Aces Wild (20 page)

“Who are all those people?” asked Megan, scooping up a handful of candy.

“Oh, nobody,” I said, unwrapping a kiss. “Just my neighbor and my dog obedience teacher.”

“Are those Ace’s girlfriends?” asked Allie.

“What! No!” I said, alarmed.

“Not even the little one? She’s so cute!”

Did she mean Mrs. Wright? I guessed so, since Mrs. Stanley was much bigger, but still. I gave Allie a sharp look to say
You’re supposed to be helping me
. Plus this wasn’t the first time she’d blown something she’d promised to keep secret.

“Wanna watch a movie?” I tried, mostly because I needed something, anything, to get their mind off the scene in the kitchen. Meanwhile, Paul’s dad still hadn’t appeared, and we could all hear talking and laughing.

“What’s that smell?” asked Simone.

Smell?
I was starting to panic. Ace hadn’t left one of his little presents for us, had he? I had walked him earlier and my mom promised she’d keep an eye out, but clearly she was busy doing other things.

“Smell?” I said nervously, sniffing the air.

Jenny nodded too. “Yeah,” she said.

“Like French fries,” added Tasha.

It did smell like that, I had to admit, but that was ridiculous.
Mom never made French fries. Her oven fries were tasty, but they didn’t make the house smell like hot, sizzling grease.…
Oh no! Please tell me Ace wasn’t heating up his beloved schmaltz
. I wouldn’t put it past him. I pictured him pouring it over popcorn.…

Just then, my mom came in, drying her hands on a dish towel.

“Zelly, would you and your friends like to come in and join us while we light the Hanukkah candles?”

“No, Mom, we’re fine!” I said, but before I could stop them, all of the girls except Allie hopped up and went back to the kitchen. “Mom!” I said in frustration.

“What?”

“What is Ace doing? He’s ruining everything!”

“Ace?” My mom looked around quickly. “I thought he was in the kitchen. Did he leave a little present?”

“Mom, not Ace-the-dog. Grandpa! Did you say he could use the stove?”

“Look, Zelly,” she said. “I think you should relax. Ace is behaving himself. Come see for yourself.” She gave me a meaningful look.

“We’ll be right there, Mrs. Fried,” said Allie in her voice that grown-ups love.

“Thanks a lot,” I said when my mom left the room. “I thought you were my best friend.”

“I am!”

“Well, then, why did you say that thing about my grandpa’s girlfriends?”

“What are you talking about?” asked Allie.

“When I told you about my grandpa having three girlfriends that we know of, remember how you promised not to tell anyone?”

“I didn’t!”

“You so totally did! Right after you came in, you asked if those were Ace’s girlfriends.”

Allie started to laugh. “I meant Ace-the-dog!” she said. “Wouldn’t he and that little beagle puppy be cute together?”

“Beagle?” I asked. “You meant Ace, not Ace?”

Allie nodded.

“Okay, I feel stupid now,” I said.

“But, wait,
are
those your grandpa’s girlfriends?”

I responded by throwing a pillow at Allie, which made me feel a lot better.

“Zelly, you know, there
is
one person who could make your party a disaster.”

“Who, my grandpa? Sam? Jeremy?”

“Zelly.”

“Yeah?”

“I mean
you
. If you keep on freaking out, you are going to ruin your own party! Seriously! Cut it out.”

“Okay, okay,” I said. I was pretty sure I wasn’t the only one who would be capable of ruining the party.

But I could also see that maybe she had a point.

When Allie and I returned to the kitchen, we found everyone talking at once. My mom was handing mugs to Mrs. Wright
and Mrs. Stanley, and I could smell cider with cinnamon sticks warming on the stove. Jenny, Megan, Simone, Jeremy, and the twins were sitting on the floor, playing with the dogs. My dad was grating potatoes, and so was Mrs. Stanley. Ace was frying potato pancakes—in vegetable oil, thank goodness, not chicken fat—and stacking them on piles of paper towels next to the stove. Paul and his dad had arrived too, and so had Mr. Stanley, and it seemed they were staying for latkes, because their coats were piled on a kitchen chair and Sam and Paul were having a lightsaber battle. “Not too near the stove, boys!” warned my mom.

“AH, ZELDALEH. THERE YOU ARE. GET O.J., WOULD YOU?”

“Why?” I asked suspiciously. I couldn’t bear to put Ace-the-dog through a repeat performance of his obedience test.

“NOTHING TO DO WITH HIM,” said Ace, like he could read my mind. “I PROMISE.”

I opened my mouth to make an excuse, but the
No freaking out
look on Allie’s face made me stop. So I went to my room and got O.J. When I returned, Ace turned the spatula over to my dad, wiped his hands on his apron, and took O.J. from me. Ace uncapped him and poured the change inside into a bowl that was sitting on the table. He left the room and came back with another small bowl—this one filled with net bags of chocolate coins—and a small object.

“YOU’RE PROBABLY WONDERING WHAT THIS TCHOTCHKE IS,” he said.

“It’s a dreidel,” said Jeremy.

“I thought they were supposed to be made out of clay,” said Megan.

“Yeah, like in that song we sing in the Christmas concert at school every year,” added Jenny.

Ace pointed to the dreidel he was holding. “THESE ARE HEBREW LETTERS, AND EACH ONE REPRESENTS A WORD.”

“Nes gadol haya sham,”
explained Jeremy. “It means ‘A great miracle happened there.’ ”

“BUT EACH LETTER ALSO HAS A MEANING IN THE GAME,” said Ace. “SO IF YOU SPIN AND YOU GET THIS ONE”—he pointed to a skinny letter—“NUN, YOU GET BUPKES.”

“Nothing,” I translated.

“FOR THIS ONE”—he pointed to a letter that looked almost the same but had a little heel at the bottom, making it resemble a boot—“GIMEL, YOU GET THE WHOLE POT. HAY”—again he pointed—“YOU GET HALF. AND SHIN”—another point—“YOU PUT ONE IN. ANY QUESTIONS?”

“Huh?” said Tasha. All the girls looked confused.

“JUST PLAY. IT’LL MAKE SENSE.”

“Sufganiyot?” offered Jeremy, passing the platter.

“Ooooh!” My friends grabbed donuts, and my mom handed out cups of hot apple cider, each with a real cinnamon stick to use as a straw.

“You are so lucky, Zelly,” said Jenny. Tasha and Talia nodded eagerly.

I stared at them. Were they making fun of me?

“Totally!” said Megan. “Jelly donuts for dinner and eight nights of presents? I want to be Jewish!”

“We also get gelt,” said Jeremy. “Chocolate coins.” He picked up a bag, pulled the net apart, stripped the foil wrapper from one, and popped it in his mouth.

Chocolate?
Oh no
. In a panic, I looked under the table to see that of all the dogs, only the puppy was still down there. I ran back to the living room, grabbed the bowls of candy off the coffee table, and moved them to a higher surface. Thankfully, Ace-the-dog was nowhere to be found and the bowls appeared to be untouched. From the kitchen, I could hear laughter and Ace-the-grandpa’s loud voice, exclaiming over something.

I went to the doorway and peeked back in, feeling like Bubbles looking down from her cloud. The kitchen smelled all cinnamon-cozy. Jenny was scooping applesauce onto her potato pancake. Jeremy was showing off his master dreidel spin. Tasha was sneaking another jelly donut, while Talia had sucked all the jelly out of hers and left the deflated shell on her plate. Mrs. Stanley was talking to Mrs. Wright, my mom was carrying around plates of latkes, and Paul’s dad seemed to have been drafted into grating potatoes now that Ace was leading the dreidel game.

So much for my perfect sleepover party.

With just me and my friends.

And yet.

There were no seats left, but Allie scooched over and
made room on her chair for me. Jeremy cupped his hands, whispered something to the dreidel inside, then snapped a spin decisively, sending the top whirling across the table so fast it flew off the other side and disappeared. Several of us bent under the table to see how it landed.

“Shin!” crowed Jenny. “That’s shin, right? That means you have to put one in!”

“Interference!” howled Jeremy.

“Nuh-uh,” said Megan. “You didn’t let me have a do-over when mine fell. Fair’s fair.”

“Thanks,” said Allie, accepting the dreidel from Mrs. Stanley, who had retrieved it from the floor.

Allie positioned the top carefully, but each time it wobbled rather than actually spinning. “Here, let me,” I said. I took the dreidel and gave it a spin. Everyone watched as it whirled and twirled and landed on—

“Gimel!” yelled Jenny.

“CLOSE BUT NO CIGAR,” said Ace.

“That’s a nun,” said Jeremy. “See—no heel.”

“Man,” complained Allie. “Here.” She picked up the dreidel and handed it to Megan. “Your turn.”

“What about Dreidel?” said Mrs. Stanley meaningfully to Mr. Stanley.

“Dreidel?” he said dubiously.
“Dreidel Stanley?”
Mrs. Stanley shot him a look. “Oh, all right, we can add it to the list. What do you think?” he asked the puppy in his arms. But she was already fast asleep.

“You know, Hanukkah is really different than I thought it would be,” said Jenny.

“How so?” asked my mom.

“Well, I always thought you lit candles on Hanukkah. I didn’t know you just put them in the candleholder.”

My mom looked startled. Then she and my dad started to laugh. Jeremy and I joined them.

“I’m sorry,” said Mom. “With this whole impromptu latke party, we completely forgot to light the candles in the first place.” We gathered around and watched as she lit the shammes.

“Baruch atah Adonai …,” my parents, Sam, Jeremy, and I sang. Since Ace was singing too, it sounded more like “BARUCH ATAH ADONAI …!” But Ace wasn’t done yet. He added one last bit for good measure, saying:

“BARUCH ATAH ADONAI, HAZAN ET HAKOL.”

“That was beautiful,” announced Mrs. Wright. “What does it mean?”

“IT’S A WAY OF GIVING THANKS,” said Ace. “FOR LIGHT, AND FRIENDS, AND THE OTHER THINGS THAT SUSTAIN US. THROUGH GOOD TIMES AND NOT SO GOOD.”

“Happy Hanukkah,” said my dad, kissing me and Sam on the head. I gave him a hug, and over his shoulder I saw Ace squeeze Mrs. Wright’s hand. I smiled without even checking with Bubbles on her cloud. I knew she’d say it was okay too.

By now, the kitchen was a complete mess. My perfect slumber party had turned into a crazy tzimmes of old people and misbehaving dogs and little boys running around covered with jam and sugar. There were greasy paper towels and foil
chocolate wrappers, and nothing was cute or clean or at all the way I had wanted it.

And yet everybody was laughing. And eating. And playing dreidel. Lucky? Me?

Megan twisted the dreidel and gave it a spin. It landed on …

“Gimel?” she asked, pointing. “Right?”

Ace nodded, confirming.

“Woo-hooo!” yelled Megan. “Come to mama!” She raked the pile of coins toward herself. It was probably seventy-five cents, tops, but she acted like she had just become a millionaire.

“Don’t get so comfortable, Miss Moneybags,” I told her. “The change is just for playing with, not for keeps. It’s from my tzedakah jug,” I informed Jeremy.

“Sadako?” said Tasha.

“That Japanese girl with the paper cranes?” asked Talia.

“What?” said my mom.

“Actually—” Jeremy started to say.

“EXACTLY,” interrupted Ace, with his definitive, judicial, all-argument-stopping voice of authority.

The kitchen was warm and cinnamony as the snow outside fell and fell. It was like being in a cozy bubble—an inside-out snow globe. I was surrounded by people who looked like they’d rather be right there than just about any place in the world. For the first time since I’d moved to Vermont, I felt lucky. I felt like I was home.

And my dog, my lovable, wonderful dog, came charging
into the kitchen chasing Rosie with something red and white hanging off both of his floppy ears like a pair of dangling earrings.

“What in the world?” I grabbed him by the collar and reached down to try to figure out whatever it was. I extracted a very sticky, very hairy half …

… of the giant candy cane that Allie had brought.

“Ace!!” I scolded.

“WHAT’D I DO?”

“Nothing, Grandpa,” I told him, putting a hand on his shoulder. “You’re fine. You’re perfect.”

And I meant it. Both Aces in my life were completely, ridiculously, perfectly themselves. Perfectly
Ace
. And, for once, that felt okay. Maybe not a total gimel, but definitely a hay.

Ace beamed and winked at me.

Two seconds later, he was all business.

“ALL RIGHT, WHO’S IN? ANTE UP.”

First of all, if you want to get a dog (or even a cat or a guinea pig!), you should go to your local animal shelter, animal welfare league, or animal rescue group. There are lots of pets that need homes, and in my opinion mixed-breed dogs are the
best
dogs. They are super-smart and extra-cute and have their own personalities. Also, if you adopt a dog that is over a year old, it probably won’t pee inside your house as much as a puppy, which is a very good thing as far as parents are concerned!

What you need to do next is take a dog-training class. Many of them let kids ten and up train their dogs as long as a grown-up will come to class with them. To find a class near you, contact your local animal shelter or animal welfare league or ask your veterinarian. Some animal shelters also have special camps (like Camp Paw Paw at the Humane Society of Chittenden County, in South Burlington, Vermont) for kids who are interested in learning more about animal care, training, and welfare.

The bottom line is this: If you put in the time to train,
and are positive and consistent, your puppy will learn to behave better, sooner or later. If you don’t train your puppy, it is harder for your puppy, and you, and your parents—and harder on pretty much everything in your house, like shoes, books, and rugs. Trust me, I know! Ultimately, your success depends on two things: your puppy and
you
.