Ben Character Analysis

Bedtime stories were a group activity. And because showing the pictures all around to everyone involved a great deal of squirming and shoving and pinching and pushing and get-outta-my-ways and he-farted-on-mes and you-got-to-look-longer-than-I-dids, Penn often resorted to telling stories rather than reading them. He had a magic book he read from. It was an empty spiral notebook. He showed the boys it was blank so that there was no clamoring to see. And then he read it to them. Like magic.

In all, a successful bedtime and an accomplishment on par with finishing a particularly difficult chapter or a tax return. It wasn't diagnosing a pulmonary embolism, but it was not unimpressive, and it allowed a pulmonary embolism to be diagnosed. It could not, unfortunately, be followed up by work or by house cleaning, dish doing, lunchbox packing, exercising, or any of the other things that needed doing. Bedtime could only be followed by TV. Or drinking. On the night Claude became—the fruition of which, of course, would only make bedtime worse—Penn thought both at once sounded best and gave it a good try but was asleep on the couch before he was very far into either one.

“Girls in fairy tales are losers,” said Roo.

“No they aren't,” said Claude.

“Yes they are. Not like losers. Losers. Girls in fairy tales are always losing stuff.”

“Nuh-uh,” said Claude.

“Yuh-huh. They lose their way in the woods or their shoe on the step or their hair even though they're in a tower with no door and their hair is like literally attached to their head.”

“Or their voice,” Ben put in. “Or their freedom or their family or their name. Or their identity. Like she can't be a mermaid anymore.”

“Or they lose being awake,” said Roo. “And then they just sleep and sleep and sleep. Boooring.”

Claude started crying. “A princess could do cool stuff. A princess could be better than Grumwald. She wouldn't have to sleep or lose her shoe.”

They had four and a half boys, plus Penn, but in some ways, Aggie was maler than any of them. She was a girl who dug holes and ran hard and liked bugs and all that other tomboy shit, but it was more—or maybe less—than that. She'd dismantle toy trucks to build spaceships to fly dolls to day spas built inside killer volcanoes. You just couldn't nail the kid down.

“We couldn't be best friends.” Aggie flung her arm across her eyes. “If your parents didn't beat the fifty-fifty and you were a boy, it would be the worst thing ever.”

Poppy opened her mouth, and everyone waited. Roo looked at his feet. Ben looked at his feet. Rigel and Orion looked at each other's feet. Cayenne narrowed her eyes at all of them. But Poppy swallowed and agreed wholeheartedly: “It would be the worst thing ever.”

Ben was a smart guy, yes, with an off-the-charts IQ and a double-stacked bookcase, but he was still sixteen. And he'd been patient for a very long time. That and he saw something his parents did not, which was that when something was this significant, this consequential, you didn’t keep it from someone you loved, even if that someone was Cayenne Granderson.

Bedtime stories were a group activity. And because showing the pictures all around to everyone involved a great deal of squirming and shoving and pinching and pushing and get-outta-my-ways and he-farted-on-mes and you-got-to-look-longer-than-I-dids, Penn often resorted to telling stories rather than reading them. He had a magic book he read from. It was an empty spiral notebook. He showed the boys it was blank so that there was no clamoring to see. And then he read it to them. Like magic.

In all, a successful bedtime and an accomplishment on par with finishing a particularly difficult chapter or a tax return. It wasn't diagnosing a pulmonary embolism, but it was not unimpressive, and it allowed a pulmonary embolism to be diagnosed. It could not, unfortunately, be followed up by work or by house cleaning, dish doing, lunchbox packing, exercising, or any of the other things that needed doing. Bedtime could only be followed by TV. Or drinking. On the night Claude became—the fruition of which, of course, would only make bedtime worse—Penn thought both at once sounded best and gave it a good try but was asleep on the couch before he was very far into either one.

“Girls in fairy tales are losers,” said Roo.

“No they aren't,” said Claude.

“Yes they are. Not like losers. Losers. Girls in fairy tales are always losing stuff.”

“Nuh-uh,” said Claude.

“Yuh-huh. They lose their way in the woods or their shoe on the step or their hair even though they're in a tower with no door and their hair is like literally attached to their head.”

“Or their voice,” Ben put in. “Or their freedom or their family or their name. Or their identity. Like she can't be a mermaid anymore.”

“Or they lose being awake,” said Roo. “And then they just sleep and sleep and sleep. Boooring.”

Claude started crying. “A princess could do cool stuff. A princess could be better than Grumwald. She wouldn't have to sleep or lose her shoe.”

They had four and a half boys, plus Penn, but in some ways, Aggie was maler than any of them. She was a girl who dug holes and ran hard and liked bugs and all that other tomboy shit, but it was more—or maybe less—than that. She'd dismantle toy trucks to build spaceships to fly dolls to day spas built inside killer volcanoes. You just couldn't nail the kid down.

“We couldn't be best friends.” Aggie flung her arm across her eyes. “If your parents didn't beat the fifty-fifty and you were a boy, it would be the worst thing ever.”

Poppy opened her mouth, and everyone waited. Roo looked at his feet. Ben looked at his feet. Rigel and Orion looked at each other's feet. Cayenne narrowed her eyes at all of them. But Poppy swallowed and agreed wholeheartedly: “It would be the worst thing ever.”

Ben was a smart guy, yes, with an off-the-charts IQ and a double-stacked bookcase, but he was still sixteen. And he'd been patient for a very long time. That and he saw something his parents did not, which was that when something was this significant, this consequential, you didn’t keep it from someone you loved, even if that someone was Cayenne Granderson.