What's in a Name?

What's in a Name?

         My name's Woody. Woody Watt. No, really, it is. My parents weren't thinking clearly when they named me. Woody isn't even short for Woodrow, or something I can grow into someday. Just Woody. Of course the other kids in my 4th grade class always call me by my full name -- with a question mark in their tone: "Would 'e what?" Then some kids will add things like: "Climb a tree?"
"Eat a worm?"
"Wear a dress?"
"Kiss a girl?"

         Bunch'a comedians, huh? So, can you blame me for running away from home? I would go some place where no one knew me and make up a new name for myself. Something cool -- Dirk Davis or Keanu Reeds or Brad Smits -- something people wouldn't make fun of every time they called my name.

         I waited until Saturday morning when my dad was busy working in the yard and my mom was driving my big sister, Meg Ann, to the mall. I shook all of the coins out of my piggy bank (really a horsey bank) onto my bed. Nine dollars and twenty-three cents would be enough, I was sure, to last me a long time on my journey.

         I filled my pockets with the coins. My jeans slipped over my hips and fell in a jingly wad around my ankles. I hitched them back up and tightened my belt to the very last hole. Having no suitcase, I filled my backpack with a clean shirt, socks, and, remembering what my grandma always said about being in an accident, three pairs of underwear. Sadly, there just wasn't room for my toothbrush.

         When I saw my dad go around the side of the house, pushing the roaring lawn mower, I made my escape. The park three blocks from my house was a good place to rest. The swing was OK, but the see-saw wasn't a one-person operation. The breakfast Mom fed me earlier -- pancakes, scrambled eggs, and sausage -- sat heavily in my stomach. And the sun sent down its warming rays, making me a little sleepy.

         Finding a big, old tree, I sat on the ground with my back against the scratchy bark. Just as I was getting comfortable, a hole appeared in the tree trunk right beside me! A kid about my age, with fire engine red hair, poked his head out of the hole and said, "Follow me. This is the place you're looking for."

         I tried to see around the kid, to see what was behind him, but I saw only darkness. "Oh, yeah? How do you know what I'm looking for?"

         The kid sighed. "My name's Red Hott. Like in hot dog? This is the entrance to The Land of Kids with Weird Names."

         I nearly giggled when he told me his name. It was worse than mine. "I'm Woody Wa . . ."

         "Yeah, yeah," he interrupted me. "I know. We've been expecting you. Come on."

         I grabbed my backpack and stepped into the hole. Whoa! Hokey smokes! I felt myself sliding down, down, down, gaining speed with every second. The metal slide I felt beneath me suddenly disappeared, and I fell freely into the darkness. I hoped there weren't jagged rocks below. Or water. With crocodiles.

         Just before I started to scream, a bright light appeared below me, and I landed in the middle of a nice, soft, house-sized pillow. I crawled to the edge and slid down to the ground, where I was immediately surrounded by kids of all ages, sizes, and skin colors.

         A pretty, dark-haired girl stepped forward and introduced herself. "My name is Ima Doofus. Welcome to The Land of Kids with Weird Names. This is where all kids with embarrassing names end up . . . a place where no one will make fun of you because of your name."

         I suppressed a snicker when she said her name. "So there are no adults here?"

         Ima shook her head. "Never! They are the ones who gave us our names. We do quite well without them."

         A yellow-skinned boy stepped up and offered his hand. "Sushi Rahfish," he said.

         I shook his hand. "Glad to meet you, Sushi."

         One by one the other kids came forward to greet me. A brown-skinned girl named Hallie Penyo, a black boy called DeJon Mustarrd, a girl with a Russian accent named Katya Louking, and so on, every child, regardless of nationality, with one thing in common -- strange parents who gave no thought to the life of misery they were bestowing upon their kids by giving them goofy names.

         The place didn't have furniture of any kind. The only things I saw were small suitcases and backpacks, the property of others who came before me, I guessed. Ima seemed to be the leader of the group, so I asked her, "What do you eat down here?"

         "We have no need for food or water," she said, tossing her obviously dirty hair.

         "TV? Video games? A bathtub?" I inquired.

         "None of those. We have only what we brought with us when we ran away from home."

         I felt a frown wrinkle my forehead. "What happens when you get older . . . do you leave and go back to the real world?"

         She exhaled loudly, as though she was talking to someone who didn't know anything. "We don't get older. We stay the same age forever. I'm seventy-four years old."

         She didn't look a day over twelve.

         I wandered toward a large, glowing rock that provided the underground light. A tiny girl who hadn't introduced herself before sat hugging her skinny knees. Tears cut valleys in the grime covering her face. I sat down beside her. "What's the matter?" I asked.

         She looked at me with a pout on her lips. "I . . . I want to go home. I miss my mother and father. I don't care anymore that they named me Giddy Upp."

         "Why don't you leave, then?"

         Giddy looked around to make sure no one was close enough to hear her before she whispered, "We can't ever leave. Once the sun sets on the day you arrive, there is no escape."

         "I'm sure the sun hasn't set yet for me. And I'm pretty sure I don't want to stay here," I told her.

         "Oh, then you must hurry! It doesn't matter what your name is. What matters is that you have a family who loves you . . . who gave you a name," Giddy said. "Weird names aren't so bad. When you get older it will make people remember you. Would you want to be another John Smith or William Brown? You have a name probably no one else has."

         I realized that she was right. Suddenly Woody Watt sounded like a perfectly wonderful name. "How do I leave?"

         "On the other side of the light rock there is a hole. Crawl into it, and you'll be sucked up to the real world," Giddy said, a trembling smile lifting the corners of her mouth.

         "Won't you try to come with me . . . to leave this place?" I pleaded.

         She shook her head. "Others have tried. They only fell back down before reaching the surface."

         Having no words to say to her, I nodded my thanks and ran toward the light rock. The opening was small, and I had to get on my hands and knees and crawl inside. No sooner had I crawled into the hole than the door slid shut with a bang, and I felt myself being sucked upward, faster and faster. Dizziness swept over me, and I closed my eyes.

         When I felt the warmth of the sun on my face, I opened my eyes to find myself sitting against that big tree, exactly where I had been before my journey to The Land of Kids with Weird Names.

         I ran home as fast as I could. Dad was finished mowing the lawn and waved to me as I dashed across the grass. I wrapped my arms around his waist and found that I was crying.

         He patted my shoulder. "What is it, Woody? What's wrong?"

         "I used to hate my funny name. Now I'm glad you named me Woody," I said, swallowing hard.

         Dad dropped to one knee and hugged me. "Funny name? You never said you didn't like your name."

         "The other kids make fun of it, but I don't care."

         Dad smiled. "It's a tradition in my family, Woody. My father's name was Youdo Watt. My name, other than Dad, is Saye Watt."

         I laughed, wiping away my tears, when I heard those names. "What about Sis? How come you didn't give her a funny name?"

         "Why, we did, son. Her first name is Meg, and her middle initial is 'A'. Meg A. Watt."

         Until that second, I'd never realized that my sister had been gifted with a strange name, too. All those years I could have been teasing her -- lost. Oh, well -- she never once teased me about my name, so I wasn't about to start something Meg would finish. She was older, stronger, and pinched like a lobster when I made her mad.

         I wondered if Meg ever thought of running away from home when she was younger and whether she would have returned from The Land of Kids with Weird Names. As I helped my dad rake the sweet-smelling, cut grass, I was sure glad that I'd come home to my family.

The End

Thanks to Shaara for the illustration.