The War with Grandpa (10 page)

And Grandpa was teasing me, which didn't help a bit.

“You look nervous,” he'd say.

“I am, for goodness’ sakes,” I'd say. “I wish you'd do something already.”

“Patience,” he'd say with a funny smile that gave me a chill.

Psychological warfare, right? I mean, he was messing with my mind. And the more he waited, the more messed up I got. I left one of my school-books home one day. Just plain forgot it. I knew why. Because I was too busy worrying over what kind of trick he was going to pull on me.

Grandpa told me a joke one afternoon. It was about a guy who lived below a man who took off only one shoe when he got into bed at night. The man below couldn't hardly sleep, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I didn't think it was very funny.

Right around then, while I was waiting for the other shoe to drop, a peculiar thing happened. It was a rainy Sunday. Mom was in the kitchen baking something with cinnamon in it that made the whole house smell terrific. Jenny was helping. After a while Jenny must have helped too much because Mom sent her out of the kitchen. Grandpa was sitting in the living room with me. Dad was upstairs taking a nap.

Next thing Grandpa and I knew, Jenny came walking into the room with my Monopoly game. My empty Monopoly game with all the pieces and cards hidden away by Grandpa.“Let's play,” Jenny said. She set the game down on the coffee table.

“Ahem,” Grandpa said, kind of coughing.

“Where'd you get that?” I said. I acted like I was mad.

“From your toy cabinet,” Jenny said, “where
you always keep it.” She began to open the box, but I stopped her by putting my hand on top of it.

“Don't you ask permission to go into my room and steal my game?” I said real loud.

Jenny looked at me in a funny way. “What do you mean,
steal
it?” she said. “Here it is. I think we should play Monopoly. You, me, and Grandpa.”

“That's a stupid idea,” I said.

Jenny blinked her eyes at me.“What's the matter with you, Peter?” she asked. “You're acting funny.”

“I don't want to play Monopoly, okay?” I said. “I have my rights, you know, and if a person doesn't want to play Monopoly, a person can't be forced against his will. So I'll just put the game away.”

I didn't expect Jenny to jerk the box away, but she did. And then she opened it.“I'll play with Grandpa then, if you're going to be so mean,” ” she said.

I looked at Grandpa and he looked at me. We both knew what was coming next.

“Hey, where are all the pieces and cards and stuff?” Jenny asked. “There's just a Monopoly board and nothing else in the box.”

There was a very long and very embarrassing silence. Jenny stared at me and at Grandpa. I couldn't think of what to say. Grandpa began to whistle.

And then Jenny found the note I'd stupidly left in the box.

“ ‘Two can play at this game,’“ she read aloud, ” ‘but you can't play this game now.’ Signed, ‘The Old Man’?” She looked mystified.“Who is The Old Man?” she asked. “And why are the pieces missing?”

“Well,” I said, “there's a perfectly simple explanation.”

Jenny waited. I waited, too, because I couldn't think of a perfectly simple explanation.

“Something fishy is going on here,” Jenny said.

Grandpa cleared his throat.

“You both know about this and I don't,” Jenny said. “Are you The Old Man in the note, Grandpa? Are you playing a trick on Peter?”

“Me?” Grandpa said.
“Me?
Don't be silly. Why would I play a trick on Peter?”

Jenny thought about that for no more than a second. “It
is
you, Grandpa. That's why you look so guilty. I wish you'd tell me. You know I can keep a secret.”

“Stuff and nonsense,” Grandpa said in a huffy
way, like he was being insulted. “One of Pete's friends did this, I'll bet. Isn't that right, Pete?”

“Huh?” I said. “Yeah…right.”

“Who?” asked Jenny.

“The older one,” Grandpa said.

“That's right,” I said. “Steve did it. He's a lot older than me. And sometimes he calls himself the old man.”

“Steve isn't a lot older than you,” Jenny said. She would make a great detective, I was thinking.

“Sure he is,” I said. “Months and months.”

“So where did Steve hide all the Monopoly pieces?” Jenny asked. “Why don't you get them, Peter, so we can play, okay?”

“Well …” I said.

“You go upstairs and get them, Pete,” said Grandpa, who stood up from the couch. “And I'll just step up to my room and get me a sweater. It's kinda chilly in here.”

Now I understood what was happening. So I ran up to my room like I was getting the Monopoly stuff while Grandpa retrieved it from wherever he had hidden it. I met him outside my old room.“A narrow escape there,” he said. He handed me a plastic bag with all the Monopoly stuff in it.

And I handed him back his watch.

“Thanks,” he said, and slipped the watch onto his wrist.

“This doesn't mean I'm giving up,” I told him.

“Course not,” Grandpa said. “And I still owe you one, I believe. I'm going to drop the other shoe on you any day now.”

Then we went back downstairs and played Monopoly with Jenny until dinnertime.

When it happened, I wasn't ready for it, of course. It was an ordinary Wednesday in the middle of the week. A school day. The first thing I noticed was that my clock-radio alarm hadn't gone off at the right time. I always get up at seven o'clock. But it was already seven fifteen!

I leaped out of bed, tangling my feet in the blanket and falling onto the floor. Next thing I noticed was that my slippers were gone. I always leave them right alongside my bed when I go to sleep. Why weren't they there?

I wasted a minute or two looking for them under the bed and in my closet. That's when it hit me.
This was Grandpa's revenge!
Now. This morning. That's why the clock was late and my slippers were gone.

I rushed off to the bathroom in my bare feet to wash my face and brush my teeth. No toothbrush! It simply wasn't there. In the plastic water
glass on the sink was a note. “Use your finger,” it said.

What a
furrzy
trick!

I stood there like a dummy, half of me wanting to run downstairs to the hall closet where Mom kept a few new toothbrushes and half of me not wanting to waste the time because I was already behind schedule. I put toothpaste on my finger and brushed my teeth with it. It was disgusting.

I ran back to my room in a hurry. I hate being late for anything, but I hate being late for school most of all. When I opened my underwear drawer it was empty.

There was another note. This one said:“Underwear in hall closet.” I ran outside into the hall. There was all my underwear, up on a shelf. I grabbed shorts and a T-shirt and ran back to my room and put them on. That's when I looked into my sock drawer. And that's when I saw it was empty too.

Now I was mad. In a panic, yes, but mad as well. The note in my sock drawer said: “Socks in cabinet under bathroom sink.”

I groaned and said a couple of words I shouldn't use. Grandpa was turning my getting dressed into a treasure hunt. I ran to the bathroom again and looked under the sink in the cabinet. There were my rolled-up socks scattered among the Ivory soap, rolls of toilet paper, and a bottle of Mr. Clean. I grabbed a pair of socks and ran back to my room to put them on.

By now I figured that Grandpa's dirty tricks weren't over yet. I was right. All of my flannel shirts hanging on hangers in my closet were still hanging there, but they had been turned inside out. I grabbed one and fixed it and put it on. Naturally, I buttoned it wrong and had to re-button it. My jeans hanging on a hook by a belt loop were inside out too. I fixed them and put them on, then saw that my belt was missing. The heck with it, I thought. I was too late to worry about a little thing like a belt.

That's when I discovered that there were no laces in my sneakers.

I stood there, staring down, my mouth hanging open like the sneakers were hanging open. I heard my mom calling up from the bottom of the stairs. “Peter! You're late, sweetie!”

Inside one sneaker was a note. “Laces on kitchen countertop.”

I stuck my feet into the sneakers and tried to run downstairs. I couldn't. Without laces the
sneakers kept slipping around, so I had to walk like a crazy man to keep them on my feet. I came downstairs slowly. In the second floor hallway Grandpa had his head stuck out of the door of my room. He was laughing.“Hey, Pete,” he called to me, “how's it going this morning?”

“It's not funny,” I said.

“War is hell” is what Grandpa said back. He laughed again, which only made me madder.

I finally made it to the kitchen. I flipflopped across the floor in my loose sneakers and practically fell into my chair at the table.

“Peter,” my mom said, “why did you leave your sneaker laces on the kitchen counter?”

I took a big gulp of the orange juice that was in front of my bowl of cereal.

“Did you want me to wash your shoelaces?” Mom asked. She looked really puzzled.

“No,” I said.“It was a joke.” I started to eat my Cheerios real fast.

Jenny was already finished with breakfast.“You're really late, Peter,” she said.

“I know it, dummy!” I shouted at her.

She looked at me like I was crazy, which maybe I was a little.

“I'd better put your laces back in while you
finish your breakfast,” Mom said. I slipped my sneakers off, which wasn't hard to do, and Mom sat down beside me and relaced them for me.

I'd had enough breakfast by this time. I was mad and upset and not hungry anyway. I took the sneaker Mom had relaced and put it on and tied it. She was still working on the other one.“Could you try to hurry?” I said to her.

The front door slammed shut, which was Jenny leaving the house. At least
she
wasn't going to be late to school.

“I don't understand why you left your laces down here,” Mom said. She handed me the other sneaker and I put it on. Then I lit out, running for the stairs, and zoomed up to my room like a bullet.

I was ready to find out that Grandpa had hidden my knapsack. But there it was right by my desk. The only thing was, it was empty. My books were missing.

Inside the knapsack was another stupid joke. “Books inside luggage in storage room down the hall.”

I ran like crazy to the room where we stored the luggage. Grandpa was so devilish, I wanted to hit him on the head with a suitcase. He had put one book in each of the pieces of luggage,
so I had to unzip every one of them to get back all my books.

I stuffed my books into the knapsack, then ran downstairs to the coat closet. I grabbed my jacket, threw it on, and dashed out the door.

It's six blocks from my house to school. I ran until I was out of breath, then walked as fast as I could. As I rounded the corner near school I could see that the schoolyard was empty. Which meant that all the classes were going upstairs to their rooms already.

I ran across the schoolyard, and just as I got to the entrance door I remembered something. I had forgotten my lunch.