The War with Grandpa

This is the true and real story of what happened when Grandpa came to live with us and took my room and how I went to war with him and him with me and what happened after that.

I am typing it out on paper without lines on my dad's typewriter because Mrs. Klein, she's my 5th grade English teacher, said that we should write a story about something important that happened to us and to tell it“true and real” and put in words that people said if we can remember and to put quote marks around them and everything.

She also said to keep the sentences short. Looking back on how I began, I can see I'm doing terrible already. The first two sentences took up almost ½ the page.

My little sister, Jennifer, just came in and asked me what I'm doing and I told her. She
told me to put Pac-Man in my story and maybe Wonder Woman she watches reruns of every afternoon on Channel 6. “No,” I said.

“Why not?”

“Because it is a story about Grandpa and me, silly. Not some made-up thing like on TV.”

“Could it have a horse in it?” she asked.

Jennifer loves horses a lot. She cuts pictures of them out of magazines and tacks them up on the wall in her room. “No horses.”

“A magic fairy?”

“No!”

“I bet it's going to be a stupid story,” she said.

Jennifer was wearing a Pac-Man cap, her Superman T-shirt, a jeans belt that said
JEANS
on it, and sneakers that said
LEFT
and
RIGHT
on the toes. She looked like a walking billboard.

“It is going to be a great story,” I said.

“How does it begin?”

“I don't know. That's what I was trying to remember when you came marching in.”

“I think it should begin with me,” Jenny said, “because I found out Grandpa was coming to live here before you even knew about it.”

“Good idea,” I said.

“And put in the story that I am very beautiful with long blond hair and lovely blue eyes.”

“I just did”

“Now you'll have a good story” she said.

I like to read stories that have lots of chapters that are short. Because it makes the book go faster and you always can find your place. So you can bet my story is going to have a bunch of teeny-tiny chapters.

It really began when Jennifer came into my room with that look on her face that usually means she knows something that I don't. That's one thing Jennifer likes best in life—a secret. Not that she is so good at keeping secrets. She is no good at all in that department. In fact, I can usually get her to tell me anything I want because I'm her big brother and she's only a little kid.

“I know something you don't,” Jennifer said. She headed across my room to the broken rocking chair.

“Don't sit on my rocker,” I replied.

She looked at me and made one of her faces
where her eyes roll back in her head and she pouts. “Why not?”

“Because you will make the arm pop out of the back like you always do because you rock too hard.”

“I will not,” she said, which was a lie. She always breaks my rocker.

The rocker used to be in the living room until it broke. My mom was going to throw it in the trash, but I rescued it and brought it up to my room. One of these days my dad says he will glue the arm really solid so it won't pop out all the time.

Jennifer was standing right near my rocker.“Don't even touch it!” I said before she could.

“Don't you want to know what I know?” Jennifer asked me.

“I already know everything you know and a whole lot more,” I said. I picked up the book on my bed like I didn't want to talk anymore and pretended to begin reading.

“It's about Grandpa.”

I kept on reading.

“Grandpa Jack.”