I want a remote control Ricochet, you know, the remote control car that can flip upside down and keep going. It costs $69.95 at Toys ‘R’ Us. I got 20 dollars from grandma and grandpa K. for my birthday, and then they gave me 50 dollars for Christmas. Grandpa H. only gives me 50 dollar savings bonds. Some day, like when I am in college they will be worth fifty dollars, but now they are in the strong box, which is fire proof.

It is three days after Christmas. For Christmas I got some cool stuff, and lots of candy, but I really want a Ricochet. It’s ok that mom and dad didn’t get me one. I didn’t think they would. They spend about a hundred dollars on each of us for Christmas. The commercial shows a Ricochet going real fast with the car side up, then the kid reverses it and it flips over all by itself with the dune buggy side up and keeps going. The dune buggy side is rear wheel drive. Out the side window the street lights are going by making funny squiggly lines in the side of my eyes. The road is wet. There is brownish slush in between where the tires go on the road. Levi said that the slush is brown from the car exhaust. You can die if you breathe car exhaust.

There are a lot of people in Toys ‘R’ Us. Stuff is on sale after Christmas. Mom always says that she and dad should just give us money for Christmas so we can go shopping the day after and buy twice as much stuff. I think that would be sad. We have to walk past the computer games to get to the remote control cars. My stomach hurts. I wonder if the Ricochet can drive through the snow. I want to get the black and grey one, not the purple and orange one. Levi and Ivan say that purple is a girly color. I can see the sign that says $69.95. There isn’t anything underneath it.

They are all out of Ricochets. They are all gone.

My stomach hurts. It hurts different than before. This hurt won’t be gone today. I won’t be able to make the Ricochet flip over in the snow. The man that works at Toys ‘R’ Us says I can put my name on a list and they will get more by next week. Next week. The worst possible thing that could happen, is happening. I never even imagined it. How? Why? My tears are soaking into the paper the man gave me to sign. My brothers think I am being a baby. I don’t care. I don’t care. I don't care. The ink of the pen is chunky at first from the lint in the man’s pocket, and it is making my block-lettered signature look sad, like it too, is choking on the lump in my throat.

I’m never going to do this again, I’m never going to get all excited about something, dream about it, hope for it, until my stomach hurts.

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That was a long time ago. It really did happen. I really didn’t long for anything like that again. I never really enjoyed anything again either, except for one thing. I would let myself long for one thing. It is right to do that. You are supposed to do that. They say you can’t live without them, and sometimes they say you can’t live with them either. But every time I want something that much; every time it makes my stomach hurt, it slips away. Then the butterflies in my stomach turn back to caterpillars, and it makes my stomach turn inside out.

The sad part is that I haven’t found a better cure for this disease, or is my cure a disease itself, my suppression of passion, my fear that it will slip away? Is that the disease, the problem? Or is the problem in some sort of selfish, childish longing that I still have? Someone please answer my questions.