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“My name’s not ROSIE!” I scream at the top of my lungs. “It’s not Rose, it’s not Rosie, it’s not, it’s not, it’s not!” My whole body is fire-hot, I’m so mad. My feet tingle from my stomps on my chair and I don’t care if my face gets stuck like this because they aren’t listening. They haven’t been listening.
My name is not Rosie. That’s somebody else’s name. Someone quiet and sweet. Not me.
“Alright, what is it?” Daddy asked as he licked the dripping mustard from his burger off the back of his hand and took another big bite that just squirted more mustard down his arm.
Daddy really should just use a napskin. Even Hugo uses a napskin and he’s two. Daddy is way older than that. Like a quadruple older at least.
Mummy huffed, waving her wand with quick flicks to remove the mustard off Daddy and make my butt sit back on my chair as she scolded, “Ronald, our five-year-old cannot name herself.”
“Can to,” I argued, struggling to stand back up again as Daddy asked, “Why not?”
“Because we spent forever trying to come up with something-”
“And what we came up with was Rose, maybe she’s got a better one up her sleeve.”
I stopped struggling at once ‘cuz finally Daddy’s listening. He thinks Rose is a boring name too.
Boring and so not me.
Problem is though, I don’t know what my name is either.
/) /)
( • ༝•)
“What about Clara?” Daddy asks, handing me the pink marker.
We’re coloring pictures together while Hugo naps because he’s still little and I’m big. But really, I’m coloring and Daddy is just handing me what color I should do next. Unless he grabs the wrong one and then I have to grab it myself.
“We almost went with Clara but then Mum became co-workers with Clara and Mum thought by the time you were born, Clara would get the wrong idea, like we named you after her.”
Ugh, Clara. She smells funny, like the back of Gramma’s closet mixed with burnt biscuits. And she always pats my head like Hugo pats Bucky, our dog, and tells me I’m ‘such an interesting child.’
I am.
I’m very interesting, thank you very much. But I don’t like it when she calls me interesting. She should just not call me anything.
“Not Clara.”
Daddy nods and hands me the purple marker, which is wrong. I’ve already done purple. I need green now.
“How ‘bout Katie? Or Georgia?”
When I wrinkle my nose up, Daddy starts listing out like a ton of wrong names. “Monica? Alexis? Bethany? Nicole? Jenny? Maria? Moriah?”
No wonder Mummy and Daddy gave up and went with Rose. These names suck. They aren’t me at all.
Daddy does it right and hands me the yellow marker, but his face is all funny. He’s got his head tilted at me like he does when Mummy gets her hairs cut and he can’t figure out why she looks different.
“Owen?” He finally asks and I drop my markers to huff at him properly.
Seriously! Did he have silly juice in his tea this morning?
“Daddy! That’s a boy’s name!”
“I know,” he says, and I know I must look like Mummy right now when she’s mad at him ‘cuz Daddy’s trying not to laugh.
I hate it when Mummy is right, but she’s right. He’s so annoying sometimes.
Handing me a new coloring page – this one is of a bunny – Daddy hums, “I was just checkin’.”
“Checkin’ what?”
Daddy shrugs and says, “If you were paying attention.”
Humph. I’m the one that needs to check if he’s paying attention. A boy’s name, what a weirdo.
/) /)
( • ༝•)
I’ve been trying to dig a hole to Cuba for weeks now because James says girls can’t dig that far and I’d do just about anything to prove James wrong. Or at least be able to push him into said hole and send his dumb butt to Cuba.
But grown-ups keep ruining my hard work and refilling it ‘cuz it is ‘a trip hazard’ so I’ve moved to digging under the slide where grown-ups can’t fit to find it.
Most of the other kids haven't found me either which is why I nearly fall in it when a voice says behind me, “Hi, my name is Francie, I’m six! What’s your name?”
She doesn’t look six. She’s smaller than me. Like half of me. I bet she’s a fibber. It’s not good to have a fibber around a hole grown-ups hate.
“I don’t have a name,” I tell her. It’s the truth but also handy ‘cuz she can’t go telling the grown-ups I’m doing something ‘against the rules’ – again – if she doesn’t have a name to blame it on.
“Your parents didn’t give you one?” She asks, horrified.
Wiping the sweat from my brow – it’s hard work digging to Cuba – I set Francie the Fibber straight, “They did, I just hate it. My Daddy is letting me pick my name, but I haven’t found it yet.”
Francie thinks about this for a minute. A minute too long for me to wait for her to say anything else – I don’t have all day to sit around and wait for Cuba to dig to me. So, I go back to my hole. It’s almost deep enough to hide Hugo now and he’s unusually long for a toddler. At least that’s what Clara says.
Francie sits down crisscross applesauce next to my dirt pile and pokes a smiley face into it, much to my frustration.
Now I have to make a new dirt pile. A fibber would totally get mad if I buried her smiley face in more dirt.
“But, what do they call you when they want you to come to dinner and stuff?” Francie asks, watching me pile new dirt on the other side of her with a frown.
She doesn’t hafta worry, I won’t put dirt on her pretty dress. That’s worse than burying the dirt face. Victoire taught me that lesson – the hard way. I’d get called Rose again if I did that, without a doubt.
/) /)
( • ༝•)
“Alright, kiddo. We got to get you a name,” Daddy says when he comes to tuck me into bed.
I flop back and sigh big time to my ceiling. We’ve been trying to find me a name for like weeks and weeks and weeks now. Forever, really.
“I don’t like any of them. They all suck.”
Daddy chuckles and rearranges my blankies just right. He’s good at that. Mummy tucks them too tight and then I feel like I’m in a sarg-cofa, sar-cofa-guse – a mummy coffin.
“Yeah, but I can’t keep calling you ‘Daughter’ at the playground. All the mums think I’m a bad dad and can’t remember your name. Can we give you a placeholder name?”
He’s not wrong. Francie’s mother was definitely giving Daddy the stink-eye yesterday when it was time to go home.
But that coulda also have been ‘cuz Francie came back head-to-toe in dirt like me and she blamed me for Francie’s dirty dress. Which is so unfair. I didn’t push her into the hole, she jumped in herself to see if I was close to Cuba yet. She couldn’t even reach the top of the hole on her tippy toes; I had to pull her out. So I must be close.
“What’s a placeholder?” I ask, tucking my bunny rabbit into the covers beside me.
Daddy hems and haws like he always does when I ask him what something is until he finally answers, “It’s a temporary thing. A name we could call you in place of your real name just until we find your real name.”
“Okay. That’s ac-cep-table,” I say, making sure I hit all of the sounds. It’s a much more fun of a word to say than good or okay but I’m still figuring out how all those letters work on my tongue.
Daddy grins – he loves it when I use big words. “Great, what shall it be?”
Oh, no.
“I have to figure out my real name and my fake name too?” I whine. I can’t believe he’s doing this to me. “That’s too much re-sponsibilibly.”
Daddy barks a laugh and kisses his giggles onto the top of my head. I get a lot of kisses for being funny. If he gave me a knut every time instead, I bet I could buy the portkey to send James to Cuba and give up on the hole entirely.
“How ‘bout Babbitty?”
Then again, maybe giving me my fake name is too much responsibilibly for Daddy too.
“Daddy,” I groan. He’s killing me.
Daddy gasps, his face a big ‘oh?’ as he asks, “What? We love Babbitty, don’t we? It’s our favorite story.”
That’s true. It is our favorite of Beetle’s stories. Mum thinks it’s too violent for me. She says all his stories are but I think they’re awesome.
“Yeah…”
Daddy looks around, leaning on top of me and squishing me to look into the hallway. He’s checking for Mummy, but she’s still in Hugo’s room. Daddy’s old ears can’t hear the creak of the rocking chair though.
As soon as he unsquishes me, he leans in close and says, “And it’ll irritate Mum, terribly.”
Sold. Heck, Babbitty may even be a keeper.
“But I did not tell you that.”
/) /)
( • ༝•)
“It’s been a pleasure speaking with you, Miss…?” Mr. Baxley leads, holding out his hand.
He’s the chief editor of Wixen Wonders, the most fantastic magazine for all new developments in every field. And I mean everything. From new spells to fashion to rediscovered artifacts to up-and-coming artists.
It’d be a dream come true to work there. I could just about drool imagining all of the new things I could be learning about all the time just to tell the world about them. It’d be perfect.
Selecting a single field to study had been far too boring. And I don’t settle for boring. I never have.
It’s so difficult to get a meeting with Mr. Baxley though – or anyone at his office for that matter – but I just happened upon him when Bucky took off on me.
The damn, senile old crup made me look like a fool chasing after his arse but it was a real meet-cute moment in the end.
A professional meet-cute. Baxely is like a million. He could be my dad and that’s… no.
I grin, shaking his hand stiff and strong like Dad taught me. “Ms. Weasley, sir. Ms. Babbitty Weasley.”
The surprise on his face is my favorite part of my name. It's why I could never let it go.
“Babbitty? Like the witch in that old story?”
Not to mention, it comes in handy. Mr. Baxley is definitely going to remember me now.
Though Dad will insist that’s not on account of my name. I’m apparently not someone anyone is soon to forget.
And I find that more than acceptable.