A Brand-New Me! (8 page)

I couldn't believe what I said next. I didn't plan it, but the words just flew out of my mouth.

“Thanks, Em,” I said. “I'm lucky to have you as a sister.”

“You kids,” my mom said, her eyes getting shiny like they do just before she's going to cry. “I love you both.”

She popped up from her chair and attempted to give Emily a hug, but Katherine threw a big-time hiss in her direction, so I got the hug instead. Then she turned to my dad, who was twirling the tip of his red mechanical pencil, making the lead go in and out. That was a good sign, because he does that mechanical pencil thing when he's thinking.

“We're raising good kids, Stanley,” my mom said to him. “Emily made a really good point. How about if we let Hank audition? Then we'll see what happens.”

The pencil lead went in and out. I started counting how many times. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Just before eight, he said yes.

Mr. Rock and I got busy preparing for the audition. We met every day after school in the music room, and this time, there was no instrument cleaning involved. He would throw out subjects, and I would make up monologues. One day he told me to be a bottle of mustard being squirted on a hot dog. Another day he told me to be a baby kangaroo that fell out of his mom's pouch. He encouraged me to let my mind be free and to say whatever came to me.

If I made a mistake or couldn't think of anything, I felt embarrassed, but he explained that if you stumble, you have to stand right back up and keep moving forward. He said that one of the secrets of good acting is trial and error, which means that you only learn by making mistakes. Boy, try telling that to Ms. Adolf. To her, making a mistake is like the end of the world. She's got that red pencil sharpened and ready to write the word FAIL at the drop of a hat.

We practiced every day that week, and by the time Friday came, I had told about a thousand stories. I was as ready as I was ever going to be, except for one thing. I was nervous about the audition. And not just your garden variety nervous. This kind of nervous started at my toes and ended up at my hair roots.

“What's with you, man?” Frankie asked as we walked home from school on Friday. “You've called me Theodore three times today. What's up with that?”

“I guess this audition tomorrow has taken up most of my brain. I don't have room for names anymore.”

“I have a great idea,” Ashley said. “You could use some relaxation before tomorrow. Frankie and I are taking you bowling this evening.”

“We are?” Frankie said.

“Yes, we are.” Ashley stopped for a minute and looked in the window of the drug store on the corner. I saw her glancing at an American flag pin that was made up of red, silver, and blue rhinestones. “Look at all those rhinestones,” she said. “I could make a whole school of dolphins on my sneakers with those.”

“I thought we were talking about bowling here, Ashweena,” Frankie said. “How'd rhinestones come up?”

“Rhinestones, Frankie, are a great addition to any conversation,” Ashley answered.

Frankie and I gave each other a look. The one thing you can't do with Ashley is insult her rhinestoning ability, which is actually pretty artistic.

“I think bowling sounds like a great idea,” I said. “I'll call Papa Pete as soon as I get upstairs. I bet he would love to take us to McKelty's.”

When I called and asked him, Papa Pete was in seventh heaven. The only thing he loves more than bowling is us kids, and when you put the two of them together, the guy is happier than a bug in a rug.

After dinner, he picked us up at my apartment. Before we left, I saw him open the refrigerator and put a plastic container inside.

“What's that?” I asked him.

“You'll see, Hankie. First things first.”

We met Ashley and Frankie down in the lobby and all walked up Amsterdam Avenue to McKelty's Roll 'N' Bowl. When we pushed open the leather doors and went inside, the first sound we heard was the clatter of bowling balls rolling down the lanes and striking the pins. The second thing we heard was everybody calling out hello to Papa Pete. He's a regular at McKelty's, and as a matter of fact, there's a new picture of him over the shoe checkout desk because two weeks before, he scored another perfect three hundred. What a bowler.

Papa Pete got us all fitted in shoes and picked his favorite lane, which is number seven. He always says that seven is his favorite number because he got married to my grandma Jenny on the seventh day of the seventh month in 1947.

I tried to concentrate on my bowling, but my mind kept drifting back to the audition. Papa Pete could tell something was wrong immediately because I rolled four gutter balls in a row.

“Somebody doesn't have his head in the game,” he said. “Come on, Hankie. What did I teach you?”

“Zip's been out of it all day,” Frankie said. “The guy's like a space cadet.”

“Come on, Frankie,” Ashley said. “Give him a break. He's got a big audition tomorrow. You know what, Hank? I have an idea on how to get your mind off it. Don't try to get your mind off it.”

“Is it just me,” I asked, “or did you just say something really confusing?”

“It's what I do,” Ashley explained. “When I can't stop thinking about something, I don't try. I just go with it.”

“Once again, young lady,” Papa Pete said to her, “you show great wisdom.”

“Okay,” I said. “I'm going to take that wisdom and roll with it. Watch this.”

I picked up a bowling ball with orange swirls on it. I'm a little embarrassed to say that because it's the kind that little kids use, but the truth is, it's lighter and that makes it easier for me to aim.

“I am a bowling ball,” I said. “I know . . . you've noticed. But did you know that it's hard to be taken seriously when you're all orange and swirly. People think you're squishy, like an overripe cantaloupe, that you can't smack those pins like the typical black ball. It's lonely being orange.”

Ashley and Frankie were laughing like mani acs. Papa Pete had a smile under his bushy mustache that lit up his entire face.

“Throw the ball, Hankie,” he said. “I'm going to get you guys root beer floats.”

After Papa Pete left, I took aim and let the ball fly off my fingers, but I carried on as though I was still the ball.

“Ouch, I'm getting wood burn from rolling down this lane. I guess they didn't put down enough oil. Uh-oh. There's the gutter. I'm not going there. I'm leaning to the left. Oh no, too far to the left. Here comes the other gutter. I'm leaning to the right, straight at the center pin. Here I come, buddy. You're mine.”

When the orange ball struck, it actually clipped the very edge of one pin, which teetered for a long minute and finally fell backward, leaving the other nine standing at attention.

“Aaarrrgggfff,” I grunted, in my best impression of a bowling ball crashing into the back of the lane. “That hurt. Anyone have a ball Band-Aid?”

I turned around, expecting to receive a round of applause from Frankie and Ashley, but standing right in front of them was the mouth breather of all time, Nick the Tick McKelty.

“A ball Band-Aid?” he said. “Are you serious? They don't make those.”

“Thanks for the tip, McKelty. I wouldn't have known that without you.”

“Listen, Zipperbutt. Maybe if you shut up when you're rolling, you could hit more than one pin,” he said. “Nobody talks when they bowl.”

“For your information, Nick,” I shot back, “that wasn't me talking. That was the bowling ball.”

“Bowling balls do not talk,” he said. “And I should know because my dad owns fifty bowling alleys around the world. In fact, he's in Antarctica right now, buying two more igloo bowling alleys for penguins.”

A tall, blond kid named Anderson Negley, who I knew from my old Little League team, was bowling on the lane next to us. He stopped mid-throw and looked over at McKelty.

“You expect any of us to believe that?” he said. “Everyone knows your dad owns one bowling alley and this is it. Besides, moron, have you ever seen a penguin bowl?”

“Have you ever seen one NOT bowl?” McKelty shot back.

“That makes so little sense, I can't even answer it,” Anderson said. Then he turned to me. “Your name is Hank, right?”

“Yeah. I've seen you in Dr. Berger's office.”

“Right. I think you had the appointment after mine. Listen, man, you being the ball was funny stuff. Cracked me up.”

“Hank's rehearsing for an audition tomorrow,” Ashley said. Then she gave him a really deluxe smile.

“An audition?” McKelty snorted. “The only thing Zipperhead would get into is the city zoo. And that's already a stretch.”

“McKelty, you're going to have to eat those words after Hank gets into the Professional Performing Arts School,” Frankie said.

“That school?” McKelty said. “I wouldn't go to that loser school if you paid me.”

“Listen, dude,” Anderson chimed in. “I don't think you have to worry about that. No one is paying you to go anywhere.”

“I'm paying him,” came a voice from behind us. It was Nick's dad, delivering the three root beer floats that Papa Pete had ordered. “Nick, I thought I asked you to spray the shoes with disinfectant. That's what I'm paying you for, not to stand around and disturb the customers.”

“But . . . Dad,” McKelty tried to answer.

“No buts,” his dad said sternly. “Just spray.”

McKelty shuffled his big butt back to the shoe counter. As I watched him pick up the can of disinfectant and begin to spray the inside of a bunch of stinky shoes, I thought sometimes people get exactly what they deserve.

I really hoped that the next day, I would get just what I deserved, too . . . a place at Professional Performing Arts.

After bowling, Papa Pete walked us home. It was one of those New York spring evenings that are just perfect, the kind that say winter is over and summer is on the way. As we walked down Amsterdam Avenue, passing the dry cleaners, the library, and the pet store where I bought Rosa, my pet tarantula, I kept taking deep breaths to calm myself down. The places we were passing, usually so familiar to me, were all a blur to me now. I realized that the audition was getting closer and closer, with every step we took. That's all I could think about.

When we got to our building, we rode up in the elevator and stopped at Frankie's floor first. Before he got out, he turned to me and looked me square in the eye.

“I'd wish you good luck tomorrow, Zip, but you don't need it. You'll knock 'em dead.”

Then we bumped our fists, our elbows, and our butts. Nothing more needed to be said.

Next we stopped at Ashley's floor to let her off. She just threw her arms around me and gave me a gigantoid hug.

“I demand that you call me the minute you're out of the audition,” she said. “I'm going to go to sleep tonight with my fingers crossed.”

“Ow,” I said. “That sounds painful.”

She laughed and gave me one more hug before leaving the elevator.

Papa Pete and I got out on the tenth floor without saying a word. In our apartment, my dad was watching TV with Emily, some show about the Great Flu Epidemic of 1911. Boy, that's what I call a happy hour. My mom was putting Harry to bed in MY room, which as far as I can see, is how he spends ninety percent of his time. The other ten percent is spent eating, burping, and pooping. And let me tell you, I am completely aware of his poop time. My room has become the Kingdom of Poopdom.

“Meet me on the terrace in two minutes,” Papa Pete said to me. “You and I have a hot date with a pickle.”

I pushed open the door in the living room that leads out to the terrace. The stars were out, and if I looked one way, I could see the Hudson River. If I looked the other way, I saw the Museum of Natural History. There were lights on in all the apartments, as far as my eyes could see. All those people at home, relaxing and enjoying the evening. I wondered if there was anyone in any of those apartments who was as nervous as I was at that very moment.

Papa Pete tapped me on the shoulder and I jumped about fifty feet in the air.

“Wow,” Papa Pete said. “Somebody's edgy. Relax, Hankie. It's just me bringing your pickle.”

He reached into a plastic bag, and took out two thick cucumber-shaped pickles, handed one to me, and took the other one for himself.

“These are new pickles,” Papa Pete said. “Nice and crunchy.”

In case you're not a pickle expert like Papa Pete and I are, let me explain that new pickles are taken out of the pickling juice and spices before they're totally done. That makes them taste sort of like a cucumber, but with a tang. Put one of those babies with a corned beef sandwich, and you are in delicatessen heaven.

We each pulled up a chair and took a bite of our pickles. There was a lot of crunching going on. Finally, Papa Pete turned to me and said, “So, Hankie, big day tomorrow, huh?”

“Funny you should bring that up,” I said to him. “I was thinking of making it a medium day and calling the school and telling them that I can't make the audition.”

“Really? And what would keep you from showing up at such an important event in your life?”

“Well, Papa Pete, I have a lot to do. For one, I promised Mom that I would organize my closet, and she's really counting on me to do that. I have to set a good example for Baby Harry. Which reminds me, I also have to teach Baby Harry to play toe basketball, and there's no time like tomorrow to begin. You can't start too early with these kids.”