The War with Grandpa (7 page)

“Yes,” I said.

“It's psychological warfare,” Steve said, “and very clever of him.”

“He's messing with your mind,” Billy said.

We were on our way to Dealtown, the store where we always bought school supplies. Steve needed more pens, index cards, and a notebook. I never knew a kid who used up so many school supplies as Steve did, or who loved school as much as he did. It was a little unnatural, if you ask me. I mean, school is okay. And besides, you have to go. But I always think that a few more holidays during the year wouldn't hurt anything. Steve thinks that a day without school is a rotten day. He's always reading books and taking notes on index cards. Whenever he sees a new word
he looks it up in the dictionary, writes it on an index card, and memorizes it.

“Grandpa is trying to out-nice you,” Steve said.

“But he is nice,” I said.

“There you are,” Steve said. “He's got you believing it already.”

“Wait a minute,” I said, “something's wrong here.”

“Yeah,
you
are,” Billy said.

“It's very simple,” said Steve as we entered the store. “You start a war, Grandpa doesn't want to fight. So he just tries to be so darn nice to you that you'll forget the whole thing and call off the war. Isn't that it?”

“No,” I said. “He's just a good sweet man who loves me a lot. So he forgave my stealing his slippers and let me know by kissing me.”

“That wasn't too bright, leaving his slippers in your closet,” Billy said. “You should have thrown them in the trash.”

“I'd never do that,” I said.

“Or burned them,” Billy added.

“You can't burn slippers,” I said.

“Positively Machiavellian,” Steve said. He picked up a shopping basket.

“What's Machia—what you said?” Billy asked.

“Machiavelli. He was this old Italian prince,” Steve said.“He figured out all the moves you can make on an enemy a long time ago. I'll bet your grandpa knows all about him.” ” Steve put a spiral-bound notepad and a pack of index cards into the basket.

“He's not that way,” I protested. “Grandpa is just a great guy, that's all.”

Steve gave me one of those all-knowing looks of his, as if he were talking to a birdbrain.“Never underestimate your enemy,” he said.

I have to say this about my friend Steve. Sometimes for a guy who is a great brain and all, he can be very dumb.

“So what are you going to do next?” Billy asked.

“Probably nothing,” Steve said.

“You're both wrong,” I said. “I'll do something. I still want my room back.”

“Can you put a lock on the door so he can't get in?” Billy wanted to know.

“No,” I said.

Steve took a ten-pack of ball-point pens and put it into his basket.“I'll tell you what I think,” he said. “I think the war is over…and you've lost.”

When I came out on the porch after lunch, Grandpa was waiting.“Let's meander,” he said to me. “I figure we have some talking to do.”

“What about your leg?”

“Well,” Grandpa said, “it's still attached to my body.”

“I mean, doesn't it hurt when you walk a lot?”

“Petey,” he said, “it hurts when I walk and also when I don't walk. So maybe I ought to get some exercise and the heck with my leg.”

We began to walk toward Beverly Road, the shopping street a few blocks away.“Is this a flag of truce?” I asked.

“There you go with that war business again,” Grandpa said. “Forget that.”

“I'm not forgetting,” I said. “I declared war on you and I mean it.”

“Pish-tosh,” Grandpa said. I didn't know
what that meant, exactly, but I kind of got the idea. “This isn't a war,” he said. “It's a disagreement. Maybe even a dispute. And what you're doing is starting a family feud.”

“It is too a war,” I insisted. “You moved in and took over my territory, didn't you? Isn't that what wars are about?”

“No,” said Grandpa. “Wars are about power and greed.”

“And getting back what's yours,” I said.

Grandpa stopped walking and I stopped too. His eyes seemed hard and cold when they looked at me.“So you think war is perfectly okay,” he said. “Is that about it?”

“Sometimes,” I said.

“Like when?”

“When you have to stick up for your rights,” I said.

Grandpa's mouth made a thin line as he shook his head. “That's wrong, Petey. There are lots of ways of settling arguments without going to war. Peaceful ways.”

“I tried that with my parents. It didn't work. That's why I had to go to war with you.”

“Wrong,” Grandpa said.

“Not wrong,” I said back to him. “You took my room.”

“Listen, Pete,” Grandpa said slowly. “The only time you have to fight a war is when someone attacks you. Then, and only then, you have a right to defend yourself. You got that?”

I thought about that for no more than a second.“Wasn't I attacked?” I said. “Didn't they yank me out of my room and shove me away upstairs like I was some old chair or something?”

Grandpa sighed and looked away for a minute. I could see he was upset.

“It's just like Risk,” I said. “Someone invades your territory, you zap them.”

I felt Grandpa's bony hand on my arm.“War is no game, Petey,” he said. “Only kids and fools and generals think that.”

“You're my enemy,” I said in a loud voice, “and I want what's mine.”

I shook his hand off my arm. “You marched in here like an army and kicked me out of—”

WHACK!

Grandpa's right hand came whipping out of nowhere and slapped me hard across my cheek. I was so shocked and surprised, I couldn't say anything. My cheek felt hot and burning. It hurt.

“Why'd you hit me?” I said. I had tears in my eyes, but I didn't cry.

“War hurts,” Grandpa said. “War wounds and kills and causes misery. Only a fool wants war. ”

I stared into Grandpa's brown eyes that looked so mean to me now. “I won't forget this,” I said.

“That's the idea.”

“And I won't forgive it either. From now on we're
really
at war. “ I turned away and started back to the house, walking as fast as I could. I left Grandpa on the street, calling my name.

Well, now we had a real war going and I didn't like it one little bit. I'm really not too good at being mad at someone. My mom says I have a good heart and never hold a grudge. This is true. Even in the past, when my parents or Jenny did something that ticked me off, I always forgot about it by the next day.

So there I was at dinner that night, sitting across from Grandpa, and I really wanted to hate him for slapping me but I couldn't. I mean, he was my
grandfather
, for heaven's sake. He was old and alone and his leg hurt him. I would have to be as mean as Darth Vader to hate him.

Grandpa was really lively at dinner. He even told a couple of jokes nobody had heard before. He smiled and talked to me, too, but I couldn't tell if he really meant it or not. Was this the same man who had slapped me across the face only a few hours ago? I was confused.

So we had a regular evening that night, in spite of the mixed-up feelings I had. After dinner we settled down in the living room. Grandpa got out his box of dominoes and began to set them up for a game with Dad. Jenny disappeared for a few minutes, then came marching down the steps from her room wearing her tutu. In case you have never heard that word before, which I never did until Mom bought her one, let me tell you about a tutu. It's this little skirt that must have wires or something in it because it sticks out in a circle when a girl wears it. Jenny's was pink. How she got it was by being obnoxious. Because Mom didn't want to buy it for her, not until she had more than one year of ballet lessons. But Jenny is very different from me. I'm the kind of person who would have waited for a year, just like Mom said.

Not Jenny.

She went on a campaign for a tutu that was disgusting. She talked about it morning, noon, and night. She cried when she had to go for her ballet lessons. She told Mom that all the girls had a tutu, which was a lie, of course.

She even threw herself down on the floor and had a tantrum. I mean she kicked her heels on the floor and yelled her head off until Mom
finally made her quit. When that didn't succeed, Jenny went to work on Dad. She got him alone at all different times, climbed up on his lap, and smothered him with kisses like a puppy licking your face. She just kept sweet-talking Dad and being so lovey-dovey to him, it could make you sick. So what happened was Dad spoke to Mom, and Jenny got her tutu. And it wasn't even Christmas or her birthday.

Jenny went to the stereo and put on her record of The Dance of the Hours.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” she announced like she was on a stage,“presenting the world's most beautiful ballerina—Miss Jennifer Stokes!” ” Then she let the record begin, which we had heard maybe fourteen zillion times already. But Mom, Dad, and Grandpa—especially Grandpa— sat back and applauded like they had never seen Jenny dance before.

What she did was jump around on her toes a lot. Every once in a while she stretched her arms way up over her head like she was trying to reach a shelf in her closet. Sometimes she kind of stood around on one foot with the other leg trailing off behind her. Posing that way, she looked like a small stork or a large chicken. Also she hopped. She was supposed to leap, I think,
but Jenny could manage to get only a few inches off the floor. At the end she scrunched herself into a bundle on her knees, then lifted her arms and smiled as the music ended.

Well, of course, the grown-ups went bananas when she finished.“Bravo!” Dad shouted as they all applauded. I noticed he didn't shout“Encore!” I applauded, too, mostly to be polite.

Sometimes it's very hard to be an older brother.

I think I was finally getting a little smarter about my war with Grandpa. Perhaps I had been following the advice of friends too much. And maybe I had been telling them too much about what was going on. Blabbing my head off would be more like it. So when Steve and Billy came by to play Monopoly at my house, I didn't tell them anything about the slap in the face from Grandpa.