Pennybaker School Is Revolting, стр. 7
“What’s going on now?” Mom asked, carrying an armload of empty soda cans tied to a thin rope. “Why do you have to quit school this time?”
When she put it that way, it seemed like maybe I threatened to quit school too much. I struggled to free my leg without falling over. Taking pantyhose off was no easier than putting them on. “One word,” I said. “Dance.” I finally got the leg loose and nearly fell over with relief. I bent to scratch every inch of my leg.
“I don’t understand,” Mom said.
“Dance. Our new unit in gym class is dance,” I said. “And my partner is Sissy Cork, and she keeps looking at my skinny arms like she means business.” I flexed, just to illustrate how puny my arm muscles were.
“Oh, Thomas, don’t be dramatic. I’m sure it’s not as bad as all that.”
“It is.”
She started up the stairs. “It’s just a little dance.”
“Remember Cousin Peter’s wedding, Mom?”
She paused, grimaced, and then kept moving. “That was a long time ago.”
“Still traumatic.” I yanked my second leg free and followed her in my boxers and button-down shirt. “Did I mention it’s ballroom dance?”
“Sounds like fun to me. An adventure!”
“Couples ballroom dance?”
“I’m sure it will be fine. Besides, Erma can teach you.”
Erma, who was famous for always hanging around where she shouldn’t be hanging around so she could hear what she shouldn’t be hearing, popped out from under the stairs. “If you can teach a monkey sign language, I suppose it’s possible to teach a monkey to dance,” she said. She mimed scratching her armpits, ape-style.
“No way. The only thing worse than dancing with Sissy Cork is dancing with Erma.” A Dancing Adventure was bad enough. A Dancing with Erma Adventure might make me actually die.
“Fraidycat,” Erma said.
Mom gave Erma a pointed look and then turned back to me. “Really, Thomas, you will survive.”
I followed her up the stairs. “But, Mom … can’t you tell the coach I can’t do it? Tell him I have too many toes. Or wobbly knees. Or an allergy to arm wrestlers.” I faked a sneeze. “That one might be true.”
“You just might like it. And you’ll never know unless you try,” she said. “Now, go pick up your costume. You have to wear it again tomorrow.”
“No, I don’t,” I said.
“What? Why not? I’m not writing you a special note to get out of it, Thomas. We’ve been through this.”
“You don’t need to. Mr. Faboo is gone, and we have the meanest substitute ever, and he said no more costumes. And then he gave us homework. Which is another reason why I have to quit.”
“Homework won’t kill you. And I would think it would make you happy not to have to wear a costume, with all the complaining you’ve been doing about it.”
I thought about it. Technically, she was right. It just felt wrong. “I guess.” I started to walk away. Mom got to Grandma Jo’s room and stood up on her tiptoes, attaching the soda-can rope to the door frame with a pushpin. “What are you doing?”
“Huh? Oh.” She drove another pushpin into the rope a little farther down, and then another. “I’m booby-trapping your grandmother’s door.”
“Why?”
Mom let the string of cans hang loose. She turned to me and blew a strand of hair out of her face. “Because she’s not getting into trouble.”
“Do you mean she is getting into trouble?”
“Nope. She’s not getting into trouble.”
“Ooo-kaaay. Isn’t that a good thing?”
“Not when it’s your grandmother. I just know she’s hiding something from me. Sneaking out. Or sneaking in. Or just … sneaking.”
Mom had a point. Grandma Jo was definitely not the sit-at-home-and-knit-blankets kind of grandmother. She was more the jump-from-one-rooftop-to-another-with-someone-named-Barf kind of grandmother. Grandma Jo crashed her motorcycle once and broke a couple of bones, and Mom freaked out and made her move in with us so she could keep her from getting hurt. Grandma Jo didn’t mind getting hurt, though. She thought danger was the exciting part of life. So Mom was probably right—if Grandma Jo wasn’t doing anything dangerous, she was definitely hiding something.
I went downstairs and picked up my clothes, then found Grandma Jo sitting in front of the television, a game of solitaire set up on the TV tray in front of her.
“You okay?” I asked.
She blinked at me. The TV screen reflected off the lenses of her glasses. “What?”
“Is something wrong?”
“I’m perfectly fine. Why do you ask, Thomas?”
“When was the last time you went to the skate park?”
She flipped a card over and placed it on top of another one. “Oh, it’s been a while, I suppose.”
“What about parkour? The jumping off really high things onto other really high things?” I used my fingers to mimic someone running and jumping, the way Grandma Jo always did when she talked about it.
She scrunched up her face and rubbed her knee. “Too much bouncing for this old body.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “How’s the skydiving these days?”
She placed another card. “I wouldn’t know.”
“Rodeo clowning?”
“Nope.”
“Motorcycle racing?”
“Nuh-uh.”
We were silent for a moment, our eyes locked. “I don’t believe you,” I said.
She put down the card she was holding and scooted the tray out of the way, then patted the sofa next to her. “Sit, Thomas.” I did. “There comes a time in a granny’s life when she needs to slow down,” she said, snaking her arm around me. She smelled like mints and motor oil. Pretty typical for Grandma Jo. “Your mother doesn’t like it when I do dangerous things, so I’m ready to give it all up—to just be a granny and watch your sister dance and watch you do … whatever it is you’re doing in your mother’s pantyhose.”
“They’re leggings,” I muttered. “And they’re mine, not Mom’s.”
“And your magic,” she said brightly. “I’ll get to watch you do your magic.