Grape! Read online

  Mrs. C, the spiders went crazy.

  It’s kind of hard to explain what happened next. Mrs. Gordon was talking and sounds were coming out of her mouth, something about cookies and the cafeteria oven, and I could see her big eyes and her hand waving a paper and something about a parent signature, but it was all like slow motion.

  And then it got super weird.

  Like someone else was in my body.

  All of a sudden, I felt my leg lift under the desk and my body turn sideways. My body stood up and walked to the drinking fountain and my body’s finger pushed on the nozzle and my body bent over and opened its mouth and drank and drank and drank.

  Mrs. C, it was like it drank for an hour.

  Finally, my body finished and stood up straight.

  And two inches from my body’s face was Mrs. Gordon’s face.

  She didn’t even need to point to the door.

  It was a pretty day, perfect for hill watching, but the sky was empty. It was probably too hot for the turkey vultures, and there were no clouds to follow around, so the spiders started spinning.

  Hey, Grape, they said.

  “Yeah?”

  Stand up for a second.

  “Okay.”

  Now turn around.

  I turned around.

  Did you ever notice that the back of the yellow plastic chair has a square opening?

  “Um…no.”

  Wonder what it’s for.

  “I don’t know.”

  Looks like a perfect place to put your head.

  “Okay.”

  I turned the yellow chair around and got on my hands and knees and shoved my head through the square opening. It was a little tight, but I did it, and my chin kind of pressed on the seat.

  Hey, Grape?

  “Yeah?”

  Look at you! You’re a turtle! A yellow chair turtle!

  “Cool! I am. Check me out!”

  I started laughing and pretending I was a yellow chair turtle and making little turtle noises, but the thing is, I don’t think turtles make noises, so I just went grumble-grumble-grumble or something like that.

  Then I heard Mrs. Gordon’s mumbling, “Put your desks in order, get your lunch pails, and get in line, please.”

  Mrs. C, whoever designed the yellow plastic chairs didn’t have spiders.

  I tried to pull my head out, but it was stuck. I reached my arms around and pulled the sides of the opening super hard and I turned my head all around, but nothing worked. Then I pulled my head back as hard as I could and my ears got trapped in the sides of the square opening and it felt like someone set them on fire.

  I tried to stand up and hide in the bushes, but I couldn’t straighten my legs.

  I started to cry.

  That’s when I heard Roman’s giant keychain jangling.

  “Looks like you got your head stuck,” he said.

  I tried to nod but it hurt.

  “Your ears are all flattened out, too.”

  “Um…yeah, they—owww!”

  “One might be bleeding a bit.”

  Mrs. C, sometimes Roman talks too much.

  “All right, then, Grape. Listen, I’ll pull this opening back and you yank your head right out of there.”

  He pulled and I yanked and my head was freed. My ears burned, and Roman was right, one of them was bleeding.

  “Might want the nurse to look at that,” Roman said.

  I watched my classmates leave, single file, and then I went in to get my lunch. Mrs. Gordon sat at her desk writing on a pink disobedience sheet.

  “Grape, take your lunch and go straight to Principal Kelly’s office. I’m sending you home.”

  On the way home I cried and told my mom that Mrs. Gordon wouldn’t let me get a drink of water even though the air conditioning was broken, and that she always made me sit on the yellow plastic chair, and I didn’t mind it so much and that maybe Mrs. Gordon has spiders, but my mom didn’t care about the yellow plastic chair or Mrs. Gordon.

  “Grape,” she said, “your ear is bleeding.”

  We went home and she cleaned my ear, and then she drove me to Doctor Vecchi and we played extra innings of dice baseball.

  THE TROUBLE WITH BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID

  June 4, 1976

  Mrs. C, my mom loves the Academy Awards!

  And so does Betsy, Lou’s mom!

  Every year Betsy and Lou come over and we get to stay up late even though it’s on a Sunday, and every year we eat pizza and ice cream and Betsy reads all the nominations for Best Picture and Best Actor and Best Actress, and my mom and Betsy guess the winners, and even though we don’t know anything about the movies, Lou and I get to pick, and it’s cool because Betsy and my mom wear fancy dresses and long earrings and high heels and a bunch of makeup, like they’re at the Academy Awards, and it’s super funny to watch my mom walk in high heels because she never wears high heels and she only wears a little makeup and she never wears long earrings, and this one time Lou and I surprised them and we put on ties, and every year Lou and I ask if we can see the movies from the Best Picture nominations but every year my mom and Betsy say they’re too violent or ooh-la-la, except for this one summer when Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was rereleased.

  Mrs. C, a rerelease is when they put a movie back in theaters because it’s so popular!

  My mom dropped us off. She was super excited for us to see it.

  “Grape,” she said, “it won three Academy Awards! Is a great movie.”

  Mrs. C, have you seen Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid? It’s about these two robbers, Butch and Sundance, and even though they rob banks and trains, they’re good guys! I mean, they’re super cool and funny, and they have all these jokes, and they’re so good at robbing banks and trains that the best tracker and the best policeman in the United States form a posse and go after them. Butch and Sundance have no chance against those guys, so they have to escape to this place called Bolivia, and the thing is, Sundance has this teacher girlfriend, Etta, so all three of them end up going to Bolivia, but before that there’s this scene when the posse has them trapped on a cliff, and Butch says to Sundance, “We gotta jump!” because there’s a river at the bottom of the cliff, but then it’s super funny because just then Sundance tells him a secret…he can’t swim! That’s like when Lou told me that he was super afraid of camels, and whenever he saw one on TV he would close his eyes, and this one time his mom brought him to the zoo and there was a camel and he cried. And then there’s another part when Butch and Sundance are in a showdown with these guys from Bolivia and Butch tells Sundance a secret. “I never shot anybody before,” he says! Mrs. C, it’s super cool because he’s been robbing banks and trains and he’s never shot anybody!

  So they each had a secret, just like Lou and me. I mean, Lou has his camels and I have my longest catch.

  The first year we played T-ball I was in deep right field and Lou was in shallow right field because in T-ball you have lots of outfielders, and the thing is, there was this one kid who always hit the ball super far, and I remember the coach telling me to play way back near the trees in front of the parking lot when the kid came up to bat.

  So that’s what I did.

  Then the kid came up and swung and the ball almost touched the clouds. It was up there for a super long time, and it was kind of pretty the way it soared, like a baseball bird, and I could hear Lou running and screaming, “I got it! I got it!” just like the coach told us to, but I didn’t scream, “I got it!” because the ball was coming right to me and so it made no sense, and it also didn’t make sense for Lou to take all that time to run to where I was playing, but that’s the way he is, Mrs. C, and the thing is, by the time I opened my glove to make an underhand catch, Lou was right in front of me so the umpire couldn’t see the ball come down between us and hit my glove.
He also couldn’t see it pop out of my glove and land on the grass or get picked up super fast and put back in my glove.

  Lou and I turned around.

  I lifted my glove.

  “Out!” the umpire said.

  When I got to the bench, the whole team gave me high fives and during the team party I got the “Longest Catch of the Year” award and my mom framed it and put it on my wall, and Lou is the only person in the world who knows.

  So we each have a secret, like Butch and Sundance.

  Anyway, there’s this one part when Sundance hides in Etta’s house at night, and the thing is, we don’t know that she’s his teacher girlfriend yet, and she comes home and she starts to take off her clothes, like she’s going to change into her pajamas, and then she sees him sitting there and she kind of screams. Then he says, “Keep goin’ teacher lady,” and he’s pointing a gun at her, and it’s super weird because you think he’s a good guy, but why would a good guy point a gun at a lady?

  Etta’s kind of calm but scared, and then she takes off more of her clothes until she’s kind of in her underwear, and you can see her bare shoulder.

  “I thought this was PG,” Lou said.

  “Me, too,” I said. “But it won three Academy Awards.”

  “And our moms saw it,” Lou said.

  Then Sundance tells her to let down her hair and shake her head, and she does it and, Mrs. C, she’s so pretty, and then Sundance does something super weird. He moves his gun side to side, and what he’s doing is telling her to unbutton her shirt, and the thing is, she starts to!

  And the whole theater got super silent.

  Mrs. C, the spiders don’t like giant rooms of silence, especially when the room is full of people, and especially when there’s a pretty lady taking off her shirt.

  I tried to close my eyes, but the spiders wouldn’t let me.

  And then Etta unbuttons a few buttons, and her shirt opens a little, then you see part of her boobs.

  The spiders went crazy.

  Mrs. C, I just stood up and said, “Ooh-la-la,” super slow and loud and sexy.

  And everyone in the theater started laughing!

  Lou happy-punched me in the arm a bunch of times, and the whole rest of the movie was super great! I mean, Etta knew it was Sundance all along, and she kisses him because she’s so happy, and he has a sleepover at her house and then Butch shows up with a bicycle and it’s interesting because the movie takes place right when bicycles are invented, and then Butch gives Etta a ride on it and that song “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head” comes on and Mrs. C, it was my new favorite song!

  At the end Butch and Sundance are trapped in a building. They’ve both been shot, and a thousand police and army guys from Bolivia are pointing their rifles at them from the street and rooftops, and the thing is, even though they’re both bleeding and they know they’re going to die, they’re still cracking jokes.

  Mrs. C, it was the greatest movie ever! It was funny and had a great song, but the coolest part was when I said, “Ooh-la-la,” and made people laugh and didn’t get in trouble.

  So I turned to Lou. “Hey,” I said, “wanna see it again?”

  “You mean the movie?”

  “Yeah. We could tell my mom to pick us up after.”

  But Lou couldn’t stay. His dad was coming home from New York.

  “I have to meet him at the airport,” Lou said. “My mom would kill me if I didn’t go.”

  “No way. Your mom’s the nicest lady in the world.”

  “Yeah, but my dad isn’t,” Lou said.

  I begged and begged and my mom let me stay.

  I bought some Junior Mints and waited for the theater to fill.

  And then this old guy sat next to me and asked if I was by myself.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Don’t call me sir. My name’s Joseph and this is my wife, Nancy.”

  “Hi,” I said.

  “Nancy,” Joseph said, “this boy is all by himself.”

  “Oh, well, he can join us.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “What’s your name, son?” Joseph said.

  “Grape.”

  “What’s that? Sounds like you said your name was Grape?”

  “Yes, sir, it is.”

  Joseph kind of moved in his seat and Nancy patted his leg.

  “That’s a fine name, son,” Nancy said.

  “Thank you.”

  “Now wait a minute,” Joseph said, “are you telling me that your name is Grape?”

  “Yes, sir, it’s my adopted name.”

  “There you go, dear,” Nancy said, “it’s his adopted name, and we’ll leave it at that.”

  “Well, adopted or not, nothing right about that name. Next thing you know there’ll be kids running around named Potato or Apple!”

  Mrs. C, I just sat there wishing the movie would start, and Joseph kept snorting my name and mumbling to himself.

  Suddenly I really wished Lou was with me.

  It would be Lou Cassidy and the Sundance Grape.

  I would just stare real calm at Joseph and say, Now you take that back. No need to be insulting me.

  And Joseph would say, I reckon I won’t.

  And Lou Cassidy would say, C’mon, Sundance Grape, he’s just a cranky old man.

  And Joseph would look super worried. Wait a minute, he’d say, you’re the Sundance Grape? I didn’t know. I didn’t mean no disrespect!

  And Lou Cassidy would say, See that, Sundance Grape, he don’t mean no disrespect. Now just go ahead and enjoy your Junior Mints.

  And Sundance Grape would say, Yeah, but Joseph hurt my feelings.

  I didn’t mean nothing by it. I swear!

  Well, the truth as I see it is different, Sundance Grape would say.

  How’s that? Joseph would ask.

  Yeah, Lou Cassidy would say, how’s that?

  The way I see it, you did mean it. Otherwise you wouldn’t have said it. Hey, Lou, does that make sense to you?

  I suppose it does, Lou Cassidy would say, makes perfect sense.

  And since he insulted me, he insulted you. And so he gave up the right to see a movie about us.

  Well, you have a point there, Sundance Grape.

  So, he needs to leave the theater.

  But I paid for the tickets already! Joseph would say. For me and Nancy!

  Hear that, Lou? He paid for the tickets already.

  Well, that’s a shame, Lou Cassidy would say.

  But I tell you what, I would say, Nancy can stay. She’s a nice lady. She—

  Then the lights dimmed, and Joseph got quiet.

  It was cool watching the movie again. Everyone laughed at the same parts, like when this guy tries to take over Butch Cassidy’s Hole-in-the-Wall gang and Butch kicks him in the nuts, and everyone got super quiet again when Sundance surprises Etta in the chair in the dark, and when he wiggles his gun at her, and when she looks at him super pretty but scared.

  And then, when she starts to unbutton her shirt, I stood up and yelled, “Ooh-la-la,” super slow and loud and sexy.

  And nobody laughed.

  The only sound was Etta saying, “You know what I wish?” to Sundance.

  And Sundance saying, “What?”

  And Etta saying, “That for once you’d get here on time,” and then kissing him.

  Mrs. C, that’s the part I didn’t hear the first time because the first time everyone in the theater was laughing at my ooh-la-la.

  I shrank into my seat and knocked my last Junior Mint from the bottom of the box, but I couldn’t taste anything. And even though the bicycle part with my new favorite song was coming, I got up and bumped into Joseph’s knees.

  “What the heck—” Joseph said.

  “I…um…I have to pee,” I
said.

  “Ah, go ahead, then, go pee. Just don’t come back here with that dumb name and start yelling at the movie screen.”

  Mrs. C, the thing is, I didn’t have to pee, and I was out of Junior Mints and I didn’t have any money, so I asked the ticket lady if I could call my mom and she let me, but my mom wasn’t home so I left a message that I was having asthma and couldn’t find my asthma pill so she should come get me now, then I walked around the lobby looking at the pinball machines and movie posters, and after that I sat on a bench and tried not to cry.

  After a while, one of the ushers came over.

  “Hey, kid,” he said, “are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I just got bored.”

  “Bored? That movie won three Academy Awards! Everyone loves it!”

  “Yeah, well, it’s still pretty dumb.”

  A little while later my mom kind of ran into the lobby with an asthma pill in her hand, and her hair was super messy and she kept asking me if I was okay, and even though I told her I didn’t have asthma anymore, she made me take the asthma pill anyway.

  THE TROUBLE WITH MR. PALATNIK

  June 5, 1976

  Mrs. C, I was excited about fourth grade.

  No more Mrs. Gordon!

  We would have Mr. Schneider instead, and everyone said Mr. Schneider was cool even though he talked about his sailboat all the time and gave too much homework.

  But then one night my mom and dad called me to the kitchen table.

  “Is a private school, Grape,” my mom said. “In the morning, is all Hebrew, in the afternoon, is all English.”

  “Why do I have to go to a new school? And why do I have to learn Hebrew? I hate Hebrew. It’s boring!”

  “Dios mío,” my mom said. She turned to my dad. “¡Javier, dile algo!”

  “Let me put it this way, sometimes is good to have a change.”

  “Can Lou go?”

  “Lou isn’t Jewish,” my mom said.

  “What’s it called?”

  “Eretz Hebrew School,” my mom said. “Is close, so I will drive you.”

  “But I don’t know anybody,” I said.

  “You will make friends.”

  On the first day, my mom walked me to my classroom to meet Mrs. Goldstein, my Hebrew teacher.