Junie B. Jones and the Yucky Blucky Fruitcake - Barbara Park [8]
The cake lady reached into her hat.
“Number three!” she hollered out.
I looked down at my square.
“HEY! IT’S ME! IT’S ME! LOOK! I’M STANDING ON THE NUMBER THREE! AND SO I’M THE WINNER, I THINK!”
Mother clapped her hands.
“It is you! You are the winner!” she yelled.
She had relief on her face.
“Go pick out a cake! Any cake you want!” she said.
I zoomed to the cake table and looked at all the yummy flavors.
There was chocolate. And orange. And lemon. And white. And coconutty. And cupcakes. And doughnuts. And brownies.
Also, there was a secret cake wrapped in shiny aluminum foil!
“What kind is that one?” I asked.
The cake lady wrinkled her nose. “Oh, I don’t think you want that one. That one is a fruitcake,” she said.
I smiled real big.
“Yea!” I hollered. “Yea for the delicious fruitcake! ’Cause fruit is the bestest thing I love. And so that’s the one I pick!”
Mother shook her head. “No, Junie B. It’s not the kind of fruit you think it is. You’re not going to like it.”
I stopped smiling.
“Yeah, only that is not fair and square of you. ’Cause you said I could pick any cake I wanted. And now I pick the fruitcake. And you say I can’t have it.”
Mother rolled her eyes up at the ceiling.
“Fine. Take the fruitcake,” she grouched.
She lifted it off the table for me.
“NO! ME! ME! I WANT TO CARRY IT!” I hollered.
“It’s very heavy,” said Mother.
“Yeah, only that’s how come I have muscley muscles in my arms,” I explained.
I bended my arm to show her. “See? See my muscle bump? That’s how strong I am.”
Finally, Mother put the cake in my arms.
It dropped on the floor.
“Whoa!” I said. “That is the strongest fruit I ever felt!”
“Now do you want me to carry it?” Mother asked.
“No,” I said. “’Cause I just got a great idea in my head!”
Then I put my heavy cake of fruit down on the floor.
And I dragged it right out of Room Nine!
8/The Most Usefulest Cake I Love
I dragged my fruitcake down the hall. Mother walked behind me. Her cheeks were very sucked into her head.
“Want to drag it? Want to drag my cake of fruit?” I asked her.
Mother said the word I’ll pass.
That’s how come I dragged my fruitcake to the Moon Walk Tent. All by myself.
And guess what?
Daddy was waiting with my other shoe! It had gotten stuck under that big tent. And we didn’t even see it there!
I put it on my foot. “Hurray!” I said. “Now everything is happily ever after. ’Cause I have my shoes named pat-and-leather. And also I have a delicious cake of fruit! See it, Daddy? See the cake I won!”
Daddy looked at my cake in shiny aluminum.
Then he looked at Mother.
He shook his head very slow. “No,” he said. “Don’t tell me.”
Mother rocked back and forth on her feet.
“Yupper,” she said.
Daddy closed his eyes. “You mean she picked…”
“A fruitcake,” said Mother.
I jumped way high in the air again. “Yea! Yea! A fruitcake! I picked a fruitcake! And now I would like to see what it looks like. Only I can’t even lift this big guy off the ground.”
Daddy picked it up and set it on the table.
I pulled off the aluminum foil.
Then I just stared and stared at that thing.
It was brownish and slickish. And there was slippery shine on the top.
“It got rotted,” I said very quiet.
Mother smiled a little bit. “It’s not rotten, Junie B.,” she said, “That’s just the way fruitcakes look.”
I looked closer at it. “Yeah, only I don’t even see any fruits on this gunky thing.”
Daddy pinched off a little piece for me to look at. He showed me some hard green things. And some hard yellow things. And some hard red things. He said those were the fruits.
I put my tongue on a green one.
“Yuck!” I said. “Bluck!”
Just then I heard a voice.
“JUNIE B.! JUNIE B.! LOOK WHAT I WON AT THE CAKE WALK!”
I turned around.
It was my bestest friend, Lucille. She was running at me with a box of fluffy white cupcakes. They had beautiful rainbow sprinkles on them.
“See them, Junie B.? See how delicious they look?” said Lucille.
“Yeah? So?” I said.
Lucille looked on the table where my cake was.
“What’s that?” she asked. “Did you win a cake, too? Can I