Of Mice and Nutcrackers: A Peeler Christmas (6 page)

I want to tell Mr. Gebohm to stop bothering Jiri. But I can’t. I don’t want to make him mad at me. He’ll never give up the gym if he’s mad at me. I look around for help. Brad is watching the whole scene. I wave. He turns away.

“Are You Stupid, Kid? Is That It? You Are, Aren’t You? You’re Just Stupid.”

“Stop that!” I say.

The words pop out of me like sweat. I can’t help them. I can’t stand the idea of Mr. Gebohm calling Jiri stupid.

Startled, he turns to me. “You?”

I open my mouth, when I hear a familiar voice from the climber.

“Take that!” it says. Next thing I know, a snowball hits Mr. Gebohm right in the back of the head.

No snowballs are allowed on our school yard. None at all. I don’t know what they’re afraid of – little kids getting hurt, probably. I bet they aren’t afraid of gym teachers getting hit.

He whirls around. “Who Did That?” he shouts. His eyes are slits behind his glasses. The snowball is melting down the back of his neck. I bet it’s melting fast – his neck is so hot. He’s so mad, there’s steam coming off him.

“Oh, sorry, sir,” calls Michael, from the climber, with a smile on his face. “I didn’t mean to hit you. I was aiming … um … somewhere else.”

I relax. I don’t mind Michael getting in trouble. He’s used to it, and he can handle it.

Jiri stands still with the little girl on his back.
“Do
you like this?” he asks, twisting around to look up at her. He has whiskers – the only one in grade 7.

The girl shrieks and pulls his hair. “Go, Jiri, go,” she cries. He trots off.

Mr. Gebohm crooks his hand at Michael. “Come Here, You!” he says.

I think about asking him the favor, but now doesn’t seem like the right time. I turn back to the school. Patti has Brad in a headlock. He doesn’t seem to mind.

First class after lunch is math. Our three-million-year-old supply teacher reads a question from the textbook in her ancient, reedy voice, and then looks up and says: “So, what’s the answer?” The question is one of those word problems, where two trains are rushing away from each other at different speeds, and Agatha is three times as old as Gerald will be in two years, and the white box weighs more than black box but only half as much as the red box.

“If one mousetrap catches one mouse every day,” she reads, slowly, “and two mousetraps catch four mice, and three traps catch nine mice, and four traps get sixteen mice, then how many traps will be needed to catch twenty-five mice?”

Jiri drops one of his letter blocks. He uses them to spell out the words he’s practicing.
GOAT BOAT ROAD
are some of them this week. I know this because I helped him yesterday. In our class the quick learners
get to help the slow learners. I’m usually one of the quickest, and Jiri is always the slowest.

“Pick that up,” says the teacher. “In
my
day we didn’t get colored blocks to play with, and if we did, we wouldn’t have dropped them. What’s your name?”

“Me?” says Jiri, bending quickly to pick up the block. “My name is Jiri Holocek my family comes from Prague that is in Europe.” He says this all in one breath, the way he always says it. He has a big smile. “Pleased to meet you,” he says.

She frowns. “Did you hear the question, Jiri? How many traps would it take to catch twenty-five mice?”

I look around the class and see my own embarrassment reflected in other people’s faces. I wish Michael were here to help, but he’s still in the principal’s office for throwing snowballs. “Uh, it’s not fair to ask Jiri that question,” I say at last.

She peers at me. “And why not? In
my
day teachers could ask students questions. They were even encouraged to do it.”

“Uh, Jiri is….” All right, I don’t know how to put it. “He’s …”

“No problem, Jane,” says Jiri. “I can answer the question.”

I squirm uncomfortably. “But …” I begin, and then stop.

I poke Patti, sitting in front of me. She shrugs her shoulders and doesn’t turn around. Justin fiddles
with the zipper at the top of his sweater. Brad is sharpening his pencil, collecting the shavings in a neat pile on the corner of his desk.

“How many traps then, Jiri?” asks the teacher.

Jiri smiles. His glasses are filthy. His whiskers shine. “One,” he says.

“Wrong, wrong, wrong,” she sighs, shaking her head. “Standards, standards. Today’s standards are nowhere near what they were in
my
day. Why, the next number in sequence –”

“Of course, you would need almost a month,” says Jiri.

“What?” she gasps. “What was that?”

“You said that one mousetrap catches one mouse a day,” says Jiri, patiently. “So that in twenty-five days you would catch twenty-five mice, with one mousetrap. Do you see?”

“But … but I meant….” She’s having trouble getting his thoughts in order.

Silence. I can’t help it. I laugh.

I’m not alone. Around the room smiles are popping out, shyly, like early crocuses. Zillah, from in front of Michael’s empty desk, taps her fingertips together. Her black nails are very striking.

The bell rings for gym. The teacher’s jaw closes with a snap.

“Line Up For Dodgeball!” shouts Mr. Gebohm. “Along the wall.”

Mr. Gebohm has changed into gray gym shorts – no, what I mean is, he’s changed his clothes. He looks more natural than in the long pants he wore on the playground at lunchtime. These are his real work clothes.

“You, there,” he says, glaring at Michael, back from the principal’s office with a note to take home, “go to the other side of the gym.”

Mr. Gebohm can talk with the whistle in his mouth. All gym teachers can. “You, too,” he calls to Justin.

Michael stalks away. Justin glides after him, his pants swishing around his skinny hips.

“You, too,” says Mr. Gebohm, pointing farther down, “and you, and you.” He points to every second or third person, separating us into two teams.

“Okay! Go!” he says, whipping the ball at Justin. It flies like a big round white bullet, and hits him on the knee.

“You’re Out!” cries Mr. Gebohm. Justin hobbles to the sidelines, grimacing. “Come On!”

Michael picks up the ball and throws it, almost as hard as the teacher. At whom does he aim? Why, me of course. I think Michael must hate me particularly – he’s always picking on me. I don’t know why – I’m not mean to him. I don’t make fun, or anything. I picked him to be Godfather Stahlbaum in the play. Most of the time I try to be nice to him. And not just because he’s a bully, the way you’d be nice to a Mafia don who happened to be in your homeroom.

Anyway, I stand still, like a deer in the headlights, only I’m not as big – say, a woodchuck in the headlights, while the ball travels toward my face at the speed of light, looming bigger and bigger, blocking out the rest of the world.

Then Brad steps in front of me and tries to catch the ball. He misses. He’s out. “Sorry, Jane,” he says.

I smile at him – a nice guy. “Thanks for saving me,” I say.

“Got you, Brad!” cries Michael. “Brad the weenie!”

Patti’s face is red. She picks up the bouncing ball and hurls it at Michael. It goes way high, hits the basketball backboard, and actually bounces in.

We all laugh and cheer. “Good shot!” I call to her.

She stares at me. Her eyes are narrow. My best friend – what’s wrong with her?

Michael and Jiri are the two biggest and strongest boys in the class, and they’re on opposite teams. Michael throws the ball really hard, but Jiri always seems to hold back.

“Harder!” his team shouts at him. “Throw it harder, Jiri.”

What he can do is catch the ball. In dodgeball, if you catch the other team’s throw before it bounces, the thrower is out. Jiri has the softest hands. He has trouble hitting anyone else with the ball because he doesn’t throw very hard, but he gets lots of people out because he catches their throws.

Another thing he can do is dodge. I don’t know how. He’s big and a bit bulky, but he sideslips effortlessly. Time and again I’m sure someone is going to nail him, but at the last second he shuffles to one side and the ball sails past. He’s the size of a moose, but he swoops like a bird, out of the way of oncoming trouble.

It helps that Michael is not throwing at him. Michael prefers to pick the other members of the team. One by one, we all fall to him.

When I am hit, fairly early, I sit on the end of the bench. Brad comes over to sit down.

“Hey, thanks again,” I say.

Then Patti gets hit, and runs to sit beside me. “Hi, there!” I say, glad to see that she’s got over being mad. But she’s not even talking to me. Head turned, she has something to say to Brad.

Only two people left. Michael on one side, and Jiri on the other. Mr. Gebohm is smiling around the whistle in his mouth, and rubbing his hands together. I realize, now, that this is what he wanted. The two boys are opponents. He didn’t like Michael sticking up for Jiri on the playground. “Come on, boys. Throw hard now. Next one’s the winner.”

Jiri has the ball. He frowns, and puts the ball down. “A tie,” he says.

“No!” shouts Mr. Gebohm. “I Want One Of You To Get It!”

Jiri frowns at him. “Please?”

“Come On!” Mr. Gebohm mimes throwing the ball. “Throw, Stupid!”

Jiri shrugs, and aims a gentle toss at Michael, who doesn’t even try to catch it. He lets it roll to him, then in one motion picks the ball up and whips it as hard as he can – at Mr. Gebohm.

It hits him right in the cheek. His glasses go flying. His whole head snaps back. There’s a muffled
tweet
from his whistle – the last sound a canary would make on its way into the cat’s mouth – and the teacher falls over, hitting the gym floor.

“Gebohm go boom!” says Michael.

Jiri frowns, then he gets the joke. He opens his mouth wide, and laughs and laughs. Mr. Gebohm is sitting up now. The whistle dangles. “Gebohm go boom!” says Jiri.

I walk over to the teacher. “Can we rehearse our play in the gym after school today?” I ask. “Please, Mr. Gebohm.”

He stares blankly up at me. “No,” he says.

And so we have another rehearsal in class. Miss Gonsalves arrives in good time and good spirits. She laughs when I tell her about meeting the principal, and trying to convince Mr. Gebohm.

“Wait until they hear my news,” she says, opening her music.

“What news?”

“I’ll tell you tomorrow. I won’t know for sure until then.”

Snow is falling when I get out of the rehearsal. I can hear the scrape of shovels on the sidewalks – a sound muted by the falling snow. Bill is busy on our front walk. He isn’t the only one. His friend David is there too. A big kid, David. Bigger than Bill – than me, come to that. He looks like a bear in his winter coat, and hat with the earflaps dangling.

“About time,” says Bill. “Hurry and help us, Jane. She won’t let us in until the walk is cleared.”

“What do you mean, she? She, who?”

“Who do you think – Grandma.”

“Oh.”

“Your grandmother reminds me of my aunt,” says David. “Very strict.”

“Strict?” says Bill. “She’s crazy.” Then he says something I don’t understand. Sounds like “sugar.” “Is that right?” he asks David.

David smiles. “That’s right,” he says, bending to lift another shovelful of snow.

The back door of the house opens onto a mudroom. Hooks for coats, a tray for boots, a box for recycled papers. We hang up our coats.

The smell from the kitchen is powerful. A strong and sweet smell, like burning sugar. Bill and I share a glance. Grandma is probably the world’s worst cook. Did you ever hear of the Donner party? They were in the Sierras in California and they ended up eating each other. Maybe I’d rather go to one of Grandma’s dinners than the Donner party – but it would be a tough choice.

“Is the walk done?” yells Grandma from the kitchen. “And is your hairy friend here?”

“The walk’s done, Grandma,” I say.

“David isn’t hairy,” says Bill. “And he’s gone home.”

“Well, hang up your coats!” Grandma coughs loud and long, and spits in the sink.

Yuck.

I run upstairs to check on Dad. He’s asleep. Back down on the second floor, I notice Bernie’s bed has been rolled into Bill’s room. The door to Bernie’s room is closed. Grandma is moving in. Am I ever glad I’m a girl. No way they’re going to put Bernie in with me.

Bill’s sitting on his bed. “Ha-ha,” I say from the doorway. “Got yourself a roomie, hey?” Not serious teasing, you understand. Just enough to let him know that I’m doing better than he is.

Bill ignores the teasing. “Do you think David’s hairy?” he asks.

“He sure is,” I say. “And messy too.”

“Shut up.”

Back in the kitchen, the smell is stronger than ever. It’s coming from the oven. I don’t know what it is. Bernie is kneeling on a chair. He has the games box out on the kitchen table, and he’s trying to get Grandma to play something.

He holds up the dominoes. “Do you want to –”

“No,” says Grandma.

“Oh. Well, what about –”

“No.” Grandma opens the oven door. Heat shimmer blurs the atmosphere.

Bernie opens a pack of cards. “What abou –”

“No.”

“Well, what
do
you want to do?”

She closes the oven door, stares over at him. “You wouldn’t believe me.”

“I’ll play with you, Bernie,” I say.

He smiles, fans the playing cards in his two hands. “Pick a card,” he says.

I take a card. Bernie gets off the chair and walks away. “Hey, Bernie!” He keeps walking. I’m left holding the card. Bernie goes upstairs.

I thought the deck in his hands looked kind of thin.

“So, how’s it going?” I ask Grandma. “Do you like my new earrings?” Two of them, high up on my left ear. Plain rings. I got them in time for Halloween. Dad didn’t like the idea. Actually, “didn’t like” puts it mildly.

Grandma shrugs at my earrings. “How’s it going? I’ll tell you how it’s going. I’m living in a room with teddy bears on the wall,” she says.

“Aren’t they cute?”

“No.”

“What’s for dinner?” I ask.

There’s smoke coming out of the oven now. Grandma whirls around. “Son of a ditch!” she yells, throwing open the oven door. She takes a pan out of the oven. In it is a smoking mass – or should I say, a smoking mess. I have no idea what she’s cooking. Rounded, flatish, black things. Sandwiches? English muffins? Mini pizzas? Frisbees? Wagon wheels?

Grandma holds the pan over the sink, and starts scraping the black off the … things.

“What are
those?”
I ask.

“Pork chops,” she says.

I don’t say anything.

“Shut up,” she growls, scraping. As the top black layer flakes off, I start to recognize them. It’s like archaeology, I suppose. The trick is to see the meat underneath the coating of … of what?

“What’s the stuff on top?”

“Marshmallow,” she says.

Of course.

“Pork goes with sweet things,” she says. “Applesauce, honey …”

“And marshmallow,” I say.

Grandma puts down the pan, and stirs something cooking on the stove. I don’t ask what it is.

“Beans,” she says, without looking around. “And brown sugar. You’ve had it before.”

The front door opens. “Hello?” calls Mom. Her voice sounds tentative. She doesn’t know what to expect. I run to the front hall.

“Mom!” cries Bernie from upstairs.

Mom has a funny expression on her face. “What’s for dinner?” she says.

“You won’t believe it,” I whisper, peeking back over my shoulder. “Grandma is cooking pork chops with –”

“Marshmallow. That’s it.” Mom nods her head. “I recognize the smell.”

“She’s done this before?”

“Dinner!” calls Grandma.

Grandma finishes first, pushes her chair back, and opens her pack of cigarettes. Empty. She frowns at it, crumples it up, and tosses it onto her empty plate.

I swallow a small mouthful of dry burnt leather – that’s what dinner tastes like.

“There’s another pack of cigarettes in the bathroom,” I say.

“I know,” says Grandma. She doesn’t move. Grandma has always smoked. Her apartment on the other side of the city has ashtrays and lighters on all the tables. One lighter is shaped like a gun. Last time we visited. Bill almost set Bernie’s hair on fire.

“What’s everyone staring at?” she says. “I don’t
need
a cigarette. I’ll wait.”

“Good for you!” says Mom.

Grandma doesn’t say anything.

“Smoking is bad for you,” says Bill. He’s not eating the pork chops, I notice. He’s trying manfully – boy-fully, anyway – with the beans.

“Why is smoking bad for you?” asks Bernie. He doesn’t go to school yet, so he hasn’t seen all the anti-smoking videos.

“Smoking turns your lungs all black,” says Bill, “so that you can’t breathe. You pant and fall down. And then your arteries get all hard, and you have a heart attack. And –”

“Boys,” says Mom, “can we talk about something else, please?”

“No, no,” says Grandma. “Keep going. Tell me more about how my body’s falling apart. I love it.” She coughs.

Mom’s cell phone rings from inside her purse in the hall. She stands up. “Please excuse me, Mother, but I’m expecting an important call.” She carries her plate to the counter. She hasn’t eaten everything.

Grandma sniffs. “Important call,” she says.

“What’s Daddy getting for dinner?” I ask.

“Soup,” she says. “Plain chicken soup out of a package. That’s all he wants.”

Lucky Dad. Packaged chicken soup sounds pretty good.

“Do you wish you had a cigarette now?” I ask Grandma.

“Yes,” she says.

“And do you really like hearing about your body falling apart?” asks Bernie.

“No.”