A Brand-New Me! Read online

  “I’m doing it, Papa Pete. And all I’m seeing is chewed pickle.”

  Papa Pete laughed. I love it when he laughs because it starts at his toes and by the time it comes out of his mouth, it’s really loud and joyous.

  “I think along with that pickle you’d see a boy who wants something very badly and has a really good chance at getting it, but is too afraid to try. You have your future in your hands, Hankie, but you have to take action to make it happen.”

  “But how do you know I’m any good? Maybe Dad is right! Maybe we Zipzers don’t do this performance thing!”

  “I say this not because you are my grandson, but because I have observed you for a long time. You are a very talented young man. And you can take that to the bank.”

  “What if I stink tomorrow? What if I just stand there and freeze up like a popsicle? I don’t want to take a chance on that.”

  “You’re not the only one who has these feelings,” Papa Pete said. “All successful people are afraid to take chances, just like you are now. But most of them don’t allow that to stop them from reaching for the stars.”

  “See, there you go,” I said. “Problem solved. I’m too short to reach for the stars. So I’m staying home. Thanks, Papa Pete, for helping me figure that out.”

  “Hankie,” he said, looking me right in the eye. “I can promise you this. The one thing worse than feeling afraid of failure is the feeling that you never tried. If you don’t try, you’ll never know.”

  I didn’t have a funny answer for that one. There was a serious tone in Papa Pete’s voice that told me I’d better listen to what was coming next.

  “I remember when I was a young man,” he began, clearing this throat, “and had a dream to start my own restaurant. My father wanted me to go into his lumber business, buying and selling wood from all over the world. But I wasn’t interested in wood at all. Sure, I liked a chair to sit on as well as the next guy. But that’s as far as my interest in wood went.”

  Papa Pete stood up and looked out onto the lights of New York. I could tell he was remembering every detail from a long time ago.

  “But my father was a strong man, and I was afraid to go against him. So I went into the wood business. For ten years, I bought and sold wood. And I never ever enjoyed it. Not for a minute. Then I met your grandma Jenny. She gave me the best advice ever.”

  “What was it?” I asked, standing up to be next to him.

  “It was just what I’m telling you now. That if you don’t try to make your dreams come true, you’ll never know. So, Hankie, my boy, you have to overcome whatever fear you have at this moment, and give it a shot. You have to try as hard as you can to make your dreams come true.”

  “Is that what you did, Papa Pete?”

  “It is. When you look at the Crunchy Pickle, you see a delicious restaurant. But when I look at it, I see my dream come true. A place where my hard work has made very hungry people happy for the last fifty years. I can’t imagine what my life would have been like if I hadn’t overcome my fear.”

  Wow, I never realized that restaurant meant so much to him.

  “So what do you say, Hankie?” he asked. “Are you going to that audition tomorrow morning?”

  It was real quiet out there on the terrace.

  The only sound was me not answering.

  CHAPTER 20

  In case you’re wondering, I showed up at the audition.

  My hands were shaking. My knees were wobbling. My mouth was dry. My heart was racing.

  But I was there. Ready to try.

  CHAPTER 21

  “Good morning, Mr. Zipzer,” a smiling woman in a black leotard and tights said. She was sitting behind a table in between two men on the stage of the big empty auditorium of Professional Performing Arts. “I’m Trudi Ferguson, the dance teacher here. This is Garry Marshall from our drama department, and Tom Milkus from the music area.”

  “You guys are teachers here?” I asked.

  “Why yes,” she said. “Why do you sound so surprised, Hank?”

  “Because you told me all your first names. At PS 87, I don’t even think our teachers have first names.” They all laughed, which I thought was a good start. So I went on. “As a matter of fact, at PS 87, most of the teachers don’t laugh, either.”

  “Well, Hank,” the man named Garry Marshall said. “By the way, is Hank short for Henry?”

  I nodded.

  “Henry’s a good name,” he said. “My butcher’s named Henry, and boy, does he know his way around a lamb chop.”

  Now it was my turn to laugh.

  “Anyway, Hank,” he went on, “at this school, everybody calls everybody by their first name. It stirs up the creative juices. I don’t know why, it just does. Creative juices are good.”

  Creative juices? Wow, can you imagine old Ms. Adolf talking about her creative juices? I bet they’d be gray, if she even had any.

  “So what are you going to do for your audition?” the music guy asked me. “It doesn’t say here on your application what specifically your talent is.”

  “Well, for starters,” I said, “I am great at failing in math. I’m also pretty good at failing in spelling.”

  “So you’re a funny person,” Garry Marshall said. “Funny is good.”

  I couldn’t believe we were having this conversation. I mean, I had really relaxed and was talking to these people . . . these teachers . . . like I had always known them. Like they were aunts and uncles or something. Except better than aunts and uncles because they weren’t telling me long stories about how root beer only cost a nickel when they were growing up.

  “I’m going to do a couple of monologues that I made up,” I told them. “First I’ll be a bowling ball, and then I’ll be an alien from the planet Zork, and if we have time, I hope you’ll really like my portrayal of a fox being chased by a thundering pack of horses.”

  They all looked very pleased at that. If I tried even one of those monologues on Principal Love, he would have given me a lecture on how I was wasting my time and his pretending to be someone I wasn’t, when I could be memorizing my roman numerals instead.

  “The stage is yours,” Trudi Ferguson said. “Would you like to close your eyes and take a few deep breaths to prepare yourself?”

  I had never actually closed my eyes in front of people I didn’t know, except the time I fell asleep on my dad’s lap at a Mets game and wouldn’t you know it, that was the time they decided to put me on the Jumbotron.

  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, and thought about being a bowling ball. And guess what? It worked. I could feel my brain focusing on what I was going to say and by the time I opened my eyes, I was that bowling ball, shooting down the lane.

  I don’t know exactly what got into me, and I don’t mean to brag, but I was on fire. Each monologue got better than the one before. I don’t think I’ve ever told a better story. The teachers must have enjoyed it, too, because they let me get all the way to the end of the fox hunt. And when I was done, after I had escaped across the river and into the brambles, I looked up and each one of them was smiling.

  “You have such a lively imagination,” Trudi Ferguson said.

  “And a great command of the language,” Tom Milkus added.

  “Plus, you’re funny,” said Garry Marshall. “And remember, funny is good.”

  He didn’t have to tell me that twice, even though he did.

  “Seems like you got an inner oddball thing going on,” he said. “And believe it or not . . .

  “I know,” I interrupted. “Oddball is good.”

  We all laughed like we were just hanging out at Harvey’s, having a slice of pepperoni pizza. As for me, I was lapping up their compliments like Cheerio laps up his doggy delicious lamb and rice treats. Man oh man, was this ever going well.

  Until my worst nightmare happened.

  Tom Milkus stood up from the table, gathered a set of stapled papers in his hands, and approached me.

  “You obviously have a talent for
improvisation, Hank,” he said. “And that is vital in the arts. However, we also need to see that you can work with written material and deliver lines from a script.”

  He handed me the sheets of stapled paper. I wasn’t liking where this was going.

  “This is a scene from a play that our students performed last year,” he said. “Take a few minutes, read it over, and then come back. Garry will read the other part with you.”

  “You mean like now?” I asked. “As in today? Can’t I take this home and work on it?”

  “In the theater, this is called cold reading. It’s a very important skill for an actor.”

  I looked down at the pages in my hand. They were filled with words, but my eyes couldn’t make out one of them. They were swimming on the page like a school of tuna fish. And not in the can, either.

  “Is there a problem, Hank?” Trudi Ferguson asked. “You don’t look too happy.”

  “Oh, no problem at all, Ms. Ferguson. I mean, Trudi. I’m just going to step outside, read this over, and be right back.”

  I took a couple steps off the stage and turned around.

  “I’ll be right back,” I said.

  “Yeah, we know,” Garry Marshall said. “You just said that.”

  “Good,” I said. “So we’re all agreed that I’ll be right back.”

  I actually left the stage walking backward, smiling at them like everything was just fine and dandy. But I think you and I both know that for me, reading pages I haven’t seen before is like flying to the moon without a rocket or a spacesuit or oxygen.

  In other words, impossible.

  CHAPTER 22

  I stood in the hall outside the auditorium, just holding those pages, as if holding them was going to help me read them. Way down at the end of the hall, I saw my mom sipping a cup of coffee, waiting with the other parents. She waved and gave me a thumbs-up. I waved back with the hand holding the scene. At least those pages were being useful for something, because I certainly wasn’t reading them.

  Okay, Hank. What are you going to do? Just stand here or are you going to at least look at the paper?

  I chose to look at the paper. I stared at the first word really hard. It looked familiar but I had no idea what it was. I’m not the greatest reader in the world, and when I’m nervous, I lose even the little ability I have.

  Concentrate, Hank. Sound out that word. Come on. T-H . . . what’s the sound for T-H? Now add an E. Got it! THE. The first word is THE. Okay, one word down, three pages to go!

  It didn’t go so well after that. I tried to see those words, to be calm and apply all the sounding out skills Dr. Berger had worked with me on. But it was like they were never in my head in the first place. As I stared at the page, I realized for the first time I was walking in a circle, like Cheerio chasing his tail. No wonder I was dizzy.

  Keep your eyes on that page, Hank. You’ve got to do this. You want to get in here, don’t you? Because otherwise, it’s MS 245, here you come.

  Suddenly, I realized that I wasn’t alone in the hall. Sitting on a bench, waiting quietly, watching me freak out, was a tall girl about my age, wearing pink tights and a tutu. I don’t mean to overstate the case, but she was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen.

  “It’s scary, isn’t it?” she said. “I’m going in after you.”

  “I’m a little nervous,” I said. “I didn’t know I was going to have to do this.”

  “I’m sure you’ll be great.”

  Sure, that’s easy for her to say. She’s never been inside my brain.

  “I’m going to try,” I said. “The one good thing is at least I don’t have to do this on my toes.”

  She laughed and I swear, it sounded like the wind chimes on our terrace on a breezy summer day.

  Wow. Did I just think that? I must be coming completely unglued.

  “You’re funny,” she said.

  “Funny is good,” I answered.

  We both laughed, and for a minute, I completely forgot where I was and everything was back to normal. Then Trudi Ferguson stuck her head out of the big double doors, and where I was came into focus really quickly.

  “We’re ready for you, Hank,” she said. “Looking forward to hear what you’ve prepared.”

  “So am I,” I said, and the beautiful dancer laughed along with us.

  As I followed Trudi through the door and up onto the stage where the other two teachers were waiting for me, I only had one thought.

  Run.

  Run for the hills. Run for home. Run for cover.

  It doesn’t matter where you run, just get out of there.

  But I didn’t run. I stood my ground.

  “Are you ready to begin?” Garry Marshall asked me. “I’ll read the first line, and then you just jump right in.”

  “I got my jumping shoes on,” I said.

  Garry cleared his throat and began.

  “Howdy there, Sheriff Jed. You’re looking mighty dressed up today in them new boots.”

  He paused, waiting for me to say my line. I knew it started with THE, but THE what? The boots? The horses? The stage coach?

  My mind was racing, and I tried to make my eyes stay on the page and do their work.

  Come on, boys. Look at that second word. You got to help me out here.

  “The circus is coming to town, Jethro. So I dressed up.”

  Garry looked confused as he flipped through all three pages.

  “Excuse me, Hank,” he said. “I don’t see that line anywhere. Do you have a different script?”

  “Actually, Garry, yes I do.”

  “That’s strange,” he said. “How did that happen?”

  Many explanations raced through my mind. I met a jolly old elf in the hall and he snatched my original script and replaced it with this one. The place is crawling with elves, you know. Or how about this: The spirit of William Shakespeare visited me with his quill pen and dictated an entirely new play that he thought was better. You know that Shakespeare, he likes it to be done his way, and there’s just no arguing with him.

  While I was deciding which story to tell, a funny thing happened.

  I told the truth.

  I didn’t exactly decide to, but when I looked at those three nice people, I just couldn’t hide who I really was.

  “The truth is,” I heard myself saying. “I really want to come here. You guys are so great and I just loved rehearsing for this audition and feeling so creative and special. But I can’t read out loud. In fact, I can’t read very well at all unless I concentrate with all my brain and even then, it’s really hard for me. I have learning challenges that have always made school difficult so you might as well know that right now because if I did come here, I probably couldn’t keep up, anyway, although I really want to keep up but I just never seem to be able to.”

  Wow. That came out in a big gush. And guess what? I wasn’t finished.

  “It’s pretty frustrating feeling like you’re smart inside but when you try to get it outside, everything just gets all tangled up. It makes me feel like my brain is caught in a spider web, and try as I might, I just can’t ever escape from it. People always think I’m not trying hard enough, but they don’t have any idea how hard I really do try.”

  “Hank,” Trudi Ferguson said. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

  “Because I really want to be a student here and I’m sure, with everyone in the whole city that you have to choose from, the last person you’re going to want is a guy with learning challenges.”

  I could feel myself starting to cry, that feeling when your throat tightens up and your voice starts to squeak like a mouse. I sure didn’t want them to see that.

  “So thank you so much for your time and for being so cool and letting me call you by your first names and everything, and I’ll just send the next person in. By the way, she’s a ballerina and I’ll bet she’s really great.”

  Without waiting for their answer, I turned and ran out of the room as fast as I could. As I came crashing through the
double doors into the hall, the beautiful ballerina smiled at me and said, “How’d it go?”

  “Fine,” I squeaked. “Your turn.”

  All I knew was that I had to hold the tears back until I was out on the street. I was able to do that, but when I hit the sidewalk, boy oh boy oh boy, did they ever come fast and furious.

  CHAPTER 23

  My mom was really nice on the way home. She tried every trick in the book to make me feel better, including an offer to stop at Harvey’s for a slice of pizza, or even two slices if I wanted. Nothing worked, though. I felt like I had blown my best chance at ever having a good time in school, and my whole future was going to be more spelling tests and Nick McKelty blowing his bad breath into my face.

  When we got home, Emily and my Dad were playing electronic scrabble. My dad barely looked up from the game. I guess he was working on a seven letter word with triple points, which is the kind of thing that needs his full attention.

  “How’d it go?” Emily asked, taking a break from the game.

  “Let’s just say,” I said, really not wanting to go into details, “that if I were a submarine, I would be at the bottom of the ocean, below where the clams live.”

  “Honestly, Hank. Even you should know the clam cannot survive in that depth of water.”

  “Actually, Em, I don’t know that. And do you know why? Because I’m a stupid guy who can’t read a bunch of simple words off a page. So if you’ll excuse me now, I’m going to live the rest of my life in my room.”

  I walked into my room for a good sulk, but I couldn’t even do that. Baby Harry was at it again, and my room had the unmistakable aroma of strained peas. He was a talented kid when it came to the filled diaper department. At least one of the Zipzer boys was good at something.

  Ashley and Frankie tried their best to cheer me up. We spent the rest of the day in our basement clubhouse, with them telling me what a cool guy I was and me not hearing a word they said.

  Thank goodness there was a Mets game on TV on Sunday, because by that time, I was starting to bore myself. I don’t know about you, but I can only be in a bad mood for about a day and a half before I need a Mets game and some microwave popcorn with Junior Mints dropped into it while the popcorn is still hot so that the chocolate melts and makes a delicious, gooey mess.