The Secret Life of a Ping-Pong Wizard

by Henry Winkler

  Ms. Adolf suddenly picked up the stick that she uses to point out the right answers on the overhead projector. “En garde,” she shouted and, using the pointer like a sword, she lunged at the classroom door! I swear, if she had been wearing green tights, you would have thought she was Robin Hood.

  Just as she lunged at the door, it swung open and Mr. Rock, our really cool music teacher who was also my summer school teacher, came in.

  “Whoa, Fanny!” he screamed. “Where are you going with that thing?”

  “I was demonstrating my thrust and parry,” Ms. Adolf said. “I got carried away.”

  “It’s good to get carried away,” Mr. Rock said with a laugh. “Don’t you think so, kids?”

  Ms. Adolf put down the stick, and tucked a few loose strands of her grey hair up into the bun that she wears on top of her head. “Don’t encourage them,” she said to him. “Now how can I help you, Mr. Rock?”

  “I just wanted to make an announcement about soccer tryouts tomorrow,” he said. “Everybody who wants to play can come out to the Sheep Meadow in Central Park after school. The volunteer soccer coaches will be there to check out your skills and put you on a team.”

  Mr. Rock is such a nice guy, he always winks at kids in the hall for no reason at all.

  “Thank you, Mr. Rock,” Ms. Adolf said. “And now, if you don’t mind, we have work to do.”

  “Far be it from me to get in the way of work,” he said. Just before he reached the hall, he stopped and said to all of us, “By the way, guys, we’ll have punch and donuts.”

  Then he winked and walked out, leaving us there to face the year with the winkless, punchless, donutless Ms. Adolf.

  CHAPTER 5

  MS. ADOLF DRONED ON for the longest two hours in the history of the human race. It was first-day-of-school stuff like how many lines our notebook paper had to have and how many sharpened number-two pencils had to be in our zipper bag at all times. There were also exciting details about how to make up homework assignments, and other things that are so boring that if I even mentioned them now, you’d close this book and never pick it up again.

  When the recess bell rang, I felt like getting up and dancing for joy. In fact, I did. It wasn’t a big-deal dance but just a little butt-shaking number that went along with a whooping sound.

  “What are you doing, Zip Head?” McKelty said as he shoved by me and headed for the stairs. “It looks like you have a buzzing bee in your pants.”

  “I think he looks cute,” Kim Paulson said. “Maybe you should demonstrate that dance at the Parade of Athletes, Hank.”

  Frankie gave me a friendly elbow in the ribs as we hurried down the three flights of stairs to the yard.

  “You are aware, dude, that one of the finest girls in the class just called you cute,” he pointed out, as if a thing like that needed any pointing out.

  “Maybe there’s hope for this year after all,” I whispered.

  We had barely reached the schoolyard when my sister, Emily, came running up to us, her braids flapping in the air like crow’s wings.

  “Hank! You’re not going to believe it. We have the greatest fourth-grade teacher ever!” Emily said all in one gulp. “Her name is Ms. Andrews and she thinks it’s fascinating that I love reptiles and she’s really pretty too.”

  “Actually, she was a former Miss Alabama,” Robert Upchurch chimed in. He follows Emily around like a shadow. A bony shadow with a white shirt and tie.

  “We’re going to do a gigantic unit on the tidal marshes of Alabama,” Emily gushed on.

  “With an emphasis on the life cycle of the brown water snake,” Robert added.

  “Man, some people get all the luck,” Frankie said.

  My sister Emily loves reptiles as much as Joelle Adwin loves her cell phone. You should see how Emily acts with Katherine, her pet iguana. She shares her secrets with her, and tells her how she understands her deep reptile feelings. Honestly, you’d think they were soul sisters, which come to think of it, they probably are. Emily’s got a long snout and scaly skin, too.

  “Bet you can’t guess what other marsh creatures we’re going to study,” Emily continued on.

  “Creatures that look like you, only they slither on their bellies.” I smiled. I was happy with that little zinger.

  “Fine, Hank. Be that way. I’m never going to tell you one thing about the courtship habits of swamp alligators, no matter how much you beg.”

  “Why don’t we change the subject?” Ashley suggested.

  “So who’s your teacher?” Emily asked as we strolled out to the handball court in the middle of the yard.

  “Don’t ask, girlfriend,” Frankie said.

  “But I already did,” Emily answered. She may be smart in the book area, but she’s a little thick in the slang area.

  “I’ll give you a hint,” I said, returning a red rubber ball to the little kids who were playing on the handball court. “Our teacher was supposed to be your teacher, until the world spun off its axis.”

  “Actually, the world could never fly off its axis,” Robert said. “Because if it did, we would fall outside the gravitational pull of the sun and splinter off into space.”

  “Robert, doesn’t it worry you that your mind is filled with this stuff?”

  “Actually, it gives me a great sense of pride.”

  “It gives me a great sense of headache,” Frankie laughed.

  “I’ll tell you who our teacher is, Emily,” I said, seeing that she was getting frustrated with our joking around. “Our teacher is Ms. Adolf.”

  “No, she was your teacher. I’m talking about this year.”

  “We got her again,” Ashley explained.

  “Isn’t that against the law?” Emily asked. “You can’t have the same teacher twice.”

  “Which tells you everything you need to know about Ms. Adolf,” Frankie said. “She’s willing to break the law just to make our lives miserable.”

  “It’s the pits,” I said.

  “Deep pits,” Ashley sighed.

  “Bottom of the bottom,” Frankie added.

  Emily reached into her pocket and pulled out a health-food granola bar. “Here, Hank. You can have my snack,” she said. “You need it more than I do.”

  That’s the thing about sisters. They’re a total pain in the neck and then, just when you least expect it, they turn out to be really nice.

  I was taking the wrapper off the granola bar when McKelty came charging up to me and grabbed the bar out of my hand. He stuck it in his oversized mouth and bit down with his scraggly teeth.

  “What is this crud? It tastes like birdseed.”

  “It’s a whole-grain oatmeal energy bar with flax and sunflower seeds,” I told him.

  McKelty handed what was left of the bar back to me. “Here, you eat it,” he said. “You look like you need to bulk up before soccer tryouts tomorrow.”

  “You’re not supposed to be bulky for soccer,” Ashley told him. “You’re supposed to be lean and mean.”

  “Trust me, McKelty,” Frankie said. “Zip here has what it takes on the soccer field.”

  Frankie’s a good friend, and he likes to say nice things about me. But I have to be honest with you. What he said was not true. Well, I am lean. And sometimes I’m mean, especially to Emily. But I definitely do not have what it takes on the soccer field. When I run down the field, I look like a wobbly old bike with loose wheels. But none of us—not Frankie, or Ashley or me—was about to share that sweet little picture with Nick McKelty.

  Quite the opposite.

  “Oh, I’ll be at soccer tryouts, all right,” I said. “No ball is safe around this foot.”

  Just as I lifted my foot to show it off to him, another big red rubber handball came flying off the court and landed accidentally on my shoe. I hadn’t even seen it coming. Frankie gave me a look that said, “Don’t act surprised, Zip. Be cool.”

  “Nice kick, Hankster,” Ashley said.

  I think McKelty was impressed, because he started to
brag, which he always does when he’s feeling like someone else might be better than he is.

  “I’m going to be the first guy picked tomorrow,” Nick the Tick said. “And not only that, I’m going to do the best soccer demonstration in the Parade of Athletes.”

  “Right, and my name is Bernice,” Frankie fired back.

  “Well hello, Bernice.” McKelty grinned, thinking he had come up with a real clever comeback. He burst out laughing, and a spray of crumbs and seeds shot out at us through the gigantic space between his two front teeth. An aircraft carrier could sail right in between that gap.

  Suddenly, a shrill whistle sounded right next to my ear. I wheeled around and was just about to say “Hey, what do you think you’re doing?” when my mouth froze up mid-sentence. It was Ms. Adolf, holding a brand-new whistle she had added to the lanyard around her neck. It was grey. I ask you: Where in the world can a person even buy a grey whistle?

  “Pupils, recess is officially over,” she called out in her playground voice, which is strict like her regular voice, only louder. “It’s time to get back to your desks so we can begin your fifth-grade studies.”

  “And that means you, Hank Zipzer,” Principal Love said.

  Principal Love? Where did he come from? And how’d he find me? That proves it. His eyeballs do come out and roll around school, just looking to get me in trouble.

  I hadn’t even started the fifth grade and already I was wondering if I’d ever even see the sixth grade.

  CHAPTER 6

  THE NEXT DAY, I spent the morning with the exciting, sweet, kind, loving, and always-has-a-good-word-for-me, Ms. Adolf. And to make things even more wonderful, we had a thrilling, action-packed, supercharged morning doing long division worksheets. She even threw in a few problems with the ever-popular decimal point.

  I looked down at those sheets and all I could think of was the Hopi Indians. That might seem strange to you, but it wasn’t to me. You see, the Hopi Indians wrote their whole history on the walls of their caves in a hieroglyphic code called pictographs. Ms. Adolf’s long-division worksheets made about as much sense to me as those Hopi hieroglyphics. Actually, the cave paintings make more sense because sometimes you can see a buffalo or a warrior on a pony. What I had in front of me on my desk made my eyes spin in my sockets. They were going so fast, they were like propellers that were going to lift my butt right out of my seat. Thank goodness for the desktop that held me in place or I would have shot right through the ceiling.

  At 10:14 that morning, Ms. Adolf said my second favorite word in the English language.

  “Recess,” she announced.

  In case you’re wondering what my first favorite word is, it’s weekend. Except when I’m really hungry, and then it’s pizza.

  By the time I had walked down the stairs and through the double doors and out onto the playground, I was starting to feel happier.

  Hank, think of your glass as half full rather than half empty.

  That’s what my grandpa, Papa Pete, always tells me. I always think of my glass as half full of chocolate milk, because I love chocolate milk, especially Nestlé Quik when you make it in a blender. We’re talking smooth.

  I looked around to decide how I was going to spend my fifteen minutes of recess. I saw Frankie and Ashley pick up a soccer ball and start passing it to each other.

  “Come on, Zip,” Frankie called. “Dribble with us. We have to practice for tryouts later.”

  The truth was, I was nervous about the after-school tryouts. What if I didn’t get picked for a team? I know, I know. That doesn’t really happen because there are no cuts in this league. But what if I was the last one to get picked? That does happen. I’ll bet you know someone it’s happened to.

  “No thanks,” I hollered back to Frankie. “I’m in a dribble-free zone right now.”

  “Come on, Hank,” Ashley said, kicking me the ball. “How are you going get better if you don’t practice?”

  “I’m going to think about that as I walk past the swings,” I said. I kicked the ball back to her, and of course it went in totally the opposite direction. It landed right in front of Nick the Tick.

  “Nice pass, soccer nerd,” McKelty said. “I hope you don’t get picked for my team.”

  McKelty was standing next to Joelle. They were standing close together, like boyfriend and girlfriend. I know the thought of McKelty even having a girlfriend is too icky to let into your mind, but sometimes the truth is hard to take.

  “Nick tells me he’s really good at soccer,” Joelle said, looking up at him with her squinty little eyes. “He says he never misses the ball.”

  “Sure, if I had feet the size of tables, I wouldn’t miss the ball either,” I fired back.

  I just have to take a minute and say that I do occasionally have great comebacks.

  “Oh yeah, watch this,” Nick said. He pulled back his big, thick leg at the end of which was his size-twelve Nike and let loose on the ball lying at his feet. I swear the ball said “ouch.” It took off like a missile, flew across the yard, and landed smack in the middle of Ms. Adolf’s backside. It was as if she had a soccer ball magnet under her grey skirt.

  “Ooouuuph,” she said, sounding like a wrestler who’s just been pile-driven into the mat.

  McKelty ran away, leaving me staring eyeball to eyeball at her.

  “Henry, I think you owe me an apology.”

  “Ms. Adolf, I promise you I never touched that ball. I’m allergic to that ball. That ball and I do not get along.”

  “Then perhaps you can explain how that ball hit me in the derriere.”

  I’m no rat, even when someone as obnoxious as Nick McKelty is involved.

  “You’re finding out what I already know. Soccer balls have minds of their own, Ms. Adolf.”

  Lucky for me that at that very moment, Luke Whitman thought it was necessary to show Katie Sperling his pet African centipede, Bugsy, which he had brought to school in a sandwich baggie.

  “Gross!” Katie shrieked. “He’s putting that hairy bug in my face!”

  As Ms. Adolf turned to rescue Katie and put Bugsy back in his baggie, I took the opportunity to run as far away as I could, and ended up in the kindergarten area of the playground.

  “Hi, Hank,” said a little voice from the sandbox.

  “Mason!” I said. “My man!”

  Mason Harris Jerome Dunn is just about the cutest little kindergartner you’d ever want to see. I met him during summer school, and we became friends. He wears Donald Duck shirts every day. The guy is a Donald Duck nut and an artistic genius. No kidding. He drew a picture of the Brooklyn Bridge in the sand that looked so real, I wanted to walk across it and buy some Chinese dumplings at my favorite dumpling shop in Lower Manhattan.

  “I’m not a man, Hank. I’m a kid.”

  “It’s just an expression, my man. What are you drawing?”

  “A pirate ship,” he said.

  “That’s really cool. Want me to help you?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  I picked up a stick and started to draw a cannon on the deck of Mason’s ship. He was busy making a treasure chest. I hate to admit this—even to you—but I really love to play in the sand. No one there is counting your number-two pencils and telling you that fifth grade is serious business.

  Suddenly, Mason got up.

  “Now I’m going to play ball with Sam Chin.”

  “Hey, wait. Why are you leaving?”

  “I’m practicing soccer for the Parade of All Feets.”

  “That’s ‘athletes,’ dude.”

  “Okay. Bye, Hank.”

  Mason ran over to another little kindergarten guy who was holding a soccer ball. He kicked it to Mason, who stopped it with his foot.

  “Want me to pass it to you, Hank?” Mason called to me.

  “Sure, fire away,” I said, getting up from the sandbox. This might be good practice for tryouts. I figured I’d be good enough to kick it back to a five-year-old.

  Mason passed the soccer ball to
me. It came straight and fast. He was good! I saw the ball coming and I put my foot out to stop it. I thought I had everything under control, but I missed it by a mile. The ball rolled right past me, bounced into the sandbox, and landed on the pirate ship.

  “Wow, Mason, I’m sorry.”

  “That’s okay, Hank. You’ll learn.”

  This isn’t a good sign for my tryouts later. I’m a full-fledged fifth-grader and I can’t even stop a ball kicked by a kindergartner.

  “Hey, guys, I’ve got an idea. Why don’t you play by yourselves for a while?”

  “Do you have big-kid stuff to do?” Sam Chin said.

  “You bet I do,” I said. And I walked away trying to look like a big kid with somewhere to go.

  Okay, Hank, so you don’t want to play soccer with the fifth-graders. And you can’t play soccer with the kindergartners. What’s left?

  You’re not going to believe this, but those long-division worksheets were starting to look really good.

  CHAPTER 7

  THERE’S A SECTION OF CENTRAL PARK called the Sheep Meadow, which is a big, flat field just up from the carousel. Maybe you’ve heard about it. It’s pretty famous because sometimes at night during the summer, they have concerts where tons of people crowd together to listen to music. I went there one time with my parents to see the Dave Matthews Band, but when Dave came out and started to play, everyone stood up and all I could see was a lot of adult rear ends. I think I’ll wait until after I have a growth spurt or two until I go to a concert there again.

  The soccer tryouts for all West-side kids were being held in Sheep Meadow. By the time we got there, there were hundreds of kids from many different schools all over the field. Ashley’s mom had picked us up from school and walked us to the park, since my mom was at work in our deli, the Crunchy Pickle, and my dad had to take Emily to her allergist appointment. I was glad Ashley’s mom took us, because she’s a doctor and all she likes to do is sit on the bench and read articles about heart valves and skin rashes. She doesn’t watch the tryouts, and she doesn’t really care who’s a good player and who’s not.

  Lots of different coaches were scattered around organizing how they were going to do their team tryouts. Mr. Rock had told Frankie and me to find Coach Gilroy. His son Patrick was in the fifth grade at Trinity School, and he was organizing a team for ten-to-eleven-year-old boys.