Eleanor Roosevelt's in My Garage!

by Candace Fleming

  The crowd groaned as the bulldozers ripped! Slashed! Gashed!

  “I hate bulldozers!” cried Paulie, scrunching up his face.

  “Me too!” cried Braydon. The boys grabbed each other’s hands.

  “I have had quite enough of this,” said Mrs. Roosevelt. Without a backward glance, she ducked under the yellow tape and strode briskly toward the bulldozers.

  “Halt!” she ordered, holding up her hand.

  The bulldozers rolled to a stop.

  Chuck poked his head out the window. “Hey, lady, move it!”

  Buzz poked his head out his window too. “Did you find your pooch?”

  That was when Mrs. Roosevelt did this crazy thing:

  Beside me, Mr. Selff whistled admiringly. “That woman never quits.”

  Beside him, Olive boxed the air. “Atta girl, Ellie! You show ’em!”

  “I like Ellie,” said Paulie.

  “Me too,” said Braydon.

  “No, no, no!” shrieked the mayor. She wheeled on Officer Nittles. “Arrest that woman!”

  The policewoman shook her head. “There’s no law against lying down in a public park.”

  “The mayor’s face turned so red it was almost purple, like a grape, or an eggplant. “Arrest her for being a menace to public safety, then.”

  Officer Nittles shook her head again. “I don’t see how her lying out there poses any threat to the folks standing back here.”

  Mayor Selff squinted at the policewoman. “I don’t think you want to help me, Florence.”

  Officer Nittles shrugged.

  And the mayor screamed. I’m not kidding. She balled her fists and stamped her feet and screamed long and loud. “Arggggg­ggggg­ggggg­h!”

  Then she stormed over to Mrs. Roosevelt. “Get up! You’re ruining everything. You’re blocking progress.” She grabbed the First Lady’s arm and tried to drag her out of the bulldozers’ way. “Get uuuuup!”

  Mrs. Roosevelt said, “No.”

  Mayor Selff let go of Mrs. Roosevelt’s arm. She stood over her, panting, trying to get herself back under control. “Why?” she finally said. “It’s just a park. Why do you care so much?”

  “Because somebody has to,” I replied.

  The mayor whirled. She hadn’t seen me coming across the grass. Ignoring her furious expression, I lay down next to Mrs. Roosevelt.

  “Nothing has ever been achieved by the person who says ‘It can’t be done,’ ” I said.

  “Well put, Nolan,” said Mrs. Roosevelt. “May I quote you in my future?”

  “I’ll look for it in the history books,” I said.

  Olive came squealing across the grass. “I care too!” She lay down next to me.

  “So do I,” said Mr. Selff.

  It was a struggle, what with his bad knees and all, but he managed to get down next to Olive.

  Even Fala joined us. He lay down on the other side of Mrs. Roosevelt.

  “Daaad, get up,” whined the mayor. “Everybody’s staring. You’re embarrassing me.”

  “Tough taters,” retorted Mr. Selff.

  That was when we heard…

  “Oom-pa-pa! Oom-pa-pa!”

  Mr. Selff raised his head. “That sounds like…”

  “An accordion,” said Mrs. Roosevelt.

  We all raised our heads.

  It was an accordion. Seven of them, actually. Led by Mr. Treble, the accordion group marched across the grass and into the band shell.

  “We’re taking requests, folks,” Mr. Treble called out.

  Officer Nittles cupped her mouth. “Can you play ‘Far, Far Away’?”

  It took people a couple seconds to get the double meaning. Then they laughed. I guess accordion music isn’t all that popular. Still, the crowd pushed through the yellow tape to mingle and talk and polka on the lawn. Officer Nittles didn’t try to stop them.

  Mrs. Cordero came back too. She’d changed into her state bocce champs T-shirt. So had about twelve other people with her. I figured they were her teammates. The matching medals hanging around their necks were kind of a giveaway. In seconds, they’d set up the bocce court and started inviting people to play.

  Others spread out blankets and popped open lawn furniture. Frisbees whizzed through the air. Kites took flight. Pretty soon there were tables heaped with all sorts of food—watermelon, hot dogs, potato salad…

  “Meatballs!” whooped Olive.

  “Arrrf!” In a flash, Fala was up and begging.

  Mr. Jolly actually smiled at the dog as he set a big vase of fresh-cut roses in the middle of it all. It was practically a holiday or something.

  “I like picnics,” said Paulie.

  “Me too,” said Braydon.

  “I guess the citizens have spoken,” I said to the mayor.

  “So they have.” She sighed. “Still, I would have liked having a parking lot named after me.”

  She signaled for the bulldozers to leave.

  Buzz growled almost as loudly as the dozers before they rumbled away.

  “Good riddance,” said Mrs. Roosevelt.

  “Drive safely!” called Mr. Selff.

  “Darlene!” It was Mrs. Bustamante. She ran up and grabbed the mayor’s hands. “It’s marvelous, this whole party-in-the-park thing. Rolling Hills should do it every year. Why, it’s absolutely the most perfect way to bring the community together. We could call it the Selff Annual Picnic. What do you think?”

  The mayor beamed. “I think you’re brilliant, Monica.”

  They walked away arm in arm.

  It was time for us to go too. “The radio is sure to turn on any second now,” I said. “I think we’ve learned what we needed to learn from you.”

  “Oh, I do hope so,” said Mrs. Roosevelt. “Now that my work is done here, I am eager to return to my work there.”

  “No rest for the weary?” said Mr. Selff.

  She blinked. “Who is weary?”

  We all got to our feet, and Mrs. Roosevelt called for Fala. Then we headed out of the park.

  “Hey, Nolan, hold up!”

  I turned.

  It was Heather Lynne. She smiled. “I just wanted to say, what you did back there? It was amazing.”

  I tried to smile back, but my mouth was suddenly so dry my lips got stuck on my gums. I probably looked like I was making faces at her. “Heh, heh,” I said. I sounded like a real idiot.

  “So I’ll be seeing you later today?”

  “Heh, heh…later?”

  “At the big game against Fred and Ethel’s Cleaning Service, remember?”

  “Oh, heh, heh, right.”

  “See you there,” she said.

  I watched her walk away. “Heh, heh, not if I see you first,” I muttered to myself.

  “I DON’T GET IT,” I said.

  We were standing around the crystal radio once more. Five minutes earlier, I’d pulled it out of the kitchen cabinet, where I’d shoved it earlier before heading to the park, and set it on the counter. Then I’d braced myself for white light, blurry vision, bubbles. Instead…

  “Nothing,” said Olive.

  “I don’t get it,” I said again. I could feel my frustration building, the bats flapping away in my stomach. “We learned, right? We learned from the past how to live in the present.”

  Mr. Selff leaned in for a closer look. We’d told him all about the crystal radio on the slooow drive back from the park. Believe it or not, he hadn’t acted doubtful or astonished. He’d just nodded and called me Horatio again.

  Really, who was that guy?

  Mrs. Roosevelt touched the radio’s headphones. “Could there be a mechanical malfunction, Nolan?”

  I didn’t think so. Still, I checked the dials and connectors. Everything looked to be in worki
ng order.

  “I don’t get it,” I said for the third time.

  Olive said, “Maybe H.H. wants Ellie to stick around for a while.”

  H.H.! The bats in my belly started flapping even harder, and angry words started to pile up. Boy, was I going to give H.H. a piece of my mind if I ever met him. That is, if H.H. wasn’t an ax murderer or a zombie or something.

  I looked over at Mrs. Roosevelt. I could tell she was upset too. Not only had she let Olive get away with calling her Ellie, but she’d started rocking back and forth again.

  “Mrs. Roosevelt?” I said.

  She rocked.

  “Eleanor?” said Mr. Selff.

  She rocked some more.

  “Snap out of it!” bellowed Olive.

  Mrs. Roosevelt jerked and shook herself. A second later she said, “Thank you, Olive. Self-pity is such an unrewarding indulgence.”

  “No prob, Ellie,” said Olive.

  “It is Mrs. Roosevelt,” corrected Mrs. Roosevelt.

  Mr. Selff and I grinned at each other. The First Lady was back.

  Mrs. Roosevelt swiped her hands together briskly. “It seems to me that while we wait for the radio, we should put our time to good use. Are there any other tasks we can accomplish? Any wrongs to make right? We make a fine team.”

  Definitely back.

  “You know what would be a good use of time?” suggested Olive. “TV.”

  Mr. Selff nodded his agreement.

  “Or ice cream,” added Olive.

  “Aaarf!” barked Fala.

  “I meant,” said the First Lady, “that we should use our time doing consequential things, not puff stuff.”

  Olive wrinkled her nose. “But all work and no play is no fun.”

  “Work time is my play time.”

  Olive turned to me, her expression pleading: “You play with her for a while, okay, Nolan?”

  “I believe Nolan has a sporting event to attend,” said Mrs. Roosevelt.

  Oh, right. She’d been there for the conversation with Heather—if you could count me going “heh, heh” as a part of a conversation.

  I let out a big, dramatic sigh. Wasn’t flying an airplane and giving a speech and lying down in front of bulldozers enough for one day? Did I have to go kick a ball around too?

  “I’m not going,” I said.

  “But you made a commitment,” said Mrs. Roosevelt.

  “The team doesn’t need me,” I replied. “Not now. Not with Heather Lynne on it.”

  Mrs. Roosevelt watched me for a long moment. “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent,” she finally said.

  “Huh?” said Olive.

  “Allow me to tell you a story,” said Mrs. Roosevelt.

  What could a guy do after a story like that?

  I went up to my room and put on my soccer uniform.

  When I came back down, Mrs. Roosevelt was waiting to go with me.

  I tried to talk her out of it. “Someone might recognize you,” I argued. “Or, hey, what if the radio comes back on?”

  I wasn’t really worried about either of those things happening. I just didn’t want to be humiliated in front of my teammates, their parents, and the First Lady of the United States.

  “It is my duty to provide moral support,” Mrs. Roosevelt said firmly.

  “But it’s a game,” I tried again. “A waste of time. Puff stuff.”

  She held up a notepad and pencil. “I shall dash off my daily newspaper column while you are playing—four hundred chatty words about the small happenings in my life. After all, travel to the future is no excuse for shirking one’s commitment to one’s readers.”

  Oh, brother!

  At least Olive wouldn’t be there. Mr. Selff had volunteered to “occupy the little miss.”

  “Let’s watch Mermaid Adventures and then have a tea party. We can wear tiaras. Fala too,” bossed Olive.

  Poor Mr. Selff! As Mrs. Roosevelt and I left the house, we could hear her shouting out orders.

  * * *

  ***

  By the time we got to the soccer field, my team was already out there, chipping and passing and warming up. Heather Lynne juggled a ball from foot to foot and from thigh to thigh. She bounced it off the top of her head.

  My shoulders drooped.

  “Confidence,” Mrs. Roosevelt whispered in my ear. She took a seat in the bleachers and opened her notepad. Touching the tip of her pencil to her tongue, she thought for a second, then started writing.

  “Hey, Stanberry, where in the heck have you been?” shouted Coach Filbert. “I thought we were going to have to play without a forward. Take your position. Hustle!”

  I trotted out to the field.

  “All right, Nolan,” hollered my coach again. “I’m going to kick a couple your way. Get ready!”

  Heather and some of the other players turned to watch, and Coach tapped me a ground ball.

  I was nervous as anything. I could actually feel all those eyes—Heather’s, my other teammates’, the crowd’s, even Mrs. Roosevelt’s—everyone watching and waiting for me to mess up.

  I kept my eyes on the ball as it left the coach’s foot, followed it as it rolled toward me, saw it bump against my cleat. I just stood still. I broke out in a cold sweat.

  “Whaddya doin’ out there, Stanberry?” called Coach Filbert. “I’ve seen zombies kick harder.”

  My shoulders drooped even lower than before.

  “Let’s try this again,” Coach shouted. “And this time, look alive!”

  I glanced over at Mrs. Roosevelt. She laid her notepad aside and mouthed, “Confidence.”

  I tried to fake it. I tried to act cool and self-assured. But it didn’t work. When I attempted to knock the dirt off my cleats, I ended up accidentally kicking myself in my shin guard.

  C.J. snickered.

  Coach Filbert tapped another ball to me.

  I concentrated on it.

  “Confidence,” I whispered to myself. “Confidence.”

  Schwap!

  I kicked it back. No spinning. Straight on the nose and not too hard. It was a pretty decent one. A good pass.

  In the bleachers, Mrs. Roosevelt clapped. She even peeled off her gloves so it sounded louder. “Bravo, Nolan! Well done!”

  My nerves settled a little.

  “Okay, Stanberry, here comes another one.”

  This time it was an air ball. As soon as I saw it coming, I ran toward it and trapped it with my chest. Then I let it drop and chipped it over to C.J.

  My shoulders relaxed. Not bad. So what if I wasn’t Heather “Superstar” Lynne? That didn’t mean my soccer skills were complete baby drool. I still knew how to pass and chip and trap. I could still be useful to the team.

  I looked up at Mrs. Roosevelt. She was on the edge of her bleacher seat now, her high-beam gaze focused on me. I waved. She waved back.

  A few minutes later, the referee blew her whistle and the game began.

  Twenty kids raced up and down the field, dribbling and passing, huffing and puffing.

  In the bleachers, parents cheered.

  “Go, Heather, go!”

  And—

  “Kick that ball, C.J.!”

  And—

  “Way to play, Denzel!”

  And—

  “Try your very utmost, Pests!” The voice was fluttery and high-pitched, even more so when it added, “Whoooo!”

  No way! I whirled just as the ref blew for the two-minute break. And my jaw dropped practically to my knees. Mrs. Roosevelt was…

  Cheerleading! Hand-clapping, foot-hopping, chant-shouting cheerleading.

  “Give me a T!” she shouted.

  “T!” the crowd shouted back.

  “Give me an R!”r />
  “R!”

  “Give me a Y!”

  “Y!”

  “What does that spell?” cried Mrs. Roosevelt.

  The parents looked at each other, lips moving, confused.

  “Uh…er…try?” Mr. McCabe finally ventured.

  He must have gotten it right, because Mrs. Roosevelt started hopping up and down so wildly that her hairnet slipped sideways. She shouted, “The only failure is in not trying. Whoooo!”

  I shook my head. What had gotten into her? She was acting very un-First-Lady-like. It was like some alien had sucked out her personality and replaced it with one belonging to a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader. Only Mrs. Roosevelt’s cheerleading kinda stank.

  “Win as a team. That is the way! A team must have moxie, be skillful and smart. A team is the sum of its separate parts! Whoooo!”

  Moxie?

  “Hey, Stanberry,” called C.J. “Your grandma is…” He made the cuckoo sign.

  Heather shot back, “Her cheers are awesome, McCabe. You should be…” She gave him the “for shame” sign, rubbing her pointer finger over her other pointer finger.

  C.J. fired back with a rude gesture that I’m not allowed to describe.

  “Persist, persist, and on to victory. To think in any other way is contradictory!” cheered Mrs. Roosevelt.

  Oh, brother!

  The ref blasted her whistle again.

  The Pests played hard. In the last quarter, I even beat four kids on the dribble to hoof the ball straight to the goal. Then I fired off a cannonball.

  Thwunk!

  It glanced off the crossbar of the goalpost and on the rebound whacked Coach Filbert right in the face.

  My face burned…maybe even more than Coach’s.

  “Good try!” shouted Heather.

  “Give your best and you will prevail. To never try assures you will fail! Whoooo!” cheered Mrs. Roosevelt.

  That’s actually true, I thought. It is. Whoooo!