by Sally Warner
Anyway, my deal was with Kevin.
And doing a dare was not part of that deal.
Jared pokes Kevin in the back to make him speak, like Kevin is a ventriloquist’s dummy. “You have to yell it real loud, and in front of everyone,” Kevin whispers, right on cue. In case I didn’t get it.
But I got it.
Kevin looks miserable, though.
“Listen,” I whisper back, trying to talk only to him. “It’ll wreck the whole show.”
“Who cares?” Jared says, butting in. “You’re not so great, EllRay. Just because you get to be the emcee.”
He sounds jealous! And he would just love to see me get in trouble.
“I know I’m not so great,” I tell him—and Stanley, and Kevin. “But the class practiced,” I remind them. “And the girls are really excited about dancing. And Ms. Sanchez got all dressed up. And our parents are gonna be there.”
“Not my parents,” Jared says.
Oh, right.
They almost never come to anything.
Jared and Stanley are messing with Kevin and me. Not only me. But how do I get Kevin to see that?
And they’re doing it because they think they can. No other reason.
I need to stop the clock, I think, my heart thunking as we plod down the hall.
I need time to figure out all the reasons why this is so wrong, in so many ways.
And I need time to explain everything to Kevin, including how sorry I am about what happened, and how cool it was being friends with him.
But also about why I’m not gonna yell out the swear, even if it means having no friends at all except Corey.
I mean, I’m not perfect. It’s not like I wouldn’t do something goofy and random! But it would have to be my own idea. And not hurt anyone else. And it wouldn’t be this.
Only I can’t stop time, because I am not a Die, Creature, Die superhero.
And we’re almost at the auditorium.
The show is about to start.
“They made me do this,” Kevin whispers again, speaking so only I can hear. “But just say the swear, so they’ll still like me. And then you and I can be friends again.”
I try to look him in the eye. “But listen, I can’t—”
“But nothin’,” Stanley says, giving me a shove.
And I think, for one crazy second, of telling Stanley about my dad’s “Mr. G,” and how Stanley should have stuck a G at the end of “nothing,” since we supposedly paid for all twenty-six letters of the alphabet.
But I don’t.
I may be doomed, but I’m not nuts!
And anyway, Mr. G is Dad’s thing.
Not mine.
17
AN OAK GLEN WINTER WONDERLAND
It is almost time for me to introduce the third grade class. I feel sick to my stomach, knowing the terrible thing that I am supposed to do, only I won’t.
I am sitting on a folding chair backstage next to Miss Myrna, the lady who organizes things that happen in the auditorium. She suspects nothing.
The kindergartners were cute singing “Jingle Bells.” The first-graders did okay singing “Frosty the Snowman,” except before they started, one little guy was so scared that he refused to go onstage. So I let him sit and cry on my folding chair until his class’s song was done. And then he ran onstage to take a huge old bow.
It was like he’d been the star of the show!
Now the striped-muffler-wearing second-graders are finishing their song, “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch.” The whole audience is laughing, because Mr. Havens—the second grade teacher—is onstage wearing a Mr. Grinch costume. And the littlest girl in their class is dressed up as Cindy Lou Who. They even got her hair right.
The lyrics to that song are really hard, so the second-graders get to hold them while they sing. But during the entire song, Mr. Havens has been creeping around, pretending to scare kids or steal their mufflers or grab their music, while tiny Cindy Lou Who skitters after him.
“Aww,” Miss Myrna coos, clasping her hands as she watches Cindy Lou Who skip across the stage.
This will be a hard act for us third-graders to follow! And An Oak Glen Winter Wonderland is already running twelve minutes late. Getting all the kids out of their auditorium seats, up onto the stage, and then back into their seats is what has chewed up the time.
In the front row, Principal James keeps looking at his watch.
You think you have problems now, Principal James? What if I was about to break every law in the school system—and maybe the universe—by shouting out a swear at the very end of the show?
It would be like a meteor crashing through the atmosphere to Earth right here in Oak Glen, California! And becoming a meteorite. Remember?
Only I will never get credit for not doing something. Which is not fair.
Maybe I should do it? My friend problems would be over if I did.
But my grownup problems would be just beginning.
Also my me problems. They count, too.
Because shouting out the swear would just be wrong.
Poor Kevin, I think, feeling sorry for him in advance. I mean, he got me into all this. But when I don’t yell out the swear, Jared and Stanley won’t be friends with him anymore. For a while, at least. It will blow over, though.
But—I already did three challenges, right? And I told Kevin no dares!
Anyway, Kevin didn’t even come up with this one. It was Jared and Stanley all the way.
Oops. The pre-recorded “Grinch” music is finishing up, even though each kid seems to be singing a different line. But at least it’s coming to an end.
And the audience WHOOPS, claps, and yells like crazy while the second-graders bow funny, fist pump, or curtsey, depending on the kid.
I peek out from behind the curtain and see Ms. Sanchez trying to get our class lined up in the aisle, so they’ll be ready to sprint up to the stage after I announce the final song. The girls are tying the bell straps to their ankles as quietly as they can.
Which isn’t very quietly.
Miss Myrna jabs me between my shoulder blades with a surprisingly sharp finger, which means it’s time for me to do my emcee thing again. I get to my feet and stagger Frankenstein-like to the microphone standing in the middle of the stage.
Talk about not blending in!
“And now,” I say into the mic, “I present to you Ms. Sanchez’s awesome third grade class singing ‘Jingle Bell Rock.’ Come on up, third-graders!”
I’m supposed to join them after they’re all onstage, and then step forward when we’re done, so I can tell the audience good-bye.
Time finally seems to switch into slow motion as my classmates stomp and jangle their way up to the stage. Miss Myrna quickly wrangles the boys—including me—into a line in the back, and she herds the jingly girls to the front. Then she scurries backstage to start our music.
And some little Anza-Borrego earthquake fault splits open in my brain, and I see that this is just one of probably a million times in my life when I will have to make a decision like this.
And each decision I make will belong only to me, if I have anything to say about it. Which I will.
My decisions won’t belong to my mom and dad. Not to Corey or Kevin, either. And for sure, not to Jared.
Also, some of those decisions—like this one, maybe?—will be very important.
But the weird thing is, I have a feeling that you can’t always tell at the time how important a decision will be. You can only see it when you look back! So you gotta make each one on purpose.
And I have made the right decision.
I wriggle in next to Kevin, changing places with Corey. “Listen, Kev,” I whisper to Kevin. “I want us to be friends again, but I’m not gonna yell out a swear. And you shouldn’t have asked me to, because I already did three challenges.”
Kevin gapes at me. “But EllRay. You have to do it, or else—”
“And this last one wasn’t even your idea,” I interrupt. �
�And—and Alfie’s wearing a brand-new angel sweatshirt,” I say, the words tumbling out of nowhere. “She was dancing in the aisle during the last song, dude! She thinks she’s at a rock concert.”
Kevin has a soft spot for Alfie. Don’t ask me why.
“Shhh,” a few girls say, half-turning to glare at us as we wait for the music to begin.
“I just wanted to give you a heads-up, Kev,” I tell him. “Out of my complete and total respect for you.”
But he just looks at me like all hope is lost.
Sorry, Kevin. It’s been fun being friends with you, dog. And I was looking forward to teaching you Die, Creature, Die, so we could all play it together.
Our music starts.
18
A NOT-SO-PERFECT CHRISTMAS
“Hey, buddy,” Dad says, poking his head into my room at ten-thirty p.m. on Christmas Eve. “Too excited to sleep? I can hear the wheels turning in here.”
This means he can supposedly hear me thinking. Of course he can’t, but it’s true that my brain is buzzing. Today has been packed so full that I am numb.
And it’s true, I cannot fall asleep.
It rained all day, but that didn’t slow us down much—though Alfie worried aloud about Santa’s reindeer slipping tonight on our wet tile roof. Dad didn’t calm her down any when he joked that Santa might sue us if he fell.
“Don’t say that, Dad,” she said. “He might be wistening.”
Which is Alfie-speak for listening.
“I guess I’m excited about Christmas,” I tell my dad. “But I also feel kind of—”
“Sad? Nervous?” Dad says, trying out a couple of sentence endings for me.
I nod my head the best that I can on my pillow.
It’s hard to explain my mixed-up feelings. But my dad seems to understand.
“I remember that feeling,” Dad says. “You’re nervous that maybe you won’t get what you want tomorrow. Or even if you do, you’re sad in advance because Christmas morning will be over so fast.”
“And I’m not sure about what I got for Mom,” I tell him. “That napkin holder with the chickens painted on it, remember? I don’t think it’s good enough.”
“Listen, son,” my dad says, sitting on the edge of my bed. “Nothing is good enough for your mom, because she’s the absolute best. She’s our queen. But she’s going to love it. It will go right on the kitchen table, just you wait and see.”
“She would pretend, though,” I say. “I want her to really like it.”
“Well, you have no control over that, EllRay,” Dad says, laughing. “None of us does. But that’s Christmas for you! Maybe all we can do is to try hard, and then hope for the best. Did I ever tell you about my most perfect Christmas ever? The year I got exactly what I wanted, and then some?”
“Nuh-uh,” I say, shaking my head in the dark as Dad settles in next to me, on top of the covers.
I love my dad’s stories about when he was a kid.
“It must have been, oh, when I was nine years old, just a year older than you are now. And the biggest ‘wow’ toy that Christmas was the Nintendo Entertainment System.” He sighs, remembering. “It was really expensive,” he says. “Something like one hundred and fifty dollars, which was a lot back then. And the games were forty or fifty dollars each. I don’t know.”
“That’s a lot even today,” I point out. “I mean, really a lot.”
“True,” Dad says, nodding in the dark. “And you know Pop-Pop,” he says, talking about my grandfather, who lives near San Francisco now. “He was always careful with a dollar, so I was sure he and Mama weren’t going to get it for me. And even now, people call that Nintendo the single greatest video game console in history,” Dad adds, sounding like the hopeful nine-year-old kid he was back then. “That’s how good it was.”
“But Pop-Pop was a doctor,” I say. “Don’t doctors make a lot of money?”
“Some do,” Dad agrees. “But Pop-Pop was just starting out back then, and he was not in private practice. He was a Navy doctor. You know, at the Naval Hospital San Diego? It became the Medical Center a short while later,” he adds.
But I want Dad to stick with his perfect Christmas story.
“I guess you got it, though,” I say, prodding him to tell me what happened.
“Not only did I get it,” Dad says, “but I also got the G.I. Joes that were on my list. Mercer, Red, Dog, and Taurus,” he says, still sounding impressed all these years later. “And on top of everything else, my grandparents gave me this really special toy called Talking Alf. ‘A.L.F.’ stood for ‘Alien Life Form.’ It was a hit TV series, see, and I just loved it. And Talking Alf was really expensive too. But oh, how I wanted that toy—because sometimes, I think I felt like an alien, too.”
My own dad felt like he didn’t blend in? Was it because he had brown skin?
Well, he still does.
I do not like talking to my dad about skin color, he is so prickly about it. But I also want to, at least a little. “Why?” I ask, my heart pounding. “Didn’t you have a very big community, either? Is that why you felt like an alien? Not that I’m complaining,” I add quickly.
“It was a much bigger community than ours is now, son,” Dad tells me, laughing and shaking his head at the same time. I can feel it in the dark. “Even if the African-American population was pretty small in San Diego back then. Some gang action had Pop-Pop pretty concerned, though. But no,” he continues. “I think I identified with Alf because my interests were so different from those of my friends. Good old science,” he explains, shrugging.
“But what did Talking Alf do that was so great?” I ask, trying to understand.
“He had a cassette player inside him, and you’d put a cassette in, and his mouth would move as he told you stories about outer space,” Dad says. “It was the latest cool thing, and I thought I could learn something from him.”
“What’s a cassette tape?” I ask, and Dad shakes his head again in the dark. “It’s kind of what CDs used to be. But never mind,” he says, like it’s too hard to explain. “The point is, for the first time in my life, I got everything I’d even dreamed of getting.”
“And you were so happy,” I say, finishing his story for him.
I’m smiling BIG in the dark.
“I was,” Dad agrees. “For about half an hour. And then, guess what?”
“What?” I ask, my eyes wide. “You woke up, and it was all a dream?”
“No. It was real, all right,” Dad says. “But I started worrying. What about the next year? And the year after that? Could Christmas ever be that perfect again?”
Now I’m the one who is shaking his head, picturing my worrywart nine-year-old father freaking out about his probably-not-perfect future. Who would’ve guessed?
“And you know what?” he asks, laughing. “I was right! Christmas never was that good again when I was a kid. But it turns out that’s okay. Each one was still fun, and I survived.”
“But—does that mean nothing’s ever perfect forever, or even easy, from start to finish?” I ask Dad. “Not even something built-in good, like Christmas?”
It sounds strange, but this is giving me an idea!
“It’s okay, though,” Dad says again. “That’s my point.”
“Then listen,” I tell him, excited. “Maybe we should always just go ahead and mess up some of the small stuff. You know, get it over with! And we’ve already done that this year—like when we brought home that crooked Charlie Brown Christmas tree Alfie felt sorry for. Or when you sat down on the box of ornaments after dinner tonight. Or when Alfie found out she accidentally put her Fuzzy Kitties DVD in the Elf box, and now Elf is lost forever.”
“Lost in the black hole that is Miss Alfie’s room,” Dad says, laughing. “And only the ghost of Talking Alf knows where it is, but he’s not saying. You may be onto something, son.”
“And then we could just give up early on Christmas being perfect, and relax,” I say, finishing my thought. “We can have a not
-so-perfect Christmas!”
“Now, that is some pretty cool thinking,” Dad says. “But there might still be a few mixed feelings about the holiday.”
“Yeah, but we’d expect them,” I explain. “We’d say, ‘Man, this is messed up, just like I thought it would be. Typical Christmas!’ And it would be funny.”
“Well, I know one thing for sure,” Dad says, sounding happy in the dark. “You and I are going camping in Anza-Borrego on the twenty-eighth, come what may. That’s just four more days. Our reservations are all set, buddy. And maybe this trip will give us a chance to find our feet again.”
Hmm, I think, WRIGGLING my toes. I already know where my feet are.
But I kind of understand what he means. “You used to camp there with Pop-Pop, didn’t you?” I ask. “When you were a kid?”
“Nearly every year, if we were lucky with the weather,” Dad says.
“You and I should mess things up ahead of time. On purpose, Dad,” I say, putting my new theory into action. “Just a little. You know, forget a ground cloth, or lose the marshmallows for the s’mores. Nothing huge,” I say. “Just enough so that it takes the pressure off us trying to have a perfect trip.”
“EllRay, you’re too much,” Dad says, reaching over in the dark to knuckle-rub my head, which, like I said before, is his version of a hug. “Do you realize how proud of you your mom and I are? And how much we love you?”
Oh, great, I think, ducking my head away from him and scowling at the wall next to my bed. That dumb assembly again. “But I keep telling you guys,” I say. “It was just an accident that I was the emcee. It wasn’t because I was like a special representative of the community, or anything. That would be too much for me.” I add, almost in a whisper.
It would be too much. For any kid.
“Well, you did a fine job, son,” Dad says. “But I wasn’t talking about the assembly or the community.”
“What else are you proud of me for?” I ask, turning partway back to him.
“Oh, a dozen things,” Dad says, laughing.
“Like what? Name three,” I say, whispering those last words.