Don't Make Me Smile by Barbara Park Page B

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I know I should have told you, but I was afraid you wouldn’t come.”
    True. Very true. But I didn’t admit it.
    â€œListen,” he said. “It’s still not too late for some breakfast. Why don’t we go over to my apartment and I’ll fix some scrambled eggs.”
    I couldn’t let him off too easy. “No, thanks,” I said. “I have a hard time eating over there.”
    Dad drove me home without saying another word. When I got inside, I went straight to myroom. I didn’t cry or anything this time, though. Instead, I took out Dr. Girard’s card and looked at it.
    If any of my friends ever saw it, they just wouldn’t understand.
    I walked to my wastebasket and tore it up.
    Before I did, I memorized the number.

(ten)
    T WO WEEKS after I first met Dr. Girard, it was Easter. With all the problems that were going on in my family, I had almost forgotten about it.
    To tell you the truth, Easter isn’t one of my favorite holidays anymore. It’s better than nothing, but that’s about it.
    A lot of holidays seem to lose their fun when you start getting older. Easter is one of them. For me, Easter was way better when I was little. I really loved the whole Easter Bunny thing back then.
    I guess there are a lot of little kids who nevertake the Easter Bunny seriously. I mean, when you think about it, trying to believe that there’s a giant rabbit hopping all over the world delivering eggs isn’t that easy. Actually, it would probably make a lot more sense if there was an Easter Chicken. But when I was little, it didn’t matter. I was one of those kids who believed whatever my parents told me. If they had told me that there was an Easter Lizard, I would have believed that, too.
    When I finally found out that the Easter Bunny wasn’t real, I really took it hard. And guess who told me? Good old MaryAnn Brady.
    She came to school right before Easter vacation and said her mother had told her the Easter Bunny was just make-believe. She said it was really your parents who did all the basket stuff. I bet her mother
also
told her to keep that information a secret. But as you can see, even when she was little, MaryAnn was a giant blabbo.
    Anyhow, when I got home that day, I ran to my mother and asked if what MaryAnn had said was true.
    â€œIs the Easter Bunny real, or is it just pretend?” I asked.
    Mom stopped what she was doing and looked at me.
    â€œWhy?” she asked. “Did someone tell you it wasn’t real?”
    I nodded. “MaryAnn Brady,” I said. “She said her mother told her that the Easter Bunny was really your parents.”
    â€œSo how do you feel about that?” my mother wanted to know. “Would you be upset if I told you that the Easter Bunny was Dad and me?”
    â€œNo,” I said. “I wouldn’t care a bit.”
    Mom smiled. “Well then, I guess that means you’re old enough to understand,” she said. “MaryAnn was right. The Easter Bunny is really Dad and me.”
    My mouth fell open.
    â€œOh no!” I yelled. “Oh no! Why did you have to tell me that? YOU JUST WRECKED MY WHOLE EASTER!”
    My mother was stunned. “But, Charlie,” she said, “you just told me that you wouldn’t care.”
    â€œI lied!” I said. “I really
did
care. And now it’s all ruined! You spoiled my whole holiday!”
    I was a very weird kid. It took me a week before I finally settled down. And if you think that was bad, you should have seen me when I got the news about Santa.
    Anyway, ever since then, Easter has lost most of its thrill for me. In my opinion, once you’ve looked in the basket and eaten the ears off the chocolate rabbit, the excitement is pretty much over.
    My mother knows how I feel about Easter. But for some reason, this year she kept trying to make a big deal out of it. She kept saying stuff like,