost his whiskers and pretty much all his dignity. But he had a tiny shred of dignity left … until the bunny panties.
“Wook, Wonny!” said Pearl. She shoved her medal in my hand. “Wook! So pwetty!”
When I saw that medal, I felt two things:
1. Super jealous.
2. Super confused.
Because the medal had a picture of a toilet on it.
“Is this some kind of joke?” I whispered to Mom.
“It’s something new the day care is trying, to encourage the kids to use the potty,” explained Mom.
Mom and Dad had been trying to toilet train Pearl for a few months. They even got her a little potty that played music when you sat on it. The song it played was really fast and really loud and totally hilarious.
When Pearl first got it, Jude and I spent about an hour taking turns sitting on the potty—with our pants on, of course—so it would play the song. It went like this:
When you really have to go
Here’s what you need to know:
Going potty is so fun
In the rain or in the sun!
Just don’t forget to wipe
When you don’t wear a diape-
Rrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
It’s potty time!
It’s potty time!
It’s potty time!
It’s potty time!
“It’s the worst song ever!” I laughed.
“Who rhymes wipe with diaper? It’s terrible!” Jude cackled.
After an hour, though, the song started to get a little annoying. After a day, it started to get really annoying. And after a few weeks, it drove us so crazy that Dad tried to take out the batteries. But it turned out you couldn’t take the batteries out. And there was no off switch.
The worst part was how that annoying song kept getting stuck in all of our heads. So even when Pearl wasn’t sitting on the potty, one of us would start singing, “Just don’t forget to wipe…” and then someone else would shriek, “NOOOOOO! Not the potty song!” and the person would stop singing. But it would be too late, because the song would already be stuck in our heads.
I guess they had a potty at day care, too, because there Pearl stood, showing off her potty medal.
I tried to be happy for Pearl. But now I was the only person in the whole family who didn’t have a trophy. It was too much!
“I’ve never gotten an award for going to the toilet!” I grumbled to Mom as Pearl ran out of the room. “Do you have any idea how many times I’ve gone? Like, a thousand!”
“Oh, it’s way more than that,” Jude piped up. He was emptying out his pencil shavings. “Let’s say you go to the bathroom an average of six times a day—that’s forty-two times a week, which is … about 160 times a month. So that would be—” He squinted one eye closed. “That’s about 2,000 times a year, and you’re almost eight, so … you’ve gone to the toilet 16,000 times.”
He snapped his pencil sharpener closed.
“Roughly,” he said.
Jude’s in fourth grade, so he knows how to multiply and divide and also how to show off.
“See?” I said to Mom. “I have gone to the bathroom 16,000 times! But guess how many toilet medals I have?
“Zero?” asked Mom.
“That is correct! Zero!”
At that moment, Pearl ran back into our room, wearing nothing but a pair of red socks.
“I’m so big!” she announced. “I did peepee!”
“You did peepee in the potty?” Mom asked.
“No,” said Pearl. “On the fwoor! Come see!”
She ran out and Mom followed her, sighing.
“I thought for sure I’d get a trophy for being the president of the Fix-It Friends,” I grumbled to Jude. “I save lives, for crying out loud!”
“You’re not the president,” Jude said. “And you don’t save lives. You help kids solve problems.”
“What’s the difference?” I snapped.
“And,” he went on, “if you do ever get a trophy for being a Fix-It Friend, then I should get one, too—and Ezra and Cora. Because we do just as much work as you. We all work together when someone at school has a problem.”
He tidied some piles of papers on his desk before opening up his homework folder.
“If you really want a trophy that much, do a great job on your 100 Days project,” Jude said. “My class just started working on ours today.”
I jumped off my bed and threw my arms around good old Jude.
“Yes! Yes! The 100 Days contest! Of course! You’re a genius!”
Every year, in February, my school has a big celebration on the one hundredth day of school. The teachers tell us how proud they are that we’ve been working so hard for one hundred whole days.
I’m no dummy. I know the real reason the school has a 100 Days celebration. It’s a way of tricking us into doing math. They try to make it so much fun that we don’t even notice we’re learning stuff. Like when Dad puts broccoli in the blender and tries to sneak it into my scrambled eggs. I can always sniff out the broccoli and the math, too. They don’t fool me!
But the 100 Days contest is pretty fun, so I don’t mind. All the kids work in groups, and you can do absolutely anything you want. Well, not anything. The project cannot include:
1. Live animals.
2. Dead animals.
3. Acrobatics.
I found that out the hard way.
But, besides that, you can do whatever you want. The only rule is that it has to include one hundred of something.
Then, on the one hundredth day of school, each grade has a big 100 Days gallery with all the projects, and the students vote for the one they like best.
Here is the important part. Each person in the winning group gets a big trophy. Jude has two of them, from second and third grade. They have a base of pure marble with a big golden 100 on top. They are glorious!
When Jude reminded me about the 100 Days contest, I decided right then and there that I would be the winner for the second grade. I would win that trophy.
After all, if Matthew Sawyer could win a trophy, how hard could it be?
