SPN FIC - Scree Man
Yep: I'm still chugging merrily along. Take one ice cream truck, a frantic toddler, a clueless dad, an inventive big brother, and mix well.
"Scree man!" Sammy screamed, and went on crying.
CHARACTERS: Dean (6 1/2), Sammy (2), and John
GENRE: Gen
RATING: G
SPOILERS: None
LENGTH: 1435 words
SCREE MAN
By Carol Davis
The problem, Dean figured, was that Dad didn't listen to his own advice.
"Don't feed him," Dad said when that brown-and-white dog started hanging around their trailer. When Dean asked, "Why not?" Dad said, "Because he'll expect you to feed him every day."
"We could," Dean said. "We could feed him every day."
Dad was quiet for a minute. Then he said, "No, Deano. We can't."
It took a while for Dean to figure out that Dad meant they didn't have enough money for dog food. They had some scraps left from dinner, sometimes, but not always, and Dean couldn't find it in him to give their Lucky Charms to a dog.
The first time he had to say, "No, boy, no," while the dog sat there staring at him with its big pink tongue hanging out, he got what Dad meant.
He was six and a half years old, and he got it.
Why Dad didn't get it was a mystery.
Dean didn't catch on right away - didn't realize that the rule didn't apply only to dogs. That first afternoon, when the ice cream truck turned the corner and started to roll down their street with its weird tinkly music playing, he was the one who got up from the rug in front of the TV set to look out the screen door. From where he was standing he could see other kids starting to gather, see them cluster around the truck when it stopped a little ways down the street.
Sammy came over to stand with him. He grabbed hold of Dean's hand with his little, sweaty, sticky one because Dad had told him, "Always hold Dean's hand."
"Whassit, Dee?" he wanted to know. That was his favorite question: "Whassit, Dee?"
"Ice cream man," Dean said.
"Screem?"
"Yeah. Ice cream."
Dad was sitting over at the table, writing stuff down in his book. He didn't seem to hear the truck.
Then he did.
He was very serious for a minute. Then he got up from the table and went over by the sink. Sammy kept looking out the door, but Dean could see Dad fish around in the pocket of his pants and pull out some money. There must have been more money than he'd thought there was, because he started to smile, and then he took Sammy by the sticky, sweaty hand and all three of them went out the door and across the street to the ice cream truck. Dad got an orange popsicle and Dean got a Creamsicle and Sammy got a little cup of vanilla, because Dad didn't think it was a good idea for him to have anything with a stick. Dad put the ice cream in a bowl for him, and gave him a spoon, and by the time Sammy was done with it, he had ice cream all over his shirt and in his hair.
The next day, when the truck came back, Sammy ran to the door first.
"Scree!" he yelled. "Scree man!"
"Settle down, buddy," Dad told him, but Sammy went on yelling, "Scree man!"
He kept on yelling until the truck had gone away. Then he started to cry, and he wouldn't eat his dinner.
The next day he yelled so much he threw up.
It made sense to Dean: Dad never should have given Sammy that ice cream in the first place. They never should have gone down to the truck.
The next day Sammy started to cry when the phone rang.
"Are we gonna move, Dad?" Dean asked, because that seemed like a good solution - if Sammy couldn't hear the truck, it wouldn't get him upset. But Dad said, "No, Deano," and tried to shut Sammy up by giving him a graham cracker. Of course that didn't work; it was a graham cracker. It made Dean remember something Uncle Bobby had said: "Too late smart." Dad was smart about a lot of things, like fixing cars and TV sets, but he sure was dumb about that "Don't feed the dog" thing, and if Uncle Bobby was right, maybe Dad would never get smart about that particular thing.
Maybe Sammy would cry the whole rest of his life.
They went to the store the next day, to get milk and soup and some toilet paper. Sammy didn't see the ice cream case because he was too busy crying, but Dean did. Way down inside it he could see a whole stack of those little cups of ice cream.
"Can we, Dad?" he asked in a quiet voice. "Are they a lot?"
They weren't. They were a lot cheaper than from the truck, Dad said, so he bought three, and a Creamsicle for Dean, and when they got back to the trailer Dad put the ice cream from one of the cups into a bowl and sat Sammy down in front of it.
"Scree man!" Sammy screamed, and went on crying.
Uncle Bobby didn't have any sayings for when you were a little kid with diapers and you were really stupid.
"It's ice cream," Dean told Sammy.
Sammy just went on crying.
Two different ladies came to the door, and one man, to ask if there was a problem. Dad told them no, his little boy was a Terrible Twos, and they all seemed to understand that. The ladies did, anyway. But that sure didn't solve the problem. It was that dog thing, Dean wanted to tell them. Dad had goofed up.
They were gonna have to move, Dean figured, if Sammy didn't stop crying. They'd probably have to move to the Moon, where nobody could hear Sam if he kept it up.
The next day, Dad took them out in the car so they wouldn't be in the trailer when the ice cream truck came by.
Sam cried the whole time.
In the end, it was Uncle Bobby who solved the problem. Not Uncle Bobby himself, because he was in South Dakota and they were in New Mexico, but Uncle Bobby's puzzles. He liked crossword puzzles, he said, because they made him figure out words, and he liked other kinds because they made him figure out patterns and ideas and stuff.
That night, Dean sat cross-legged on his bed and figured out the pattern.
The next day, he went out back and found a big cardboard box one of the neighbors had left by the trash cans. Outside, where Sammy couldn't see, he decorated it with crayons and cut a hole in the side for a window, and another hole in the bottom.
Then he went into the box of treasures Uncle Bobby had given him and pulled out one thing.
"It's okay, Dad," he said when it got to be afternoon. Dad frowned at him, but Dean gave him a big smile.
A few minutes before the ice cream truck was supposed to come, he went back outside, stepped into the box, into the hole he had cut in the bottom, and pulled it up around him. With Dad watching him, he pulled open the screen door and burst into the trailer, ringing the old bicycle bell Uncle Bobby had given him from the junkyard.
"Ice cream man!" he called out. "Ice cream man! Who wants ice cream?"
Sammy had a bunch of runny snot dripping down his lip, but he didn't cry. He looked at Dean for a minute like he thought Dean was a gigantic stupid head.
Then he screamed, "Me! Me, Dee!"
Luckily, there were still two ice cream cups left in the freezer. Dad smuggled one to Dean, and he gave it to Sam when Sam "paid" him with a checker.
"You did a good job today, son," Dad told him after Sammy went to bed. "That was pretty clever."
It wasn't the best answer in the world; all they had left was one ice cream cup, and for all Dean knew, when that was gone, Sammy would start screaming again. But Dad liked to say, "One thing at a time," and that seemed like a good way to think about things.
Maybe tomorrow, he'd let Sam drive the truck.
Maybe Sam would be happy playing with an empty cup, because he was just a doofus little kid, and there wasn't much he liked better than playing pretend.
"Yeah," Dean said, because he figured Dad was right: he had been pretty smart. He had remembered Uncle Bobby's advice, and he had figured out the puzzle, without any help from any grownups.
Now, he thought as he crawled underneath the covers, if Dad would just get smart too…
* * * * *
"Scree man!" Sammy screamed, and went on crying.
CHARACTERS: Dean (6 1/2), Sammy (2), and John
GENRE: Gen
RATING: G
SPOILERS: None
LENGTH: 1435 words
SCREE MAN
By Carol Davis
The problem, Dean figured, was that Dad didn't listen to his own advice.
"Don't feed him," Dad said when that brown-and-white dog started hanging around their trailer. When Dean asked, "Why not?" Dad said, "Because he'll expect you to feed him every day."
"We could," Dean said. "We could feed him every day."
Dad was quiet for a minute. Then he said, "No, Deano. We can't."
It took a while for Dean to figure out that Dad meant they didn't have enough money for dog food. They had some scraps left from dinner, sometimes, but not always, and Dean couldn't find it in him to give their Lucky Charms to a dog.
The first time he had to say, "No, boy, no," while the dog sat there staring at him with its big pink tongue hanging out, he got what Dad meant.
He was six and a half years old, and he got it.
Why Dad didn't get it was a mystery.
Dean didn't catch on right away - didn't realize that the rule didn't apply only to dogs. That first afternoon, when the ice cream truck turned the corner and started to roll down their street with its weird tinkly music playing, he was the one who got up from the rug in front of the TV set to look out the screen door. From where he was standing he could see other kids starting to gather, see them cluster around the truck when it stopped a little ways down the street.
Sammy came over to stand with him. He grabbed hold of Dean's hand with his little, sweaty, sticky one because Dad had told him, "Always hold Dean's hand."
"Whassit, Dee?" he wanted to know. That was his favorite question: "Whassit, Dee?"
"Ice cream man," Dean said.
"Screem?"
"Yeah. Ice cream."
Dad was sitting over at the table, writing stuff down in his book. He didn't seem to hear the truck.
Then he did.
He was very serious for a minute. Then he got up from the table and went over by the sink. Sammy kept looking out the door, but Dean could see Dad fish around in the pocket of his pants and pull out some money. There must have been more money than he'd thought there was, because he started to smile, and then he took Sammy by the sticky, sweaty hand and all three of them went out the door and across the street to the ice cream truck. Dad got an orange popsicle and Dean got a Creamsicle and Sammy got a little cup of vanilla, because Dad didn't think it was a good idea for him to have anything with a stick. Dad put the ice cream in a bowl for him, and gave him a spoon, and by the time Sammy was done with it, he had ice cream all over his shirt and in his hair.
The next day, when the truck came back, Sammy ran to the door first.
"Scree!" he yelled. "Scree man!"
"Settle down, buddy," Dad told him, but Sammy went on yelling, "Scree man!"
He kept on yelling until the truck had gone away. Then he started to cry, and he wouldn't eat his dinner.
The next day he yelled so much he threw up.
It made sense to Dean: Dad never should have given Sammy that ice cream in the first place. They never should have gone down to the truck.
The next day Sammy started to cry when the phone rang.
"Are we gonna move, Dad?" Dean asked, because that seemed like a good solution - if Sammy couldn't hear the truck, it wouldn't get him upset. But Dad said, "No, Deano," and tried to shut Sammy up by giving him a graham cracker. Of course that didn't work; it was a graham cracker. It made Dean remember something Uncle Bobby had said: "Too late smart." Dad was smart about a lot of things, like fixing cars and TV sets, but he sure was dumb about that "Don't feed the dog" thing, and if Uncle Bobby was right, maybe Dad would never get smart about that particular thing.
Maybe Sammy would cry the whole rest of his life.
They went to the store the next day, to get milk and soup and some toilet paper. Sammy didn't see the ice cream case because he was too busy crying, but Dean did. Way down inside it he could see a whole stack of those little cups of ice cream.
"Can we, Dad?" he asked in a quiet voice. "Are they a lot?"
They weren't. They were a lot cheaper than from the truck, Dad said, so he bought three, and a Creamsicle for Dean, and when they got back to the trailer Dad put the ice cream from one of the cups into a bowl and sat Sammy down in front of it.
"Scree man!" Sammy screamed, and went on crying.
Uncle Bobby didn't have any sayings for when you were a little kid with diapers and you were really stupid.
"It's ice cream," Dean told Sammy.
Sammy just went on crying.
Two different ladies came to the door, and one man, to ask if there was a problem. Dad told them no, his little boy was a Terrible Twos, and they all seemed to understand that. The ladies did, anyway. But that sure didn't solve the problem. It was that dog thing, Dean wanted to tell them. Dad had goofed up.
They were gonna have to move, Dean figured, if Sammy didn't stop crying. They'd probably have to move to the Moon, where nobody could hear Sam if he kept it up.
The next day, Dad took them out in the car so they wouldn't be in the trailer when the ice cream truck came by.
Sam cried the whole time.
In the end, it was Uncle Bobby who solved the problem. Not Uncle Bobby himself, because he was in South Dakota and they were in New Mexico, but Uncle Bobby's puzzles. He liked crossword puzzles, he said, because they made him figure out words, and he liked other kinds because they made him figure out patterns and ideas and stuff.
That night, Dean sat cross-legged on his bed and figured out the pattern.
The next day, he went out back and found a big cardboard box one of the neighbors had left by the trash cans. Outside, where Sammy couldn't see, he decorated it with crayons and cut a hole in the side for a window, and another hole in the bottom.
Then he went into the box of treasures Uncle Bobby had given him and pulled out one thing.
"It's okay, Dad," he said when it got to be afternoon. Dad frowned at him, but Dean gave him a big smile.
A few minutes before the ice cream truck was supposed to come, he went back outside, stepped into the box, into the hole he had cut in the bottom, and pulled it up around him. With Dad watching him, he pulled open the screen door and burst into the trailer, ringing the old bicycle bell Uncle Bobby had given him from the junkyard.
"Ice cream man!" he called out. "Ice cream man! Who wants ice cream?"
Sammy had a bunch of runny snot dripping down his lip, but he didn't cry. He looked at Dean for a minute like he thought Dean was a gigantic stupid head.
Then he screamed, "Me! Me, Dee!"
Luckily, there were still two ice cream cups left in the freezer. Dad smuggled one to Dean, and he gave it to Sam when Sam "paid" him with a checker.
"You did a good job today, son," Dad told him after Sammy went to bed. "That was pretty clever."
It wasn't the best answer in the world; all they had left was one ice cream cup, and for all Dean knew, when that was gone, Sammy would start screaming again. But Dad liked to say, "One thing at a time," and that seemed like a good way to think about things.
Maybe tomorrow, he'd let Sam drive the truck.
Maybe Sam would be happy playing with an empty cup, because he was just a doofus little kid, and there wasn't much he liked better than playing pretend.
"Yeah," Dean said, because he figured Dad was right: he had been pretty smart. He had remembered Uncle Bobby's advice, and he had figured out the puzzle, without any help from any grownups.
Now, he thought as he crawled underneath the covers, if Dad would just get smart too…
* * * * *