September 2008

Clue

I am ten years old. I’m in my bedroom tucked into bed. It is noon on a school day, and my mom sits on my blue flower cover that she sewed a long time ago. The cover has big pink flowers and little blue ones. I am home sick.

On the bed between me and my mom is a game board—Clue. It’s a game we’ve had on our shelf for a while, and I’ve wanted to play it, but no one would play with me till now. My older sister said that it’s too complicated to explain. Plus, she insists, you need more than two people for it to be fun.

But I am sick and I told my Mom that playing Clue might help. So we are playing in the mid-morning sunlight that angles in through the window. The beige humidifier gurgles and breathes cool fog into the room. Mom carried the TV into my room this morning and it sits on my desk, the screen dark but willing. On the nightstand is a Tupperware bowl of chicken noodle soup and another bowl of orange Jell-O. Oh, and ginger ale with a bendy straw.

My mom teaches me the rules of the game with theatrical flair. When you are ready to make an accusation, you must put the mini dollhouse weapon and the playing piece matching the murderer in the room where you think the crime happened. You must lay out your accusation in an intense whisper and with a serious face, and insert dramatic pauses. Murder is serious, even if it’s fake. Like this: “I think it was Mrs. Peacock…in the study…with the revolver!”

It is very mysterious and spooky. The humidifier fog helps set the mood.

When I make my first accusation, I want to look in the envelope in the center of the game board, where the three murder cards are hidden. I want to check if I’m right.

“Wait,” my mom says. “Not yet.” Solemnly, she shuffles through her cards. She chooses one and turns the candlestick card to me, cupping it secretively in her hand as if there are other players here who might peek.

“Oh,” I say, and put a check mark next to the candlestick on my little brown score sheet. So it is not the candlestick. But it is early afternoon, and we are playing Clue, and I get my mom all to myself which is rare in my family of four kids.

On a normal day it would be time for spelling or math. But today is special and I am so glad to be sick.