Aces Wild (2 page)

I smiled at the thought of Ace sitting at the table with a big, steaming mug of coffee. It was pretty nice of my mom to not freak out about Ace’s latest disaster, so it helped me breathe a little easier too.

Still, I jumped when I heard the front door slam.

“OY YOY YOY! YOU COULD FREEZE YOUR TUCHES OFF ON A DAY LIKE THIS. LYNN? NATE? WHERE IS EVERYBODY?” My mom thinks Ace is loud because he’s hard of hearing. But I’ve noticed that he hears just fine when he wants to. I think he just likes to be loud.

“In here, Dad,” yelled my mom. “I’ll be right there. Stand by the woodstove and warm up a minute.”

“Great,” I said, feeling my flood of relief that Ace was okay
drain out of me like water from a bathtub. “Well, it’s been nice knowing you.”

“Relax, Zelly,” said my mom. Everyone calls me Zelly instead of my real name, Zelda. Well, almost everyone.

“HIYA, KID,” said Ace, shuffling in to join us. Ace jumped up happily and attacked Ace’s boots. “HIYA, DOGGELAH.”

“Dad, how many times do I have to tell you,” scolded my mom. “Leave your boots by the stove when you come in.”

“Hi, Grandpa,” I said. I call him that to get him back for
kid
. He prefers to be called Ace. Or Your Honor, because he used to be a judge and often acts like he still is.

“SO NU? YOU’RE HAVING MY ROOM FUMIGATED?”

“Ah, no, Dad,” said my mom, getting up. “Ace just had a little accident.”

“I’m sorry, Grandpa,” I said. “I promise I’ll do a better job.…” My voice trailed off and I winced, waiting for the lecture to begin.

Instead, Ace started chuckling. He leaned over and cupped his hand around Ace’s shaggy chocolate-brown ears. “YOU LITTLE PISHER. YOU MESHUGGE MUTT. VEY IZ MIR, WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO WITH YOU!”

I looked at him curiously. Yiddish, I expected. But cheerfulness in the face of disaster was a decidedly un-Ace-like reaction. It wasn’t that Ace had no sense of humor. Far from it. In addition to collecting rubber bands and golf balls, Ace had an unparalleled collection of corny jokes. But when Ace meant business, that was another story. And this was definitely a situation that called for him to dust off one of his
“In all my years of experience on the bench”—meaning as a judge—speeches.

“You’re not … mad?” I asked cautiously.

“I MUST BE MAD OR I WOULDN’T BE HERE,” said Ace, giving me his
Guess who I’m quoting
wink. When I didn’t hazard a guess, he barked, “LEWIS CARROLL.
ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND
. COME ON, KID, THINK.”

“Wait, you’re really not angry?”

“AT WHO?”

“Well, uh, me,” I said.

“YOU MADE A MESS ON MY FLOOR?” Ace asked.

“No, Grandpa. Just, I mean, he’s my dog.”

Ace knew only too well that Ace was my dog. In fact, if it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t have Ace. Ace-the-grandpa had dreamed up this ridiculous plan involving, of all things, a “practice dog” made out of an old plastic orange juice jug. I had to walk O.J., and feed him, and clean up after him (don’t ask) all summer until I was pretty convinced that I had made the biggest mistake of my life. And then Ace had his heart attack. And then he recovered (and promised to stop being so “Ace”). And then my parents, to my complete and total surprise, gave me my puppy as an early eleventh-birthday present.

“RIGHT,” said Ace, switching gears and putting on his usual Ace-itude. “HE IS YOUR DOG AND YOUR RESPONSIBILITY. WHICH MEANS IT IS YOUR JOB TO KEEP HIM
IN
CONTROL AND
OUT
OF TROUBLE.”

I was about to respond and argue—even though my dad always says that arguing with Ace is like talking to a brick wall—that unless I kept Ace-the-dog on a leash 24-7, there was no way of guaranteeing he wouldn’t get into trouble. But before I could, my mom said, “Dad, what time did you get up this morning?”

“I DON’T KNOW. EIGHT-THIRTY? NINE?”

“And when did you go out?”

“WHAT IS THIS, THE INQUISITION?”

My mom frowned at him. “Dad, I have been out front raking leaves for the last hour or more, but I never saw you leave. You must have gone out before any of us were even up. Is there any chance Ace got into your room this morning and you closed him in by accident when you went out?”

Ace smiled broadly, like he had just told a riddle and my mom was trying to figure it out. “NONE WHATSOEVER.”

My mom looked at me, then at Ace again. “Okay,” she said, “I’ll bite. How can you be so sure?”

“NOT THAT IT’S ANY OF YOUR BUSINESS,” said Ace. “BUT I WENT OUT TO VISIT A FRIEND LAST NIGHT. IT GOT LATE, SO WE JUST DECIDED TO HAVE A … WHADDAYA CALL IT, KID?”

“A sleepover?” I asked.

“THERE YOU GO!” said Ace.

“Out to visit … who exactly?” asked my mom.

“YOU KNOW PAULA,” said Ace. “FROM THE Y.”

Paula had come to our house for dinner the week before. Ace had met her at a class his doctor made him take after his heart attack. It was called Heart-Healthy Seniors, and Ace
complained all the way there the first time he went. He said things like “FOR THIS I NEED A CLASS?”

Then he met Paula. He went early to the second class.

“Dad,” said my mom cautiously, “don’t you think it’s a little, well, soon? I mean, you only met Paula, what? Three weeks ago?”

“FOUR,” said Ace. “BUT WHO’S COUNTING?”

“Plus,” I added, in case Ace had forgotten, “Bubbles hasn’t even been gone a year yet.” The whole reason we had moved to Vermont and Ace had moved in with us was that my grandma, who we called Bubbles, wasn’t alive anymore. I could tell that Bubbles wouldn’t have liked Paula, who had a really phony smile. And she wore too much makeup and clothes that Bubbles never would have worn, like a teal velour sweatshirt with matching pants. She also had a super-curly gray perm, so every time I heard Paula, I’d think poodle.

Both my mom and Ace turned when I spoke, looking startled, like they had forgotten I was even there.

“Sweetie,” said my mom. “Why don’t you go see if your dad’s back yet?”

“But I haven’t finished cleaning up after Ace.”

“I’ll take care of it,” she said.

“Okay,” I said quickly, before she could change her mind. “C’mon, boy.”

As soon as Ace and I had left the room, my mom shut the door. I was just refilling Ace’s water bowl when the front door opened and, with a gust of freezing wind, my dad came in. Wagging excitedly, Ace made a dash for his boots.

“Whoo-whee!” said my dad, shuffling across the floor
with the groceries, then peeling Ace off him. “It’s not fit out there for man or beast.” Like my mom and Ace and practically every other grown-up in Vermont, my dad was incapable of coming inside without commenting loudly about the weather.

“I found Ace,” I told my dad.

“Didn’t realize you lost him, but okay. Where was Mr. Puppy-School-Dropout?”

“Hey! Ace didn’t drop out. He took a leave of absence,” I said, reminding Dad of what he’d said to cheer me up when it happened. After all, nobody likes to get a note saying: “At this time, Ace is too wild to participate in dog obedience class without disrupting the group.”

“Right,” said my dad. “Sorry,” he told Ace, who took the apology as an invitation to renew his boot attack.

“Ace, quit it!” I said, pulling him off and holding him by his collar.

Just then, Sam walked in, rubbing his eyes. As usual, he was wearing his ratty old Luke Skywalker bathrobe. On his left cheek was a big round red mark, in the shape of the button eye on Susie, the stuffed whale he used as a pillow every night. Susie had been blue when Sam got her as a baby, but after six years of near-constant use, she was a grimy gray schmatte with a single straggly piece of yarn left as her spout. Sam refused to part with her, though, and schlepped her around with him to school and back every single day.

“Where’s Mom?” asked Sam.

“Ace’s room,” I replied.

From down the hall, through the closed door, came the unmistakable sound of Ace’s booming voice saying “NOT THAT IT’S ANY OF YOUR BUSINESS!” again.

“Is Grandpa in trouble?” whispered Sam.

“Sounds like it,” said my dad. “What’d I miss?”

I shrugged, trying to act like it was no big deal. “Ace messed up Grandpa’s room. Plus Grandpa had a sleepover, and Mom’s not that happy about it.”

Sam’s eyes got big. “Because he had a sleepover on a school night?” he asked.

I snorted. “Sam, duh. Today’s Sunday.”

“Oh yeah,” said Sam. “Hey, I hope he didn’t forget.”

“Forget what?”

“Ace said I could go to the Y with him on Sunday to watch his friend Margie’s Yoda class.”

“Margie’s … what?” I asked. Sam’s obsession with
Star Wars
didn’t surprise me. But if someone Ace’s age was equally obsessed, that would be another story.

“Yoda class,” repeated Sam. “She teaches it at the Y.”

My dad and I exchanged confused looks. “What exactly does ‘Yoda class’ involve, Sam?” asked my dad.

“What involved, mmm … I know not!”
croaked Sam, jumping at the opportunity to do his Yoda voice.

Just then, Ace stomped into the kitchen. He was wearing the same clothes as before, though he had changed from his wet snow boots into a pair of un-chewed-on golf shoes. Mom lets him wear them in the house as long as he removes the spikes from the bottom of them first.

Across the room, Ace-the-dog sat up and gave a low murmur of interest, though he nervously eyed the rolled-up foam mat Ace was carrying under his arm. Rolled-up things, like the
New York Times Magazine
often wielded by Ace-the-grandpa, were not Ace-the-dog’s friends. Ace went to the junk drawer by the phone, pulled out his emergency stash of rubber bands, and began securing the rolled-up foam mat with them.

“SAMMY! NU?” he said without looking up. “YOU READY?”

Sam scrambled to his feet as if he’d been invited to board the
Millennium Falcon
. “I’ve just got to get my lightsaber!” he cried, running upstairs.

Just then, I realized what Sam must have thought. Sam regularly got things wrong. Like thinking that the police “under-arrested” bad guys. Or singing along to Dad’s favorite song like this: “I’ll never leave your pizza burning.…”

“Margie teaches … 
yoga
?” I guessed.

“BIKRAM YOGA,” corrected Ace. “A HUNDRED AND FIVE DEGREES IN THE SHADE.”

“You’re taking a hot yoga class?” asked my dad.

“OF COURSE NOT. WHAT KIND OF MESHUGGENER DO YOU THINK I AM?”

“But Sam said you were taking him to the Y for Margie’s Yoda—I mean
yoga
—class.”

“RIGHT. FOR ME, IT’S MORE OF A SPECTATOR SPORT. IT’S LIKE A SHVITZ, BUT WITH ENTERTAINMENT.”

“What’s a shvitz?” I asked.

“It’s like a sauna,” said my mom, who had just walked in carrying a laundry basket. “Who’s Margie?” she asked.

“I JUST GOT DONE WITH THE TWENTY QUESTIONS. ASK THE KID.”

“She teaches yoga,” I reported.

“Really,” said my mom. “Oh, speaking of which, Dad, I forgot to tell you. This morning, before you got back, your friend Arlene called. Something about tickets to a show?”

“GOOD. GOOD,” said Ace dismissively, putting on his coat, scarf, and a hat he liked to call his ice-fishing hat. That was because it was identical to his lucky fishing hat, except it was a thicker material. My dad claimed he would eat both of Ace’s hats if Ace ever went near a frozen body of water, much less ice fishing. Ace’s coat was huge and dark green and had a name too. He called it The Baxter State. I had no idea why.

“SAMMY, BUS STOP,” Ace yelled up the stairs before heading outside to stand on the corner.

A few minutes later, Sam scrambled after him, his bathrobe belt trailing like a tail from under his down parka. On silent paws, Ace crept out from under the table and expertly snagged it off him without Sam noticing. However, in my almost two months as a puppy owner, I had learned a few tricks of my own. I grabbed a spray bottle from the counter. One well-aimed squirt of water and the belt would be mine.
Future Skywalker meltdown averted
.

Or so I thought.

The whole thing happened kind of fast. I had the end of
the belt in one hand and the spray bottle in the other. But the next minute, I had both ends of the belt, and Ace was running around with the bottle in his mouth, chewing it like a squeaky toy. As he chomped, his sharp puppy teeth must have pricked tiny holes in it, because icy cold water was spraying everywhere like a sprinkler.

“Zelly, hey! Stop him!” yelled my dad, holding up his newspaper to shield himself.

“I’m trying! Ace, drop! Drop!” I yelled. Pleased to have my attention, Ace paraded in and out of the kitchen, then turned and charged straight down the hall toward—
oh no
—Ace-the-grandpa’s room again. As I went to try and disarm him, I overheard my dad say to my mom, “Did I hear correctly? Ace is up to three girlfriends now?”

Three girlfriends?
I thought.
Ace? Grandpas aren’t supposed to have girlfriends at all. Much less three
. I froze, listening for my mom to tell him he was wrong.

Instead, my mom chuckled softly. “That we know of,” she said.

“Three girlfriends?”
said my best friend, Allie, when I told her on the way to school the next morning.