You're a Brave Man, Julius Zimmerman

by Claudia Mills

  It was a good thing his mother had said she wouldn’t be reading his goals journal. Maybe he could reinstate the reading goal and the math goal when he had the summer more under control. If he ever had the summer more under control.

  He studied the list again. Then he added:

  5. Find out more about Octavia Aldridge.

  4

  After three more days of Intensive Summer Language Learning, Julius was an old pro at “My name is Julius Zimmerman” and “Good morning, how are you?” He was getting pretty good at “What is the weather like?” “It is fine.” “It is raining.” “It is snowing.”

  But he still felt it was a mistake on Madame Cowper’s part to insist on talking to the class so much of the time in French. Hadn’t she noticed that none of them could understand French? Unless the others all understood. Was Julius the only one who sat there in a fog of stupefaction?

  And in less than five weeks they were going to have to put on a play for their families and friends—performed entirely in French! That was what Madame Cowper had said—unless Julius had misunderstood her. Which was all too possible. She couldn’t really have meant that he, Julius Zimmerman, was going to speak in French in front of an audience. Maybe it would be a play in which the characters mainly exchanged their names and talked about the weather.

  At least they were also going to cook French foods. And eat French foods. Friday was to be their cooking day, and so on that Friday they met for class in the middle-school Family Living room.

  Right away Madame Cowper said something in French that ended with the words quiche Lorraine. Julius decided she must be saying, “Today we will make quiche Lorraine.” He had never heard of quiche Lorraine, but he figured it had to be a kind of food, and any kind of food sounded good to Julius.

  He made sure to stick close to Ethan as they divided into groups of four for the cooking, each group claiming its own individual kitchenette, complete with stove, sink, and refrigerator. Unlike most of the kids Julius knew, and unlike Julius himself, Ethan could cook. Ethan and his older brother, Peter, cooked dinner at their house most Saturday nights. At Julius’s house, nobody cooked on most nights. Julius’s mother liked the joke, “What does a working mother make for dinner?” “Reservations!” In her case, it was phone calls for carryout pizza, carryout Chinese, carryout Vietnamese, and carryout Italian. There was no carryout French restaurant in the vicinity of West Creek, which was why the Zimmermans never ate quiche.

  Alex and Marcia were in Julius’s group, too. Lizzie was probably disappointed at not getting to be with Ethan, and Ethan was probably relieved at not having to be with Lizzie.

  Madame Cowper held up a package of store-bought piecrusts. “Today we will cheat just a little bit,” she said, speaking for once in plain ordinary English. “We will use packaged piecrusts for our quiche. But I must tell you that this the French would never do. Non, jamais! In France all the food is prepared fresh, from the freshest possible ingredients.”

  She demonstrated how to fit the piecrust into the piepan.

  “I’ll do ours,” Marcia said importantly, snatching up their piecrust and awkwardly smooshing it in place. Julius was sure that Ethan was a better cook than Marcia.

  “Look,” Alex said in a loud whisper. “There’s going to be one quiche for each group, and one for La Cow. A whole pie just for her.” This time he oinked instead of mooing.

  “Maintenant, la préparation. Now, the filling,” Madame Cowper went on when all the piecrusts were in their pans and had been placed in the oven to bake for five minutes. “I must say this is going to be a very naughty day for dieters!”

  “I bet it’s not her first naughty day,” Alex said.

  Julius felt embarrassed for Madame Cowper. He wished she would explain the recipe without calling attention to how fattening it was. Didn’t she know she was giving kids like Alex more opportunity for mean remarks?

  “One of you can have my piece,” Marcia said to the boys. “I’m trying to cut back on calories.”

  She looked at the others as if expecting one of them to say, “You don’t need to worry about calories.” And she didn’t. Marcia was the skinniest girl in the class, except for Lizzie, who was the skinniest and the shortest.

  “Yeah, you’re really a tub,” Alex said.

  “I am not!” Marcia said, pretending to pout, but plainly pleased at how obviously false his statement was.

  “Can you pinch an inch?” Alex leaned over to pinch whatever fat was available from Marcia’s slim waist.

  Julius was pretty sure that Alex liked Marcia. Marcia squealed and shoved him away. Maybe she liked him, too.

  Madame Cowper gave them both a cold look. “Monsieur Ryan, Mademoiselle Faitak, I hope I will not have to ask anyone to leave during our first cooking demonstration.”

  Alex and Marcia stopped their horsing around, but they didn’t look happy about it.

  “As I was saying,” Madame Cowper went on, “the filling for our quiche Lorraine is very rich. It is made of bacon, cheese, cream, and eggs. Du bacon, du fromage, de la crème, des oeufs. We will begin with the bacon.”

  Madame Cowper gave each group a slab of uncooked bacon to chop into one-inch pieces. Ethan efficiently chopped theirs and placed it in the frying pan, then set about capably separating the sizzling bacon pieces with a fork. Julius felt a quick surge of admiration for his friend, mingled with jealousy. Ethan liked to act as if he and Julius were lousy at all the same things—basketball, math—but Ethan was good at a lot of things, too. Having an older brother probably helped. When you were an only child, you had nobody to show you things. You fumbled and bumbled around on your own.

  After Madame Cowper approved the doneness of their bacon, Ethan transferred the bacon bits onto a paper towel and then poured the fat from the pan into a waiting jar.

  “Ick,” Marcia said.

  “That’s what Madame Cow would look like if she melted. ‘Help, I’m melting!’” Alex screeched in what was clearly intended to be an imitation of the Wicked Witch of the West.

  “Monsieur Ryan,” Madame Cowper called above the general din. “This is your second warning.”

  While Alex and Marcia prepared the egg and cream filling, Ethan set Julius to work dicing a block of Swiss cheese. Julius managed to do it without dicing any part of his fingers. Then, as directed by Madame Cowper, he scattered the cheese in the bottom of the piecrust, and Ethan sprinkled in the bacon bits.

  “Bien! Bien! Now we will pour in our filling. Comme ça! Like this!” Madame Cowper demonstrated on her own quiche. It was true that she had made one just for herself.

  Ethan poured in the filling, almost spilling it when Alex jostled him while trying to pinch another nonexistent inch of fat from Marcia’s skinny frame.

  “Monsieur Ryan! You have had two warnings. I do not give three warnings.” Madame Cowper’s voice was unpleasantly shrill. “I must ask you to leave us. You may sit in the hall outside our room and read in your textbook while the rest of us finish preparing our quiche. Needless to say, you will not be joining us when we eat our quiche, either.”

  At first Alex hesitated, as if he was thinking about defying Madame Cowper. But then he mustered a sneer and sauntered out to the hall.

  “Now carefully, very carefully, carry your quiche to the oven. Place it on the center rack. It will need to bake for thirty-five to forty minutes.”

  Madame Cowper came over to their group. “Monsieur Zimmerman, will you do the honors?”

  Julius swallowed hard. He had expected Ethan, the chef, or Marcia, the know-it-all girl, to do the honors. Madame Cowper apparently didn’t know that his nickname in fifth grade had been Klutzius.

  Ethan opened the oven door for him. The oven had been preheated, and Julius felt a blast of scorching-hot air.

  Madame Cowper was still waiting. Julius picked up the quiche, his hands slightly shaking. The filling sloshed from one side of the pan to the other. It seemed alive.

  “Be careful, Monsieur Zimmerman! Fait
es attention!”

  If only she would stop watching him. Julius could never perform when people watched him. Having Madame Cowper watch him try to put a quiche in the oven was like having Octavia Aldridge watch him try to keep Edison Blue in time-out, or like having the whole class watch him try to stammer out his name. Some people performed better under pressure; Julius didn’t.

  Julius sensed the disaster before it happened. He had a fleeting vision of losing control of the pan and spilling the quiche all over the floor. Then, just as he was about to slide it onto the rack, he lost control of the pan.

  Julius watched, helpless, as the quiche spilled all over the oven door and dripped onto the floor.

  Marcia giggled. Ethan groaned. Julius felt his cheeks flame hotter than the preheated oven.

  Madame Cowper let his group eat her quiche. It made Julius feel better about Madame Cowper, but it didn’t make him feel any better about himself.

  * * *

  That afternoon Julius took Edison in his stroller to the park, half a mile or so from the Blues’ house. The stroller was one of the few things in his life that Edison definitely liked. All Julius had to do was strap him in, and off they went. When Julius was out pushing Edison in his stroller, he felt capable and purposeful, as if he knew what he was doing and where he was going. He felt the way Octavia Aldridge looked.

  Compared to the quiche disaster, the past few days of babysitting for Edison Blue hadn’t been too bad. Julius had avoided the backyard, in order to avoid the sandbox. This also meant that he had avoided Octavia, whom he hadn’t particularly wanted to avoid. He felt the need to redeem himself somehow in her eyes. Of course, with Edison in tow, he could easily end up only embarrassing himself further.

  At the park, Julius made the mistake of letting Edison out of his stroller to play, for within minutes Edison had figured out that the pleasures of throwing gravel were very like the pleasures of throwing sand.

  “You’re going to have to keep your little brother from throwing the gravel,” one of the mothers there told him.

  Did she really think Julius wanted his “little brother” to throw gravel? Did she really think Julius could stop his “little brother” from throwing gravel?

  “Hey,” Julius said to Edison. “Did you hear what the lady said? No throwing gravel.”

  Unimpressed, Edison continued to throw gravel.

  “He could get that in somebody’s eye,” the woman said.

  Julius tried again. “The lady doesn’t like it when you do that.”

  More gravel flew by.

  Julius had to do something. “Edison, if you don’t stop, I’m putting you in your stroller right now and taking you home.”

  This time the flying gravel struck Julius’s leg.

  He had made the threat; now he had to carry it out. Wishing the lady weren’t still watching him, he straightened his shoulders to signal that he meant business. But he had a hunch that forcing Edison into the stroller was not going to be particularly easy.

  Sure enough, it wasn’t.

  Edison kicked and hit and bit. Somehow Julius succeeded at stuffing him in his seat and securing the seat belt. As the mothers watched, Julius wheeled the screaming Edison away from the park playground.

  All the way home, Edison howled. Julius was surprised that nobody stopped them to accuse him of kidnapping. Not that anybody in his right mind would want to kidnap Edison Blue.

  Octavia was in her front yard, sitting in a swing that hung from the big tree by the house. She was wearing a long white dress—her Romeo and Juliet costume, maybe. Her timing was impeccable.

  “Bonjour, Julius,” she said. “I see Edison is his usual good-natured self today.”

  Julius felt better. Octavia had made it seem as if the problem lay with Edison’s being Edison rather than with Julius’s being Julius.

  “He and I had a little disagreement over throwing gravel at the park,” Julius said.

  “And you won.”

  “If you call this winning.” Julius wasn’t sure he did. Edison’s tears streaked the dirt that had mingled with the sunblock Julius had applied to his cheeks. At least Julius had learned how to get enough sunblock on his tiny face.

  Octavia leaned back in the swing. “Do you mind if I ask you one question?”

  “No,” Julius said cautiously.

  “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why are you doing this?” She sounded as if she really wanted to know.

  The question embarrassed him. “Why do you think? To earn money, that’s why.” Not that he had gotten any yet. Mrs. Blue was going to pay him every Friday, so he wouldn’t get his first pay for another hour. He could hardly wait.

  “No,” Octavia said. “There’re easier ways to earn money. I can think of at least five hundred.”

  Apparently, Julius hadn’t fooled her. “My mom signed me up. She wants me to have a job this summer. I’m supposed to be learning about responsibility.”

  “And are you?”

  Julius shrugged. He felt the color rising in his face. “I’m learning something, I guess.”

  Octavia laughed, not a mean laugh. “I bet you are.”

  Julius glanced down at Edison. He had fallen asleep. He seemed so innocent when he was sleeping. Octavia pushed off gracefully with her sandaled feet and resumed her swinging. Julius wheeled Edison around to the back of the house, then managed somehow to maneuver the stroller up the steps and inside the door. Whatever he was learning this summer, it was something he didn’t particularly want to know.

  5

  Julius knew he was going to have to make some new goals for the coming week. He definitely didn’t want the second week of summer vacation to be anything like the first. Reviewing the week’s goals: he had made the biggest possible fool of himself in French class; he hadn’t gotten Edison to stop throwing sand or gravel; he and Edison had watched more than an hour of TV on several days. He had had a conversation with Octavia, but instead of finding out more about her, he had let her find out more about him, which wasn’t on his list at all. The only accomplishment he had to show for the week, when you got right down to it, was that Edison hadn’t pooped in his diaper. That was it. Period.

  Well, that wasn’t quite all. He had earned the first non-allowance money of his life, and that felt pretty good. But what could he possibly buy with it that was worth what he had gone through to earn it?

  His mother seemed worried about him, too, but for different reasons. “Honey, you didn’t read any books this week?” she asked him on Sunday night, when he came home from playing water basketball with Ethan and some of the other guys at the pool. “I know you’ve been busy with your class and your job and your friends, but everyone needs to make time for reading.”

  Of course, she had been reading herself when he came in. She was always reading. Too bad he hadn’t caught her at the end of the book. When his mother was within the last hundred pages of a book, the house could burn to the ground and she wouldn’t notice. She usually cried at the end, too. Julius was invariably relieved when he saw that it was a book she was crying over, rather than the memory of his last report card.

  Julius hesitated. “I started one, but I haven’t finished it yet,” he lied.

  “What is it?” she asked eagerly.

  “I—um—I don’t remember the title.”

  She looked so disappointed that Julius tried to think of a title, any title. Ethan had read A Tale of Two Cities last year when he was trying to impress Ms. Gunderson.

  “It was something about cities. Two cities. A Tale of Two Cities. That’s it.”

  Her face brightened. “You’re reading A Tale of Two Cities? Julius, that’s a wonderful book! No wonder you didn’t get it finished in a week. That’s hardly a book you whip right through. And it fits in so perfectly with your French class, too.”

  Why did it fit in well with his French class? Were the two cities somewhere in France? Julius felt his face betraying him.

  “You’re not r
eading it.” His mother turned away.

  “But I’m going to,” Julius said. He hated it when the light went out of her eyes that way, all because of him. “Ethan read it last year, and he said it was really good.”

  “I don’t want you to read a book for me, I want you to read it for yourself.”

  “That’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to read it for myself.”

  His father came in. Julius’s dad was a tall, heavyset man, not a Mr. Cow, but someone who could stand to lose twenty pounds around his middle. Julius had seen pictures of his dad as a tall, skinny boy like himself. He sometimes wondered if he would have a middle like that someday, and wear a suit and carry a briefcase to his accounting office. The thought made his heart sink, although there wasn’t anything else he was planning to become.

  “You’re going to read what for yourself?” his father asked.

  “A Tale of Two Cities.”

  “Good luck,” his father said.

  “Dan! Don’t discourage him! A Tale of Two Cities is a perfectly thrilling book. I loved it when I was his age.”

  His father gave Julius a look that said: I doubt you’ll like it, but you might as well humor your mother. Come to think of it, his father didn’t read books. He read two newspapers every morning, but Julius couldn’t remember the last time he had seen his father reading a book.

  Julius made a quick call to Ethan. “How long is A Tale of Two Cities?”

  “Four hundred twenty-two pages.” It didn’t surprise Julius that Ethan could still give the exact answer. “Why?”

  “My mom wants me to read it.”

  “It’s good,” Ethan said. “It starts out kind of slow, but then it gets good.”

  So Julius put it on his list.

  Goals for the Week of June 16–22

  1. Make Ethan do all the cooking on cooking day.

  2. Limit Edison to three tantrums a day, none in front of Octavia Aldridge.

  3. Keep Edison from pooping in his diaper—VERY IMPORTANT!!!!

  4. Start reading A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens (422 pages). Find out if the cities are in France.