The Manny Files book1

by Christian Burch

  Lulu covers her ears and goes, “La, la, la,” really loudly.

  “Summer Nights” is a song from the movie Grease. We used to watch it all the time. India knew all the words to every song and would listen to the soundtrack in her room. She would shut her door, but we could still hear her wailing, “‘Sandy, can’t you see? I’m in misery.’”

  We watched it so much that Mom sings one of the songs to Belly when she washes her hair in the kitchen sink. Belly cries when Mom washes her hair. I think that she’s scared of the garbage disposal. I turned it on once when Mom was washing Belly’s hair. Belly screeched and Mom got mad at me. I told her I had accidentally hit the switch with my elbow.

  But I didn’t.

  Mom sings, “There are worse things I could do, than give Belly a shampoo.”

  Belly tries not to, but she always interrupts her sobs with giggles.

  It sounds like this: “Whaaaaa-hee-hee-heee. Whaaaaa.”

  When we get to the swimming pool, the manny coats us all with sunscreen. He always says, “Protect your skin now, so you won’t look like Uncle Max’s leather briefcase when you grow up.”

  There’s a lady at the pool who looks like Uncle Max’s leather briefcase. She lies by the pool every day. I saw some Dolce and Gabbana leather boots in Mom’s Vogue magazine that would match her arms perfectly.

  The manny wears blue zinc oxide on his nose and looks like an old-fashioned lifeguard in his red swimsuit. He calls them swim trunks. India wears a big sun hat tied to her head with a big navy blue ribbon. She sits on the side most of the time and reads a book. Alice in Blunderland, by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, by Judy Blume, which the boys aren’t allowed to check out of the school library for some reason. D.V., Diana Vreeland’s autobiography.

  India swims whenever the manny swims. She wears a swim cap. She says that chlorine makes your hair “unmanageably dry and brittle.” The manny doesn’t use the stairs in the shallow end to get into the pool. He climbs the ladder to the high dive and then yells, “Geronimo,” and does a huge cannonball that always gets the lifeguard wet.

  Sometimes she blows her whistle at him.

  I’m too scared to go off of the high dive. I wrote it down in my journal as one of my summer goals, right next to “Grow six inches.” The manny said that I should also put “Eat candy” and “Tease Lulu” on the list.

  July 22

  The manny took us to the swimming pool today. He did a cannonball off the high dive and splashed the lifeguard and had to sit out for five minutes. He told the lifeguard that it was an accident, but I was standing behind him and saw that he had his fingers crossed. After I saw the manny jump, I climbed up the ladder to go off the high dive. I stood there for so long that a line formed on the ladder. I got scared, and everybody had to climb back down the ladder to let me down. Craig was there and called me a weenie. I pretended not to hear him.

  Checked my height chart by the door. I think I shrank. The manny said that sometimes staying in the water too long shrivels you up so much that you actually shrink.

  Grandma has to take more pills. She looks like she’s shrinking too. Her lips and hands are cold when she gives me kisses and hugs. Mom said that Grandma might have to go back to the hospital to get the blood circulating through her body better. I asked Mom if I might be sick because my feet got cold sometimes. She told me that Grandma always had cold feet and this was something different. I hope Grandma doesn’t have to go. I like having her here.

  Born on this day: Alex Trebek, Rose Kennedy, Oscar de la Renta

  22

  Thanks for the Extra Pillow, Dream Girl

  Grandma had to go back into the hospital because she has an “affection.” Dad told me that the blood isn’t pumping through her heart properly. The doctors at the hospital are going to do tests on her.

  “Like the scoliosis and head lice tests at school?” I asked Lulu.

  “No, dodo, like blood pressure and X-rays,” Lulu snarled, barely looking up from “The Manny Files.”

  The manny asked the nurse at the front desk if he could get a quick collagen injection in his lips while he was there. Lulu didn’t think that was funny. She added comments in her notebook and then scolded him, “You really should be thinking about Grandma at a time like this.”

  The manny turned to the nurse again and said, “Could Grandma get injections too?”

  Lulu growled.

  The manny and I stay in Grandma’s room when the nurses come to take her blood pressure and heartbeat. We make sure that they are doing it correctly. I learned what nurses are supposed do by watching Grandma’s soap operas with her. On General Hospital all of the secrets come out when somebody is confined to a hospital bed. I keep waiting for a young woman to burst through Grandma’s hospital door and announce that she is the baby that Grandma gave up for adoption thirty years before. I imagine that she introduces Grandma to her grandchildren, who have never met her and are much better looking than us.

  The manny said that I would be an excellent soap opera writer when I grow up.

  Grandma’s hospital room is decorated with lots of Polaroid pictures that Uncle Max has taken. There’s a picture of the manny and me jumping on the trampoline. We’re laughing because I had just drooled. There’s a picture of India looking like a Moroccan princess, watering Grandma’s hydrangea bush. The big purplish blue flowers match India’s turban. There’s one of Lulu sitting at her lemonade stand. Lulu’s lemonade stand didn’t have much business. She charged people by the size of the house that they lived in. The bigger the house, the higher the price for a cup of lemonade. She had a big sign that said ICE-COLD LEMONADE: COST BASED ON A SLIDING SCALE. The manny bought ten cups. She didn’t know what to charge him because she’s never seen his house.

  There’s also a picture of Belly and Grandma taking a nap, with the afternoon sun shining into the living room onto their faces.

  The manny said, “Since Grandma’s in the hospital and can’t be out in the world, we have to bring the world to her.”

  The world that we bring to Grandma is mostly cut flowers from her garden, soap opera magazines, and my Egyptian cotton sheets. Grandma needs them more than I do right now.

  Sometimes I pretend to be Grandma’s concierge. She’ll ask where she can get a glass of water.

  I say, “Oh, the tap water from the bathroom is fabulous.”

  When I bring Grandma her water, she slips tissues to me with a handshake, just like she did when she tipped the concierge at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City.

  The manny still dresses her up in different costumes to watch her soap operas. One day she was dressed up as an emergency room doctor. The manny had borrowed the uniform from the nurses’ station. The nurses give the manny anything he wants. They like him because he calls them things like “beauty boat” and “heartbreaker” whenever they leave the room.

  “Thanks for the extra pillow, dream girl,” I heard him call after the big nurse that calls Grandma “honey.”

  When the doctor came into Grandma’s room, she was lying in her bed wearing a pair of light blue hospital scrubs. She had a butter knife and fork in her hands and a surgeon’s mask over her mouth. I had a shower cap on my head and looked like a nurse. The manny was sprawled out on the floor, pretending to be dead.

  Grandma said, “I did all I could, but I am afraid that I just couldn’t save him. All I could do was butter him with this cholesterol-free spread.”

  She waved the butter knife in the air.

  The doctor laughed and said, “I see that it might be time to move you to the psychiatric ward. You could all share a room.”

  “It could be like One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” said the manny, “and Grandma could throw a drinking fountain through the window and we could escape.”

  I’ve never seen One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, but now I want to.

  After two weeks in the hospital Grandma came back to live in our living room.

  She
didn’t have surgery. Grandma told me she didn’t want to be in the hospital anymore because the lighting was bad and made her wrinkles appear bigger than they actually were.

  August 11

  I’m so glad Grandma’s living with us again. She can watch me water the garden from her bed in the living room. India says that Grandma is sicker than we thought. I’m going to rub her feet every day until she’s better.

  Craig rode by my house today on his bicycle. I was playing on the Slip ’N Slide with India. I waved to him, but he didn’t wave back. He circled by a couple of times, but he never smiled or waved. I think he wanted to play on the Slip ’N Slide. The manny said it was probably because India was out in the yard in a swimming suit. She punched him in the arm when he said this. She also put a T-shirt on over her swimming suit.

  Checked the height chart. I grew an eighth of an inch. I marked it on the door. I thought I felt taller. Summer is almost over. Only another week left to jump off the high dive.

  Born on this day: Hulk Hogan, Alex Haley, Jerry Falwell

  23

  I Hoped It Wasn’t Pee

  This morning I gave Grandma a foot rub before the manny took us to the swimming pool. Her feet were colder than usual and she was asleep. I kissed her on the cheek and she smiled in her sleep. Then I ran upstairs to get my swimming suit. I wanted something very athletic looking because I was planning on jumping off of the high dive. I dug through my swimming-suit drawer and pulled out a red-white-and-blue one. I thought that if I wore it, I’d look like a firework exploding in the sky and plummeting into the pool.

  On the way to the pool Lulu was complaining about the manny’s Duran Duran CD that was playing. She says that they’re completely out of style. She hates it when I point at her and sing, “‘I’m on the hunt, I’m after you.’”

  “Hungry Like the Wolf” is my favorite song of all time. My favorite song used to be “Hakuna Matata,” from The Lion King, but that was when I was little.

  India likes “The Reflex.”

  Whenever we’re too loud in the van or Lulu is complaining, the manny yells, “MUSHPOT!” He usually does it when Lulu is in the middle of a sentence.

  I bet that there’s a whole page in “The Manny Files” about mushpot.

  Whenever he yells this, the Eurovan goes completely silent. Mushpot means that nobody’s allowed to make a noise. If somebody does make a noise, the rest of the van yells at the top of their lungs, “So-and-so’s in the mushpot.”

  The longest we’ve ever lasted is three minutes and forty-eight seconds. Belly usually can’t stand it and has to break the silence.

  We were getting close to the swimming pool when Lulu said, “Please change the music before my friends he—”

  “MUSHPOT!” yelled the manny.

  India and I stopped talking about her sarong. Belly put both hands over her mouth and kicked her legs wildly with excitement. I could tell that she wanted to squeal. Lulu rolled her eyes and clenched her top lip with her teeth. She didn’t like the game, but she didn’t like to lose, either.

  We sat in silence while “Wild Boys” blasted out of the van speakers.

  I wanted to sing along, but didn’t want to lose. I just pretended to drum along with the drum solo.

  Belly looked out the window and forgot we were playing mushpot.

  “Look, an airplane,” she said, and pointed to the sky.

  “Belly’s in the mushpot,” we yelled in unison.

  “No, I’m not,” she whined, then crossed her arms and stuck out her tongue.

  She’s a sore loser when we play mushpot.

  We pulled up to the swimming pool, and everybody who was in line for the high dive looked over toward us.

  “Her name is Rio and she dances on the sand …,” blasted from the open windows of the Eurovan.

  We unloaded the bags of towels and sunscreen. Belly stopped just outside of the gate and started taking off all of her clothes. Kids pointed at her and laughed. Lulu pointed to the SWIMSUITS MUST BE WORN AT ALL TIMES sign.

  Lulu hates rule breakers.

  Sarah waved to me from the end of the high dive. She did a perfect pencil drop into the water. No splash. I ran over to meet her at the ladder.

  “Isn’t today the day you’re supposed to jump off of the high dive?” asked Sarah.

  I had told Sarah that if I didn’t jump off of the high dive by August 16, I was never coming to the swimming pool again. I don’t know why I chose August 16, it just popped into my head and out of my mouth.

  We swam all afternoon. India sat on the side and flipped through the pages of the September issue of Vogue magazine. BIGGEST FALL ISSUE EVER, it said on its cover. India marked the pages that had ensembles that she liked.

  Belly slept underneath a towel next to India.

  Lulu sat on the other side of the pool by a boy named Fletcher and his friends. She had told India that Fletcher was the smartest, cutest boy in her grade. She doesn’t know that India told the manny. Fletcher had freckles and a gap between his teeth when he smiled. He did really good dives off of the high dive.

  I wish I had freckles.

  The manny went to the concession stand to get India a Sprite. I went with him to help him carry. India sat with Belly to make sure that if she woke up, she kept her swimming suit on.

  On his way to the concession stand the manny passed Lulu and Fletcher. Lulu was sprawled across the CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES beach towel that her friend Margo had brought her from Washington, D.C. She sat like somebody was taking her picture, with her arms behind her, her back arched, her knees together, and her legs crossed at the ankles. She had on a two-piece swimming suit. It was her first bikini. She had gotten her first bra a few months before. It looked like a tank top to me, except it was short and had a bow on the front. It didn’t look like Mom’s bras. Mom’s bras are so big that they fit on my head like a hat.

  Fletcher was lying on an old, bleached-out blue bath towel that had a hole in it. He was talking to the boy sitting on the other side of him and not to Lulu.

  The manny looked at Fletcher, gave a thumbs-up sign, and said, “Wassup, dawg?”

  “Nada, bro,” said Fletcher.

  The manny looked at Lulu.

  Lulu didn’t look back. I think she was hoping that the manny would go by without saying anything to her.

  He looked at her and said, “Do you and your friends want anything from the concession stand?”

  The color came back into Lulu’s face and she said, “Sprites, please.”

  The manny and I came back with Sprites for Lulu and all her friends.

  He said, “Catch you on the down low, homeslice,” and he winked at Lulu.

  As the manny walked away, Fletcher said, “That guy’s cool. You’re so lucky, Lulu. My aunt watches us, and she never takes her hair out of curlers, even when we go out to dinner. It’s so embarrassing.”

  “Yeah, he’s cool.” Lulu squirmed uncomfortably and sipped her Sprite. I could tell she didn’t mean it, but I could also tell that she was happy Fletcher was talking to her.

  I said to Lulu, “You’re so mean to him and he’s so nice to you.” She glared at me, so I ran to catch up with the manny. I dropped my Sprite and it spilled all over my feet and made them sticky. I jumped in the pool to wash them off.

  I didn’t want a Sprite anyway. My stomach felt just like it did the time we played baseball in PE and it was my turn to bat. I ended up hitting a foul ball that hit Mr. Rolls, our PE teacher, in the head. He had to go to the hospital to get stitches. Craig told me that I had probably killed him. We spent the rest of PE class in the library watching a film about caterpillars turning into butterflies.

  I liked it, but I pretended to be bored.

  Mr. Rolls had to get four stitches. My mom and dad sent him a gift certificate to a nice restaurant to say that they were sorry.

  “Don’t worry about jumping off the high dive,” said Sarah. “It’s not that bad.”

  “I know,” I said. “I’m j
ust waiting for the right moment. I don’t want to wait in line.”

  Really I didn’t want the line waiting behind me.

  Just then the manny yelled, “We’re leaving in five minutes.”

  “Guess you better do it,” said Sarah with a worried look for me.

  I climbed out of the pool, and my swimsuit fell down below my equator. That’s what Uncle Max calls it when your crack shows. Lulu says that Uncle Max is childish sometimes. Mom always says he’s childlike. I pulled up my suit and thought that this was not a good start. I walked over to the line for the high dive. I hate the line for the high dive. You have to stand on the ladder with your face right next to somebody else’s bottom. I stood under Robin, my old swimming-lessons teacher. Water kept dripping from the bottom of her swimsuit onto my head.

  I hoped it wasn’t pee.

  She turned around and said, “Are you just climbing up for the view, or are you really going to jump this time?”

  I said, “Your swimsuit top looks a little loose. You’d better tighten it.”

  She glared at me and climbed up the ladder.

  It was finally her turn, and she gracefully dived from the board.

  When she came up, she said, “Oh, my gosh!” and grabbed her top.

  It was my turn. I climbed up onto the board and walked to the very end. Sarah was by the ladder. She looked like a toddler from that high. I looked down into the water and then back at the seven or eight people standing in line on the ladder.

  They were already heckling me to go.

  “Come on.”

  “Don’t be a wimp.”

  Robin yelled, “Hey, Keats, do you want us to bring you your dinner up there?”

  I looked at the water one more time and shivered. I imagined how much a belly flop would hurt from that high up. My legs were shaking. I took my shaky legs and walked back toward the ladder. The line started to move backward to let me down.

  “Keats, you can do it,” I heard the manny yelling. He sounded like that gymnastics coach who cheered when the girl vaulted with a broken leg. The manny was standing there with his shirt on and all of our bags packed. Lulu, India, and Belly were standing next to him, looking up at me on the high dive.