Her Father's Daughter

The Tale of the Frog Daddy's fallen back to sleep and is snoring peacefully. The Sunday funnies cover his face and are spread on top of the blankets. Other sections of the paper rattle and wrinkle when Danny, straddling his soggy diaper, crawls on the bed and plops his soggy bottom on the pillow bunched in a ball beneath his daddy's head. "Funnies, Daddy, read me the funnies," he begs, and pulls the newspaper away from his daddy's face. He pokes a finger in one eye. "Wake up." Both eyes are squeezed tight. The lids wiggle and twitch. Danny giggles. Daddy isn't asleep, just playing pretend. Danny gouges harder to pry an eye open. As soon as he gets one open and is digging into the second, the first eye slams itself shut. Danny snickers so hard he doesn't hear his sister Maggie tiptoe into the bedroom until she throws herself with a thump and a crackle onto the bed and begins to tug on the other eyelid while Danny pinches a few eyelashes and gives Daddy's eyelid a hard ouchie pull. "He's not asleep, he's just pretending," Maggie says. "You're just pretending, aren't you, Daddy?" she shouts into his ear. She gives the eyelid a hard upward tug and looks into a large brown eyeball surrounded by white, staring back at her. Suddenly there is a thrilling growl. Daddy isn't going to take it anymore. With a ferocious roar and two large paws, he pounces. The two scramble to protect themselves and giggle even harder, for his strong claws have found their ribs, their stomachs, the bottoms of their feet. They scream with fear and joy. Their older brother, Frankie, comes from the kitchen to lean against the doorjamb and watch. Maggie grabs Daddy's big toe and Danny leaps on Daddy's stomach. "Oomph!" Daddy says. "Oh, so you think you're tough, do you? We'll just see about that now, won't we?" There's more squealing from Danny, more tickling from Daddy; then Daddy hollers real loud and jerks his leg, for Maggie has bit his big toe. Hard. "That does it," Daddy says. "That's enough for now. Settle down, climb in, and if you're real good, I'll read you the funnies." Which is exactly what Danny wanted in the first place. So Danny crawls under the covers on one side and Maggie on the other. Daddy raises his head off the pillow and says to Frankie, who is now watching from beside the window, "You, too, come on. Get in." Frankie is wearing the blue-and-white-striped pajamas Santa Claus brought him. Mama says the blue matches the blue of his eyes. Frankie's skin is almost as white as the white stripes. "Too pale and skinny and too tall for his age," Mama says. "It's because he's growing way too fast." But all Danny can feel when he looks at Frankie, standing by the window with the morning sun shining on his black hair, is how much he wishes he was as big as his big brother, who is learning how to be a real boxer. Frankie is lucky. He gets to take lessons from Daddy's old friend, Sailor Sharky, who owns the gym uptown above Brennan's meat market. They go there every Sunday afternoon, him and Daddy. They go alone. Not even Maggie gets to go watch Frankie put on the boxing gloves and get into the ring. Not even Mama, who wouldn't go for a million dollars, not even if you asked her on bended knees, she said. "It's cruel to teach little boys how to beat up on each other so a bunch of grown men can sit around drinking and betting money on who's going to knock the other one down, or out--which is even worse! And don't you tell me it doesn't happen. I think it's barbaric," she said. Which is when Daddy said to Mama, "Not another word. We're not raising us a pansy here. It's a man's world, and he's got to learn how to take care of himself, how to be a real man. And, by God, it's my job to teach him. This is the way my own daddy taught me, and I didn't turn out tPoupeney, Mollie is the author of 'Her Father's Daughter' with ISBN 9780385327602 and ISBN 0385327609.