I’M VERY LUCKY.
My mother is Catholic and my father is Jewish, so I’m both Catholic and Jewish.
Mrs. Berg, my first grade teacher, says that’s a lie. She says I can only be Jewish if my mother is Jewish, and she should know because she’s Jewish, too.
Still, I don’t believe her. I can be anything I want. That’s what my parents always tell me.
“Nancy,” they say, “You can be anything you want.”
I don’t know what I will be just yet, but I hope it’s something good.
The playground at Spruce Hill Elementary is cold today. I’m playing on the teeter totter with my best friend, Alana. She’s not as lucky as me. Both her parents are Jewish, but her father lives with his new wife in Boston and her mother’s all alone.
“You’re so lucky,” Alana tells me as we go up and down, up and down. “You get to have Christmas and Hanukkah. We only have Hanukah at my house.”
“Do you get eight days of presents on Hanukah?” I ask her, because I do.
“No,” she says. “I only get one present from my Mom and one present from my Dad and Debra.”
“Oh,” I say. I shouldn’t tell her that I also get presents on Christmas morning, but I do anyway. “Santa Claus brings me presents on his sleigh.”
“There’s no such thing as Santa Claus,” Alana says. “Everyone knows that.”
Alana’s fibbing, just like Mrs. Berg is fibbing about me not being both Jewish and Catholic. Of course Santa Claus is real. I just saw him at G. Fox Department Store in downtown Springfield, and he let me sit on his lap. He asked me what I wanted for Christmas, and I told him. Then one of his elves gave me a stocking filled with candy.
I suppose I feel sorry for Alana. She probably can’t see Santa because she doesn’t believe in him.
“Children?” Mrs. Berg calls out from the classroom door. “Recess is over. Please come inside.”
Alana and I stop going up and down, up and down. We have to be careful to get off the teeter totter at the same time or one of us can fall down and hurt our bums. Sometimes when I’m cross, I want to jump off first and make the person on the other side go splat, but that wouldn’t be nice.
Together, we head for the door. I start unzipping my pink parka and peeling off my red gloves.
“You’re a stupid head,” says Britt Peters as he pushes by us. Britt is short for Britton. He always seems to be everywhere I am, and he always calls me names. My mother says he does things like that because he likes me, but I’m not so sure.
“No I’m not,” I tell him. “You’re a stupid head.” Alana laughs and Mrs. Berg gives me a dirty look that makes my face turn red.
Inside, we hang our winter coats in our cubbyholes, take off our boots, and put our shoes on. There are a few kids who don’t have cubbyholes. They only have coat hooks and designated areas. I don’t like the coat hooks because I once saw Amy Parkman push Joey Kagan really hard, and one of the coat hooks went right up his nose. He cried like a baby for almost an hour, and had to sit in the front of the classroom with Mrs. Berg, holding his head back with red-soaked tissue paper stuffed in his nostrils.
I’m glad I’ve never had a coat hook pushed up my nose. I bet it would hurt.
Lots.
We all sit at our desks, nervous with excitement. We’re going to be celebrating the holidays today. In the front left-hand corner of the room, behind Mrs. Berg’s slanted desk, is a sad-looking Christmas tree. The wilted branches remind me of the one Charlie Brown has on TV.
In front of the blackboard, in the middle of the room, is a giant, silver Hanukkah menorah, bigger than I’ve ever seen before. It’s almost as tall as Mrs. Berg. Near the door to the hallway, there’s a fold-up chair with a small Kwanzaa candleholder on it. The candleholder is called a kinara. I only know that because I’m smart. Also, my parents have a book about Kwanzaa at home. The kinara is tiny and looks out of place compared to the oversized menorah and the sad Christmas tree.
Cheryl McBride is the only black person in our classroom. I suppose the kinara is for her. Maybe she’s Jewish, Catholic and black all at the same time but doesn’t want to celebrate Kwanzaa.
I bet Mrs. Berg is going to make her anyway. That’s wrong. I think Cheryl McBride should celebrate whatever she wants to celebrate.
I think we all should.
“Settle down children,” says Mrs. Berg as she stands in front of the classroom, but it seems as though she’s looking directly at me instead of anybody else. I don’t think Mrs. Berg likes me very much. I can’t be sure but she always acts like she doesn’t when she says hello to my father at temple on Saturday mornings, but ignores my mother.
She ignores me, too, because she says I’m not Jewish. I don’t think she likes non-Jewish people very much.
I like going to temple on Saturday mornings. Rabbi Weinberg is really nice. She has white hair and big teeth. On Sundays we go to church and see Father Dixon. Sometimes he gives me secret lollipops after his sermons when he hugs my mother and shakes my father’s hand.
My mother has known Father Dixon since she was a little girl. He’s not her real father, but she looks up to him just the same. I don’t think there is anything wrong with that. My mother can pretend he’s her real father if she wants to.
She can pretend whatever she wants.
“Settle down,” Mrs. Berg says again, louder this time, and we all fall quiet. “Before today’s festivities we’re going to learn a little bit about how each of us celebrates the holidays.”
Sometimes the other kids call Mrs. Berg ‘Mrs. Iceberg’. I don’t get what that means. The only thing I know about icebergs is that a long time ago there was a big boat that got sunk by one. Sometimes on the school bus we sing songs. One of them is about that big boat. In the song there’s a line about some of the people who died. It says there were uncles and ants, and little children who lost their pants. I know it’s not supposed to be funny, but it is.
I smile when I think of that because I don’t know why there would be ants on a boat.
Mrs. Berg immediately gives me a stink eye. That’s when someone is mad at you and wants you to know they’re mad without saying anything.
She says something anyway. “Nancy Horowitz? Can you please tell the class what you find so funny?”
My face turns red again and I stare at my desk instead of looking up at her. I don’t see what’s so wrong about smiling at something in my own head. It’s mine, after all. Not hers.
I can think whatever I want.
“Nothing,” I say.
“I thought not,” says Mrs. Berg, and Alana giggles. Even though she’s my best friend, she sometimes laughs when she shouldn’t. I don’t think that’s nice. I don’t think that’s nice at all.
Cameron Belcastro raises his hand but doesn’t wait to be called. “Can we celebrate Christmas now?” he blurts out. Cameron just moved here a month ago and doesn’t know the rules yet. Mrs. Berg turns her stink eye on him instead of me and I’m secretly grateful.
“If you interrupt me again, no one will celebrate the holidays.”
Everyone groans. Later, Cameron Belcastro is going to get beaten up after school by one of the bigger kids in class. He doesn’t know he’s going to get beaten up yet, but it will happen and he’ll learn.
“Now,” says Mrs. Berg. “If everyone is through interrupting me, please open your writing journals to a blank page.”
We all silently lift the lids of our desks and reach inside for our thin, blue writing journals and our No. 2 pencils. Mrs. Berg doesn’t let us write in our journals in pen until after she’s checked our penmanship and our spelling.
I don’t like when she does that. I think we should be able to write the way we want and spell the way we want.
She turns to the blackboard and quickly scribbles a bunch of questions on the board. We all wait for her to finish, hoping she will be quick so we can have our holiday celebration. When she is through, she turns around and tells everyone to answer the quest
ions she has written.
“You have ten minutes,” she says.
Ten minutes? Why? We should have whatever time we feel like.
Mrs. Berg wants us to write our names, our parents’ names, what religion they are, and what we celebrate for the holidays. That’s easy for me. I carefully and neatly write out my name. Then I write my mother’s name, Carol McCormick, my father’s name, Robert Horowitz, their religions, Catholic and Jewish, and what we celebrate for the holidays, Christmas and Hanukkah.
I finish quickly, but I always do. Most of the other kids are probably still writing out their names. I know that’s mean to say, but it’s true.
Finally, everyone puts their pencils down.
“Perfect,” says Mrs. Berg. “Now, everyone who celebrates Hanukkah, please get up and go stand by the menorah in the middle of the room.” About a third of the class stands up, including me. We make our way to the huge menorah that is way bigger than the sad Christmas tree and certainly bigger than the Kwanzaa kinara.
“This is fun,” giggles Alana, but I have a sinking suspicion that I’m not going to have fun because Mrs. Berg stops me before I can go and stand with everybody else.
She looms over me. “Where do you think you’re going, Nancy?” she asks with a mean look on her face.
“To celebrate Hanukkah,” I tell her, not sure why she is stopping me.
“You’re not Jewish, Nancy,” she says. “You can only be Jewish if your mother is Jewish. I have told you this. Only Jewish people celebrate Hanukkah.”
I want to tell her that’s not true. My parents say I can be whatever I want. Still, somehow I know that it’s useless to argue with Mrs. Berg, so I don’t. Instead, I ask her if I can celebrate Christmas.
“Yes you may,” she says and points to the sad Christmas tree. “Please stand there.”
Seconds later she asks everyone else who celebrates Christmas to come up and stand by the Christmas tree. Cheryl McBride stands too, and like me, she’s stopped before she can make her way to the tree.
“Cheryl,” she says. “You’re black. Please stand next to the kinara.”
“But . . . ,” whimpers Cheryl as she stares longingly at the sad Christmas tree. “I . . . I don’t even know what a kinara is.” Her eyes begin to well up with tears and I start to understand why Mrs. Berg’s name should be Mrs. Iceberg.
“Do as you’re told,” she snaps, and Cheryl begins to cry. I don’t think Mrs. Berg notices. All she wants is for us to be divided, with two thirds of the class in front of the sad Christmas tree, the rest in front of the enormous menorah, and Cheryl McBride all alone next to the Kwanzaa kinara.
Cheryl looks like she wants to be anywhere else but there.
“See?” say Mrs. Berg. “We all have different traditions but we all celebrate them at the same time. Jewish people celebrate Hanukkah. Catholic people celebrate Christmas and black people celebrate Kwanzaa.” She beams with pride as she looks over all of us. Then she says, “Isn’t it nice that we can all share the same classroom?”
Without even knowing I’m going to, I raise my hand.
Mrs. Berg rolls her eyes. “What is it, Nancy?”
“Why can’t we celebrate more than one holiday?” I ask.
“Because that would be wrong,” she snaps, but for some reason I start to sense that I’m not the only one who thinks that she’s the one who’s wrong, and we can celebrate whatever we want.
There’s a punch bowl on Mrs. Berg’s desk and a big platter of rugelach cookies. I only know what they are because my Grandma Horowitz bakes them for all the Jewish holidays. “Okay everyone,” she says. “One at a time, please come up and get a glass of bug juice and a cookie. Hanukkah people first.” As I watch Alana and the other Jewish kids file up to her desk, it occurs to me that if we have rugelach cookies for Hanukkah, then maybe we should have fruitcake or sugar cookies for Christmas and sweet potato pie and pecan bars for Kwanzaa.
We should be able to snack on whatever we want.
After the Jewish kids get their juice and rugelach cookies, Mrs. Berg calls the Catholic kids up and hands us each a cookie and a cup of red juice. Some of them look at the little twisted pastries like they don’t know what to do with them.
“Oh,” she says, when she finally notices Cheryl McBride standing all alone next to the kinara with her eyes wet and her mouth turned down. “I almost forgot. Will the Kwanzaa people come forward and get juice and cookies?”
Cheryl stares at the floor. I can tell she’s sad and embarrassed, but Mrs. Berg doesn’t care. “Thank you, Mrs. Berg,” Cheryl says when she takes her rugelach cookie and her juice. She quietly walks back across the room and stands by herself.
Mrs. Berg smiles at all of us then claps her hands together and says, “I almost forgot. We have to light the holiday decorations.”
Everyone knows that we’re not allowed to use matches in school. That’s why the lights on the sad Christmas tree, the candles on the huge menorah, and those on the kinara are all electric. Mrs. Berg goes to the menorah first and twists each of the bulbs until they are all bright and orange. Then she walks over to Cheryl McBride, who is standing next to the kinara, and twists the bulbs on it, too.
Cheryl stares at the glowing lights like she’s never seen a lit kinara before, which I’m starting to realize she hasn’t.
Finally, Mrs. Berg crosses the room to where we are all standing next to the sad Christmas tree. “Let me see,” she says as we all part like the Red Sea while she searches for the cord and the plug to make all the lights sparkle. “Ah,” she says. “Here it is.”
As she bends down and reaches for the plug to push into the wall, I step forward and pour my bug juice all over her hand.
The effect is more than I could have imagined. Sparks fly out of the socket in the wall and Mrs. Berg starts jerking and twitching and making weird noises. The sad Christmas tree doesn’t light up. Instead, Mrs. Berg does. Smoke starts coming off of her hair. Her eyes bulge and the veins in her neck turn thick and blue.
All the while I don’t even notice that some of the other kids in class are screaming and rugelach cookies and juice are flying everywhere.
Instead, all I can think is that I can be anything I want in the world. Anything at all.
Today I want to be a killer.
O is for Oz
Who Has Piss Poor Genetics
EIGHT-YEAR-OLD Ozzie Bean had flat feet.
They weren’t his fault. If blame needed to be placed anywhere, his feet were a fault of genetics.
His mother had flat feet and his father, may he rest in peace, had flat feet, too. Even his Grampa Moe, all six feet and three inches of him, had huge, flapping, flat feet that he no longer liked to cover with shoes. Instead, Grampa Moe slapped around the house on his ancient flippers, the soles of his feet plopping against the hard wood as he propelled himself forward at a Parkinson’s pace.
Slap. Slap.
Slap. Slap.
Slap. Slap.
Whenever Oz was in the den watching television and he heard that noise coming down the hallway from the kitchen, he would discreetly cut through the dining room and the living room so he didn’t have to sit with his grandfather and stare at his rude appendages.
Oz didn’t like feet on anyone, least of all Grampa Moe and his bare soles.
However, in the great, grand scheme of things, having flat feet wasn’t the worst of Ozzie Bean’s problems. He had something far more insidious that no one else in his family exhibited.
He was, as his mother told him, a pigeon with toes.
No matter how much Oz tried, no matter how hard he concentrated, his flat feet turned in when he walked.
“I’ll help you,” his mother promised with Munchausian glee, and set her sights on finding the right doctor.
One morning in early fall while Oz’s little classmates climbed aboard the big, yellow bus that brought them to Mrs. Benson’s first grade class at Spruce Hill Elementary School, Oz’s mother ushered him into her Smart Car f
or the hour-and-a-half ride to Boston.
He had an appointment with a specialist.
The specialist’s name was Doctor Gross, which Oz thought to be extremely funny. He wondered if Doctor Gross did gross things like picking his nose and eating it, or twirling his finger in his hairy ear until there was enough wax collected there that he could suck it off his digit and roll it around his teeth.
Oz imagined that Doctor Gross scavenged lint out his bellybutton when no one was looking, because he was, after all, gross.
The doctor sat Oz down on his examination table after doing a thorough, if not a little creepy, examination of his lower extremities, and told his mother his feet were fine. However, if she really wanted, he no longer had to be a pigeon with toes. All he had to do was wear magic shoes while he slept, and the magic shoes would fix the issue.
“What are magic shoes?” Oz asked Doctor Gross, secretly smiling a little because of his unfortunate name.
“I’ll show you,” the doctor said. He left the room for a moment and came back with a pair of white-laced shoes attached in the middle by a metal bar.
“Those aren’t magic,” grimaced Oz.
“Sure they are,” said Doctor Gross. “Let’s slip them on and see how they fit.”
With his mother beaming at the prospect of her son wearing a corrective device, she watched the doctor with the unsavory name fit the shoes on Oz and tie the laces.
Oz was appalled. The magic shoes weren’t magic at all. The metal bar forced them to point out at an absurd angle. They were wildly uncomfortable.
“I don’t like them.” Oz cried as real tears welled up in his big, brown eyes.
“Do you want to be a pigeon with toes for the rest of your life?” asked his mother.
“No,” Oz murmured, but in the secret part of his mind where no one could see, he really didn’t care if he toed in while walking. All he cared was that he didn’t want to wear the special shoes with the bar in the middle, magic or not.
“Now remember,” said Doctor Gross, who Oz decided had halitosis and fungus in his arm pits. “The magic will only work if you never touch your feet to the ground while wearing them. Your mother will put them on for you at night before you go to sleep.”
Little Killer A to Z Page 11