Holy Enchilada (6 page)

“I have never seen root beer float,” said Yoshi. “I didn't know it could.”

We all had a really good laugh, including Papa Pete.

“We're going to have a good time, Yoshi, my boy,” he said.

And then he did just what I knew he was going to do. He reached out and gave Yoshi a big pinch on the cheek. Yoshi seemed surprised, but I think he liked it. There isn't anybody who doesn't like Papa Pete. He is the greatest, warmest, funniest, smartest grandpa around.

We headed down Amsterdam Avenue toward McKelty's Roll 'N Bowl, which is Papa Pete's home away from home. He's a champion bowler, and a champion root-beer-float drinker, too. By the way, in case you recognize the McKelty name, the bowling alley is owned by Nick the Tick's father. He's a nice man. No one can understand how that idiot he has for a son got born into his family.

“Where's Mom and Dad?” I asked Papa Pete as we dodged our way along the crowded sidewalk. “I thought they were coming to pick us up.”

“They're still at the apartment,” Papa Pete answered. “They're busy.”

“Doing what?”

“Your mother got it into her head that they had to put up new wallpaper in the bathroom,” he answered. “I don't know why she picked today of all days to do it.”

I knew, but I didn't say anything.

“She thought they'd be finished by now,” Papa Pete went on. “But—” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “There was a little accident involving the iguana and a can of wallpaper paste.”

Emily, who has all-powerful hearing when you even breathe anything about Katherine, flew into a total panic.

“What happened to Katherine?” she asked. “Is she hurt?”

“Katherine is fine,” Papa Pete reassured her. “She stepped in the wallpaper paste and got stuck to the kitchen floor for a few minutes, that's all.”

“You mean she was glued to the linoleum?” Emily yelled.

“We soaked her feet in water and got her unstuck,” Papa Pete explained. “She's absolutely as good as new. Except she keeps smelling her toes.”

Frankie and I burst out laughing.

“Oh, so you think it's funny that Kathy was stuck to the floor!” Emily shouted at me.

“No, Emily.” I could barely answer because I was holding my sides, I was laughing so hard. “I don't
think
it's funny, I
know
it's funny.”

“Hank, when will you grow up?” she said.

“In about another eight years,” I howled.

I was behaving badly and I knew it. But I couldn't stop. Yoshi was behaving much better than I was. He reached out and patted Emily's arm.

“I would like to meet your lizard,” he said to her in a kind voice.

“You would?” she said. “Oh, Kathy would love that.”

Emily smiled so big, you could almost see her molars. And she had another goo-goo-eye attack, too. Boy, that really got to Robert.

“Actually, Yoshi,” he said, “I don't recommend that. The iguana can be very moody around new people. I don't think Kathy would like you.”

“Robert! Of course Kathy wants to meet Yoshi,” Emily said.

“How do you know?” I asked. “Did she tell you?”

“As a matter of fact, she did,” Emily said. “We have a special way of communicating. I know what she's thinking, and she knows what I'm thinking.”

“Actually, I have developed the knack of iguana communication myself,” Robert said. He had that annoying little bubble thing going on in his throat, and he needed to clear it real bad. Poor guy. I didn't have the heart to tell him.

It didn't matter, anyway. We had arrived at McKelty's Roll 'N Bowl and we were already running up the stairs to get our bowling shoes on.

It probably won't surprise you to learn that Yoshi was a very good bowler. And you should have seen him on the arcade games. Was there anything this kid couldn't do? He had magic fingers and killer concentration. I hardly ever play arcade games because my mind always wanders and I'm never able to win.

After we bowled, Papa Pete treated us all to root-beer floats. Yoshi thought the float was the most delicious thing he'd ever tasted—next to enchiladas.

After we had slurped down the last speck of float, Papa Pete let us play one game of air hockey before we had to leave. Yoshi and I were neck and neck, and Frankie was watching, when guess who showed up. I'll give you a hint—rotten egg bordering on vomit breath.

You got it. Nick McKelty. He hangs out there a lot because it's his dad's place.

“I got winners,” he said, hunkering down and leaning his rashy elbows on the table.

“Sorry, McKelty,” I told him. “We have to go after this game.”

“What's the big rush?”

“My grandpa's going to take us to Gristediano's.”

“To the supermarket!” he snorted. “You Zipzers really know how to have a good time. What are you going to do after that? Introduce Yoshi to plastic bags at the dry cleaners? Or maybe get wild and go to Drago's Shoe Repair for some new heels?”

“For your info, dude,” Frankie told him, “we are going to buy supplies to make enchiladas. We're bringing them for the Multi-Cultural Day Lunch tomorrow.”

“Oh, yeah,” McKelty said. “Wait until you see the pigs in a blanket that I'm bringing. They'll be a million times better.”

“Pigs in a blanket?” Frankie said. “You mean those little hot dogs wrapped up in biscuit dough?”

“Not just regular hot dogs, Townsend,” McKelty said. “These are special hot dogs. My dad got them from—”

McKelty stopped for a minute. You could just feel his slow brain trying to come up with some outrageous story we were all supposed to believe. Frankie didn't give him the chance.

“I know, dude,” Frankie interrupted. “Your dad got them from the King of Hot Dog Land, who he met while sitting in the floor seats at the Knicks game just before he slept over at the White House while teaching the president to bowl.”

“How'd you know?” McKelty said.

We just laughed. Yoshi laughed, too. I'm sure he didn't actually understand all the words we were saying, but he got the picture about McKelty. A jerk is a jerk in any language.

“You're supposed to bring a dish from another country tomorrow,” Robert said to McKelty. “That's why they call it the Multi-Cultural Day Lunch.”

“So what's your point?” McKelty asked.

“The point is pigs in a blanket aren't from another country,” I said.

“They are, too,” said McKelty. “They're from Kansas.”

“News flash, Big Dude. Kansas isn't a country,” Frankie said.

“I knew that,” McKelty growled. “I just wanted to see if you did.”

“Right,” Frankie said. “And my name is Bernice.”

That cracks Yoshi up every time Frankie says it.

I glanced over at McKelty just to enjoy the look on his face. In that one second, Yoshi shot the puck past me and scored the winning goal.

“He shoots, he scores,” he said, in absolutely perfect English.

“Where'd you learn that?” I asked him.

“PlayStation NHL hockey game,” Yoshi answered with a shrug.

And they say video games aren't educational.

PAPA PETE SAYS YOU SHOULD NEVER GO TO the grocery store without a list. While he was saying good-bye to his buddies at the bowling alley, we decided to take his advice. Frankie, Yoshi, and I sat down to make a list of what we needed to get at Gristediano's to make our enchiladas. Robert and Emily refused to participate. When you read the list, you'll see why.

I know. You don't have to tell me. It's a stupid list. But hey, it was really funny at the time. I guess you had to be there.

Emily said we were acting like dumb boys. Robert said we were acting like immature boys. But I say this to you: We're only ten. We're entitled to lose it once in a while.

THIS IS THE KIND OF GUY PAPA PETE IS. He took our list and looked it over. He didn't say one tiny word about how silly or stupid it was. All he said was, “Come on, kids. Let's get cracking. We got a batch of schmintzaladas to make.”

Papa Pete is an expert cook. He started the Crunchy Pickle and ran it for his whole life until he retired and turned it over to my mom a couple of years ago. Almost everything in that deli is made from his recipes. Potato salad, red cabbage coleslaw, pastrami sandwiches with Russian dressing, tuna melts with tangy cheddar, black bean soup with sour cream. Everything tastes delicious. Except for the stuff my mom makes. She says she's trying to bring deli food into the twenty-first century, but I think she should have left it back in the twentieth century when Papa Pete was cooking.

Papa Pete told us he knew what was in enchiladas, and I trusted him completely. Anything he cooks comes out great.

We walked over to Gristediano's and cruised through the aisles, pushing our cart. Papa Pete called out the ingredients for the enchiladas, and we raced around the aisles to find them. We got tortillas and tomato sauce and cheese and garlic and a can of jalapeño peppers and sour cream. Then Papa Pete took us to the spice aisle.

“Now for a little zing!” he said, pointing to rows and rows of spice jars.

I looked through the spice jars. I saw curry and sage and dried parsley and cinnamon, but I didn't see anything called Zing.

Papa Pete ran his finger along the jars until he came to one that said Hot Chili Powder. It was filled with a dark red ground-up spice.

“This,” he said, tossing the jar into our cart, “is what you need to give your enchiladas a little zing.”

“I don't know what is zing,” Yoshi said.

“Zing is what puts hair on your chest,” Papa Pete told him.

“Eeuuuww, who wants that?” said Emily.

“It's an expression, my darling grand-daughter,” Papa Pete said. “It refers to the kind of food that packs a wallop. Kicks up your taste buds. Puts a little spice in your life. Explodes on your tongue.”

“Like wasabi,” Yoshi said.

“Exactly,” Papa Pete said, holding his finger up in the air like a nutty professor I saw in a movie once. “You've had wasabi, Hankie. Remember that spicy green horseradish you ate at Planet Sushi?”

“Oh, that!” I said.

How could I forget that? ne night, our family went to a sushi restaurant on Columbus Avenue for my aunt Maxine's birthday. I'm not a big fan of raw fish myself, but all the grown-ups ordered a huge platter of sushi. On the corner of the platter there was a little pile of stuff that looked like green mustard. I love mustard, so I took one of my chopsticks and put a smidge of the green stuff on the end. It didn't smell like anything bad, so I popped it in my mouth. Let me tell you this: The minute that stuff hit my tongue, I thought my face was on fire. That tiny speck of green horseradish was so spicy, I was sure my whole nose was going to fly off my face and go running all the way to Central Park and jump in the pond to cool off.

I looked at the jar of red chili powder in our cart.

“If this stuff is anything like that wasabi, then maybe we should forget about the zing,” I said.

“Hankie, live a little,” Papa Pete said. “You need a dash of spice in your enchiladas. Otherwise they wouldn't be enchiladas.”

“You mean schmintzaladas,” Frankie said.

We all cracked up, even Papa Pete.

We were all still laughing when we left Gristediano's and headed home.

MY MOM MUST HAVE ALERTED the entire apartment building that we were having a special visitor. When we turned the corner onto our block, I could see most of our neighbors standing under our green awning, waiting to say hello to Yoshi. There were so many of them, for a minute I thought they were welcoming the president of Japan and not just a fourth-grader like me.

Frankie's parents were there, and Ashley's, too. Her grandmother, who lives with them, was holding a plate of steamed pork dumplings. She probably thought we needed a backup in case my mom made one of her usual experimental taste-free, mock-tuna-filled dinners.

As we got closer to our building, I could see Mrs. Park, who lives on the fourth floor, yelling at Mr. Grasso, who's right above her on the fifth floor. She always complains that he leaves his TV on too loud at night. Little Tyler King, who lives with his mom on our floor, was dressed for bed in his Spider-Man pajamas and Elmo slippers. I just love little kids in their pajamas. They're so squeezable, like baby koala bears—although I've never actually squeezed one of those. I'd like to, though.

My mom and dad were there, waving at us like lunatics. Our next-door neighbor, Mrs. Fink, was there, too. I like her, even though she almost never wears her false teeth and you can see her pink gums when she smiles. She has a crush on Papa Pete, but he doesn't have a crush back on her. I'm pretty sure that's because of the no-teeth problem I just mentioned.