Mummy

   

    "Children," said Mrs. Greenburg, "We have a new student with us today. His name is Davie and he's come all the way from London, England. Everybody say 'Hi' to Davie."
   
    "HI, DAVIE!"
   
    "Davie, perhaps you'd like to come up here and tell the class something about yourself."
   
    Davie thought his new teacher was nice, even if she did talk a bit funny. She smiled and said, "Come along, dear," so he went and stood beside her. "Are you ready?"
   
    He took a deep breath.
   
    "My name is Davie," he began, "and I live with my mummy a…
   
    "You live with a mummy?" squealed a little girl from the front row." In your apartment?"
   
    "Can it get out?"
   
    "What does it eat?"
   
    "It's gonna eat Davie…"
   
    "Children, children," said Mrs. Greenburg, "Davie is talking about his mother."
   
    "His mother's a mummy?"
   
    "No, she's not," said Davie.
   
    "All right, Davie, sit down over there, please," said the teacher, and pointed to an empty place next to a boy his own age, who grinned at him and asked, "What's up, my man?"
 
    "Up where?"
   
    The boy stared at him. "You're weird," he said and held out his hand. "Gimme five."
   
    Davie moved as far away as he could get. "But I've only got fifty cents…Would you take a gob-stopper instead?"
   
    "Say what?"
                                                                      *
   
        When Davie got home Daddy still wasn't back from work. His mother was watching T.V. in the front room. 
   
    “How was your day?” she called.
   
    “Cool.”
   
    “Speak English.”
   
    “Okay, I suppose,” said Davie. Then he giggled.
   
    “What’s so funny?”
   
    “The kids at school think you’re a mummy.

    “Well, so I am."

    "You should try explaining that to them."

    His mother laughed."I don't suppose you could run Mummy a bath, could you?" she asked.
   
    "Oh, all right," said Davie and went upstairs to the bathroom, where he struggled to get the plug in and turn on the water.
   
    "Don't forget the bath salts. They're in the cabinet. And you can put in lots of stuff from that big green bottle."
   
    Davie opened the cabinet and peered inside. He soon located the bath salts and emptied out the entire packet. Then he took the green bottle and tried to decipher the words on the label, but they meant nothing to him so he shrugged and poured a copious amount of whatever it was into the steaming water as well.
   
    When his mother came in Davie held up the bottle. "Mummy," he said, "What's 'Em…embalming Fluid'?"
   
    "Oh, that’s just to keep my skin young," she answered with a smile. "After all, we can't have Mummy turning into a dried-up old hag before her time, can we, darling?"