Lenore Look Read online

  Then the British Redcoats want to pretend to be dead too, but the Minutemen won’t let them. The Redcoats pretend to be dead anyway, but the Minutemen won’t stand for it so they duke it out, just like they did back in historic times. It is mayhem and chaos! It is the beginning of the American Revolution!

  But before you can have a revolution, you have to choose sides.

  “You guys on this side are the Minutemen,” said Pinky, who usually does all the choosing. “And you guys on that side are the Redcoats.” He pointed to everyone but me.

  I wanted to play too, so I said with my eyes that I wanted to be a Minuteman or a Redcoat, it didn’t matter to me, war was war.

  “Hey, how about Alvin?” asked Sam. He doesn’t like leaving anyone out.

  I stood up as tall as I could.

  “Alvin who?” asked Pinky. He looked around. He looked up and down. Then he looked right through me. “Who’s Alvin?”

  Pinky is no pinky. He has been the biggest boy in my class since kindergarten because he started school late.

  And he’s also the leader of the gang, which means if he doesn’t play with me, the other boys won’t either.

  I wished with all my might that Pinky would let me play. But he never does. Then I wished with all my might that I could just scream! But I couldn’t. I could only stamp my foot, which didn’t help. I was buzzing mad like my dad’s electric razor, but I couldn’t buzz!

  “The British are coming! The British are coming!” Pinky yelled to start the game. He was pretending to be Samuel Prescott, the local hero who warned Concord that the enemy was approaching. It is not fair that Pinky is always Samuel Prescott, but he is the biggest boy. And the biggest boy can be whoever he wants.

  “God save the king!” yelled Jules. Jules was the leader of the Redcoats.

  “God save the Minutemen!” screamed Sam.

  “Charge!” everyone yelled.

  The gang headed for the monkey bars, where the Minutemen pounded the Redcoats and the Redcoats thumped the Minutemen until the playground monitor came and called a time-out. It was fantastic!

  Even though I wasn’t a Minuteman or a Redcoat, I played dead at the end anyway because there’s no law stopping anyone from lying on the soft wood chips and closing their eyes.

  You can’t live in Concord without loving history, but I sure wished that I loved recess too.

  the best way to avoid school, as everyone knows, is to get sick.

  But not all sicknesses are created equal. Some are better than others.

  Tonsillitis, for example, is pretty good. You get all the Italian ice you want. It is my dream to have tonsillitis someday.

  Appendicitis is good too, but not as good as a burst appendix, which gets you a ride in a wailing ambulance speeding through all the red lights on Route 62 to Emerson Hospital. This happened when Calvin’s appendix burst and our mom found him on the kitchen floor. He has all the luck!

  The flu is okay, but it’s not great. You only get ginger ale and crackers, which is a real rip-off, but usually you get to watch all the cooking shows and cartoons you want.

  The common cold? One bad-tasting zinc drop, some tissues and you’re back in school the next day.

  Medical mysteries? If you get foreign-accent syndrome or barking madness or squeaky chalk phobia, forget it. You’re back in school the same day.

  So you have to be patient. It’s like choosing a car, or a house; my mom says you shouldn’t jump at the first offer because a better deal might be right around the corner.

  And it was.

  One day, Jules was out—with chicken pox.

  “Don’t go near Jules’s house,” Miss P warned our class. “It’ll take two weeks for all the blisters to scab over completely. Until then, Jules is highly contagious.”

  Highly contagious?

  I felt like dancing!

  I nearly burst like fireworks!

  But I didn’t.

  I had to wait until after school.

  It was hard not to go near Jules’s house. It is on the way to everything. It is as though Jules’s house is a big magnet and I am an iron filing, and every time I so much as step out of my house, I am yanked toward it, just like that.

  When I finished after-school tea with my mom and finally stepped out of my house, that was exactly what happened! I was sucked by such a powerful force toward Jules’s house that I could barely even pick up the fat frog in the gutter on my way. And when I got to Jules’s house, there was already a line behind the tall bushes in front, just like the line at the cinema when there’s a scary movie playing.

  “Hey, guys,” I said.

  “Shhhhhhhh,” hissed Eli. “Stay low or Jules’s mom will see us and we’ll all get sent home.”

  “Wait your turn or shove off,” said Hobson, who always gives you a choice. “This is a top-secret undercover operation. We go in one at a time, or we don’t go in at all.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll wait.”

  “Urrrrrgh,” said the frog in my hands.

  “What’s that you got? A frog?” asked Nhia.

  “Yup,” I said.

  I set the frog in the grass and everyone leaped around trying to catch it for a while. It was fabulous! Then before I knew it, it was my turn. I caught my frog, rushed around the side of the house and ran right into Pinky under Jules’s window.

  “Watch where you’re going,” said Pinky. He held out a can. On the can was a label:

  One-minute visit: 50¢

  Jump into bed: $1

  “You got a dollar?” Pinky asked.

  I gasped. Normally, Pinky does not speak to me. Usually I do not show up on his radar, not one bleep, not even a f licker.

  But I was flickering now!

  I shook my head. I did not have a dollar.

  “You got fifty cents?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll take that frog, then,” said Pinky.

  “No way,” I said, tucking the frog into my armpit. “It’s for Jules.”

  “No dollar, no frog, no service,” said Pinky.

  “Wait,” I said, remembering an unchewed piece of gum in my back pocket. I took it out. It was warm and soft.

  Pinky grabbed the gum, unwrapped it and stuffed it into his cheek. “Okay,” he said, gnawing. “You get a minute.”

  I took my frog and hopped through Jules’s window.

  Jules was in bed.

  I gave my frog to Jules.

  “Thanks,” said Jules.

  “Urggggh-rrrrgh,” said the frog. “Urrrrggggh.”

  “So where’s the chicken?” I asked, glancing around Jules’s room.

  “I was wondering that myself,” said Jules. “I wish I knew.”

  I was really disappointed. How do you catch chicken pox without first catching a chicken?

  “I came to catch the chicken pox,” I said. “Not the plain pox.”

  But the plain pox wasn’t too shabby. It had turned Jules’s head into a potato covered with red eyes. Some eyes were crying, others were crusty like sugar on a cookie. It was great! Jules had never looked scarier!

  “So whatcha doin’?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” said Jules. “Well, maybe I’m scratching a little.”

  Jules was scratching like crazy. I do not know if Jules is a girl or a boy. Sometimes Jules plays with the boys, and other times Jules plays with the girls. “Jules” could stand for “Julian” or it could stand for “Julia.” It is hard to tell. The blisters didn’t help either. In fact, they made Jules look like neither boy nor girl. Instead, Jules looked a good deal like an alien. A real live alien potato fresh off a UFO.

  “You’re so lucky!” I said. “I’d love to look like that.”

  “Yeah,” said Jules. “It’s really great except for the itching.”

  “You got any you can’t reach?” I asked.

  “Yeah, right up the middle of my back,” said Jules, squirming.

  So I gave Jules a hand. I think it is one of the rules of being a gentleman,
but I don’t really know, I can’t remember.

  “Thanks,” said Jules.

  “Anytime,” I said.

  “Time’s up!” Pinky hissed from the window.

  “Dude,” I said.

  “Dude,” said Jules.

  None of us caught a chicken or even saw one. So none of us broke out with the chicken pox that day. Or the plain pox either. It was a terrible disappointment.

  Then a long time later . . . just when we’d forgotten all about Jules and the chicken pox, and none of us were trying to catch anything anymore . . . a miracle happened.

  Our art teacher, Mr. Gruenert, was showing us famous self-portraits one warm afternoon.

  Frida Kahlo looked a little itchy to me with branches coming out of her hair.

  Paul Gauguin looked a bit feverish because he was in Tahiti, where it’s really hot.

  And Vincent van Gogh, in his scratchy straw hat, definitely looked itchy.

  Very itchy.

  Then we got mirrors and brushes so that we could paint our own self-portraits. My self-portrait was going to be a masterpiece, but strangely . . . I didn’t feel like painting. I didn’t feel like doing anything at all.

  “You boys look a little strange,” said Mr. Gruenert.

  I felt strange.

  Then I looked into the mirror. Something scary stared back.

  “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!” screamed the whole gang. They were looking in their mirrors too!

  Then Flea, who was next to me, looked at me. “Aaaaaaaaaaaieeeeeeeeee!” she shrieked, spilling her paints.

  The other girls screamed too. Some ran fast. Others ran faster.

  You’d think we were a bunch of aliens or something.

  School shut down for two weeks and a half after that. There was a story about us in the newspaper so that people as far away as Andover, Massachusetts, which is also hard to spell, read about the great chicken pox epidemic in Concord. We were famous! The newspaper said . . .

  The first victim had been carefully quarantined.

  All the children had been warned to keep away.

  How the epidemic ever got started was a complete mystery.

  having school shut down was really fabulous.

  Even if it meant scratching like crazy.

  I wore my Firecracker Man outfit all day.

  I didn’t have to carry my PDK.

  I didn’t have to worry about being a gentleman.

  Best of all, I didn’t have to sit next to a girl, except for Anibelly, who doesn’t count on account of she’s my sister and there’s just no avoiding that.

  Somehow Calvin and Anibelly also got the chicken pox and together we watched all the cooking shows we wanted.

  Our mom made us Italian ices.

  Our pohpoh rubbed us with lotion.

  Our gunggung told us stories about when he was little and had the chicken pox in China. His family had chickens. He chased the chickens. The chickens chased him. Then he got the pox. He was so lucky!

  We chilled out completely.

  Even my dad stayed home a couple of days to chill so that my mom could go to work. And whenever he chills, he reaches for his favorite toy—Johnny Astro.

  It is a special occasion whenever my dad plays with his Johnny Astro. It means he is in a really good mood. And playing with the toy puts him in an out-of-this-galaxy mood. Best of all, it means that I get my dad all to myself. Calvin and Anibelly always sneak away whenever Johnny Astro comes out. We’ve watched Johnny Astro all our lives, and now neither one of them enjoys watching it anymore. But I do.

  “When I was your age . . . ,” my dad began. He always begins with a story about being my age whenever he reaches for his Johnny Astro. “There was nothing I loved more than Johnny Astro. Not my ant farm, not my walkie-talkie, not my power drill, not even . . . my baseball card collection.”

  I love stories about when my dad was a kid. Sometimes they are funny, like how it used to snow so much they had to dig tunnels through the snow for air, and sometimes they aren’t funny, like when his yehyeh died and everyone was so sad they forgot to feed YehYeh’s bird, so his bird died too.

  “When I was your age,” my dad continued, “Johnny Astro made me very popular. Everyone wanted to play with me because I had a Johnny Astro.”

  “Everyone?”

  “Absolutely,” said my dad. “No one ever saw a toy like this. No one.”

  I read the box. “Johnny Astro,” it said. “Really Flies. No Wires. No Connections. FLY YOUR SPACE CRAFT ANYWHERE.”

  “If you can fly one of these,” my dad said breathlessly, “you can fly anything.”

  He put batteries into the plastic control panel and flipped the switch. A fan whirred softly and he moved the stick shift like a pilot.

  Suddenly a balloon with an astronaut launched into the air! The balloon swirled and hovered silently above our heads as if by magic.

  I blinked rapidly.

  I breathed rapidly. Fireworks burst inside my eyes.

  “You can take off . . . you can land it . . . fire the propulsion, knock it down, capture it, fly it again,” said my dad. “To the moon—at full throttle!”

  The balloon went up, up, up, and landed on a high shelf. Then it floated off the shelf as if lifted by an invisible hand.

  “Can I try?” I asked. I had watched my dad play a million times, but I had never played with it, not even once. But I had the pox . . . and who could say no to a poor thing with pox?

  “Only . . . if you’re careful,” said my dad. “It takes a special touch.”

  “Cross my heart,” I said.

  I commandeered Johnny Astro up and over our heads and then smoothly onto a landing pad on the coffee table.

  My dad was very impressed. “Amazing!” he said, blinking rapidly. “You’re as astonishing as I was at your age! You’re top gun.”

  He shook his head.

  He wiped his eyes.

  He put his hand on my back.

  “Someday,” my dad said in a low whisper, “this will be yours.”

  I gasped. I didn’t know what to say. My dad had never said that before. And my dad always means what he says. I think it is one of the rules of being a gentleman, but I don’t really know, I can’t remember.

  I only wished that Calvin and Anibelly had been there to hear it too, in case my ears were playing tricks on me, which they sometimes do.

  “M-m-mine?” I could hardly say it.

  My dad nodded. “Sure, son,” he said.

  That night I had a dream that I was Johnny Astro himself! I got into Johnny Astro’s balloon and blasted straight into orbit. I went over the tops of everything, even the moon! I sailed across the inky sky. It was thrilling! Everything was great . . .

  Until I looked down.

  Then nothing was great. I felt dizzy. Our driveway pinwheeled under my sneakers.

  Then I crash-landed and woke up.

  I ran downstairs.

  I looked up.

  And there, in the moonlight, on the top shelf of the highest bookcase, was Johnny Astro, safe and sound.

  TGID. Thank God it was only a dream.

  my dad is really good at taking care of his things. Maybe it is one of the rules of being a gentleman, but I don’t really know, I can’t remember. “Take care of your things,” my dad likes to say, “and your things will take care of you.”

  He takes such good care of his car, Louise, for example, that she will probably run for a third geological age, although she already has one transmission in the junkyard, which, my mom says, is the car equivalent of having one foot in the grave.

  My dad also takes good care of our house and our yard. He can use a hammer. He can climb a ladder. He can climb down too, usually. And he owns a power drill in a box.

  He takes really good care of his children too. Just look at us—a couple of weeks of scratching ourselves to death and we were practically normal again, on our way back to school.

  So when my dad wasn’t playing with his Johnny Astro, he k
ept it in its box and set the box on the top shelf of the highest bookcase for safekeeping.

  The Johnny Astro sure was amazing, even sitting in its box. I headed into the living room to look at it one last time before going to school. “Johnny Astro made me very popular,” my dad’s voice replayed itself in my ears. “Everyone wanted to play with me. . . .”

  “Johnny Astro,” I read across the box for the millionth time. “Really Flies. No Wires. No Connections. FLY YOUR SPACE CRAFT ANYWHERE.”

  I stared, unblinking.

  I shifted my PDK under my arm.

  I swallowed.

  “Alvin,” my mom yelled from the kitchen. “Hurry, honey, your bus is almost here!”

  “Coming, Mom!” I yelled back.

  But first . . . all I needed was a stool and to str—eeeee—eeetch until I could reach it. Johnny Astro was perfect for show-and-tell.

  “Someday,” my dad’s low whisper filled my ears, “this will be yours.”

  Someday. I had no idea that someday would be today!

  “Thanks, Dad,” I whispered. “You’re the best.” I even remembered my manners.

  Then I slid the box into a large shopping bag . . . and I slipped out the door.

  “What’s that?” Pinky asked as soon as I got on the bus.

  I gasped. I could hardly believe it. I was already flickering on Pinky’s radar!

  “Johnny Astro,” I said.

  “What’s Johnny Astro?”

  “The greatest toy ever made,” I said.

  “Never heard of it,” said Pinky. “What does it do?”

  “I’ll show you at show-and-tell,” I said.

  “But you don’t do show-and-tell,” said Hobson.

  “I do too,” I protested.

  “You show, but you never tell,” said Sam.

  Sam was right, I never tell. But I was fabulous at show. I knew how to pick ’em. If something tells a story, and as long as I can reach it and it is something I can carry without using a wheelbarrow, it is probably perfect. I’ve brought in all sorts of treasures . . . my dad’s fantastic reading glasses . . . my mom’s pearl necklace that she looks so good in . . . Calvin’s baseball card collection.