When David Met Goliath by Lizzie Marsters

James and Maddie lay silently tucked in their beds watching their mother close the bedroom door behind her. Even after the door clicked shut, James waited, eyes trained to the painted white door. It was only eight o’clock. Thirty minutes earlier than their usual bedtime, leaving no time for story time. James had just picked up Dinotopia from the school library and he only had two weeks to read the book.

In return for their cooperation tonight, their mother had promised an hour of story time the following night and an outing to the Natural History Museum the next day to see the taxidermed dioramas of the eagles, the lions, the tigers, the polar bears, and James’s favorite the grizzly bear. James and Maddie had agreed to the early bedtime: James only thinking of the grizzly bear standing on its hind legs growling, baring its fangs at its spectators, and Maddie only thinking of her brother and how he would grab her hand to lead her through the dioramas talking about how ferocious the grizzly bear was in real life especially when its cubs were in danger. They had made the deal before discovering the reason why their mother needed them to go to bed earlier than usual, before discovering that David was coming over for dinner with another couple. David was their mother’s new boyfriend who smelled like string cheese and insisted on tickling James even though James insisted he wasn’t ticklish.

James was ten and Maddie was seven and a half. Nearly three years difference. Those three years made little difference when it came to games, James needed a partner to help build the alien city ‘Zootastical’, constructed out of Legos and located in outer space, and Maddie was happy to play assistant to the foremost zoo expert in the galaxy. Three years didn’t even make a whole lot of difference either when it came to neighborhood friends, they both played with Billy, their seven year old neighbor who could balance a ball on his neck for two hours without dropping it. But three years was the difference when it came to knowing their dad. Maddie painted glimpses of her father in her head—she gave him her teacher’s walrus whiskers and David’s corduroy pants. But James had his father’s image etched into his head and heart. He remembered snap pictures of the lumbering, coffee-smelling, beard-tickling man that had held James in his lap and read to him at night. The same man who had taken him to the Natural History Museum one Saturday afternoon and held him up so that he could press his head against the glass and breathe life into cold, static diorama. James had held onto those images desperately as he and his mother and his sister moved to yet another new house six months ago.

James waited until he heard his mother’s footsteps cross the threshold from the carpet to the kitchen’s wooden floor before sitting up and throwing the covers away from his chest, which he puffed out in moral indignation. He heard David’s large guffaw from the kitchen and he imagined the blond bearded man slapping his leg with his calloused hand. David was always telling jokes. James hated the way David would push, prod, and poke him until he laughed at the punch line.

James hated the mornings when he would come into the kitchen for breakfast and David would be there already eating cereal.

“Hey sport, sleep well? Can I get you something to eat?” David would say trying to smooth out the situation. Didn’t he know that James had a bowl of Rice Krispies with slices of banana on top everyday? But David wouldn’t stop there, throughout breakfast he would ask questions like, “What are you learning in school? Want to go to a baseball game? Want to shoot hoops after school?” He talked so much during breakfast that James couldn’t fully distinguish between the Snaps, the Crackles, and the Pops. After James’s unenthusiastic responses, David would turn his attention to Maddie. She would giggle when he did his stupid nose trick where he would pretend to have stolen her nose and would hold it between his forefingers, but James knew it was just his thumb. Maddie would warm quickly to David’s attentions, she would laugh at his jokes. No matter how hard he tried, James could not convince her that David was not funny. He was not funny enough to be in the family.

One time James found Maddie curled in David’s lap while he read her a story when James’s mother was still cleaning the kitchen. To punish her, James pulled her hair. But to little avail, David was a good story teller. James refused to acknowledge David’s mastery over the characters and their voices. With his back against the wall, James would sit in the hallway, listening around the corner to hear Charlotte spinning webs around Wilbur, Templeton, and Fern, and the Big Friendly Giant blow sweet dreams into the bedrooms of English children. When it came time for bedtime, James would scramble into his room, pretending to be asleep. And the voice of The Big Friendly David would waft into his head, swirling his dreams with sweetness. And James hated it. He hated it because the etchings of his father were slowly whithering and fading; the lines blurred between his flannel-clad father and the melodic voiced, gaffawing David.

And tonight, with the promise of the Natural History Museum the following day, James had wanted to think of the man who was his father….and he couldn’t. His father wasn’t there, only David was there. Tonight, James needed David to get out.

“You know Maddie, you know why Mom made us go to bed early?” James demanded through clenched teeth. His little body shook with emotion. His father was gone. He reached over to switch on the light next to his bed.

“Yeah… she’s having a dinner…right?” Maddie replied, curious if that was the response her brother was looking for. Sitting up in bed and squinting slightly, she looked over at her brother and his blue Godzilla t-shirt.

“No, because of David. Mom wants David to replace Dad.” James needed Maddie on board. He knew of only one way to get his Dad back, he had a plan.

Maddie occasionally suffered from screaming fits during the night. Their mother would come running in and grab Maddie’s sweat soaked body and shake her awake. Maddie would sob, blubbering her nightmare into her mother’s breast and James would crawl into bed with them resting his head against his mother’s other breast. To calm Maddie down, their mother would tell stories about their father until they all fell asleep still clinging on to one another. She would lie back in the bed, curling her arms around her two children rubbing them gently on the back. “He was so handsome,” she would say. “He looked a lot like you James. Same dark hair and dark eyes.” And James’ hands would roam from Maddie’s soft, curly brown hair, to his mother’s darker coarse brown hair, and to his own dark hair gently stroking, tangibly calculating his father’s inheritance.

If James could get Maddie to have a fit tonight, his mother would come running in and hold them until Maddie calmed down, and then David would have to leave because there would be no room for David in Maddie’s bed.

“Maddie, I need you to have a nightmare tonight. Just this once, so we can get Mom to sleep here for the rest of the night. So we can get rid of David, and you know how we feel about David.”

Maddie nodded, she knew how James felt about David. “I don’t really have any nightmares right now.”

“That’s ok,” James said smiling for the first time. “We can make one up. The important part is that you scream so Mom comes running in here. Can you do that?” Maddie nodded. Excited, James crawled out of bed.

“But first…” James hesitated thinking of all the times he had crawled into Maddie’s bed and found her wet from her sweat. “We need to make it seem real.” He grabbed the cup of water next to his bed and concentrated on preventing the water from spilling.

“What are you going to do with that?” Maddie asked, her eyes gradually enlarging as her brother approached.

“Just scream Maddie,” James ordered as he dumped his cup of water over her head, matting the curls to the sides of her face. And Maddie screamed and cried.

“Good,” James encouraged. “You are doing great.”

They heard the door swing open and their mom, smelling of garlic and onions and wine, barged in. Just like a grizzly bear, James thought as he smiled.

“What’s going on here?” she roared. “James—what did you do to Maddie?” She reached down to curl Maddie under her arm. Maddie rested her head against her mother’s breast and started blubbering about how James had dumped the glass of water on her head.

James lay in bed arms crossed, lips pursed. Maddie, in a fresh nightgown, leaned over him, asking him to talk to her. James shook his head, “you got me in trouble, Maddie, I’m not talking to you. Go away.” James turned his back to Maddie, facing the wall, hoping that Maddie would stay and continue stroking his arms. Maddie was undeterred by the affront. After being cuddled and coddled by her mother, she felt much better about the situation and was ready to continue the plan.

“James? James, let’s do the plan. Come on,” Maddie implored.

“That was the plan. You ruined the plan.”

“We can come up with another one. I can have real nightmares this time?” Maddie asked pleadingly. “I’m scared of many things…”

“I don’t think scaring you is going to work again Maddie.” James turned around to face her again, intrigued by the prospect of a new plan. “But what about David? We could scare David.” Maddie, as the expert in the house on things that scare, provided many possible scenarios including dressing up as ghosts using James’s rocket ship sheets. But James wasn’t satisfied, “it’s going to have to be big and real. It’s going to have to be Goliath.”

Goliath was a large drooling, spluttering, cranky old bulldog that lived two doors down. Barricaded behind a high wooden fence and chained to a post in the middle of the front yard, Goliath’s true power had yet to be unleashed. As a good sentry, Goliath was adept at waiting until trespassers passed in front of his house before snarling his warning. “Oh hush Goliath. Don’t be afraid of him,” their old lady neighbor Mrs. Parks had said the first time they walked by after moving into the house. “He’s just a big giant. All bark and no bite.” But Maddie was still terrified of him, and James pretended not to be afraid, and their mother still jumped every time Goliath snarled.

Goliath was perfect for the job, but how to get him into the house unharmed? James knew this was going to be a challenge, but he felt up to the task. Tonight was the night. Maddie wasn’t sure she wanted to get Goliath involved, but she didn’t want to disappoint James a second time that night.

“The plan is simple,” James said. “We’ll make ourselves smell really bad. Dogs don’t like eating things that smell bad.”

So James and Maddie prepared for battle. James relied on his Transformer book for a more accurate account of the soldier’s needs: weapons (a rake and a garden planter), armor (rollerblading wrist guards and helmets), and natural talent (the power of smell). James’s favorite transformer, Jazz, was a man of fashion, preferring to accomplish the most dangerous of missions with style and elaborate planning. True to his hero, James drew up battle plans in his mind, sending Maddie to the kitchen to get milk and cookies for diversion purposes. After the materials were collected, the two soldiers reconvened outside to mix the bad-smelling, vinegar-saturated, milky-mud goo.

As James sat mixing the liquids, Maddie scrunched her nose at the thought of dirtying another pair of pajamas in the process of tonight’s escapades. James agreed that the clothes weren’t vital to the plan, so the blue Godzilla shirt and the fresh pair of pajamas lay discarded on the side of the newly formed mud hole.

“Ewwwwwity-ew ew and yuckity-yuck yuck,” Maddie told James as they slathered the mud and vinegar and milk all over their little naked forms. Donning the rollerblading gear, the two grabbed their weapons and a handful of cookies and marched down the sidewalk to where Goliath was sleeping. There was no sign of Goliath as they approached the gate.

“I’m ssscared,” Maddie whispered, biting down on her lips to keep her teeth from chattering.

“I’m not. Don’t worry Maddie. I’ll lead the monster and you can prod him with your rake weapon.” But James was scared. His little hand reached up to unlatch the gate, leaving a greasy handprint across the handle. The gate squeaked open, swinging on its hinges, revealing a large front yard. Peeking his head further into the yard, James saw the large wooden post buried into the ground. His eyes followed the metal chain that glistened silver in the moonlight, finally resting upon the dark, ominous sentinel: Goliath. James reached back for Maddie’s hand and dropped his metal garden planter.

Goliath stood alert on four stout legs. His head was raised, nostrils quivering, presumably with the overwhelming stench of his neighbors. A whispered growl emerged from Goliath, exposing several white daggers. A drop of saliva trickled from his mouth catching the moonlight as it fell into the grass. Goliath turned his head towards the gate, his eyes twinkling yellow as he turned to stare at James.

“What’s going on?” Maddie whispered, desperately clinging onto James’s hand and her rake. James was about to turn around, about to come up with a new plan that didn’t require a ferocious animal, about to give up and go back to bed and lose his father. He turned to look at Maddie covered in mud, hair slicked back crusting in the places the mud had dried. Her large eyes looking only at him, searching for some indication as for what to do, ready to follow his command. And James knew that he would have to do this for his family. Maddie needed him, Maddie needed him to keep this family together. His mother needed him, although she would never admit it, she needed him to get rid of David. His father needed him, his father needed him to remember him. He would protect what was his, he was sure his father would do the same thing. So James became the grizzly bear for Maddie, for his mother, for his father, and for himself.

With a roar, James let go of Maddie’s hand and grabbed the metal garden planter and charged into the ring. Goliath roared back, descending onto his haunches prepared to attack. Maddie screamed, but followed her brother into the fray wielding her rake like a sword. James whirled a cookie straight at Goliath, aimed right between the eyes. Goliath was quick and slurped the cookie into his cavernous mouth. He barked, tongue dangling, and the stubby tail wagging.

“Maddie,” James whispered, weapon still trained upon Goliath, “go unchain him. I’ll keep him occupied. Maddie, go.” As Maddie eased herself around the mammoth animal with the red rake’s claws posed to slash, James threw another cookie at Goliath maintaining his attention. At the post, Maddie struggled to unclip the metal chain, dropping her rake in order to use her two hands to unhinge the carabiner.

“Maddie, watch out,” James shouted as Goliath turned towards Maddie. Too late, Goliath was upon her in one bound. With no weapon, Maddie shielded her face with her wristguards, tucking her helmeted head towards her chest. Goliath stopped short. She felt his warm breath upon her stomach.

“Get away from her!” James screamed as he grabbed Goliath’s stump of a tail. Goliath growled at James, but then turned his attention back to Maddie. She opened her eyes and stared into Goliath’s wrinkled, brown face.

“It’s working,” she said. “It’s working! He’s not going to eat us because we smell bad. Your plan worked!”

James quit yanking on the tail, which had been hard because there wasn’t much to grab onto, and stepped back to see if it was true. And it was, Goliath stood before Maddie, nostrils flaring but not attacking.

James grabbed the metal chain, and the three exited the neighbor’s yard. And so they marched in procession out of the yard and onto the sidewalk: Maddie leading, walking backwards, tossing bits of cookie to Goliath, followed by Goliath licking his lips and slobbering chunks of cookie onto the sidewalk, and finally, James dragging Goliath’s metal chain, still brandishing the metal garden planter and the red rake.

“How are we going to get Goliath to attack David?” Maddie asked, giggling now that Goliath had started to lick the cookies out of her hand.

“Well, he doesn’t smell like us, so Goliath will think that he’s food,” James responded, actually believing his trick had fooled the dog.

They swung open the front door to their house and treaded through the hallway into the kitchen leaving muddy footprints the whole way. They stopped in the doorway to the kitchen, each placing a hand on one side of the dog.

“What in the world is going on?” shouted their mother who stood up abruptly from the kitchen table. The other guests turned their heads to see two naked children, covered in mud, wearing helmets, knee pads, and wrist guards, holding a rake and a garden planter and a metal chain, stroking a large bull-dog.

James ignored his mother’s outburst, scanning the room for David. He heard his loud laughing guffaw before he saw him sitting next to his mother. He turned to Goliath and whispered in his ear, “Go get him.” Goliath responded with a low growl, which bared his lower fangs, but he didn’t move. James tried to shove Goliath in David’s direction, but he found himself swept up in his mother’s arms.

“No, no no no no,” James wailed. His mother carried him from the room clutching Maddie in her other hand.

“I don’t know what has gotten into you two tonight. But it has got to stop. You two smell disgusting. Another bath tonight. Jesus, I ask you for one night, one night without trouble. There will be no visit to the Natural History Museum tomorrow. None, you hear?” Their mother was practically shouting. But James didn’t mind. He had already seen a grizzly bear tonight and when he looked out his window, he saw David grunting in the effort to pull the reluctant Goliath on his metal chain back to his caged yard. James thought his father would have been proud.