Ravings of the World's Oldest 10-year-old

(Sorry for the delay in getting more chapters out! – Mr. WIlly)

9.
The next night I was making a Lego Space Ship and Mom barged in my room and said, “Why don’t you come up with ideas for a theme for your birthday party.”

“Yes, maybe.” I said. “Only I am very busy and may not have time to do that. And anyway what is a Theme?”

“Well, maybe when you get time, your majesty,” she said. “A Theme is what the party is about, an idea that holds it together – like for costumes and games and things.”

I did not know that.

“Oh, like Paintball Ponies,” I grumped.

She made her Rolly-Eyes. “Yes. But come up with something different.” Then she left.
Theme. That is a funny word. Theme theme theme.

The next day at school I sat awhile in the Special Chair for Thinking.

I didn’t mean to get there – it’s just that I knew the answer to Mr. Meat’s question and I didn’t think he saw my hand so I had to climb up on my desk to make sure he saw.
My answer was RIGHT, too.

Only I don’t remember the question.

So anyway that day I got to think Big Time in my hall. And this was my thinking: Birthday Party Theme.

Mom had suggested: “How about dinosaurs, or knights in armor, or pirates?”

“Yeah, right,” I said.

I think those are Dumb Ideas cause other guys have done them to death already.
I wanted something Special. Not Haircut Special, but Africa Game Park Special or Paintball Ponies special.

But what I thought was “Huddle.”

So at recess I called out “Huddle!”

Huddle is what we do, my best friend Gregory and my other best friend Julian and me, when we have to make secret plans.

I asked them for some good advice for a Theme.

“Birthday Party Theme!” Gregory hollered. “Maximum COOLNESS! What’s theme?”

“A theme is what the party is about, an idea that holds it together – like for costumes and games and things. Now, our job is to come up with Theme for the party now.” I said.

“Okee-dokee,” said Gregory.

“Let’s have your birthday on a Submarine,” said Julian. “That would be a cool theme.”

“Or on a aircraft carrier,” said Gregory.

“How about a Theme we can do for Real?” I said with my Rolly Eyes I learned from Mom.

“Army Men!” shouted Julian. “Ka-pow! Bang!” shot his finger at me and Gregory.

“Your bullets do not hurt me!” said Gregory. “I am a Superhero!”

BINGO!

“Now that’s a great idea!” I said. “We’ll have Superheroes for Theme! And I get to be Commander Ratman, on account of he’s my favorite.”

“NO!” said Gregory. “He’s my favorite, too.”

“And mine,” said Julian.

“We can’t all be Ratman. I get to be Ratman because it’s my Birthday Party.”

That shut them up good. But they didn’t seem so happy.  So my stomach and chest got that achey kind of bad thing, like when you hurt somebody’s feelings. I hate that.

“Maybe you could both be Mouse Boy, Commander Ratman’s loyal Sidekick,” I said. They still didn’t look very happy-like.

Then my brainy-brain exploded with a good idea! “How about Cat Master?” I said.
Their faces got grinning then. They liked the idea of being the Super Bad Guy.

“I could be Cat Master,” Gregory said to Julian, “and you can be Cheese Trap Man!”

Julian said “Maybe.”

“I’ve gotta ask Mom if we can be Superheroes.”

But what could go wrong? That’s a most excellent and special theme.

10.
After Theme was decided, Mom said I had to do a Portent Job. That job was make a list of invited guys, and then dress the invitations. That doesn’t mean put clothes on them, though, it means write down where people live.

Mom said I could invite ten people to my party, and I had to include Sneaky Roger Peavy.

What a Bummer.

Anyway, this was my list:

Gregory
Julian
Poon
Markus
Captain America
Superman
Spiderman
Gee-pa Will
Willard Scott
Sneaky Stinky Roger Peavy

Then Mom made me make the list again cause I can’t invite real Superheroes cause they are Maginary.

I think Maginary must mean really, really Famous or really, really busy. Or both, maybe. I suppose lots of people invite them to birthday parties and they can’t go to all of them.

Santa Claus would be a excellent invite. And it would be good for his toy business, too.
Is Santa Claus a Superhero?

He is to me!

But the good news is that Gee-pa Will doesn’t count for the ten cause he’s invited anyhow.

Lah lee loh lah!

So I tried to make my list:
Gregory
Julian
Poon (who makes the best burp songs)
Markus (who makes me laugh)

But I didn’t know who else for sure because there were too many I thought of and that added up to only four.

Then I thought up A Very Cool Plan.

2.
The corner bores me Big Time, so I thought about the the Bad News.

The Bad News: Mom said I had to invite Sneaky Roger Peavy to my super-duper-pooper-scooper birthday party and I did not want Sneaky Roger there.

Nobody would want him there either because he is a Stinkhead, Big Time.

What kind of Stinkhead?

A Stealer-Stinkhead, for one kind. He stole my best pencil with the Commander Ratman eraser and he won’t give it back. He says it belongs to him now, Finders Keepers.

Like, yeah, sure.

He didn’t FIND it, he STOLE it, because I just dropped it and forgot it and it’s still mine.

He’s also a Stinkhead because I have actually seen him pick his nose and eat the chunks. And that’s the truth.

Plus also, he’s bigger than me and when Grown Ups aren’t looking he knuckles me on the arm and makes it dead. He’s Sneaky that way, too, and that is why I call him Sneaky Roger Peavy.

And I hate it when he calls me Willard.

Anyway, my real name is Willard. Willard Alexander O’Bannon. But! Everyone calls me Billy, cause Willard is an old guy’s name and I’m nine, almost, which is not too old. Billy is my nickel-name.

I know Willard is an old guy’s name because it’s my grandfather’s name. And nobody’s older, boy howdy. Old Old Old. But he even gets called Will not Willard, except my grandma who called him Ike when she was alive.

I don’t know why she did that. Pretty weird, I think.

But I call him Gee-pa Will, for shortness.

So Stinky Roger calls me an old guy’s name and I don’t like it. So I don’t like him.

And that’s that.

3.
“Hey, guess what guys?” I shouted to my best friends Julian and Gregory. “Guess what? Guess what? Guess what?”

“My guess is that you are loony-tunes, Billy Bananas,” said Gregory.

Julian giggled. “Loony-tunes and toony-loons,” he said.
We all laugh like loons at that.

“No, not that,” I say. Though it could be true.

Some of the guys at school call me Billy Bananas because of my last name: O’Bannon – Bananas. Pretty Dumb with a Capital D.

But what the heck-a-rooni?

We’re all in the Third Grade – 3-B, is the actual truth.

Well, usually I’m in the 3-B. Sometimes I’m in the “Special Seat for Thinking.” That is in the hall.

That gets kind of lonely sometimes, but I do a lot of thinking. I don’t get so antsy-pants either, because I can stand up and move around whenever I need to.

“Sitting still is not our strong suit,” Gee-pa Will says. But I hate wearing suits, anyway.

And ties, too, I hate those.

Where was I?

Oh, yeah. Talking to Julian and Gregory.

I said, “You have to guess what I’m gonna tell you.”

“That’s dumb, Billy Bananas.”

I kind of like the name Billy Bananas but I have to pretend I don’t on account of if I like it the guys’ll try to come up with something really mean that I won’t like, probably.

That’s what friends are for.

“It’s not dumb, Stinkhead!”

I like to call my friends Stinkhead when they act all stinky to me.

Thanks for checking in!

Wanted y’all to know, I’m going to publish some stories on here.

Keep an eye out. . . .