Dreidels on the Brain (12 page)

It's in those first few moments onstage, Mister Mystery says, when you win them over. “You know how long it takes
an audience to decide if they love you or hate you? Thirty seconds. You need a fast and flashy opening, Joel, to show them you are confident and in complete control. After that they're in the palm of your hand.”

Taking my glasses off, I looked in the mirror, working on my smile. “Hey there,” I said, winking at myself. “How you doin'?” I was just getting it, the perfect magical look. “I know why you're here. It's because you believe in—”

“Hey, Joel?” my dad called from the other side of the house. “Could you give me a hand?”

I put the flowers away and went to my parents' bedroom, where my father stood in his boxers and a T-shirt, with some clothes and about thirty bottles of pills on his bed. About as unmagical as you can get.

“Oh, good. Can you bring down my suitcases? The big one and the little one.”

“All right,” I said. The attic is above my parents' closet, and that's where the suitcases live. Getting them down is tricky, and takes someone small, so it's my job.

I got the old yellow high chair from the corner of the kitchen and used that to climb to the upper part of the closet. From there I pushed open the square trapdoor that leads to the attic, and climbed up. It's filled with dust and a lot of junk, as well as the suitcases my parents have had since they moved to California, which I brought down.

Packing clothes for the hospital is easy, as you don't need to wear much, just those robes they give you that leave your tushy sticking out. The hard part is packing my dad's medicines. He's always taking pills, some for pain, some for vitamins, and some for who knows what. The problem is that he needs help reading the labels. As bad as my eyes are, they're the best in the house, so he calls me when he can't see. He picked up a bottle, squinted at it, lifted up his glasses, and squinted again.

“Can you read this?” he asked.

“A-ce-ta-min-o-phen,” I said.

“Good—put it into the small suitcase. And how 'bout this one?”

“Ascorbic acid.”

“Good,” he said. “Vitamin C. For healing. Put that one in too. And this one?”

“Prednisone.”

“Ah! That's what I was looking for,” he said.

“Should I put it in?”

“Nope. Put it on the top shelf in the bathroom, so high up that I can't reach it. I've been taking it for years, and Dr. Kaplowski told me to stop taking it at the beginning of last week, or he couldn't do the surgery. I haven't touched it since, but want to be sure I don't bring it along by mistake. All right, how about this one?”

We went through the bottles until the little suitcase was filled.

“What's the big suitcase for?” I asked.

“The Neck-O-Matic, of course!”

“You're bringing it to the hospital?” I asked. “Why?”

“Are you kidding?” he said. “Not just bringing it, I'm going to sell them the design! Last week I told Dr. Kaplowski all about it, and he's really interested. This is the perfect opportunity!”

It was a crazy idea. “But, Dad,” I said, “that doesn't make any . . . It's not—”

“Don't worry,” he said. “There's a patent pending, so it's protected.” A couple months ago my dad wrote to Washington, DC, to apply for a patent for his design. “Let's set it up,” he said, “one more time before I go.”

I wanted to go back to practicing my magic, but my dad made it sound like his last meal on death row so I dragged the box with the Neck-O-Matic from the corner of the bedroom. It was really heavy, so I had to slide and kick it all the way to the door that leads to the bathroom. I opened the box and took out the neck brace, which looks like something you'd wear if you had whiplash, then the pulleys and rope, which I looped over the chin-up bar in the doorway. There was also a heavy-duty blue plastic tray that said
DRIFTWOOD DAIRY
on it. It's supposed to hold milk cartons, but
my dad uses it to hold bricks for the Neck-O-Matic. That's what was in the rest of the box, which is why it was so heavy. I set up the pulleys like he'd shown me, and the tray, which is held up at each corner by a rope and has to balance just right so the bricks don't fall off. My dad took his place in a chair under the chin-up bar, made sure everything was right, then fastened the brace around his neck.

Even though I've helped him with the Neck-O-Matic for years, it still creeps me out. If you were to walk into the room, you would think I was helping my dad to hang himself. It's supposed to relieve pressure on his neck and back by slowly separating his vertebrae. That's the problem with ankylosing spondylitis—it turns your spine into one solid bone. I don't know—maybe the Neck-O-Matic really works. My dad thinks it does, and he's the one being stretched.

When the rope was tight, he motioned with his hand for me to put in the first brick, then another, then a third. The hand motions are key, as you can't really talk while you're in the Neck-O-Matic. He grimaced for a moment, breathed out, then relaxed, a look of calm spreading over his face. A moment later, he motioned for me to put on another brick. There was the grimace, then the sigh, then the hand motion again. Finally he signaled for me to stop, which I did. Then he gave me the other hand motion, which meant it was joke time. That's the only part of the whole business I like.

For the Neck-O-Matic to work, my dad has to sit there, not talking, for twenty minutes, which is like a Guinness world record for him. To pass the time, I tell jokes.

“So this guy goes into a job interview,” I said. “And the first thing he notices is that the man interviewing him has no ears. He doesn't say anything, of course, and the interview goes well. At the end, the interviewer says, ‘Well, you seem like just the man we're looking for. I like your spirit, your drive. There's just one final question—do you notice anything unusual about me?'

“The guy thinks about it, then decides to be honest.

“‘Well, in fact I did notice something. You don't have any ears.'

“‘That's true,' says the interviewer. ‘Thank you for coming in—we'll keep your application on file.'

“Right away, the guy knows he blew it. The next candidate comes in, and the same thing happens. The interview goes well and, at the end, the interviewer says, ‘You seem great. Just one question—do you notice anything unusual about my appearance?'

“He thinks about it, then says ‘Well, as long as you're asking, I can't help but notice you don't have any ears.' The same thing happens—he doesn't get the job.”

My dad motioned for me to add another brick, which I did, then went on.

“As the second guy leaves the office, he sees a third guy waiting, and says, ‘Look, pal, I just blew this interview—I'm never gonna get the job. I don't know why, but I'm going to do you a favor. The guy who's going to interview you doesn't have any ears. And he's kind of sensitive about it. So, if I were you, I wouldn't mention it.'

“The third guy goes in, and the interview goes well. Then, at the end, the interviewer says, ‘You seem like just the man we're looking for. Let me ask one more question—do you notice anything unusual about my appearance?'

“The guy pauses for a moment, then says, ‘In fact, I do. Unless I'm mistaken, I believe you wear contact lenses.'

“The interviewer gets all excited. ‘Yes! That's right! Well, we can really use someone with your observational abilities. That's terrific! Tell me, how did you know?'

“‘Well,' says the guy. ‘It's obvious. If you had any ears, you'd wear glasses.'”

My dad busted out laughing. That was good and not good. Good because it's good to laugh, and my dad always says laughter is the best medicine. But not good because if you laugh too much while you're wearing the Neck-O-Matic, it yanks the rope, which starts the tray of bricks bouncing up and down, and one of the bricks could fall on your foot. If that happens, laughter is the worst medicine.

I adjusted the bricks in the box, and tried to figure what to
tell him next. Usually I can make a story out of whatever happened in school, but I didn't want to tell him about getting called into Mr. Newton's office, or anything about the assembly. All day long I'd pictured the scene of my family and me, looking pathetic as we huddled around our menorah. The only consolation was that my father wouldn't be there, because he'd be in the hospital recovering from his surgery. That, at least, was lucky. Having him at the assembly would be a disaster. Everyone would howl with laughter at the way he looked and walked.

I switched to waiter jokes, which are funny, but not brick-on-your-toe funny.

“So, two guys go into a restaurant and both order iced tea. ‘And be sure the glass is clean!' says one. A few minutes later the waiter comes back with the iced tea and says, ‘Which one ordered the clean glass?'”

Tonight when we lit the candles, we were all in a pretty serious mood, with surgery early the next morning. But not my dad. He looked happy as could be—maybe even a little taller, after the session with the Neck-O-Matic.

“You'll never guess who called today,” he said, the moment we finished the blessings, even before we tried to sing “Maoz Tzur.” We all looked at him. “It was the principal of Bixby School!”

“Mr. Newton?” said Kenny. “Why?”

“Well,” my father went on, “let me tell you the whole story. Bixby School has to have an extra day on Monday. And to make it special, they're going to have their holiday celebration.”

“That's what they call it now,” said Howard, “because when I was there we kept complaining about mixing church and state. But all they did was change the name. It's still just a Christmas assembly.”

“Ha!” said my dad. “That may have been true then. But not this year! And do you know who will be the star of the celebration?”

Kenny and Howard looked baffled.

“We will!” he said.

I couldn't believe it. My dad knew the whole time.

“That's right. Joel will be telling the story of Hanikkah to the whole school! Mr. Newton said that they've never celebrated the holiday before. They want to have our whole family there, onstage, lighting candles! Can you picture that?”

I could, even though I'd been spending all day trying not to.

“How wonderful!” said my mom. “We'll be making Bixby School history! I think I'll wear my blue dress.” Then she began to hum “The Horrible Song.”

“Absolutely!” said my dad. “And I'll wear my bow tie.”

“But, Dad,” I said, “you won't be able to come, will you?”

“Are you kidding?” he said. “I wouldn't miss it for the world! As soon as Mr. Newton called, I telephoned Dr. Kaplowski and told him I had an important event on Monday. He said not to worry, that the recovery should be quick—and that by Monday, I'll be dancing! Picture that! Me with my new golden hip joints, dancing around the menorah!”

With that, he started singing “If I Were a Rich Man,” like Tevye from
Fiddler on the Roof,
my dad's favorite song from the whole musical.

I was mortified. It was bad enough that the whole school would be watching my family do our Jewish thing in public, but picturing my father dancing made it far worse. Everyone would look at me and think: Now I get it!
That's
why Joel is such a dork.

My father was oblivious, singing and trying to snap his fingers—“Yabba-dabba-dabba-do!”—sounding like a cross between Tevye and Fred Flintstone.

“Please, God,” I whispered, “whatever you do—don't let my father come to the assembly on Monday.”

It took forever to fall asleep last night. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw my dad on the Bixby School stage, and heard the deafening sound of laughter. Then, this morning, I woke up early from a dream and couldn't get back to sleep. I was standing with my father on top of a hill, in the fog. We were both wearing our pajamas. He had invented a special kind of kite that flew without wind. My job was to hold the kite. At first it was going great—there was no wind, and the kite took off. But then it carried me up, high into storm clouds, with lightning. I called to my dad, but no sound would come out of my mouth. I could hear him, though, shouting, “This is great! They'll love it!” as I was carried higher into the sky. “We'll be rich!”

That's when I woke up. It was still dark outside, but I got out of bed and ate a bowl of Chex, then went back to my
room. It was really quiet, a quarter till six in the morning. My mom and dad were heading to the hospital early, and would be up soon.

“Hey, Herrmann,” I said. “You awake?”

I took her out of her cage and sat her on my lap. “How you doin'?”

She scrunched up her nose, which is what she always does.

“Me, I'm not so good,” I went on, “but thanks for asking. I had this dream about a kite. And a storm. And my father.”

I told her all about it. She didn't seem particularly interested, but neither of us had anything better to do, so I kept on.

“I'm also kind of worried because he's going to the hospital today—again. For another operation. To put gold in his hip joints.”

Even as I told Herrmann about this, I began to wonder how they do such a thing. Do they have liquid gold they somehow squirt in? If so, how hot does gold have to be to melt? Do they use a needle? Herrmann wasn't interested. She crawled off my lap and began to hop around the room.

Herrmann is actually my second rabbit. I named the first one Houdini, but he escaped. I should have seen that coming. Even so, I'm not entirely sure how it happened. The rabbit cage is in a corner of the den, and when Houdini was here, it was surrounded by newspaper several feet around the cage. That's because Houdini was a boy rabbit. When I
picked him at the pet store, I didn't think of something that every magician should know: Boy rabbits can learn to pee standing up in their cages. Or at least Houdini did. I think he used to play a game with himself to see how far he could get. Hence the newspaper.

Rabbits are supposed to be cute, and Houdini definitely was. He was an albino except for a little black spot on his left ear. After a while, though, adorable turns to boring. Rabbits in stories always seem to be doing interesting things, but not Houdini; he spent his time mostly eating, sleeping, pooping, and peeing. Some life.

Aside from his magic career, the most interesting thing about Houdini the rabbit was an experiment we did together last year for the sixth-grade science fair. If you've ever had a rabbit, you know that you feed them little food pellets. They also poop little pellets. My hypothesis—as we're supposed to say in science—was that there would be a one-to-one ratio of food pellets in to poop pellets out. I asked Mrs. Skurvecky—who was my science teacher last year and again this year—if anyone had ever done that experiment before. She said no one had, as far as she knew, and that there was probably a good reason. Still, I decided to spend a week testing it, counting out the food pellets, counting up the poop pellets. It was going well for the first couple days, though my hypothesis was off—it looked like the ratio of food in to
poop out was
two
-to-one. Then I discovered that he was eating his poop pellets whenever he got a chance. That threw a monkey wrench into my research—in addition to being disgusting—so the results were inconclusive.

While the poop pellet experiment kept me interested, I think Houdini was pretty bored. Sometimes I left the cage open for him to run around the room—after he'd finished peeing on the newspaper. One day, though, I got called away to set the table for dinner. The sliding door at the back of the den was open and he must have hopped outside. It shouldn't have been a problem, as the yard is fenced in, but when I went to find him, he was gone. I called out to Kenny and we looked all over, but there was no trace of him. Houdini had vanished.

It was a complete and total mystery. I suppose a bird, maybe a hawk, could have swooped down, plucked him up, and flown off. Or maybe he found some opening under the fence, slid through, and made a break for freedom. That seemed nearly as dangerous as the hawk, given all the cars on the street.

Then again, rabbits are lucky. At least their feet are supposed to be. That's what the man at the school carnival told me in fifth grade when I managed to knock down two out of three metal milk bottles with a baseball. The prize I won was a rabbit's foot, which, for some reason, had been dyed pink, and hung on a little chain. The lucky rabbit's foot idea
didn't make much sense to me, as the rabbit missing this one didn't seem very lucky at all. Then again, Houdini had four feet, all attached, so maybe he really was lucky. And maybe, just maybe, he did break through some hidden hole in the fence, hopped quickly between the moving cars, then found a secret tunnel behind the tall grass that led to an enchanted meadow where he now lived, running free. At least, that's what I'd like to believe.

But what I know for sure is that he's gone and now I have Herrmann. I got a girl—for obvious reasons—and named her after another magician, who was also great but not an escape artist. When she's not in her cage, I never let her out of my sight.

“You're not leaving me, are you, Herrmann?” She looked up at me and did that nose scrunch thing. “That's right, you're staying here with me. And don't worry about my dad either. He'll be fine. You'll see. He'll come back from the hospital with gold joints in his body, running around just like you.”

Just then I heard arguing from my parents' bedroom, then shouting.

“No, Bob!” my mom was yelling. “We can't take it! We'll be late!” My mom only raises her voice when she gets really, really,
really
frustrated. “They said to be early—and there's already going to be traffic!”

“Don't worry,” my dad said. “We'll take the access road and
avoid the traffic on the on-ramp. That'll save ten minutes.”

“But it's too heavy! I can't carry it,” she said. “And neither can you.” It drives me crazy when they fight. “Bob, this is an operation, not a business deal.”

“But it's the perfect opportunity,” he said. “It'll be great! They'll love it!”

He sounded just like he had in my dream. I stomped to their room and knocked on the door. When my mom opened it, she looked like she'd been crying. My dad looked terrible too. I mean, he never looks very good, but now his face was puffy, and his body was stiff as he rested against the closet in his torn robe, T-shirt, and boxers. Beside him was the suitcase with the Neck-O-Matic, which he had apparently been trying to push.

“Oh, Joel,” said my mom. “You're up—”

“You want the stupid Neck-O-Matic?” I said, totally losing my cool. “All right. Fine.” I walked into the room, grabbed the suitcase, and started to drag it. With all the bricks, it was really heavy.

Even as I did it, I felt guilty. This was the time to be especially nice to my parents, and I was being a brat. But I couldn't help it. I kicked and pushed it through the kitchen, toward the front door, scraping the floor, knocking over a chair.

“Joel, really, you can leave it . . .”

I rolled it over, out the front door. By now, Kenny and Howard were both up, watching me. “See?” I said, shoving it down the stairs. “No problem.” I kept rolling it over and over until I got to the car. I couldn't lift it, but Kenny came out in his pajamas, with the keys, and opened the trunk. With a heave-ho, we lifted it up and in.

“There's your Neck-O-Matic!” I said, slamming the trunk shut.

“But how will we get it out?” my mom asked.

“There are orderlies at the hospital,” said my dad. “That's their job, to help with luggage. Big, strong guys. They can put it on a wheelchair . . .”

They came out to the car, my dad hobbling to the passenger seat, my mom on the verge of tears as I gave her the keys. Just before they left, my dad said, “You're not worried, are you, Joel?”

I shook my head and said sarcastically, “Why should I worry? You've got the Neck-O-Matic.”

“You're just upset now,” said my dad. “But it'll be all right—I'll be back. With golden joints!”

“I'll call from the hospital when the operation is over,” said my mom.

I didn't say a word to Kenny or Howard; I just ran to the den and slammed the door. Herrmann and I looked out the window as they drove off.

“Nothing to worry about,” I said to her. “They'll love it. It'll be great.”

I think I'm getting a gorgle.

When I left for school a while later, the air was crisp. There was no frost on the ground, but the sky was gray and cloudy, and the barometer on the porch still read between 29 and 30, pushing toward
SNOW
. But as I walked down Kimdale Drive, the day got hotter with every step. By the time I got to school, the last bit of fog had burned off. The little kids were all at the far end of the school, near the cement factory, packed into the giant sandbox, digging like crazy. One of them was running around screaming, “Look, everyone, it's true! I found a dime!”

The other kids gathered around to see, like it was the most amazing thing in the world, then went back to digging.

This whole sandbox thing began two years ago, when I was in fifth grade. Howard was in Mr. Culpepper's class and he came home one day looking very serious, saying there was something he couldn't tell us, and we shouldn't ask him about it. Then he went to his room and closed the door, like he always does. Howard's usually pretty bad at keeping secrets, but he kept this one.

We had no idea what it was until the next week, on Monday morning, when Brian and I got to school, and found the main yard deserted.

“Whoa!” said Brian. “What happened? Did someone drop an atomic bomb?”

Brian always says things like that. But it was weird. Not atomic bomb weird, but weird just the same. Then I looked and saw that all the kids were at the sandbox way down at the far end of the playground. We went to see what was going on, and everyone was digging.

“It's wicked cool!” said Eddy Mazurki.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Didn't you hear?” he said. “Over the weekend there was a robbery! At the Bank of America, down the street. Because the thieves were being chased by the police and they didn't want to get caught with the money, they buried it—right here in the sandbox!”

“Look!” shouted Debbie Henderson. “Thirty-five cents!”

Everyone gathered around to look at her coins. Sure enough, there was a quarter and a dime.

“Where did you find it?” someone asked.

“Right there!” she said, pointing.

A moment later, we were all digging. Every few minutes, someone would shout out, and we'd rush to see what they'd found. Usually it was pennies or nickels, but Billy Zamboni found a half dollar.

The bell rang, and we went off to class, though no one wanted to. At recess, almost all the kids were at the
sandbox, digging for coins. At lunchtime the eighth graders showed up—including Howard. They weren't digging—they just stood there, on the basketball court, watching us and laughing.

It turned out that Mr. Culpepper had been teaching Howard's class about rumors. That was the secret. They had made up the story about the bank robbers, and told just a few kids. Those kids told more kids. And now, here we all were, digging.

When you think about it, the story is ridiculous for all kinds of reasons. For one, since when do bank robbers steal
coins
? Even if they did, and were being chased by police, why would they stop to hide the money in the Bixby School sandbox? And if they
had
buried it, why would the coins be scattered all over the place?