When Life Gives You O.J. (9 page)

“Mom, come on. A Batman bike at a Fourth of July parade? Everybody’s going to laugh at him.”

“IN AMERICA, THERE IS FREEDOM OF CHOICE, BUT NOTHING TO CHOOSE FROM.” This came from Ace, who had just entered the room. “USTINOV,” he added. Ace liked to quote stuff.

“Do you like it, Grandpa?” asked Sam, looking genuinely confused.

Ace walked slowly around the bike, examining it as if it was for sale.

“I THINK IT IS SPECTACULAR,” he finally said. Sam beamed, then stuck out his tongue at me.

“Impressive use of pipe cleaners,” added my dad, who was on his knees inspecting Sam’s weaving job.

“This whole family is nuts,” I announced. But everyone was too busy admiring Sam’s bike to hear me.

When it came time for the parade, I didn’t want to go, but my mom made me. She said it wouldn’t be fair to Sam if we weren’t there to cheer him on.

“I could stay home alone,” I suggested hopefully.

“Not up for discussion,” said my mom, since she and my dad decided a while ago that staying home alone might be possible when I was in sixth grade, but not sooner.

“Okay,” I said. “But O.J.’s staying home today.”

My mom looked like she was going to say something, but I raised one hand. “Not up for discussion,” I told her solemnly. “Marching bands make O.J. nervous. Plus he’s afraid of balloons,” I added.

So all of us—people, that is—went downtown for the parade. Pretty much everyone in Burlington was there, except for kids who were off at sleepaway camp like Allie. I kept an eye out for Allie’s parents, though. Maybe she had sent a letter she wrote to me to them by mistake, and they’d brought it with them in case they ran into me.

It was one of those incredibly bright summer days that make grown-ups talk about the weather and the scenery even more than usual. I will never understand why grown-ups say some of the things they do. Ever since we moved here, my mom is always saying things like “Look at the lake!” and “Look at the mountains!” and “Is this a day or is this a
day
?” To be fair, Lake Champlain is a really nice lake, and the
Green Mountains and Camel’s Hump are pretty too. But it’s not like they change from day to day.

In the parade, the police came first, riding their motorcycles. Next came a Veterans of Foreign Wars float, and then some Morgan horses marched by with their manes and tails braided and their chestnut coats gleaming. The Burlington High School marching band played “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” and the football team and cheerleaders threw Tootsie Rolls and these little laminated cards with the fall game schedule on them. The University of Vermont mascot, the Catamount, which looked sort of like a lion (but without the mane) or a tiger (but without the stripes), rode by in a dark green convertible.

“Isn’t this great?” asked my mom, holding one hand over her eyes and craning her neck to see what was coming up next.

“It’s okay,” I told her. “Remember the Halloween parade in the City last year? There were those fifty-foot-tall marching puppets?”

“Do you know who made those puppets? Bread and Puppet Theater,” said my mom. “They’re from Vermont.”

“Oh,” I said. “Well, maybe they liked New York so much they moved there.”

“Look, sweetie,” said my mom, “this is a hard time for all of us.” She glanced over at Ace. He was sitting in a folding chair next to us, ignoring the parade and working on the
New York Times
crossword puzzle. But the puzzle must have stayed
blank because people kept coming over to him to shake his hand or clap him on the back. “Ace! Happy Fourth!” “Another perfect parade day, eh, Ace?” “Morning, Judge!” Ace kept scrunching his caterpillar eyebrows and scowling up at the interrupters, even though he was clearly loving the attention. A waitress from Henry’s Diner, Ace’s favorite lunch spot, even brought his regular order out to the curb for him: black coffee and a scrambled egg on rye bread sandwich.

“I know you miss New York,” my mom continued, “and I know you’re missing Allie too.”

“It’s just that—” I started to say, but before I could tell her anything else, she interrupted me by yelling, “Dad? Get ready. I think I see them waaayyy back there.”

Ace put down his
Times
, squinted at the marchers, and said, “I’LL ALERT THE PRESS.”

I crossed my arms in frustration. No one cared a thing about me. All my family cared about was Sam, and they cared about him so much that they were willing to let him embarrass us in public in order to fulfill his dream of parading on his Batcycle.

“This is so embarrassing,” I announced, even though no one seemed to be listening.

“YOU KNOW WHAT YOUR PROBLEM IS, KID?” asked Ace.

I didn’t answer, knowing that in a matter of moments …

“NO CHUTZPAH!”

Ace would tell me anyway.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked him.

Ace grinned with satisfaction. Nothing made him happier than getting to talk about something he knew and you didn’t. “IT’S LIKE MOXIE, KID. THE COURAGE OF YOUR CONVICTIONS. SEIZING THE REINS. CHUTZPAH!”

“I thought chutzpah was a bad thing,” I said. Ace likes to yell, “YOU’VE GOT A LOT OF CHUTZPAH!” at people on the TV news.

“THERE’S TWO KINDS OF CHUTZPAH, KID,” announced Ace. “I’M TALKING ABOUT THE OTHER KIND.”

“Oh,” I said. I suddenly remembered Ace saying something like this to me before. We had been visiting Bubbles and Ace in Vermont, back when they lived at The Farm, and they took us swimming at a pond. I didn’t want to go in because the bottom was all mucky. Plus I had just read the Little House books for the first time, so I was thinking:
leeches
. Sam was splashing around in his water wings, and Ace had swum all the way out to a float in the middle of the pond and was gesturing for me to join them. I stood at the water’s edge, shivering and shaking my head.

“COME ON, KID!” Ace yelled, commanding the attention of everybody in the water and onshore. “SHOW A LITTLE CHUTZPAH!”

But I didn’t budge, so finally Ace gave sort of a wave that seemed to say
Forget about you
. And he dived back into the
water with a huge splash, and that was that. I still hate mucky bottoms, and I still don’t see what chutzpah—either kind—has to do with anything.

Meanwhile, having issued the final word on the subject of me and my lack of chutzpah, Ace went back to doing the crossword puzzle and ignoring the parade. Case closed, once again.

“I’m going to go find a bathroom,” I told my mom.

“Okay, but come right back,” she replied. “The bikes should be coming soon. If for any reason we get separated, let’s meet up in front of Ken’s Pizza after the parade. Okay?”

I nodded, then wandered down Main Street. After I found a bathroom, I turned right on Church Street and looked at some jewelry at a vendor’s stand across the street from City Hall. The prettiest earrings were pierced ones. Which is another thing I’m not allowed to do yet.

Just then, I heard a bark. Actually, a lot of barks.

I looked up and saw another table, but instead of earrings—
awwwwwwww!
—there were dogs. On, next to, and under that table were some of the cutest dogs I’d ever seen. There were two women sitting at the table, and one of them even had a tiny Chihuahua asleep in her lap. The sign hanging from the table explained it all:

I ran over to the table and dropped to my knees in front of an adorable fluffy brownish-tannish dog in a large metal cage. She had kind, sad eyes just like the dog I’d been doodling
since forever, the dog of my dreams. Immediately, her tail began to thump against the side of her cage. The pink card on her cage read:
TALLULAH. 1 Y.O. KIDS OK, CATS OK
. I offered her the back of my hand, and she licked it. Then I reached through the bars and scratched her ears. The dogs in the other cages—
LOUIE, LILY, SADIE, CHESTER, GUS, DANNY, SOPHIE
, and
VEGAS
—all wagged and whimpered, so I moved up and down the line, petting each and every one before returning to sweet, sad-eyed Tallulah.

“Aw, she likes you!” said the woman who didn’t have a dog in her lap. She motioned to a stack of Chittenden County Humane Society brochures. “If you fill out the paperwork, she could be yours next week.”

“Oh, I would love to. It’s just—” I stopped, not wanting to admit that my parents didn’t think I was responsible enough to get a dog. “I mean, I’d have to talk to my parents.”

“Of course,” she said agreeably, picking up a brochure and some other papers and holding them out to me. “Why don’t you take an adoption form with you, and maybe you can bring your parents out for a visit to the shelter?”

Bring my parents to the shelter …
Suddenly I remembered what Jeremy had said about upping the ante. “Actually, do you have any … I mean, do you ever let kids volunteer?”

The woman smiled broadly. “What a good question! It just so happens we have a wonderful volunteer program for families.”

She unfolded the brochure and showed me. There were photographs of smiling kids and grown-ups holding cats and
walking dogs, plus the address of the shelter and information about its services. As she talked about the program, I was already picturing myself there. Me and my mom feeding a roomful of dogs and then noticing one tiny little puppy looking particularly sad and lonely. I could see my mom’s heart melting along with mine as the puppy nuzzled in my arms and fell asleep. Maybe we’d even adopt Tallulah too, so she could be like a mama to the puppy.

Clutching the brochure and papers, I dashed back to where I had left my mom and Ace.

“Mom, guess what?”

“Zelly! Oh, I’m glad you made it back. You’re just in time.”

Just in time for what?
I wondered. But within moments the answer became obvious.

Just in time for the procession of bikes to arrive.

Red-white-and-blue-decorated bikes, some with big American flags taped to the back of them, red-white-and-blue trikes, even red-white-and-blue-decorated wagons were everywhere. Kids wore red-white-and-blue overalls, sunglasses, bandannas, T-shirts, and shorts. One girl even wore a sparkly red-and-white bathing suit with a bright blue tutu. I saw Jeremy, but he was way on the other side of the pack, riding a shiny silver mountain bike and wearing a blue polo shirt, white tennis shorts, and his Red Sox baseball cap.

And then there was my brother.

In his black Batman costume.

Riding his black Batman bike.

For a second, I dared to hope that no one noticed him.

But some of the littlest kids were riding slow, and Jeremy and the others were riding fast, and Sam was somewhere in the middle. So the fast kids clumped together and moved ahead, and the slow kids clumped together and lagged behind.

And in the middle, riding all alone, was Batman.

My mom was clapping and cheering. My dad, who had been with Sam until the parade started, had joined her. He was clapping too, and taking pictures. But no one probably would have noticed them or connected them—and me—to the wacky Batman kid in the parade …

If it hadn’t been for Ace.

As Sam got closer, Ace stood up. And in his booming, barrelly voice, he began to yell at the top of his lungs.

“THAT’S MY BOY! ATTABOY, SAMMY! ATTABOY!”

Suddenly it felt like everyone around us had stopped staring at the parade. Instead, they were staring at Ace, whose idea of patriotic attire was a bright yellow Katz’s Delicatessen
SEND A SALAMI TO YOUR BOY IN THE ARMY
T-shirt and his lucky fishing hat, which has a pattern of Budweiser beer logos all over it.

And then I heard it.

It started quietly, but it got louder and louder as the crowd recognized and picked up the cheer. And loudest of all when Ace joined in:

At the sound of his theme song, Sam sat up taller, doing his best, most serious Batman face. It was his dream come true: He wasn’t just Sam-being-Batman. He
was
Batman. He lifted one hand from the handlebars—his training wheels keeping him from tipping over—and waved to the crowd, which exploded into applause.

“Yeah, Batman!” “Go, Batman!” people called.

It was beyond embarrassing. It even made me wish I had ridden in the parade after all. I could have covered my bike with red, white, and blue decorations, just like the rest of the kids, and no one would have known that the weirdo kid in the Batman outfit—not to mention his weirdo grandfather—were related to me. I could’ve ridden fast, flying past Ace before he even looked up from his crossword puzzle and noticed me, and missed the whole Batman scene altogether. Instead, I was stuck right in the middle of it. Standing between my parents and Ace, I was obviously none other than Batman’s big sister.

Across the street, I suddenly noticed Nicky Benoit. He was standing next to a much bigger kid—practically a grown-up—who had the same beady little eyes as Nicky. From the snarly mean smile on Nicky’s face, I could tell he had something to say about me and my family.

“Hey, Smelly Fried Egg,” he’d probably say the next chance he got. “I knew you were stinky, but I didn’t know
your little brother was completely cracked. Ha-ha! Get it? Stinky Cracked Egg?”