The War with Grandpa (4 page)

He looked different to me from the last time I'd seen him. The lines and wrinkles in his tan face looked deeper. His shoulders stooped down, and there was kind of a sad look in his eyes even when he was smiling. And when we finally got into the house, with Dad and me helping to carry Grandpa's things, I could see that Grandpa was limping worse than ever.

Grandpa used to be in the construction business until he retired. Building houses, mostly. Years ago a big piece of wood fell on him and broke his leg. Mom and Grandma always said it never healed right. And now Grandpa had something wrong with his leg that Mom called arthritis.

It was late when Grandpa arrived and we all carried his things upstairs and tried to help him get settled into his room. My room, I mean, my old room that was now his. My idea of helpful was to take Grandpa's shirts out of his suitcase and put them into his dresser. Jenny's idea of helpful was to do pirouettes in the middle of the room, banging into everybody.

Mom finally shooed Jenny and me out and
made us get ready for bed. I did all my go-to-bed things and got into my pajamas and went downstairs to the kitchen to say good night to Mom and Dad. They were sitting at the kitchen table, drinking tea. I knew when I walked in that they were saying private things to each other because they shut up quick when I came in and looked at me kinda funny. My mom looked real sad, like she was getting ready to cry. She hugged me a little extra tight, I thought, and ruffled my hair. I said good night.

I didn't go back to my room though. What I did was hang around under the staircase to hear what they were saying. I was right about my mom; she was crying.“He looks so awful,” she sobbed.

“Please, Sally,” I heard my dad say. “He's very tired, you know. It's been a very long day for him. He'll be fine after he gets some rest.”

“There's just no life in him,” Mom said. “No life.”

“It's only a few months since she died,” Dad said. “He's very depressed. Give it time, hon.”

“I hope you're right,” Mom said.

I sneaked up the stairs very quietly, so my folks couldn't hear me, and went to say good night to Grandpa. He was sitting on the edge of
the bed, holding something in his hand. I could see it was a photograph of Grandma in a silver frame. “Good night, Grandpa,” I said, but I don't think he heard me. He just kept very still, staring at Grandma's face in the picture.

My mom was right, I thought as I went up to my room. Grandpa had no life at all. Could you die from being sad? I wondered. Could you?

It was still scary upstairs in my new room. Maybe even more than it was the night before.

The floorboards creaked again. The same shadows and light danced around on the ceiling. I still had the thought that a murderer was waiting outside my door to come in and kill me in my bed.

You can laugh all you want. I was scared silly.

Now I have to tell you about a special word. It's called
mope.

My sister Jenny does that a lot. She's a real moper, Mom says. It means standing around with your face hanging out and looking like doomsday is tomorrow.“Only a dope will mope,” Mom says to Jenny all the time. Usually Jenny mopes when she wants Mom to stop what she's doing and play cards with her, or something. Naturally, Jenny always does her moping when Mom is real busy. Like before dinner or lunch, or when Mom is about to go shopping or clean up something.“Not now,” Mom says, “and don't mope.”

The reason I'm telling you about moping is because that is exactly what Grandpa was doing. Except he called it resting. He hung around in his room practically all the time. When I asked him to take a walk somewhere with me he'd just
say: “No, thanks, Petey, I'll just rest here awhile,” Sometimes he'd do his sitting in the living room. And that's all he'd do, sit. He'd sort of stare into the air, not even pick up a magazine or watch TV.

Or after lunch sometimes I'd ask him to have a catch with me, or maybe walk down to the candy store and get an ice cream cone.“Not today, Petey, thanks,” he'd say. And he'd sit on the porch or in the living room and just do nothing.

I'll bet in the first couple of weeks he was living with us he never even went as far as around the corner. He just sat around. That wasn't how he acted before he went to Florida and Grandma died. Back then, when I was little, I remember how peppy he was.

“We'll have more fun than a barrel of monkeys,” Grandpa used to say. And we did. He used to take me places like the park and the zoo. I was always happy when I was with him. I liked everything about him. His little white moustache that jumped up and down when he talked. The way he'd throw me up in the air and catch me, or spin around fast, holding me in his arms. Even his breath, which always smelled of peppermints.

I liked the way he'd toss me a ball and I'd try to catch it. I was little then and could hardly hold on to the ball, but it was fun playing with him.

I know Mom and Dad were concerned about Grandpa and the way he just seemed to be tired out and moping all the time. We went out to the movies a couple of times, and to a restaurant, but Grandpa always stayed home.“You go ahead,” he'd say, “I'll be okay back here by my lonesome.”

“Come on,” Dad would say, “we'll have some fun.”

“Have fun then,” Grandpa would say. “I'd only spoil it for you.”

I saw the worried looks that passed between Mom and Dad. But when I asked Dad about it he just said, “Grandpa's a little tired, Peter, that's all. He'll snap out of it soon.”

Sure, I thought, but how soon was soon?

“I don't care what you say,” my friend Steve Mayer said. “I think it stinks.”

“Steve's right,” Billy Alston said. “Your grandfather is a room robber and it isn't fair.”

“By the way,” Steve said, “I'm invading Quebec.”

We were playing Risk, which is what we always played at Steve's house. Outside the living room window it was raining like crazy. Steve is a Risk fanatic, or expert, or both. Billy and I can never beat him. But today I was doing especially bad, maybe because I wasn't paying close attention.

Steve and Billy have been my friends ever since we met in kindergarten. Steve is taller than me and thinner and he wears these horn-rimmed eyeglasses. Maybe because he reads so much. Billy is a little shorter than both of us and he has crinkly red hair and thousands of freckles on his
face. When Billy was six years old his dad hung a chinning bar in the doorway of his room. Whenever Billy goes in or out, he always chins himself a few times. Billy can do fifteen chin-ups. I know that because I once bet him he couldn't and lost a quarter. I can do three and a half chin-ups. Steve can hardly do one.

“Throw the dice,” Steve said, and I did. I lost another army, of course, and Steve had one more territory of mine to control. Steve looked at me and shook his head.“You're such a dummy,” he said.

“Look,” I said, “he's my grandfather. What can I do?”

“Put up a fight,” Steve said. “Stick up for your rights.”

“I already have,” I said.

“I won't let nobody take my room,” Billy said. He made a fist and slammed it into his other palm. “Pow! Right in the nose!”

“Right, Billy,” Steve said, winking at me. We both knew that Billy always talked tough like that, but the one time he had to face up to a kid in school called Phil Steinkraus he was as chicken as the rest of us.

“I'm trapped, don't you see?” I said. “I can't let my grandpa know how mad I am at losing my
room. And if I can't even
talk
about it, what can I do?”

“Wishy-washy,” Steve said. “What are you, a doormat?”

“You can't let a room robber walk all over you,” Billy said.

Steve put down his fourth set of matched Risk cards and collected ten more armies. On the board he already controlled half the world, which meant the game wasn't going to last too much longer. He looked at me funny and then a slow grin started to spread all over his face.“Just got an idea,” Steve said. “Yes, sir-ree, it just might work.”

I waited while the wheels turned around in Steve's head.

“Seventeen seventy-six,” Steve said.

Billy said, “Huh?”

“The Yankees against the power of the British army,” Steve went on. “Here come the Redcoats, marching across a field in close formation. That's the way the British always fought. And what do the Minutemen do? They hide behind trees and rocks, they shoot from behind cover, and keep moving.”

“What does this have to do with his grandpa?” Billy asked.

Steve sailed on. “Do you know that the British complained that the Minutemen didn't fight fair?
Fair?”

“Steve—” I began.

“The legend of Zorro,” Steve went on, “a rich and powerful man who fought the power of the king. He had to conceal his identity, because to fight against the king meant pertain death. So what did he do to help the peasants against tyranny? He hid his face behind a mask.”

“Like Batman and Robin,” Billy said.

“Close,” Steve said.

“What am I supposed to do?” I asked. “Get a sword and fight a duel? With Grandpa?”

“Gorilla warfare,” Steve said, almost to himself. “When you're trapped and there's no other way. You fight from behind rocks. You conceal your identity.”

“You're crazy,” I said.

“It's the only way,” Steve said. “Think about it.”

Gorilla warfare.

Hiding behind rocks and trees. Wearing a mask.

I was lying up in my bed and thinking about what Steve had said. It seemed crazy to me, and yet it made sense too. I was certainly trapped. My family had taken my room away and hadn't given me a chance to fight back.

Then I began to think about the people who fought in the Revolutionary days. Who were they fighting? The king. And the king was kind of a father to them, or maybe even a grandfather. He was certainly the biggest bigshot of 1776, that's for sure. And yet they fought for their rights. They took a chance and stood their ground at Lexington and Concord and fired the shot heard round the world.