The World's Greatest Underachiever and the Crunchy Pickle Disaster Page 4

  “My mum shops at Gristediano’s,” said Ashley.

  “Actually, everyone does,” said Robert. “They have thirty-nine shops in Manhattan alone.”

  “So if Mr Gristediano buys Mum’s soy salami, will we be rich?” I asked.

  “I don’t know about that,” said my dad. “But it would definitely be a big order. It could be the start of a wonderful business for her.”

  “So what does this have to do with Papa Pete?” I asked.

  “He’s working with your mum on the salami samples for tomorrow,” Dad said. “They’re mixing up some new batches. Papa Pete felt the salami needed more garlic.”

  I smiled. Papa Pete thinks everything needs more garlic. He thinks plain garlic needs more garlic.

  The lights changed, and my dad stepped out into the street.

  “This is great news,” I whispered to Frankie.

  “Why? Because you’re going to be rich?”

  “No,” I said. “Because with all the excitement, they’ll forget to ask about my school report.”

  “And the problem disappears,” said Frankie. He waved his hands out in front of him, like he was waving his magic wand.

  “Well, it won’t exactly disappear. I mean, I’ll still have to figure out how to explain my marks to my parents, but at least I’ll have the whole weekend to talk to Papa Pete and come up with a strategy.” I felt like I wanted to sing and dance. I felt like an elephant had been lifted off my back.

  “Zengawii,” Frankie said. “It’s magic, Zip.”

  He stuck his hand up in the air and we high-fived.

  I started to skip. My luck had turned, and I had soy salami to thank for it.

  As you approach my mum’s deli, your mouth starts to water whether you want it to or not. It doesn’t matter if you’ve just eaten a thirty-four-course meal and are so full you feel like your stomach’s going to explode, you get hungry all over again.

  When you pull that glass door open and step inside, you are in the Kingdom of Smells. Sauerkraut and pickle smells come racing in from one side. Hot pastrami and corned beef pour in from the other. Rare roast beef, salami and sour green tomatoes circle in from behind. Your nose goes into overdrive. But wait a minute – what’s that coming in from the counter? Oh no! Pickled herring in cream sauce with onions. Duck – it’s nasty, nasty, nasty!

  I have never understood who eats pickled herring. When everything else in The Crunchy Pickle is so incredibly delicious, why would anyone choose a grey, salty fish with white slime all over it? That stuff should have a shop of its own. Wait a minute, I know who eats it. Ms Adolf probably does. It matches her grey face.

  Papa Pete says pickled herring in cream sauce is an acquired taste. I’ve noticed that grown-ups say that about everything that’s truly disgusting, like lima beans, Brussels sprouts, beetroot, green peppers and movies in French.

  The sandwich counter is at the back of the cafe, and in the front are the booths where the customers sit. Papa Pete picked out everything in The Crunchy Pickle himself. The booths are this special shade called periwinkle blue, which Papa Pete says he picked because it was the colour of my Grandma Jenny’s eyes. He’s so proud of how nice the deli looks. He always tells me that the booths are genuine leatherette – which is not as expensive as real leather, but not as cheap as plastic. There are always people inside The Crunchy Pickle, because it’s such a cheerful place. And the normal food is extra-delicious. I’m not sure my mum’s soy lunch meats are such a big draw.

  When we came in, Carlos, the best sandwich maker in New York City, was behind the counter. Even though he’s only twenty-three years old, he’s worked at the deli for as long as I can remember. He started working there when he was still in high school, because his family had just come from Puerto Rico and they needed the money. Carlos and I always talk about baseball, and sometimes after work, we’ll go over to the park and he gives me batting tips. Carlos has a great arm, and he throws a wicked curveball.

  Carlos was building tongue and swiss cheese on rye bread for Mrs Wilcox. I’ve never understood why anyone would eat tongue. Think about it. A tongue has spent its whole life in a cow’s mouth, covered in grass. I’m not even going to mention the cud-chewing part.

  “Don’t forget the extra Russian dressing on the side,” Mrs Wilcox said to Carlos.

  “I’ve already put two in the bag for you,” Carlos answered. “And I put in extra pickles for Mr Wilcox. Really crunchy, just the way he likes them.”

  “Muchas gracias, Carlos,” said Mrs Wilcox. I think she might have winked at him. All the women who come to The Crunchy Pickle love him. He’s a pretty good-looking guy, with his shiny black hair and diamond stud earring. He always wears bright red socks, no matter what else he has on. Frankie says he must have a lot of confidence to wear bright red socks, even with shorts.

  As he handed Mrs Wilcox her takeaway, Carlos flashed us a big grin. He’s always happy to see us.

  “Hey, Hankito,” he said. “I saved you a black-and-white.” He pulled an oversized biscuit that’s half vanilla icing, half chocolate off the tray. It’s my favourite because there are so many ways to eat it. You can take one bite and get both chocolate and vanilla. You can break it in half, eat all the chocolate and then vanilla. Or you can start on the chocolate, take a rest and then have some vanilla.

  “Frankie, my man,” Carlos said. “Here’s your oatmeal-raisin.” Frankie’s mum wants him to eat wholegrains, so he’s got really into oatmeal-and-raisin biscuits. They’re the most healthy-sounding biscuits in the display case.

  Carlos turned to Ashley. “Ah, bonita, I got your favourite, too,” he said. Then he gave Ashley a sugar biscuit covered with rainbow-coloured sprinkles. “A beautiful biscuit for a beautiful young lady.”

  “And what do you want, little man?” Carlos asked Robert.

  “Actually, I don’t eat sugar,” said Robert. “It causes tooth decay.”

  “Is that what happened to that tooth on the side there? Sugar got it?” Carlos asked Robert.

  “No, that was an incisor that had to be removed because it was blocking the molar behind it. My dentist says I have an overcrowded mouth.”

  “You have an overcrowded brain,” said Frankie.

  We all laughed and spat bits of biscuit everywhere. A few of Ashley’s sprinkles got stuck on the glass case.

  “This is no laughing matter,” Robert went on. “If your teeth are too close together, it traps food particles that create plaque, which hardens and causes decay, not to mention gum disease.”

  “Hey, little man, you shouldn’t talk about that stuff. It’s gross.”

  “That’s OK, Carlos,” Ashley said. “We’re used to it. Robert says anything, anywhere, at any time.”

  We threw our rucksacks down on one of the empty tables and sat down to finish our biscuits. My father went to his usual corner booth where he keeps a stash of New York Times crossword-puzzle books. As Carlos brought him his favourite drink, a cup of hot water with lemon, my mother came out from the back of the shop. She was wearing her white headband, which means she’s in her cooking mode. She has lots of blonde, curly hair, and when she cooks, food splatters in her hair and stays there. Once she had so much chocolate icing in her hair that she looked like she had brown hair. The headband keeps her hair clean and blonde.

  “Hi, kids,” she said. “How was school?”

  “Fine,” we all said at once – probably a little too quickly.

  “How’d the spelling contest go?” she asked me.

  “It was incredible, Mum. Remember the trouble I had with ‘rhythm’ last night? I nailed that word today.”

  “Good for you! Anything else interesting happen today?”

  “Nope,” I answered, barely looking at her. OK, I admit it, I felt a little guilty not telling her about my school report. But if you think about it, there was really no need for me to feel guilty about my answer. She asked if anything interesting had happened, and I said no. I don’t happen to find getting a really bad re
port interesting, so technically, I wasn’t lying.

  “So, how’s the soy salami coming along?” I asked, changing the subject as quickly as I could.

  “Papa Pete and I are having an argument over it,” she answered. “He doesn’t think it has enough flavour. He went to get more garlic.”

  “I’m so interested to know all about your recipe, Mum,” I said.

  “Since when?” she asked, giving me a strange look.

  “Since … uh … last Tuesday,” I said. “Or maybe it was Wednesday. Yeah, it was Wednesday when I realized that I should know a lot more about what’s in the lunch meats you make.”

  Just then, the cafe door swung open and in came Heather Payne and her mother. Heather Payne is the most perfect girl in our grade. Her mother was smiling. Actually, she was beaming. I knew that spelled trouble for me.

  “We’re here to get a special biscuit for my straight-A student,” Mrs Payne said. “Heather got a perfect school report today.”

  My mother slowly turned her head in my direction. The silence hung in the air like boiled cabbage fumes.

  “Today is school report day?” she asked, staring at me with eyes that practically burned a hole in my T-shirt. “I guess that little detail must have slipped your mind, Hank.”

  “Mum, you know that happens,” I said. “My mind is slippery.”

  I gave her that big smile, the one that shows my top and bottom teeth. Frankie calls it The Attitude Grin. She wasn’t buying it.

  “I think we should continue this conversation in the back room,” she said.

  “No problem.” I tried to sound casual.

  “Bring your rucksack, Hank.”

  It occurred to me that I had better bring my friends, too. I picked up my rucksack and motioned for everyone to follow me.

  “What are you going to do, Zip?” Frankie whispered.

  “I have no idea,” I said with a shrug.

  The back room is where all the cooking equipment is: big, shiny ovens for baking, long wooden counters for slicing and big bowls for making potato salad and coleslaw. It’s the main kitchen, but it’s also my mum’s laboratory, where she makes up new recipes. I noticed that several of her big meat grinders were going, probably mixing up the recipes she and Papa Pete were working on.

  No sooner were we in the back room than my mum spun around on her heels and said, “Let’s have it.”

  “By it, I assume you mean my school report?” I asked, stalling for time.

  “Hank, don’t play with me.”

  “Right, OK,” I said. “I’m sure it’s here in my rucksack.”

  I dropped to my knees and started to empty my book bag as quickly as I could. I dumped everything out on the floor. While I was taking everything out, my mum walked over to check the machines that were grinding up her mystery meat. She mixed the ingredients up with a spatula and then came back.

  Of course, I knew where my report was. I had tucked the big, brown manila envelope deep inside the secret zip pocket in which I keep my pencils. I was just pretending that I couldn’t find it.

  The room was quiet, except for the whirring of the meat grinder churning up the mystery meat and that sound of papers rattling as I emptied my book bag.

  “Oh, there’s my science workbook,” I said, stalling for time. “We’re learning such interesting things in science. We’ve almost finished our unit on astronomy. The solar system is so amazing, isn’t it, Ashley?”

  I motioned for Ashley to talk to my mum to keep her distracted.

  “Why, yes, it is, Mrs Zipzer,” Ashley said. “Did you know that they might have discovered another planet no one even knew was there?” I didn’t hear the rest of what Ashley was saying, because I was putting my plan in motion.

  I pulled the manila envelope with the report and Ms Adolf’s letter inside out of the zip pocket and slipped it to Frankie.

  Frankie gave me a look that asked, “What am I supposed to do with this?”

  “Get rid of it,” I whispered.

  I turned to my mum, a look of surprise on my face.

  “My report’s not in here,” I said, with shock in my voice. “Maybe I dropped it on the pavement while we were walking from school. And, you know, pigeons love to swoop down and pick up paper. They shred it with their beaks and use it to build their nests. I saw one do that on the Discovery Kids channel.”

  “Hank,” my mother said, “I’m waiting.”

  I rummaged around in my rucksack some more. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Frankie turn and hand my report to Ashley.

  “Frankie,” I said, “you don’t happen to have my report, do you?”

  Frankie held up both his hands to show that they were empty. “Why would I have your school report?”

  Ashley took that opportunity to take the report and pass it on to Robert. Robert took it and looked for someone to pass it on to. But I was out of friends. There was no one left to pass it to. Then Robert did a brilliant thing. Maybe the most brilliant thing he’s ever done in his bony little life. He edged over behind my mother and very quietly dropped the entire envelope into the whirring meat grinder. I watched in amazement as my report disappeared into the beige mixture – all those Ds becoming the new ingredients of soy salami.

  My mother was losing patience.

  “Henry!”

  “Mum,” I said, “I don’t see it anywhere. Honestly, my school report has disappeared before my very eyes.”

  And I wasn’t even lying.

  Papa Pete rushed in, carrying a brown grocery bag.

  “Well, if it isn’t my grandchildren,” he said, giving us each a kiss on the top of the head. Papa Pete knows that I’m the only one who’s actually related to him, but he calls all of us his grandkids anyway.

  “Sorry I couldn’t pick you up today, Hankie,” he said to me. “I had to come to your mother’s rescue.”

  “Pop, Hank and I were just having an important conversation,” my mum said.

  “What is so important that it can’t wait until tomorrow?” he asked. “Now is not the time to talk, Randi. Now is the time to grind meat. If we don’t get some zing into that paste you’re calling a salami, your order from Mr Gristediano is going to go out the window.”

  Papa Pete slipped his butcher’s apron over his head and began to sharpen his chopping knife.

  “Papa Pete, I need to talk to you sometime,” I whispered. “It’s about my grades.”

  “We’ll talk tomorrow,” he whispered back. “No time to talk now,” he said in a loud voice, so no one could see we were whispering. “I’ve got to save your mother from ruining her business.”

  “Pop, I’m not ruining the business,” my mum said to him.

  Papa Pete turned off the meat grinder that was chewing up the last of my school report. He took off the bowl, gave it a sniff and turned up his nose. I tried to get a look inside the bowl. I could see a few chunks of brown manila paper blended in with the beige soy mixture.

  “You will if you try to pass off that soy glue in there as salami,” Papa Pete said, shoving the bowl to the end of the counter. “It looks terrible and it tastes like nothing.”

  “It tastes like soy,” my mother said.

  “Which tastes like nothing,” Papa Pete insisted. “I rest my case.”

  He reached inside the brown grocery bag and pulled out several long strands of fresh, purple garlic.

  “Now, this is the food of the gods,” he said. “Garlic. This will make your taste buds stand up and salute.”

  My mother shook her head. “Pop, that much garlic will overwhelm the taste of the soy,” she said.

  “Nonsense, Randi,” he answered. “Garlic puts hair on your chest. Isn’t that right, men?” He looked at Frankie and me and winked.

  We laughed. That’s what must have happened to Papa Pete, because he has more hair on his chest than a gorilla – on his face, too. He has a moustache that’s so big he calls it his handlebars.

  “Let’s get to work, Randi,” he said. “I’ll help you
whip up a batch of salami that tastes like something.”

  “All right, Pop.” My mum sighed. I could tell she had given up the fight. When Papa Pete has a plan, it’s pretty hard to talk him out of it. “Hank, we’ll continue this conversation tomorrow,” she said.

  That was good enough for me. I had bought myself another day to figure things out.

  Papa Pete reached into his pocket and pulled out a twenty-dollar note. He rolled it up and slipped it into the palm of my hand.

  “On the way home, stop in at McKelty’s and get yourself and my other grandkids some root-beer floats,” he said. “And tell The Chopped Livers I’ll bowl tonight, but I’ll be a little late. Your mother and I have some high-level delicatessen work to do.”

  “So you and Mum aren’t going to use the stuff in there for Mr Gristediano’s salami?” I asked, pointing to the bowl with my report in it.

  “I wouldn’t give that to a dog,” said Papa Pete. “The only thing that stuff is good for is to lie at the bottom of the rubbish bin.”

  As we left the back room, I gave Frankie and Ashley a big thumbs-up. My report was going bye-bye into the bin. This had worked out better than I could have hoped for.

  “Robert, you’re a genius,” I whispered, slapping him on the back so hard that he almost fell over. He acts like such an adult I sometimes forget that Robert’s just a pencil-neck eight-year-old. I could feel the bones in his back. He really should eat some more mashed potato or something.

  “I have an IQ of one hundred and thirty-seven,” Robert said. “Technically, a genius is someone with an IQ of one-hundred and forty and above.”

  “Do you ever lighten up, Robert?” asked Frankie.

  “Actually, no,” said Robert.

  My dad walked us home, and we had the greatest afternoon. We stopped and had root-beer floats at McKelty’s Roll ’N Bowl. When we got back to our apartment, Emily wasn’t there. She was playing at her friend Jenna’s house, so we had the place to ourselves. Frankie and I played video games while Ashley made a rhinestone mouse mat for her mum’s birthday. Robert helped my dad with his crossword puzzle. When Robert told him that a “spider relative with two pairs of eyes” was a horseshoe crab, I thought my dad was going to blast right out of his chair. Those thirteen letters put him in such a good mood that he let us watch cartoons on TV until it was time for everyone to go home for dinner.