Allergic to Girls, School, and Other Scary Things Read online

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Author’s Acknowledgments

  Chapter One

  Once Upon a Time

  Chapter Two

  Getting—Gulp—Ready for School

  Chapter Three

  Roast Duck in the Window

  Chapter Four

  Allergic to School

  Chapter Five

  The Trouble with the S-Word

  Chapter Six

  Minutemen vs. Redcoats

  Chapter Seven

  The Best Way to Avoid School

  Chapter Eight

  Johnny Astro

  Chapter Nine

  A Real Nightmare

  Chapter Ten

  Facing the Music

  Chapter Eleven

  The Whole Tooth

  Chapter Twelve

  Psychotherapy

  Chapter Thirteen

  Rule No. 2

  Chapter Fourteen

  The Apes of Math

  Chapter Fifteen

  The Problem With Joining a Gang

  Chapter Sixteen

  A Horrific Thing

  Chapter Seventeen

  Death by Volcano

  Alvin Ho’s Woeful Glossary

  Copyright

  This book belongs to Sam Fisher, who inspired it.

  —L.L.

  To all the little Year of the Pigs born last year, including two of my favorites: my nephew, Dylan, and, of course, my own little Leo.

  —L.P.

  AUTHOR’S ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  “How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.”—Henry David Thoreau, journal entry, 19 August 1851

  Those who have stood with me:

  Madison Chen, whose reading is always invaluable.

  Ann Kelley, who waited patiently for this book while I procrastinated.

  Vivian Low Fisher, who shared Sam with me.

  Many thanks also to:

  Guillermo Francisco Nahoe, who threw the original, errant, eponymous baseball.

  Jennifer Martin, Sam’s teacher, for letting me come to class.

  Dr. Eliza Shipon-Blum, for her insight into selective mutism.

  The Concord Public Schools, for teaching Henry David Thoreau in the second grade.

  Johnny Look, for having a really strange goldfish.

  the first thing you should know about me is that my name is Alvin Ho.

  I am afraid of many things.

  Elevators.

  Tunnels.

  Bridges.

  Airplanes.

  Thunder.

  Substitute teachers.

  Kimchi.

  Wasabi.

  The dark.

  Heights.

  Scary movies.

  Scary dreams.

  Shots.

  School.

  If there were no school, my troubles would blast away, just like that. I would dig holes all day. I would play catch with my gunggung. I would watch cooking shows. I would keep an eye on things. It would be fantastic!

  The second thing you should know about me is that even though I am afraid of many things, I am not afraid of anything that explodes. I love explosions. I was practically born with gunpowder in my blood! This is on account of I live in Concord, Massachusetts, which is hard to spell, but where there were explosions all over the place, when the American Revolutionary War started way before I was born.

  The third thing you should know about me is that I have a dog named Lucy and a brother named Calvin and a sister named Anibelly, who messes with my sticks and toys, eats my food, drinks my chocolate milk and gets in my way.

  I am not as big as Calvin, but I am bigger than Anibelly, who isn’t a baby anymore but doesn’t go to school yet. I am sort of nearly almost medium . . . when I stand on tiptoe and stretch at the same time, I am finally almost visible in my class picture!

  The fourth thing you should know about me is that I love Plastic Man, Wonder Woman, the Green Lantern, Concrete Man, Aquaman, King Henry V and all the superheroes in the world. I know them from reading with my dad every night while my mom runs on the treadmill like a hamster on a wheel. My dad is a great reader for his age, which could be fifty or one hundred, it’s hard to tell. He wears reading glasses and always puts one arm around me and his other arm around Anibelly and Calvin for support, on account of when you get to be that old, it is hard to do anything by yourself.

  The fifth thing you should know about me is that once upon a time, before I went to school, I was a superhero. I was Firecracker Man! I ran around our house, full speed ahead, screaming at the top of my lungs while beating on a garbage can lid. I was as noisy as a firecracker on Chinese New Year! My costume was great (my gunggung made it).

  But now I am Firecracker Man only on weekends and holidays. There’s just no time for it.

  Being a superhero is hard work. You have to save the world. But going to school is even harder. You have to save yourself. Most days I can hardly even make it to the school bus. And when I arrive at school, I can’t think. I can’t read. I can’t smile. I can’t sing. I can’t scream.

  I can’t even talk.

  The sixth thing you should know about me is that I have never spoken a word in school. Even when I try with all my might, I always manage to say nothing at all. My voice works at home. It works in the car. It even works on the school bus. But as soon as I get to school . . . I am as silent as a side of beef.

  “You’re like a piece of frozen sausage fallen off the truck,” my brother, Calvin, likes to say. It is true. I am something like that.

  No one really knows why I lose my voice at school, since I come from a long line of farmer-warriors who haven’t had a scaredy bone in their bodies since 714 AD. In China my ancient grandpas and grandmas and aunts and uncles fought off leopards and tigers in their gardens the way Calvin and Anibelly and I fight off mosquitoes at Walden Pond. They weren’t afraid of anything. I am afraid of everything.

  it was the last day of summer vacation and Calvin and I were in our room getting ready for the first day of school. He was going into the fourth grade and I was heading into second. Calvin was on the computer and I was sitting on my bed going over my PDK—Personal Disaster Kit.

  When you’re afraid of everything, it’s very important to carry a PDK. It’s like a PFD, a Personal Flotation Device, only heavier and with more parts. A PDK begins with the right box. It must not be too big, like a shoe box, or too small, like a Band-Aid tin. A handle on it is good, but a lock is bad on account of it will keep you out when you need to get in. I use a waterproof fly box with compartments, which is just perfect.

  You can put anything in a PDK, but mostly it should be things that are useful in a disaster, such as:

  A whistle. If I lose my voice, a whistle is very handy.

  A three-leaf clover (because I couldn’t find a four-leaf one).

  Garlic. For fending off vampires and teachers.

  Dental floss. Handy for trapping, wrapping, tying and hanging things (out of Anibelly’s reach).

  Band-Aids.

  A magnifying glass. For general curiosity, but can also be used to start a fire.

  A mirror. For sending signals, in case you can’t start a fire.

  A bandana. For preventing smoke inhalation, in case you start the above fire, but can also be used as a sling or a tourniquet.

  A scary mask. For keeping girls away.

  Escape routes.

  The problem with PDKs, as everyone knows, is that they need to be updated every year on account of you never know what you’ll need in the next grade. Now that I could read and write without
help, I was adding something I’d needed for a long time—emergency plans.

  I read them aloud to Calvin:

  And . . .

  And . . .

  When I finished reading, I was very impressed with my plans.

  But Calvin was not. “That’s stupid,” he said. Calvin is not supposed to use the s-word, it is bad.

  “You can’t say that,” I said.

  “Okay, it’s dumb,” said Calvin. “You’re supposed to look your teacher in the eye, shake her hand and smile.”

  “But that’s harder than putting on a scary mask,” I said.

  I am not too good at anything ever since I started school, but Calvin is good at everything. He knows his multiplication tables, mostly. He has fantastic ideas for science projects. Most days he can finish his homework without falling asleep. And someday he will know something about everything because he is reading the entire encyclopedia online.

  “Calvin,” I said. “You’re going to be the smartest person in the world.”

  “That’s the whole idea,” said Calvin, still reading. He needed to read pretty fast to give himself a jump-start on the fourth grade, which is when you have to speed-read to get yourself ready for middle school. He was up to the letter “D.”

  “Did you know that deer sleep only five minutes a day?” Calvin said.

  “No,” I said. “Calvin . . .”

  Calvin ignored me and continued reading.

  “The elephant is the only mammal that can’t jump,” he said.

  Calvin was right. I’ve seen an elephant fly in a movie, but I’ve never seen one jump. “I need your help to finish my PDK,” I said.

  “I’ve already helped you,” Calvin sighed. He did not look up.

  “I need more help,” I said. “I need emergency plans for making friends. None of the boys at school will play with me.”

  “That’s because you’re weird,” said Calvin.

  “I’m not weird,” I said. “I have so-so performance anxiety disorder.” It is true. I see a therapist for it.

  “That’s weird,” said Calvin. He skipped ahead to “S.”

  “You’re weird,” I said.

  “Did you know that the author William Shakespeare invented more than seventeen hundred words, including ‘assassination’ and ‘bump’?”

  I shook my head.

  “ ‘Stewardesses’ is the longest word you can type with only the left hand,” said Calvin.

  I growled.

  Calvin stopped. “Okay,” he said. “The first step in making friends is, don’t talk so much. You need to be quiet. That is the first rule of being a good friend.”

  “Oh.” I blinked. “But I can’t talk in school!” I cried. “That’s the problem!”

  Calvin glared at me. “Maybe if you didn’t use up all your words at home, you’d have some to use at school,” he said.

  I glared back.

  “Okay,” he said. “If I tell you, will you stop bothering me?”

  “Okay,” I agreed.

  “Ready?” asked Calvin. “You better write fast.”

  So I did.

  I read it twice.

  Then I read it again.

  It wasn’t perfect, but I put it into my PDK and stopped bothering Calvin.

  after a while, I just had to bother Calvin again. He had stopped reading the encyclopedia online and was now sitting on the floor and holding a permanent marker in his hand.

  “Whatcha doing?” I asked.

  “I’m writing my name on everything I own,” said Calvin. “That way, you’ll have to ask for permission before you touch my stuff.”

  “Oh.”

  He wrote “Calvin Ho” on the bottom of his sneakers. Then he wrote “C. Ho” in glistening black marker on the bottom of his baseball glove. “Calvin Ho” went inside his batting helmet. Finally, he began writing “Calvin Ho” inside his favorite books, which were also my favorite books.

  It looked like I had better get started before everything belonged to Calvin! So I grabbed another marker and wrote “Alvin Ho” on my baseball. It was not my play ball, but my special ball, kept in a clear plastic box on the shelf. Someone else had already written his name on it—Daisuke Matsuzaka, whose nickname is Dice-K. I can roll as fast as dice too, especially when I am Firecracker Man, so my name sure looked fantastic right next to his.

  “Now that ball’s good for nothing but playin’,” said Calvin.

  It was great news to me. I had always wanted to throw it.

  But even better, Calvin seemed like he was now in a talking mood. So I gave him the bad news. “Calvin’s Rules for Making Friends isn’t going to work for me,” I said. “I can’t do anything on the list on account of I can’t even say hello. Got any other ideas?”

  “Hmmm,” said Calvin, his marker in midair. “Are the other boys in your class bigger than you?”

  “Mostly,” I said, “but Pinky is bigger than everyone.”

  “Sometimes it helps if a friend is the same size as you,” said Calvin. “Then you don’t have to say anything.”

  “How come?” I asked.

  “Dunno,” said Calvin. “That’s just the way it works.”

  Then Calvin went over to the computer, typed and clicked. “Stretching Exercises for Accelerated Growth” f lashed across the screen. “See Results in Five Minutes! Amazing Results FAST!” There were all sorts of diagrams and instructions on how to grow a few inches. It was perfect! He printed a few pages, and we hurried outside to the backyard with them.

  Summer wasn’t quite over, but fall was already showing off with pretty leaves. Butter-, cinnamon-, orange- and burnt-toast-colored, the leaves looked like fireworks exploding in the golden afternoon light. And Anibelly was singing under them.

  “Lalalalalalalala,” Anibelly sang. “Lalalalalalala.”

  Anibelly was digging holes, one of our favorite things to do. Her holes were not as good as mine—they weren’t even real holes, just dimples—but she sure loved digging them.

  “Lalalalalalalala,” she sang like a little bird. The garden hose was in one hand and one of my carved sticks was in the other.

  I ran over. I nearly almost gave her a thumping, but I didn’t. I remembered just in the nick of time that I am a gentleman. My dad taught me and Calvin the rules of being gentlemen. Rule No. 1: No hitting, especially girls, unfortunately. If I remember only one rule it should be this, my dad said, and if I forget it, I will not be a man but a mushroom. Being a man would be a lot easier if Anibelly didn’t mess with my things, eat my food, drink my chocolate milk or get in my way.

  “Anibelly,” I said, breathless. “That stick’s been carved and it’s not for digging, it’s only for robbery and mayhem.”

  “Yup,” said Anibelly. She stopped. She looked at the stick. My dad had shown me how to use a knife to take off the bark so that it would be smooth. I had a rare collection of these sticks against the back fence.

  “And it’s good for digging,” Anibelly said. “Try it.”

  So I did. And so did Calvin. He digs better than anybody. He is a regular backhoe. Someday, he could become the world’s best hole digger.

  Dirt flew.

  Water gushed.

  It was great!

  When our yard had more holes than the prairie dog exhibit at the zoo, we stopped.

  “Anibelly, you’re right,” Calvin declared. “These sticks are good for digging. They’re smooth in the hand, not rough.”

  Anibelly beamed. Calvin always has a good word for her.

  “Now Alvin and I have work to do,” said Calvin.

  “Work?” Anibelly looked puzzled.

  Calvin made a stirrup with his hands and I stuck my foot into it and he pushed me up into our apple tree. I grabbed a branch and hung from it.

  “What kind of work is that?” asked Anibelly.

  “It’s a stretching exercise,” said Calvin, “to make him taller. Being bigger will help him make friends in school.”

  “Oh,” said Anibelly. She tilted lik
e a teapot to look at me. “You look like a duck hanging in a Chinatown window.”

  “C’mon, let’s help him,” said Calvin. He reached up and pulled on one foot and Anibelly copied, pulling on the other.

  “See Results in Five Minutes!” said Calvin. “Amazing Results FAST!”

  It hurt my armpits just a little, not too much. I could feel myself stretching like a rubber chicken.

  Suddenly Anibelly let go. “Let’s bake cookies with Mom!” she shrieked, and began running toward the house.

  “Great idea!” said Calvin, taking off after Anibelly.

  “Hey, wait!” I cried. “I want to bake too!”

  Anibelly looked back but didn’t stop. She was getting better at doing two things at once, like giving orders and running. “You keep stretching, Alvin,” she said as she ran. “We’ll bring you some cookies when they come piping hot out of the oven, okay? That way you’ll be half grown by the time we get back!”

  “Great idea!” I squeaked. Anibelly isn’t in school yet, but she says things that sound as though she’s already been through the sixth grade or something.

  But it wasn’t such a great idea for long. I could feel my grip slipping.

  I couldn’t hang on forever. I couldn’t even hang on much longer!

  But I couldn’t jump either. I am afraid of heights. I could break some bones if I fell. So I swung my legs up and draped my knees over the branch like on the monkey bars at school. It was a close call.

  But this was not the monkey bars.

  I was now upside down and even farther from the ground.

  And I was . . . stuck.

  “Calvin!” I yelled. “Help me down!”

  There was no answer for a long time. . . .

  Then the scent of cookies wafted from the house.

  “Hey!” I screamed. I heard milk glasses clinking, followed by the muffled voices of a TV cooking show.

  Then the sound of Anibelly singing, “Lalalalalalalalalalala.”

  “Anibelly!” I screamed. “Help!”

  “Lalalalalalalalalalalala,” sang Anibelly.