My Great-grandfather Turns 12 Today

My Great-grandfather

Turns 12 Today

Bill Dodds

Copyright © 2010 by Bill Dodds

All rights reserved.

ISBN 978-0-9840908-1-5

[email protected]

BillDodds.com

A Note from the Author, Bill Dodds

Hello, Young Reader.

Imagine going back in time and meeting your great-grandparent when he or she was your age. (No, not your parent or grandparent. Your
great
-grandparent!)

That’s what happens to the main character in this book.

Do you have some questions for that book report that’s due tomorrow? (Tomorrow!) Would you like to know more about writing books and poems? Send me an e-mail at [email protected]

You can find out more about me at the back of this book and at
BillDodds.com
.

Happy reading.

Bill

For Andy,

born ninety-nine years

after his great-grandfather Charlie

Chapters

1. My Brother, the Gift Guesser

2. Feet on the Hump, Chump

3. A LOUD Welcome

4. Escaping the Hug of Death

5. Into Great-grandpa’s Room

6. Figuring Out Who’s Who

7. Caught!

8. “Stretchers” and “Vaudeville”

9. In a Strange Land

10. Meeting my Great-great-grandfather

11. And My Great-great-grandmother

12. Bad News

13. How to Save the Farm

14. To the River

15. Ireland and William

16. Richard

17. Swimming and Talking

18. You Call
This
Toilet Paper?

19. I Entertain the Family

20. Sissie

21. A Sunday in 1898

22. Fire!

23. Forty-seven Dollars Short

24. A Pile of Rabbit Skins and One Knife

25. The Founders’ Day Contest

26. They Pick . . . Me

27. Hoops? Hoops!

28. My Old World Seems Like a New World

29. Hellos and Good-byes

30. Visiting Peter, Mary, and William

31. A Visitor

About the Author or Stuff to Add to Your Book Report So It Isn’t Too Short

Chapter 1

My Brother, the Gift Guesser

“Hurry up, Michael, we’re going to be late!” my father yelled up the stairs at me.

Maybe Michael doesn’t even want to go, I thought. Did that ever occur to you? Maybe Michael has better things to do on his twelfth birthday than ride all the way to Fair Brook and be around a bunch of old people who smell like they wet their pants.

Most of them don’t even wear pants, I corrected myself. They just sit around or lie around in those stupid gowns and robes and they drool and cough.

Happy birthday, dear Michael. Happy birthday to me.

I stared out the window. It was raining really hard. There was some lightning and thunder.

“Mom says you can open one present before we go!” Dad shouted up at me. Present?
All right!

I found my jacket. For some reason my brother had stuffed it under my bed. Probably I had accidentally left it on “his” side of the room and so he had crammed it under there. That was so typical.

“Michael!”

I was heading downstairs when I heard that same stupid brother ask, “How come he gets to open a present now?”

“Just one,” my mom said. “We’re opening the rest of them at Fair Brook.”

That’ll be fun, I thought. We can pass them around and let everyone slobber on them.

“But we’re not supposed to open presents until
after
the cake,” he said.  “That the way we
always
do it.”

For a guy who was only fourteen, Robert was a real pain when it came to explaining how it
had
to be done. He always knew how everything
had
to be done. And he was always ready to tell the rest of us.

“Get a grip,” David said. That was my other older brother. He was sixteen and had just gotten his driver’s license and his letter jacket for track. David was madly in love with . . . David. But at least most of the time he was on my side. That was mainly because he knew it really bugged Robert.

“How far to Fair Brook?” he asked my dad.

As if we hadn’t been there a billion times.

“About thirty-five miles,” Dad said.

David looked at his watch. “We should get going,” he said.

Oh, okay, Dad Junior.

“He only gets to open a
small
present, huh?” Robert asked.

“I get to pick,” I said, thinking: Roll on out that brand new bike!

“Here.” Mom handed me a shopping bag that wasn’t very heavy.

“I guess there’s not a bicycle in here, huh?” I asked and she laughed as if I had made a joke.

“We figured you can have David’s old bike,” Dad said.

David’s old bike! That piece of junk?

“Not
have
,” David corrected them. “I said he could
buy it
from me. Cheap.”

Talk about cheap.

“How much?” I asked.

“We’ll discuss that later,” Dad said. “We’ve got to get going.”

“So open one!” That was my little sister Sarah who was almost nine. She had just finished the third grade. She was all right for short periods of time.

“You want me to go warm up the car?” David asked my dad.

In the middle of June? It was raining not snowing.

“I think it’ll be okay,” Dad said.

“So is he gonna open a stupid present or what?” Robert whined. “I don’t want to waste all my Saturday at that place.”

Dad didn’t exactly growl but when he exhaled there was something there that said, “Watch out!”

“I mean,” Robert quickly added, “I have a few other things I have to do later today and so I think we should get going.”

“So open one,” Sarah said again.

I looked in the bag. There were four or five packages inside. All in “Happy Birthday” wrapping paper. “What’s my main one?” I asked Mom.

“No fair,” Robert said. “On my birthday I had to wait until . . . ”

“This one.” Mom reached in and pulled out the smallest package. It was about five inches long, an inch and a half wide, and an inch and a half deep. She handed it to me. It was heavy.

“Probably a harmonica,” David said.

I hate that! I hate when people guess what’s in a wrapped-up present and then they’re right and they say, “I told you so.”

“Nope,” Dad said.

“It’s small,” I said to Robert. “You said it would be okay if I opened a small one.”

“Shut up.”

“Boys,” my mom said.

He started it, I thought.

“Probably a pocket knife,” David said. I tore open the paper before he could make another guess. I was already too late. “Told you,” he said, sounding smug.

It was one of those Swiss Army knives. The red ones. The kind that have a bunch of stuff beside blades. A screwdriver and tweezers and toothpick and saw and leather punch and can opener and bunch of other stuff.

“Cool,” I said and then remembered to add, “Thank you.”

Dad nodded and Mom gave me a little hug.

“Can I take it with me?” I asked.

“Sure,” Dad said. “I know Great-grandpa would love to see it.”

That brought me back to reality. Dad’s grandpa. My great-grandpa. That’s who we were going to see at Fair Brook. He and I have the same birthday: June 21. He was eighty-eight when I was born in 1974. I never got to have a birthday all to myself.

Today I turned twelve. That made him one hundred. The whole family—grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins—were getting together to celebrate. They were getting together for Great-grandpa, not for me.