CHAPTER 4
Mom and Dad were the first ones to tell me that “if you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life.”
Maybe not, but it sure sounded like us kids would have to work—every day during our so-called summer vacation.
“The shops and booths along the boardwalk are always hiring summer help,” says Mom. “Plus, you can learn a lot holding down a job. It’ll be a good experience for all of you.”
“And,” says Dad, “you can keep half of your take-home pay.”
That sounds better.
“But,” says Mom, “all allowances will forthwith be suspended until after Labor Day.”
Okay. Maybe not so much.
Because if we want pocket change for ice cream, video games, CDs, movie tickets, popcorn, Slurpees, bubble gum, new swimsuits—all the essentials of summer life—we have to go out and earn it. Our ride on the Mom and Dad gravy train is over.
By the way, why would anybody want to haul gravy around on a train? What’s up with that? Wouldn’t the gravy slosh up and over the sides of the cargo cars?
Anyhow, the next day, it’s back to school
The second I step through the front door, Ms. Katherine O’Mara, my favorite teacher, grabs me by the elbow.
“They need you in the office. Now!”
“Am I in trouble already?” I say. “How is that possible? It’s not even eight thirty.…”
“Lauren Furtado is out sick,” says Ms. O’Mara. “Mrs. Turner needs you to do the morning announcements.”
Lauren Furtado is this girl from the debate squad who has super-duper diction and an incredible speaking voice. My guess? Lauren Furtado will be enunciating stuff on talk radio the second she graduates from college with a degree in Very Proper Public Speaking.
No way do I want to take her place.
“B-b-but…”
“No buts, Jacky,” says Ms. O’Mara. “It’s time for the understudy to go on.”
“B-b-but c-c-couldn’t y-y-you f-f-find s-s-someone else?”
That’s right. When the pressure’s on, I stutter.
Stuttering, of course, is how I got my nickname, Jacky Ha-Ha. When I was in pre-K, my tongue would trip all over itself and mangle my own last name. My old enemy Bubblebutt, a beefy kid who’s been a bully since he punched a Cabbage Patch Kid smack in the face in his baby days, heard me sputtering “Jacky Ha-Ha-Hart” during story time one afternoon and slapped the Jacky Ha-Ha label on me. It’s been stuck there like a KICK ME sign ever since.
“You’ll do fine, Jacky,” says Ms. O’Mara. “You’re every bit as talented as Lauren Furtado.”
Ms. O’Mara was a speech and theater major in college. She also appeared in the Broadway production of Annie when she was a kid. She’s helped me a lot, but the truth is whenever I have to do a cold reading (that’s whenever I have to read aloud a bunch of words I haven’t seen before or words I don’t understand), I forget everything I know about controlling my speech impediment and I skitter off the rails into Stutterville again!