How Mr. Label Lost His Job

In a house where bedtime never came on time, there lived three children: eight-year-old Cora, six-year-old Toby and four-year-old Lottie.

Mom used to say they were wonderful children. But between seven and eight in the evening, something strange would happen to them. As if someone had swapped their ears for two potatoes.

“Kids, pajamas!” Mom called.

“Okaaay!” the children answered.

But nobody moved.

“Kids, teeth!”

“Okaaay!”

Cora was building a castle out of blankets, Toby was jumping from the bed onto the pillows, and Lottie was running around the room with tights on her head instead of a crown.

“I’m the Tights Queen!” she called.

“And I’m a knight storming the castle!” Toby bellowed. “Cora, let me into the castle!”

“I will not. Only someone who knows the password may enter the castle.”

“Then I’ll jump in without the password!”

And he jumped. Right into the middle.

CRUNCH!

The castle collapsed.

“TOBY! YOU’RE SO MEAN!” Cora cried.

“AND YOU’RE THE WORST SISTER IN THE WORLD!” Toby roared.

“AND YOU’RE BOTH IDIOTS!” Lottie joined in, because it seemed to her that she mustn’t be left out of such an important fight.

Just then there came a sound:

SMACK!

A great big yellow label with the word MEAN landed on Toby’s forehead.

SMACK!

A WORST SISTER label appeared on Cora’s pajamas.

SMACK! SMACK!

And both of them got an IDIOT label on their backs as well.

The children stood frozen. From under the bed came a satisfied little grunt.

“Excellent! Wonderful! Keep it up!”

Out crawled a tiny little man in a striped bathrobe, with enormous glasses and a little suitcase full of colorful labels.

“Allow me to introduce myself,” he bowed. “I am Mr. Label. I label people and things at night. Labels are little tags that say what something is. And when someone says something about someone else, I stick it on them. So it’s clear who’s who.”

“But I’m not the worst sister!” Cora protested.

“Your brother said it? He did. So it must be true!” Mr. Label said happily.

Toby burst out laughing.

“Cora is the worst sister! Cora is the worst sister!”

Mr. Label pulled out another label, TEASE, and stuck it on Toby’s nose.

“There! Done!”

“But I wasn’t teasing!” Toby said, getting angry.

“A moment ago you were teasing. So you are. Simple as that!”

“You’re all mixed up!” Lottie blurted out.

SMACK!

Mr. Label had to stick a MIXED-UP sign on his own bathrobe.

“I beg your pardon!” he said, offended.

The children burst out laughing. But then something happened that wasn’t so funny anymore.

Cora sat down on the bed, looked at her label, and suddenly felt like crying.

“So if I’m the worst sister,” she said quietly, “then I guess nobody wants to play with me.”

Toby stopped bouncing.

“I didn’t say I don’t want to play with you.”

“You said I’m the worst sister.”

“Because you said I was mean first!”

“Because you knocked down my castle!”

“Because you wouldn’t let me in!”

And it started all over again.

“YOU’RE SELFISH!” Toby shouted at Cora.

SMACK!

“AND YOU’RE STUPID!” Cora shot back.

SMACK!

“And don’t think I forgot about you,” Toby turned to Lottie. “You’re… you’re… A PICKLE!”

Mr. Label stopped short.

“A pickle? I haven’t used an insult like that since 1847!”

He fished out a green label and stuck it on Lottie’s shoulder.

The room was filling up with labels. They hung from sleeves, in hair, on pillows and quilts. Some were so big that you could hardly move under them.

Mr. Label was writing cheerfully in his book:

“Three children. Seventeen insults. No bedtime. A lovely evening!”

Just then Lottie, who was trying to get to her stuffed rabbit, tripped over one of the labels and fell.

“Ow!” And she burst into tears.

Toby sprang over to her at once.

“Lottie, did you hurt yourself? Let me see. Wait, I’ll get your rabbit for you.”

He pulled back the blanket, took out the rabbit and handed it to his little sister.

“Here. Don’t cry. I’ll give you a cuddle.”

Meanwhile Cora brought a cold handkerchief for the bumped knee.

Lottie sniffled.

“Thank you.”

Mr. Label frowned. He looked in his book. Then at the children. And then back in his book.

“Hold on, hold on! Something here doesn’t add up!”

“What?” asked Toby.

“It says here that you’re mean. But a mean boy wouldn’t help his little sister!”

“See?” said Toby.

Mr. Label pointed at Cora.

“And here I have WORST SISTER. But you brought Lottie a handkerchief!”

Cora thought about it.

“I was angry. And I said something mean to Toby. But that doesn’t mean I am mean.”

“Wait!” Mr. Label had to sit down. “So a person can do something mean, and still not be mean?”

“Well, obviously,” said Toby. “When Cora hides my toy car, it makes me mad. But she also helps me tie my shoelaces sometimes.”

“And Toby knocked down my castle,” Cora added. “But yesterday he lent me his favorite telescope.”

Mr. Label looked as if a whole ball of yarn had gotten tangled up inside his head.

“So what am I supposed to write on the labels, then?”

Lottie thought so hard that her tights crown slid over one eye.

“Maybe… Toby knocked down the castle today.”

Mr. Label wrote: KNOCKED DOWN THE CASTLE.

“But I didn’t mean to break it,” Toby spoke up. “I wanted to play too. I just jumped like an elephant.”

“Like a really heavy elephant,” Cora added.

“Like an elephant after three lunches!” Lottie added.

All three of them burst out laughing.

And Mr. Label suddenly understood something he had not understood in all his one hundred and seventy-nine years: one mean thing a person does is not the whole person.

“Then I’ve been doing my job pretty badly,” he muttered, and started peeling the labels off.

But oh dear! Two wouldn’t come off. Toby’s MEAN and Cora’s WORST SISTER.

“That’s strange,” Mr. Label muttered. “Some words stick like glue.”

Cora looked at Toby.

“You know, it really did hurt my feelings. When you said I was the worst sister.”

Toby was quiet for a moment.

“I didn’t mean it like that. I was mad. I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry too. I should have told you it bugs me when you knock down my castle. Not that you’re mean.”

Toby nodded.

“Tomorrow I’ll help you build it again. But I want at least one garage in it.”

“All right. But no jumping.”

“And can dinosaurs park there?”

“If they’re careful.”

At that moment both labels came unstuck, fell to the floor and broke into tiny paper stars.

“Ahhh!” Mr. Label exhaled. “So that’s how it’s done!”

Lottie hugged Toby.

“I love you, even though you bug me sometimes.”

“I love you too, you pickle.”

Lottie frowned.

Toby corrected himself quickly:

“My beloved pickle.”

“Okay,” Lottie smiled. “But tomorrow I want to be a tomato.”

Just then the door opened. Mom stood there. A towel on her head, three toothbrushes in her hand, and on her face the look of someone who had heard “okaaay” at least twenty times that day. She looked at the little man in the bathrobe as if he had lived under their bed forever.

“Kids,” she said tiredly, “do you even know what time it is?”

Mr. Label quickly pulled out a huge NAUGHTY CHILDREN! sign and was about to stick it on the door when Toby caught him by the sleeve.

“Wait! You’re doing it again!”

“And what am I supposed to write, then?”

Cora looked at Mom.

“Write: The children didn’t go to bed tonight when they were supposed to.”

“And they argued, too,” Toby added.

“And I had tights on my head,” Lottie announced proudly.

Mom had to laugh.

“Well, that’s a pretty accurate record.”

Then she sat down with the children.

“Do you know why I’m always hustling you off to bed in the evening?”

“Because you want some peace and quiet,” said Toby.

“That too,” Mom admitted. “But mostly because when you’re tired, everything upsets you more easily. One knocked-down castle looks like the end of the world. One toy car that wasn’t shared looks like a terrible injustice. And words fly out of your mouth before you think about what they’ll do.”

Cora yawned. Toby caught the yawn. And Lottie yawned so wide that her crown nearly fell off.

Mr. Label took off his glasses.

“So when I hurt someone with words, it isn’t enough to say I didn’t mean it?”

“It isn’t enough,” said Lottie. “You have to apologize. And say it differently next time.”

“Then I suppose I’d better find a new job.”

“You could label socks,” Toby suggested. “They keep getting lost at our house.”

Mr. Label lit up.

“SOCKS! That’s it! Left! Right! Holey! Stray! Finally something that can be labeled properly!”

He took his suitcase, bowed deeply and disappeared under the bed.

The children brushed their teeth, changed their clothes and climbed under the covers.

“Mom?” Cora said after a while. “Do you think we were really mean today?”

Mom stroked her hair.

“I think today you did a few things that hurt the other person. And you also did a few things that helped one another. The important thing is to tell the difference and put right what went wrong.”

“Then tomorrow we’ll try to do better,” Cora whispered.

At last the room was quiet. After a while a faint rustling came from under the bed, and then an indignant little voice:

“Excuse me! Whose sock is this?! It says LEFT, but it has a hole in the RIGHT heel!”

The children burst out laughing.

And Mom, who had just sat down on the sofa, decided she wouldn’t investigate a single thing more tonight. Sometimes it’s best to let the socks have the last word.