Charlie Joe Jackson's Guide to Not Growing Up (5 page)

“Huh?” I had a sudden flashback to the last time I snuck away from someone giving a speech. It was at the New York Public Library during Camp Rituhbukkee Reunion Weekend, and it didn't end well at all.

“Come on!” Teddy urged. “This house is sweet. Let's give ourselves a tour.”

“I've been inside lots of times,” I told Teddy. He obviously thought that was a pretty weak argument, because he took off toward the house.

Meanwhile, Eliza Collins was raising her hand. “My goal is to become head cheerleader,” she said, “while also starting a club that raises money for the endangered species of the world, such as the black-footed ferret.”

That was all I needed to hear. I snuck out of the circle and caught up to Teddy just as he was opening the door of the screen porch.

“You know what my goal for high school is?” he said. “To not get arrested.”

And with that, we entered the house.

 

5

12:51 pm

It turned out
that I had nothing to worry about: Teddy wasn't interested in ransacking Jake's house and looking for valuable items to stuff down his pants.

Instead, he just wanted to park himself in the living room, gorge on Doritos, and talk about what a bunch of losers everyone in Eastport was.

“I don't know, man,” he said. “The people here are just so wrapped up in like, being the best, and getting ahead, and doing better than the next guy. It's wack.”

“Not everyone,” I told Teddy. “Jake's mom is a little crazy for sure, but most people are pretty cool.”

Teddy put his feet up on a table I'm pretty sure was not supposed to have feet on it. “Yeah, whatever you need to tell yourself. You heard those kids out there, right? They've all got a plan. Everybody has a plan. Everybody's in a hurry. What's the rush, I say? Why can't everyone just relax?” He picked a piece of dirt off his thigh and flicked it toward a garbage can. It missed by about five feet. “Well, Wacko Jacko? Am I right or what?”

“Today's my birthday,” I said, which wasn't exactly the answer to his question.

“No way!” Teddy leaped out of his seat and came over to give me a never-ending noogie. “Happy birthday, dude!”

“Thanks,” I said. “Should we go back outside?”

Teddy shook his head dramatically, his wet hair spraying water all over the room. “Not yet. Let's wait for a minute, to make sure that everyone had a chance to say what they're going to be awesome at in high school.”

“That makes sense.”

Teddy and I sat quietly for a minute.

“Man, these dudes got a lot of books,” he said, staring at the wall.

“Yup,” I said. He was stating the obvious—the whole room had bookshelves that stretched from floor to ceiling, and they were completely crammed. As I looked around, I realized I'd never sat in their living room before. I'd barely ever sat in
my
living room before. Which makes sense. As far as I know, absolutely no living of any kind is ever done in
anyone's
living room.

I was absent-mindedly looking around at the shelves when I suddenly saw a group of books that looked oddly familiar. The yellow covers … The red letters … Wait a second!

I got up to take a closer look.

Yup … that was them.

The Complete Works Of Mark Twain
.

“Holy smokes,” I said. “I can't believe it.”

Teddy, who was picking his fingernails with his shoelaces, looked up. “Can't believe what?”

“These used to be my books,” I told him. “I got them for my sixth birthday. But I threw a massive tantrum because I thought it was a terrible present, and so my parents gave them to Jake.”

I picked one up.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
. It looked like it had been read a zillion times.

“So they're your books?” Teddy asked.

“Not exactly. Not anymore, anyway.”

He came over to the bookshelf and started running his finger over the books. “I was never much of a reader,” he said.

I nodded. “I'm right there with you.”

“But I still think it was wrong for your parents to give them away,” Teddy said. “I mean, after all, what if some day you have kids of your own, and they turn into big readers, and you wanted to give them the books that were given to you when you were a kid?” He plucked one off the shelf and examined it. “They'd probably be worth a lot of money by then, too.”

“I suppose.”

Teddy turned and looked at me. “Let's take them back.”

“Huh?”

He pointed his finger at the bookshelf and started counting. “What do we got, about ten books here? Let's take them back. They'll never know.”

“What do you mean, they'll never know?” I took a quick glance into the kitchen, where the catering people were getting ready to bring out more food. “We can't just steal stuff. That's like, illegal.”

“Okay, fine,” Teddy said, clearly disappointed in my lack of criminality. “Then let's just move them somewhere.”

I was confused. “Move them somewhere?”

“Yeah, like hide them.”

“Huh? Hide them where? What for?”

“Look,” Teddy said, pointing. “See how every book here is arranged by alphabetical order?” He was right. Mark Twain was right between William Styron (I had no idea who that was) and John Updike (ditto).

“So what? You think they'll care if a few books are out of place?”

Teddy snorted. “Have you met Mrs. Katz?”

I looked out the window and saw her rearranging the silverware on one of the picnic tables.

“I still don't get the point, though.”

“Just to have a little fun,” Teddy said, starting to pull the Twain books down from the shelf. “You remember fun, don't you? That thing we used to have, before everyone started thinking about annoying stuff, like the future?”

I thought about what Teddy said. What he wanted to do was stupid, silly, and pointless. But since when had that ever stopped me before?

“Okay, fine.”

We started pulling the books down from the shelf, and we each had a bunch of books stuffed in our arms when I heard a soft little bark behind me. I turned around to see Elmer, the Katz's cockapoo, checking us out.

“Oh, hey Elmer,” I said, suddenly feeling guilty. Elmer and I were good pals. What if he could tell what we were up to?

“Charlie Joe? Charlie Joe? CHARLIE JOE!”

“What?” I turned around to see Teddy standing there, white as a ghost. He pointed at Elmer, who was happily wagging his tail.

“What?” I said again.

“I … don't … like … dogs,” stammered Teddy.

Translation: He was scared to death of them.

“Oh,” I said. I was just about to say
cockapoos are the least scary-looking dogs in the whole world, and Elmer's the nicest dog ever, if you don't count Moose and Coco
, when Elmer suddenly decided he wanted to make friends with Teddy. Which meant, he gave out a playful
BARK!
and charged.

“AARGHH!” screamed Teddy, and without another word, he charged out the screen door with Elmer right behind him. I decided the only thing to do was to try and help my friend—Teddy had technically only been my friend for about eight minutes at that point, but it still counted—and so I followed right behind. The three of us ran down the hill, past the lunch tables where everyone was still going through what they wanted to do in high school (I thought I heard Nareem say he was planning on joining the fish sticks club, but later I found out he'd said statistics club, which was too bad—I'd been all excited about the fish sticks club), across the volleyball court that had been set up, and straight toward the pool.

“Teddy wait!” I hollered, but I'm not sure he could hear me—Elmer, who thought we were playing a really fun game, was barking at the top of his doggie lungs.

SPLASH
! went Teddy into the pool. Elmer was just about to dive in, but I managed to grab his collar first.

“Elmer, no!” I said.

“Charlie Joe, yes!” he said back—or would have, if he could talk.

Then Elmer gave a yank—it turns out cockapoos are really strong, which I didn't realize until it was too late—and together we followed Teddy into the pool.

SPLASH!

SPLASH!

It wasn't until I was underwater and I saw a strange object float by me that I realized what had been in my hands this whole time—and no, I'm not talking about Elmer's collar.

I'm talking about Mark Twain's books.

I splashed to the surface and looked around the pool. Teddy had also leaped into the pool with books still in his hands. So all together, there were ten books, two kids, and one waterlogged cockapoo in the pool. The good news was, Elmer was no longer interested in Teddy. His new fun game was grabbing soggy books with his teeth and ripping them apart.

“Elmer, no!” I said again, with exactly the same nonresult.

By this time, the splashing and thrashing had gotten the attention of the rest of the party, and everyone had come running over to see what all the commotion was about.

Mrs. Katz barged her way through to the front of the crowd. “May I ask what is going on here?”

I saw Jake next to her, scratching his head in confusion. Hopefully he would think this whole thing was funny and realize it would make a great story to tell the debate team some day.

Mrs. Katz's eyes widened in horror. “Are those …
books?!”
she shrieked.

“I can explain,” I began, which of course means,
I can't explain
.

Meanwhile, Teddy Spivero was down at the other end of the pool, thrilled that he wasn't about to be eaten by a rabid cockapoo. “Hey, Mrs. Katz,” he said, waving. “This pool is so nice. Is it heated?”

“Yes, it's on an automatic timer,” she answered. Even when she's really mad, Mrs. Katz doesn't like to miss an opportunity to throw in a quick brag.

“Sweet,” answered Teddy. “It's like, the perfect place to chill.”

Mrs. Katz looked like she'd just eaten a rotten banana. “Teddy, I'm going to have to ask you to exit the pool,” she said. “You, too, Charlie Joe.”

As we climbed out and dried off (for the second time), I saw some of the kids trying not to giggle. All succeeded except Pete Milano, who laughed and said, “Charlie Joe, I know you don't like reading, but drowning books seems a little extreme.”

I laughed, looking down at the pages floating in the water. “Yeah, well, you can never be too careful.”

That probably wasn't the smartest or nicest thing to say, considering the circumstances.

Jake came over to me, looking almost as mad as his mom. “So this is funny to you? Destroying my stuff? You might not care about books, Charlie Joe, but some of us do, you know. Some of us care a lot.”

“It was an accident,” I said. “Teddy and I were just inside, and I was showing him the books, and telling him the story of how we gave them to you on my sixth birthday.” I was trying to accomplish a lot with that sentence: remind him that they were my books in the first place, and remind everyone else that it was my birthday.

I left out the part about Teddy's plan to annoy Jake's mom by putting them somewhere else. I'm not sure including that part would have accomplished anything at all.

Hannah, who was standing next to Jake, scrunched up her eyes. “An accident?” she said. “Running into the pool with a bunch of books in your hands?”

Oh, great. Now it was gang-up-on-Charlie-Joe time.

“Your brother is afraid of dogs!” I told Hannah. “You should know that better than anyone! He was running for his life!”

Hannah rolled her eyes. “Are you serious? He loves dogs! He practically is one!” Then she looked over at Teddy. “You told him you were scared of dogs?”

“Well, you know, what can I say?” Teddy said. Then he looked at me and grinned. “I kind of owed you one from the Camp Wockajocka basketball game.” He was referring to the time at summer camp when I tricked Teddy into eating way too much pizza and throwing up all over the basketball court, which helped my camp beat his camp at basketball. I have to say, that was one of my proudest moments.