Summer School! What Genius Thought That Up? (6 page)

“Travel with me now to the ancient islands of Hawaii . . .” Frankie said in his magician's voice, “. . . when volcanoes breathed fire and palm trees swayed in the tropical breeze caused by those volcanoes.”

Man, he was into this.

Frankie grabbed a plastic potted plant that was buried under some moldy drapes on one of the storeroom shelves. He waved it around under my nose.

“Oh great Kahuna Huna, can you smell the perfume of the sweet tropical flowers?” he said.

“Ah-choo,” I sneezed, spraying dust from the plastic plant all over Frankie's hand. That thing couldn't have been dustier. I hate to think what would have happened if Robert had been here, with his horrible allergies. He would have blown us all to Fiji and back.

Frankie was rummaging around the storeroom shelves, looking for more props.

“Can you hear the magical sounds of Hawaiian strings, strumming to the rhythm of the ocean waves?” he said as he pulled something from a box on one of the shelves.

Frankie held up a toy ukulele he had found in the box. I knew that ukulele. Mrs. Fink gave it to Emily and me when she returned from the cruise to the Hawaiian islands that she took for her sixty-fifth birthday. I could never play it, but Emily had learned a couple of chords until she got bored with it and started taking flute lessons. Wow, I didn't know it wound up in the storeroom.

“Princess Leilani,” Frankie said to Ashley as he handed her the ukulele, “strum to the rhythm of the ocean waves.”

Ashley grabbed the ukulele and to my total surprise, started strumming it and singing some weird Hawaiian song that went:
“Oh we're going to a hooky lau. A hooky, hooky, hooky, hooky, hooky lau.”
Where in the world had she learned that crazy song? Oh well, at least her singing covered up her ukulele strumming, which was pretty scary.

Frankie dug around in the boxes some more, pulling out all kinds of strange stuff.

“Come here, Kahuna Huna, and I will transform you into a king,” he said to me.

I stood in front of him and he put together a costume that would make your eyes spin around in your head. I'm not sure if that's good or bad, but I wasn't sure if my costume was good or bad, either. It was different, I'll say that much.

Frankie wrapped the flowered drapes around my head to make a headdress and then fastened it with a sparkly Christmas decoration that looked like a green, glittery pear. We pulled my shirt off, because what kind of ancient Hawaiian king would wear a Michael Jordan shirt with the words “Stuff It!” on the back? On my upper arms, the part where big muscles would have been if I had big muscles, we tied Emily's old purple soccer socks and attached some dangling toy boats made of LEGOs. Frankie said they tied in with the ocean theme.

“We need something for his feet,” Ashley said. “The sneakers aren't cutting it.”

Frankie poked around toward the back of the shelves. He dragged out a box that was labeled “Mrs. Eleanor Fink.” Inside were two square pillows made of green velvet with gold tassels hanging from each corner.

“Take off your shoes and socks,” he told me.

He pulled the pillows from the box and tied each one to my feet using shoelaces from his own old soccer shoes. Once the pillows were on my feet, I tried walking a few steps. Okay, it felt good. Trust me, if you ever try walking on pillows, I think you'll find it a pretty bouncy situation.

“King Kahuna Huna walks on lava,” Frankie said, “yet his feet feel no pain. Appear, oh great Kahuna Huna—and make us believe in you!”

I don't know what got in to me. Maybe it was the bouncy feet. That's a definite possibility. Or maybe it was the glittery pear hanging from my flowered headdress. That's less likely but still possible. Or maybe it was Ashley strumming the ukulele and singing,
“Oh we're going to a hooky lau.”
Yes, that's probably it. But all I can tell you is that right there in our clubhouse, I started to do a hula warrior dance.

I'm talking mega hula. My hips and butt and shoulders were swaying like no ancient Hawaiian king you've ever seen.

“You go, Kahuna Huna!” Frankie shouted. “This stuff is going to knock 'em dead at the talent show.”

Suddenly, I noticed that Frankie had stopped laughing and Ashley had stopped singing. They were staring at something behind me.

It was then that I realized we were not alone.

I turned around to see Mrs. Fink standing in the doorway. She was wearing her big pink bathrobe and a pink hairnet to match. What she wasn't wearing were her teeth. I know that because her mouth was hanging open and I could see her pink gummy gums. I can't really blame her. If I were looking at me with my head wrapped in her flowered drapes and my feet strapped to her green pillows, my mouth would hang open, too.

“Mrs. Fink, I can explain,” I said.

“Hankie, what's to explain? You can hula!” She grinned.

Before I could say King Kahuna Huna, she grabbed me in her arms and started to dance. I could feel every part of her shake as she swiveled her hips and rotated her knees.

“Mrs. Fink!” I said, but no one could hear me because my head was buried somewhere deep in her—how can I say this?—chesty area.

I wanted to call for help, but who do you call in a situation like that? The hula police?

So instead I just kept on dancing.

Ashley started up her song again. Frankie launched into a Hawaiian-sounding magic chant. And Mrs. Fink shook like a bowl full of strawberry Jell-O.

I ask you: Where are the talent show judges when you need them?

“GUESS WHAT, MR. ROCK?” I said as I walked into class the next morning. “I've decided to do my report on Albert Einstein.”

“That's great, Hank. I'm glad to see you're so excited about this project.”

“Not only am I excited,” I said, “I've decided to get an A.”

“Making that decision is the first step,” Mr. Rock said. “A positive attitude can take you all the way to your goal.”

As I slid into my desk, I actually believed that I could do it. The night before, I had called Papa Pete to see if he knew anything about Albert Einstein. He said he knew a few things, but he was going to pick me up after school and take me to a place where I could find out everything I needed to know. I begged him to tell me where, but he said it was a surprise. Papa Pete loves surprises. I do too. I think I get that from him.

I really, really, really wanted that A. It was the only way my dad was going to let me go to the luau and be in the talent show. And after our rehearsal in the clubhouse, I knew that our act was going to win for sure. I mean, let's be honest. Who would you vote for? King Kahuna Huna magically appearing from the smoke of a volcano and doing the meanest hula this side of Pittsburgh or Bruce the Gecko twitching his scaly tail while sitting in my sister Emily's scaly hand?

Come on, it's a no brainer.

As I opened my notebook and got out my pencils, I glanced across the aisle at Joelle. She was all hunched over in her chair, holding her cell phone to her ear. Even though she was talking softly, I could hear her.

“He thinks he's going to get an A,” she was giggling into the phone. “Can you believe he actually said that?”

“I don't know,” she whispered into the phone. “Some jerk named Alfred Ein-something.”

I looked out the window onto the playground. I could see the Junior Explorers bringing buckets of water over to the sandbox. Frankie had said they were going to have a sand-castle building contest. One Junior Explorer with a huge head and huger feet was standing off to one side, hunched over a cell phone. That's right. It was the one and only Nick McKelty Pest.

If you can give me ten good reasons why Joelle Adwin and Nick McKelty have to talk on the phone about what grade I might or might not get on my Albert Einstein report, I will personally come over to your house and pour you a big bowl of Froot Loops.

“Don't you have anything better to talk about?” I whispered to Joelle.

“We're not talking about you,” she said.

“Right, and my name is Bernice.”

I know, that's Frankie's line. He says it all the time. But since Joelle didn't really know him, and it was such a perfect comeback, I decided Frankie wouldn't mind if I borrowed it.

“Joelle, hand me your telephone now, please.”

It was Mr. Rock, standing in the aisle between us. He held out his hand and waited. Joelle flipped the phone closed but didn't give it to him.

“It's mine,” she said. “I need it for emergencies.”

“It doesn't belong in school. I'll give it back after class.”

“But, Mr. Rock,” she whined, “I can't live without it.”

“I promise you, Joelle,” Mr. Rock said, taking the phone from her. “You'll live.”

“My uncle dropped his cell phone in the toilet and flushed it away by accident,” Luke Whitman said. “And he's still living.”

Everyone in the class cracked up but Joelle. Her face got red, all the way to the tips of her ears. Even the freckles on her nose went from light brown to red. She was steaming mad. I knew Nick McKelty was going to be hearing about this at recess.

And he did, all right.

As I stood outside on the playground eating my 100 percent organic whole oat granola with roasted pecans bar, I could see Joelle across the playground blabbering away to Nick, hopping around like she had ants in her pants. After a long time of her blabbering, she shut up and he started blabbering back to her.

I was wondering where my nose would go on vacation if it could pick anyplace in the world when a little voice interrupted my thoughts.

“Hi, Hank.”

“Mason Harris Jerome Dunn,” I said, giving a high five to the little dude. Actually, it was more of a low five. “Nice to see you, buddy.”

“If we're going to be friends, can you just call me Mason?”

“It's a deal. Mason it is.”

“Do you want to play at my house after school? We have Pop-Tarts.”

“Hey, I'd love to, bud. I mean Mason. But today I'm going somewhere with my grandpa.”

“Oh,” he said.

“But I'll come over another day,” I told him. “That's a fantastic idea.”

“Oh,” he said again.

Then from out of nowhere he gave me a hug, just like that.

Okay! That's the eleventh great thing about kindergartners. They'll hug you for no reason, just because they feel like it. How great does that feel?

I looked over at Joelle and McKelty. They were standing across the playground, looking at us.

You guessed it. They were laughing at me, probably saying how dorky it was to play with a kindergartner. And you know what I thought?

Too bad. It's their loss.

PAPA PETE CAME to pick me up after school. He was wearing a Mets baseball cap to keep the hot summer sun off his face, and holding a plastic bag of pickles for our snack.

I sprinted out of the main door as soon as I saw him. “Where are we going?” I asked.

“You'll see, Hankie,” he said. “Have a pickle. They're very refreshing.”

Papa Pete thinks many things are very refreshing. A dip in the ocean. A deep breath. A cool shower. Orange sherbet. Iced tea. A wash-cloth on the back of your neck. And I must say, I love everything that he thinks is refreshing.

I took a pickle from the bag and handed the other one to Papa Pete along with a paper napkin to wrap the bottom of the pickle in. My mouth was watering as I took the first bite. There's nothing like a garlic dill to make you forget that you just spent the day in summer school. As it turned out, this one was extremely juicy, which I wasn't expecting. Pickle juice squirted out of my mouth, shot up in the air, and landed with a big splat right in the center of my T-shirt.

“Oops,” I said. “Now I'm going to smell like pickle for the rest of the day.”

“Then you're in the right company,” Papa Pete said, “because I happen to find pickle juice to be a very delicious scent.”

We headed over to Broadway and 79th Street and walked down a flight of stairs into the subway station. A man with a beard was playing “Jingle Bells” on the saxophone. We listened to him while we were waiting for the train.

“Isn't he a little early for Christmas?” I whispered to Papa Pete.

“You've got to play what's in your head,” Papa Pete whispered back to me as the train pulled up. He wished the man happy holidays and dropped a dollar into his saxophone case as we boarded the subway car.

It was really crowded inside, and since there wasn't any place to sit, Papa Pete and I stood up and hung onto a metal pole as the train sped downtown. He's really good at riding the subway standing up. I always try to keep my balance without holding on. It's like surfing—only underground in the city. Most of the time, I do lose my balance and go crashing into the people standing around me. Maybe Papa Pete enjoys the smell of pickle juice, but I'm pretty sure everyone smushed up against me in the subway didn't. I noticed that the space around me kept getting bigger and bigger as the other subway riders edged away.

We got off at 42nd Street and took the shuttle to Grand Central Station, which is right in the middle of midtown Manhattan. If you ever get to New York City, you really should go there. Papa Pete says the main terminal, where the ceiling looks like the sky, was at one time the biggest room in all of America. I believe him. I don't think I could run from one end to the other without having to stop and rest.