Of Mice and Nutcrackers: A Peeler Christmas (5 page)

I wake up because Bernie is bouncing on my bed.

“Jane, guess what?”

He lands on my leg. I sit up. “What time is it?”

“You’ll never guess who’s here.”

I grab my clothes in one hand. “Who?”

He puts his face right up to my ear and whispers as hard as he can. I can’t understand him, but I don’t have to. I hear a familiar voice from downstairs.

“Jane Peeler? Get the shell out of bed, you lazybones! Breakfast!”

Sounds like it might be a cheery voice, but it isn’t. It’s scratchy and gruff, and there’s a spitty kind of cough at the end of it. And the actual word isn’t “shell.” It rhymes with shell. I’m changing her words here because if I write down the words she actually says, I’ll get in trouble.

“See,” whispers Bernie.

I decide not to shower. I change really fast behind the bathroom door, and run downstairs to greet Grandmother Collins.

What can I say about her? Grandma is tall and skinny. She has bright eyes and frizzy hair and, generally, a cigarette hanging off the side of her mouth. Maybe because of the cigarette, her choice of words is often, um, grimy.

I used to think she was an awful old prune. She doesn’t seem to like anyone very much. She spends a lot of time criticizing Dad and telling us kids to stop doing what we’re doing. Then, this past summer, on our way to Auntie Vera’s house in the Berkshires with a detour to Schenectady, I got to know Grandma better. And I found that I was wrong about her. Sure she’s cranky and mean, but underneath her scaly exterior she has a heart of – no, I can’t say that. Not gold. Not even silver. She does have a heart, though. She said a couple of nice things about me before we came back home.

She lives across the city, and we don’t see her very often. None of us seems to mind very much.

She’s in the kitchen now, long-fingered hands on her skinny hips. Cigarette pointing up, mouth turned down.

“About time,” she says to me. A friendly greeting from Grandma. “Now, hurry up. You, too, Bernard. William is already finished his breakfast.”

Bernie hangs behind me. He’s scared of her.

The kitchen phone is on the wall beside the swinging door. The phone cord is usually twisted into knots. Now the phone is gone, and the cord stretches out the kitchen door. “Okay,” says Mom’s voice from the family room. “Okay, I’m on my way now. Bye, Fred. Yes, yes. See you soon. Bye.” Mom comes into the kitchen carrying the phone.

She looks so much better than yesterday. You’d hardly guess she was up crying in the middle of the night. Suit, makeup, briefcase, coffee cup. She looks like her old self – her real self. She’s even smiling.

“Hi, everyone,” she says.

“Mommy!” Bernie rushes over to give her a hug.

She grabs his shoulders and keeps his sticky hands away from her skirt. “Hey, Bernie, how’s my little baby?” she says. She puts him in his booster seat. “And now, children,” picking up her briefcase, “I have an announcement.”

We all look at her. Grandma coughs a couple of times, and spits into the sink. Mom frowns. “What?” says Grandma. Mom turns back at us.

“Jane, Bill, Bernie, your father is sick. He needs a lot of rest, so he can’t look after you all, and the house, the way he usually does. I can’t do all that and my regular job too, so I asked Grandma to help us. She’ll be staying here until your father gets better.”

She stops. I think we’re supposed to cheer, or say great, or yippee, or something like that. We don’t.

“I’m off to work now. Grandma will be here when you get back from school. She’ll make dinner … what was that, Bill?”

“Nothing,” says Bill. “Something stuck in my throat.”

I smile. I know what he’s thinking. Grandma is the world’s worst cook. Seriously. If she were any worse, she’d be a mass poisoner. Dad’s not very good, but he’s a thousand times better than Grandma.

“And now I have to go. Bye-bye. I’ll see you tonight.”

Mom waves at us all, bends to kiss Bernie on the top of the head. “Thanks, Mother,” she says, and heads off. Grandma doesn’t say anything.

Bill is dressed, no missing pieces. There’s an empty cereal bowl on the table. “Where’s the hard tack?” I ask him.

“I don’t eat tack all the time,” he says. “David’s family never do.” He makes for the door.

Grandma blocks his way. “Put your bowl in the sink,” she says. “I’m your grandmother, not your servant.”

“But Dad –”

“Your father spoils you, and look where it got him,” says Grandma. “Put the ham bowl in the sink. Okay?” “Okay,” mutters Bill.

“When did you get here, Grandma?” I ask. I meant to say how nice it was to see her, but somehow the words don’t come out.

“Never mind when I got here,” she says. “Just eat.” She points to some clean bowls and spoons on the table, and a box of cold cereal. The little rounded spoon is there. It’s our favorite. I can’t believe Bill didn’t grab it.

“I don’t like that kind of cereal,” I say.

“Tough,” says Grandma.

Bernie turns around in his booster seat high chair to stare at her with wide eyes. His little hand creeps toward his mouth. I hope he’s not going to cry.

“Here, Bernie,” I say. I hand him the best spoon.

Grandma takes a deep drag on her cigarette. I wait and wait for the smoke to come out.

*

It’s I0:00 and I’m in the school office, handing in the day’s attendance sheet. Mrs. Winter is on the phone. She takes the sheet without looking at me. The principal’s room is across the hall. He’s sitting at his desk. “Can I see you for a moment, sir?” I ask.

He waves me in. There’s a line of dark spots on the floor in front of his room. Is he the one in the marking shoes? I check them out when he comes around his desk.

“Hello, there.” He raises a thick dark eyebrow. Then he puts it down, as if it’s too heavy to lift up for long. “Is this about your class attendance?”

“No, sir. It’s about rehearsals for
The Nutcracker.”

“Ah,
The Nutcracker.
I hear great things about that from Miss Gonsalves. You wrote the poems, I understand. Well done, um….” He’s forgotten my name.

“Jane Peeler, sir. Thank you, sir.”

“You can call me Gordon.”

“Yes, uh, Mr., uh, I mean, Gordon.”

“Mr. Gordon is okay, too.”

There’s blue carpeting in the room. I can’t tell if the principal’s brown loafers are making marks or not. I go straight into my speech.

“We need to use the gym tonight for our rehearsals. Tomorrow night, too.”

Gordon blinks. “Didn’t you just have a rehearsal there the other night?”

“No, sir. We were supposed to, but I had to go to the hospital.”

“Oh, yes. I remember now.” He retreats back behind the desk and puts his hands in his pants pockets. He’s wearing a sweatshirt with a soccer logo on the sleeve. He looks like an overage kid. He jigs from foot to foot. “You’re sure you’re not sick?”

“Yes, sir. I’m fine.”

“That’s good. Your brother seems to be all right. I saw him in the hallway before school.” “He’s fine, too.”

“A nice boy, your brother. Wished me a happy Chanukah.”

“Yes, I bet he did.”

“Now, um, Jane … about tonight …”

“We need the rehearsal, sir. Badly. The show is on Tuesday and we haven’t had a chance to act onstage yet. Not at all. Didn’t Miss Gonsalves explain?”

I wish she were here with me. She isn’t even at school today. The substitute teacher is approximately three million years old. She thinks computers are newfangled. Also calculators and electric pencil sharpeners.
In
my
day we did things for ourselves,
she says. I’ll bet she thinks the wheel is newfangled.
In
my
day we dragged stuff around.
Her jaw opens and shuts with a snap, like a spring-loaded box lid.

Miss Gonsalves promised she’d be back for the rehearsal tonight. I’ll be glad to see her – there’s so much to do.

The phone rings.

“About tonight,” I say.

Gordon pauses with his hand on the receiver. He puffs his cheeks out at me. His eyebrows lumber up and down his face. “Tonight there’s a basketball practice. The boys’ team has a game next week.”

“What? But Miss Gonsalves –”

“Mr. Gebohm reserved the gym. If you want it, you’ll have to talk to him.”

He picks up the phone. “Hello? Yes, Gordon Gordon here.”

I don’t leave. “What about tomorrow?”

He stares at me with the phone at his ear. “What’s that?” he says.

“We get the gym tomorrow,” I say. “Friday. For our rehearsal.”

“What? Yes, yes, all right,” he says.

“Thank you,” I say, and walk out, thinking about Mr. Gebohm.

“My life is falling apart,” I say to Patti at lunch recess. She’s dressed up today. Her best shirt, hair in a beautiful – well, a carefully combed – style, all up and wrapped around her head, with little clips in a circle. No hat, even for outside recess. A hat would disarrange the hairstyle. She looks like she’s ready to go synchronized swimming, or do battle with Jabba the Hutt.

“Mmm hmm”
she says, looking over my shoulder. We’re standing in the grade 7 section of the playground,
near the school but not near the doors. We always stand here.

“My dad is really sick, so he’s upstairs and no one can go near him. Mom has to work, so we’re being looked after by my grandmother – the original dragon lady,” I say.

“Mmm hmm?”

“Yes. She smokes like a chimney, swears worse than Michael. She’s really bossy.”

“There he is. Hi, Brad!” Patti hasn’t been listening to me.

Brad smiles and comes over. His leather jacket is unzipped, exposing a sweatshirt with the picture of an album cover. The edges of the jacket hang over the first part of the group’s name. I can see the second part:
IMP IZKET.
Brad waggles his eyebrows at Patti, who simpers and sucks her braces. I think she even blushes.

“Guess what, girls? I saw our supply teacher in the parking lot.”

“She drives a car?” I can’t believe it. “You sure it wasn’t a horse and buggy?”

He smiles uncertainly. “Horse and buggy?”

“Don’t mind Jane,” says Patti. “What do you want to do now, Braddie?”

Braddie? Braddie?

The playground monitor is a ginger-mustached man, with a chest like a barrel and long bare hands that
stick out of the bottom of his sleeves like pitchforks. His eyes glitter behind little glasses. Mr. Gebohm.

How can I convince him to let us have the gym tonight?

Mr. Gebohm is the gym teacher and coach. He’s new this year. I don’t know him very well, and don’t like what I know. He’s a hard man. His expression is hard. His heart is hard. Even the
G
at the front of his name is hard.

I walk up to him with my second-best smile. “Mr. Gebohm? I have a favor to ask you.”

“Who are you?” he asks. “You don’t play basketball.” He turns away from me and scans the playground.

I smile harder. “Jane Peeler. Actually, it’s about the gym that I want to talk to you.”

“Gym?”

“Yes. I wonder if–”

“What Do You Think You’re Doing?” When Mr. Gebohm yells, he sounds like an advertising slogan. Every word counts. He hurries toward a knot of little kids. I follow.

“Hey, Jane,” calls Michael from the climbing bars. “Watch this!”

Why do I turn to watch? I don’t like Michael. I don’t like him when he’s being his normal loudmouthed self. I don’t see any improvement when he’s doing pull-ups on the climbing bars.

“You Think You’re Going To Be Popular? You Think She Likes That?” Mr. Gebohm is yelling at Jiri.

There’s a ring of little kids, grade ones and kindergartners, surrounding Jiri. There usually is. He gets along with them. In a way they’re all of an age.

“Huh?” says Jiri. He’s giving a little girl a ride on his back. He’s smiling and panting earnestly, running up and down. She’s pulling his hair and telling him to go faster.

Mr. Gebohm lowers his voice. “Did you hear me, big guy? I asked if you thought she liked it.”

Jiri takes a second to work it out. “Uh-huh,” he says.

“‘Uh-huh.’ What Kind Of Answer Is That?” He reaches his pitchfork hands toward the little girl, tries to pluck her off of Jiri’s back. She clings like a scab.