Dreidels on the Brain

by Joel ben Izzy

  After a few minutes we just stopped and stood there, and I realized I still had my fingers in my armpits. I was hoping she didn’t notice how dorky I looked, when she leaned in close and whispered, “There’s this secret . . .”

  “Secret?”

  “About what’s happening on Monday . . .”

  Oh no! I thought. How does she know? I took my fingers out of my armpits.

  “. . . at the assembly.”

  “But wait,” I said. “How did you—”

  “Joel!”

  We both looked up. It was Mrs. Gabbler.

  “There you are,” she said, out of breath. “I’ve been looking all over for you.” She gave Amy a look, then me. “There’s a phone call for you. In the office.”

  It wasn’t far from my hiding place to the office, but it felt like a long way. Even though I was running, everything seemed to happen in slow motion.

  When I got to the office, there was Mrs. McGillicuddy at her desk, pointing to the phone, which was off the hook. I picked it up.

  “Hello?”

  “Joel?”

  There was a long pause. I could hear my mom crying.

  “He’s awake!”

  When I got to Mr. Culpepper’s trailer, I was already late, but I stayed outside rubbing my eyes so no one would know I had been crying. My mom told me that she’d been sitting there staring at my dad for hours, when he suddenly woke up and asked for a glass of water, like nothing had happened. She was going to pick up a challah from Canter’s Deli, then swing by the house to get Hanaka and Shabbat candles, pick up Kenny and Howard at the high school, then zip by Bixby to pick me up.

  “And we’ll celebrate Shabbanukkah!” she said. That’s my family’s special name for the Friday night of Haanukkah, which is also Shabbat.

  I still looked like I’d been crying, so I soaked my whole head in the drinking fountain, shook the water out of my hair, and went inside.

  I needn’t have bothered. Nobody noticed how late I was or cared how I looked. The room was complete chaos, with students running around screaming. Not only was it the last period on Friday, but Mr. Culpepper’s trailer has its own separate air-conditioning, which he must have set to “refrigerate.” Everyone had sprung to life, like the hanging plant in Mrs. Skurvecky’s class that gets all wilted when she forgets to water it, then perks up when she finally does. The boys were literally bouncing off the walls, which were made of this spongy foam. I actually saw Eddy Mazurki take a running start, throw himself against the wall, fall on the floor, and hobble around.

  “Whoa!” he said. “That’s far out!” Then he did it again.

  “Wicked!” said Larry Arbuckle. “Me too!”

  Mr. Culpepper isn’t a magician, but he’d be a good one, because he always has something up his sleeve. For a while he just stood in front of the class, cool as a cucumber, watching the pandemonium. Then his lips began to move, but we couldn’t hear what he was saying. After about a minute, everyone took their seats. We had to get really quiet, and could just make out the words “. . . of course, it’s supposed to be a secret.”

  We all stared at him. He was wearing a red-and-green cardigan and a blue tie with a snowman on it. Finally Patty Henderson raised her hand, and when he motioned to her, she whispered what everyone was wondering. “What’s the secret?”

  Mr. Culpepper smiled and, still whispering, said, “Well, I’m not supposed to tell you this, but I know what’s going to happen at Monday’s assembly.”

  Now the room was dead quiet, no sound but the whoosh of the air conditioner. I couldn’t believe he was doing this. I shook my head, in tiny motions, my eyes wide open. I knew he could see me, but he didn’t stop.

  “I’m really not supposed to tell,” he whispered. “But it’s so tempting, especially because it involves someone here, in this very room.”

  How could he spill the beans? I looked around the room, pretending I didn’t know exactly who he was talking about. My eyes met Amy’s, who looked as panicked as I felt.

  What the heck?

  “That’s the thing about a secret,” Mr. Culpepper whispered. “It’s no fun unless you tell someone.” Now he looked right at me—and winked! “Of course, you would all have to promise not to tell a soul outside of this classroom.”

  Everyone nodded their heads. I was trapped. I tried disappearing into my seat, which never works. Then Amy raised her hand.

  “Yes, Miss O’Shea. Would you be able to keep this secret?”

  “Well, yes,” she said slowly. “But first, um, I was just going to say that I really like your sweater.” The class laughed.

  “Thank you, Amy. It was a gift from my aunt Matilda from Baltimore, which she sent just last week.” Then he lowered his voice and said, “So, once the choir finishes singing—”

  “Yes, it’s a beautiful sweater,” she said, interrupting him. “And your tie,” she went on. “It’s a really nice tie. I especially like the snowman.”

  That was a bit much. Everyone laughed again. What was she doing?

  “Thank you again,” he said, looking at his tie. “I’m glad you—”

  “But it looks like there’s something on the tie,” she interrupted again. “Right there”—she pointed—“just above the snowman.”

  “Where? What?” he said, looking down at his tie, flustered.

  “It looks like a stain,” she said. “Could it be gravy? Or maybe mustard?”

  Everyone stared at her, then at Mr. Culpepper’s tie, then back at her, baffled. No one in the room had any idea what she was doing. Except me. Now I knew exactly what she was doing. And she was doing it for me.

  It’s a magic routine we do. You invite a volunteer from the audience—who happens to be wearing a tie—and compliment him on how nice it looks. But then you point out there’s a stain—“Could it be gravy? Or maybe mustard?”—and offer to remove it. It doesn’t matter that there’s really no stain; it’s below their chin, and hard for them to see. Besides, they’re too surprised to think about it when you bring out a big pair of scissors—like the one Amy knows I keep in my impromptu box. She must have seen it in the alcove.

  “Miss O’Shea, why are you interrupting—”

  “Well . . . because . . . I just thought . . . maybe it’s gravy. Or mustard?” she said again, hopefully.

  There was a long pause while everyone stared at her. She had nothing else to say. In fact, no one in that room had anything to say, except me. I stood up.

  “Mr. Culpepper,” I said. “I can fix that.”

  Everyone turned from Amy to me.

  “Joel, what are you—”

  “Don’t worry about that stain,” I said, reaching into my backpack for the box. “I’ve got something here that will make your tie as good as new.” I opened the box. “Ah, here it is!” I said, taking out the scissors—and the secret thingamajig that makes the trick work.

  “Whoa!” said Denise Scalapino. “What are you doing?”

  “Are you crazy?” said Eddy Mazurki.

  There was no turning back. I walked to the front of the class, sweating again despite the air-conditioning, and lifted up his tie, pretending to examine the spot—which wasn’t really there. Mr. Culpepper just stood there, dumbfounded—the way every volunteer does—as I lifted the scissors.

  “Joel, what are you doing?”

  “Don’t worry, Mr. Culpepper, this won’t hurt a bit.”

  “W-wait a minute . . .” he stammered.

  I folded up the middle section of the tie. “Could you hold this?” I asked. He did. You can get a volunteer to do almost anything, because they’re in shock.

  Then I made two quick clips with the scissors—snip! snip!—just as Mister Mystery had taught me, and held up the piece of fabric I’d cut from the middle of the tie as Mr. Culpepper stood there holding the rest of it.

  The clas
s was stunned. I waved the piece of fabric around. Mr. Culpepper stood there holding his folded-up tie, with his mouth wide open.

  “And don’t worry about this,” I said as I rolled the fabric into a little ball and pushed it into my fist. A moment later I opened my hand—and it was gone.

  “May I?” I held up the tie, rubbed the spot I’d folded, then let go. His tie unfolded, in perfect condition, onto his chest.

  “See?” I said. “Good as new. And look! No stain!”

  Not that there ever was one.

  He stood there blinking. A moment later, the bell rang. With a whoop and a holler, the class was out the door. And so was I—my secret safe, at least until Monday.

  My family is always late. In fact, my brother Kenny was late to his own bar mitzvah. They actually started without him. That’s because of my dad, who always tries to fit in one more thing. In that case, it was stopping for batteries for the tape recorder so he could record the ceremony. We did get them—on sale. As far as I know, though, Kenny has never listened to the tape, and isn’t likely to, as the recorder is now part of the Phone-O-Matic. But my mom is pretty much always on time, and this afternoon, as I ran out of Mr. Culpepper’s class to the sidewalk, she was there, with Kenny and Howard already in the car. I jumped in like it was a getaway car, and we made a dash for the freeway to beat the rush-hour traffic.

  If you’ve ever seen pictures of Southern California, they’re probably from way over on the other side of Los Angeles, of beautiful people at the beach soaking up the sun and surfing. You can almost hear the Beach Boys singing, “Catch a wave and you’re sitting on top of the world.”

  That’s what we were trying to do: catch a wave. Not the kind in the ocean, but a wave of traffic. The idea is to time it so you’re just ahead of the crest, pushed along by millions of cars.

  Sure enough, we glided onto the freeway, the open road before us, and behind us a great mass of cars—all those who had missed the wave.

  “That’s great!” shouted Kenny. “We’re beating the traffic! Drive faster, Mom!”

  “That’s illegal,” said Howard, from the front seat. “We could get a ticket, or get into an accident.”

  The air conditioner in the Dart is broken, but with the windows open, the breeze felt cool. As I looked through the hole in the floor, the freeway passed by in a blur, faster than I’d ever seen it before.

  We were “one step ahead,” as Mister Mystery says. “That’s what makes a great magician. Of course, your audience thinks you’re way ahead, doing all kinds of impossible things. But, really, it’s just one step.”

  Houdini was always one step ahead. His greatest trick, after the Water Torture Cell, was Metamorphosis. He would have members of the audience come onstage and lock him in handcuffs, bind him in chains, then put him into this big bag, which they would tie up and lock inside a trunk. Then, his wife and assistant, Bessie, would stand on top of it, lifting up a long round curtain that covered her and the trunk. She would hold it over her head and count “One!” then lower it. She’d lift it again—“Two!”—then lower it. Then she’d lift it one more time, but this time you’d hear Houdini shout “Three!” The curtain would drop to the floor, and instead of Bessie standing on the trunk, it was Houdini! Bessie had disappeared.

  Then the volunteers would unlock the trunk to find the bag, still tied. Inside the bag would be Bessie, chained up exactly as Houdini had been. The crowd would go berserk.

  What made the trick amazing was how quickly it all seemed to happen. But, actually, they were just one step ahead. The moment the bag was tied, Houdini escaped from the handcuffs and chains. As soon as the trunk was locked, he freed himself from the bag. And by the time Bessie lifted the curtain, he was out of the trunk. The second part of the trick worked exactly the same way except it was Bessie who stayed one step ahead as she snuck into the trunk, the bag, the chains, and the handcuffs.

  And now we were one step ahead, riding the wave of traffic to Los Angeles. There we would see my dad and celebrate Shabbanukkah, and on Saturday we would bring him home to rest and recover. But no way would he ever be well enough to come to school on Monday. And without him, I might just survive the assembly—an escape worthy of Houdini.

  Inside the hospital, it was even colder than Mr. Culpepper’s trailer. Nurses were wearing winter coats, shivering in the lobby, which was like an echo chamber. Even though the floor looked perfectly clean, there was a guy pushing around a polishing machine to make it even shinier. He wore a Dodgers cap and sunglasses, bopping around to music only he could hear.

  We took the elevator to the sixth floor, and it was just as we got out and started walking toward my dad’s room that I began to feel afraid. Excited as I was to see him, I remembered how every other time he’d gone to the hospital, he had come back looking weaker, older, sicker. So I tried to picture him in my mind, on the bicycle, healthy and tall, like Normalman’s father.

  We opened the door to his room and found him in bed, snoring, his mouth wide open, drooling. His head was turned toward his shoulder, and he looked like a bug that had been trapped by some scientist and pinned down in a glass case. His three false teeth were out of his mouth, in a cup next to his bed. Even though he was asleep, his glasses were on his face, but they were crooked.

  “He’s sleeping,” said my mom, “but it’s just regular sleep. Not—you know . . . Bob?” No response. “Bob? Hello? I have the boys . . .”

  Nothing.

  “Dad!” Howard called out. “We’re here! We came to visit you!”

  My dad didn’t say anything for a long time, and I began to wonder if he actually had woken up. But then my mom pushed on his shoulder and said again, “Bob? Wake up! The boys are here!”

  A moment later he opened one eye, then looked from Howard to Kenny to me.

  “Who dat?” he said. “Is dat my boys?” The other eye opened, and there was a big smile on his face. “My three sons?”

  That was kind of funny, because My Three Sons is a TV show we sometimes watch, except that the dad and those three sons are normal.

  “Hey, Dad!” said Kenny. “You’re awake! Just in time for Shabbanukkah!”

  “Shabbanukkah?” he said. “Shabbanukkah already? I must have been asleep. Oy, was I sleepy! I was so sleepy . . .”

  “You weren’t just asleep,” said Howard. “You were almost dead! But you’re awake now. And look!” He held up a paper bag. “We brought you the menorah and candles!”

  “And Manischewitz!” I said.

  “We got a fresh challah too!” added Kenny, pulling it out of his backpack. It had been under all his books, so it was smashed flat. But as we watched, it began to reinflate.

  I looked at my dad, who seemed to perk up as well, happy that we were there.

  Howard put the menorah on the narrow table they roll up so people can eat in bed, and Kenny jammed in six candles. Unlike me, he really doesn’t care about the color or the order or which one is the shammes. Meanwhile, Howard set up the Shabbat candles. It’s funny about Shabbat. When I was little we used to celebrate it every Friday night, lighting the candles, drinking the wine, blessing the challah. Then it kind of stopped. Maybe that was why God was so mad at us? That seems a bit silly, but who knows, when it comes to God? Anyhow, on Shabbanukkah, we always light the Shabbat candles.

  With all the problems his body was having, my dad’s mouth worked just fine, and he was chatty as could be, about his time in the hospital, the nurses, and the food. Then, suddenly, he said, “Hey, Father! Are you there?”

  I didn’t know who he was talking to—I thought maybe God. But then he said, “Knock-knock, you there? Father Joseph, I want you to meet my boys!” He motioned to a curtain in the middle of the room, and said, “Pull that aside, will ya, Joel?”

  When I did, there was an old man with gray hair and the thickest eyebrows I’ve ever seen lying in bed. He was bruised and bandag
ed, hooked up to all kinds of tubes. Hanging above his head was a large cross. He waved at us.

  “Boys, this is Father Joseph. We’ve spent the morning trading jokes.”

  Looking at Father Joseph, it struck me that whatever he was there for was no laughing matter. For one thing, he had a hole in his throat. I knew what that was: It’s what can happen if you smoke and get cancer and your throat gets all messed up so they have to cut a hole in your neck for you to breathe. It’s called a tracheotomy. The horrible thing is that some people with a hole in their neck keep on smoking—by sticking the cigarette right in the hole! They actually showed us a movie about it in Health Ed class, where a guy blew smoke right out of his neck. It gave me nightmares.

  Father Joseph put his finger over the hole in his throat, then spoke to my dad.

  “Well, well . . . three fine young men!” he said. He had a thick brogue, but sounded kind of mechanical, like an Irish robot. “How proud you must be!”

  “That’s right, Father Joseph,” said my dad. “That’s Howard, my oldest, Kenny, the middle, and Joel, the youngest. And you know my wife, Gladys.”

  “Yes indeed,” he said. “We had quite a nice visit while you were asleep.”

  “Yes, we did, Father Joseph,” said my mom. “How are you today?”

  “Well, I can’t complain, ma’am, saints be praised,” he answered. That struck me as an odd thing to say, because by the looks of him, if there was anyone who had a right to complain, it was Father Joseph.

  He covered the hole again. “And which one of you three fine young men is Joe?” he asked. “And would that be short for Joseph?”

  I raised my hand. “Actually, it’s Joel,” I said.

  “Ah! Jo-el,” he said. “It means witness to God! Well, Jo-el, let me tell you, your father is a fine man—and a good roommate to have in the hospital. He’s kept me in stitches since he woke up.”

  “Not that you need more of those, Father!” said my dad. Father Joseph laughed. Or, rather, he whistled through his throat, which was creepy, but funny.