Charlie Joe Jackson's Guide to Not Growing Up

by Tommy Greenwald

  “Let’s do this!” he screamed, jumping around and splashing everyone in sight.

  “Last one to the other side is a rotten egg!” I hollered.

  “Go!” he yelled.

  It was a close race—and when I looked up, the first thing I saw was Jake’s mom, standing over us.

  “Boys! Boys! I said no swimming! You all have a big day ahead of you! Please, everyone out now!”

  “Sorry, Mrs. Katz,” said Eric Cunkler, one of the other boys who’d jumped in.

  Timmy and I looked at each other, trying to decide what to do. For a minute I thought about doing about five more cannonballs, but then I saw my parents looking at me, and I realized that nothing good could come from it.

  “Be right out, Mrs. Katz,” I said. “It’s just that the water is so nice.”

  Mrs. Katz was in the middle of flashing me her best fake smile when I heard an oddly familiar voice scream “COMING THROUGH!” Then, all of a sudden, a kid came flying past all the adults, past the catering people putting out lunch, and past the kids already sitting at the picnic tables. The kid was moving so fast I couldn’t tell who it was, but he took a flying leap into the pool, flailing his arms like a spastic baboon. He hit the water with a THWACK! that sounded like the worst belly flop in the history of belly flops. Ouch, I thought. Then I thought, Who is this crazy kid? And then I thought, I’m so happy there’s another moron here, so I’m not the only one.

  When the kid came to the surface, it all made sense.

  Teddy Spivero.

  No way!

  “Hey, Wacko Jacko!” he gasped, water still coming out of his nose. “Long time no sneeze!”

  Way.

  “What’s up, Teddy?” I said, trying to sound perfectly normal and friendly. See, here’s the thing: Teddy Spivero was my archenemy ever since I first knew what the word archenemy meant. He was Hannah’s twin brother, and I’d spent approximately half my life trying to figure out how a perfect girl and a horrible boy could have the same exact genetic makeup. (A phrase I learned in eighth-grade science.)

  Teddy promptly swam down to the shallow end of the pool, where I was hanging out, and splashed about a gallon of water directly into my mouth.

  “What did you do that for?!?” I sputtered.

  “Because it was fun!” was his answer.

  And you know something? I couldn’t argue with his logic. From his perspective, it probably was fun. Which was something this barbecue could’ve used a lot more of, right about then.

  Teddy was clearly thinking the same thing. “What kind of party is this?” he said. “It’s like somebody died or something!”

  “We’re not supposed to be swimming,” I told him. “Mrs. Katz said.”

  “That’s major lame,” Teddy said.

  “We’re going to get in trouble if we don’t get out,” I said, hating myself for being so … well, lame.

  “Oh, no!” he yelled, splashing me again. The heck with it, I thought, and splashed him back. Which led to a fairly significant water war. It got so splashy that Timmy swam over.

  “Mrs. Katz is going to kill you guys!”

  “Kill us why?” asked Teddy. “Because we’re actually playing with water in a swimming pool?”

  That might have been the moment I decided I kind of liked Teddy Spivero.

  “Kids, out!” hollered Mrs. Katz. “I mean it! It’s time for lunch anyway!”

  “But it’s just so darn nice in here!” Teddy hollered back. “Can we swim while we eat?” I was starting to like him more and more.

  “This is simply a modest way to kick off the day,” Mrs. Katz told us, as if we cared. “After lunch, everyone needs to go home and get ready for the afternoon festivities.”

  “I don’t know about you,” Teddy whispered to me, “but I can get ready in about eight seconds flat.” I decided the best thing to do at that moment was to ignore him.

  The good news was, Mrs. Katz takes her food very, very seriously. After Timmy and I hopped out and dried ourselves off, we checked out the picnic tables, which were filled with hot dogs, cheeseburgers, every kind of chip ever invented, cookies, brownies, cupcakes, and approximately fourteen different kinds of soda.

  “Mamma Mia, this looks delicious,” Timmy said.

  For some reason, though, no one was eating yet. I couldn’t figure out why, until Mrs. Katz started clinking a glass. “Please, everyone, gather around for a quick toast!” she called.

  Oh jeez.

  The adults came down from the screen porch, and the kids came up from the lawn. Katie came over to me and we joined a big circle. Jake’s mom stood right in the middle of everyone, which was exactly the way she wanted it.

  “I’d like to congratulate all of the young men and women who are here today,” she began.

  Oh, so all of a sudden we’re men and women?

  “Tonight you become graduates of Eastport Middle School and get ready for the next step at high school,” she continued. “I’m just so proud of all of you, including my young Jake, who has had such a marvelous experience at school, with all his friends, having fun learning, and soaking in so much knowledge. It’s really been wonderful to watch.”

  I glanced over at Jake. He looked like he wanted to crawl into a hole.

  “I thought it might be nice to have a moment of reflection on this day of celebration,” Mrs. Katz continued. “We’ve all been through so much, and you kids are just so terrific. You’ve worked so hard and kept your heads on straight. So here’s to all of you!”

  Everyone said some variation of “Cheers!” or “Yay!”

  “That wasn’t so bad,” I whispered to Katie.

  “It’s not over,” she whispered back.

  “How do you know?”

  “Trust me.”

  Sure enough, Mrs. Katz kept her glass of whatever it was in the air. “And now,” she said, “I’d like for us to go around and ask each child what you’re looking forward to most about high school. Perhaps it’s a subject you’d like to take, or a teacher you’ve heard is very good, or a sport you’re going to play, or a club you plan on joining. Because today is as much about looking forward to the future as it is celebrating the past.” She looked around the lawn. “Who wants to go first?”

  Shockingly enough, no one wanted to go first. As kids shuffled their feet and tried to avoid eye contact with Jake’s mom, I glanced at my dad. He saw me, then laughed and shrugged, as if to say, This is your problem, pal, not mine. He was right.

  As the uncomfortable silence got longer, Mrs. Katz’s eyes started to take on a slightly desperate shine. “Jake, why don’t you start us off?”

  Poor Jake looked as if he knew that was coming. “Uh, okay, sure … I guess if I had to say what I was looking forward to most, it would be maybe the debate team, which I heard was really fun.”

  Debate team? Huh—I had no idea debate was a sport. But okay, we can go with that if you want.

  Phil Manning jumped in next. “I’m planning to play football and rugby, and maybe join the wrestling team,” he said. “And hopefully, you know, study a lot and stuff.” His girlfriend Celia Barbarossa was next to him—they’re never more than seven inches apart—and she piped in, “I hope to join the model U.N.”

  “I’d like to take a bunch of AP courses,” said some other kid that I barely knew.

  “Me, too,” murmured a bunch of other kids in agreement.

  Teddy looked confused, then elbowed me in the ribs. “What’s an AP course?”

  I wasn’t sure, either. “Uh—” I said, before Katie chimed in. “It’s short for Advanced Placement,” she said. “Kids who want to get into good colleges take them. They’re really hard.”

  “Who cares?” said Teddy Spivero, at which point he officially went from my enemy to my friend. He elbowed me again. “Let’s go inside and check out the house.”

  “Huh?” I had a sudden flashback to the last time I snuck away from someone giving a speech. It was at the New York Public Library during Camp Rituhbukkee Re
union Weekend, and it didn’t end well at all.

  “Come on!” Teddy urged. “This house is sweet. Let’s give ourselves a tour.”

  “I’ve been inside lots of times,” I told Teddy. He obviously thought that was a pretty weak argument, because he took off toward the house.

  Meanwhile, Eliza Collins was raising her hand. “My goal is to become head cheerleader,” she said, “while also starting a club that raises money for the endangered species of the world, such as the black-footed ferret.”

  That was all I needed to hear. I snuck out of the circle and caught up to Teddy just as he was opening the door of the screen porch.

  “You know what my goal for high school is?” he said. “To not get arrested.”

  And with that, we entered the house.

  5

  12:51 pm

  It turned out that I had nothing to worry about: Teddy wasn’t interested in ransacking Jake’s house and looking for valuable items to stuff down his pants.

  Instead, he just wanted to park himself in the living room, gorge on Doritos, and talk about what a bunch of losers everyone in Eastport was.

  “I don’t know, man,” he said. “The people here are just so wrapped up in like, being the best, and getting ahead, and doing better than the next guy. It’s wack.”

  “Not everyone,” I told Teddy. “Jake’s mom is a little crazy for sure, but most people are pretty cool.”

  Teddy put his feet up on a table I’m pretty sure was not supposed to have feet on it. “Yeah, whatever you need to tell yourself. You heard those kids out there, right? They’ve all got a plan. Everybody has a plan. Everybody’s in a hurry. What’s the rush, I say? Why can’t everyone just relax?” He picked a piece of dirt off his thigh and flicked it toward a garbage can. It missed by about five feet. “Well, Wacko Jacko? Am I right or what?”

  “Today’s my birthday,” I said, which wasn’t exactly the answer to his question.

  “No way!” Teddy leaped out of his seat and came over to give me a never-ending noogie. “Happy birthday, dude!”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Should we go back outside?”

  Teddy shook his head dramatically, his wet hair spraying water all over the room. “Not yet. Let’s wait for a minute, to make sure that everyone had a chance to say what they’re going to be awesome at in high school.”

  “That makes sense.”

  Teddy and I sat quietly for a minute.

  “Man, these dudes got a lot of books,” he said, staring at the wall.

  “Yup,” I said. He was stating the obvious—the whole room had bookshelves that stretched from floor to ceiling, and they were completely crammed. As I looked around, I realized I’d never sat in their living room before. I’d barely ever sat in my living room before. Which makes sense. As far as I know, absolutely no living of any kind is ever done in anyone’s living room.

  I was absent-mindedly looking around at the shelves when I suddenly saw a group of books that looked oddly familiar. The yellow covers … The red letters … Wait a second!

  I got up to take a closer look.

  Yup … that was them.

  The Complete Works Of Mark Twain.

  “Holy smokes,” I said. “I can’t believe it.”

  Teddy, who was picking his fingernails with his shoelaces, looked up. “Can’t believe what?”

  “These used to be my books,” I told him. “I got them for my sixth birthday. But I threw a massive tantrum because I thought it was a terrible present, and so my parents gave them to Jake.”

  I picked one up. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. It looked like it had been read a zillion times.

  “So they’re your books?” Teddy asked.

  “Not exactly. Not anymore, anyway.”

  He came over to the bookshelf and started running his finger over the books. “I was never much of a reader,” he said.

  I nodded. “I’m right there with you.”

  “But I still think it was wrong for your parents to give them away,” Teddy said. “I mean, after all, what if some day you have kids of your own, and they turn into big readers, and you wanted to give them the books that were given to you when you were a kid?” He plucked one off the shelf and examined it. “They’d probably be worth a lot of money by then, too.”

  “I suppose.”

  Teddy turned and looked at me. “Let’s take them back.”

  “Huh?”

  He pointed his finger at the bookshelf and started counting. “What do we got, about ten books here? Let’s take them back. They’ll never know.”

  “What do you mean, they’ll never know?” I took a quick glance into the kitchen, where the catering people were getting ready to bring out more food. “We can’t just steal stuff. That’s like, illegal.”

  “Okay, fine,” Teddy said, clearly disappointed in my lack of criminality. “Then let’s just move them somewhere.”

  I was confused. “Move them somewhere?”

  “Yeah, like hide them.”

  “Huh? Hide them where? What for?”

  “Look,” Teddy said, pointing. “See how every book here is arranged by alphabetical order?” He was right. Mark Twain was right between William Styron (I had no idea who that was) and John Updike (ditto).

  “So what? You think they’ll care if a few books are out of place?”

  Teddy snorted. “Have you met Mrs. Katz?”

  I looked out the window and saw her rearranging the silverware on one of the picnic tables.

  “I still don’t get the point, though.”

  “Just to have a little fun,” Teddy said, starting to pull the Twain books down from the shelf. “You remember fun, don’t you? That thing we used to have, before everyone started thinking about annoying stuff, like the future?”

  I thought about what Teddy said. What he wanted to do was stupid, silly, and pointless. But since when had that ever stopped me before?

  “Okay, fine.”

  We started pulling the books down from the shelf, and we each had a bunch of books stuffed in our arms when I heard a soft little bark behind me. I turned around to see Elmer, the Katz’s cockapoo, checking us out.

  “Oh, hey Elmer,” I said, suddenly feeling guilty. Elmer and I were good pals. What if he could tell what we were up to?

  “Charlie Joe? Charlie Joe? CHARLIE JOE!”

  “What?” I turned around to see Teddy standing there, white as a ghost. He pointed at Elmer, who was happily wagging his tail.

  “What?” I said again.

  “I … don’t … like … dogs,” stammered Teddy.

  Translation: He was scared to death of them.

  “Oh,” I said. I was just about to say cockapoos are the least scary-looking dogs in the whole world, and Elmer’s the nicest dog ever, if you don’t count Moose and Coco, when Elmer suddenly decided he wanted to make friends with Teddy. Which meant, he gave out a playful BARK! and charged.

  “AARGHH!” screamed Teddy, and without another word, he charged out the screen door with Elmer right behind him. I decided the only thing to do was to try and help my friend—Teddy had technically only been my friend for about eight minutes at that point, but it still counted—and so I followed right behind. The three of us ran down the hill, past the lunch tables where everyone was still going through what they wanted to do in high school (I thought I heard Nareem say he was planning on joining the fish sticks club, but later I found out he’d said statistics club, which was too bad—I’d been all excited about the fish sticks club), across the volleyball court that had been set up, and straight toward the pool.

  “Teddy wait!” I hollered, but I’m not sure he could hear me—Elmer, who thought we were playing a really fun game, was barking at the top of his doggie lungs.

  SPLASH! went Teddy into the pool. Elmer was just about to dive in, but I managed to grab his collar first.

  “Elmer, no!” I said.

  “Charlie Joe, yes!” he said back—or would have, if he could talk.

  Then Elmer gave a y
ank—it turns out cockapoos are really strong, which I didn’t realize until it was too late—and together we followed Teddy into the pool.

  SPLASH!

  SPLASH!

  It wasn’t until I was underwater and I saw a strange object float by me that I realized what had been in my hands this whole time—and no, I’m not talking about Elmer’s collar.

  I’m talking about Mark Twain’s books.

  I splashed to the surface and looked around the pool. Teddy had also leaped into the pool with books still in his hands. So all together, there were ten books, two kids, and one waterlogged cockapoo in the pool. The good news was, Elmer was no longer interested in Teddy. His new fun game was grabbing soggy books with his teeth and ripping them apart.

  “Elmer, no!” I said again, with exactly the same nonresult.

  By this time, the splashing and thrashing had gotten the attention of the rest of the party, and everyone had come running over to see what all the commotion was about.

  Mrs. Katz barged her way through to the front of the crowd. “May I ask what is going on here?”

  I saw Jake next to her, scratching his head in confusion. Hopefully he would think this whole thing was funny and realize it would make a great story to tell the debate team some day.

  Mrs. Katz’s eyes widened in horror. “Are those … books?!” she shrieked.

  “I can explain,” I began, which of course means, I can’t explain.

  Meanwhile, Teddy Spivero was down at the other end of the pool, thrilled that he wasn’t about to be eaten by a rabid cockapoo. “Hey, Mrs. Katz,” he said, waving. “This pool is so nice. Is it heated?”

  “Yes, it’s on an automatic timer,” she answered. Even when she’s really mad, Mrs. Katz doesn’t like to miss an opportunity to throw in a quick brag.

  “Sweet,” answered Teddy. “It’s like, the perfect place to chill.”

  Mrs. Katz looked like she’d just eaten a rotten banana. “Teddy, I’m going to have to ask you to exit the pool,” she said. “You, too, Charlie Joe.”

  As we climbed out and dried off (for the second time), I saw some of the kids trying not to giggle. All succeeded except Pete Milano, who laughed and said, “Charlie Joe, I know you don’t like reading, but drowning books seems a little extreme.”