Free Imperfect Spiral by Debbie Levy Page A

about breaking into those watercolors your mom mentioned?”
    â€œToo messy,” Humphrey said.
    â€œAnd 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.
    â€œThis is a clean mess,” he said. “Painting is a dirty mess.” He looked at me. “If
you
catch my
drift
.”
    â€œSo 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.
    â€œOkay, 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.
    â€œThis 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?”
    â€œNo,” he said. “I love it.”
    â€œHumphrey?”
    â€œI love it if it’s Opposite Day,” he said.
    We heard the front door open and close.
    â€œShall 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.
    â€œAre these your shoes?” Mr. Danker said to me.
    â€œOh—yes.” My shoes had been on the hall rug since that morning.
    â€œLet’s move them out of the way next time,” Mr. Danker said. “I almost tripped on them.”
    â€œI’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?
    â€œWhere’s Mommy?” Humphrey asked.
    â€œShe’ll be home shortly. What have you done on this rainy day, Humphrey?”
    â€œNothing,” Humphrey said.
    Way to go, Humpty
, I thought.
That makes me look just great
.
    â€œNothing?” his father said. “That’s not good. What’s all this on the kitchen table?”
    â€œThey’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
.
    â€œVery 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.
    â€œIt’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.
    â€œIf 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.

13
No, Just No
    Humphrey’s funeral is today. That doesn’t seem like the sort of thing you’d say about a five-year-old.
    At the same time, though, it also seems like it’s too late for a funeral. It’s Thursday; the accident was last Friday. You do the math. Isn’t that just a really long time for a person to be—there’s no pretty way to say this—lying around dead? We Jews get our dead people in the ground quickly. My grammy Ann died on a Wednesday night—technically, early Thursday morning. Her funeral was Friday morning. I don’t know why we do it so fast, but I think it’s a good idea. It’s bad enough to be dead, isn’t it? To be dead and hanging out in the basement of a funeral