The War with Grandpa (3 page)

And we didn't.

I am putting down this promise in black and white so I don't ever forget it.

When I grow up and have a kid I will never make him do anything he really does not want to.

That is a solemn promise, so help me God.

Except if it is something really important. Like if he didn't want to brush his teeth, I'd have to make him do it or else he would get cavities and stuff.

Or if he didn't want to eat vegetables, say, and he would not get his vitamins to help him grow up right.

Or if he wanted to run across the street when a car was coming. I would have to stop that, of course.

Or if he fooled around with matches or electricity or poison or things that could hurt him.

And if he did not want to go to school, why,
I guess I'd have to make him go or he'd grow up stupid.

Maybe there's a few other things he'd have to do I have not thought of. But other than that, no.

And that's a promise.

I noticed that my sentences are getting too long again. I will write them shorter.

About my dad. He started moving things. My things. From my room. Up to the guest room. On the top floor. Which is also the third floor.

My toy cabinets. They are yellow Formica. With white tops. Two doors outside. Three shelves inside. And all my good stuff was in them. All my board games. Monopoly. Stratomatic Baseball. Clue. Careers. Risk. Snakes and Ladders. All my crayons in a plastic box. Most of them were broken anyway. Old coloring books I use only when I am home sick. All my baseball cards were on top of the cabinets in these shoe-boxes. I have been saving them since I was seven. I have almost two thousand baseball cards. Counting extras.

Then my mom moved my summer clothes
upstairs. Into the closet in the guest room. My new room.

I had to help my dad move my bookcase upstairs. First I moved my trophies. They go on top of the bookcase. I had six of them. All gold. They were baseball trophies. From playing on my Beverly Boys’ Club teams. Since I was six years old. Every kid who plays gets one. The other trophy was for a bowling tournament. I bowled a 96. My best score of all time.

Let me be honest. Every kid in the bowling tournament got one too.

To move the bookcase upstairs we first had to empty it. We put all my books on the floor first. All my Encyclopedia Brown books. All my Great Brain books. My whole collection of sports stories. All my paperbacks with baseball team records.

My room began to look empty when we got it all upstairs.

Then we moved my pictures from the walls. And hung them upstairs. Hank Aaron hitting his 715th home run. Tom Seaver pitching. The first astronauts on the moon. Some of my best drawings I made for school. Pretty soon my walls were naked.

Now my room looked weird. It didn't look
like my room anymore. Lying on my bed, I began to think it wasn't my room. Like I didn't belong there.

A few days before Grandpa came we moved my dresser. First we took the drawers out. Then we carried them upstairs one by one. Then we moved the dresser. It wasn't too heavy.

Then we moved the old dresser from the guest room down into my room. Every night I had to go upstairs to bring down my clean clothes for the next day.

We moved my desk next. It went upstairs into the corner of the guest room. I had to go up to the top floor every day after school to do my homework.

The only thing left in my room was my bed. And the night before Grandpa came we moved it upstairs too.

Now all the guest room stuff was in my room. And all my things were up on the top floor in the guest room.

“I guess you'll start sleeping up here tonight,” my dad said.

I didn't say anything.

“Are you okay, Pete?” my dad asked. “You look like you're going to cry any second.”

“I won't cry,” I said. I hoped that was true.

“You'll get used to it,” Dad said. He looked out of the window. “Nice view from up here. Take a look, Pete.”

I stood next to my father and looked out. The Taub house was across the street. The streetlight on the corner showed through the trees. The tree on our lawn looked so close, I felt I could almost touch one of the branches.

My dad put his arm around my shoulders.“Growing up, Pete,” he said, “it isn't easy. Sometimes you have to do things you don't like.”

“I hate it up here,” I said.

Dad sighed. “I know. But, Peter, you mustn't ever let Grandpa Jack know that. Or else he'll feel terrible. And believe me, he feels terrible already.”

I didn't say anything when Dad hugged me. I didn't even feel any better either.

The last thing that was moved into the guest room was me.

I'm a little ashamed of this part of my story, but I have to tell the truth. Not only was I mad as a wet hairnet about losing my great room, I was a little bit scared about sleeping upstairs too.

I brushed my teeth and did my go-to-bed things in the top floor bathroom. Instead of the beautiful bathroom Jenny and I shared downstairs I had this dinky dim bathroom now. It was gross. The mirror was very old and had dark stains on it. The sink was very tiny and kind of yellow instead of being white. And the walls were dark old wood, like some rough cabin in the woods.

I went downstairs to my parents’ bedroom and kissed Mom good night. On the way back upstairs I peeked into my old room. It looked strange to see different furniture in there. Strange and kind of hurting.

It was scary to go upstairs to my room. The
staircase leading to the top floor was narrow and rickety. The steps were bare wood that creaked when you stepped on them. And there wasn't too much light. Not like the steps leading to the second floor, which were covered with thick carpet and had a beautiful light fixture so everything was plain as day.

The hallway upstairs was spooky. A narrow little space that was very dark. With open doors to empty rooms that looked like black caves where someone could be hiding.

I know that sounds silly, but that's what I was feeling. There is no boogeyman who waits in the dark to grab kids. I know that. But at nine o'clock at night in this dim little hallway with the floorboards creaking you can get frightened whether you know that or not.

I kind of jumped into my new room and slammed the door shut fast. And just as fast jumped into bed and under the covers.

I waited awhile before I turned off my lamp. I was in no hurry for it to get dark. But finally I did it. And that turned out to be scary too.

Like I said before, in my old room I knew where everything was and how everything was and there was nothing scary. But up here it was different.

A light flickered on the ceiling and the wall, making shadows that jumped around. And a rustling noise came from outside the window. And something in the hallway made a sound. Was it a footstep outside my door?

I may sound very brave just writing these things down so easy. The truth was I was terrified out of my mind. The waving shadows of yellow light on the wall almost began to look like two black arms that could grab me.“Be still my heart,” I whispered to myself. Which is something my mom says sometimes. I felt like an idiot talking to myself, but I was the only company I had in that room.“It's nothing,” I said. I crossed my fingers. Then I crossed my toes. Go to sleep, I told myself. Just close your eyes and fall asleep and everything will be hunky-dory.

Ha.

I got into my best sleeping position. Which is curled up on my right side with my hands tucked up under my cheek. The rustling sound had to be from the big old tree outside my window, I figured after a while. And the spooky yellow light was probably the streetlamp on the corner. And the noises outside my door were just old floorboards creaking. And there really
wasn't a crook or a murderer sneaking up here to get me.

Probably.

And then I began to get angry.

Why was I the only one in the house who had to give up something for Grandpa? Why me? And why was I stuck up here in this disgusting and scary place instead of staying in my great and wonderful old room?

I thought about my illustrated book of old sea battles and the picture of John Paul Jones on deck with his big curved sword in the air.“I have just begun to fight!” he said.

It gave me an idea. Maybe there was a way I could fight to get back what was really mine. But how?

That's what I was thinking about when I finally fell asleep.

Now I have to tell you about my grandpa Jack and what happened when he finally came to our house to live and how he settled in and everything like that.

And that's another too long sentence.

I used to know my grandparents very well when I was little and they lived close by. I remember they used to come to our house most weekends and they played with me a lot. But then Grandma got this terrible disease. They call it M-fazeema, but they spell it emphysema. It comes from smoking cigarettes, which if anybody does, they have to be crazy. This emphysema made it very hard for Grandma to breathe. Mom said that on windy or cold days Grandma was not allowed to put a foot outside her house. Or any other part of her either.

It was around then that Jenny was born. And Grandma and Grandpa moved to Florida.
Mom said it was for the warm weather, which was good for Grandma's lungs. I remember being sad when they left. I loved them a lot. I loved how they always wanted to play with me and almost anything I did was okay with them.

Starting then, I saw them only when we would go to their house in Florida at Christmas. The rest of the year we would talk on the telephone maybe once a week.

And then Grandma died.

Now Grandpa was alone and it was hard to think about. I only knew my grandma and grandpa together. They were never apart when they saw me and the family. They were a pair, like shoes or gloves. But now there was only Grandpa.

Dad brought Grandpa home from the airport. He pulled the car up in the driveway and tooted the horn. We all ran outside and Jenny jumped right on Grandpa's neck as soon as he got out of the car, even though Mom had just said not to. Dad finally had to take her down. Then Grandpa gave me a long hug and held me away to look at me.“You're no Peapod anymore,” he said, which was a nickname he had called me. “Petey, you're springing up like a weed. You must have grown three inches since
Christmas!” He smiled at me then, with little lines crinkling up around his eyes. I smiled back at him.