The Manny Files

by Christian Burch

  Ms. Grant flipped her hair like she was one of Charlie’s Angels and asked the manny if he wanted to stay and help with the party. The manny sat in a desk that was way too small for him. It was one of those desks that had the chair attached to it, so he couldn’t scoot the chair out. He squeezed lemons on the Dutch babies and covered them with powdered sugar and strawberries while the kids sang to me.

  “Happy birthday to you.

  Cha-cha-cha,

  Happy birthday to you.

  Cha-cha-cha,

  Happy birthday, dear Keats,

  Happy birthday to you.

  Cha-cha-cha.”

  Then Sarah sang, “And many more on channel four, Scooby Doo on channel two, naked lady on channel eighty.”

  Everybody laughed. Ms. Grant wasn’t going to until she saw the manny laughing.

  Then Scotty sang, “This is your birthday song, it isn’t very long, hey!”

  “All right, y’all, that’s enough,” said Ms. Grant. “Remember, nobody gets to take a bite until the birthday boy takes one first. Keats, do you want to have your friend help you?”

  She pointed to the manny.

  The manny stood up and started walking with the whole desk and chair attached to his bottom.

  The kids all laughed.

  “Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.”

  He removed the desk and followed me, holding the plate while I passed out Dutch babies to my classmates.

  “What are those?” asked Craig.

  “Dutch babies,” I said.

  “Oooh! I’m not eating any babies,” said Craig.

  The manny said, “Don’t worry. There aren’t any bones, and we removed the eyes.”

  The kids all laughed again, and I put a Dutch baby on Craig’s napkin.

  When I was just about finished passing out the treats, I looked over at Craig. He had powdered sugar on his lips and he was leaned over so that his elbow covered his Dutch baby. He looked like he’d been kissing the chalkboard.

  I didn’t even care that he hadn’t waited for me to have the first bite.

  He liked them and I knew it.

  The manny gave me a high five and said, “I’ll be back to pick up you. Lulu, and India after school.”

  He even gave Ms. Grant a high five and said, “Catch you on the down low.”

  All the kids laughed. Even Craig.

  We spent the rest of the day spraying cleaner on our desks and organizing Ms. Grant’s storage closet. There was a whole shelf full of Lulu’s old projects. I accidentally stepped on one when it fell on the floor. I “accidentally” threw it in the trash, too.

  When the bell was about to ring, you could hear every classroom in the building counting down.

  “Five, four, three, two, one. Wooohoooo!”

  It was so loud that Ms. Grant had to cover her ears. Ms. Grant doesn’t like it when people are loud. At an assembly once I was talking when I wasn’t supposed to be. I was sitting by Sarah and asked her where her mother got her Tabu perfume, because I wanted to get some for Grandma.

  “Shhhhhh!” Ms. Grant said.

  She did it so loud I thought she was going to start flying around the room like a balloon does when it isn’t tied in a knot and you let go of it.

  It made me laugh out loud to think of Ms. Grant flying around the auditorium.

  I had to stay after class and clean the Lulu shelf in the closet.

  Today Ms. Grant didn’t make anybody stay after school. In fact, she ran faster than I’ve ever seen her move to get to the classroom door. She stood there and said good-bye to each of us as we left, like she was an airline stewardess and we had all been guests on a yearlong flight. I gathered my things and said good-bye to Ms. Grant, and then I raced to meet India at her classroom. We walked out of the school until next fall.

  The manny was parked right in front of the school. He had a long black wig on his head and black circles painted under his eyes. He kept sticking his tongue out. The Volkswagen Eurovan had a song blasting out of it.

  “School’s out for summer.

  School’s out forever.”

  The manny said that the song was by Alice Cooper, a famous rock star from the seventies who dressed in tight clothes and looked like he never slept.

  I’ve never heard of a boy named Alice, but he sounds like a vampire and he screams more than he sings.

  When we climbed into the van, Lulu was already inside lying flat on the floor.

  “Close the door before anybody sees me!” she screeched in horror.

  HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KEATS was written all over the windows in shoe polish, and there were cans hanging off the back like somebody had just gotten married. Kids stopped to read the windows.

  “What’s up, homeslice?” the manny asked, and handed me a pair of sunglasses to put on. He handed India a pair too.

  We drove away from the school.

  Everybody waved to us.

  14

  You’re Starting to Look Old

  I ran into the house to tell Mom and Dad that the Dutch babies were a big hit and that next year I wanted to take foie gras and toast tips. Foie gras is duck liver. My dad bet me five dollars that I wouldn’t eat it, so I did. I liked it. It tasted like buttery, mushy bologna. I had foie gras at the fancy restaurant where the guy who seats you looks you up and down when you walk in. He starts with your shoes, then slowly scans up to the top of your head and then back down to your shoes again.

  I always wear my bow tie.

  I think that’s why we always get a good table.

  As soon as I reached the living room, Grandma yelled out, “Bon voyage!”

  She must have just taken her pills.

  The living room was draped from floor to ceiling in red streamers and balloons, with a WELCOME TO KEATSTOCK, DON’T EAT THE GREEN M&M’S sign taped to the wall. It looked like the stage of the Democratic National Convention when the presidential candidate is announced. I saw it on television last year. A man wearing a dark suit and blue tie danced like Frankenstein to “We are family, I got all my sisters with me.” His wife, who wore a red dress and looked like someone in a teeth-whitening commercial, danced and waved to the audience while she swung her daughter’s arms in the air. India said that this was why politics and entertainment should never mix.

  Grandma’s bed was covered with balloons and streamers. She looked like she was riding on a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade float. She even waved with an elbow, elbow, wrist, wrist. The same way the Rockettes do it in the parade. Whenever the Rockettes come on in the parade, Mom, Dad, India, and Uncle Max join arms and kick their legs in unison in front of the television.

  Uncle Max can kick pretty high. One time he kicked a lamp off of Mom’s desk. I would’ve grounded him, but Mom just laughed.

  I got to choose what we had for dinner that night. Fish sticks, mashed potatoes, and spinach. I’ve liked spinach ever since I saw Popeye eat it on television when I was two years old. I used to sing, “I’m Popeye the sailor man, I live in a garbage can, I love to go swimmin’ with bald-headed women, I’m Popeye the sailor man. Toot, toot.”

  I just learned last year that I have been singing it all wrong.

  After dinner Mom brought in a cherry cheesecake with nine candles on it. Cherry cheesecake is my favorite. Grandma used to make it for me, but this year she gave Mom her recipe so that she could make it.

  I blew out the candles and made a secret wish.

  Everybody cheered, and I started to open my presents. The first present was from Mom and Dad. It was a clothes valet. It was made of oak and had a place to hang your shirt and jacket and your pants, and even a wooden dish on top to keep cuff links, watches, and pocket change in.

  Mom and Dad got me a clothes valet because every night before school, I lay out my clothes. I pick out underwear, socks, shoes, pants, a shirt, and a sweater and lay them in the middle of my room. Every time Dad walks by my room, he’s startled because my clothes are lying in the middle of my floor like a body, only flat on the floor, like a bo
dy doing the yoga corpse position. We did yoga last spring in PE. I was the only one who could do the tree position. The next week we played basketball. I scored a basket, but it was accidentally for the other team. Everyone forgot how good I was at yoga.

  Dad said, “Now you can hang your clothes up and I won’t call 911 every time I walk by your room.”

  He’s so dramatic. I heard Mom call him dramatic once.

  Lulu, India, and Belly gave me a grown-up watch with a black leather braided band. Instead of numbers the face of the watch had Roman numerals. I didn’t know how to read it, so when anybody asked me what time it was, I’d write it down on paper. “I:VI” meant one thirty. “VII:IV” meant seven twenty. “XX till X” meant twenty till ten.

  I kept the watch in the wooden bowl on top of my clothes valet.

  Uncle Max had wrapped up one of his paintings for me to have. It was bigger than our television. He had used thick black paint as a background and had painted two angel wings on it. The wings had some real white feathers glued into them. His card said, “Use your wings to fly away, then use them again to come back.”

  I opened Grandma’s gift next. It was her canasta jar full of dollar bills.

  Grandma’s pills kicked in: “I thought you could use the money to buy some car insurance.”

  I counted it later. There were twenty-seven one-dollar bills in it. A few weeks later I asked the manny to take me to Saks Fifth Avenue to spend my new money. I bought a pair of red cashmere socks. I thought the money would have gone further than that. The manny pulled out his American Express and bought a matching pair of socks for himself and a pair for Grandma’s cold feet.

  “Plastic goes a lot further than cash,” he said, signing his receipt.

  The last gift that I opened was wrapped in bright red wrapping paper and was tied in white ribbon. The card said, “To: Keats. You’re starting to look old. I love you. The manny.”

  I tore off the wrapping paper and saw a red Saks Fifth Avenue box. I carefully opened the box because I wanted to save it to keep pictures in.

  Inside the box was a silver money clip with my initials engraved on it.

  “That’s so your money doesn’t get mixed up with your pocket trash,” said the manny, smiling.

  I hugged and kissed everyone and thanked them for the gifts. Uncle Max and the manny left in the same car. They were going to a late movie.

  The manny said, “See ya round town, clown,” and they left.

  I ran to my room and hung my clothes for the next day on my new valet. I put the cards from Uncle Max and the manny in the Saks Fifth Avenue box and put it in the top drawer of my dresser. I took out the dollar bills from the jar of money that Grandma had given me. I folded them neatly and placed them in the silver money clip.

  At bedtime I turned out all the lights in my room except for the reading lamp by my bed.

  I began to write in my journal.

  June 1

  I had the best birthday. Sarah told me that there are ten people in her Keats Is a Cool Kid club. Craig told me that he thought he had food poisoning from my Dutch babies. Scotty said it was probably from chewing on his dirty fingernails. During our last recess of the school year I went to my secret crying spot behind the Dumpster. I didn’t cry. Instead I wrote my name with a pen on the edge at the bottom of the Dumpster.

  Tonight when I blew out the candles, I wished that the manny could be part of my family forever, like Uncle Max.

  Born on this day: Keats Dalinger

  15

  I’m Melting, I’m Melting

  The summer light shines through the window and in on Grandma every evening. It reflects off her metal bed and makes little dancing lights across the ceiling. The sun makes her face look like she had a makeup artist prepare her for a Vanity Fair photo shoot. Vanity Fair is a glossy magazine that has full-page photos of movie stars and politicians. Mom bought a subscription to Vanity Fair over the telephone. She told me that 12 percent of her money went to help the Special Olympics. We go to cheer at the Special Olympics every year. Sarah’s cousin Roger competed in the hurdles last year. He got second to last, but he jumped up and down and celebrated like he had gotten first.

  Grandma closes her eyes and smiles until the sun is completely gone. She plays Puccini on the CD player, and Belly always climbs up onto the pillow next to her and watches the lights dance across the ceiling. It makes you forget that Grandma is lying in a hospital bed and has cold feet.

  Grandma always sings a song about froggies going to school to Belly. Belly stares at her mouth and touches Grandma’s lip with her finger while she sings.

  “‘Twenty froggies went to school….’”

  When I was Belly’s age. Grandma used to babysit me. She’d put an afghan around me that smelled like she did, like Estee Lauder perfume and freshly cut grass. She’d rock me back and forth in her chair and sing my favorite song, “Little Joe the Wrangler.” It’s about a little cowboy who ends up getting crushed by his horse.

  I’m not sure why I liked it so much, but when she finished singing it, I’d say, “Sing it again. Grandma.”

  She usually had to sing it five or six times before I would fall asleep. I heard her singing it to Belly the other day.

  Grandma doesn’t let Dad close the curtains until it is pitch-black outside.

  “I don’t want to miss anything,” she says to Dad.

  Grandma says that summer is her favorite time of year. She used to have a flower garden that was full of peonies, roses, and lavender. It was in her garden where Grandma taught me how to use the bathroom outside. I was three years old, and she said that anytime I was in her garden and had to go, I should just stop where I was and pee. I peed on her peonies. I peed on her tulips. I peed in her birdbath. Then Grandma told me that she preferred it if I just peed in the dirt. I liked to go to the bathroom outside better than I did inside. Whenever I was watching television with India and had to use the restroom, I’d run outside and go off the back porch, instead of running down the hall to the toilet. This ended when Mom took me to the flower shop and I got confused. I thought I was outside and ended up peeing in a vase of calla lilies.

  Mom has never been back to that store.

  Grandma misses her garden. She talks about it all the time. Uncle Max brought over all her old gardening books and photographs of her gardens from many years ago. In one of them she’s standing next to a huge yellow rosebush. Mom is standing next to her. Mom looks like Belly, except her hair is brushed, there isn’t dirt on her face, and she’s wearing a shirt. Grandma looks like Mom does now, like she smells like tea and sandalwood.

  One day the manny said he was going to take us to the nursery.

  “We’re a little old for the nursery, aren’t we?” I asked, trying to talk the way that Lulu does.

  “Not a baby nursery, dodo,” said Lulu. “A plant nursery.”

  “I know. I was just joking,” I said.

  But I wasn’t.

  The manny had come up with a brilliant plan, or at least that’s what Dad said. We were going to transform the backyard into a beautiful flower garden for Grandma to look out of her window at. Even Lulu liked the idea, but she said that she had thought of it first, she just hadn’t said it out loud.

  Right now the backyard has our old rusted swing set and a big tractor-tire sandbox in it. We can’t play in the sandbox because all the neighborhood cats use it as a communal litter box. We discovered this when Belly came into the house one afternoon smelling like cat poop. Mom made her take a bath for an hour and then cleaned the tub with Clorox when she was done.

  At the nursery the manny let us pick out flats of flowers and a huge pot to take care of as our very own. Lulu picked something called chocolate cosmos because they smelled like and were the same color as chocolate. India picked daisies. She said that daisies were like “sunshine growing out of the dirt.” Belly picked out yellow marigolds. I thought they were ugly, but they ended up living longer than any of the other flowers. I picked petuni
as. I hate the name, but I think that they are very pretty. They are Mom’s favorite, too.

  When we were finished picking out our own flowers, we walked through the aisles choosing flowers and plants for Grandma’s garden. We picked lilies, a hydrangea, lavender, peonies, rosemary, mint, and a rosebush with yellow roses. The manny held up a bunch of hollyhock plants behind him like a peacock tail and cawed at the top of his lungs. The other shoppers moved to a different aisle and made sure their children were close to them.

  The cashier rang it all up, and the manny used Uncle Max’s credit card to pay for it. Uncle Max had sold a painting and wanted to be a part of our Grandma’s Garden Surprise plan. He couldn’t come with us, so he gave the manny his credit card. I watched how well the manny wrote Uncle Max’s signature. He had beautiful handwriting. I bet the manny probably had to spend a lot of time after school writing sentences.

  We left the nursery and went down to the riverbank, where we looked for rocks to line the flower beds with. Lulu decided that she was in charge of inspecting the rocks that we found. She said that we needed big, smooth rocks that were all around the same size. She said no to every rock that I picked out. The manny threw a rock into the river, which splashed Lulu. He pretended that it was an accident, but I think he did it on purpose, because after he did it, he said, “I’m melting, I’m melting,’” like the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz.

  Lulu quickly snapped back, “‘I’ll get you, my pretty.’”

  Then she looked at me. “‘And your little dog, too.’”

  I laughed, but I don’t think she really meant it as a joke, because she was grumbling after she said it. If she were a cartoon, there would have been a bubble coming out of her mouth with exclamation marks, question marks, and other bad-word marks. I wish she were a cartoon. I’d erase her so the manny would want to stay forever.

  I stopped trying to find round, smooth rocks and started to look for rocks that were shaped like different states. I have a collection of twenty-four state-shaped rocks. I even have the Hawaiian Islands.