The World's Greatest Underachiever and the Best Worst Summer Ever

by Henry Winkler

  Everyone in the class except Joelle cracked up. Her face went red, all the way to the tips of her ears. Even the freckles on her nose went from light brown to red. She was steaming mad. I knew Nick McKelty was going to be hearing about this at break time.

  And he did, all right.

  As I stood outside in the playground eating my 100-per-cent-organic-whole-oat-cereal-with-roasted-pecans bar, I could see Joelle across the playground blabbering away to Nick, hopping around like she had ants in her pants. After a long time of her blabbering, she shut up and he started blabbering back to her.

  I wonder how she stands his fire-breathing badddd breath. I guess her nose is on a permanent holiday.

  I was wondering where my nose would go on holiday if it could pick any place in the world when a little voice interrupted my thoughts.

  “Hi, Hank.”

  “Mason Harris Jerome Dunn,” I said, giving a high five to the little dude. Actually, it was more of a low five. “Nice to see you, buddy.”

  “If we’re going to be friends, can you just call me Mason?”

  “It’s a deal. Mason it is.”

  “Do you want to play at my house after school? We have Pop-Tarts.”

  “Hey, I’d love to, bud. I mean Mason. But today I’m going somewhere with my grandpa.”

  “Oh,” he said.

  “But I’ll come over another day,” I told him. “That’s a fantastic idea.”

  “Oh,” he said again.

  Then from out of nowhere he gave me a hug, just like that.

  OK! That’s the eleventh great thing about kindergartners. They’ll hug you for no reason, just because they feel like it. How great does that feel?

  I looked over at Joelle and McKelty. They were standing on the other side of the playground, looking at us.

  You guessed it. They were laughing at me, probably saying how dorky it was to play with a kindergartner. And you know what I thought?

  Too bad. It’s their loss.

  Papa Pete came to pick me up after school. He was wearing a Mets baseball cap to keep the hot summer sun off his face and holding a plastic bag of pickles for our snack.

  I sprinted out of the main door as soon as I saw him. “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “You’ll see, Hankie,” he said. “Have a pickle. They’re very refreshing.”

  Papa Pete thinks many things are very refreshing. A dip in the ocean. A deep breath. A cool shower. Orange sherbet. Iced tea. A flannel on the back of your neck. And I must say, I love everything that he thinks is refreshing.

  I took a pickle from the bag and handed the other one to Papa Pete along with a paper napkin to wrap the bottom of the pickle in. My mouth was watering as I took the first bite. There’s nothing like a garlic gherkin to make you forget that you just spent the day in summer school. As it turned out, this one was extremely juicy, which I wasn’t expecting. Pickle juice squirted out of my mouth, shot up in the air and landed with a big splat right in the centre of my T-shirt.

  “Oops,” I said. “Now I’m going to smell like pickle for the rest of the day.”

  “Then you’re in the right company,” Papa Pete said, “because I happen to find pickle juice to be a very delicious scent.”

  We headed over to Broadway and 79th Street and walked down a flight of stairs into the subway station. A man with a beard was playing “Jingle Bells” on the saxophone. We listened to him while we were waiting for the train.

  “Isn’t he a little early for Christmas?” I whispered to Papa Pete.

  “You’ve got to play what’s in your head,” Papa Pete whispered back to me as the train pulled up. He wished the man a happy Christmas and dropped a dollar into his saxophone case as we boarded the train.

  It was really crowded inside, and since there wasn’t anywhere to sit, Papa Pete and I stood up and hung on to a metal pole as the train sped downtown. He’s really good at riding the subway standing up. I always try to keep my balance without holding on. It’s like surfing – only underground in the city. Most of the time, I do lose my balance and go crashing into the people standing around me. Maybe Papa Pete enjoys the smell of pickle juice, but I’m pretty sure everyone smushed up against me in the carriage didn’t. I noticed that the space around me kept getting bigger and bigger as the other passengers edged away.

  We got off at 42nd Street and took the shuttle bus to Grand Central Station, which is right in the middle of midtown Manhattan. If you ever go to New York City, you really should go there. Papa Pete says the main station, where the ceiling looks like the sky, was at one time the biggest room in all of America. I believe him. I don’t think I could run from one end to the other without having to stop and rest.

  I still couldn’t guess where we were going. As we walked out of the station and towards Fifth Avenue, I asked Papa Pete to give me a hint.

  “It’s a place I used to go to when I was your age,” Papa Pete said.

  Wow, that means it had been there for a really long time.

  “Ray’s Pizza,” I guessed, knowing how much Papa Pete loves pizza.

  Papa Pete shook his head. He gave me one more hint.

  “The things inside can’t be judged by their covers,” Papa Pete said.

  “Books!” I said. “You can’t judge a book by its cover.”

  “Oh, are you a smart kid, Hankie,” Papa Pete said. He may be the only person in the world who thinks so.

  “I know!” I said. “We’re going to a bookshop to buy a book on Albert Einstein!”

  By then, we had reached the corner of Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. Papa Pete stopped and pointed to a huge building that stretched along the entire block. There were giant columns all along the front and two humongous stone lions guarding the entrance.

  “This looks like a really important building,” I said.

  “It is, Hankie,” Papa Pete answered. “This is New York Public Library’s main branch.”

  He said the words like he was saying something wonderful, such as “This is Disneyland, Hankie,” or “This is Shea Stadium.” I watched Papa Pete as he looked at the library. He seemed really happy to be there. Then he turned to me.

  “Grandson of mine, I think it’s time,” Papa Pete said, giving my cheek a pinch.

  “For what?” I asked.

  “It’s time to get you a library card.”

  I had a library card once when I was in kindergarten and Mrs McMurray took our class to our local library. But, of course, I lost it on the same day. What do you expect? It’s me, Hank.

  This is going to sound really weird, but Papa Pete and I had a totally great time at the library. I know you’re probably thinking there’s nothing cool about a library. But trust me, this one was.

  First of all, it was actually cool in there. I was dripping with sweat from the hot air in the subway and the walk down Fifth Avenue. But inside the library, the air was very refreshing, as Papa Pete would say.

  After we went inside, we walked up a long marble staircase, like the kind they built for kings and queens in England. Upstairs, we found a giant room that was lined with books on all sides. Huge chandeliers hung from the ceiling. About a million computer monitors sat on long wooden tables, glowing like those strange fish that live in the darkest part of the ocean. It was the kind of place that makes you feel like you want to whisper, which is a good feeling to have, because it’s a library rule. There are signs everywhere that say “Sssshhhhh.”

  Papa Pete went up to the front desk and told them I wanted to take out some books. A really nice woman named Mrs Patron told us that we couldn’t take out books at this branch. This branch was only for research. Oh, well, I thought, I could survive another few years without a library card. Wrong. Mrs Patron directed us across the street to the lending library. There, another nice woman helped me fill out some forms. Then she went into a back room and was gone for a while. When she came out, she handed me my very own library card.

  Henry Daniel Zipzer, it said.

  It didn’t say wheth
er or not I was a good reader. It didn’t say whether or not I had learning difficulties. All it said was that I was a person who wanted to take books out from the library.

  If you ask me, that is pretty darn cool.

  Papa Pete and I walked around the library. We ended up taking out six books on Albert Einstein. I looked for ones that weren’t too thick and that had a lot of pictures inside. The librarian said it was OK to get books with a lot of pictures and even suggested books on CD. She said the most important thing was to enjoy the books. I don’t think Ms Adolf would agree with that! She thinks that listening to a book on CD is cheating. I know it’s not. When I did my report on the Hopi Indians, I learned everything about them from a book on CD, and I got a really good mark. So there, Ms Adolf! Get with it.

  After we left the library, we stopped for hot dogs with brown mustard and grilled onions from Papa Pete’s favourite cart. Then we got back on the subway and arrived at my flat just as my mum was putting dinner on the table. Papa Pete pointed to his eyeballs and told her we were full up to here with pickles and hot dogs, which meant we didn’t have to eat her Beetroot Surprise Soufflé. As far as I’m concerned, the only thing surprising about beetroots is how bad they taste and how red they make your tongue.

  While the others were eating, Papa Pete and I went into my bedroom and started reading up on Einstein. We spread the books out all over the floor, and I flopped from one to the other, looking at the pictures and reading what I could. Papa Pete read me the words I couldn’t sound out. There were plenty of those, believe me.

  At first, I couldn’t figure out why Mr Rock thought I would be so interested in Albert Einstein. First of all, he had this really crazy head of grey hair that stuck out all over. It looked like he had rubbed a balloon over it so that it was filled with static electricity. Add to that a big, bushy moustache that covered half his face. Then add to that the fact that the scientific theories he developed were really hard to understand. They were all about the universe and gravity and time and space. Oh, and the speed of light. The only thing I know about the speed of light is that Superman flies faster than it.

  But as we continued to look through the books, I discovered two really interesting things about old Albert.

  The first was that when he was a kid, he didn’t get great marks at school. For a long time, people thought he might even have had dyslexia, which is the name for the learning difficulty that I have. These days, they’re pretty sure that he didn’t actually have dyslexia, but one thing is for sure: he got really bored at school and didn’t do nearly as well as he should have. And get this, he was especially slow at reading. Hey, my middle name should be Albert.

  “Albert Einstein was an underachiever, like me,” I told Papa Pete, rolling over on to my back. “How about that?”

  Papa Pete picked up the book I was reading. It had a quotation from old Al himself that he read aloud to me.

  “I have no special talents,” Papa Pete read. “I am only passionately curious.”

  “Hey, I’m curious too,” I said. “That’s why I’m always wondering about stuff.”

  The second really interesting thing I found out about old Albert was that he had a great imagination. In fact, he won a humongous science award called the Nobel Prize for discovering that light always travels at a constant speed, which is 186,000 miles per second. But here’s the really cool part: the thing that helped him develop his theory about the speed of light was that he imagined himself riding on a beam of light, going that fast.

  Papa Pete turned the page of his book and read another quote from Einstein.

  “Imagination is more important than knowledge,” he said.

  Oh yes, I couldn’t agree more. I’m down with that, as Frankie would say. I love to use my imagination. And I’m pretty good at it, too. Even Mr Rock said so.

  “You know what, Papa Pete?” I said. “I like everything about this Albert Einstein guy. Except his hairdo.”

  Papa Pete smiled. “He was a great man,” he said. “Do you know that he didn’t believe in war? That’s a very refreshing thought.”

  I look at it this way. Any grown-up who spends his time wondering what would happen if he went cruising around the universe on a beam of light has to be my kind of guy.

  Frankie and Ashley came over after dinner. I thought they were just stopping in to see Papa Pete. They love it when he pinches their cheeks and calls them his grandkids too. But it turned out that they had more on their minds.

  “Frankie and I have been thinking,” Ashley began as she sat down in my rolling desk chair.

  “That’s a fantastic thing to do,” Papa Pete said. “You never know what will happen when you think.”

  “This is serious, Papa Pete,” Ashley said.

  Papa Pete pretended that he had a zip across his mouth and zipped it shut. He motioned for Ashley to continue.

  “So Frankie and I have been thinking that the King Kahuna Huna costume could use a little work.”

  “You’re kidding?” I said, faking surprise. “You don’t like the Lego boats hanging off my arms?”

  “No, dude. I’m all for Lego boats,” Frankie said, “if you’re four and in the bathtub. The thing is, Zip, we’re trying to class up the act. Make it slick.”

  “We want the costumes to be more authentic,” Ashley said. “King Kahuna Huna should be wearing palm leaves and coconuts and Hawaiian flowers.”

  “And where are we going to get that stuff?” I asked.

  Papa Pete raised his hand, and we let him unzip his lips.

  “Big Eddie’s Fancy Dress Shop,” he said. “It just so happens Big Eddie is one of The Chopped Livers.”

  The Chopped Livers are Papa Pete’s bowling team. I don’t mean to brag, but they’ve been number one in the Senior Bowling League at McKelty’s Roll ’N Bowl for three years straight.

  “A fancy-dress shop,” Ashley said. “Great idea. Can you take us there?”

  “Let me make a call,” Papa Pete said.

  He went into the living room and came back two minutes later with a big smile on his face.

  “Big Eddie officially closed the shop ten minutes ago, but he said he’d stay open for a while as a special favour.”

  “Big Eddie sounds like a real nice guy,” Frankie said.

  “Naturally,” said Papa Pete. “He’s a Chopped Liver.”

  When I told my parents where we were going, I was worried that they’d make us take Emily and Robert along. But luckily, the geek and geekess were busy in Emily’s room, trying to teach Bruce the Gecko his dance moves for the talent show. They were having trouble because every time they had his little front legs hooked on the toothpick they were using to keep him upright so he could dance on his back legs, he fell off. Then he’d scoot under the lettuce leaf and hide. I guess geckos just aren’t cut out for ballroom dancing.

  We dashed out of the flat before Emily and Robert changed their minds. Big Eddie’s was a couple of blocks away, near the corner of Amsterdam and 71st street. Papa Pete walks fast, and we had to skip to keep up with him. Correction. Ashley skipped. Frankie and I jogged. We’re not really the skipping types.

  Big Eddie’s is a tiny shop, sandwiched in between Royal Dry Cleaners and a Chinese takeaway. When we arrived, we stopped outside to look in the window. It was jam-packed with really cool stuff like vampire masks and fake blood capsules and slimy green monster hands and plastic fangs.

  Suddenly, the door to the shop flew open and a huge man who filled the entire doorway popped his head out. He was wearing a patch over one eye and had a bloody scar running all the way down his cheek.

  “Help!” he shouted. “I’m bleeding!”

  Ashley screamed. Frankie and I jumped backwards. Papa Pete burst out laughing.

  “Papa Pete, he’s hurt,” I said.

  “You mean this?” the giant man said, pointing to his bleeding scar. “I’ll recover. Watch!”

  He reached up to his cheek and, with a big yank, pulled the bloody scar off. It was plastic!r />
  “Kids, I’d like you to meet Big Eddie,” Papa Pete said. “Fellow Chopped Liver and allround prankster.”

  Big Eddie pulled the patch off his eye (the patch was fake too) and held out his hand for us to shake. I squeezed it and a buzzer went off. What kind of grown-up wears a trick buzzer in his palm?

  “Come on in, kids,” he said. “I hear you’re looking for Hawaiian costumes. Right this way.”

  He took us over to a section that had grass skirts and coconut bikini tops, plastic palm leaves and necklaces of pink Hawaiian flowers. Frankie and Ashley dived into the stuff like it was buried treasure. There wasn’t enough room for me to look, too, so I wandered around the shop. What a fun place! I tried on some wonky teeth that made me look like Nick McKelty. Thank goodness I didn’t smell like him too. After that, I tried on a black shiny cape and a Dracula wig.

  “I vant to suck your blood,” I said into the mirror, in my Count Dracula accent that I’ve been practising since before I even knew what a vampire was.

  On the top shelf, I noticed a big, crazy grey wig with hair flying out at all angles. I jumped as high as I could and grabbed it down. When I slid it on, you could barely see my face because of the grey hair shooting out in all directions.

  “Check this out,” I said to Papa Pete. “I look like Albert Einstein.”

  “If it’s Einstein you want, come with me,” Big Eddie said. He took me to another counter where he handed me a furry grey moustache and a collar with a fluffy old-fashioned bow tie attached to it. I put the collar round my T-shirt and stuck the moustache on my upper lip.

  “I vill now tell you about zee universe,” I said in a pretty terrible German accent. I think I sounded more like Count Dracula than like Albert Einstein, but I didn’t care because I was having so much fun.

  Then it hit me.

  Wait a minute, Hank. WAIT A MINUTE! Oh yeah, this is a genius idea.