Fiction:

Mushbottom’s Family

by Kathleen “Casey” Null

Should my date meet this bunch?

“How I will ever have a normal date with a family like mine around is one of life’s greatest mysteries.” That’s what I told my friend Becky.

First of all my mom sings. I don’t mean in church and stuff. I’ll be in my room with Becky and we’ll be concentrating on Ivanhoe because of a test the next day and we’ll hear my mom walking through the hallway singing something like, “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” really loud.

It’s not so bad when Becky is here; she’s used to it. But what if a guy were to come to my front door and hear some crazy lady screeching “Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boy,” another of my mom’s special numbers?

Fortunately, my brother George has been in France on a mission. He’s four years older than me and he still calls me “Mushbottom,” which is what he made up when I was a baby with soggy diapers. Really embarrassing! I can just imagine what a date would think with George greeting him and then calling up the stairs, “Hey, Mushbottom! Your date is here!” I’d rather shave my head.

Actually it doesn’t make that much difference that George is out of the country. My dad is here. He would make my date sit in the living room, and then he’d put on some opera. Then my dad would probably start directing the opera—vigorously. It’s embarrassing enough without witnesses.

And my younger brother would come in and stare at my date and then comment on the size or shape of his nose. I know he will; he does it to strangers at the supermarket. And my sister, the one I have to share a room with, she’d walk right up to my date and say, “Are you gonna kiss Jenna?” The two of us used to do that to George and then run back to our room and giggle, after we blocked the door with a chair.

My name is Jenna. I was named after my two grandmas. Jenny, my dad’s mom, works as a clown volunteer at the hospital and drives there in full-clown dress. Another blotch on my reputation. And Anna. She has so many cats that they call her the “cat woman.” Fortunately, she lives in another neighborhood. Unfortunately, our city shrank the day they put a story about her in the local paper. She takes in homeless cats and names them after us. A cat named Jenna posed for the largest picture on the page.

When I met Shane at the stake dance and he asked if he could take me to the next one, I told him I had to help decorate but I could meet him there, for reasons that ought to be clear by now. It would be better if he could get to know the real me first.

And because the real me tries to be as honest as possible I had to volunteer myself with Becky and Katelyn to help with the decorations. When the dance committee said they hadn’t planned on decorating, we had to spend our baby-sitting money on some stupid crepe paper bells.

The dance was great in spite of the decorations, and there were no embarrassing moments to speak of. At least not until Shane took me home. I tried to get him to drop me off at the corner, but he wouldn’t do it. “No, I need to be sure you get home safely,” he said. What a guy.

When he pulled into my driveway I got really worried. Grandma Jenny’s car was there. Sometimes she stopped off, in her clown getup, and stretched out on the sofa to listen to opera. She could come out the door any moment.

“Uh …” I stammered. “I better go!” I jumped out of the car and ran inside, locked the front door, and turned off the porch light.

In spite of the fiasco he asked me out again. When I told him I’d meet him, again, he asked about my family. I told him only the appropriate things: that my brother was in France but that he’d be home soon; my dad teaches English at the college; my mom is stake music chairman; and that there were two younger siblings. “Your family sounds nice,” he said.

I said, “You have no idea.”

“I know,” he said. “You never let me near them.”

“Uh … well, I’m sure you’ll get a chance to meet them one of these days,” I said, sounding pleasant but feeling dread. I was sure he would meet them one day soon since my brother would be home in just a few days. Then it would be good-bye Shane.

On the Saturday we’d planned George’s welcome-home celebration I was in the front yard because I had just come back from helping my little brother find his tortoise, Houdini. George was on his way out the door to play basketball.

George motioned for me to sit on the porch. He was so nice to me that I couldn’t stop talking. Funny, he hadn’t ever listened to me like that before his mission. I told him all about Shane and about how I was afraid he’d lose interest if he met the family. I thought he’d tell me I was wrong to think that. But he didn’t. He agreed that it was a crazy family. “But,” he said, “crazy in a good way.” I couldn’t think of how being related to a clown, a cat woman, an opera fanatic, and a nightclub diva could be “a good way.” And George? He had the power to wipe me off the face of the earth with one nickname.

“What’s with the frown,” George asked. I told him that I was afraid he’d call me that awful nickname in front of Shane and life, as I knew it, would come to a devastating halt.

“Listen,” he said, “if this Shane guy were to split just because of a nickname, or because your grandmother wears a clown outfit …”

“A clown outfit with a bushy purple wig and huge pink nose.”

“Yeah, with purple hair and that awesome nose, and it’s all for cheering up sick kids! If that turns him off then what kind of a person would Shane be? I know he wouldn’t be good enough for you.”

Good enough for me? I’d never thought of it that way.

“Either he likes you or he doesn’t. If he likes you, he’ll like your family. And if he’s just sticking around because you’re beautiful, then better to get rid of him now instead of later when it would hurt more.”

Beautiful? My brother had never talked to me like this before.

“Gotta go.” George got up and gave me a wink before he jogged down the street.

Later, while I made my bed I talked to Katelyn on the phone. “Am I like my family?” I hoped she’d say, “No, not at all.” But she didn’t say anything at first. Then she said, “In some ways you are, and in some ways you aren’t.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well,” Katelyn took a deep breath. “It’s like this. If you had a different family you’d be completely different too. I mean, I think you’re so funny, and it’s because you have funny family stories to tell. And, well, you’re a good baby-sitter because you’ve taken care of your little brother and, like you say yourself, ‘If I can take care of him I can take care of any kid!’ It’s hard to figure out how to say what I mean. But sometimes it seems like you might do something great or unusual someday because you see a grandma everyday, going to the hospital.”

That was a revelation.

I looked at my clock radio, only two more hours until the party for George. The phone rang.

“Hello?” It was Shane. “I’m coming over for the celebration.”

“You’re what?”

“George invited me. Hey, he’s a good basketball player. Your ward beat us because of him.”

“Uh …” my normally extensive vocabulary seemed to have short-circuited. When I hung up I felt a renewed surge of verbal ability, “George!” What made me think he’d changed? I’d trusted him! “George!”

“George isn’t here!” my grandmother-the-clown answered. “He’s gone to the humane shelter to pick up Grandma Anna.”

I went back to my room to fume alone. That George!

A car pulled into the driveway. George and Grandma Anna got out. The cat woman was carrying a tiny kitten. I saw George glance toward my window. It never occurred to me that he’d worry about making me mad. He actually looked concerned. I sat on the bed. I wanted to think about what George said about Shane liking me—and my family.

I heard my mom singing in the kitchen. I wrapped my quilt around my shoulders and leaned toward the open window. Grandma Anna had made the quilt; it has cats on it. I wondered who’d arrive first, my dad or Shane. I felt a chill of anticipation. It was the same feeling I’d get when I was about to give a talk or act in a play. I’d always tell myself that I’d done all I could already and if people didn’t like me, then tough toenails. I looked out at the stars, humming along with my mother’s song.

George yelled from the driveway below, “Mushbottom!” I looked down at him. He was cradling the kitten. “I thought we could name the kitten Mushbottom. Then I could promise never to call you that again.”

I thought it must be his way of apologizing for inviting Shane to the celebration. I had to admit he was right about one thing. How could I ever have a real date if I kept hiding such an important part of the real me? George smiled and climbed the steps to the front porch. I saw headlights coming up the street so I put the quilt back and combed my hair, which happens to be curly just like Grandma Jenny’s.

Illustrated by Greg Newbold