Grape! Read online

  She sat at her desk and waved as we came in. Her classroom was perfect, like Mrs. Gordon’s.

  The thing is, Mrs. Goldstein was a super big lady, so it was hard for her to scootch her chair back and stand, and when she did she used a cane. She waddled over and shook hands with my mom. That was kind of weird. I don’t remember ever seeing my mother shake hands with anyone.

  Mrs. Goldstein looked at me.

  “You must be the new talmid,” she said.

  “Huh?”

  “Talmid. It means student in Hebrew.”

  “Oh, yes. Thank you.”

  “And what is your name, talmid?”

  “Grape.”

  Mrs. Goldstein looked at my mom.

  My mom kind of froze.

  “It’s my adopted name,” I said.

  “Oh, I see. Well, tov me-od. Very good. That’s a nice name.”

  That was the first time anybody said that.

  “Thank you very much,” I said.

  “Now you have to learn your Hebrew name.”

  “Um…okay.”

  “The Hebrew word for grape is a-nahv. In my classroom, you will be A-nahv.”

  “Okay. Thank you.”

  “Now repeat after me: A…nahv.”

  “A-nawwvhv.”

  “Tov me-od. Very good. You will learn.”

  “Okay.”

  “Now, over there,” she said, pointing her cane at a basket by the front door, “are the yamakas. You must wear one during Hebrew class.”

  My mom rushed over to the basket, grabbed a yamaka, and pressed it down on my head.

  It felt really weird. I mean, the only time I wore a yamaka was in temple, and I only went to temple a few times a year.

  “You can take it off when Hebrew class is over, A-nahv.”

  What a nice lady!

  “Now go join the other talmidim outside.”

  Mrs. C, I guess because Mrs. Goldstein was so big and it was so hard for her to scootch out of her chair, she taught us sitting down. She just sat behind her desk like queen of the classroom, and she had this super tall thermos she would drink from, and she started class by reciting the alphabet, and we would repeat the letters one by one.

  Hebrew was super boring, but I liked Mrs. Goldstein.

  During lunch I sat alone looking for turkey vultures, but all I saw were a couple of little birds. There were no rolling hills, just a few trees and a playing field and a fence and lots of cement.

  I opened my lunch pail, took a bite of my sandwich, and then I heard a caw.

  Except it wasn’t a crow. It was this super tall and skinny kid sitting across from me. He had a shiny silver yamaka and round glasses and he kind of looked like a stork, and the thing is, he pointed right at me.

  “Looking for birds, are you, new kid?”

  “Um, yeah. How did you know?”

  He pointed up. “You were looking up high!” he said.

  “Oh.”

  “And up high is the sky!”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “And in the sky birds fly!”

  “But I didn’t see any turkey vultures,” I said. “In my old school there are lots of them. They’re my favorite birds even though lots of people think they’re eagles.”

  Mrs. C, he didn’t care about turkey vultures. He opened his lunch pail and pointed at his food and said, “PB and J, apple, unsalted pretzels, fruit juice.”

  Then he pointed at me again.

  “What’s your name?” he said.

  “Um…A…nahv.”

  “Your name is Grape?”

  “Yes. It’s my—”

  “When the bell rings, Sir Grape, would you care to play tetherball?”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay but let’s go to the faraway court.”

  “What’s that?”

  He pointed across the playing field.

  “You see that building?”

  “Yes.”

  “Behind it is a court that’s never taken. As soon as the bell rings, follow along, good Sir Grape!”

  “Okay.”

  He took a bite of his sandwich, and the thing is, he closed his eyes when he chewed.

  “What’s your name?” I asked him.

  “I, good Sir Grape, am Theodore David Winter.” He stood up and bowed. “But you can call me Ted.”

  Mrs. C, Ted was weird.

  He was super good at pointing.

  He was also super good at tetherball.

  He had overhand and underhand shots, and the thing is, after two games, instead of beating me over and over, he showed me some moves, and he had names for each move, like Needle-in-Haystack and Change-up and Survival and Pippi Longstocking, and because I’m so short, he taught me a two-handed overhand punch called Oil Pump. Then he taught the most important thing of all.

  He taught me where to stand.

  “It’s all about angles, Sir Grape. Angles-shmangles.”

  Mrs. C, at Rolling Hills all we ever did was punch the ball as hard as we could. I never thought of where to stand. I learned more about tetherball from Ted in one day than all my life put together!

  The bell rang.

  “Let’s cash in the register, Grape.”

  “What?”

  “Double-cool Rubik’s Cube! English school!”

  “Hey,” I said, “where’s the drinking fountain?”

  “Follow my follow.”

  I followed.

  “Who’s your morah?” he said.

  “What?”

  “Your English teacher-teacher!”

  “Oh, it’s Mr. Ross.”

  “Cha-ching balla-walla! He’s A.”

  “What about you?” I said.

  “Special Ted.”

  “What?”

  “Special Ted for special ed.”

  “Oh….”

  “See ya!”

  I stood in line at the drinking fountain, and I was super sweaty from tetherball with Ted, but I didn’t care. My first day was cool. I had a cool new friend and a cool Hebrew teacher and a cool Hebrew name and my cool new friend said I had a cool new English teacher, and I could drink water without being sent to a yellow chair.

  Well, I guess I have trouble with drinking fountains.

  When it was my turn I stepped forward and then an arm lowered in front of me like one of those arms at a train crossing, except instead of being made of wood it was made of skin and it was super thick, like a log, and the thing is, it was a really hairy log with orange hair, and then a body followed the log and slid in front of me, and then the body’s head lowered over the nozzle. The body’s head had orange hair and a golden yamaka, and the body smelled terrible, like radish. The body’s head drank for a long time, and then I noticed something.

  When normal people use a drinking fountain, a little bit of water splashes back onto the tray part since there’s no way they can suck in all the water, but not this time. This time there was no drip, so I slid over a little to see why.

  Mrs. C, the body’s mouth was on the nozzle! I mean, the body’s lips even covered the hole where the water comes out!

  As Ted would say, it was gross-combined.

  The body finally finished.

  I was so thirsty, but it was gross-combined!

  The body left.

  I stepped forward.

  I pressed the button.

  Water came out.

  “Hey, kid,” the girl behind me said, “are you gonna drink or not?”

  The next day I told Ted about the body at the drinking fountain.

  “That’s Mr. Palatnik. He’s a mean man in a garbage can.”

  “Like how?”

  Ted didn’t answer. He just straightened up his whole body and narrowed his eyes a
nd looked ahead. I thought he was being funny.

  “Hey, Ted,” I said, “like how?”

  But Ted wasn’t being funny.

  “How about that underhand punch?” I said. “I keep messing it up.”

  “It’s all about location! The location of the location.”

  Mrs. C, Friday mornings at Eretz Hebrew School were different.

  Instead of lining up outside Mrs. Goldstein’s class, we lined up outside this big room, then we walked in with the boys on one side and the girls on the other. A rabbi with a long beard was standing on a small stage, smiling at us.

  He said some Hebrew prayers, then one of the older kids got up from the front row and the rabbi sat down in his chair, and the kid said Hebrew prayers, and the rabbi smiled at him, and after the kid was done, the rabbi started again.

  Mrs. C, it was super boring, like regular temple. In regular temple I blink as hard as I can until the room fills with black dots or I slide a comic book inside the prayer book or I tell my mom I have to pee, but since I didn’t have a comic book and my mom and dad weren’t there, I thought about lunch and looked around for Ted, but Ted wasn’t in the room, and then I remembered how he had promised to teach me jester ball.

  “It’s like tetherball with fancy dances and a cup of tea!” he said.

  I thought about Lou and how I would teach him Ted’s angles, and how maybe he could beat Sam now, and how my mom said we couldn’t watch Movie of the Week this time because it was an ooh-la-la movie, but maybe we could tell her we would close our eyes during the sexy parts or even go to my room.

  Like I said, Mrs. C, it was just like regular temple.

  But then it wasn’t.

  In regular temple the rabbi says Hebrew prayers, and then we stand up and then sit down and then stand up, and then he talks about Moses or somebody like that, then another guy sings, and then we stand up and sit down, and sometimes the Torah is carried around and we stand up and touch it, and then we sit down and then we stand up again, and after a while it’s over, and sometimes we get to eat bread and drink grape juice.

  The thing is, this time the rabbi sat down and nobody replaced him. He just started humming a song without words, and all of the kids hummed along with him, and it was a pretty song, and the whole room filled with all the kids’ humming. It was kind of nice.

  But then Mr. Palatnik walked onto the stage, and he was humming and holding a big wide basket, and then he held it in front of the rabbi and the rabbi kind of waved his hand over it like he was casting a spell, and everyone kept humming, and then Mr. Palatnik walked off the stage and handed the basket to the kid at the end of the first row, and the basket was passed all the way to the other end, and then back to him.

  Mrs. C, the thing is, there was no basket in regular temple, and it was kind of dark in the room, and all I saw were kids putting their hands in the basket, and I thought maybe we get chocolate coins like during Hanukkah, even though Hanukkah was over a long time ago.

  The room hummed, and the basket finally came to me.

  I didn’t know what to do, so I reached my hand in and felt around and touched a piece of paper. Maybe it’s a prayer or a fortune cookie fortune for Jewish kids, I thought.

  I pulled it out and passed the basket.

  I looked down, and it was just light enough to see that I wasn’t holding a prayer or a fortune cookie fortune.

  It was a dollar.

  I didn’t understand.

  Then I smelled radish.

  Mr. Palatnik was looking down at me.

  “Boosha!” he said, and then, Mrs. C, he slapped me so hard I never felt him take the dollar back.

  Boosha, I found out, means shame in Hebrew.

  After temple we had recess. I expected a pink disobedience sheet, but nothing happened.

  I walked past a bunch of kids pointing at me.

  “Hey, kid,” one of them said.

  “I didn’t know!” I said. “In regular temple you never pass a basket around, and—”

  “Hey, kid, your nose is bleeding.”

  When my mom picked me up that day she knew something was wrong.

  “Grape, are you okay?”

  I leaned my head against the car window.

  She reached into her purse. “Here,” she said, “is Mentos.”

  I didn’t want any Mentos.

  After school I didn’t go to Lou’s.

  I went straight to bed and got under the covers in my school clothes and waited to die.

  My mom brought me some Nilla Wafers, but I didn’t eat them.

  She said Lou called.

  Later I heard a knock on my door.

  “Hey, Grape. It’s me, Lou.”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Hey, wanna swim?”

  “Is okay, Lou,” I heard my mom say, “maybe later.”

  That night I smelled my dad’s blueprint ammonia, and I heard my mom and dad talking in Spanish, and I huddled deeper under the covers, and then I heard my door open and then I felt the edge of my bed sink.

  My dad didn’t say anything. He just patted my leg.

  No Let me put it this way.

  Then the phone rang.

  “Grape,” my mom said, “is Doctor Vecchi. He wants to talk to you.”

  “No!”

  “Please, he only has a little time.”

  “Tell him dice baseball is the stupidest game on earth.”

  “No,” my dad said. “You tell him.”

  I followed them to the kitchen.

  “DICE BASEBALL IS THE STUPIDEST GAME ON EARTH!”

  “I agree,” said Doctor Vecchi. “It is.”

  “THEN WHY DO WE PLAY IT?”

  “To see what’s what. Sometimes I have to be sneaky.”

  “WELL I DON’T WANT TO PLAY THAT STUPID GAME ANYMORE!”

  “We don’t have to.”

  “AND I DON’T NEED A STUPID PSYCHIATRIST!”

  “Well, your mom and dad seem to think you do. You keep getting in trouble.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Listen, Grape, let’s have one more visit. No dice baseball, I promise. Let’s just talk. And if you want to stop after that, we’ll stop. Is that a deal?”

  “DEAL!”

  “But Grape…”

  “WHAT?”

  “I need to know that tonight you’re okay. Your mom and dad are really worried about you.”

  “I’M OKAY!”

  “And one more thing. I made you a promise, no dice baseball. Now you make me a promise.”

  “FINE! WHAT?”

  “You have to tell me what happened to you today.”

  So the next day, I told him.

  I told him how much I wanted to kill Mr. Palatnik and his drinking fountain mouth and his gross-combined radish smell and his orange hair and hairy arms.

  “That’s perfectly normal,” Doctor Vecchi said.

  “It is?”

  “Of course. Grape, listen, even if you were trying to steal a dollar—”

  “But I wasn’t!”

  “I know, but I mean, if you were—”

  “But I wasn’t!”

  “Okay. What I mean is he’s not allowed to hit you. What he did was terrible. I would want to kill him, too.”

  “You would?”

  “And if you were my kid I would go down there and give him a piece of my mind, maybe even challenge him to a fight.”

  “You would?”

  “Hell, yes!”

  Mrs. C, Doctor Vecchi is cool!

  Then he got kind of quiet and asked me why I didn’t tell my mom and dad.

  I started to cry.

  “It’s all right, Grape.”

  I cried for a long time, and then I told him that even though I didn’t try to steal
a dollar from the basket, I still feel like I did something wrong.

  Like I was wrong.

  “I mean, why did my mom and dad have to move me to a new school anyway? Why couldn’t I be in regular school with my regular friends?”

  The next week I was back at Rolling Hills.

  THE TROUBLE WITH BULLY JIM

  June 6, 1976

  Mrs. C, do you ever watch Movie of the Week? It’s on every Sunday night, and most of the time I get to watch it with my mom, and sometimes Lou and his mom, Betsy, come over and we all watch it together, as long as it’s not a horror movie or an ooh-la-la movie.

  There was this one that takes place in Africa, and there’s this lion that keeps eating the villagers, so they come up with a plan. They dig a pit and cover the top with palm branches and leaves, and they get the fastest runner and best leaper from the village. He’s the main guy, and he makes the lion chase him, and just as the lion is about to claw him to shreds, he leaps, and the lion falls in the pit in slow motion, and then it’s super cool because we see the lion from above, trapped and roaring and walking back and forth and leaping high up against the walls of the pit, but the lion can’t get out.

  That’s what Lou and I planned for Bully Jim.

  The thing is, Bully Jim doesn’t mind being called Bully Jim, and he always wears the same blue checkered flannel shirt, even when it’s super hot, and his hair is stringy and greasy and long and it goes past his shoulders, and he has two friends who are always walking behind him, and it’s funny because they’re twins. I don’t know their names because everyone calls them the Twins, or Bully Jim’s Twins, and they also wear flannel shirts and have long hair, and they sit with Bully Jim during lunch when he flicks Jell-O off his spoon or when he opens someone’s backpack and drops a loogie in it or when he just sits there and calls people names.

  Bully Jim calls me Grapeface, Shorty, Shortypants, and Fagpants, but his favorite is Grapeface Fagpants.

  He bullies a lot of kids, but he especially likes to bully me.

  Guess why?

  Dodgeball.

  Mrs. C, dodgeball is my favorite sport. You can be short and not have many muscles, but you can still be super good. You just have to know how to dodge.

  And I’m an expert dodger.

  I hide behind other kids and wait till they get hit, and then after a while I’m out in the open, with the whole court to dodge in. I have a whole list of dodges, like Zigzag Dodge, Roller Dodge, Sideline Dodge, and Turtle Dodge when I just get down and make myself a turtle.