Everyone in the room looked at one another and waited for me to go on. This was the part I was dreading. The fraction problem, the freak-out, the words floating across the page. Ick, ick and triple ick.
I took another deep breath, but just as I started to talk, Mr Rock popped up from the back of the room and came springing over to me. He threw his arm round my shoulder.
“I have trouble reading recipes too,” he said. “They get splattered with tomato sauce and smeared with butter and covered with brown gravy – and then you can’t even read what’s on the page. Cooking’s a messy business, isn’t it, Hank?”
All the grown-ups in the room nodded in agreement. Ms Shimozato launched into a story about how she had once splattered a whole pot of potato leek soup all over her cookbook when she forgot to put the top on the blender. Suddenly, no one was paying attention to me any more.
Mr Rock, you’re a genius!
“Thank you,” I whispered to him. “I really didn’t want to go into the whole story.”
“Your learning difficulties are your business, not theirs,” whispered Mr Rock. “You tell who you want to tell.”
Just then, who do you think came strutting back into the room? Ms Adolf! When she entered, everyone clapped. She smiled and took a little bow, as if getting a gas attack in public deserved a big round of applause. Her face wasn’t red any more. It was back to its original grey.
I knew I owed her an apology. I’m not a total idiot, you know.
“Ms Adolf,” I said. “I’m so sorry about the enchiladas.”
“What do you have to be sorry about, Henry?”
“I’m sorry that they burned your mouth and made you sick,” I said, carefully staying away from any mention of the gassy part of the attack. I thought that might embarrass her.
“They didn’t make me sick,” she said. “I never even tasted your enchiladas, although they did look surprisingly delicious.”
“You didn’t?”
“No, Henry. I told you earlier that the cuisine of Mexico does not sit well with me. It gives me gastric distress.”
“What’s she talking about?” Nick the Tick whispered to Luke Whitman.
“Mexican food makes her fart,” Luke whispered back.
Nick nodded. “Copy that,” he said.
“But if you didn’t eat our enchiladas, then what made you sick?” I asked Ms Adolf.
“It was the pigs in a blanket,” she answered.
McKelty’s dish! No way! This is the greatest thing ever! That big lug is going to have to take the blame for Ms Adolf’s gas attack. Oh yeah! Life is good.
“Hey,” McKelty protested. “There was nothing wrong with my pigs in a blanket. I made them myself.”
“Well, Nicholas, it was right after I ate one that I had my little problem,” Ms Adolf said.
“It wasn’t so little,” muttered Luke.
“What did you put in your pigs in a blanket?” Ms Adolf asked Nick.
“They’re just cut-up hot dogs wrapped in a biscuit with mustard and a spoonful of horseradish,” he answered.
“Horseradish!” Ms Adolf said as if saying the word made her mouth burst into flames again. “Why, Nicholas McKelty, horseradish is incredibly spicy!”
“It is?” McKelty said. “Then why would they give it to horses?”
All the grown-ups started to chuckle. McKelty laughed too. The jerk didn’t even realize that they were laughing at him.
“Horseradish isn’t for horses, Nicholas,” said Ms Adolf. “They call it horseradish because it is made from very large radishes.”
“Actually, horseradish was bottled in the 1850s, making it one of the first convenience foods,” said a nasal voice. It was Robert, the walking encyclopedia, joining the party in his usual fact-filled way. “Some native people as far back as the ancient Egyptians rubbed it on their foreheads to cure headaches,” he added, in case he hadn’t already been boring enough. “Others tossed it up into their armpits for bruised ribs.”
I ask you, how in the world would any nine-year-old in his right mind know a thing like that? Even more mysterious is, why would he care?
“In Japan, we call horseradish wasabi and put it on our sushi,” said Mr Morimoto.
“Wasabi kicks butt,” Yoshi said. “It is very spicy. It clears your nose.”
“We know about that, don’t we, Hank?” It was none other than Lizard Woman Emily, who had followed Robert into the room. “Hank was once personally attacked by a small pile of wasabi in a Japanese restaurant. He put up a good fight, though.”
That was a decent thing for Emily to say. She could have told everyone that my nose had almost left my face permanently, looking for a sink filled with cold water – which was closer to the truth.
Nick McKelty can’t stand it when anyone else gets a compliment of any kind. He always has to hog the attention for himself.
“That’s nothing,” he said, pulling himself up to his full humongous height. “Once, I ate the hottest chilli pepper in the world. They say even a lick of it can kill you, but I chomped down ten of them, just like that.”
“Right,” Yoshi said. “And my name is Bernice.”
Frankie reached out and gave Yoshi a high five.
“Way to go, Yosh Man,” he said.
“Who is this Bernice?” asked Mr Love. “And why is everyone always talking about her?”
In case you hadn’t noticed, Mr Love isn’t too strong in the sense of humour department. Maybe he and Ms Adolf are related.
“Many Japanese people enjoy spicy food,” said Mr Morimoto. “Personally, I find the spicier, the better.”
I looked at Frankie and Ashley, and they looked back at me.
“OK, Mr M.,” Frankie said. “If you’re such a spice fan, have we got something for you.”
The man said he liked spicy, and spicy was already on his plate.
“Dig right in to that enchilada,” I said. “We made it especially for your taste buds.”
Mr Morimoto popped the first bite of enchilada into his mouth. He was quiet for a minute. Then his eyes started to tear up. His nose began to run. He took a handkerchief out of his pocket and blew his nose.
“Hank, may I have some water, please?” he said in a raspy voice.
Oh no. I was frying the taste buds of the head teacher of a sister school from another country.
Mr Morimoto took a sip of the water I brought him.
“This enchilada has a great deal of – I don’t know how to say it in English,” he said. He turned to Yoshi and said something in Japanese. Yoshi nodded.
“My father says this enchilada has a great deal of zing,” Yoshi said.
“Is that good?” Mr Love asked.
“It’s very good,” Yoshi said. “Zing kicks butt.”
I thought Mr Love was going to fall over on his face and crush the Statue of Liberty to bits. If one of us had said the words “kick butt” to him, he would have thrown us in detention for a week. But Yoshi could get away with it. What was Mr Love going to do? You don’t put a guest from a faraway country into detention. That would be very rude, multi-culturally speaking.
Mr Morimoto ate the whole enchilada. He drank a lot of water too, and blew his nose after every bite. He ate two more enchiladas after that one. We had to get him an entire box of Kleenex.
“Thank you for an excellent meal,” he said when he was finished. “That was most delicious.”
“Ikeru,” Frankie said. “We had fun making it.”
“Yeah, you can see it all on the video we made,” Ashley said.
“I promise that Yoshi and I will play it for the children in my school,” Mr Morimoto said.
“They’ll like the iguana part,” Ashley said. “The lizard’s got talent.”
“Did you hear that, Robert?” Emily said. “Katherine’s going to be an international TV star.”
“Let’s tell her all about it after school,” Robert said.
I made a mental note to be sure to be really busy after school.
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br /> That night, everyone came over to our house for a party. As a way of saying thank you, Yoshi gave me his silver trainers, the ones that looked like they had flown in from another galaxy. They were about three sizes too big, but I didn’t care. Even if they were a little on the floppy side, they were still the coolest shoes I’d ever seen. I used the old stuff-a-pair-of-socks-in-the-toe trick, and they were as good as mine.
I gave Yoshi my Mets sweatshirt to take back to Japan, although Frankie tried to get him to take his stinking Yankees sweatshirt instead. Can you believe that? Yoshi gave Frankie his Japanese rap CD. Frankie taught Yoshi the magic trick where you pull a nickel out of someone’s ear.
“But we don’t have nickels in Japan,” Yoshi said.
“It will work with a yen too, dude,” Frankie said. “It’s a very multi-cultural trick.”
Ashley gave Yoshi a badge she had made that said “Ikeru” in turquoise and yellow rhinestones. Yoshi gave her his chopsticks that had slivers of sparkly mother-of-pearl at the tips. He said it was OK if she wanted to add a few pink rhinestones of her own.
My mum cooked what she considered to be a typical American dinner, hamburgers and fries. Except that there was no meat, nothing fried – and, by the way, no taste either. Fortunately, we had all eaten so much at the Multi-Cultural Day Lunch that we weren’t hungry. We offered Cheerio the leftovers, but he took one whiff, ran into the kitchen and hid in the cupboard with the pasta pots. He must have learned that from Katherine. She was in Emily’s room, going over her TV career plans with Robert and Emily. By the way, they asked Ashley if she wanted to be Katherine’s manager, and she’s considering it.
“Feel free to use the bathroom,” my mum said to Mr Morimoto about a thousand times during the evening. She was really happy when he finally did feel free to use it to wash his hands. And when he told her he thought the pagodas on the wallpaper were beautiful, I thought she was going to kiss him. Luckily, she kissed my dad instead, which was a good move on her part.
Speaking of my dad, I hadn’t seen him that happy since he came third in the tri-state crossword puzzle tournament in Jersey City. He showed Mr Morimoto his mechanical pencil collection, of course. My dad has got used to people throwing a quick eyeball on his MPs and then changing the subject as fast as they can. Most people have a limited interest in mechanical pencils and the thickness of the lead. You can’t blame them. That’s just the way it is.
But it turns out that Mr Morimoto has a collection of floatie pens – those ballpoint pens that have water inside and little objects like boats and palm trees that float up and down in the bluish liquid. When my dad heard that, the two of them became instant soul brothers. They blabbed about pens and pencils way longer than any two people ever have on the face of this planet.
The best part of the night was when Papa Pete came over, because he brought a fresh batch of his garlic dill pickles. That is our favourite snack in the whole world. Papa Pete and I always go out on our balcony and munch on pickles as we watch the moon come up and move across the New York City sky. Trust me, life in my city doesn’t get any better than that.
“Would you gentlemen like to join us on the balcony for a pickle?” Papa Pete asked Yoshi and his dad, after my friends had left to go back to their flats.
“It is my honour,” said Mr Morimoto, bowing.
“Mine too, ojiisan,” Yoshi said.
We climbed out on to the balcony. It was a perfect spring night, just cold enough to make your nose turn red. You could smell the city – a little bit of pizza, a little bit of city traffic and a dash of roasted peanuts.
Papa Pete reached into the plastic bag, pulled out a nice crunchy pickle and handed it to Mr Morimoto, using a piece of waxed paper the way we do at our deli.
“Enjoy,” he said.
“My teacher said you wouldn’t like these,” I told Mr Morimoto.
“Your teacher doesn’t like Mexican food, either,” Mr Morimoto answered.
As he took his first bite of the pickle, it snapped off and crunched between his teeth. That’s how you can tell that they’re really fresh.
“And here’s one for my new grandkid,” Papa Pete said, giving Yoshi a pickle and a pinch on the cheek at the same time.
Snap! The pickle crunched between his teeth too as he bit into it.
Papa Pete and I reached into the bag and each grabbed a pickle for ourselves.
“These are delicious,” Mr Morimoto said. “I see where Hank gets his ability to cook.”
“So the enchiladas turned out well?” Papa Pete asked.
“Very, very well,” said Mr Morimoto.
“Did they have enough zing?” Papa Pete asked.
“Oh, more than enough,” I answered.
Yoshi smiled at me. We both knew we were going to remember those enchiladas for a long time.
Then we were quiet. Just the four of us crunching away, watching the moon come up low and orange in the New York City sky.
I don’t mind telling you, it was hard to say goodbye. I had only known Yoshi and his dad for two days, but by the time they left, it felt like we were old friends.
Yoshi promised to write letters. I told him I wasn’t so good at letter writing, but I would send videos.
The next day at school, Mr Morimoto came up to me just before they got in the car to take them to the airport. He bowed, then reached out and shook my hand.
“I must congratulate you, Hank,” he said. “You are a fine host. And you are a real chef too.”
“Not really, sir,” I answered. “I have to be honest with you about the enchiladas.” I couldn’t hold it in any longer. “The recipe was too difficult for me to follow because I have trouble with reading. I have what they call dyslexia.”
It didn’t feel so bad telling him the truth now. In fact, it felt good.
“A real chef cooks from his heart,” he said, “not from a recipe. In truth, the best things come from the heart, Hank.”
Then he bowed once more, waved goodbye to Frankie, Robert, Emily, Ashley – actually to the whole school – and they were on their way home.
All day long I thought about what Mr Morimoto had said. I heard his words in my head. He thought I was a real chef. Wow. That felt good.
And you know what? I was glad I hadn’t stuck to the recipe after all. I came up with my own recipe, my own way to do things. And look what happened. We made a killer batch of a little spicy, but really tasty, one-of-a-kind enchiladas.
Maybe it’s not so bad having learning difficulties after all.
This recipe serves eight people. I make it for Frankie and Ashley all the time now. Make it for your friends. And remember: Great chefs cook with their hearts, so feel free to add your own creative touches. Let me know what you come up with.
Instructions:
In a saucepan, combine the tomato sauce, chilli powder, oregano, garlic powder, cumin and salt. Get an adult to help you turn on the hob to medium heat. (Take it from me: you don’t want to burn yourself, inside your mouth or out. That is no fun.)
Cook the sauce until it comes to the boil, then turn the heat down low and let it cook uncovered for 15 minutes. Stir it every once in a while.
Meanwhile, in a small bowl, mix 300g of cheese with the onions.
Warm the tortillas in the microwave, then dip them into the tomato sauce mixture. Lay them in a greased 20-by-30-cm casserole dish.
Fill each tortilla with the cheese-and-onion stuff. Roll it up. Keep filling and rolling until the dish is full.
Sprinkle the leftover tomato sauce and cheese on top.
Get a grown-up to turn the oven on to 180 degrees centigrade. Let it warm up for a few minutes. While it’s warming up, you might want to bounce a ball or read this book again.
Put the whole pan in the oven. Bake it for about 25 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and bubbly.
Eat your enchiladas and feel very proud of yourself. You just cooked a great meal!
Love,
Hank
An intervi
ew with Henry Winkler
What’s your favourite thing about Hank Zipzer?
My favourite thing about Hank Zipzer is that he is resourceful. Just because he can’t figure something out doesn’t mean that he won’t find a way. I love his sense of humour. Even though Lin and I write the books together, when we meet in the morning to work we never know where the characters or the story will take us. Hank and his friends make us laugh all the time.
Hank likes to write lists. Are you a list person, too? (If so, what sorts of lists do you make?)
Hank likes to write lists, and so do I. My whole life is organized on scraps of paper in a pile on my desk by my phone. If I didn’t make lists, I would get nothing done, because I would forget the important things that I had to do. And then, I’m constantly rewriting those lists and adding to them. So yes, I’m a list maker.
Who was your favourite teacher?
Believe it or not, Mr Rock, the music teacher at my high school, McBurney’s School for Boys, was my favourite teacher. He seemed to understand that learning was difficult for me. He understood that just because I had trouble with almost every subject, it did not mean I was stupid.
Where did you grow up?
I grew up on the West side of New York City in the same building Hank lives in. The neighbourhood, the stores, the park, the school and even Ms Adolf are all taken from my life. I took the Broadway bus number 104 to school every day.
What was it like growing up with dyslexia?
When I was growing up in New York City, no one knew what dyslexia was. I was called stupid and lazy, and I was told that I was not living up to my potential. It was, without a doubt, painful. I spent most of my time covering up the fact that reading, writing, spelling, maths, science – actually, every subject but lunch – was really, really difficult for me. If I went to the shop and paid the bill with paper money and I was given coins back for change, I had no idea how to count up the change in my head. I just trusted that everyone was being honest.
The World's Greatest Underachiever and the Killer Chilli Page 8
