The Manny Files

by Christian Burch

  Mom and Dad were still kissing on the sidewalk.

  · · ·

  I couldn’t concentrate on anything at school that day. During choir I fell off the back of the risers while we were singing “Bye, Bye Blackbird.” Mr. Strickland, our music teacher, made me sit aside and draw one hundred treble clefs on a piece of paper. He thought this was punishment, but I like drawing treble clefs. I think they’re fancy.

  During recess, while the other boys played kickball, I sat on top of the monkey bars with my friend Sarah. I used to play kickball, but I fell once and tore a hole in the elbow of the sweater that Grandma had knit for me from the pattern I had picked out. Now I play kickball only when I’m wearing India’s hand-me-downs.

  Sarah and I like to sit on top of the monkey bars and talk. Sarah says that our conversations reach a higher level up there. She also thinks that there are things more important than kickball. Like Hello Kitty and books. Sarah’s room is full of books. She’s the one who told me that I was named after a tragic poet who died from tuberculosis when he was twenty-five. I thought that was an awful story but Sarah said that it was “fantastical.” Sarah uses the word fantastical a lot. When she says it, she always lifts her hands and head with a quick snap like she just dismounted from a trapeze. I told her that the manny was going to spend the next few nights with us.

  Sarah said, “I bet he lets you have cake for breakfast.”

  “I bet he sleeps in cashmere,” I said. I had heard on National Public Radio that they fight over cashmere in Pakistan. I thought to myself that this might be the week that actually pushed Lulu over the edge and into a nervous breakdown.

  Fantastical.

  On the bus ride home India sat next to me. Lulu sat in front of us and let India put braids in her hair. Lulu thinks braids make her look artsy. I think they make her look like Pippi Longstocking without the fun socks.

  When we pulled up to our stop, I heard Lulu whimper. I scrambled over her and peered out the window to see the manny standing at the curb wearing a big sombrero on his head and carrying a portable stereo that was playing “Mexican Hat Dance.” Belly was standing next to him in a little Chihuahua costume. India and I jumped off of the bus and started dancing around the manny. Lulu sat on the bus and pretended that it wasn’t her stop.

  The manny yelled into the bus, “Hola, Lulu! Qué pasa?”

  She glared at him but grabbed her backpack and trudged off the bus, blowing air kisses to friends and holding her hand up to her ear like a telephone.

  “Call me,” she mouthed without a sound to her best friend, Margo.

  “Bye, darlin’,” said the bus driver. I couldn’t tell if she was talking to Lulu or to the manny.

  The bus drove away with all of our classmates’ hands and faces pressed against the windows, staring at us. Lulu walked ten feet in front of the rest of us all the way home.

  The manny sang, “‘There she was just a-walkin’ down the street, singin’ “Do wah diddy diddy dum diddy do.”’” She turned around and looked like she was going to scream, but instead she ran the rest of the way home. India and I laughed and made the manny teach us the whole song.

  When we got home, Lulu was already scribbling in “The Manny Files.” The manny made us a snack. Homemade tortilla chips and fresh guacamole. It was really good. He told me that he’d give me free meals next year when he was a chef in New York City at a restaurant called Lay Burning Down. India told me later that it was called Le Bernardin.

  Lulu closed her notebook and helped me with my cursive letters, while the manny and India had a multiplying contest. India won, but I think the manny let her win on purpose.

  We had tacos for dinner that night. The manny said that if we couldn’t go to Mexico, Mexico would have to come to us. After dinner we all brushed our teeth. I have an electric toothbrush that sends ultrasounds into your teeth and fights decay. I circled it in a catalog and Grandma got it for me for my birthday.

  When I unwrapped it, Grandma said, “Keats, I’m glad that you take pride in your smile. You know that beauty is only skin deep, but ugly is all the way through,” and then she laughed like a witch.

  Mom grumbled.

  When the flossing and brushing were complete, we went into our bedrooms and then ran right back out into the hall screaming with joy.

  “There’s a piñata hanging from my ceiling,” I shouted.

  “Mine too!” squealed India as she hugged herself and spun around in a circle.

  Belly just jumped up and down in her fake silk PRINCESSES OF DISNEYLAND nightgown.

  Lulu jumped up and down too but stopped when she saw that we had noticed.

  We all ran into one another’s rooms to see what was hanging from the ceiling. Lulu had a horse dangling from her ceiling. India had a butterfly. Belly had a pig. I had a big red-and-gold king’s crown. The girls picked up their old twirling batons and immediately began smashing their piñatas open. The manny held Belly up so she could reach. Tootsie Rolls, SweeTarts, and plastic gold coins came crashing down on them like confetti during the New Year’s celebration on television. The girls stashed the candy in their top drawers, underneath their underwear. Mine was too beautiful to hit. I climbed into bed and watched the light dance on the gold paper hanging from the crown. The manny stood outside our bedroom windows and serenaded us with “La Cucaracha” in a Spanish accent.

  Lulu yelled out the window that she was going to call the police.

  This worried me, so I ran to India’s room to ask her if the manny was doing something illegal. She told me that Lulu was only kidding and that the police couldn’t arrest the manny for singing in our yard unless he was drunk. I don’t think he was drunk. The margaritas that he made us were alcohol-free.

  On the way back to my room I decided that if Lulu drove the manny away, I would kidnap her favorite stuffed bunny and mail it back to her one piece at a time. An ear. A nose. A cotton tail.

  The next morning I woke up to the manny singing, “‘Schoolboy. Time to wake up and go to school so you can learn something so you can grow up and be somebody.’” He sounded like Frank Sinatra live at the Sahara. Uncle Max listens to Frank Sinatra in his Honda Accord. I sprang out of bed, got dressed, and ran to the kitchen. The manny was standing there in gray flannel pajamas and cashmere socks, flipping pancakes high into the air. Belly was next to him, in her pink tutu and no top, flipping American cheese slices in a Tupperware bowl.

  The manny had set the table, complete with a centerpiece of rulers and number two pencils sticking out of a silver mint julep cup. I poured milk into all of the glasses except for Belly’s. Belly is lactose intolerant. I think she’s just intolerable. That’s the word Ms. Grant uses when I ask to go to the bathroom too many times in one day.

  After I poured apple juice into Belly’s glass, the manny began serving our pancakes. Instead of bringing us perfectly round pancakes like Dad does, the manny served pancakes that were shaped like letters and animals. He used Dad’s coffee cream pitcher to pour the shapes. He kept closing one eye and holding up his thumb in front of his face like an artist. India called him Pablo Pancake-asso.

  Belly’s pancakes were shaped like rabbits and ducks. She quickly bit the heads off and laughed. Syrup dripped from the corners of her mouth like blood.

  India’s pancakes spelled her name.

  Mine were shaped in the life cycle of the frog, from tadpole to full-grown frog.

  Lulu screamed when she saw her pancakes. They spelled the word belch. She refused to eat them and demanded that the manny trade his pancakes with hers. His spelled the word hunk.

  I told the manny that the pancakes were incredible. Incredible is another one of Sarah’s words that she uses to describe things like movies, books, and ice cream flavors. The manny told me that when his cookbook comes out next year, the pancake recipe will be in it. The manny has a lot going on “next year.”

  We ate our pancakes and ran as fast as we could to the bus stop. India couldn’t wait to tell her friends about the
piñatas. Lulu said she was running to get away from the manny.

  As the bus pulled to the curb to pick us up, we heard the manny’s voice yelling, “Wait, you forgot your lunches!” We looked back to see him barreling toward the bus on my bike, which was much too small for him. He wobbled a little bit, and the lunch bags looked heavy hanging on the handlebars. Belly was right beside him on her Hot Wheels, wearing her ladybug helmet. The manny was still wearing his flannel pajamas and cashmere socks. He wasn’t wearing any shoes. He handed us the lunches he had packed in old shopping bags.

  Tiffany and Company. Barneys. Bergdorf Goodman.

  India said, “These seem really heavy. What’s in them?”

  The manny said, “You’ll have to wait until lunch to find out.”

  “See you after school, fool.” I smiled at the manny.

  “See ya round town, clown,” he said back to me.

  “Catch you on the down low,” said India.

  “See ya. Wouldn’t wanna be ya. If you were in the zoo, I wouldn’t free ya,” said Lulu without a smile. We got on the bus, and I walked too close to the back of Lulu. She hates it when people step on her heels.

  The bus doors closed behind us, and we scanned the aisles for some seats. The whole bus looked at us like we were a group of circus clowns at an orphanage. Everybody wanted me to sit with them. When the bus started to move, I glanced out the window. The manny was alongside the bus on my bike, leaning forward and gnashing his teeth, pretending to be racing with us. Lulu pulled out her three-ring binder and wrote it all down. I tried to peek over her shoulder to see what she was writing, but she covered it with her hand and said, “He’ll be gone by summer.”

  I looked at India, who scrunched up her face and shook her head no. She said, “Mom and Dad like him. Don’t worry about it.”

  But I can’t help it. I worry about everything. Asteroids hitting the earth. The deterioration of the ozone layer. Head lice.

  At lunchtime I walked into the cafeteria and searched the room for an empty seat. I walked by a boy named Craig. He put his hand down on the seat next to him and said that I couldn’t sit there. I didn’t want to sit there anyway. Craig is in my class and doesn’t like me. At the beginning of the school year he told me that my shoes were too clean. I told him that his shoes were too little. I thought it was a good comeback at the time, but he just laughed and kicked dirt on my shoes. Sarah helped me clean them off. She said he was a Neanderthal. India told me that a Neanderthal is a person with one big eyebrow instead of two and a hairy back. Dad’s a Neanderthal.

  When it’s my turn to kick in kickball, Craig always says, “He can’t kick. Everybody move closer.” The whole kickball game moves in closer. They move back out when it’s Sarah’s turn to kick.

  She can kick it over their heads.

  I spotted Sarah standing up and shaking her hands in the air like she was waving in an airplane. I went in for a landing on the orange stool next to hers. Sarah asked if I wanted a biscuit. It was really a cookie, but Sarah’s mom is from England, where they call cookies “biscuits,” moms “mums,” and toilets “loos.” I like going over to Sarah’s house because her mom always asks if I’d like a “spot of milk.” One time I drank way more than a spot and had to race to the loo. Sarah’s mom had hundreds of little perfume bottles on silver trays all over the bathroom counter. They looked like they had fallen out of a treasure chest. Blue, yellow, and orange liquids in the fanciest crystal bottles that I had ever seen. I picked up a little bottle that said TABU and misted my face with it. It stung my eyes and tasted like shampoo, but I didn’t care.

  When I walked back out into the kitchen, Sarah’s mom said, “Oh, my word. Somebody smells gorgeous.”

  I tried not to blush.

  I gladly took a biscuit from Sarah and reached into my Barneys lunch bag for something to trade with her. I pulled out a cheese and bacon sandwich (my favorite), a split-open pomegranate, a small bag of Gummy Bears, carrots, and a whole coconut, still in its shell. The coconut had a note written on it with black Sharpie. It said, BE INTERESTING. I think the manny put the coconut in my lunch to be funny. I looked across the cafeteria and spotted India. I held up the coconut and smiled. She held up a whole pineapple. Sarah wanted to trade for the coconut, even though she couldn’t eat it. She settled for the Gummy Bears.

  On the bus ride home Lulu documented more “misdeeds” into “The Manny Files.” He had sent a bottle of fish food in her lunch bag with a note that said, “Have fun in your school.” She turned to me and said, “I know you like him, but don’t you think that he might be a little mentally unbalanced?”

  “I think he’s interesting,” I said, holding the coconut in my lap.

  Just as I uttered those words, I glanced out the bus window and saw the manny and Belly wearing chauffeur hats and holding three poster board signs. Across each sign in big black capital letters were our names: LULU DALINGER. INDIA DALINGER. KEATS DALINGER. He was like a limousine driver picking up businessmen that he didn’t know from the airport. Lulu started a new page in “The Manny Files.”

  I Scotch-taped the sign with my name on it to my bedroom door.

  I put the coconut on my dresser.

  5

  All We Are Saying … Is Give Peas a Chance

  On one of the nights that the manny was staying with us, we had to take Belly to the emergency room. We have taken Belly to the emergency room once before, when she was a year and a half old, or eighteen months in baby age. It was before she could talk, or at least before we could understand her, and she wouldn’t stop crying. Mom tried rocking her, singing to her, giving her warm milk, and even putting her on top of the dryer. She said that Belly liked the noise and gentle shaking. I thought about suggesting inside the dryer but knew that it would be inappropriate with Mom so upset. I learned the word inappropriate when I stood up at school and told a knock-knock joke that I heard my uncle Max tell my dad. I didn’t understand the joke, but it had the word brassiere in it. I guess that my teacher understood it.

  When the dryer trick didn’t work, my dad called the hospital. We rushed Belly to the emergency room. Lulu and India were sobbing but stopped when they saw that the waiting room had old Highlights magazines. I had always dreamed of returning Belly to the hospital, but now that we were actually doing it, I was a little scared.

  I held her hand.

  The emergency-room doctor came into the room and said, “First let’s strip her down to her diaper.” He untied one shoe and then the other and took them off of her fat raisin feet. She immediately stopped crying.

  My mom and dad both looked at each other.

  “She stopped,” Mom said, relieved.

  “Why did she stop?” Dad asked the doctor.

  The doctor gave Mom and Dad an annoyed look and said, “I think her shoes were tied too tightly and were hurting her. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have lives to save.”

  I don’t remember if the doctor really said the last part, but that’s the way Lulu tells the story.

  That was the night we took Belly to the hospital for emergency shoe removal.

  This time was different. We had all finished our homework and were having dinner. The manny made India’s favorite: macaroni and cheese (spaghetti noodles for Belly), biscuits with honey, and peas. I was just finishing my macaroni and cheese. I eat the food I like worst first and the food I like best last. This way the last taste you have in your mouth is the best. Who wants to taste peas all night long? Tonight I started with peas, then biscuits, and finally macaroni and cheese. I was just about to get the decrumber so that I could clean the table for dessert, when the manny said, “Do you hear that whistling?”

  We all stopped talking. At first we could hear only Housman’s dog snores underneath the table. Then we heard a quiet whistle. We looked around and all at once figured out that the whistling was coming from Belly’s nose. She had shoved a pea up it and now it was stuck. We weren’t surprised that it took us so long to notice. Belly always has somethin
g green hanging out of her nose.

  Belly wasn’t upset at all. She didn’t even cry. Instead she said to the manny, “Are you mad at me?”

  The manny said, “No. Of course not, but why would you shove anything up your nose?”

  I started to say, “Lulu shoves her finger up hers,” but I didn’t.

  “Because I’m crazy,” said Belly. “Aren’t I crazy?”

  Belly gets away with everything just because she’s the youngest. When she painted the tail of our neighbor’s cat green, Mom just shook her head and said, “You’re so crazy.” When Belly put on Mom’s lipstick and practiced kissing the bathroom mirror, Dad just laughed and said, “You are one crazy baby.” Crazy is Belly’s favorite word. Now Belly always says this when she’s done something wrong and she doesn’t want to get into trouble. She is the youngest criminal ever to plead insane.

  The manny said that next year he was going to go to school to be a nurse, and he grabbed a toothpick and tried to get the pea out. Belly wouldn’t stop wiggling, so the manny said we’d have to go to the hospital. We left our uneaten portions of dinner on the table and loaded into the Volkswagen Eurovan to go to the emergency room. The manny asked Lulu and India to roll down their windows, stick out their heads, and make “woo-ooo” siren sounds. They did. I held my arms out of the sunroof and turned a flashlight on and off. The manny pretended to be talking on a CB radio. “We’re headed in with a pea that’s been attacked by a nostril. I’ve seen this before, but never quite this bad. It looks like the pea might need surgery, if it can be saved at all. It looks pretty smashed. The tragic part is that the rest of this poor pea’s family died earlier tonight.” Belly laughed. even though she probably didn’t understand it.

  When we arrived at the hospital, Lulu and India raced into the lobby and began flipping through Highlights magazines. They said things like, “Oh, I love this one,” and, “I hope we get to stay longer than we did last time.” It was like a homecoming. Lulu got bored with trying to find the hidden pictures and began writing in “The Manny Files.”