CHAPTER 10
“Absolutely no way, Zip!” Frankie said to me as we walked home from school that day. “Tell me you have not developed a wild crush on a member of the McKelty family!”
“Listen to me, Frankie, she’s not like him. There is nothing about Zoe that is anything like Nick.”
“Well, I think it’s sweet,” Ashley said. “Hank’s love is going to overcome the McKelty-Zipzer rivalry and turn Nick into a real sweetie pie.”
I stopped dead in my tracks, right there in the middle of the crowd of people shoving their way along Amsterdam Avenue.
“Just a minute, Ashweena,” I said. “Who said anything about love? All I said about Zoe was that she is beautiful, nice, interesting, kind, funny, and totally awesome.”
“Sounds like love to me,” Ashley said with a laugh.
Unfortunately, just then, Papa Pete appeared about a half a block away, waving his newspaper in the air to get our attention.
“Hey, kids,” he called out. “Wait up!”
Let me just say that the only unfortunate thing about Papa Pete’s arrival was that it didn’t give me time to answer Ashley and tell her that I was definitely not in love. Everything else about him showing up was great, for several reasons. One, Papa Pete is extremely cool and it is always fun to see him. And two, he almost always offers to buy us a slice of pizza at Harvey’s, which is the best and cheesiest pizza in the whole world.
“Let me buy you kids a slice of pizza,” Papa Pete said when he reached us. “I happen to know Harvey has a fresh pie coming out of the oven right about now.”
What’d I tell you? That Papa Pete is the best.
We walked over to Broadway, went inside Harvey’s, and sat down on four stools at the counter. I ordered a slice with pepperoni, Frankie ordered meatballs and extra cheese, and Ashley ordered mushrooms and sausage. Papa Pete ordered coffee and a crumb donut.
“So how are my grandkids?” Papa Pete asked. Even though only one of us is officially his grandkid, he likes to include Frankie and Ashley in the family, too.
“Did you hear the news?” Ashley said as Harvey brought her a paper plate with the steaming hot slice of mushroom-sausage pizza. “Hank is in love.”
“No kidding,” Papa Pete said, brushing a few donut crumbs off his furry black mustache.
“I am not!” I said.
“Who’s the lucky girl?” Harvey asked, putting my pepperoni slice down in front of me.
“She’s no one,” I answered. “There is no lucky girl.”
“She’s Nick McKelty’s cousin,” Frankie added.
“Oh, that must be Joe McKelty’s niece,” said a man with a red beard sitting next to Papa Pete. “I went to my high school prom with her mother.”
Great. Now the whole city of New York was participating in my love life. I mean my not love life.
“Joe mentioned the girl to me,” Harvey chimed in. “Tells me she plays the drums. Sounds like a spunky girl you’ve picked for yourself, Hank.”
Attention! Is there anyone else in Harvey’s who would like to comment on my relationship with Zoe McKelty?
Apparently there was. A woman wearing a knit cap with two big pom-poms hanging down by her ears spoke up.
“Valentine’s Day is coming up, honey,” she said to me. “Buy her some flowers.”
“Yeah,” said the busboy, who had a tattoo of a peacock on his arm. “Chicks love roses.”
“Forget roses,” said the lady with the pom-poms. “Go orchids.”
“I’ve had better luck with roses,” the tattoo guy said. “Stick with roses, little dude.”
This had gotten totally out of control. The whole restaurant was buzzing about something that hadn’t even happened. I had to take some action.
“Thanks for all your advice and good wishes,” I said in a voice loud enough so everyone could hear me, which, by the way, wasn’t that loud because Harvey’s only holds about twenty people. “But I’m not in love. I just met this girl-type person and she just happens to be a very nice girl-type person and that’s all there is to it.”
Good. That put an end to that.
Harvey brought over a lemonade and put it down in front of me.
“Here you go, Romeo,” he said, giving me a wink.
What was going on here? Harvey had never winked at me before. Thank goodness Papa Pete came to my rescue. He could tell that I was definitely not comfortable with all the love talk.
“So, kids, let’s change the subject,” he said. “Tell me what happened in school today.”
“School was regular,” I began quickly, “except we have Mr. Rock for a substitute for one whole month.”
“Where’s Ms. Adolf?” Papa Pete asked. “Not sick, I hope.”
“She threw her back out doing the rumba,” Ashley said.
“Funny, she doesn’t seem like the rumba type,” Papa Pete said.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “She seems more like the give-everyone-a-D type.”
“Well, you can’t judge a book by its cover,” Papa Pete said. “Inside, Ms. Adolf is obviously quite passionate and romantic.”
Frankie, Ashley, and I almost spit out our pizza in unison.
“That is so gross, Papa Pete,” I said. “That is the grossest thing you have ever said.”
“Immediate change of subject,” Frankie said. “Let’s move right on to telling you about after school. No chance of Ms. Adolf getting all passionate cropping up there.”
“Fine,” said Papa Pete, polishing off his crumb donut. “What happened after school?”
“We’re taking Tae Kwon Do,” Ashley added. “Today was mostly a lecture on its history and stuff, but next week we’re going learn some basic moves and in a couple of weeks, Principal Love said we are going to participate in some exhibition matches.”
“We are?” I said. Wow, maybe I left Tae Kwon Do too early. That was sounding like fun.
“You’re coming back, aren’t you, Zip?” Frankie said.
“Me? Coming back? Um . . . yeah. Sure I am.”
That’s weird, Hank. Didn’t you just tell Zoe that you were coming back to the Reading Gym?
“Good,” Frankie said, “because I want you to be my sparring partner. We’ll show them how it’s done.”
As I ate my slice of pizza, I wondered if it was possible to clone yourself and be in two places at once. I was going to have to look that up on the Internet the minute I got home.