The Manny Files

by Christian Burch

  “That’s not what I mean,” said the manny. “I think you should make Fletcher want your attention instead of trying so desperately to get his. It’s called being unattainable. If you stop giving Fletcher attention, he’ll miss it. The next thing you know, you’ll be singing, ‘We go together, like rama, lama, lama, kadingy, kading-a-dong’”

  India and I giggled behind the closed door, and the manny and Lulu stopped talking.

  We sat really still until Lulu finally said, “That makes sense, except for the part about the song. How do you know so much about boys?”

  “It takes a lot of pain and learning to become this wise, Grasshopper,” the manny said, pretending to be the master in Kung Fu.

  It got quiet. I think Lulu gave the manny a hug. Either that or she smothered him with a pillow.

  The door opened, and the manny and Lulu, who was holding his hand, looked down at India and me sitting on the floor.

  “We were just having martinis,” I said, holding up my glass.

  Lulu pretended to be mad, but she still laughed.

  She took the manny’s advice and ignored Fletcher for the rest of the week.

  The night of the dance India let Lulu borrow one of her Mexican blouses. Lulu wore her new miniskirt, and Mom curled her hair and even let her wear lipstick. Lulu pouted her lips out, even though the lipstick was clear gloss. It just looked like she had on Chap Stick.

  Uncle Max and the manny came over to give Lulu a ride to the dance on their way to dinner. I think they were celebrating something, because they were both dressed in suits. I ran to my room to get pocket squares for each of them to wear in the front pocket of their suit coat. Red for the manny. Blue for Uncle Max. I’d gotten the pocket squares at Mr. Henley’s garage sale next door. A quarter apiece.

  The manny adjusted Uncle Max’s blue pocket square, then he licked his hand and patted down his cowlick.

  When Lulu walked down the stairs, the manny said, “You look beautiful.”

  “Tell me about it, stud,” said Lulu, pretending to be Olivia Newton-John in Grease.

  She did look pretty.

  As they were all walking out the door, Uncle Max said, “Lulu, be sure to call us if you need anything. A dance partner. An Altoid. More deodorant.”

  Lulu whirled around and yelled, “Whatever!”

  She hates the word deodorant.

  Dad, India, and I worked on a jigsaw puzzle and waited for Lulu to return home. Mom worked on giving Belly a bath.

  Lulu’s friend Margo and her mom brought Lulu home from the dance. Uncle Max and the manny had come back from their dinner and were at our house waiting to hear how the dance went. They were playing Scrabble.

  Lulu told them that she had had a great time and that she had mostly danced with all of her girlfriends. I asked her how they danced, and she said, “Like this,” and started jumping straight up and down.

  She told India that Fletcher had asked her if she was mad at him, because she didn’t talk to him anymore. She had said she didn’t know what he was talking about, and they had danced to a slow song. India made Lulu pretend that she was Fletcher and show her how they had danced. Lulu put her hands on India’s hips, and India had her hands on Lulu’s shoulders. They didn’t move their feet, only their shoulders. Back and forth. Back and forth.

  I thought, Maybe Lulu should’ve taken dance lessons all of these years instead of piano lessons.

  The manny said, “Time for all children to go to bed.”

  Lulu, India, and I walked toward our bedrooms. Belly had already been in bed for an hour and a half.

  The manny said, “Where are you going, Lulu? You need to stay out here with the adults and tell us more about the dance.”

  Lulu smiled at us. I could tell she was thinking, Ha, ha.

  “Totally unfair,” grumbled India as we pretended to go to bed. We really sat in the hallway and listened to Lulu’s stories about the dance.

  Margo had danced with a boy named D.J. They had played a Duran Duran song. Fletcher had burped in Lulu’s ear while they were dancing.

  That night Lulu officially dropped her lawsuit against the manny.

  She put memorandums on our doors the next morning.

  September 19

  I think Lulu wants the manny to stay in our family for a while. She said that the manny knew how to give boy advice better than Amanda.

  I can’t wait until I’m old enough to go to dances. I don’t want to dance with girls, though. I want to dance by myself, like I’m in a music video.

  Born on this day: Dr. Amy Whittington, Sir William Golding, Adam West

  32

  D-i-g-n-i-d-y

  The day after Lulu’s dance I sat on the top of the monkey bars with Sarah during morning recess. I told her all of Lulu’s dance stories. Sarah played with a yellow cottonwood leaf while I talked. I was just getting ready to tell her about Fletcher burping in Lulu’s ear when a kickball hit me in the side of the head.

  “Sorry” said Craig, but I don’t think it was an accident.

  He ran underneath the monkey bars, and just then Sarah’s shoe flew off and hit him in the head.

  “Sorry” said Sarah, but I don’t think that was an accident either.

  Craig rubbed his head and started to say something, when Mrs. House blew her whistle, which was our signal to line up to go inside. We hopped down, and Sarah put her shoe back on and winked at me.

  When we got inside, Mrs. House reminded us that it was time for the spell-off to see who would represent our classroom in the all-school spelling bee. Lulu was in the spelling bee every year that she was in the elementary school, but she always got out in the first round. She always got words like nauseous and discharge. She couldn’t spell them because she was gagging.

  We all stood up at our desks, and Mrs. House went around the room giving us words to spell. If we misspelled them, we were out and we had to sit down. Craig was the first one out. He misspelled manners. He spelled it with one n. I bet he could have spelled correctional facility right.

  We went around the room six times. My classmates were slowly eliminated and sat down at their desks. Sarah misspelled psychedelic. Elizabeth misspelled precious. Scotty misspelled coupon.

  After seven rounds it was down to Sarah’s friend Sage and me.

  Mrs. House said, “Sage, your word is dignity.”

  Sage started to spell. “D-i-g-n-i-d-y. Dignity.”

  “Nope. I’m sorry, Sage. Keats, your word is dignity.”

  I spelled, “D-i-g-n-i-t-y. Dignity.”

  “That’s correct, Keats. If you spell this next word correctly, you will represent our classroom at the all-school spelling bee on Friday. The word is fantastic.”

  I spelled it without even thinking. “F-a-n-t-a-s-t-i-c. Fantastic.”

  “Correct!” exclaimed Mrs. House.

  The class cheered, except for Craig. He frowned at me.

  September 20

  I think if I do well in the all-school spelling bee, Mrs. House will finally stop introducing me to the other teachers as Lulu’s little brother. Maybe she’ll even put my picture up on her bulletin board or tell her class next year all about me. Maybe she’ll have Belly in her class someday and she’ll call her Keats’s little sister.

  The manny picked me up from school today. While I was waiting for him, Craig was throwing gravel from the playground up in the air. He pretended that it was an accident whenever the gravel landed on me like rain. It hurt, but I didn’t cry. I think the manny saw us, because when I got into the car, he asked if everything was okay. I told him that Craig and I were just playing. I don’t want the manny to think I get picked on. I want him to think that I’m cool.

  Born on this day: Sister Kenny, Ferdinand “Jelly Roll” Morton, Dr. Joyce Brothers

  33

  Skeet, Skeet, Skeet!

  For the next week the manny picked out words from the dictionary to quiz me with.

  Elegant. Chivalry. Flamboyant.

  He picked the words
that he liked.

  When the manny was gone, Dad picked out words from the dictionary to quiz me with.

  Portfolio. Dividends. Protocol.

  He picked the words that he liked.

  By the morning of the spelling bee, I knew how to spell everything from adversity to zenith.

  I dressed in my loafers, blue jeans, and blue-and-white pin-striped button-down shirt and rolled up my sleeves. I slipped my navy sweater vest over it to make me look more serious. India spiked my hair. She said that I needed to look serious and playful, that’s how the successful people look.

  Donald Trump. Bill Gates. Ellen DeGeneres.

  Mom, Dad, Uncle Max, and the manny came to watch the spelling bee. They sat in the third row. The manny had GO KEATS written on his forehead in green Magic Marker, like he was at a football game. Kids from class recognized him from my school birthday party and pointed at him. Ms. Grant waved to him and smiled without showing her teeth, the kind of smile where you scrunch up your cheeks and smile with your eyes instead of your mouth.

  The finalist from each classroom sat in a row of chairs that faced the student-filled bleachers. It was like we were the leaders of Spelling Congress. Mr. Alien, our principal, was the emcee. He straightened his toupee and introduced each one of us by our name and our classroom teacher.

  Then we began.

  Sophie, one of the first-grade representatives, was the first to spell. She missed her word, trophy. I expected her to cry, but she laughed and skipped into the bleachers and hugged her mother. That’s what I wanted to do. If I missed my word, I wasn’t going to cry. I was going to shrug my shoulders, hold my head up high, and go sit with my family. I hoped.

  When it was my turn, I stood up so fast that my chair fell backward and slammed against the floor. The entire audience flinched like it was a gunshot, and then they started to giggle and laugh. Not a good start.

  As I stepped up to the microphone, something came flying out of the crowd and landed right in front of Mr. Alien and me. It was my Scooby Doo underwear. The ones that had been missing since Craig stole them from the swimming pool locker room last May. The kids started laughing, and you could hear the rumble of moving feet in the bleachers. They sounded like the people in the movies who are at a town meeting and the mayor says something shocking about how the children are in danger of becoming delinquents.

  I looked up into the crowd and saw Craig grinning with narrow eyes like the Wicked Witch of the West. I wanted to throw water on him and watch him melt into the ground. My ears burned and I could tell they were red. My nostrils flared like they do when I’m trying not to cry. I couldn’t cry. It was one thing to cry behind a Dumpster, but to cry into a microphone in front of the whole school would make it impossible for me ever to come to school again. I thought about what the manny had told me about how to handle things like this.

  I said into the microphone, “Wow. I didn’t know I had such a fan base. This must be how the Rolling Stones feel.”

  The teachers and parents all rumbled with laughter. The kids looked confused, except Craig. He looked annoyed.

  The manny gave me a thumbs-up sign. He crept down from the bleachers, grabbed my Scooby Doo underwear off the floor, and shoved them into his pocket. He returned to his seat next to Uncle Max.

  Mr. Allen turned to me and said, “Your word is magnificent.”

  “Magnificent. M-a-g-n-i-f-i-c-e-n-t. Magnificent.”

  “Correct,” said Mr. Alien, and the crowd cheered.

  I went back to my seat and felt pleased with myself. So that’s how Lulu felt.

  The spelling bee went on for two hours. Kids sat down as they missed their words: incorrect, anticlimax, disqualify. I spelled all of my words correctly: intense, prepared, prodigy.

  The last two people in the spelling bee were a fifth grader named Kyle and me.

  Kyle stepped up to the microphone, and his class chanted for him. “Kyle, Kyle, Kyle!”

  Mr. Allen gave him the word harmonious to spell.

  Kyle accidentally spelled it-eous instead of-ious.

  Kyle’s class sighed in disappointment. He sat down in his chair, and I could tell from his face that he was chanting in his head, Miss it. Miss it. Miss it. If I misspelled the word, he still had a chance to win.

  I stepped up to the microphone. Mr. Allen said, “Keats. The word is harmonious.”

  Harmonious. H-a-r-m-o-n-i-o-u-s Harmonious.”

  “Correct,” said Mr. Alien as Kyle put his head in his hands. Mr. Alien went on, “If you spell this final word correctly, you will be our spelling-bee champion.” My class chanted my name. “Keats, Keats, Keats!” Only it sounded like, “Skeet, Skeet, Skeet!” I really had to pee. I looked at the manny, and he mouthed, “You can do it,” just like he had said at the swimming pool when I jumped off the high dive. I imagined Grandma chanting with them.

  “Keats, Keats, Keats!”

  Mr. Allen quieted the crowd and said, “Your word is interesting.”

  I didn’t even have to think about it. I had read it every day on my coconut.

  “Interesting. I-n-t-e-r-e-s-t-i-n-g. Interesting.”

  “Correct,” said Mr. Allen. “Ladies and gentlemen, our new spelling bee champion.”

  He grabbed my arm and held it above my head like I had just won a boxing match against Oscar de la Hoya. The overflowing bleachers gave me a standing ovation, and the back of my neck tickled.

  Mom, Dad, Uncle Max, and the manny congratulated me while the kids filed back toward their classrooms for the rest of the school day. A man from the newspaper took my picture and interviewed me for next Wednesday’s paper.

  Mom asked what I’d like for dinner that night, and then she and Dad left. They had to go back to work. The manny and Uncle Max walked me back to my classroom. The manny didn’t walk. He did cartwheels, but he stopped when he heard Mr. Allen coming around the corner. We laughed after Mr. Allen had passed us because the manny had said, “Hello, sir,” like he hadn’t been doing anything unusual.

  Uncle Max said good-bye, and the manny gave me a high five. I could still hear them laughing as I went into my classroom, until my class started cheering for me when I walked through the door. Mrs. House and the kids had a party for me, complete with cake and punch. The kids in my class excitedly told their version of the spelling bee.

  “I got so nervous when the chair flew out from underneath you. I thought for sure you were too jittery to spell,” said Sarah.

  “I knew you were going to win the whole time,” said Scotty.

  Craig didn’t say anything. He just sat at his desk and ate cake while the other kids swarmed around me like bees.

  At recess that afternoon I saw Craig walk over behind the Dumpster. I jumped down from the monkey bars and followed him because I thought that he might be writing something mean next to my name.

  When I got there, Craig was crying.

  He saw that I was standing there, and yelled at me.

  “Get out of here, spelling nerd. If you tell anyone, I’ll smack you.”

  He put his face right into mine and pushed his chin out as a threat.

  I reached into my front pocket and pulled out a Sharpie. I always carry a Sharpie because you never know when you might need one.

  “Here. If you want to sign your name on the Dumpster.” I smiled at him. He took the pen, and I said, “Okay. Bye.”

  I ran back over to join Sarah, Scotty, and my other friends on top of the monkey bars. I didn’t tell any of them that I had seen Craig crying behind the Dumpster. Not even Sarah.

  Craig didn’t say a word to me the rest of the day.

  After school, on my way to the bus, I stopped by the Dumpster to see if Craig had written anything by my name. He had. Written right next to KEATS DALINGER was CRAIG PRICE.

  I got on the bus.

  “Congratulations on the spellin’ bee, darlin’,” said the bus driver.

  Darlin’. D-a-r-l-i-n-apostrophe. Darlin’.

  September 28

 
I won the all-school spelling bee. I heard Mrs. House talking to one of the other teachers in the hallway about me, but she didn’t know I was listening. She said that this was the first time a student from her classroom had won. India walked by them, and Mrs. House said, “Are you proud of your brother?” Mrs. House turned to the other teacher and said, “That’s Keats’s big sister.”

  I saw Craig crying in my secret spot. He didn’t tell me what he was crying about. The manny said that he might have been crying because he wished he had won the spelling bee. Or maybe he had had a fight with his mother. Or his dog died. He said people cry for all sorts of reasons. Sometimes you just can’t hold it in anymore.

  Born on this day: Brigitte Bardot, Ed Sullivan, Hilary Duff

  34

  Let’s Get Out of Here, Scoob

  For Halloween this year I wanted to be something spectacular. Spectacular is another word that Sarah likes to use with magical hand motions. She usually says it when I ask her about her vacations.

  “How was your trip to Venice?”

  “Spectacular. They have the most unbelievable pigeons there.”

  “How was your visit to your cousins’ house in Wisconsin?”

  “Spectacular. There weren’t any mosquitoes.”

  “How was the airplane ride?”

  “Dreadful.”

  She likes the word dreadful, too.

  This Halloween, Sarah dressed up as the Eiffel Tower. She and her mom went to Paris for summer vacation and to visit Sarah’s mom’s college roommate. Sarah’s been talking about the Eiffel Tower ever since. She says that the lights on it at night are spectacular. She built a miniature Eiffel Tower out of cardboard and white Christmas lights. She wore it so that she was inside the tower and all you could see were her legs and her arms hanging out. She said that I should go as the Leaning Tower of Pisa, but I didn’t want to walk around leaning sideways all night.

  Instead I dressed up as Scooby Doo. He’s my favorite cartoon character, as you might remember from the underwear incident. I learned what an incident was last year from Ms. Grant. We had to draw a poster for National Dental Month. I took my poster board home, and India drew a picture of a tooth sitting in a dentist’s chair with a gas mask on. She wrote the words A BRUSH WITH SUCCESS at the top. I colored it.