The War with Grandpa (12 page)

“There's only so many rooms,” I said.

“Right.”

“I mean, you couldn't exactly live in the kitchen. Or in the dining room.”

“Bunking in the living room is out,” Grandpa said with a grin.

“Right. And the top floor is out because of your leg. Two flights up is too much.”

“And the porch would be cold in winter,” Grandpa said.

“That's silly,” I said.

“Of course,” he said. “Besides, the paper boy and the milkman would keep waking me up every morning.”

“Grandpa, be serious,” I laughed.

He ran a hand from the top of his face to the bottom and wiped off his smile. “Okay, serious. What's left in this old house?”

“The basement,” I said. “But Dad's office is down there.”

“Say, that's right,” Grandpa said. “I'd kind of forgotten that. He fixed the basement up himself, didn't he? After Grandma and me had moved to Florida.”

“It's kind of dingy,” I said.

“Let's take a look.”

I opened the door to the basement, which was in the hall right off the kitchen, and Grandpa followed me down the stairs. I put on the lights.“It's dark down here,” I told Grandpa, “because only one of the three ceiling lights works.”

Grandpa looked around the big room, peeking into the tiny bathroom.

“Not too promising, is it?” he said.

“Dad's not a good fixer-upper,” I said.

“That's why he's an accountant,” Grandpa said. He took the stepladder Dad kept against the wall and set it up, then climbed up and poked
away a ceiling panel to peek through the hole.“These light fixtures weren't wired too good,” he said. “But the cable is fine.”

He climbed carefully down the ladder.“Do me a favor, Pete,” he said. “Run on out to the garage and get me my big tape measure from out of my toolbox, would you, please? I see I got scrap paper and pencil right there on your dad's desk.”

When I brought the tape measure back to him, Grandpa was talking to himself. “Heating ducts and plumbing are okay, and electricity can be pulled through. It's a start anyway.”

Grandpa took the tape measure and began measuring the floor. I held the end down for him while he did the unrolling. All the time he was writing measurements on his scrap paper. Then he sat down at Dad's desk and made a sketch of the room. When he was finished he turned the paper around so I could see it.

“I'm thinking about my own little apartment down here, Pete,” he said. “I think it could be real cozy.”

“It's kind of dark, isn't it?” I said.

“Well, I'd fix those lights and put in a couple of lamps.”

“Some of these floor tiles are loose, Grandpa.”

“I'd have some carpet put down. It'll warm up the place too.”

“The walls are yucky,” I said.

“Paneling them will help. Make the place neat too. And I could enlarge that little bathroom, put in a stall shower. There's a gas line over in the corner, you know. I figure I could put in a little stove and maybe hang a cabinet there. So sometimes I could cook some things on my own, or make a cup of coffee down here.”

“Sounds like a lot of work,” I said.

“And that door leads out to the driveway, so I'd even have my own private entrance.”

“I don't know, Grandpa,” I said, “it's a lot of work. ”

“Hey, Petey.” He grinned. “I used to build whole
houses
, remember? Why, one little apartment ought to be a snap. You'll help me some, won't you?”

“You bet.”

“Then it'll take no time at all. And maybe a little privacy for me and a lot more privacy for the rest of you is not a bad idea. Now all we have to do is convince your dad. It's his house, after all.”

I had a very bad thought. “What if he says no, Grandpa?”

“I don't think he will, Pete.”

“But what if he does? Will we have to go to war with my dad?”

Grandpa threw his head back and laughed. “That would be fun, wouldn't it? But no, Petey, no more wars. From now on this family will talk everything out in the open. Peacefully, I hope.”

It didn't take very long to convince Dad about turning his basement office into Grandpa's new apartment. On the other hand, it wasn't as easy as I thought either.

I know that Dad and Grandpa and Mom talked about it a lot, mostly when I wasn't around. But I managed to listen in a few times from my secret spot under the stairs. Dad was worried about how much it was going to cost. Grandpa told him that he had money saved “and if I can't spend it on my daughter's house, making a place to live the rest of my life, where can I spend it?”

Dad seemed a lot more willing after that.

But he was worried about losing his office.“You'll have your office upstairs in the guest room,” Grandpa explained.“Two flights up mean nothing to you,” Grandpa said, “but only one flight down means a lot to me.”

Dad surrendered after that, and the work began. Grandpa got these men who used to work for him in the old days to help. They mostly worked in the evenings. Moonlighting, Grandpa called it, though they kept the lights on all the time.

And I helped a lot. Grandpa showed me how to bang in a nail, how to pull a wire through a wall, and how to watch out for electricity when you are putting up lights.“What you don't want,” he told me, “is a shocking experience.”

It took a little more than six weeks to finish Grandpa's basement apartment. But when it was done it looked beautiful. He had a nice brown rug on the floor, a stove to make coffee and things, a new easy chair to just sit and relax in. Mom and Dad bought Grandpa a color TV of his own so he could watch his programs downstairs when we wanted to watch something else in the living room. And Grandpa's new little bathroom was so neat. One day he even let me use his brand-new shower stall. It was great.

But the best day was when Grandpa and his friends finished moving all his furniture into the basement apartment. Because when they got everything in place, they went up to the top floor and moved all my things back into my old room.

I helped them put all my stuff back in all the right places. I wanted my room to be exactly the way it was, not one thing different. I lined up the shoeboxes holding my baseball cards in the same spot they used to be. And I rehung my Hank Aaron poster right over the middle of my dresser.

When everything was in place and Grandpa and his friends left, I lay down on my bed and thought for a while. I have to tell you I had a smile on my face I just couldn't take off. I was back where I belonged, in my room where I'd always lived. It was like I had put on my favorite pair of flannel pajamas that first cold night in the fall. My room was comfortable and it fit me. I belonged to it and it to me again.

And then I started to think about some other things too. How you shouldn't always do what your friends tell you to do. They're not living your life, you are. And you have to decide what's right or wrong.

While I was lying there, feeling the best I'd felt in a long while, I heard a loud banging noise on the outside of my door. I got up to look, when Grandpa swung the door open. He had a hammer in his hand and one more nail to put in.“It's a little present I made for you,” he said.

He was hanging a wooden sign on my door that had letters kind of burned into the wood.
PETE'S PLACE
the sign said.

I grabbed Grandpa and gave him a hug.“It's terrific,” I said. “Thanks.”

He gave me his best smile.“You didn't lose your room, Pete,” he said, “and you've gained a grandpa.”

This last chapter is only for you, Mrs. Klein.

I want to thank you for all the encouragement you gave me when I wanted to quit so many times. And for giving me so much extra time to finish—like the whole term.

I think maybe when I grow up I might be a writer.

I got used to slipping upstairs into my dad's office to type a chapter every night after dinner. Some of the longer chapters took a week, and one of them took even longer. Mostly it was fun, but some of it was hard work. I felt so dumb, sitting there, when the words wouldn't come. But if you wait long enough and think hard enough, and your little sister keeps out of your hair, then you can do it.

I learned that starting is the hardest part. And it gets easier as you go along. But the ending is making me a little sad. I'm thinking, What will
I do tomorrow night instead of coming up here to work on my story?

Maybe I'll have to start thinking about another story.

Anyway, this is the true and real story of Peter Stokes and the war with his grandpa. I hope you like it.

And I sure hope you don't take too much off for bad spelling and grammar.