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“Do you want to talk about it?”
“No!” Marvin said right away. He couldn’t tell his mother that he wore a dress!
“I’m okay,” he said.
His mother kissed his forehead. “Good night,” she said, and started out the door.
“Why’d you think I was Linzy?” Marvin asked.
“I don’t know,” said his mother. “You sounded like Linzy. Go back to sleep.”
But he didn’t go back to sleep.
He was afraid of turning into a girl.
“It’s already started,” he said aloud. “I already sound like a girl.”
That’s what his mother had said.
“I sound like Linzy.”
He listened to the sound of his voice as he spoke. To see if it was true.
Maybe. It was hard to tell.
He spoke some more. “Mary had a little lamb. Her fleece was white as snow.”
His voice did sound a little bit funny.
“Wait! Why am I talking about Mary and her dumb lamb?”
That’s a girl poem!
But his voice did sound different. He was sure of it!
In school his class had been learning about butterflies and moths. A caterpillar goes to sleep. And when it wakes up, it’s a butterfly.
He remembered Mrs. North had said, “No one knows exactly how a caterpillar turns into a butterfly.”
Now Marvin had an answer.
Maybe it kisses its elbow.
He got out of bed.
He felt safe, as long as he was awake. He just couldn’t go to sleep. Not until he kissed his elbow again.
Two hours later he was still trying to kiss his elbow.
He held his elbow in front of his face and jumped up and down. He thought that maybe if he could jump high enough and fast enough, his mouth would bump into it.
He stopped jumping. He looked at his bed.
“I have to go to sleep sometime,” he said, listening to the strange sound of his own voice. “I can’t stay awake forever!”
He yawned.
“Boys don’t turn into girls,” Marvin told General Jackson. “I’m just having strange thoughts because it’s so late at night.”
