Dreidels on the Brain (13 page)

It made no sense at all. But here's what made it work: We found money. Real money. Why? Because it's a sandbox, and kids have been losing their lunch money there for years. But when someone finds a quarter, you don't stop to wonder whether it's true—you just dig.

As the week went on, the digging got out of hand, with kids fighting over who got to dig where, until Mr. Newton finally called a school assembly to tell us that there had been no bank robbers, there was no buried treasure, and to stop digging. Then Mr. Culpepper stood up onstage and
told us about how his class had started the rumor as an experiment, and ended by saying, “So, you see? You can't believe everything you hear.”

We all felt pretty dumb. “You're not actually stupid,” Howard explained to me later. “Just
gullible
. That means you believe something without questioning.”

“I know what the word
gullible
means,” I said. “Or at least what it's
supposed
to mean. Because it's not even a real word.”

“What?” said Howard.

“That's right. I read this book on language. It's actually slang.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, from sailors, who saw seagulls and were fooled into thinking there's land nearby when there really wasn't. But it's not a real word—that's why it isn't in the dictionary. If you don't believe me, look it up.”

Off Howard went to find the dictionary—
he's
the gullible one. And, eventually, the digging stopped. But here's the strange thing. Even though the whole school now knew it wasn't real, every few months kids would start digging again, getting all excited about the stolen loot. And when the teachers explained the whole thing to them, they just nodded and kept right on digging. Because, in their minds, being told it was a rumor made it even
more
true, and they figured the teachers were just
saying it was a rumor so they could dig up the money and keep it for themselves.

This morning I watched them dig for a while, amazed at the crazy stuff people believe. But here's the craziest thing of all: As I sat there watching, knowing it was completely ridiculous, part of me wanted to dig too.

It's like the story I read about the Chelmite lying in the grass one summer day, taking a nap. But he can't sleep because there are kids nearby, making noise. So he says, “Hey, children! Did you know there's someone at the other side of Chelm giving away free apples?”

The kids get all excited. “Free apples?” they say, and run off. With the kids gone, the guy goes back to sleep. A few minutes later, though, he hears people running past, talking about free apples, and he chuckles. Then he hears more people. Suddenly, everyone is running to the other side of town, talking about free apples. Finally he can't help himself. He jumps up and runs to the other side of town, saying, “Free apples? Sounds crazy! Then again, who knows?”

I wonder if that's how it is with God. And prayer. And miracles. Like it's all just this big rumor that makes no sense at all. But then, once in a while, someone gets what they're praying for. So we go on believing, because what else are we going to do?

Quietly, as I watched the kids dig, I said a little prayer.
I couldn't help it. No one heard me—except God, if God was listening. “Hey, God,” I said, “look, I was a real jerk to my parents this morning. So I'll tell you what. Forget the snow. A heat wave is fine by me, just as long as my dad's surgery turns out okay. So he can walk. And maybe even dance. That's the only miracle I'm looking for. All right?”

As always when talking to God, I felt silly. Then again, who knows?

This close to vacation, the teachers have given up trying to teach us anything. Especially Mr. Kunkle, our social studies teacher, who we see first thing on Wednesday, and who never seemed all that interested in teaching us anything in the first place. Even at the start of the year he seemed like he was running on fumes, reading long portions of the textbook while kids went wild.

“Class, as you are well aware, we will be having an extra day of school this coming Monday,” Mr. Kunkle said in his deep voice I can only describe as
soporific,
which is a vocabulary word that means “puts you right to sleep.” He speaks slowly, and three or four words is all it takes. He could be a great hypnotist.

“This additional day will provide us all with an opportunity to review some of the fascinating topics we have covered during the course of this semester . . .” I was already
tired from last night, and the room was stuffy. I could feel my head starting to droop. “So, please open your textbooks, sit quietly, and review chapter seven.”

I opened my textbook to chapter seven, which we'd already read, all about the evils of Communism and the Soviet Union, and how everything they say is “propaganda.” It made me wonder if there was some kid in the Soviet Union reading from a textbook that says how evil everything in the United States is, and how everything
we
say is propaganda.

Tired of chapter seven, I turned back to chapter four. It's the only part of our textbook—or any textbook I've ever had in school—that mentions Jews. There's a grainy black-and-white photo of the entrance to Auschwitz, a Nazi death camp. There are guards with guns, and people are passing under a sign in German. The caption says:
This is the entrance to Auschwitz, one of many Nazi concentration camps. The sign above the prisoners, “Arbeit macht frei,” translates to “Work Will Make You Free,” which was not true. During World War II, six million Jews were killed by the Nazis, many in death camps such as this.

I looked at it for a long time and must have drifted off, because I was seeing the dream from this morning, only now I was under the gates of Auschwitz, holding the kite string. In the sky high above me was my father, holding on to the
kite, shouting, “It'll be great! They'll love it!” I jolted awake, thinking how at that very moment he was somewhere in the hospital, maybe strapped to a table, being rolled down the hall to an operating room, with surgeons looking over him, sharpening their scalpels, cutting him open, and pouring in gold. Maybe the gold was already in his body, and maybe he was starting to move around, like the Tin Man in
The Wizard of Oz
.

At recess everyone was talking about the assembly, and what the surprise would be. Mary Wigglesworth said she heard that the PTA was going to give everyone snow cones, like they sell after school on the last Friday of the month, but these would be free. Someone else said it would be cotton candy, and Arnold Pomeroy said they were both wrong, that it would be free corn dogs for everyone, as many as we could eat, and he could eat about fifteen of them, with ketschupp and mustard.

Billy Zamboni said it wasn't about food at all—that he'd heard there would be a visit from a real TV star, the actress who plays Jeannie on
I Dream of Jeannie
. But Tim Stevenson said it would be the guy who plays Darrin on
Bewitched
. Then people started talking about which Darrin it would be, because there had been two different actors playing the part in the series, and when one left the show, they just stuck in the other like
no one would notice. Someone else said they would
both
be there, but Davie Miller said he'd heard there would be two even
bigger
TV stars: Sonny and Cher! And they would be singing at the Bixby winter holiday assembly!

I was relieved when the bell rang and we went to science class with Mrs. Skurvecky, who turned off the lights and showed us a film about how plants grow, which sent me right back to sleep. I woke up when the lights went back on, with just a few minutes to the end of class, and she said we could talk quietly until the bell rang, so I went up to her.

“Do you have a question, Joel?”

“Yes, Mrs. Skurvecky. Do you know what temperature gold melts at?”

“Well,” she said, “I'd have to check to be sure, but I think it's pretty hot—around two thousand degrees.”

Wow. That was really hot. A picture flashed in my mind of a doctor holding a beaker filled with melted, bubbling gold, pouring it into my dad's sliced-open hip joint.

“Is something the matter, Joel?”

“No, nothing.”

“Are you sure?” she said. “Why do you want to know about melting gold?”

“Because, well . . . I'm just curious.”

The bell rang, and I was out the door. A minute later I was across the street and running down Kimdale Drive.

On Wednesdays after school, the timing is really tight. I need to run home, feed Herrmann, grab my magic suitcase, then run to Baldwin and catch bus number 259, which is supposed to arrive at 3:37. That gets me close enough to Oak Grove Boulevard to jump out at 3:52. That's just long enough to get to Mister Mystery's apartment for my lesson at 4:00. If it all works right, I get there with three minutes to spare.

Today I ran even faster than usual so I could check the Phone-O-Matic. I made record time, getting home by 3:20. I fed Herrmann and sure enough, the tape reel was spinning around, its loose end whipping all over the place. This is another one of my dad's inventions. He's always waiting for important phone calls he doesn't want to miss, even if no one is home, so he built a machine with Howard's old Erector Set. When the phone rings, it sets off a doorbell buzzer that triggers a motor that turns these gears that lift the phone receiver off the hook. Then he has two tape recorders hooked up, with a lever from the Erector Set rigged to push the button on one and then, thirty seconds later, on the other. The first one plays a recording he made about the Phone-O-Matic, saying that the caller should talk to it even though it's a machine. Then the first tape recorder clicks off and the second one turns on and records the person's voice.

I stopped the tape from going round and round, then found scissors to cut off the end, which gets shredded from all that spinning. Once I did that, I ran it through the tape heads and rewound it.

That's the unfinished part of the Phone-O-Matic. It can only take one message at a time. It turns out that while it's easy to get the Erector Set to press a button to record, it's hard to get it to stop and reset. Someone
had
called, and I hoped it was my mom saying the surgery was over and everything was okay. But when I reached the beginning and pressed
PLAY
, there was a garbled sound, some clicks, and then silence. That could have meant that the caller didn't understand the Phone-O-Matic and hung up. I played it again. Too garbled to hear. It could have been my mom calling. Because she doesn't hear very well, she's never quite sure what to do when she calls the Phone-O-Matic. She's supposed to leave a message, but sometimes she gets flustered and hangs up. Whatever happened, there was no message. I wrote a note for Kenny and Howard: “No news yet.” Then I reset the Phone-O-Matic. It was 3:31. I grabbed my suitcase and ran out the door.

I got to the bus stop, sat down, and pulled out my watch. It's my dad's old one that he gave me when the band broke, so I keep it in my pocket. It read 3:35. Perfect. Right on time. I stopped to catch my breath. Then waited.