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- Story Listed as: Fiction For Adults
- Theme: Fairy Tales & Fantasy
- Subject: Friends / Friendship
- Published: 06/09/2018
Miracle Toothbrushes, Part 1 of 2
Born 1947, M, from Oceanside, United StatesMiracle Toothbrushes
Chapter 1
My toothbrush is 50 years old today. It looks the same as the day I bought it. Not a bristle out of place; not a scratch on it. You’d swear it was brand new! Yet, it’s been servicing my teeth faithfully every day for the last 50 years.
I’ll never forget the day I got it. Bobby Madder and I had gone to Hassen’s Drug Store for ice cream sodas. That’s when we saw the sign that read, “Miracle Toothbrushes.”
“What’s so special about these toothbrushes?” Bobby asked the man who was selling them, though I could see right away what was special.
They looked like no toothbrushes I had ever seen. First off, they were bent slightly in the middle and had tiny ridges near the bend where the stem was shaped for a better grip. They were made of clear plastic instead of colored plastic. Their outer bristles went up and down like the tops of a picket fence, while the bristles on the inside were shorter and recessed. Then toward the front, there was another small ridge of bristles that angled up taller than the rest, almost as if they were waiting for a pair of scissors to finish snipping off their ends. Today, you see toothbrushes like this in nearly every store that sells toothpaste, but back then, brushes usually came only one way—straight!
Now, you wouldn’t think a kid could get excited over a toothbrush, but for some reason, I couldn’t help myself. Tingles of excitement began to prickle all through me as I watched the man turn this remarkable looking instrument one way then another.
“This model,” he said, “is the best brush ever created for preventing plaque.”
“Plaque?” said Bobby, frowning. He was twelve, going on thirteen. I was eleven. “I thought it was cavities that we’re supposed to prevent.”
“They’re a problem, too,” replied the man. He looked like your typical traveling salesman: plaid jacket, bow tie, straw hat and a smile as smooth as toothpaste. “But it’s plaque that causes bacteria to get under your gums,” he said, “and that’s when you develop periodontal problems.”
“How much?” Bobby asked the man suddenly.
“How much what?”
“How much you askin’ for these toothbrushes?”
The man’s expression was like the summer sun, warm and dazzling. “Because I’m interested only in the health and welfare of my fellow man,” he said, “and because your Mr. Hassen here was kind enough to allow me the use of his humble establishment for my little demonstration, I’m selling these remarkable items for just one dollar, and one dollar only.”
Suddenly, my excitement turned to mud.
“One dollar!” exclaimed Bobby. “Hey, man, that’s a lot of dough! What do you think, money grows on trees?”
A tiny smile tugged at my lips. How many times had I heard my father say that very same thing. But I had to agree with Bobby. One dollar in 1953 was a lot of money. You could buy four ice cream sodas for that amount!
“Yes,” replied the stranger, flashing his toothpaste smile. “But one dollar is all you’ll ever need to pay for a toothbrush ever again.”
“Why is that?” asked Bobby.
“Because,” replied the man, “this toothbrush is indestructible. Watch!”
He turned and reached for a hammer that I hadn’t noticed sitting on the counter. Then laying the toothbrush on the counter top, he pounded it with the hammer several times. Not really hard, but hard enough so that anything else made of plastic would have shattered into pieces. Then he held the toothbrush up again for us to see.
“Wow, that’s some toothbrush!” I said, staring in amazement. I adjusted my glasses and looked closer, but couldn’t even see a scratch. It was just as shiny as if he had never hit it!
“So, have I made a sale?” the man asked, still smiling.
“I don’t know,” I said, disappointed. “I only have fifty cents.”
The man’s expression never changed. “I’m sure if you wanted one bad enough, Mr. Hassen here, would extend you the credit.”
Mr. Hassen, a balding man with cheeks that always looked as if they were stuffed with food, stood behind the counter. He nodded, smiling.
“Okay,” I said, feeling better, but a little confused, because at eleven years old, I wasn’t sure what extending credit meant. “I’ll take one,” I said.
While I dug into my corduroys for my fifty cents, which was all I had left of my allowance, Bobby spoke up. “I guess I’ll take one, too,” he said, giving the man his dollar. The man’s demonstration had attracted other customers. They too began exchanging dollar bills for toothbrushes.
Just as we were about to leave, the salesman handed all of us pamphlets and told us to read them carefully before we started to use our toothbrushes.
“Why would we need to read this?” I asked the man, looking down at the folded set of instructions in one hand and my new toothbrush in the other. “It’s just a toothbrush. Everyone knows how to use a toothbrush.”
“Oh, but it’s more than just a toothbrush,” said the man, suddenly serious. “It’s a barometer of how you treat your fellow man.”
“It’s a barometer?” I said. “I thought it was a toothbrush.”
“It is,” replied the man in the straw hat. “But it’s also a reflection of who you are.”
I looked at him, confused. “How often do you brush your teeth?” he asked me.
“Once, sometimes twice a day.”
“Every day?” he asked.
“Well . . .” I was feeling a bit uncomfortable. “Not every day.”
“See!” he said. “That shows you are inconsistent. You don’t strive to do your best all the time.”
Now, I was really beginning to feel uncomfortable. It was like I was being scolded by my father or my teacher, Mrs. Gallagher.
“How you take care of your teeth,” explained the salesman, “reveals how you treat yourself and others.”
“What do you mean?” I asked him.
Before he could answer, Bobby tugged on my shirt sleeve and said, “Come on, let’s get out of here. This guy’s talking nuts.”
As I started to follow him out of the store, I heard the man call out, “Don’t forget to read and follow your instructions implicitly!”
Once outside, I had trouble keeping up with Bobby, who was walking fast. “Slow down!” I called to him. I almost had to run to stay even with him. Bobby topped me by at least four inches, which meant his legs were a lot longer. “Where are you going in such a hurry?”
“I want to get to my house and try something out.”
“What?” I asked him.
“You’ll see,” he replied.
Chapter 2
Four blocks and a few minutes later, we arrived at Bobby’s house. Hurrying along his driveway, we went around back and down into his cellar, where his father had his workshop. You could tell his father was a mechanic by the old car sitting on blocks in the driveway, and the cellar, which seemed to have car parts all over it, and smelled a lot like grease. After he turned on the light, Bobby went over to his father’s workbench, which was covered with all sorts of rags, car parts, and glass jars filled with nails, screws, nuts, bolts and washers.
“What are you going to do?” I asked him.
“This,” he said, picking up a hammer from the workbench and reaching for his toothbrush, which was sticking out the back pocket of his jeans. I had mine in my side pants pocket.
“You’re not going to hit it with that hammer, are you?” He nodded. “But you just paid a dollar for it!”
“So,” he replied. “I want to see if this guy was throwing us the bull or what.”
“But you’ll break it!” I complained, even though I had seen the demonstration, which proved it wouldn’t break.
Bobby turned to me. He thrust his chin close to my face. “Then he’ll have to give me back my dough, won’t he?”
I nodded, but didn’t say anything, as I watched him lay the brush on the wooden counter top and slam it with the hammer.
It sounded as if a firecracker had gone off in the cellar, that’s how loud it sounded. I started to reach for my ears, in case he hit it again, but I stopped when Bobby said, “Son-of-a-gun! That guy was right! You can’t break these things!”
“Good,” I mumbled, relieved. I would have felt stupid had the toothbrush shattered. At least now when I ask my father for the rest of the money to pay Mr. Hassen, I’ll have a good excuse.
“Come on,” said Bobby, stuffing his toothbrush back in his pocket. “Let’s go play some baseball.” It was a Saturday in April. The weather was already summer-like.
“Aren’t you going to put your toothbrush away first?” I asked him.
“Sure,” he replied. “What did you think?” I shrugged, feeling stupid. “You go home and get your glove,” he said, “and meet me in front of J.J.’s house.”
“Okay,” I said, and did just that. I put my toothbrush on my dresser, grabbed my glove then headed next door to J.J.’s house. When I got there, I found Bobby and J.J. sitting on his front steps. Bobby was showing him his toothbrush.
I sat down on the wooden step beside Bobby. “I thought you were going to put it away,” I said to him.
He shrugged. “I was,” he replied. “But then I couldn’t help myself. I just had to show it to him.”
“Where’s yours?” J.J. asked me. He was also eleven years old.
“I left mine back at my house,” I said, and was glad I had. Carrying it around while playing baseball seemed stupid. But obviously not to Bobby. He’d been showing his off like it was a new toy or something, while J.J. kept staring at the thing like it was a giant candy bar. Usually, he only looked that way at food. J.J. loved to eat, which was why he was so fat.
“And you said you paid a dollar for this?” J.J. asked. Bobby nodded. “I wonder if there are any left?” He seemed really interested.
Bobby shrugged. “Why don’t you go check it out after we finish playing ball.” Which is exactly what J.J. did. But not only him; the rest of the kids did, too.
Since I had used up all my money, I didn’t go with them. Instead, I left them at the park and headed back to my house. When I got upstairs to my room, I closed my door and lay down on my bed. Before I lay down, though, I turned on my radio. I wanted to hear this week’s episode of Superman Vs The Atomic Monsters From Outer Space. This was before we got our first television set. That purchase wasn’t going to happen for another six months. That was okay though, since I loved to read. Even later, after my dad got our new TV, I still continued to read more than I watched television.
Anyway, my show hadn’t come on yet, so I listened for a while to the big band orchestra playing on the radio. Suddenly, I remembered the pamphlet the man had given me. He had seemed so insistent that I read it before using my toothbrush. I wondered why.
Getting up, I grabbed the pamphlet off my dresser, then lay down again on my bed and began to read.
Along with the usual suggestions for better oral hygiene, and brushing after every meal, and eating the proper foods, there were other instructions along with drawings about using my toothbrush for massaging my gums to help prevent plaque.
Nowadays, you hear and see this kind of information all the time, but back in 1953, massaging your gums with a brush that had two different sets of bristles—one set long, one set short— was a new concept to me. But I read these instructions over carefully, then flipped the next panel open and got the surprise of my life.
Chapter 3
It was the title spread across the top of the panel that caught my attention first: The Care And Feeding Of Your New Toothbrush.
I swung my legs over the side of the bed and sat up. I repeated the title slowly aloud, to make sure I had read it right. The-Care-And-Feeding-Of-Your-New-Toothbrush. Yep, that’s what it said, all right! But what did it mean?
I read on.
The first paragraph suggested I mark down the time and date I received my toothbrush, and celebrate the event each year on this date with my friends and family. WHAT! I stared at the pamphlet dumbfounded. I’m supposed to have a birthday party for a toothbrush? That’s just plain weird! I pushed my glasses back up onto the bridge of my nose and read some more.
Give your new toothbrush a name. Make sure it’s one of great affection. Remember, if well-cared-for, this toothbrush will be yours for life. I stared at the pamphlet again. Now wait a minute! This was too much! But I read on.
The third paragraph said: Store your toothbrush, brush-side up, in its own cup, not in the brush holder in your bathroom; brushes stored in close proximity to each other can be easily contaminated by germs. Well, at least that instruction made sense.
After each brushing, use a soft cloth, preferably cotton, to dry off your toothbrush before returning it to its container. I never had anyone tell me to wipe off my toothbrush.
Once a week, for an hour, soak your brush, brush-side-down, in a solution of lemon juice (100% or diluted). Then, remove it, rinse thoroughly with cold, clean water, and wipe again before returning it to its container. Well, that seemed no less strange than having a party for my toothbrush, or giving it a name. But why lemon juice, I wondered? Why not milk? After all, wasn’t milk supposed to be good for building a strong, healthy body? So why lemon juice?
I would soon find out.
Never lend your brush to anyone for any reason. It’s yours and yours alone.
Never use your toothbrush for any purpose other than your own personal oral hygiene.
Once a week (more often is preferred), let your toothbrush know how good a job it’s doing and thank it. WHAT? Thank it?
AND MOST IMPORTANT: Don’t be alarmed if you notice a change in your brush’s appearance, either in color or form. It has been created to reflect the personality of its owner, and as such, will manifest certain personality traits by its appearance. If you want to return your brush to its present pristine condition, you must first change your attitude toward yourself and others. Then begin to adhere implicitly to the precepts set out by this pamphlet. Follow these simple rules and you will be rewarded, not only with a dazzling, healthy smile, but in other ways, depending upon your individual desires.
Now, what did that mean? This was too much! I felt like I had just walked into an episode of my favorite radio show, Tales From The Far East—a show full of brave explorers and swamis practicing magic and incantations on sacred objects protected by curses.
While I sat there trying to make sense out of everything I had just read, I remembered that very soon I was going to have to ask my father for the rest of the money to pay Mr. Hassen, but how was I going to explain everything about my new toothbrush? I mean, birthday parties and giving it a name! He was going to think I had gone nuts or something.
I thought about it for a long time, and after nearly an hour, I decided to tell Mom and Dad about the traveling salesman and how he hit the toothbrush with the hammer to show it wouldn’t break, and maybe some of the other things. But for sure, I’d leave out all the stuff about naming it and having birthday parties for it each year. That was just too weird for them; and besides, it might frighten them. Don’t laugh! Back then, my parents were real skittish about a lot of things they didn’t understand—which for a while, I didn’t fully understand myself.
You see, my father taught math in junior high school. So, until I was seven or eight, I thought all teachers knew something about everything. It didn’t occur to me that he might be deficient in certain areas of knowledge. As it turned out, in both my father’s and mother’s case, it was mechanical devices that left them scratching their heads and biting their lips in frustration. If anything like the car, or even a can opener starting acting peculiar, they’d call a repairman to have it fixed. No way would they try to do it themselves. Unfortunately, I’m a lot like they were.
Anyway, knowing how they were about things they didn’t understand, I figured if they thought my new toothbrush was dangerous in any way, they’d probably make me throw it out, or give it back—like the time Mom made me give back the slingshot Bobby had given me.
He had been given two of them by his uncle who owned the candy store in town. He gave one of them to me. As soon as my mother saw it, not only did she blow a fuse, she acted like I was holding a live mouse or something.
She stood with her back pressed against the ice box, and with her eyes focused on the slingshot like it was going to bite her. “Charles David Gammon,” she exclaimed, “you give that thing right back this minute!”
“Aw, Mom!”
She held up her hand. “I don’t want to hear it! Those things are dangerous! You’ll shoot someone’s eye out!”
“No, I won’t!” I protested. “We’re only going to shoot at empty soda bottles.”
“That’s even worse!” she exclaimed “All that glass flying around!” She shook her finger at me. “You tell Bobby’s mother I don’t want you playing with a slingshot. And tell her I don’t think Bobby should be playing with one either!”
Again I moaned. “Aw, Mom!”
I could already hear Bobby laughing at me. “Your mother made you give it back! Your mother made you give it back!”
But as it turned out, she was correct . . . almost. A month after I returned the slingshot to Bobby, he had to be taken to the hospital with a gash above his right eye. A rock he had shot at a bird ricocheted off two trees and hit him square in the face.
When she heard about Bobby, my mother said only one thing: “See, I told you.” My father nodded in silent agreement.
As for me, I walked away and didn’t say anything. I mean, what could I say? My parents had been right. The slingshot had been dangerous. But I couldn’t see them thinking the same thing about my new toothbrush, just because it came with a bunch of strange rules; unless, of course, all the kids who bought brushes that day at Hassen’s Drug Store went around telling their parents everything that was in their pamphlets. In that case, we might all get in trouble.
Chapter 4
That night, during a supper of homemade chicken soup, I asked my father for the fifty cents to pay Mr. Hassen.
“Why would you need fifty cents?” he asked me. “What did you do, break something?”
“No,” I said to him. Then I explained about how Bobby and I had gone to the drug store and saw the man selling the toothbrushes, and how, after watching his demonstration with the hammer, decided to buy one. “It cost a dollar,” I said.
“A dollar!” my father exclaimed, a bit surprised. “Why would you spend a dollar on a toothbrush?”
“That’s a lot of money for you to spend, son,” my mother piped in.
I knew they were going to make me feel as if I had done something wrong. “I wouldn’t have spent the money,” I said, “except when I saw the man hit the brush with the hammer and saw that it didn’t break, I knew it was a good brush.”
My father’s mouth twisted into a thoughtful frown. “May I see it?” he asked.
Scraping back my chair, I hurried upstairs to my room. When I returned to the kitchen with the toothbrush, I noticed my father had finished his chicken soup. I handed him the brush then sat back down in my chair.
He examined it closely, as I squirmed in my seat trying to get comfortable. I felt as if I had been called to the principal’s office. Any minute I expected to get yelled at.
Instead, my father said, “I’ve never seen a brush like this before.”
Smiling, I replied, “The man at the store said it was specially made to get rid of plaque.”
“What’s plaque?” mom asked.
Ignoring her question, I said, “It even comes with special instructions.”
“What kind of instructions?” my father asked.
I shrugged. “Oh, just some things about how to take care of it so it doesn’t wear out.”
I was hoping he wouldn’t press me any further. He didn’t. So I waited while he continued to examine the toothbrush. The seconds ticked by. Finally, he said, “I’ll give you the fifty cents, but I want some extra help around here.” I nodded in silent agreement, as I took back the brush from him. Then I continued to finish my bowl of home-made chicken soup.
That night, I used my brush for the first time. It felt great, especially when I used it to massage my gums. Afterwards, my mouth felt weird . . . sort of extra clean! But then I did something that felt really strange. I said, “Thank you!” to my toothbrush.
Now, all I needed was to find a name for it. That’s what I spent all morning in church thinking about. I know, I know, I should have been paying attention, but I couldn’t help it. I was a kid with a new toy. What did you expect from an eleven-year- old?
Anyway, by the time services were over, I had come up with what I thought was a great name—Silver. It was the name of The Lone Ranger’s horse. Unfortunately, I didn’t have anyone to tell. After church, we went straight home where we ate lunch, then Mom, Dad, and I went to visit Grandma Giorenzi at the home where she was living. Today, we call them nursing homes. Back then, it was just, “The Home.” Once a 30-room mansion, it was being used to take care of old people too sick to stay on their own.
I hated visiting my grandmother, not because I didn’t like her; I did—very much! She was my grandmother. I even missed her, even though we saw her practically every weekend. It was the place. It gave me the willies seeing all those sick, old people with their wrinkly-looking skin and frail, smelly bodies.
My grandmother had been there a year, ever since she had her stroke. Mom and Dad said it wasn’t a bad stroke, but it left her weak on one side of her body. Her biggest problem was the occasional fainting spells she experienced, which was why my parents felt it was too dangerous for her to continue to live on her own. So they put her in the home and we moved into the house she and my grandfather had lived in.
My grandfather was dead. He had died two years earlier from a heart attack. At the time, I thought that’s what caused my grandmother to have her stroke. She missed him so much. So did I. My grandfather Giorenzi had showed me how to build boats inside of bottles. That was neat! But that wasn’t the only thing he could build. You see, my grandfather had been a contractor. He built houses for a living. But he also knew how to build a lot of other things, too, like furniture and stuff you could hang on the walls. He built the house we lived in. My room had been my mother’s when she was young. My other grandparents lived in Florida.
The only nice part about my grandmother Giorenzi being in the home was that it was so close. We could walk to it from our house in less than 45 minutes, or take our car. This day, we drove over in the car. My mother was taking my grandmother a huge bowl of her homemade chicken soup.
As we walked through the cathedral-like front entrance of this stone and glass mausoleum, I could see my grandmother sitting on a couch-like chair next to one of the windows. On her lap lay an open book, but she didn’t seem to be interested in it. Instead, she was staring forlornly at a patch of sunlight that painted the edge of the huge Persian rug near her feet.
As we got close, I smiled and called, “Hi, grandma!”
This made her look up. Then she did something I’ll never forget. Instead of smiling and returning my greeting, she looked at me, tilting her head first to the left then over to the right. Her brow knitted into a frown, as she asked, “Did you do something to your teeth?”
I think I may have gasped. I’m not sure. Instead, I said to her, “No, why?”
“Your smile,” she replied almost wistfully. “It looks so white!”
I didn’t know what to say. I knew what she was talking about had something to do with my new toothbrush, but how could that be? I only started using it the night before.
While Mom and Dad talked to Grandma, I wondered if any of my friends had noticed a difference yet. I couldn’t wait to ask them. Unfortunately, that wasn’t going to happen until the next morning. Both J.J. and Bobby were out with their parents, and after we left the home, Dad made me help him rake leaves, and then I had homework to finish. I suppose I could have used the phone to call one of the other kids, say, for instance, Ernie Wai. Ernie was one of the kids playing baseball with us when Bobby showed off his toothbrush, except, I would have had to use the phone in the kitchen. I didn’t want my parents listening in on my conversation—or Ernie’s parents, for that matter.
So it wasn’t until the next morning when J.J. met me outside my house and we started walking to school together that I was able to find out anything.
Chapter 5
“Hey, Chucky!” J.J. said, his fat face beaming with a jack-o-lantern-like smile. “How’s it going?”
“Great!” I replied, but I couldn’t help wince. He knew I didn’t like being called Chucky. I preferred Chuck. Chucky sounded too babyish. But then, that was J.J.—always teasing.
As we started walking, our books clutched close to our sides, the damp morning air sending chills down my neck, I asked, “So how’s your new toothbrush working out?”
“Oh, man, can you believe those instructions!” he exclaimed. I nodded, but didn’t say anything, as cars with mostly fathers traveling to their jobs zipped passed us. “Do they really expect us to have a birthday party for a toothbrush?” he asked.
I shrugged. “I guess so.” The sun was barely showing through the morning mist. I said, “That reminds me, have you noticed anything different about your teeth yet?”
“No, why?” he replied.
“Well, yesterday when we were visiting my grandmother at the home, she said she thought my teeth looked whiter.”
J.J. pointed his index finger toward his temple and made little circles in the air. “I don’t think your grandmother is all there,” he said.
I punched him lightly on the arm.“She is too!” I exclaimed.
He held up his free hand. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry.”
“That’s all right,” I said more calmly. “Sometimes I think the same thing.”
As we rounded the corner and started down the street where Ernie Wai lived, J.J. asked, “So what did you name your brush?”
Suddenly, I felt uncomfortable. I hesitated before answering him. “I haven’t thought of a name yet,” I said.
I don’t know why I didn’t tell him I was going to name my brush Silver. For some reason, at that moment, it just didn’t feel right. Instead, I said, “I still have several names I’m trying to decide on.”
“Well, guess what I chose?” he asked.
I pretended to think a moment, then shook my head. “What?”
“Baby Ruth!”
I smiled. “That figures.”
“It’s neat, isn’t it?” He was obviously pleased with himself. I nodded. “I wonder what Ernie named his?” he remarked.
We were approaching Ernie Wai’s house. He was a year younger than us in age and grade. He was in fifth grade. J.J. and I were in sixth. In the fall, both J.J. and I would be joining Bobby in junior high school. Luckily, my father taught in a different school, so I didn’t have to worry about having him for a teacher.
Ernie was standing in his front yard, waiting as we approached. Without even saying hi, he stepped through the chain-link gate that opened in the fence bordering his yard and started walking beside us.
Ernie was like that—hardly said much unless you talked to him directly. I guess it was because of how he was brought up. You see, Ernie was both Chinese and Japanese. Until I met him, I didn’t even know a person could be both. I liked him, even if the Japanese were the enemy during World War II.
Actually, Ernie was American. Both his parents had been born right here in the U.S. But I learned in school that when the war started, a lot of people became afraid of anyone Japanese. So many people, like Ernie’s parents, were sent to live in these places called internment camps until the war was over. That’s where Ernie had been born. Now, his parents and he lived in a house like we did. His father was an engineer and his grandfather lived with him. His grandfather was Chinese.
“So Ernie,” I said. “Did you buy one of the toothbrushes?” I know that was a stupid question. J.J. had already said Ernie had, but it was my way of breaking the ice, so to speak. Ernie nodded. “And what are you going to call yours?” I asked him.
Ernie seemed to hesitate as if he didn’t want to say. Finally he replied, “Watashi No Tomodachi.”
“What the heck does that mean?” asked J.J.
Ernie replied calmly, “It’s Japanese. It means ‘My Friend.’”
J.J. looked at Ernie incredulously. “You’re going to call your toothbrush ‘My Friend?’” He burst out laughing. “You’ve got to be kidding!”
Ernie turned his almond-shaped brown eyes toward me. I could see the silent question he was asking—isn’t that okay?
I felt as if I should stick up for him, so I said to J.J., “Why not my friend’? It seems no dumber than the fact that we’re giving them names, in the first place.”
That seemed to shut him up. J.J. shrugged. “I guess you’re right.”
Sure, I was right. Besides, what Ernie had said started me thinking about my own brush’s name.
While I was thinking, we had gone another block. That’s when I turned to Ernie and asked, “Did you tell your parents about what the instructions had to say?”
“I told my grandfather,” he replied.
I nodded thinking, yeah, that made sense. If any grownup would understand, it would be Ernie’s grandfather. He understood many things other people didn’t.
“And what about you?” I said to J.J. “Did you tell your parents?” I was sure I knew what his answer was going to be.
“Are you kidding?” he replied, which is exactly what I expected him to say. “They don’t like me reading comic books; they think they’re weird. Can you imagine what they would say if they saw our instructions?”
“So how are you going to keep them from finding out?” I asked. “They’re going to wonder why you’re calling your toothbrush Baby Ruth.”
J.J. looked uncomfortable. He shook his head. “I’m not sure, yet.”
I was trying to think of something I could tell him when it hit me. I was being a real dummy. You know why? I had totally forgotten about the adults who had bought toothbrushes from the salesman that day. Any one of them could just as easily become alarmed and tell all the rest of the adults. But as it turned out, none of the grownups seemed to mind the weird stuff our pamphlets said to do. At least, I never heard about any of them complaining. What did upset me, though, was what Bobby said to me later that day.
Chapter 6
I had left school to walk over to the library and return the books I had been reading. Normally, J.J. or Ernie might have come with me. But this day, neither one of them wanted to go to the library, so they went straight home and I continued on alone. From the library, I headed to Hassen’s Drug Store to give Mr. Hassen his fifty cents. That’s where I met Bobby. He was sitting on one of the stools at the counter, just finishing up an ice cream soda.
“So, how do like your new toothbrush?” I asked, as I slid onto the stool beside him.
He replied, “You know what my old man wanted to do the moment I showed it to him and told him about the deal with the hammer?”
I shook my head. “No, what?”
“He wanted me to give it to him so he could use it to scrub car parts.”
I gasped. “You didn’t, did you?”
Bobby shook his head. “Of course not. What do you think, I’m crazy? You think I was going to pay a dollar for that thing and then have him scrape grease with it? No way! I told him he couldn’t have it.” I breathed a sigh of relief. “But I have to keep it at the shop, anyway.”
Again, I felt my stomach tighten. “Why?” I asked.
Bobby looked annoyed. “Because when my brother saw it, he wanted it.” Bobby’s little brother was six, and a real brat.
“But how are you going to use it,” I asked, “if it’s at your father’s shop?”
Bobby had been helping out at his father’s garage after school. That’s how he got a lot of his spending money. He made a shooing motion with his hand. “Oh, I’ll use it. I’ll just bring it back to the house after my brother gets interested in something else.”
I nodded then asked as casual as possible, “Where in the shop are you keeping it?”
“Where else do you think?” he replied. “In the bathroom.”
Somehow that didn’t make me feel any better. “Where in the bathroom?” I asked.
“You know, in the brush holder by the sink.”
I wanted to shout, “NOT THERE!” Instead, I asked him, “Didn’t you read the instructions?”
He smiled and took one last sip of his soda. The straw rattled loudly. “Naw! I threw them away.”
“You shouldn’t have done that,” I told him.
“Why not?” he asked. “It’s only a toothbrush. Everyone knows how to use a toothbrush.” There was that statement again. I had said it the first time.
I wanted to tell him that if he had read the instructions, he would have discovered that this whole thing was much more than just having a toothbrush that might never wear out. There was magic involved here. Whether it was from the Far East, God, or somewhere else, I did not know.
But before I could say anything, Bobby looked at his watch and announced, “I gotta go.” He slid noisily off the seat. “My old man is expecting me. He’s probably wondering where I’ve been.” He started to head toward the door. His walk had a grownup-like swagger about it.
As I watched him leave, I felt as if I should go after him and tell him what the instructions had said to do. But Bobby was the type of person if you did something or said something that he thought was stupid or dumb, he’d make fun of you. And I was sure if he heard from me what the pamphlet had said, he’d make fun of me for a long time. So instead of telling him, I just sat there with a tight feeling growing in my stomach and throat. Something was telling me that what Bobby had done was very serious. I couldn’t explain to you why. I just had this nagging feeling that something bad was going to happen.
As it turned out, I was right. But it wasn’t going to be for some time yet.
Chapter 7
In the meantime, J.J., Ernie and I discovered what our instructions meant when they said our brushes would be reflections of our personalities. That happened the morning all three of us woke up to discover our brushes had changed colors! Just like that, in the middle of the night, mine had gone from clear to a wavy mixture of yellow, orange and brown, Ernie’s had turned a bluish green and J.J.’s had become a phlegm-like shade of white! But that was nothing. You should have seen J.J.’s toothbrush! It had gotten really fat! I’m not kidding! It was so fat, it looked like a rolling pin with bristles! None of us could believe what had happened. I mean, even though our pamphlets had warned us our brushes might change, how does a toothbrush go from skinny to fat in one night?
The only person we could think to ask was Ernie’s grandfather. Like I said, he knew about a lot of weird stuff.
The old Chinaman sat in a bamboo rocking chair on his back lawn, wearing what looked like shiny purple pajamas, black sandals and smoking a pipe. We sat on the grass by his feet. While blowing rings of white smoke into the air, he explained to us that the colors were reflections of our ch’i.
“Our what?” I asked.
“Ch’i is spiritual energy,” replied Ernie. I looked at him surprised. I had never heard him talk like this before. “It determines who and what you are as a person.”
“Is that like a soul?” J.J. wanted to know.
“More like a river inside a bottle,” replied the old man. “It’s a river that continues to flow steadily, smoothly all your life, unless it is interrupted.”
“What would cause it to be interrupted?” I asked.
“Stones,” he replied, “thrown into its waters, sending out ripples of disruption—ripples that are being reflected by your brushes.”
I frowned. “Stones? What kind of stones?” I couldn’t imagine what he was talking about.
“A stone is anything you say, do, or think that produces negative flow in your ch’i.”
“How?”
He motioned with his pipe toward J.J. “You love food, don’t you?” J.J. nodded. “Except now, you’re like a watermelon on legs.” J.J. looked down as if he was embarrassed. “Gluttony is one type of stone,” said the old man.
He turned to Ernie. “You know I am deeply fond of you?” Ernie nodded. “But the problem is, you’ve allowed yourself to be so dominated by others, you barely have any will of your own. That, too, is like throwing a stone into the waters of your ch’i.” Ernie also looked down.
Next, he faced me. “You believe you are friends with everyone, don’t you?” I did. “Yet, you have been neglecting someone very close to you, and that, too, is a stone.” I stared at him dumbfounded. How did he know about my grandmother?
“So what do we do about it?” J.J. asked.
“Stop throwing stones,” Ernie’s grandfather replied simply.
Which is exactly what we began doing that very day. I started by visiting my grandmother, and without my parents forcing me. I brought her books to read and kept her company for hours at a time. Not only did my continued visits improve her disposition, her health improved as well. In fact, she became well enough to leave the home and move into her own apartment.
As for J.J., it was hard, but he stopped eating candies and cake all the time. Instead, he began to eat more like the way they said we should in school. He talked his father into getting him a set of barbells. He even began to take these long bike rides all the way out to the lake near town and back. That was something like ten miles round trip! Not only did this make his toothbrush go back to the way it looked before, he lost a lot of weight and got all kinds of muscles.
It took Ernie longer than any of us to change, but eventually he did. He joined the boy scouts and over the next few years rose to scout leader. The rest of the kids who had bought toothbrushes that day at Mr. Hassen’s store also made pledges to change, especially after they, too, talked to Ernie’s grandfather. In fact, I even heard that one or two of the grownups went to see the old Chinaman. The only person who didn’t attempt to change was Bobby.
When I tried to explain to him what was happening, he laughed in my face, “Gammon,” he said, “you’re crazy!” We were down in his basement. He was building a go-cart by himself.
“But it’s true!” I told him. “You even said yourself, your brush has dark streaks in it.”
“That’s just leftover grease from the shop that somehow got inside the plastic.” By this time, Bobby had brought his brush home to his house.
“No, it’s not,” I insisted. “It’s your ch’i. It’s not flowing the way it’s supposed to. You need to stop throwing stones at it.”
Bobby looked at me as if I had gone totally nuts. “I what?” he asked, as he picked up a wrench from his father’s workbench and continued to work on his go-cart.
“It’s the way Ernie’s grandfather explained it to us,” I told Bobby. “Go see him. He’ll tell you.”
Bobby slammed the wrench down and stood up. He turned to face me. He gave my shoulder a hard shove, pushing me toward the door. “Go on, get out of here!” he said. He seemed mad. “I got better things to do than to listen to this junk. Besides, it’s stupid!”
“It is not!”
“Yes, it is,” he said. Then he shoved me out the door and closed it behind me. I heard the lock click.
Standing on the steps leading from his basement to his back yard, I felt as if I had just lost a friend. In a sense, I had, for after that day, Bobby stopped hanging out with J.J., Ernie and me. Instead, he started to spend more time with some older kids he met through the other teen who worked for his father.
Chapter 8
The other teen was a sixteen-year-old high school dropout who seconded as a mechanic. The reason I say seconded is because Bobby’s father’s shop also had two gas pumps, which meant he needed someone to pump gas, as well as be a mechanic. That was the other teen’s job.
Once Bobby started hanging out with him, he changed. The first thing I noticed was his swearing. It seemed as if every other word out of his mouth was a swear word. Next followed smoking, then playing pool in the local pool hall, even though Bobby was supposedly too young to be in there. Finally, I saw him drinking a beer with his friend one day behind his father’s shop. That’s why all summer long, I hung out with J.J. and Ernie, and the other kids who were still our friends, and, more or less, avoided Bobby. Not because I was scared some of his change might rub off on me; I didn’t want to get mad at him. I still liked Bobby, even though he was acting too much like a grownup gone wild. I couldn’t help wonder what this was doing to his toothbrush? I mean, if anyone was throwing stones into the waters of their ch’i, it was Bobby.
Of course, once school started in the fall, avoiding Bobby was a lot harder, especially now that all three of us, J.J., Bobby, and me, were in the same school, which meant, more often than not, we’d end up walking to school together.
It was on one of these mornings that J.J. and Bobby had the fight.
As usual, J.J. and I were walking side-by-side. Bobby was slightly ahead of us, trying to get in as many cigarettes as he could before we got to school. Consequently, he was trailing smoke like a locomotive.
“Do you have to puff so much?” J.J. asked. I could tell he was getting annoyed.
Bobby stopped and turned to face him “What’s the matter?” he asked. “You getting so healthy now, you can’t handle a little smoke?” His attitude was real smart-alecky.
J.J. replied, “No, I’m just tired of seeing you throw so many stones at your ch’i.”
Bobby sneered. “Can it with that Oriental crap, will ya? I’m tired of hearing it.”
I looked at him, surprised. When did he hear about ch’i, or any other stuff that sounded even remotely Oriental?
J.J. said to him real mean-like, “And what will you do if I don’t?”
Now it was my turn to stare at J.J. I had never seen him challenge Bobby about anything, unless he was only kidding. But from the look on his face, I could tell he wasn’t kidding.
Suddenly, like two sumo wrestlers, they charged, first throwing down their respective notebooks then stiff-arming each other to see who could shove the other the hardest. Next, Bobby, who was the taller, got J.J. into a head lock. I gasped and held my breath. What were they doing? They were wrestling on the sidewalk! If either one of them went down, he could really get hurt!
Instead of trying to wriggle out of the hold, though, I saw J.J. reach down with both arms and cup Bobby underneath his legs. Then lifting him up like a sack of potatoes, he let go. When Bobby’s feet slammed back onto the concrete, it jarred J.J.’s head loose. This gave him enough time to get into a fighter’s stance, at which point, I saw him slam two left jabs and a right cross into Bobby’s face. I heard the blows, which sounded like the thunks of an ax on wood, and watched as Bobby stumbled backward, falling halfway to the ground at the edge of the lawn that belonged to the house we were in front of. The only reason he didn’t go completely flat was because he managed to get one arm under himself in time to act as a brace.
J.J. didn’t give him a chance to recover, though. He went over to Bobby and kneeling beside him, pounded him again with several hard blows to his face. This time, Bobby did go down. His eyes rolled, he moaned and his nose was red and bleeding. All this happened in a matter of seconds. I was too stunned to do anything but watch. After Bobby went down all the way, J.J., whose expression was like a dog’s that thinks you’re going to steal its food, stopped hitting him and stood up to hover over him like a vulture waiting to see if he would get up again. Once he was satisfied Bobby wasn’t going to get up anytime soon, he turned to me and said, “Come on, let’s get out of here.”
“But shouldn’t we . . .” I started to say, as J.J. grabbed my arm and yanked me forward so hard I almost fell.
He bent to retrieve his notebook, then said, “He’ll be all right.” He added, “We have to get to school.”
So did Bobby, I thought, as I turned to see him finally roll over onto his hands and knees with his head bent and a long string of blood like snot hanging from his nose. I heard him moan again.
Ten minutes later, as we approached the school grounds, J.J. finished telling me what had gotten him so riled up.
Chapters 9-13 continued in second part....
Miracle Toothbrushes, Part 1 of 2(Tom Di Roma)
Miracle Toothbrushes
Chapter 1
My toothbrush is 50 years old today. It looks the same as the day I bought it. Not a bristle out of place; not a scratch on it. You’d swear it was brand new! Yet, it’s been servicing my teeth faithfully every day for the last 50 years.
I’ll never forget the day I got it. Bobby Madder and I had gone to Hassen’s Drug Store for ice cream sodas. That’s when we saw the sign that read, “Miracle Toothbrushes.”
“What’s so special about these toothbrushes?” Bobby asked the man who was selling them, though I could see right away what was special.
They looked like no toothbrushes I had ever seen. First off, they were bent slightly in the middle and had tiny ridges near the bend where the stem was shaped for a better grip. They were made of clear plastic instead of colored plastic. Their outer bristles went up and down like the tops of a picket fence, while the bristles on the inside were shorter and recessed. Then toward the front, there was another small ridge of bristles that angled up taller than the rest, almost as if they were waiting for a pair of scissors to finish snipping off their ends. Today, you see toothbrushes like this in nearly every store that sells toothpaste, but back then, brushes usually came only one way—straight!
Now, you wouldn’t think a kid could get excited over a toothbrush, but for some reason, I couldn’t help myself. Tingles of excitement began to prickle all through me as I watched the man turn this remarkable looking instrument one way then another.
“This model,” he said, “is the best brush ever created for preventing plaque.”
“Plaque?” said Bobby, frowning. He was twelve, going on thirteen. I was eleven. “I thought it was cavities that we’re supposed to prevent.”
“They’re a problem, too,” replied the man. He looked like your typical traveling salesman: plaid jacket, bow tie, straw hat and a smile as smooth as toothpaste. “But it’s plaque that causes bacteria to get under your gums,” he said, “and that’s when you develop periodontal problems.”
“How much?” Bobby asked the man suddenly.
“How much what?”
“How much you askin’ for these toothbrushes?”
The man’s expression was like the summer sun, warm and dazzling. “Because I’m interested only in the health and welfare of my fellow man,” he said, “and because your Mr. Hassen here was kind enough to allow me the use of his humble establishment for my little demonstration, I’m selling these remarkable items for just one dollar, and one dollar only.”
Suddenly, my excitement turned to mud.
“One dollar!” exclaimed Bobby. “Hey, man, that’s a lot of dough! What do you think, money grows on trees?”
A tiny smile tugged at my lips. How many times had I heard my father say that very same thing. But I had to agree with Bobby. One dollar in 1953 was a lot of money. You could buy four ice cream sodas for that amount!
“Yes,” replied the stranger, flashing his toothpaste smile. “But one dollar is all you’ll ever need to pay for a toothbrush ever again.”
“Why is that?” asked Bobby.
“Because,” replied the man, “this toothbrush is indestructible. Watch!”
He turned and reached for a hammer that I hadn’t noticed sitting on the counter. Then laying the toothbrush on the counter top, he pounded it with the hammer several times. Not really hard, but hard enough so that anything else made of plastic would have shattered into pieces. Then he held the toothbrush up again for us to see.
“Wow, that’s some toothbrush!” I said, staring in amazement. I adjusted my glasses and looked closer, but couldn’t even see a scratch. It was just as shiny as if he had never hit it!
“So, have I made a sale?” the man asked, still smiling.
“I don’t know,” I said, disappointed. “I only have fifty cents.”
The man’s expression never changed. “I’m sure if you wanted one bad enough, Mr. Hassen here, would extend you the credit.”
Mr. Hassen, a balding man with cheeks that always looked as if they were stuffed with food, stood behind the counter. He nodded, smiling.
“Okay,” I said, feeling better, but a little confused, because at eleven years old, I wasn’t sure what extending credit meant. “I’ll take one,” I said.
While I dug into my corduroys for my fifty cents, which was all I had left of my allowance, Bobby spoke up. “I guess I’ll take one, too,” he said, giving the man his dollar. The man’s demonstration had attracted other customers. They too began exchanging dollar bills for toothbrushes.
Just as we were about to leave, the salesman handed all of us pamphlets and told us to read them carefully before we started to use our toothbrushes.
“Why would we need to read this?” I asked the man, looking down at the folded set of instructions in one hand and my new toothbrush in the other. “It’s just a toothbrush. Everyone knows how to use a toothbrush.”
“Oh, but it’s more than just a toothbrush,” said the man, suddenly serious. “It’s a barometer of how you treat your fellow man.”
“It’s a barometer?” I said. “I thought it was a toothbrush.”
“It is,” replied the man in the straw hat. “But it’s also a reflection of who you are.”
I looked at him, confused. “How often do you brush your teeth?” he asked me.
“Once, sometimes twice a day.”
“Every day?” he asked.
“Well . . .” I was feeling a bit uncomfortable. “Not every day.”
“See!” he said. “That shows you are inconsistent. You don’t strive to do your best all the time.”
Now, I was really beginning to feel uncomfortable. It was like I was being scolded by my father or my teacher, Mrs. Gallagher.
“How you take care of your teeth,” explained the salesman, “reveals how you treat yourself and others.”
“What do you mean?” I asked him.
Before he could answer, Bobby tugged on my shirt sleeve and said, “Come on, let’s get out of here. This guy’s talking nuts.”
As I started to follow him out of the store, I heard the man call out, “Don’t forget to read and follow your instructions implicitly!”
Once outside, I had trouble keeping up with Bobby, who was walking fast. “Slow down!” I called to him. I almost had to run to stay even with him. Bobby topped me by at least four inches, which meant his legs were a lot longer. “Where are you going in such a hurry?”
“I want to get to my house and try something out.”
“What?” I asked him.
“You’ll see,” he replied.
Chapter 2
Four blocks and a few minutes later, we arrived at Bobby’s house. Hurrying along his driveway, we went around back and down into his cellar, where his father had his workshop. You could tell his father was a mechanic by the old car sitting on blocks in the driveway, and the cellar, which seemed to have car parts all over it, and smelled a lot like grease. After he turned on the light, Bobby went over to his father’s workbench, which was covered with all sorts of rags, car parts, and glass jars filled with nails, screws, nuts, bolts and washers.
“What are you going to do?” I asked him.
“This,” he said, picking up a hammer from the workbench and reaching for his toothbrush, which was sticking out the back pocket of his jeans. I had mine in my side pants pocket.
“You’re not going to hit it with that hammer, are you?” He nodded. “But you just paid a dollar for it!”
“So,” he replied. “I want to see if this guy was throwing us the bull or what.”
“But you’ll break it!” I complained, even though I had seen the demonstration, which proved it wouldn’t break.
Bobby turned to me. He thrust his chin close to my face. “Then he’ll have to give me back my dough, won’t he?”
I nodded, but didn’t say anything, as I watched him lay the brush on the wooden counter top and slam it with the hammer.
It sounded as if a firecracker had gone off in the cellar, that’s how loud it sounded. I started to reach for my ears, in case he hit it again, but I stopped when Bobby said, “Son-of-a-gun! That guy was right! You can’t break these things!”
“Good,” I mumbled, relieved. I would have felt stupid had the toothbrush shattered. At least now when I ask my father for the rest of the money to pay Mr. Hassen, I’ll have a good excuse.
“Come on,” said Bobby, stuffing his toothbrush back in his pocket. “Let’s go play some baseball.” It was a Saturday in April. The weather was already summer-like.
“Aren’t you going to put your toothbrush away first?” I asked him.
“Sure,” he replied. “What did you think?” I shrugged, feeling stupid. “You go home and get your glove,” he said, “and meet me in front of J.J.’s house.”
“Okay,” I said, and did just that. I put my toothbrush on my dresser, grabbed my glove then headed next door to J.J.’s house. When I got there, I found Bobby and J.J. sitting on his front steps. Bobby was showing him his toothbrush.
I sat down on the wooden step beside Bobby. “I thought you were going to put it away,” I said to him.
He shrugged. “I was,” he replied. “But then I couldn’t help myself. I just had to show it to him.”
“Where’s yours?” J.J. asked me. He was also eleven years old.
“I left mine back at my house,” I said, and was glad I had. Carrying it around while playing baseball seemed stupid. But obviously not to Bobby. He’d been showing his off like it was a new toy or something, while J.J. kept staring at the thing like it was a giant candy bar. Usually, he only looked that way at food. J.J. loved to eat, which was why he was so fat.
“And you said you paid a dollar for this?” J.J. asked. Bobby nodded. “I wonder if there are any left?” He seemed really interested.
Bobby shrugged. “Why don’t you go check it out after we finish playing ball.” Which is exactly what J.J. did. But not only him; the rest of the kids did, too.
Since I had used up all my money, I didn’t go with them. Instead, I left them at the park and headed back to my house. When I got upstairs to my room, I closed my door and lay down on my bed. Before I lay down, though, I turned on my radio. I wanted to hear this week’s episode of Superman Vs The Atomic Monsters From Outer Space. This was before we got our first television set. That purchase wasn’t going to happen for another six months. That was okay though, since I loved to read. Even later, after my dad got our new TV, I still continued to read more than I watched television.
Anyway, my show hadn’t come on yet, so I listened for a while to the big band orchestra playing on the radio. Suddenly, I remembered the pamphlet the man had given me. He had seemed so insistent that I read it before using my toothbrush. I wondered why.
Getting up, I grabbed the pamphlet off my dresser, then lay down again on my bed and began to read.
Along with the usual suggestions for better oral hygiene, and brushing after every meal, and eating the proper foods, there were other instructions along with drawings about using my toothbrush for massaging my gums to help prevent plaque.
Nowadays, you hear and see this kind of information all the time, but back in 1953, massaging your gums with a brush that had two different sets of bristles—one set long, one set short— was a new concept to me. But I read these instructions over carefully, then flipped the next panel open and got the surprise of my life.
Chapter 3
It was the title spread across the top of the panel that caught my attention first: The Care And Feeding Of Your New Toothbrush.
I swung my legs over the side of the bed and sat up. I repeated the title slowly aloud, to make sure I had read it right. The-Care-And-Feeding-Of-Your-New-Toothbrush. Yep, that’s what it said, all right! But what did it mean?
I read on.
The first paragraph suggested I mark down the time and date I received my toothbrush, and celebrate the event each year on this date with my friends and family. WHAT! I stared at the pamphlet dumbfounded. I’m supposed to have a birthday party for a toothbrush? That’s just plain weird! I pushed my glasses back up onto the bridge of my nose and read some more.
Give your new toothbrush a name. Make sure it’s one of great affection. Remember, if well-cared-for, this toothbrush will be yours for life. I stared at the pamphlet again. Now wait a minute! This was too much! But I read on.
The third paragraph said: Store your toothbrush, brush-side up, in its own cup, not in the brush holder in your bathroom; brushes stored in close proximity to each other can be easily contaminated by germs. Well, at least that instruction made sense.
After each brushing, use a soft cloth, preferably cotton, to dry off your toothbrush before returning it to its container. I never had anyone tell me to wipe off my toothbrush.
Once a week, for an hour, soak your brush, brush-side-down, in a solution of lemon juice (100% or diluted). Then, remove it, rinse thoroughly with cold, clean water, and wipe again before returning it to its container. Well, that seemed no less strange than having a party for my toothbrush, or giving it a name. But why lemon juice, I wondered? Why not milk? After all, wasn’t milk supposed to be good for building a strong, healthy body? So why lemon juice?
I would soon find out.
Never lend your brush to anyone for any reason. It’s yours and yours alone.
Never use your toothbrush for any purpose other than your own personal oral hygiene.
Once a week (more often is preferred), let your toothbrush know how good a job it’s doing and thank it. WHAT? Thank it?
AND MOST IMPORTANT: Don’t be alarmed if you notice a change in your brush’s appearance, either in color or form. It has been created to reflect the personality of its owner, and as such, will manifest certain personality traits by its appearance. If you want to return your brush to its present pristine condition, you must first change your attitude toward yourself and others. Then begin to adhere implicitly to the precepts set out by this pamphlet. Follow these simple rules and you will be rewarded, not only with a dazzling, healthy smile, but in other ways, depending upon your individual desires.
Now, what did that mean? This was too much! I felt like I had just walked into an episode of my favorite radio show, Tales From The Far East—a show full of brave explorers and swamis practicing magic and incantations on sacred objects protected by curses.
While I sat there trying to make sense out of everything I had just read, I remembered that very soon I was going to have to ask my father for the rest of the money to pay Mr. Hassen, but how was I going to explain everything about my new toothbrush? I mean, birthday parties and giving it a name! He was going to think I had gone nuts or something.
I thought about it for a long time, and after nearly an hour, I decided to tell Mom and Dad about the traveling salesman and how he hit the toothbrush with the hammer to show it wouldn’t break, and maybe some of the other things. But for sure, I’d leave out all the stuff about naming it and having birthday parties for it each year. That was just too weird for them; and besides, it might frighten them. Don’t laugh! Back then, my parents were real skittish about a lot of things they didn’t understand—which for a while, I didn’t fully understand myself.
You see, my father taught math in junior high school. So, until I was seven or eight, I thought all teachers knew something about everything. It didn’t occur to me that he might be deficient in certain areas of knowledge. As it turned out, in both my father’s and mother’s case, it was mechanical devices that left them scratching their heads and biting their lips in frustration. If anything like the car, or even a can opener starting acting peculiar, they’d call a repairman to have it fixed. No way would they try to do it themselves. Unfortunately, I’m a lot like they were.
Anyway, knowing how they were about things they didn’t understand, I figured if they thought my new toothbrush was dangerous in any way, they’d probably make me throw it out, or give it back—like the time Mom made me give back the slingshot Bobby had given me.
He had been given two of them by his uncle who owned the candy store in town. He gave one of them to me. As soon as my mother saw it, not only did she blow a fuse, she acted like I was holding a live mouse or something.
She stood with her back pressed against the ice box, and with her eyes focused on the slingshot like it was going to bite her. “Charles David Gammon,” she exclaimed, “you give that thing right back this minute!”
“Aw, Mom!”
She held up her hand. “I don’t want to hear it! Those things are dangerous! You’ll shoot someone’s eye out!”
“No, I won’t!” I protested. “We’re only going to shoot at empty soda bottles.”
“That’s even worse!” she exclaimed “All that glass flying around!” She shook her finger at me. “You tell Bobby’s mother I don’t want you playing with a slingshot. And tell her I don’t think Bobby should be playing with one either!”
Again I moaned. “Aw, Mom!”
I could already hear Bobby laughing at me. “Your mother made you give it back! Your mother made you give it back!”
But as it turned out, she was correct . . . almost. A month after I returned the slingshot to Bobby, he had to be taken to the hospital with a gash above his right eye. A rock he had shot at a bird ricocheted off two trees and hit him square in the face.
When she heard about Bobby, my mother said only one thing: “See, I told you.” My father nodded in silent agreement.
As for me, I walked away and didn’t say anything. I mean, what could I say? My parents had been right. The slingshot had been dangerous. But I couldn’t see them thinking the same thing about my new toothbrush, just because it came with a bunch of strange rules; unless, of course, all the kids who bought brushes that day at Hassen’s Drug Store went around telling their parents everything that was in their pamphlets. In that case, we might all get in trouble.
Chapter 4
That night, during a supper of homemade chicken soup, I asked my father for the fifty cents to pay Mr. Hassen.
“Why would you need fifty cents?” he asked me. “What did you do, break something?”
“No,” I said to him. Then I explained about how Bobby and I had gone to the drug store and saw the man selling the toothbrushes, and how, after watching his demonstration with the hammer, decided to buy one. “It cost a dollar,” I said.
“A dollar!” my father exclaimed, a bit surprised. “Why would you spend a dollar on a toothbrush?”
“That’s a lot of money for you to spend, son,” my mother piped in.
I knew they were going to make me feel as if I had done something wrong. “I wouldn’t have spent the money,” I said, “except when I saw the man hit the brush with the hammer and saw that it didn’t break, I knew it was a good brush.”
My father’s mouth twisted into a thoughtful frown. “May I see it?” he asked.
Scraping back my chair, I hurried upstairs to my room. When I returned to the kitchen with the toothbrush, I noticed my father had finished his chicken soup. I handed him the brush then sat back down in my chair.
He examined it closely, as I squirmed in my seat trying to get comfortable. I felt as if I had been called to the principal’s office. Any minute I expected to get yelled at.
Instead, my father said, “I’ve never seen a brush like this before.”
Smiling, I replied, “The man at the store said it was specially made to get rid of plaque.”
“What’s plaque?” mom asked.
Ignoring her question, I said, “It even comes with special instructions.”
“What kind of instructions?” my father asked.
I shrugged. “Oh, just some things about how to take care of it so it doesn’t wear out.”
I was hoping he wouldn’t press me any further. He didn’t. So I waited while he continued to examine the toothbrush. The seconds ticked by. Finally, he said, “I’ll give you the fifty cents, but I want some extra help around here.” I nodded in silent agreement, as I took back the brush from him. Then I continued to finish my bowl of home-made chicken soup.
That night, I used my brush for the first time. It felt great, especially when I used it to massage my gums. Afterwards, my mouth felt weird . . . sort of extra clean! But then I did something that felt really strange. I said, “Thank you!” to my toothbrush.
Now, all I needed was to find a name for it. That’s what I spent all morning in church thinking about. I know, I know, I should have been paying attention, but I couldn’t help it. I was a kid with a new toy. What did you expect from an eleven-year- old?
Anyway, by the time services were over, I had come up with what I thought was a great name—Silver. It was the name of The Lone Ranger’s horse. Unfortunately, I didn’t have anyone to tell. After church, we went straight home where we ate lunch, then Mom, Dad, and I went to visit Grandma Giorenzi at the home where she was living. Today, we call them nursing homes. Back then, it was just, “The Home.” Once a 30-room mansion, it was being used to take care of old people too sick to stay on their own.
I hated visiting my grandmother, not because I didn’t like her; I did—very much! She was my grandmother. I even missed her, even though we saw her practically every weekend. It was the place. It gave me the willies seeing all those sick, old people with their wrinkly-looking skin and frail, smelly bodies.
My grandmother had been there a year, ever since she had her stroke. Mom and Dad said it wasn’t a bad stroke, but it left her weak on one side of her body. Her biggest problem was the occasional fainting spells she experienced, which was why my parents felt it was too dangerous for her to continue to live on her own. So they put her in the home and we moved into the house she and my grandfather had lived in.
My grandfather was dead. He had died two years earlier from a heart attack. At the time, I thought that’s what caused my grandmother to have her stroke. She missed him so much. So did I. My grandfather Giorenzi had showed me how to build boats inside of bottles. That was neat! But that wasn’t the only thing he could build. You see, my grandfather had been a contractor. He built houses for a living. But he also knew how to build a lot of other things, too, like furniture and stuff you could hang on the walls. He built the house we lived in. My room had been my mother’s when she was young. My other grandparents lived in Florida.
The only nice part about my grandmother Giorenzi being in the home was that it was so close. We could walk to it from our house in less than 45 minutes, or take our car. This day, we drove over in the car. My mother was taking my grandmother a huge bowl of her homemade chicken soup.
As we walked through the cathedral-like front entrance of this stone and glass mausoleum, I could see my grandmother sitting on a couch-like chair next to one of the windows. On her lap lay an open book, but she didn’t seem to be interested in it. Instead, she was staring forlornly at a patch of sunlight that painted the edge of the huge Persian rug near her feet.
As we got close, I smiled and called, “Hi, grandma!”
This made her look up. Then she did something I’ll never forget. Instead of smiling and returning my greeting, she looked at me, tilting her head first to the left then over to the right. Her brow knitted into a frown, as she asked, “Did you do something to your teeth?”
I think I may have gasped. I’m not sure. Instead, I said to her, “No, why?”
“Your smile,” she replied almost wistfully. “It looks so white!”
I didn’t know what to say. I knew what she was talking about had something to do with my new toothbrush, but how could that be? I only started using it the night before.
While Mom and Dad talked to Grandma, I wondered if any of my friends had noticed a difference yet. I couldn’t wait to ask them. Unfortunately, that wasn’t going to happen until the next morning. Both J.J. and Bobby were out with their parents, and after we left the home, Dad made me help him rake leaves, and then I had homework to finish. I suppose I could have used the phone to call one of the other kids, say, for instance, Ernie Wai. Ernie was one of the kids playing baseball with us when Bobby showed off his toothbrush, except, I would have had to use the phone in the kitchen. I didn’t want my parents listening in on my conversation—or Ernie’s parents, for that matter.
So it wasn’t until the next morning when J.J. met me outside my house and we started walking to school together that I was able to find out anything.
Chapter 5
“Hey, Chucky!” J.J. said, his fat face beaming with a jack-o-lantern-like smile. “How’s it going?”
“Great!” I replied, but I couldn’t help wince. He knew I didn’t like being called Chucky. I preferred Chuck. Chucky sounded too babyish. But then, that was J.J.—always teasing.
As we started walking, our books clutched close to our sides, the damp morning air sending chills down my neck, I asked, “So how’s your new toothbrush working out?”
“Oh, man, can you believe those instructions!” he exclaimed. I nodded, but didn’t say anything, as cars with mostly fathers traveling to their jobs zipped passed us. “Do they really expect us to have a birthday party for a toothbrush?” he asked.
I shrugged. “I guess so.” The sun was barely showing through the morning mist. I said, “That reminds me, have you noticed anything different about your teeth yet?”
“No, why?” he replied.
“Well, yesterday when we were visiting my grandmother at the home, she said she thought my teeth looked whiter.”
J.J. pointed his index finger toward his temple and made little circles in the air. “I don’t think your grandmother is all there,” he said.
I punched him lightly on the arm.“She is too!” I exclaimed.
He held up his free hand. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry.”
“That’s all right,” I said more calmly. “Sometimes I think the same thing.”
As we rounded the corner and started down the street where Ernie Wai lived, J.J. asked, “So what did you name your brush?”
Suddenly, I felt uncomfortable. I hesitated before answering him. “I haven’t thought of a name yet,” I said.
I don’t know why I didn’t tell him I was going to name my brush Silver. For some reason, at that moment, it just didn’t feel right. Instead, I said, “I still have several names I’m trying to decide on.”
“Well, guess what I chose?” he asked.
I pretended to think a moment, then shook my head. “What?”
“Baby Ruth!”
I smiled. “That figures.”
“It’s neat, isn’t it?” He was obviously pleased with himself. I nodded. “I wonder what Ernie named his?” he remarked.
We were approaching Ernie Wai’s house. He was a year younger than us in age and grade. He was in fifth grade. J.J. and I were in sixth. In the fall, both J.J. and I would be joining Bobby in junior high school. Luckily, my father taught in a different school, so I didn’t have to worry about having him for a teacher.
Ernie was standing in his front yard, waiting as we approached. Without even saying hi, he stepped through the chain-link gate that opened in the fence bordering his yard and started walking beside us.
Ernie was like that—hardly said much unless you talked to him directly. I guess it was because of how he was brought up. You see, Ernie was both Chinese and Japanese. Until I met him, I didn’t even know a person could be both. I liked him, even if the Japanese were the enemy during World War II.
Actually, Ernie was American. Both his parents had been born right here in the U.S. But I learned in school that when the war started, a lot of people became afraid of anyone Japanese. So many people, like Ernie’s parents, were sent to live in these places called internment camps until the war was over. That’s where Ernie had been born. Now, his parents and he lived in a house like we did. His father was an engineer and his grandfather lived with him. His grandfather was Chinese.
“So Ernie,” I said. “Did you buy one of the toothbrushes?” I know that was a stupid question. J.J. had already said Ernie had, but it was my way of breaking the ice, so to speak. Ernie nodded. “And what are you going to call yours?” I asked him.
Ernie seemed to hesitate as if he didn’t want to say. Finally he replied, “Watashi No Tomodachi.”
“What the heck does that mean?” asked J.J.
Ernie replied calmly, “It’s Japanese. It means ‘My Friend.’”
J.J. looked at Ernie incredulously. “You’re going to call your toothbrush ‘My Friend?’” He burst out laughing. “You’ve got to be kidding!”
Ernie turned his almond-shaped brown eyes toward me. I could see the silent question he was asking—isn’t that okay?
I felt as if I should stick up for him, so I said to J.J., “Why not my friend’? It seems no dumber than the fact that we’re giving them names, in the first place.”
That seemed to shut him up. J.J. shrugged. “I guess you’re right.”
Sure, I was right. Besides, what Ernie had said started me thinking about my own brush’s name.
While I was thinking, we had gone another block. That’s when I turned to Ernie and asked, “Did you tell your parents about what the instructions had to say?”
“I told my grandfather,” he replied.
I nodded thinking, yeah, that made sense. If any grownup would understand, it would be Ernie’s grandfather. He understood many things other people didn’t.
“And what about you?” I said to J.J. “Did you tell your parents?” I was sure I knew what his answer was going to be.
“Are you kidding?” he replied, which is exactly what I expected him to say. “They don’t like me reading comic books; they think they’re weird. Can you imagine what they would say if they saw our instructions?”
“So how are you going to keep them from finding out?” I asked. “They’re going to wonder why you’re calling your toothbrush Baby Ruth.”
J.J. looked uncomfortable. He shook his head. “I’m not sure, yet.”
I was trying to think of something I could tell him when it hit me. I was being a real dummy. You know why? I had totally forgotten about the adults who had bought toothbrushes from the salesman that day. Any one of them could just as easily become alarmed and tell all the rest of the adults. But as it turned out, none of the grownups seemed to mind the weird stuff our pamphlets said to do. At least, I never heard about any of them complaining. What did upset me, though, was what Bobby said to me later that day.
Chapter 6
I had left school to walk over to the library and return the books I had been reading. Normally, J.J. or Ernie might have come with me. But this day, neither one of them wanted to go to the library, so they went straight home and I continued on alone. From the library, I headed to Hassen’s Drug Store to give Mr. Hassen his fifty cents. That’s where I met Bobby. He was sitting on one of the stools at the counter, just finishing up an ice cream soda.
“So, how do like your new toothbrush?” I asked, as I slid onto the stool beside him.
He replied, “You know what my old man wanted to do the moment I showed it to him and told him about the deal with the hammer?”
I shook my head. “No, what?”
“He wanted me to give it to him so he could use it to scrub car parts.”
I gasped. “You didn’t, did you?”
Bobby shook his head. “Of course not. What do you think, I’m crazy? You think I was going to pay a dollar for that thing and then have him scrape grease with it? No way! I told him he couldn’t have it.” I breathed a sigh of relief. “But I have to keep it at the shop, anyway.”
Again, I felt my stomach tighten. “Why?” I asked.
Bobby looked annoyed. “Because when my brother saw it, he wanted it.” Bobby’s little brother was six, and a real brat.
“But how are you going to use it,” I asked, “if it’s at your father’s shop?”
Bobby had been helping out at his father’s garage after school. That’s how he got a lot of his spending money. He made a shooing motion with his hand. “Oh, I’ll use it. I’ll just bring it back to the house after my brother gets interested in something else.”
I nodded then asked as casual as possible, “Where in the shop are you keeping it?”
“Where else do you think?” he replied. “In the bathroom.”
Somehow that didn’t make me feel any better. “Where in the bathroom?” I asked.
“You know, in the brush holder by the sink.”
I wanted to shout, “NOT THERE!” Instead, I asked him, “Didn’t you read the instructions?”
He smiled and took one last sip of his soda. The straw rattled loudly. “Naw! I threw them away.”
“You shouldn’t have done that,” I told him.
“Why not?” he asked. “It’s only a toothbrush. Everyone knows how to use a toothbrush.” There was that statement again. I had said it the first time.
I wanted to tell him that if he had read the instructions, he would have discovered that this whole thing was much more than just having a toothbrush that might never wear out. There was magic involved here. Whether it was from the Far East, God, or somewhere else, I did not know.
But before I could say anything, Bobby looked at his watch and announced, “I gotta go.” He slid noisily off the seat. “My old man is expecting me. He’s probably wondering where I’ve been.” He started to head toward the door. His walk had a grownup-like swagger about it.
As I watched him leave, I felt as if I should go after him and tell him what the instructions had said to do. But Bobby was the type of person if you did something or said something that he thought was stupid or dumb, he’d make fun of you. And I was sure if he heard from me what the pamphlet had said, he’d make fun of me for a long time. So instead of telling him, I just sat there with a tight feeling growing in my stomach and throat. Something was telling me that what Bobby had done was very serious. I couldn’t explain to you why. I just had this nagging feeling that something bad was going to happen.
As it turned out, I was right. But it wasn’t going to be for some time yet.
Chapter 7
In the meantime, J.J., Ernie and I discovered what our instructions meant when they said our brushes would be reflections of our personalities. That happened the morning all three of us woke up to discover our brushes had changed colors! Just like that, in the middle of the night, mine had gone from clear to a wavy mixture of yellow, orange and brown, Ernie’s had turned a bluish green and J.J.’s had become a phlegm-like shade of white! But that was nothing. You should have seen J.J.’s toothbrush! It had gotten really fat! I’m not kidding! It was so fat, it looked like a rolling pin with bristles! None of us could believe what had happened. I mean, even though our pamphlets had warned us our brushes might change, how does a toothbrush go from skinny to fat in one night?
The only person we could think to ask was Ernie’s grandfather. Like I said, he knew about a lot of weird stuff.
The old Chinaman sat in a bamboo rocking chair on his back lawn, wearing what looked like shiny purple pajamas, black sandals and smoking a pipe. We sat on the grass by his feet. While blowing rings of white smoke into the air, he explained to us that the colors were reflections of our ch’i.
“Our what?” I asked.
“Ch’i is spiritual energy,” replied Ernie. I looked at him surprised. I had never heard him talk like this before. “It determines who and what you are as a person.”
“Is that like a soul?” J.J. wanted to know.
“More like a river inside a bottle,” replied the old man. “It’s a river that continues to flow steadily, smoothly all your life, unless it is interrupted.”
“What would cause it to be interrupted?” I asked.
“Stones,” he replied, “thrown into its waters, sending out ripples of disruption—ripples that are being reflected by your brushes.”
I frowned. “Stones? What kind of stones?” I couldn’t imagine what he was talking about.
“A stone is anything you say, do, or think that produces negative flow in your ch’i.”
“How?”
He motioned with his pipe toward J.J. “You love food, don’t you?” J.J. nodded. “Except now, you’re like a watermelon on legs.” J.J. looked down as if he was embarrassed. “Gluttony is one type of stone,” said the old man.
He turned to Ernie. “You know I am deeply fond of you?” Ernie nodded. “But the problem is, you’ve allowed yourself to be so dominated by others, you barely have any will of your own. That, too, is like throwing a stone into the waters of your ch’i.” Ernie also looked down.
Next, he faced me. “You believe you are friends with everyone, don’t you?” I did. “Yet, you have been neglecting someone very close to you, and that, too, is a stone.” I stared at him dumbfounded. How did he know about my grandmother?
“So what do we do about it?” J.J. asked.
“Stop throwing stones,” Ernie’s grandfather replied simply.
Which is exactly what we began doing that very day. I started by visiting my grandmother, and without my parents forcing me. I brought her books to read and kept her company for hours at a time. Not only did my continued visits improve her disposition, her health improved as well. In fact, she became well enough to leave the home and move into her own apartment.
As for J.J., it was hard, but he stopped eating candies and cake all the time. Instead, he began to eat more like the way they said we should in school. He talked his father into getting him a set of barbells. He even began to take these long bike rides all the way out to the lake near town and back. That was something like ten miles round trip! Not only did this make his toothbrush go back to the way it looked before, he lost a lot of weight and got all kinds of muscles.
It took Ernie longer than any of us to change, but eventually he did. He joined the boy scouts and over the next few years rose to scout leader. The rest of the kids who had bought toothbrushes that day at Mr. Hassen’s store also made pledges to change, especially after they, too, talked to Ernie’s grandfather. In fact, I even heard that one or two of the grownups went to see the old Chinaman. The only person who didn’t attempt to change was Bobby.
When I tried to explain to him what was happening, he laughed in my face, “Gammon,” he said, “you’re crazy!” We were down in his basement. He was building a go-cart by himself.
“But it’s true!” I told him. “You even said yourself, your brush has dark streaks in it.”
“That’s just leftover grease from the shop that somehow got inside the plastic.” By this time, Bobby had brought his brush home to his house.
“No, it’s not,” I insisted. “It’s your ch’i. It’s not flowing the way it’s supposed to. You need to stop throwing stones at it.”
Bobby looked at me as if I had gone totally nuts. “I what?” he asked, as he picked up a wrench from his father’s workbench and continued to work on his go-cart.
“It’s the way Ernie’s grandfather explained it to us,” I told Bobby. “Go see him. He’ll tell you.”
Bobby slammed the wrench down and stood up. He turned to face me. He gave my shoulder a hard shove, pushing me toward the door. “Go on, get out of here!” he said. He seemed mad. “I got better things to do than to listen to this junk. Besides, it’s stupid!”
“It is not!”
“Yes, it is,” he said. Then he shoved me out the door and closed it behind me. I heard the lock click.
Standing on the steps leading from his basement to his back yard, I felt as if I had just lost a friend. In a sense, I had, for after that day, Bobby stopped hanging out with J.J., Ernie and me. Instead, he started to spend more time with some older kids he met through the other teen who worked for his father.
Chapter 8
The other teen was a sixteen-year-old high school dropout who seconded as a mechanic. The reason I say seconded is because Bobby’s father’s shop also had two gas pumps, which meant he needed someone to pump gas, as well as be a mechanic. That was the other teen’s job.
Once Bobby started hanging out with him, he changed. The first thing I noticed was his swearing. It seemed as if every other word out of his mouth was a swear word. Next followed smoking, then playing pool in the local pool hall, even though Bobby was supposedly too young to be in there. Finally, I saw him drinking a beer with his friend one day behind his father’s shop. That’s why all summer long, I hung out with J.J. and Ernie, and the other kids who were still our friends, and, more or less, avoided Bobby. Not because I was scared some of his change might rub off on me; I didn’t want to get mad at him. I still liked Bobby, even though he was acting too much like a grownup gone wild. I couldn’t help wonder what this was doing to his toothbrush? I mean, if anyone was throwing stones into the waters of their ch’i, it was Bobby.
Of course, once school started in the fall, avoiding Bobby was a lot harder, especially now that all three of us, J.J., Bobby, and me, were in the same school, which meant, more often than not, we’d end up walking to school together.
It was on one of these mornings that J.J. and Bobby had the fight.
As usual, J.J. and I were walking side-by-side. Bobby was slightly ahead of us, trying to get in as many cigarettes as he could before we got to school. Consequently, he was trailing smoke like a locomotive.
“Do you have to puff so much?” J.J. asked. I could tell he was getting annoyed.
Bobby stopped and turned to face him “What’s the matter?” he asked. “You getting so healthy now, you can’t handle a little smoke?” His attitude was real smart-alecky.
J.J. replied, “No, I’m just tired of seeing you throw so many stones at your ch’i.”
Bobby sneered. “Can it with that Oriental crap, will ya? I’m tired of hearing it.”
I looked at him, surprised. When did he hear about ch’i, or any other stuff that sounded even remotely Oriental?
J.J. said to him real mean-like, “And what will you do if I don’t?”
Now it was my turn to stare at J.J. I had never seen him challenge Bobby about anything, unless he was only kidding. But from the look on his face, I could tell he wasn’t kidding.
Suddenly, like two sumo wrestlers, they charged, first throwing down their respective notebooks then stiff-arming each other to see who could shove the other the hardest. Next, Bobby, who was the taller, got J.J. into a head lock. I gasped and held my breath. What were they doing? They were wrestling on the sidewalk! If either one of them went down, he could really get hurt!
Instead of trying to wriggle out of the hold, though, I saw J.J. reach down with both arms and cup Bobby underneath his legs. Then lifting him up like a sack of potatoes, he let go. When Bobby’s feet slammed back onto the concrete, it jarred J.J.’s head loose. This gave him enough time to get into a fighter’s stance, at which point, I saw him slam two left jabs and a right cross into Bobby’s face. I heard the blows, which sounded like the thunks of an ax on wood, and watched as Bobby stumbled backward, falling halfway to the ground at the edge of the lawn that belonged to the house we were in front of. The only reason he didn’t go completely flat was because he managed to get one arm under himself in time to act as a brace.
J.J. didn’t give him a chance to recover, though. He went over to Bobby and kneeling beside him, pounded him again with several hard blows to his face. This time, Bobby did go down. His eyes rolled, he moaned and his nose was red and bleeding. All this happened in a matter of seconds. I was too stunned to do anything but watch. After Bobby went down all the way, J.J., whose expression was like a dog’s that thinks you’re going to steal its food, stopped hitting him and stood up to hover over him like a vulture waiting to see if he would get up again. Once he was satisfied Bobby wasn’t going to get up anytime soon, he turned to me and said, “Come on, let’s get out of here.”
“But shouldn’t we . . .” I started to say, as J.J. grabbed my arm and yanked me forward so hard I almost fell.
He bent to retrieve his notebook, then said, “He’ll be all right.” He added, “We have to get to school.”
So did Bobby, I thought, as I turned to see him finally roll over onto his hands and knees with his head bent and a long string of blood like snot hanging from his nose. I heard him moan again.
Ten minutes later, as we approached the school grounds, J.J. finished telling me what had gotten him so riled up.
Chapters 9-13 continued in second part....
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