Dreidels on the Brain

by Joel ben Izzy

  Rabbits are supposed to be cute, and Houdini definitely was. He was an albino except for a little black spot on his left ear. After a while, though, adorable turns to boring. Rabbits in stories always seem to be doing interesting things, but not Houdini; he spent his time mostly eating, sleeping, pooping, and peeing. Some life.

  Aside from his magic career, the most interesting thing about Houdini the rabbit was an experiment we did together last year for the sixth-grade science fair. If you’ve ever had a rabbit, you know that you feed them little food pellets. They also poop little pellets. My hypothesis—as we’re supposed to say in science—was that there would be a one-to-one ratio of food pellets in to poop pellets out. I asked Mrs. Skurvecky—who was my science teacher last year and again this year—if anyone had ever done that experiment before. She said no one had, as far as she knew, and that there was probably a good reason. Still, I decided to spend a week testing it, counting out the food pellets, counting up the poop pellets. It was going well for the first couple days, though my hypothesis was off—it looked like the ratio of food in to poop out was two-to-one. Then I discovered that he was eating his poop pellets whenever he got a chance. That threw a monkey wrench into my research—in addition to being disgusting—so the results were inconclusive.

  While the poop pellet experiment kept me interested, I think Houdini was pretty bored. Sometimes I left the cage open for him to run around the room—after he’d finished peeing on the newspaper. One day, though, I got called away to set the table for dinner. The sliding door at the back of the den was open and he must have hopped outside. It shouldn’t have been a problem, as the yard is fenced in, but when I went to find him, he was gone. I called out to Kenny and we looked all over, but there was no trace of him. Houdini had vanished.

  It was a complete and total mystery. I suppose a bird, maybe a hawk, could have swooped down, plucked him up, and flown off. Or maybe he found some opening under the fence, slid through, and made a break for freedom. That seemed nearly as dangerous as the hawk, given all the cars on the street.

  Then again, rabbits are lucky. At least their feet are supposed to be. That’s what the man at the school carnival told me in fifth grade when I managed to knock down two out of three metal milk bottles with a baseball. The prize I won was a rabbit’s foot, which, for some reason, had been dyed pink, and hung on a little chain. The lucky rabbit’s foot idea didn’t make much sense to me, as the rabbit missing this one didn’t seem very lucky at all. Then again, Houdini had four feet, all attached, so maybe he really was lucky. And maybe, just maybe, he did break through some hidden hole in the fence, hopped quickly between the moving cars, then found a secret tunnel behind the tall grass that led to an enchanted meadow where he now lived, running free. At least, that’s what I’d like to believe.

  But what I know for sure is that he’s gone and now I have Herrmann. I got a girl—for obvious reasons—and named her after another magician, who was also great but not an escape artist. When she’s not in her cage, I never let her out of my sight.

  “You’re not leaving me, are you, Herrmann?” She looked up at me and did that nose scrunch thing. “That’s right, you’re staying here with me. And don’t worry about my dad either. He’ll be fine. You’ll see. He’ll come back from the hospital with gold joints in his body, running around just like you.”

  Just then I heard arguing from my parents’ bedroom, then shouting.

  “No, Bob!” my mom was yelling. “We can’t take it! We’ll be late!” My mom only raises her voice when she gets really, really, really frustrated. “They said to be early—and there’s already going to be traffic!”

  “Don’t worry,” my dad said. “We’ll take the access road and avoid the traffic on the on-ramp. That’ll save ten minutes.”

  “But it’s too heavy! I can’t carry it,” she said. “And neither can you.” It drives me crazy when they fight. “Bob, this is an operation, not a business deal.”

  “But it’s the perfect opportunity,” he said. “It’ll be great! They’ll love it!”

  He sounded just like he had in my dream. I stomped to their room and knocked on the door. When my mom opened it, she looked like she’d been crying. My dad looked terrible too. I mean, he never looks very good, but now his face was puffy, and his body was stiff as he rested against the closet in his torn robe, T-shirt, and boxers. Beside him was the suitcase with the Neck-O-Matic, which he had apparently been trying to push.

  “Oh, Joel,” said my mom. “You’re up—”

  “You want the stupid Neck-O-Matic?” I said, totally losing my cool. “All right. Fine.” I walked into the room, grabbed the suitcase, and started to drag it. With all the bricks, it was really heavy.

  Even as I did it, I felt guilty. This was the time to be especially nice to my parents, and I was being a brat. But I couldn’t help it. I kicked and pushed it through the kitchen, toward the front door, scraping the floor, knocking over a chair.

  “Joel, really, you can leave it . . .”

  I rolled it over, out the front door. By now, Kenny and Howard were both up, watching me. “See?” I said, shoving it down the stairs. “No problem.” I kept rolling it over and over until I got to the car. I couldn’t lift it, but Kenny came out in his pajamas, with the keys, and opened the trunk. With a heave-ho, we lifted it up and in.

  “There’s your Neck-O-Matic!” I said, slamming the trunk shut.

  “But how will we get it out?” my mom asked.

  “There are orderlies at the hospital,” said my dad. “That’s their job, to help with luggage. Big, strong guys. They can put it on a wheelchair . . .”

  They came out to the car, my dad hobbling to the passenger seat, my mom on the verge of tears as I gave her the keys. Just before they left, my dad said, “You’re not worried, are you, Joel?”

  I shook my head and said sarcastically, “Why should I worry? You’ve got the Neck-O-Matic.”

  “You’re just upset now,” said my dad. “But it’ll be all right—I’ll be back. With golden joints!”

  “I’ll call from the hospital when the operation is over,” said my mom.

  I didn’t say a word to Kenny or Howard; I just ran to the den and slammed the door. Herrmann and I looked out the window as they drove off.

  “Nothing to worry about,” I said to her. “They’ll love it. It’ll be great.”

  I think I’m getting a gorgle.

  When I left for school a while later, the air was crisp. There was no frost on the ground, but the sky was gray and cloudy, and the barometer on the porch still read between 29 and 30, pushing toward SNOW. But as I walked down Kimdale Drive, the day got hotter with every step. By the time I got to school, the last bit of fog had burned off. The little kids were all at the far end of the school, near the cement factory, packed into the giant sandbox, digging like crazy. One of them was running around screaming, “Look, everyone, it’s true! I found a dime!”

  The other kids gathered around to see, like it was the most amazing thing in the world, then went back to digging.

  This whole sandbox thing began two years ago, when I was in fifth grade. Howard was in Mr. Culpepper’s class and he came home one day looking very serious, saying there was something he couldn’t tell us, and we shouldn’t ask him about it. Then he went to his room and closed the door, like he always does. Howard’s usually pretty bad at keeping secrets, but he kept this one.

  We had no idea what it was until the next week, on Monday morning, when Brian and I got to school, and found the main yard deserted.

  “Whoa!” said Brian. “What happened? Did someone drop an atomic bomb?”

  Brian always says things like that. But it was weird. Not atomic bomb weird, but weird just the same. Then I looked and saw that all the kids were at the sandbox way down at the far end of the playground. We went to see what was going on, and everyone was digging.

  “It’s w
icked cool!” said Eddy Mazurki.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “Didn’t you hear?” he said. “Over the weekend there was a robbery! At the Bank of America, down the street. Because the thieves were being chased by the police and they didn’t want to get caught with the money, they buried it—right here in the sandbox!”

  “Look!” shouted Debbie Henderson. “Thirty-five cents!”

  Everyone gathered around to look at her coins. Sure enough, there was a quarter and a dime.

  “Where did you find it?” someone asked.

  “Right there!” she said, pointing.

  A moment later, we were all digging. Every few minutes, someone would shout out, and we’d rush to see what they’d found. Usually it was pennies or nickels, but Billy Zamboni found a half dollar.

  The bell rang, and we went off to class, though no one wanted to. At recess, almost all the kids were at the sandbox, digging for coins. At lunchtime the eighth graders showed up—including Howard. They weren’t digging—they just stood there, on the basketball court, watching us and laughing.

  It turned out that Mr. Culpepper had been teaching Howard’s class about rumors. That was the secret. They had made up the story about the bank robbers, and told just a few kids. Those kids told more kids. And now, here we all were, digging.

  When you think about it, the story is ridiculous for all kinds of reasons. For one, since when do bank robbers steal coins? Even if they did, and were being chased by police, why would they stop to hide the money in the Bixby School sandbox? And if they had buried it, why would the coins be scattered all over the place?

  It made no sense at all. But here’s what made it work: We found money. Real money. Why? Because it’s a sandbox, and kids have been losing their lunch money there for years. But when someone finds a quarter, you don’t stop to wonder whether it’s true—you just dig.

  As the week went on, the digging got out of hand, with kids fighting over who got to dig where, until Mr. Newton finally called a school assembly to tell us that there had been no bank robbers, there was no buried treasure, and to stop digging. Then Mr. Culpepper stood up onstage and told us about how his class had started the rumor as an experiment, and ended by saying, “So, you see? You can’t believe everything you hear.”

  We all felt pretty dumb. “You’re not actually stupid,” Howard explained to me later. “Just gullible. That means you believe something without questioning.”

  “I know what the word gullible means,” I said. “Or at least what it’s supposed to mean. Because it’s not even a real word.”

  “What?” said Howard.

  “That’s right. I read this book on language. It’s actually slang.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, from sailors, who saw seagulls and were fooled into thinking there’s land nearby when there really wasn’t. But it’s not a real word—that’s why it isn’t in the dictionary. If you don’t believe me, look it up.”

  Off Howard went to find the dictionary—he’s the gullible one. And, eventually, the digging stopped. But here’s the strange thing. Even though the whole school now knew it wasn’t real, every few months kids would start digging again, getting all excited about the stolen loot. And when the teachers explained the whole thing to them, they just nodded and kept right on digging. Because, in their minds, being told it was a rumor made it even more true, and they figured the teachers were just saying it was a rumor so they could dig up the money and keep it for themselves.

  This morning I watched them dig for a while, amazed at the crazy stuff people believe. But here’s the craziest thing of all: As I sat there watching, knowing it was completely ridiculous, part of me wanted to dig too.

  It’s like the story I read about the Chelmite lying in the grass one summer day, taking a nap. But he can’t sleep because there are kids nearby, making noise. So he says, “Hey, children! Did you know there’s someone at the other side of Chelm giving away free apples?”

  The kids get all excited. “Free apples?” they say, and run off. With the kids gone, the guy goes back to sleep. A few minutes later, though, he hears people running past, talking about free apples, and he chuckles. Then he hears more people. Suddenly, everyone is running to the other side of town, talking about free apples. Finally he can’t help himself. He jumps up and runs to the other side of town, saying, “Free apples? Sounds crazy! Then again, who knows?”

  I wonder if that’s how it is with God. And prayer. And miracles. Like it’s all just this big rumor that makes no sense at all. But then, once in a while, someone gets what they’re praying for. So we go on believing, because what else are we going to do?

  Quietly, as I watched the kids dig, I said a little prayer. I couldn’t help it. No one heard me—except God, if God was listening. “Hey, God,” I said, “look, I was a real jerk to my parents this morning. So I’ll tell you what. Forget the snow. A heat wave is fine by me, just as long as my dad’s surgery turns out okay. So he can walk. And maybe even dance. That’s the only miracle I’m looking for. All right?”

  As always when talking to God, I felt silly. Then again, who knows?

  This close to vacation, the teachers have given up trying to teach us anything. Especially Mr. Kunkle, our social studies teacher, who we see first thing on Wednesday, and who never seemed all that interested in teaching us anything in the first place. Even at the start of the year he seemed like he was running on fumes, reading long portions of the textbook while kids went wild.

  “Class, as you are well aware, we will be having an extra day of school this coming Monday,” Mr. Kunkle said in his deep voice I can only describe as soporific, which is a vocabulary word that means “puts you right to sleep.” He speaks slowly, and three or four words is all it takes. He could be a great hypnotist.

  “This additional day will provide us all with an opportunity to review some of the fascinating topics we have covered during the course of this semester . . .” I was already tired from last night, and the room was stuffy. I could feel my head starting to droop. “So, please open your textbooks, sit quietly, and review chapter seven.”

  I opened my textbook to chapter seven, which we’d already read, all about the evils of Communism and the Soviet Union, and how everything they say is “propaganda.” It made me wonder if there was some kid in the Soviet Union reading from a textbook that says how evil everything in the United States is, and how everything we say is propaganda.

  Tired of chapter seven, I turned back to chapter four. It’s the only part of our textbook—or any textbook I’ve ever had in school—that mentions Jews. There’s a grainy black-and-white photo of the entrance to Auschwitz, a Nazi death camp. There are guards with guns, and people are passing under a sign in German. The caption says: This is the entrance to Auschwitz, one of many Nazi concentration camps. The sign above the prisoners, “Arbeit macht frei,” translates to “Work Will Make You Free,” which was not true. During World War II, six million Jews were killed by the Nazis, many in death camps such as this.

  I looked at it for a long time and must have drifted off, because I was seeing the dream from this morning, only now I was under the gates of Auschwitz, holding the kite string. In the sky high above me was my father, holding on to the kite, shouting, “It’ll be great! They’ll love it!” I jolted awake, thinking how at that very moment he was somewhere in the hospital, maybe strapped to a table, being rolled down the hall to an operating room, with surgeons looking over him, sharpening their scalpels, cutting him open, and pouring in gold. Maybe the gold was already in his body, and maybe he was starting to move around, like the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz.

  At recess everyone was talking about the assembly, and what the surprise would be. Mary Wigglesworth said she heard that the PTA was going to give everyone snow cones, like they sell after school on the last Friday of the month, but these would be free. Someone else said it would be cotto
n candy, and Arnold Pomeroy said they were both wrong, that it would be free corn dogs for everyone, as many as we could eat, and he could eat about fifteen of them, with ketschupp and mustard.

  Billy Zamboni said it wasn’t about food at all—that he’d heard there would be a visit from a real TV star, the actress who plays Jeannie on I Dream of Jeannie. But Tim Stevenson said it would be the guy who plays Darrin on Bewitched. Then people started talking about which Darrin it would be, because there had been two different actors playing the part in the series, and when one left the show, they just stuck in the other like no one would notice. Someone else said they would both be there, but Davie Miller said he’d heard there would be two even bigger TV stars: Sonny and Cher! And they would be singing at the Bixby winter holiday assembly!

  I was relieved when the bell rang and we went to science class with Mrs. Skurvecky, who turned off the lights and showed us a film about how plants grow, which sent me right back to sleep. I woke up when the lights went back on, with just a few minutes to the end of class, and she said we could talk quietly until the bell rang, so I went up to her.

  “Do you have a question, Joel?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Skurvecky. Do you know what temperature gold melts at?”

  “Well,” she said, “I’d have to check to be sure, but I think it’s pretty hot—around two thousand degrees.”

  Wow. That was really hot. A picture flashed in my mind of a doctor holding a beaker filled with melted, bubbling gold, pouring it into my dad’s sliced-open hip joint.