I, Bruno Read online

  I, Bruno

  I, BRuNo

  CAROLINE ADDERSON

  Illustrated by HELEN FLOOK

  Text copyright © 2007 Caroline Adderson

  Illustrations copyright © 2007 Helen Flook

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Adderson, Caroline, 1963-

  I, Bruno / written by Caroline Adderson; illustrated by Helen Flook.

  (Orca echoes)

  ISBN 978-1-55143-501-5

  I. Flook, Helen II. Title. III. Series.

  PS8551.D3267I17 2007 jC813’.54 C2007-903958-8

  First published in the United States, 2007

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2007930906

  Summary: A series of stories for young readers about a boy with a strong personality and a rich imagination.

  Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

  Typesetting by Teresa Bubela Cover artwork and interior illustrations by Helen Flook Author photo by Caroline Adderson (self-taken)

  Orca Book Publishers Orca Book Publishers

  PO Box 5626, STN. B PO Box 468

  Victoria, BC Canada Custer, WA USA

  V8R 6S4 98240-0468

  www.orcabook.com

  Printed and bound in Canada.

  Printed on 100% PCW recycle paper.

  010 09 08 07 • 4 3 2 1

  For Patrick, boy inspiration.

  Contents

  Bruno Eats the Rainbow …

  Bruno, the Queen …

  Bruno, Dragonslayer …

  Bruno, Hard at Work …

  Bruno Speaks Car …

  I, Bruno …

  Bruno Eats the Rainbow

  In the morning it was raining. Bruno wore his raincoat and new rubber boots to school. Mom carried an umbrella. The wind kept turning it inside out.

  “Uh-oh,” Bruno said each time. “Your under-umbrella is showing!”

  It rained all through recess. It rained all through lunch. But when Bruno walked out of school at the end of the day, the sun was shining. Not only that. A huge rainbow filled half the sky.

  Mom was waiting for him. She asked, “Should we go home? Or should we walk to the end of the rainbow and find the pot of gold?”

  “I would walk to the end of the rainbow,” said Bruno, “if there was a pot of macaroni there.” He was hungry. He couldn’t eat his sandwich at lunch. Someone had snuck lettuce into it.

  Mom said, “Then let’s walk home. That’s where the macaroni is.”

  On the way, they passed a lot of flowers. Yellow flowers. Red flowers. Purple flowers. Orange flowers. A rainbow of flowers. Mom kept stopping to look at them. “I love spring,” she said. “It’s such a colorful time of year.”

  Bruno’s empty stomach said, “Let’s get a move on, please.”

  At home, Bruno gobbled up Mom’s macaroni. It tasted so good! Then he saw something in the bottom of the bowl. Something was hiding in the cheese. “Ah!” he screamed. “There’s green in my macaroni!”

  “It’s just zucchini,” Mom said. “Just a tiny little bit.”

  “It’s green!” Bruno put down his spoon. He wasn’t hungry anymore.

  But by dinner he was starving again. He stood in the kitchen door. “Is it safe to come in?” he asked.

  “What do you mean?” Dad asked.

  “Is there any green on my plate?”

  “No,” Mom said, “the coast is clear.”

  Bruno sat down at the table with his parents.

  “What’s the matter with green?” Dad asked. “Grass is green. Frogs are green.”

  “Your new rubber boots are green,” Mom said.

  “Don’t you like grass and frogs?” Dad asked.

  “Don’t you like your new rubber boots?” Mom asked.

  “I do like grass and frogs and my new boots,”

  Bruno told them. “But I don’t want to eat them. I never want to eat green again.”

  “Okay,” Dad said. “I got it. No green. Now eat your un-green supper.”

  The next morning at breakfast, Dad said to Bruno, “What color will you eat today?”

  Bruno named his favorite color: brown. His name, Bruno, meant brown. Mom and Dad had named him Bruno because he was born with lots and lots of brown hair sticking out all over his head.

  “Brown it is,” Dad said. He made Bruno hot chocolate and toast with peanut butter. “And what color should I put in your lunch?” Dad asked.

  Bruno thought about it. “Orange,” he said.

  Dad filled Bruno’s lunch kit. He put in an orange. He put in carrot sticks. He put in macaroni with orange cheese. And he put in a box of mango juice for Bruno to wash down his orange lunch.

  That night, Bruno asked for a white dinner. Mom gave him a glass of milk, a potato and two hardboiled eggs. He wouldn’t eat the yolks.

  “They’re yellow,” Bruno said.

  The next day was Saturday. Bruno got to sleep late. He dreamed he was floating on his back in a huge swimming pool. Above him, the sky was the same color as the water.

  When he woke up, he was hungry for blue.

  Mom said, “Hmm. How about pancakes? I think there are some blueberries in the freezer.”

  When breakfast was ready, Bruno looked at the pancakes on his plate. “I see more brown than blue,” he said.

  Mom opened a new bottle of blueberry syrup. She poured it over the pancakes.

  Then she took a box out of the cupboard. Inside the box were three very small bottles. One was red, one was blue and one was yellow.

  “What are those?” Bruno asked.

  “Food coloring.” She put a drop of blue in Bruno’s milk. She stirred it with a spoon. The milk looked like a glass of sky with the cloud mixed in.

  That weekend Bruno also ate yellow: scrambled eggs, a banana, lemonade. He ate purple: stir-fried cabbage, blackberry yogurt, grape juice. He ate red: strawberries, baked beans with ketchup, cranberry cocktail. He ate pink: grapefruit, ham, cake.

  On Sunday night, Mom said, “Bruno, now you have eaten every color but one.”

  “What color?” Bruno asked.

  “Watch.”

  Mom brought two of the little bottles to the dinner table. She added a drop of blue to his milk.

  “I already ate blue,” Bruno said.

  “I know. Watch this.” She added a drop from the yellow bottle. When she stirred, Bruno saw green.

  “No!” Bruno cried. “No green!”

  Dad brought dinner to the table: pesto pizza, salad and a bowl of green grapes. Two of these things Bruno liked. He got an idea.

  “There’s one more color I haven’t eaten,” he said. “Black!”

  He put his napkin over his head. To be on the safe side, he closed his eyes too. A lot of dinner fell into his lap. But what got into his mouth didn’t taste green. It tasted great.

  Bruno, the Queen

  Bruno’s Nana lived in an apartment near Bruno’s house. Bruno liked to visit her. She had an elevator to ride up and down. Also, she never made him eat green. She didn’t like eating green herself. “Down with green!” she always said. Her favorite dinner was sausages and mashed potatoes. She called them “bangers and mash.” Nana served Bruno’s bangers and mash on a special plate with
a picture of the Queen of England on it.

  Nana had lots of old clothes in a trunk. Bruno liked the smell of the old clothes. He liked to lie in the trunk with the lid closed. He would call, “Nana! Nana!” When she came looking for him, he would

  throw open the lid and jump out. Every time, Nana screamed. Then she let him dress up in the clothes.

  Sometimes Bruno slept over at Nana’s. Before bed, she would tell him stories about when she was young and beautiful. When she was young and beautiful, she lived in England. She had seen the Queen in person.

  “She’s much nicer in person than on tv,” Nana said one night. “She’s wonderful! She’s the most important person in the world!”

  “If she’s the most important person in the world,” Bruno asked, “why do people eat sausages off her face?”

  Nana laughed.

  The Queen wasn’t just the Queen of England, Nana told him. She was Queen of many, many countries. Bruno had not even heard of some of the countries.

  The next day, Bruno went home. That night he went to sleep in his own bed. He wondered what it would be like to be the Queen. When he woke up in the morning, he was the Queen.

  He went into the kitchen for breakfast. “I’m the Queen today,” he told Mom.

  “We have to go to the library this morning,” Mom said. “Can’t you be the Queen when we get back?”

  “I’m the Queen now,” Bruno said. “What do you think the Queen eats for breakfast?”

  “Toast and peanut butter,” Mom said. “

  Then that’s what I’ll have,” Bruno said. He added, “Thank you very much!” Nana said the Queen had very good manners.

  Mom was happy. She said, “I like this Queen talk!”

  After breakfast, Bruno put on his Bruno clothes. Then he put on his Queen clothes. He put on the golden skirt that used to be Mom’s. He put on a red velvet cape. Mom had sewn the cape for him to be the King. But Bruno wasn’t the King today. He was the Queen. He was the most important person in the world. He put on all his necklaces. He put on his crown. Lastly, he put on the long white gloves that Nana used to wear when she was young and beautiful. They went up to Bruno’s shoulders and looked very royal.

  “I’m ready,” the Queen told Mom.

  “Are you sure you want to go out like that?” Mom asked.

  “Yes! I’m the Queen!”

  “All right. But someone might say something to you.”

  “What?”

  “They might say, ‘If you’re a boy, why are you wearing a dress?’”

  “It’s a skirt,” the Queen said. “And I’m not a boy. I’m the Queen.”

  They left the house with the library books in a bag. “Wait!” the Queen cried. Mom had to unlock the door so she could run back in for her scepter.

  On the way to the library, the Queen walked a little bit ahead. After all, she was the most important person in the world. A block from home, they met a woman. She stopped and bowed. Mom was right. She did say something. “Your Majesty,” she said, “will you bless me with your scepter?”

  The Queen smiled. She touched the woman’s shoulder with the scepter.

  “Thank you, your Majesty!”

  “You’re welcome,” the Queen said.

  At the next corner an old man was waiting to cross the street. He had two little dogs on leashes. “Don’t you look nice!” he told the Queen. The little dogs wagged their tails so hard their bottoms wiggled.

  Closer to the library, a jogger passed by. “What a wonderful costume!” she called.

  “It’s not a costume!” the Queen shouted back.

  “Where’s the party?” someone asked at the library door.

  Mom said, “Life’s a party.”

  The Queen took the books out of the bag. She slid them across the counter. Then Mom and the Queen went to get more books. “I want a book about me,” the Queen said, “so I can remember the names of all my countries.”

  They found a good book about the Queen. They also found a good book about snakes and one about making models out of toothpicks.

  The Queen gave her library card to the librarian. The librarian said, “My goodness! This card belongs to a princess!”

  “That’s not the right card,” the Queen told Mom.

  “Doesn’t it say Queen?” Mom asked.

  The librarian put on her glasses. “Oh, yes. It does. I’m sorry, your Majesty.”

  The Queen said, “I forgive you.”

  They turned to leave. Then, right there in the middle of the library, the Queen began to undress.

  “What are you doing?” Mom asked.

  “I’m tired of being the Queen,” the Queen said.

  He wanted to get home and make an airport out of toothpicks.

  Mom nodded. She put the skirt, the crown and the gloves in the bag with the books. The Queen took off his necklaces. He handed them to Mom. He took off the cape.

  “And I was wrong,” Mom said. “Everyone was very nice.”

  The Queen stepped out of his skirt. Bruno said, “Of course they were nice. Wouldn’t you be nice if you met the Queen?”

  Then Bruno walked home with Mom—Bruno himself, the person he most liked to be.

  Bruno, Dragonslayer

  Bruno and his mom and dad lived on a perfect street. They could walk to the park. They could walk to the library. They could walk to school.

  Across the street was the fire hall. The firefighters all knew Bruno’s name. If Bruno was in the yard, they would talk to him on the fire truck’s speaker. “Hello, Bruno! How are you today?”

  Mom liked living close to the fire hall. It made her feel safe. The firefighters were nice. The neighbors were nice. The gardens were nice.

  “What a perfect street,” she said.

  The park was three blocks away. It had a playground and lots of trees. Bruno liked the trees

  better than the playground. The climbing was better.

  One tree in the park was so big it seemed like a castle. The ground around it was the dungeon. The knights lived in the middle branches. A princess was supposed to live at the top, in the turret. “Who wants to be a princess?” Bruno would shout. Lots of girls would come running. But when they saw how high the turret was, they went back to the swings. So Sir Bruno and the other knights hung around in the branches, princess-less.

  Sir Bruno’s dad sat on a park bench, talking on his phone. When it was time to go home, he made the sound of a trumpet with his hands.

  One day when they were walking home from the park, Bruno found a perfect stick. It was as long as his arm and very straight. He didn’t want to waste it.

  “This is my sword,” Sir Bruno said.

  They walked a little farther. Sir Bruno waved his sword while they walked. He stabbed the air. If only a knight would come around the corner! Sir Bruno was so busy he almost didn’t notice the dragon waiting by the curb. Dad didn’t notice because his phone rang.

  The dragon was bright red, except for the blue top of its head. It had two bulgy eyes and a round snout. One square tooth stuck out. Sir Bruno was sorry it only came up to his waist. But a knight couldn’t be too picky. There weren’t a lot of dragons around. This one seemed to be sleeping. Sir Bruno attacked. “One two, one two!” he shouted, slashing with the sword. The dragon was strong. It seemed to be made of iron. Disaster! Sir Bruno’s sword broke in half ! Luckily, the dragon was already dead.

  Dad caught up. “Why are you lying on the sidewalk?” he asked.

  “I’m wounded,” Sir Bruno said.

  Dad knelt beside him. “Where?”

  Sir Bruno showed him. Dad’s kiss healed him. They walked on.

  Halfway down the next block, Sir Bruno and Dad saw another dragon. “What kind of street are we living on?” Dad said. “This is crazy!”

  “Quick!” Bruno shouted. “A sword!”

  Dad picked a stick off the ground. Sir Bruno charged and killed the dragon.

  “That was a close one, son,” Dad said. He patted Sir Bruno on the back
.

  The very next block they saw a third dragon! Bruno threw the stick down. “Forget it!” he said. Slaying dragons was too much work!

  “What?” Dad asked. “You’re not going to protect me?” He stepped quickly behind Bruno.

  “Your phone! Your phone!” Bruno shouted. “Call nine-one-one!”

  Just then a white truck drove up. A man wearing coveralls got out. All he had for a weapon was a wrench. He grabbed the dragon by the tooth. The dragon opened its mouth to roar. Instead of fire, water gushed out.

  “Will you look at that?” Dad said.

  “I don’t think those were very dangerous dragons,” Bruno said. He felt bad about the two he had killed.

  At dinner that night, Bruno and Dad told Mom everything.

  “Dragons? On our perfect street?” She shivered.

  After school the next day, Bruno wanted to go back to the park. He wanted to be Sir Bruno again. Mom didn’t want to go. “With dragons all along the way?” she said.

  “Don’t worry,” Bruno told her. “I’ll protect you.”

  On the way to the park they passed all three dragons. Bruno hadn’t killed them after all! They were alive, and they were tame! A man came by with a dog. Bruno stepped in front of Mom to protect her. The dog tried to lift its leg on the dragon. Bruno protected the dragon too. “There’s a tree right there!” he told the dog.

  Bruno and Mom patted the dragon’s blue head. “See?” he said. “It won’t bite.”

  It was nice to live on a perfect street again.

  Bruno, Hard at Work

  After school Bruno went over to Ravi’s house. Ravi was his best friend. He was his best friend and he was his friend with the best toys. Ravi had a remote-controlled robot-dog. He had a two-car racetrack. He even had a real piano.

  “Ravi, you have the best toys,” Bruno told him.

  “You have the best toys,” Ravi told Bruno.

  “No, you do!”

  “You do!” Ravi said.