Bedtime Stories

He told her about his cousin, Princess Sadie Mae Glutz — always in frilly dresses, always pouting, with a whole crew of ladies-in-waiting. One of them had just ONE job: being in charge of her smiles.

The boys tricked Sadie into looking so close at a mud puddle she fell right in. They mixed up all her outfits so she came out wearing two different colored shoes. And before the girl knew it, she wasn't crying anymore — she was laughing.

They climbed down the tree and shared peaches in the orchard.

The regular cowboy movie had been replaced by a WEREWOLF film. Mama had strictly forbidden horror movies. But Aloysius dared them — called them prissy-eyed babies. So they dared.

He talked them into the back row. Where only troublemakers sit.

Just as the werewolf's teeth began to grow and drool overflowed his nasty gums, Aloysius leaned over and yelled "BOOOOOO!" They threw popcorn and Coke everywhere, screeched to the top of their lungs, and fled at record speed.

They had nightmares for YEARS. But they could never tell Mama why.

They heard giggles with tiny tinkling bells. Then a creature appeared — dark brown curls with sparkles, a luminous pink dress, and WINGS. Fairy dust everywhere. Her name was Esmerelda Moondust Gosweetly, Queen of the fairies.

Mean Imps had been harassing Esmerelda's community. So they set a trap — peaches along a path to a hidden cliff, because Imps love peaches and fear CATS. Bodacious did his best cat meows. They floated those Imps out to sea on a raft and never saw them again.

Sadie Mae had boosted Lil' Oggie up an apple tree. He climbed too high, froze, and turned greenish white. Sadie climbed up after him and started falling herself. Lucy Lou appeared out of nowhere, calm as could be, and caught Sadie mid-air.

Then Lucy called Oggie a "LOW BELLIED, TURNIP BRAINED JELLY BEAN" and a "WIMPY DOODLED SNOTNOSE" — and it worked. He climbed down.

August 1st became Lucy Lou Schmorgenstern, Super Hero Day.

Aloysius told her about finding a baby wrapped in a fluffy blanket under a weeping willow by the river. Nobody ever claimed him. So the whole gang decided he was theirs.

They all wrote names in a hat. The Queen drew three: OGDEN... WALLSTREET... DEWBERRY. The boys immediately shortened it to Lil' Oggie.

"I wouldn't admit this to anybody but you," Aloysius said, "but I really love the little lizard."

He told her about the day Sadie Mae answered the castle door in a blizzard. A blue-nosed, shivering girl was selling Girl Scout cookies — in the dead of winter. Her name: Suefrony Sue Dimpleton. She had the dimpliest smile anyone had ever seen.

Sadie Mae recognized a kindred competitive spirit. They bonded over dimples and became the Sisterhood of the Dimpled Duo. Suefrony Sue became the bestest Girl Scout cookie seller in the realm.

Aloysius was disgusted — they even dressed Lil' Oggie as a "Little Lord."

At a filling station somewhere in Alabama, Aloysius appeared out of nowhere. He told her about Prissy Pruscilla Higginbotham — a mermaid on the Isle of Why whose pretty yellow hair shot STRAIGHT UP to the sky when Esmerelda surprised her.

Miss Priss put her hands right on her hips and said — "What's so funny, you fairy dustin', curly headed, freckle faced... whatever and whoever you are?" But after they started over, they became the bestest of friends.

Granchu named this character after a granddaughter who is exactly like Pruscilla. Beautiful. Opinionated. And tougher than she looks.

After the store, Aloysius appeared — covered in chocolate evidence. He told about finding a boy named Bodacious Pinochle being chased by bullies. Bodacious had raided their candy stash but left a trail from a hole in his sack.

Aloysius grabbed him and hid. Bodacious offered a jaw breaker as payment. And that's how the most outrageous friendship on the Isle of Why began — over a piece of stolen candy and a steady supply of sweets thereafter.

Slim's best buddy was Heathcliff Scruffylump — once a runty new kid, now big and commanding. Where Slim goes, Scruffy follows. Slim had saved him from a bully once, and they'd been inseparable ever since.

One day Slim convinced the whole gang to get baptized in the river. Even Lil' Oggie who couldn't swim. They all did it because Slim inspired that kind of trust. And big tough Scruffy was standing there sniffing back tears.

Aloysius told her about the year a "cool kid" at school convinced Sadie Mae that Santa wasn't real. She told all her ladies-in-waiting to stop believing. The Queen called the secret hotline to the North Pole.

That's when Susie Q Sweetwater showed up — a walking Sugar Plum, all sweet and bubbly. She spread so much Christmas spirit that before you could say "Rudolph," Sadie Mae was writing her Santa letter in red ink with a candy cane pen. And when Santa delivered her secret wish — proof he was real.

"She's my rainbow after a storm; my first warm breeze of spring." The whole gang loved her. But she was his.

"Friendships last a lifetime," he said, "but love endures forever. We had a great 'before' — but you must embrace my new 'forever.'"

"Are you going to tell her what Q stands for?"

"Your fun was in the GUESSING. Hers will be in the KNOWING."

And Aloysius faded into the vault of childhood — locked away, but ever accessible with a golden key of memory.

The boys kidnapped the prince in the middle of the night to check him out. He just laughed and said Sadie had warned him. He fit right in with the gang.

The wedding: Adelaide as maid of honor, all the girls as bridesmaids, the boys as ushers. "I'll send you pictures in your dreams — or maybe in the clouds. Watch for 'em."

And then, as always, he was gone.

A girl that special needed a name just as special — never ordinary, never boring, never just any girl. Aloysius and Adelaide puzzled over it for days.

So Aloysius popped back — POOF — to his oldest friend, the one he loves to scare. "Whatcha' doin'?" "EEEK!" "Don't call me Roberta!" Then he blurted it out: "Since I became a DAD!" And the room went quiet — the kind of quiet that's full all the way up.

He talked about that little girl for a whole hour. His friend listened, and smiled, and cried a little. And then she grabbed his arm — "I'VE GOT IT!"

Angelina Sugarbritches Snodgrass. Aloysius looked up, grinned, whooped, and hollered "PERFECT!" — and then, POOF, he was gone, back to wherever it is that he goes.