The Monkeyface Chronicles (2 page)

“What did you say, Grant?” Miss Underwood hissed.

“Huh? Who, me?”

“Yes, you.”

“Oh, I didn't say anything, wet underwear . . . er, I mean, Miss Underwood.”

“
Excuse me
?”

“Sorry, Miss Underwood, slip of the tongue!”

Miss Underwood's face flushed red. “Get out!” she shrieked. “Get out, you, you . . . ” Her voice trailed off.

“No name-calling, Miss Underwood. Name-calling hurts students' self-esteem! It's in your
Teacher's Handbook
.”

“Out,” she stammered. “Out! Out!”

Grant rose to his feet and hooked his thumbs into his belt loops. “No problem, Miss Underwood. I'll just go visit Dad in his office.”

He strode from the room, the door clicking shut behind him.

Miss Underwood cleared her throat, and picked up a stack of sheets from the top of her desk. Her hands were shaking, but her voice was firm. “Each of you will take one of these long division worksheets and pass the rest behind you. You have the remainder of the class to work on them. Don't forget to put your name and the date at the top of your page.”

In my tight, neat cursive, I've written my name,
Philip
Skyler
, and the date,
Friday, December 21, 2001.
Today is the Winter Solstice, the official first day of winter. It is also the second-last day of school before Christmas Break begins. It also happens to be my thirteenth birthday, and so far nobody in Classroom 8-C seems to know about it. I would like to keep it that way.

My grandfather stopped by our house at breakfast this morning to deliver birthday gifts to Michael and me.

“These are special thirteenth birthday presents,” he said, his hazel eyes glistening as he handed each of us a small box. “My grandfather — your great, great grandfather, of course — believed that a boy's thirteenth year was when he changed from a boy to a man. Experience has taught me that he was right.”

My older brother, Dennis, who is in his last year of high school, paused from slurping the milk from his cereal bowl, peered out from under his mane of shaggy hair and grumbled, “Hey,
Grandpa
, isn't thirteen an
unlucky
number?”

Dennis always says “
Grandpa
” in the same abrasive way he calls Dad
“Father,”
to remind him that they are not related by blood. He calls my Mom “
Mother”
in the same acidic way, maybe as a reminder that he's the product of her one pre-marital coupling. He usually refers to Michael and I as “
Dickhead
” and “
Douchebag
.” “There is no such thing as luck, Dennis,” Grandfather said, looking not at Dennis but at me. “To quote Ralph Waldo Emerson,
‘Shallow men believe in
luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.'
Life will hand you whatever it's going to hand you. What you do with it is entirely up to you.”

“Whatever,” Dennis grunted. “
Eighteen
is when you officially become a man in this country, not thirteen.”

I am painfully aware of this fact. The doctor we've visited in Toronto who specializes in my condition refuses to perform the cosmetic surgery to fix my face until after I've turned eighteen. “The growth of his facial bone structure will have slowed enough by then,” he said. “But, more importantly, it has to be his decision, and he has to be an adult to make it.” If the law saw things the way my grandfather does, that you change from a boy to a man at thirteen, I would be on my way to Toronto to have that surgery done today.

“Hey,
Grandpa
,” Dennis said, “how come I didn't get no special present when I turned eighteen last month?”

“Didn't get
any
special present,” our grandfather corrected.

From its small box, Michael removed a pocket watch on a chain. The gold plating was worn through around the edges, and the letter “S” engraved on the cover was scarcely visible. Michael flipped open the cover and held it up to his ear. “Still ticking!” he said. “Nice.”

My own present was a little jackknife, as timeworn as Michael's watch and also faintly engraved with a stylized “S.” I unfolded the still-shining tools inside: a bottle opener, a corkscrew, a short blade and a long blade.

“I've been carrying this watch and jackknife in my pockets since my own grandfather gave them to me on my own thirteenth birthday,” our grandfather said. “Other than a few shillings, those were the only two things he had in his pockets when he got on the boat from Britain during the potato famine. And now they are yours. The ‘S' on each stands for ‘Skyler,' of course; his name, my name, your name.”

Michael and I held the small objects. Dennis rolled his eyes.

“Since Dickhead and Douchebag got the other junk out of Great-friggin'-Great Grandpa's pockets, are you gonna give me the money? With inflation, it might be enough to get me outta this shithole town.”

Our grandfather's eyes flared, and he straightened to his full height of six-foot-four, his thick silver hair almost brushing the kitchen light fixtures. “Dennis,” he rumbled, “this is their day, not yours.”

“It's never my friggin' day,” Dennis muttered from behind his veil of hair.

Our grandfather looked at my twin brother, his eyes softening again. “Michael,” he said, “winding that watch every day for all of these years has reminded me of the value of time, how it passes so quickly, that there is always so much to accomplish. To quote Virgil, ‘
Sed fugit interea, fugit irreparabile
tempus': Time meanwhile flies, never to return
. Or, as Benjamin Franklin said, ‘
Lost time is never found again
.'”

Dennis let out a long, disparaging sigh, and mumbled, “Give it up,
Captain Quote.
”

My grandfather ignored Dennis and turned to me. “Philip,” he said, “having that jackknife in my pocket has always reminded me that the tools we need are almost always within our reach, and that a man is always equipped to handle what comes his way. In the words of Sir Walter Scott, “
Real valor
consists not in being insensible to danger; but in being prompt to
confront and disarm it
.'”

Dennis huffed, shoved his chair back from the kitchen table and slunk toward the back door. “
Gawd
, what bullshit.
Grandpa
is just too cheap to buy you guys
new
birthday presents.”

Now in the tense silence of classroom 8-C I'm finished my math sheet, and I want nothing more than to take out my grandfather's jackknife,
my
jackknife, and turn it over and over in my hand, to feel its weight against my palm. But I know better than to display anything of value amongst this pack of scavengers, so I just gaze out the window, watching the grey clouds swirl and collide.

The thermometer that hangs outside the classroom window reads five degrees Celsius. There will be no snow today. I have been waiting for snow. A drop of just five degrees could change everything. For a little while, everything would be white and clean.

There has been snow on my birthday every year that I can remember.

The recess bell rings, and everyone exhales. Today is Miss Underwood's day for Yard Supervision Duty, so she opens the door of her teacher's closet and puts on her long recess coat. At the back of the classroom, the kids unhook their jackets and reach into their lunch bags for their recess snacks, and it begins to feel like things are returning to normal. Then Grant Brush strides back into the room.

“Hey, Miss Underwood,” he says, “Dad, er,
Mr. Brush
wants to have a word with you in his office. Right this minute, he said.”

Grunt stands between Miss Underwood and the classroom door, forcing her to go around him. Then he glares at the rest of us.

Everyone shuffles through the hall and out onto the tarmac, like prison inmates marching to the work yard.

It's difficult to find a hiding spot on the schoolyard at this time of year; the leaves are gone from the trees and vines, and there aren't yet any snowdrifts to hide behind. I will try to make my way to the back corner of the playground as unobtrusively as possible, where I'll stand still against the fence and wait for the bell to ring.

Grum and Grunt and their gang mostly pick on kids like Cecil Bundy, who has a stutter and a lisp and still plays with toy cars in the sandbox, or Adeline Brown, who wears thick glasses and is overweight and reads
Bible Stories for Children
over and over again during Silent Reading time. Both Cecil and Adeline cry easily, and to Grum and Grunt, their tears are like diamonds to treasure hunters. I never cry.

Today I am a more prized target than either Cecil or Adeline, though, because it is my birthday. Someone pokes me in back. I keep walking.

“Hey, Monkeyface!”

I spin around. It's Grunt. His brother Grum is standing beside him. A bunch of other kids trail behind them.

Grunt says, “Did you think you were gonna get outta taking your Birthday Beats?”

“Yeah, Monkeyface,” Grum adds. “In 8-A, Mizz Belzehay made us sing
Happy Birthday
to your stupid brother. Seems only fair that his butt-ugly twin should get a birthday tribute, too.”

“Mr. Packer said that Birthday Beats aren't allowed anymore,” I say.

“I don't see Mr. Pecker anywhere, do you, Graham?”

“Nope. No Ass-Packer anywhere. No yard duty teacher, either. I think they're all in Dad's office right now.”

“And your kiss-ass brother stayed inside to help Mizz Belzehay put up art on the bulletin board, so don't expect him to save you, either.”

“Looks like you're screwed, Monkeyface.”

“Maybe you could just sing
Happy Birthday
to me instead,” I say, thinking I can win over a few of the other kids by making a joke out of the situation. Thanks to my flattened nostrils and cleft lip, though, my smile looks like a horse baring its teeth, and nobody is charmed.

Grum circles behind me, and Grunt shoves me hard, causing me to trip backward over Grum's outstretched leg. Grum kneels on my arms and drops his butt in my face, then Grunt straddles my legs, singing,
“Happy birthday to you,
happy birthday to you, you look like a monkey, and you smell
like one, too!”

Other kids circle around. Some of them join the song.

“ONE!” Grunt shouts, punching me in the ribs.

“TWO!”

I get one in the stomach.

“THREE! FOUR! FIVE!”

Almost half-way now. Soon it will be over. I clench my teeth. I will not reward them with tears.

Grum and some of the other kids are counting along with Grunt now.

“SIX! SEVEN!”

The punches stop coming as Grunt's weight is lifted from my legs. Grum stands up, and with his butt off of my face I can see that my brother is here. Michael has dragged Grunt off of me, and holds his arms behind his back.

“Let go of me, Michael!” Grunt hollers.

“Let him go,” Grum says, stepping over me toward Michael and Grunt.

“Back off, Graham,” Michael spits.

Grum turns toward the gathered crowd. “Get this asshole off my brother,” he demands. “Monkeyface has to have the rest of his Birthday Beats.”

The other kids stand paralyzed, unsure of what to do. They want Michael's friendship, but they fear Grum and Grunt's wrath. Nobody moves.

“Ow! Ow!” cries Grunt. “Christ, Michael, you're breaking my arms!”

Michael releases Grunt from the arm lock. Grunt immediately turns around and shoves Michael, who tumbles backward onto the patchy grass.

“Suck-AAAAAHHHH!” Grunt taunts.

Grum points and orders, “Trevor! Turner! Grab Michael.”

The two do as they are told. They will not disobey a direct order.

“Gotta let Monkeyface fight his own battles,” Trevor says to Michael.

Michael knows there is no point in struggling.

Grum and Grunt descend on me again. At least Grum's ass isn't in my face this time.