The Manny Files book1 (20 page)

Then Mom said, “However, the manny is a wonderful addition to our family, and as much as you may disagree, you need to accept that he will be with us for a long time.”

Mom’s speech made me shake my legs with excitement like I was next in line for the Ferris wheel. India leaned back in her chair and smiled. Belly was asleep. She was using Housman as a pillow.

Lulu slammed her binder shut and said, “This isn’t over. I’ll keep recording the manny’s misdeeds. Maybe the school counselor will see how serious this is.”

Lulu grumbled and went to her room.

I jumped on Mom’s and Dad’s laps and gave them hugs. Dad covered his lap, like he always does when we jump around him. I jumped on his lap once and it really hurt him. He leaned over and had trouble breathing. I thought I had
hit one of his lungs. I found out later what I’d really hit.

I raced down the hall and called the manny. I didn’t bother whispering.

The third week of school Lulu has her first school dance ever. The eighth graders always celebrate the beginning of the school year with a boy-girl dance. I imagined them doing the hand jive, like in
Grease,
but India told me that the boys just mostly stand against one side of the cafeteria while the girls stand against the other side.

It sounded boring to me.

The manny said that when he was in the eighth grade, they weren’t allowed to have a dance because the town preacher didn’t allow it. He said that nobody in the whole town was allowed to express themselves through choreography or dance freely until he fought it and they finally got to have a great big formal dance.

India said, “That wasn’t you. That was Kevin Bacon in
Footloose.
”

“Oh, yeah,” said the manny. “I forgot.”

Lulu wants Fletcher to dance with her at the dance. She has been using Amanda’s methods of getting a boy’s attention. The first method was to cry around Fletcher. Lulu couldn’t make herself cry. In fact, I don’t know if she
can
cry. Instead she rubbed her eyes until they were red and then blew her nose like she’d been crying.

Fletcher said to her, “Don’t get too close to me, I don’t want to catch that cold.”

Next she wrote him a love note. When she passed it across the classroom, it stopped on Jeremy’s desk. He thought it was for him and opened it up and read it. After school Jeremy told Lulu that he was flattered but thought it was better that they just stayed friends.

As a last resort she wrote
LULU WILLIAMS
on the front of her notebook. Williams is Fletcher’s last name. When he saw it, he called her a stalker and said that he was going to get a restraining order. I don’t know what a restraining order is, but on the soap operas it’s what they give someone who has crazy eyes, the same eyes Mom has when she chases us around the house.

The day that Fletcher told Lulu he was going to get a restraining order, she cried on the bus ride home. She
can
cry. She looked out the window so she wouldn’t see the other kids staring at her. India told the other kids that Lulu was sad because her pet bird, Dorothy, had been
eaten by a cat. Lulu doesn’t even have a pet bird named Dorothy.

I’ve noticed that India sticks up for Lulu a lot.

When the bus stopped at our stop, the manny was doing one-armed push-ups on the sidewalk. The bus driver laughed and adjusted her pink neckerchief.

“Bye, darlin’,” she said to Lulu. “I’m sorry about your bird.”

We climbed off the bus. I gave the manny a high five.

Lulu walked way in front of us.

The manny could tell that something was wrong, so he didn’t tease her.

“What’s the matter with Lulu?” the manny asked India.

India told him the whole story. About Amanda’s advice. About the school dance. About the restraining order.

When we got home, the manny walked upstairs to Lulu’s room to see if he could help make her feel better. India and I put drinking glasses up against her door and listened. I used a martini glass. It didn’t work very well, but I liked the shape.

“India told me what happened today. Do you want to talk about it?” the manny asked.

“Not to
you,
” said Lulu. “You wouldn’t understand
what it’s like to like a boy who doesn’t like you back.” She was still mad because family court hadn’t gone her way.

“Maybe I can imagine,” said the manny.

There was a long silence. Lulu probably wanted the manny to leave.

But he didn’t.

Instead he said, “You know at the beginning of
Grease
when Sandy has a broken heart and doesn’t understand why Danny is being such a jerk?”

“Yeah,” Lulu said with a what’s-your-point tone in her voice.

“Danny is being a jerk because he’s afraid that his friends will think he’s not cool if he’s nice to Sandy. Then at the end when Sandy dresses in the tight black clothes and makes her hair wild, Danny notices her.”

Lulu said, “I’m not wearing a strapless shirt and tight black Lycra pants to the dance.”

“That’s not what I mean,” said the manny. “I think you should make Fletcher
want
your attention instead of trying so desperately to get his. It’s called being unattainable. If you stop giving Fletcher attention, he’ll miss it. The next thing you know, you’ll be singing, ‘We go together, like rama, lama, lama, kadingy, kading-a-dong’”

India and I giggled behind the closed door, and the manny and Lulu stopped talking.

We sat really still until Lulu finally said, “That makes sense, except for the part about the song. How do you know so much about boys?”

“It takes a lot of pain and learning to become this wise, Grasshopper,” the manny said, pretending to be the master in
Kung Fu.

It got quiet. I think Lulu gave the manny a hug. Either that or she smothered him with a pillow.

The door opened, and the manny and Lulu, who was holding his hand, looked down at India and me sitting on the floor.

“We were just having martinis,” I said, holding up my glass.

Lulu pretended to be mad, but she still laughed.

She took the manny’s advice and ignored Fletcher for the rest of the week.

The night of the dance India let Lulu borrow one of her Mexican blouses. Lulu wore her new miniskirt, and Mom curled her hair and even let her wear lipstick. Lulu pouted her lips out, even though the lipstick was clear gloss. It just looked like she had on Chap Stick.

Uncle Max and the manny came over to give
Lulu a ride to the dance on their way to dinner. I think they were celebrating something, because they were both dressed in suits. I ran to my room to get pocket squares for each of them to wear in the front pocket of their suit coat. Red for the manny. Blue for Uncle Max. I’d gotten the pocket squares at Mr. Henley’s garage sale next door. A quarter apiece.

The manny adjusted Uncle Max’s blue pocket square, then he licked his hand and patted down his cowlick.

When Lulu walked down the stairs, the manny said, “You look beautiful.”

“Tell me about it, stud,” said Lulu, pretending to be Olivia Newton-John in
Grease.

She did look pretty.

As they were all walking out the door, Uncle Max said, “Lulu, be sure to call us if you need anything. A dance partner. An Altoid. More deodorant.”

Lulu whirled around and yelled, “Whatever!”

She hates the word
deodorant.

Dad, India, and I worked on a jigsaw puzzle and waited for Lulu to return home. Mom worked on giving Belly a bath.

Lulu’s friend Margo and her mom brought Lulu home from the dance. Uncle Max and the manny had come back from their dinner and
were at our house waiting to hear how the dance went. They were playing Scrabble.

Lulu told them that she had had a great time and that she had mostly danced with all of her girlfriends. I asked her how they danced, and she said, “Like this,” and started jumping straight up and down.

She told India that Fletcher had asked her if she was mad at him, because she didn’t talk to him anymore. She had said she didn’t know what he was talking about, and they had danced to a slow song. India made Lulu pretend that she was Fletcher and show her how they had danced. Lulu put her hands on India’s hips, and India had her hands on Lulu’s shoulders. They didn’t move their feet, only their shoulders. Back and forth. Back and forth.

I thought,
Maybe Lulu should’ve taken dance lessons all of these years instead of piano lessons.

The manny said, “Time for all children to go to bed.”

Lulu, India, and I walked toward our bedrooms. Belly had already been in bed for an hour and a half.

The manny said, “Where are you going, Lulu? You need to stay out here with the adults and tell us more about the dance.”

Lulu smiled at us. I could tell she was thinking,
Ha, ha.

“Totally unfair,” grumbled India as we pretended to go to bed. We really sat in the hallway and listened to Lulu’s stories about the dance.

Margo had danced with a boy named D.J. They had played a Duran Duran song. Fletcher had burped in Lulu’s ear while they were dancing.

That night Lulu officially dropped her lawsuit against the manny.

She put memorandums on our doors the next morning.

The day after Lulu’s dance I sat on the top of the monkey bars with Sarah during morning recess. I told her all of Lulu’s dance stories. Sarah played with a yellow cottonwood leaf while I talked. I was just getting ready to tell her about Fletcher burping in Lulu’s ear when a kickball hit me in the side of the head.

“Sorry” said Craig, but I don’t think it was an accident.

He ran underneath the monkey bars, and just then Sarah’s shoe flew off and hit him in the head.

“Sorry” said Sarah, but I don’t think
that
was an accident either.

Craig rubbed his head and started to say something, when Mrs. House blew her whistle, which was our signal to line up to go inside. We hopped down, and Sarah put her shoe back on and winked at me.

When we got inside, Mrs. House reminded us that it was time for the spell-off to see who would represent our classroom in the all-school spelling bee. Lulu was in the spelling bee every year that she was in the elementary school, but she always got out in the first round. She always got words like
nauseous
and
discharge.
She couldn’t spell them because she was gagging.

We all stood up at our desks, and Mrs. House went around the room giving us words to spell. If we misspelled them, we were out and we had to sit down. Craig was the first one out. He misspelled
manners.
He spelled it with one n. I bet he could have spelled
correctional facility
right.

We went around the room six times. My classmates were slowly eliminated and sat down at their desks. Sarah misspelled
psychedelic.
Elizabeth misspelled
precious.
Scotty misspelled
coupon.

After seven rounds it was down to Sarah’s friend Sage and me.

Mrs. House said, “Sage, your word is
dignity.
”

Sage started to spell. “D-i-g-n-i-d-y.
Dignity.
”

“Nope. I’m sorry, Sage. Keats, your word is
dignity.
”

I spelled, “D-i-g-n-i-t-y.
Dignity.
”

“That’s correct, Keats. If you spell this next word correctly, you will represent our classroom at the all-school spelling bee on Friday. The word is
fantastic.
”

I spelled it without even thinking. “F-a-n-t-a-s-t-i-c.
Fantastic.
”

“Correct!” exclaimed Mrs. House.

The class cheered, except for Craig. He frowned at me.

For the next week the manny picked out words from the dictionary to quiz me with.

Elegant. Chivalry. Flamboyant.

He picked the words that he liked.

When the manny was gone, Dad picked out words from the dictionary to quiz me with.

Portfolio. Dividends. Protocol.

He picked the words that he liked.

By the morning of the spelling bee, I knew how to spell everything from
adversity
to
zenith.

I dressed in my loafers, blue jeans, and blue-and-white pin-striped button-down shirt and rolled up my sleeves. I slipped my navy sweater vest over it to make me look more serious. India spiked my hair. She said that I needed to look serious and playful, that’s how the successful people look.

Donald Trump. Bill Gates. Ellen DeGeneres.