Special Guest Appearance by Lisa O'Donnell

This is a story that Lisa O'Donnell and I wrote together. We hope you like it.

"Horace Gets a Hole"

Horace was really happy that his Aunt Edna was able to make it back from her trip to South America in time for his birthday party. But he was disappointed with the present she brought him.

It was a hole.

It was true that it wasn’t just any old hole. She had gotten it from a hermit who lived on top of a mountain in Peru. And, unlike holes that just sat there where you dug them, you could carry this hole around with you to use as needed.

You have to have a special bag to carry the hole, of course, because it would make a hole in ordinary bags. She had brought him one of those, too. It was made out of some kind of fabric that reminded him of his grandmother’s couch.

No doubt it was a special hole, and it came in a special bag. But there was no getting around the fact that it was just a hole and that the bag looked like something a girl might carry around. Horace did his best to hide his disappointment.

He was happy to see Aunt Edna. And he did get lots of presents that he did want. And the birthday cake was fabulous. So, after a while, he forgot about the hole.

He didn’t think about it again until the next night when his mother served split-pea soup. As he was sitting there wishing that he didn’t have to eat split-pea soup, it occurred to him that a hole would come in really handy right now. He snuck into his room, pulled the hole out of the bag, carried it behind his back into the kitchen and dropped it into his bowl of soup while his mother wasn’t looking.

Just like that his soup bowl was empty.

“My, you ate that really fast,” said his mother when she saw the empty bowl. “Would you like some more?”

“No, thank you,” said Horace.

He was starting to see that Aunt Edna had given him a better gift than he realized.

Later, when he was getting ready for bed, his mother asked him if he had any idea how all that split-pea soup ended up on the kitchen floor.

“I think there was a hole in the bottom of the bowl,” said Horace, who believed in telling the truth.

“Hmmm,” his mother said.
The next morning, Evan announced that he had a stomachache and was too sick to go to school. The last time that Evan didn’t want to go to school, he ate three bananas to make himself sick. He hid the peels in his socks-and-underwear drawer. For a week, every time he got dressed, he smelled like a banana.

Horace held the hole up to the chest of drawers and moved it around until he found fresh banana peels mushed up against Evan’s rocket ship underpants. Just as he suspected. Horace didn’t tattle tale on Evan, though. He wasn’t that kind of brother. He just liked knowing the truth.

Horace wanted to take the hole to school but he wasn’t about to carry it around in a bag that looked like something a girl would carry. So he put it in one of the pockets of his pants.

Horace was still thinking about what a great present the hole was after all when he got to school and discovered that he had put his lunch money in the pocket with the hole in it. He had to borrow money from his friend Frank who didn’t believe the story about the hole but was such a good friend that he gave Horace the money anyway.

No, really, Horace said. Now that he had decided that he liked his hole (even if it did make him lose his lunch money), he was too nervous about it to pull it out in class. What if their teacher, Mrs. Greenspan, took it away? It’s not as if he could go buy another one at the store. He told Frank that he would show it to him at recess.

At recess, he accidentally dropped it on the ground just as Mandy was running by. If Horace liked girls, which, of course, he doesn’t because he is a self-respecting little boy, he would have liked Mandy because her eyes glittered when she smiled at him.

Mandy tripped in the hole and fell down and skinned her knee and got dirt on her dress, which had been red all over but was now kind of reddish-brown in spots.

The way that Mandy looked at Horace when she stood up made him feel as if the hole was in the bottom of his stomach. He was seeing that having a hole not only had its good sides but also its not-so-good sides.

“I’m sorry,” said Horace.

“Why did you trip me?” said Mandy.

“He didn’t trip you,” said Frank. “He dropped his hole on the ground.”

Horace picked it up to show her.

“Wow,” said Mandy. “I never saw anything like that.”

And, just like that, she stuck her arm into it.

“No!” said Horace.

He didn’t know how that hole worked. What if her hand was gone when she pulled her arm out? When she pulled her arm out it was just fine, though.

“That probably wasn’t such a good idea, was it?” said Mandy now that she had had a moment to think about it.

Horace put the hole back in his pants.

“Say, isn’t that the pocket you put the lunch money I loaned you in?” said Frank.

Frank was right. In all the excitement, Horace had put the hole in his other pocket. Horace reached in. Sure enough, that money was gone, too. They looked on the ground but didn’t find it. Frank didn’t have any more extra money and neither did Mandy. But she offered to let him eat half of her peanut-butter-banana-and-honey sandwich with the crusts cut off at lunch.

That was his favorite kind of sandwich. If he bought lunch as he had planned, he would be eating his mother’s leftover meat medley. He was definitely going to have to get to work on that thank-you letter to his aunt after he got home.

After lunch, the class took a field trip to Crater Lake. Everything was going great until Claire asked Mandy how she had gotten her dress so dirty and Horace made the mistake of telling Claire the long version of the story.

Claire, of course, demanded to see the hole, and, when Horace was showing it to her, the canoe rocked and he dropped it into the bottom of the canoe. Lake water came gurgling up through the bottom. Horace picked up the hole really fast, and everything would have been fine except that, in all of the hubbub, the canoe tipped over.

As Horace bobbed in the water, he thought about how it was a really good idea that Mrs. Greenspan made them all put on life jackets even though they were uncomfortable. After he finished thinking about that, he made a mental note not to be so blabby about the hole in the future.

When Horace was walking home from school, he decided to stop off and buy Evan the latest issue of “The Rainbow Phantom.” The Rainbow Phantom who saves the day using something made out of a different color of the rainbow each adventure. Horace knew that, by now, Evan would need a little excitement. Sometimes, staying home from school seemed like a great idea in the morning. But, by afternoon, you started thinking about how it meant that you couldn’t go outside and play.


When he got to the drugstore, the owner, Mr. Hanson, was at the curb trying to slip a wire coat hanger down inside his car window.

“What’s going on, Mr. Hanson?” Horace asked.

“I locked my keys in the car,” said Mr. Hanson.

“Would you like for me to get them out?” asked Horace.

“Are they teaching youngsters how to pick locks in the second grade now?” Mr. Hanson asked.

“No, but I can do it if you turn your back and count to 10,” said Horace, who had learned his lesson about showing his hole to everyone.

“OK,” said Mr. Hanson, who was crabby by now and ready to try anything.

“Stop peeking,” said Horace when he saw that Mr. Hanson was sneaking a look over his shoulder. “And I’m in the third grade.”

“My apologies,” said Mr. Hanson.

“Not at all,” said Horace, who, by now, had used the hole to reach through the door to unlock it.

As a thank-you present, Mr. Hanson gave him the comic book for free. This month, the Rainbow Phantom used a purple speedboat to save a dolphin that had been kidnapped by a character called The Rogue Barracuda.

When Horace got home, he gave the comic book to Evan, who was really happy to get it, and headed toward his room.

“Don’t you want a snack?” said his mother.

“Maybe later,” said Horace. “I need to go write Aunt Edna a thank-you note.”

His mother was happy that he was going to do that. But she was also a little worried. Horace writing a thank-you note without being told? That wasn’t like him. Maybe he was coming down with whatever Evan had.

His Dogness at the Pink Mink

After I found out that I stopped breathing 77 times an hour, the doctor prescribed a sleep mask.

The idea was to put the mask over my face, hook it to a machine that blows air via a flexible tube and to breathe through the apparatus all night.

Although I wasn't excited about wearing the contraption on my face, I was excited about the prospect of sleeping better. And I started imagining how much more productive I would become once I was well-rested. I would arise at 5 a.m. fully refreshed and, for couple of hours before it was time to get to work, I would work on that chapter book with Sparkle Girl, Doobins, Mr. Whitfield, magic ice, Lucy Lightheart and the blue heart that, so far, I have been working on only in my imagination.

I eagerly await that development. At the moment, I'm still in the "no one is supposed to be allergic to these masks but every now and then someone is and it turns out that you're one of them" phase. My face's response to the mask was to swell up and turn red. My skin felt as if it had been badly sunburned. One day, Garnet announced that she thought I was starting to look purple. I said that I preferred to think of it as deep red.

What with taking a while to figure out that it was a true allergic reaction and not just a matter of adjusting to the mask, taking days off for my face to deflate, trying a new mask and my face reinflating and deflating and such, the process has been going on for about three weeks.

I have gotten maximum value from my misery by making people listen to my story.

Someone will innocently say, "How are you?" and the next thing they know I am filling them in. Before I can tell them the latest development, they need the background, of course. So, as the saga has continued, the story has become quite lengthy.

Some people have even had to listen to it as I casually scraped off bits of the damaged skin that started flaking after it dried. And I have forced close friends to look at the new wrinkles that appeared after my face deflated the first time.

Garnet could make a strong case for having suffered more than I have. She has had to listen to every thought that I have had on the matter - and I have had many of them - at least seven times. And, if she happened to be there when I took it upon myself to bring someone up-to-date, she had to listen yet again.

On Saturday, we took His Dogness to the PiNkMiNk for a dog scritching and book signing. Beforehand, I asked her how she was feeling about going.

"I'm just worried that I might have to listen to your damn story 85 times," she said.

It made me laugh but it's probably a good thing she said it. With that in mind, I looked around to see where Garnet was and took someone aside before I forced them to look at my wrinkles and residual puffiness from the latest mask.

The Undersea World of Mr. Doobins

Mr. Doobins’ latest interest is the undersea world. He likes to watch his videos and flip through his books on the subject time and again. He knows way more than I do about clown fish and ribbon eels and nurse sharks.

He also likes to explore the Internet looking for more acton shots starring his favorite creature of the day. More often than not, that's some species of whale or shark or eel. But he does check in on milder creatures, such as starfish and jellyfish,too.

In the day-to-day of making it through the day, Mr. Doobins and I are often at odds with each other. Sometimes, it’s because he wants Garnet rather than me to help him do something - blow his nose, pour milk over his cereal, get strapped into his car seat. Other times, it’s because he flat out doesn’t want to do something.

Last night, he ran into his room and slammed the door when I told him that he was going to have to blow his nose before getting his drink. He stayed there a good while, too, lamenting the unfair nature of the world loudly enough for those of us in the living room to hear him quite clearly and pausing only to snuffle hard to keep all the runniness in there.

Finally, he blew his nose and got his drink.

Our time on the computer cruising the Internet for videos of the creature of the day is time free of such conflicts. He tells me what he wants to see and we’re off.

Much of what we see is new to me. I knew of great white sharks and tiger sharks but the first time he said that he wanted to see a whale shark I didn’t understand whether he wanted to see a whale or a shark. Sparkle Girl, who keeps abreast of such matters, had to straighten me out. A whale shark is a kind of shark – a gentle giant of a fish, as it turns out.

One of my favorite parts of the process is watching Mr. Doobins watch the screen. His concentration is complete.

Partly because hunting for undersea creatures is a good way for Mr. Doobins and me to spend time together and partly because she doesn’t enjoy the hunt as much as we do, Garnet tends to leave the online undersea quests to me.

The other day, when I checked in with her while I was at work, she told me that Mr. Doobins had already announced his creature of the day – the gulper eel. I had to ask her to spell it. Garnet said she had told him that, as soon as I came over, I would help him find some.

When I talked to her later in the day, she said that he was going around calling out, “Kim! Kim!”

When we did find a gulper eel that night, it was unlike anything else I had ever seen. Like some other creatures from the blackness at the depths of the ocean, it was put together without regard for curb appeal. It looks like they pulled the front half of the eel from the plus-size rack and the back from the petites.

The head is massive with a jaw that reminded me of Mike Mulligan's steam shovel. The rest of the eel looks far too skinny for that head. And, at the tip of the tail, is a little light.

It begins to make a little more sense when you read about the gulper eel. He can’t see much of anything in the dark so he swims around with his steam-shovel mouth wide open in hopes of something edible swimming into it. (If you any questions, I will be happy to forward them to Mr. Doobins.)

Mostly, Sparkle Girl isn’t interested in seeing such things. But she is also one of those people who can’t stand not knowing what is going on. When, from the other room where she is playing with her Josefina doll or drawing, she hears us oohing and aahing, she may ask what we are seeing.

I have to answer to Garnet about what Mr. Doobins sees online so I don’t let him see anything too vivid. Still, we sometimes look at things that I know Sparkle Girl would be sorry to see. We may tell her that she doesn't want to see it. Sometimes, she takes our word for it. Other times, her desire to know what is going on overrides her squeamishiness and she comes in for a quick look.

When we came upon a video in which a great white shark shoots up out of the water from below and swallows a seal whole, Mr. Doobins wanted to watch it again right away. When Sparkle Girl came in to see what the hubbub was about, she was both appalled and fascinated.

For just such instances, Mr. Doobins and I have videos of beautiful underwater scenes – jellyfish swimming, beluga whales dancing – that we keep a click or two away. We let her see just enough to satisfy her curiosity and then switch to one of those.

We all enjoy the fluid beauty for a minute or two. Sparkle Girl returns to her world, and Mr. Doobins and I off again in search of adventure.