"We'll be fine, Alfred."
Oh, sure we will, Alfred. We'll be just fine.
Bruce said those four fateful words and Alfred obeyed. He should have known better—Bruce is WAY into adulthood and he's never done much by himself. Bruce thought it'd be a great idea for Alfred to take a day off and for he and I to spend the day together. So while Alfred is off attending the International Convention of Butlers or whatever he does on his days off, I'm doing "father-and-son stuff" with Bruce. (He even took the day off.)
It's not that I don't think our beloved butler deserves a day off, or that I don't want to do some serious male bonding with Bruce, because that's not the case at all. Alfred works hard and never complains about anything. And there's nothing I want more than to see Bruce more than I do during the day when he's at work and I'm at school. But you know what they say: the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
It started out as this perfectly normal day. I got up at my regular time, dressed in my school uniform (which is so stupid I won't even describe it), and headed off downstairs for breakfast. It got weird when I saw Bruce standing at the foot of the stairs. I never see him before I go to school because he goes into his office at like, 3 in the morning. It's ridiculous. On top of that, the man was wearing JEANS. I didn't even know he owned a pair of blue jeans.
"Whaddya say we give Alfred the day off and spend some time together? You know… father/son stuff."
Sounded good to me. Why wouldn't it? So I ran at top speed back up the stairs to change into normal clothes (I tried my best to dress like Bruce, don't know if he noticed though), and then back down again. We saw Alfred off in the Jaguar and that's when it started going majorly downhill.
I don't know how in the world Bruce survived to adulthood.
We got into the kitchen and he thought it'd be cool to make a breakfast. We settled on pancakes, and pulled out a recipe book and started mixing. Well, I mixed the batter and Bruce cooked it since I wasn't allowed around the stove.
In the end, the kitchen was a complete disaster area. There was eggshell and dirty dishes all over the place… and for nothing! Bruce burned the pancakes. I guess he had the heat turned up too high or something.
We cleaned up the mess we'd made and that's when it happened. I saw Bruce pick up the phone. "What are you doing?" I asked, knowing full well what his intentions were.
"Calling Alfred. This isn't normal."
I dove for the phone. "No! You can't! It's Alfred's day off and if you call he'll just come back!"
Bruce knew I had a point and hung up the phone reluctantly. We had hot dogs for breakfast.
Then we went into the backyard, where Bruce thought it'd be neat to teach me how to play catch. It would have been awesome, except Bruce hadn't played in about seventeen years and I'd never learned.
Give me a break. I was the youngest kid ever to do a quadruple flip in the air, and one of the very few who were brave enough to try it without a net. You'd think I'd be able to throw a ball at a glove.
But then, you'd think Bruce could too. His entire supply of baseballs now rest at the bottom of the big swimming pool nearby.
We decided to head in for lunch. After the disaster at breakfast, we thought peanut butter sandwiches sounded the safest. I got the bread out, and turned to Bruce for the peanut butter.
He had the phone in his hand again, calling Alfred. I disconnected it.
"Dick… this is an emergency."
"Is not," I replied.
"But where b is the peanut butter?"
I showed him where it was. We had the biggest peanut butter sandwiches EVER. They were like two inches thick. And good.
After lunch we headed to the den to watch a movie or two. At least we didn't mess anything up in there.
The movies we ended up watching were definitely movies that Alfred would not have approved of me watching. Too much violence corrupts, he says. And boy were these ever violent! And absolutely loaded with curses that Bruce made me cover my ears for.
After the movies were over, Bruce flicked off the set and turned to me. "I'm hungry… are you hungry?"
I nodded. "But what're we gonna have?"
He just grinned. "Re-connect the phone. Don't worry, I won't call Alfred."
Thirty minutes later, we were staring down into the best looking pizza I'd ever seen in my entire life. "I've never had pizza before." I couldn't help admitting this to Bruce. "It's bad for circus kids. Makes us fat and lazy, Pop said."
"You're not a circus kid anymore," Bruce pointed out with a wink. "And every boy loves pizza."
He handed me this HUGE slice that was loaded with everything and told me to eat up. And I can't lie, it was probably the best thing I've ever eaten. Bruce laughed at that.
We ate our way through almost the whole pizza when it happened.
Alfred appeared in the kitchen doorway.
We both froze, knowing we were in big trouble.
"What is that you're eating?"
Whoops. Looks like Alfred won't be taking another day off for a while.