Candace Goldapper
From the Heart
Jimmy was five when he and his parents adopted Neil. He still remembers that day in court when the judge called him up to the bench, all by himself, and said, “Today, it’s not just your mom and dad who accept the responsibility of raising another child. I’m counting on you, too, to share that obligation. Being a big brother means that this baby is going to look up to you and depend on you. Are you ready to take on that job?” Even though he was only in kindergarten at the time, Jimmy took the judge’s words very seriously.
Neil grew up thinking that being “adocted,” as he called it, was the coolest thing. His parents must have read every book in the library about how to explain such a complicated issue to a child, and they did a great job. Not only did he not feel bad about it, he felt even more special than if he weren’t adopted. At every opportunity, whether it be current events or a talent show or even a holiday celebration, he’d proudly stand up and tell the immediate world how he had a “tummy mom” and a “heart mom.” Sometimes it got to the point where Jimmy felt a little neglected.
When Neil was in second grade, he came across someone who had a different idea about what being adopted meant. Andy, a fifth-grader who rode the bus with Neil, didn’t have a lot of friends in school. He acted like a big shot with the younger kids on the school bus. One day, for no reason at all, he yelled out from the back of the bus, “Hey, Neil, you know what being adopted really means?”
Neil was nervous because Andy had never spoken directly to him before. Andy sounded mad, as if Neil had done something to make him angry. Neil knew better than to go into his show-and-tell routine, so he didn’t answer.
Then Andy snarled, “It means your real mother threw you in the garbage.” The bus got very quiet. “That’s right, the garbage. You were lucky someone came along and got you out before the trucks came and ground you up.”
Neil felt as if his heart had moved up to his throat. He tried to get off the bus at the next stop, even though it was blocks away from his house, but the driver wouldn’t let him. Everyone was talking, but he didn’t hear a word. The second the doors opened in front of his house, he ran out of the bus and through the front door.
Jimmy was already home from school. He and his mom were sitting in the kitchen. Neil’s milk and Oreos were waiting on the table.
“What’s wrong?” his mother asked sharply, in that way mothers have of knowing before they’re told that something bad has happened to their child.
Neil told them what Andy had said. His mother slumped in her chair, without any comforting phrases about “tummies and hearts” to offer. She knew that all the advice in all the books couldn’t erase the devastation on Neil’s face. When she reached out to hug him, he moved away. Instinctively, she sought her own comfort and grabbed the phone to call their dad.
Suddenly, Jimmy stood up. He walked around the table to where Neil was sobbing with his head in his hands.
“Neil,” he said quietly, “just think about what’s true. Babies aren’t adopted because nobody cares about them. Babies are only adopted when they are loved. Very much.”
Their mom stopped dialing the phone. Neil picked up his head. Some people say the truth hurts. But sometimes it cures, when it comes from the heart.
Marcia Byalick
A Brother’s Love
She pulled back on the ropes, making the homemade swing fly higher and closer to the leafy branches of the tall sycamore tree. The breeze swished cool against her cheeks. She was five years old, and, at that moment, stomping mad at her eleven-year-old brother, David.
How could he have been so mean? she asked herself, remembering how he had made a face and called her a “big baby” at the breakfast table. He hates me, she thought, just because I took the last muffin out from under his nose. He hates me!
The swing carried her up so high that she could see for miles. It was fun looking down at the farmyard below. Her red sweater flashed brightly in the morning sunlight. She stopped thinking about being mad at her brother and started to sing a swinging song.
On a distant hill behind the swing, a huge bull with long, sharp horns watched the red sweater flashing in the sunlight. The bull had broken out of his pasture. He was cranky and ready to charge at anything that moved. He snorted and scraped the ground with his hoof. Then he lowered his massive head and began lumbering across the field toward the red sweater he saw swinging back and forth beneath the sycamore tree.
Meanwhile, David was in the barnyard, feeding the chickens. He looked out and saw his little sister on the swing. Sisters are a pain in the neck, he thought. Then suddenly he saw the bull charging across the field, heading straight for his sister. Without a second thought, David screamed as loudly as he could, “Look out behind you! Get out of there! Run!”
His sister didn’t hear him; she just kept singing and swinging. The bull was halfway across the field and closing in fast. David’s heart pounded. It was now or never. He ran across the chicken yard, jumped the fence and dashed toward his sister. He ran faster than he had ever run before.
Grabbing one of the ropes, David jerked the swing to a stop, tumbling his sister sideways to the ground only a second before the snorting bull charged at the place she had been. She let out a terrified yell. The bull spun around, scraping the ground again with his hoof. He lowered his head to charge again.
David yanked on one sleeve of the red sweater and then the other. Pulling it off of his sister, he flung the sweater as far away as he could. The bull followed it. With horns and hooves, he ripped it into a hundred shreds of red yarn, while David half dragged, half carried his frightened sister to safety.
I was that little girl, and ever since that day, I just laugh when my brother calls me a “big baby.” He can’t fool me— I know he loves me. He doesn’t have to face a charging bull to prove it. But I’ll never forget the day he did.
Diana L. James
Secrets That Made Paul Special
The optimist sees the doughnut, the pessimist, the hole.
McLandburgh Wilson
Paul was my little brother, and he was special. He was different from me because he was blind, and he sat in a wheelchair. Lots of people knew he was different because he had his own school bus and had to go to a special school. But that’s not really why he was special.
Paul was special for the things just our family knew about—like introducing us to new friends. Lots of times when we walked with Paul, other kids came over and asked us why he was in his chair. They wanted to know why Paul couldn’t see, and I would tell them to shake Paul’s hand. Then we’d talk about other stuff.
Paul was a good listener. I could tell him all kinds of things, and he never got tired of listening to me. He laughed when I told him something funny, and he was the only one in our family who could keep a secret.
Paul helped me exercise. Sometimes when we’d go for a walk, we’d have to go uphill. Paul liked to feel the sun and wind on his face, and he liked to listen to the birds. When I pushed his chair to the woods at the top of the hill, I was really getting my exercise!
Paul helped us carry things. He never minded if I hung my backpack on the back of his chair or if Mom put her purse there. Sometimes he carried the packages we’d get when we went shopping. I think he felt like the driver!
Paul helped me hear small noises. When I was with him, I’d have to be quiet as a stone to hear the munching chipmunks and the talking trees that he heard.
Paul let me practice my reading. When I was his reader, I read at my own speed. Sometimes I had to stop to figure out a difficult word, but Paul didn’t mind. His favorite stories were about animals, especially worms.
When there was a special day in town, like the circus in summer or the one time when the president came in his helicopter, Paul would let me share his front-row seat.
In winter, Paul helped me keep my feet dry. When Paul went somewhere he had to use ramps instead of stairs. The snow was usually shoveled off the
ramps, so we both kept our feet dry! Inside buildings, Paul gave me free elevator rides. Paul’s chair didn’t fit on the escalator, and boy, was I glad. I don’t like escalators!
Paul hardly ever complained. He went along with whatever the rest of us wanted to do. One time when he had a fever, he got crabby, but he never yelled or fought or asked me to switch the TV channel.
Paul let me put things in his lap. We played a kind of feel-and-tell game. Sometimes I put different toys there for him to feel, or I’d surprise him with our dog, Muffin. Once I put a crawly worm in his lap. He was always surprised when I let him hold something new. He made faces and sounds to let me know his guess.
Paul let me come with him on the rides at the fair. They have a handicapped-ride day, and all the kids in wheelchairs get to go on the rides for free. Since Paul couldn’t sit up by himself, I got to sit on one side of him so he wouldn’t fall over.
Paul was my friend. He couldn’t talk to me like most of my friends, and he couldn’t run outside or play hide-and-seek. But he was there for all the quiet times, and he had the best smile in the world.
Paul died in his sleep five years ago. Growing up as his sister was a blessing. He helped me to see that there is a positive side to every situation, if we simply make the choice to find it.
Judy M. Garty
Goat’s Tobacco
When I was about nine, the ancient half-sister got engaged to be married. The man of her choice was a young English doctor, and that summer he came with us to Norway. Romance was floating in the air like moon-dust, and the two lovers, for some reason we younger ones could never understand, did not seem to be very keen on us tagging along with them. They went out in the boat alone. They climbed the rocks alone. They even had breakfast alone. We resented this. As a family we had always done everything together, and we didn’t see why the ancient half-sister should suddenly decide to do things differently even if she had become engaged. We were inclined to blame the male lover for disrupting the calm of our family life, and it was inevitable that he would have to suffer for it sooner or later.
The male lover was a great pipe-smoker. The disgusting smelly pipe was never out of his mouth except when he was eating or swimming. We even began to wonder whether he removed it when he was kissing his betrothed. He gripped the stem of the pipe in the most manly fashion between his strong white teeth and kept it there while talking to you. This annoyed us. Surely it was more polite to take it out and speak properly.
One day, we all went in our little motorboat to an island we had never been to before, and for once the ancient half-sister and the manly lover decided to come with us. We chose this particular island because we saw some goats on it. They were climbing about on the rocks and we thought it would be fun to go visit them. But when we landed, we found that the goats were totally wild and we couldn’t get near them. So we gave up trying to make friends with them and simply sat around on the smooth rocks in our bathing costumes, enjoying the lovely sun.
The manly lover was filling his pipe. I happened to be watching him as he very carefully packed the tobacco into the bowl from a yellow oilskin pouch. He had just finished doing this and was about to light up when the ancient half-sister called on him to come swimming. So he put down the pipe and off he went.
I stared at the pipe that was lying there on the rocks. About twelve inches away from it, I saw a little heap of dried goat’s droppings, each one small and round like a pale brown berry, and at that point, an interesting idea began to sprout in my mind. I picked up the pipe and knocked all the tobacco out if it. I then took the goat’s droppings and teased them with my fingers until they were nicely shredded. Very gently I poured these shredded droppings into the bowl of the pipe, packing them down with my thumb just as the manly lover always did it. When that was done, I placed a thin layer of real tobacco over the top. The entire family was watching me as I did this. Nobody said a word, but I could sense a glow of approval all round. I replaced the pipe on the rock, and all of us sat back to await the return of the victim. The whole lot of us were in this together now, even my mother. I had drawn them into the plot simply by letting them see what I was doing. It was a silent, rather dangerous family conspiracy.
Back came the manly lover, dripping wet from the sea, chest out, strong and virile, healthy and sunburnt. “Great swim!” he announced to the world. “Splendid water! Terrific stuff!” He toweled himself vigorously, making the muscles of his biceps ripple, then he sat down on the rocks and reached for his pipe.
Nine pairs of eyes watched him intently. Nobody giggled to give the game away. We were trembling with anticipation, and a good deal of the suspense was caused by the fact that none of us knew just what was going to happen.
The manly lover put the pipe between his strong white teeth and struck a match. He held the flame over the bowl and sucked. The tobacco ignited and glowed, and the lover’s head was enveloped in clouds of blue smoke. “Ah-h-h,” he said, blowing through his nostrils. “There’s nothing like a good pipe after a bracing swim.”
Still we waited. We could hardly bear the suspense. The sister who was seven couldn’t bear it at all. “What sort of tobacco do you put in that thing?” she asked with superb innocence.
“Navy Cut,” the male lover answered. “Player’s Navy Cut. It’s the best there is. These Norwegians use all sorts of disgusting scented tobaccos, but I wouldn’t touch them.”
“I didn’t know they had different tastes,” the small sister went on.
“Of course they do,” the manly lover said. “All tobaccos are different to the discriminating pipe-smoker. Navy Cut is clean and unadulterated. It’s a man’s smoke.” The man seemed to go out of his way to use long words like discriminating and unadulterated. We hadn’t the foggiest what they meant.
The ancient half-sister, fresh from her swim and now clothed in a towel bathrobe, came and sat herself close to her manly lover. Then the two of them started giving each other those silly little glances and soppy smiles that made us all feel sick. They were far too occupied with one another to notice the awful tension that had settled over our group. They didn’t even notice that every face in the crowd was turned toward them. They had sunk once again into their lovers’ world, where little children did not exist.
The sea was calm, the sun was shining and it was a beautiful day.
Then all of a sudden, the manly lover let out a piercing scream and his whole body shot four feet into the air. His pipe flew out of his mouth and went clattering over the rocks, and the second scream he gave was so shrill and loud that all the seagulls on the island rose up in alarm. His features were twisted like those of a person undergoing severe torture, and his skin had turned the colour of snow. He began spluttering and choking and spewing and hawking and acting generally like a man with some serious internal injury. He was completely speechless.
We stared at him, enthralled.
The ancient half-sister, who must have thought she was about to lose her future husband forever, was pawing at him and thumping him on the back and crying, “Darling! Darling! What’s happening to you? Where does it hurt? Get the boat! Start the engine! We must rush him to a hospital quickly!” She seemed to have forgotten that there wasn’t a hospital within fifty miles.
“I’ve been poisoned!” spluttered the manly lover. “It’s got into my lungs! It’s in my chest! My chest is on fire! My stomach’s going up in flames!”
“Help me get him into the boat! Quick!” cried the ancient half-sister, gripping him under the armpits. “Don’t just sit there staring! Come and help!”
“No, no, no!” cried the now not-so-manly lover. “Leave me alone! I need air! Give me air!” He lay back and breathed in deep draughts of splendid Norwegian ocean air, and in another minute or so, he was sitting up again and was on the way to recovery.
“What in the world came over you?” asked the ancient half-sister, clasping his hands tenderly in hers.
“I can’t imagine,” he murmured. “I simply can’t imagi
ne.” His face was as still and white as virgin snow and his hands were trembling. “There must be a reason for it,” he added. “There’s got to be a reason.”
“I know the reason!” shouted the seven-year-old sister, screaming with laughter. “I know what it was!”
“What was it?” snapped the ancient one. “What have you been up to? Tell me at once!”
“It’s his pipe!” shouted the small sister, still convulsed with laughter.
“What’s wrong with my pipe?” said the manly lover.
“You’ve been smoking goat’s tobacco!” cried the small sister.
It took a few moments for the full meaning of these words to dawn upon the two lovers, but when it did, and when the terrible anger began to show itself on the manly lover’s face, and when he started to rise slowly and menacingly to his feet, we all sprang up and ran for our lives and jumped off the rocks into the deep water.
Roald Dahl
My Grandfather’s Gift
Achild’s life is like a piece of paper on which every person leaves a mark.
Chinese Proverb
When I was a child, storytelling was an active part of my upbringing. My parents fostered any activity that might exercise my imagination. As a result of this encouragement, I have indeed become the modern version of a storyteller—an actor.
Surprisingly, not one relative on either side of my family has ever taken up this profession before. The only person to whom I can trace a “storytelling gene” is my grandfather on my mother’s side. This grandfather, in the great tradition of grandfathers everywhere, has always been a source of wisdom in my life.
Chicken Soup for the Kid's Soul: 101 Stories of Courage, Hope and Laughter Page 8
