Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key Read online

  BY JACK GANTOS

  Heads or Tails: Stories from the Sixth Grade

  Jack’s New Power: Stories from a Caribbean Year

  Desire Lines

  Jack’s Black Book

  Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key

  JACK GANTOS

  Joey Pigza

  Swallowed the Key

  Farrar, Straus and Giroux

  New York

  Copyright © 1998 by Jack Gantos

  All rights reserved

  Distributed in Canada by Douglas & McIntyre Ltd.

  Printed in the United States of America

  Designed by Judy Lanfredi

  First edition, 1998

  15 17 19 20 18 16

  www.fsigkidsbooks.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Gantos, Jack.

  Joey Pigza swallowed the key / Jack Gantos. — 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: To the constant disappointment of his mother and his teachers Joey has trouble paying attention or controlling his mood swings when his prescription meds wear off and he starts getting worked up and acting wired.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-374-33664-6

  ISBN-10: 0-374-33664-4

  [1. Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder-Fiction. 2. Schools—Fiction. 3. Single-parent family—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.G15334JO 1998

  [Fie]—dc21

  98-24264

  For Anne and Mabel

  Contents

  Chapter 1 - Off the Wall

  Chapter 2 - Family Tree

  Chapter 3 - Handful

  Chapter 4 - Go Fish

  Chapter 5 - Make A Wish

  Chapter 6 - Who?

  Chapter 7 - Gifted and Talented

  Chapter 8 - Suspended

  Chapter 9 - Bad Seed

  Chapter 10 - The Crossing

  Chapter 11 - Shifting Gears

  Chapter 12 - Pittsburgh

  Chapter 13 - Moon Man

  Chapter 14 - The Patch

  Chapter 15 - Picture Me Here

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  1

  OFF THE WALL

  At school they say I’m wired bad, or wired mad, or wired sad, or wired glad, depending on my mood and what teacher has ended up with me. But there is no doubt about it, I’m wired.

  This year was no different. When I started out all the days there looked about the same. In the morning I’d be okay and follow along in class. But after lunch, when my meds had worn down, it was nothing but trouble for me.

  One day, we were doing math drills in class and every time Mrs. Maxy asked a question, like “What’s nine times nine?” I’d raise my hand because I’m really quick at math. But each time she called on me, even though I knew the answer, I’d just blurt out, “Can I get back to you on that?” Then I’d nearly fall out of my chair from laughing. And she’d give me that white-lipped look which meant, “Settle down.” But I didn’t and kept raising my hand each time she asked a question until finally no other kid would raise their hand because they knew what was coming between me and Mrs. Maxy.

  “Okay, Joey,” she’d say, calling on me and staring hard at my face as if her eyes were long fingers that could grip me by the chin. I’d stare right back and hesitate a second as if I was planning to answer the question and then I’d holler out really loud, “Can I get back to you on that?” Finally, after a bunch of times of me doing that in a row, she jerked her thumb toward the door. “Out in the hall,” she said. And the class cracked up.

  So I went and stood in the hall for about a second until I remembered the mini-Superball in my pocket and started to bounce it off the lockers and ceiling and after Mrs. Deebs in the next class stuck her head out her door and yelled, “Hey, cut the racket,” like she was yelling at a stray cat, I remembered something I wanted to try. I had seen the Tasmanian Devil on TV whirling around like a top so I unbuckled my belt and pulled on the end really hard, as if I was trying to start a lawn mower. But that didn’t get me spinning very fast. So I took out my high-top shoelaces and tied them together and then to the belt and wrapped it all around my waist. Then I grabbed one end and yanked on it and sort of got myself spinning. I kept doing it until I got better and better and before long I was bouncing off the lockers because I was dizzy too. Then I gave myself one more really good pull on the belt and because I was already dizzy I got going really fast and began to snort and grunt like the Tasmanian Devil until Mrs. Maxy came out and clamped her hands down on my shoulders. She stopped me so fast I spun right out of my shoes and they went shooting up the hall.

  “You glue your feet to the floor for five whole minutes or you can just spin yourself down to the principal’s office,” she said. “Now, what is your choice going to be?”

  “Can I get back to you on that?” I asked.

  Her face turned all red. “Five minutes,” she said. “Settle down for five, and you can rejoin the class.”

  I nodded, and when she was gone I wrapped the belt and laces around my middle and gave it a good tug and began to spin and spin and slam into the lockers and I got going so good the gum I had under my tongue flew out and my Superball slipped out of my hand and went bouncing down the hall and I kept going and going like when you roll down a steep hill and before long I was bumping on the glass walls around the principal’s office like a dizzy fish in a tank. Then the principal came out and pinned me against the wall and we had a little talk about my behavior goals and I spent the rest of the day on her office floor sorting out all the used crayons that the kindergartners kept in big plastic tubs until I had separate piles of blue and green and red and yellow and you know the rest.

  2

  FAMILY TREE

  My dad ran off when I was in kindergarten and my mom went after him. My grandmother raised me until this past summer. That’s when my mom finally stopped trying to get my dad turned around and remembered about me. One morning she rang the doorbell.

  “Who’s there!” I yelled, and when Grandma and I yanked open the door a stranger was standing on the porch mat, like one of those church ladies dressed in shiny shoes and a Sunday hat.

  “I’m sorry for being gone so long,” she said.

  “I’m sorry you’re back,” Grandma snapped, and shoved me out of the way with her elbow, which nearly jammed my Tootsie Pop down my throat.

  “I just want to smooth things out,” said the lady who was my mom.

  “I’ve heard this all before,” Grandma shouted, and shoved me back again because I kept sticking my head around her hips so I could see what was going on.

  I really wasn’t sure what either of them was talking about because I didn’t recognize the lady. Then she pushed the door open and took one big giant step right into the living room before anyone told her she could. “Hi, Joey,” she said. “I’m your mom.”

  When she reached out and tried to touch my head I ducked away and said I wasn’t sure she was my mom because I didn’t even remember what she looked like. She got an awful pain across her face and I figured she must be my mom because no stranger would have been so hurt by what I’d said. But she didn’t crumble. Instead she started walking all through the rooms, just shaking her head at the way Grandma and I kept things.

  “Now that I’m back,” she said, “things are going to change around here. No more living in a pigpen.” Then right away she started making up new rules and trying to take control of me and Grandma and the house. I didn’t like her at all, and during those first weeks she was back we all fought pretty good.

  I was a wired-up mess by the time Mom came back to live with me and Grandma. By then everyone thought my grandma was the nutty old lady responsible for my bad behavior. But I am how I am because Grandma was bor
n wired, and my dad, Carter Pigza, was born wired, and I followed right behind them. It’s as if our family tree looks like a set of high-voltage wires strung across a field from one steel tower to the next. Grandma all the time said I was just like my dad, “bouncing off the walls twenty-four hours a day.” But he hasn’t yet bounced in our direction so I guess he is still bouncing around somewhere else. Grandma said he bounced over to Pittsburgh. But someday he might spring back and just bounce right through our front door. I wish he would because I only just hear about him now, and I’d like to see for myself what he is like. I have one of those windup cars with twisty wheels that when it bumps into things can change direction and bump into something else over and over. When I play with it I always think my dad is steering, eyes spinning in his head and his foot all the way down on the gas. My toy car gets drained and stops, but I’m guessing that he never winds down. He just keeps on smashing into buildings and signs and parked cars.

  I figure we got a lot in common because once when Grandma was in a sudden good mood she said to me as a helpful warning, “Joey, I want you to pull your act together. You don’t want to turn out like your father, do you?”

  “Can I get back to you on that?” I yelled as I tried to run off.

  “Listen to me,” she said, grabbing me as I ran by. “Your dad’s such a nervous wreck he couldn’t stand still long enough to line up for free medicine down at the clinic.”

  Then Grandma held me by the ears and I lifted my feet off the floor until I wiggled like a snake and screamed and she let go.

  People who blame Grandma for my behavior are unfair to think that she was really the crazy one and I was innocent. It was more that we were whacked-out partners. We zipped around the house and slapped at each other like one of those World Wrestling tag teams. I’d be the Hulk and she’d be Doctor Doom and when the phone rang we’d run at it screaming and yelling and slam into each other, and by the time one of us got the upper hand the person on the other end had freaked out and hung up. And nothing in the house was ever finished or cleaned up right. A jigsaw puzzle of ancient Egypt outlined the dining room table with the extra pieces piled up like pyramids spilling over onto the floor. I had stacks of homework I had forgotten and drawings of my grandmother’s face on big locust bug bodies all taped to the floors as if she’d been squashed by a truck. I stuck wet leaves over the Windows, glued my stuffed animals to the chairs, hid all the oven knobs in the dead plant pots, and made huge string spider webs between the door knobs and ceiling lights and floor vents. Every now and again I’d catch Grandma in a web and she’d get tangled up.

  “Help meeee. Help meeee,” she’d squeak like the fly with the human face in that crazy bug movie. Sometimes she could be funny. But not often.

  Most times she’d just get mad and keep after me nonstop and complain about everything I did.

  “Don’t touch. Don’t wiggle. Don’t run. Don’t yell,” she’d bark out.

  No matter what I touched or said or did, I felt like I was in cartoon hell standing on hot coals with little red devils poking me in the bottom with pitchforks as I jumped from one fiery place to another. Even the words I spoke scalded my tongue. And if by accident I’d sit still for a minute and just vibrate, she’d complain anyway. She could yell at me and knit at the same time. She’d get those needles going as if she were fighting off the Three Musketeers all at once, and before long she’d have a strip of wool that could reach around our block of row houses and be tied in a bow. But it never amounted to anything. Everything started became nothing finished, and all her projects and my homework and hobbies just ended up in piles collecting dust.

  Even now my bedroom still has the walls painted in Placid Pink where she had got going on the bottom but didn’t finish at the top. Someone told her the color pink would calm me down. But it didn’t work.

  Until Mom returned my bed was pushed over in the corner along with the chair and splintered dresser drawers with the peeled-off fake wood grain. Old newspapers were spread over the sheets to keep off paint but I’d been using them as a blanket. Sometimes I think if Grandma had finished painting that pink on everything I might have calmed down. I used to sit in my closet and pry open the paint can and stare into the shiny pink circle and was mesmerized for hours. Or maybe just minutes, I could never tell. But if you believe a color gave off a feeling then I think it is true that pink gives off lots of calm. Maybe that pink just wasn’t pink enough because before long I’d turn into my wired self again.

  After Mom came back this past summer and started to organize things Grandma got worse. She got meaner and I think it was because she didn’t like rules either. I had to stay with her when Mom was at work, and she began to scare me. About a month before school started she was mean all morning as usual and in the afternoon, instead of settling down to knit, she kept getting meaner and meaner. Finally, she got so mad at me for bouncing around she threw everything out of the refrigerator and yanked out the shelves and flung them across the floor.

  “Now get inside and stay inside,” she said with the ketchup bottle still spinning around her feet like a bowling pin.

  That slowed me down. I looked at her, and her dentures were pulled over to one side and snapping like she couldn’t control them, like they could climb up the side of her face and bite her own ear off.

  “In!” she shouted. “Get in before I blow a fuse.” A hot steamy sound came out with each word.

  “Don’t make me,” I said, hopping from foot to foot. “Don’t.”

  “In,” she said and her body snapped like a whip. “I said get in or I’ll tell your mom you won’t listen to my rules.”

  But I wouldn’t get in. I knew there were good rules and bad rules, and having a time-out inside a refrigerator was a bad rule.

  “Lousy no good kid,” she said, slamming the door. “I need a break.” She turned and marched outside to smoke a cigarette while sitting in the porch rocker. In a minute I heard her get after someone about throwing trash in our yard and then she stomped off. When my mom came home that night from work I was alone and scared. She saw the kitchen all a mess and I told her what had happened.

  “No wonder you’re a nervous wreck,” Mom said. And she was angry. We went looking for Grandma and found one scuffed-up shoe down by the corner sewer grate and that was all. After Mom thought about it she said, “Grandma was probably so wired she slipped right down into the sewer and was washed away for good.”

  We never did call the police, and for a couple of days I kept bending down over the iron grate and cupping my hands and shouting into the dark hole, “Grandma! Grandma! I forgive you! Come back!”

  She never answered and I was sorry because I was the same as her at times when I lost it.

  “Grandma isn’t exactly like you,” Mom said to me after I told her I was sad. “The difference is she’s more active in the mouth, and you are more active in the feet.” Grandma was always saying the wrong hurtful things for half the day, then she spent the other half of the day apologizing. “She has a hyperactive mouth,” my mother said. “You know how sometimes you can’t stop moving your feet or swinging on the doors or jumping on the bed?”

  “Yes,” I said, hanging my head and scratching at the dry patch on my scalp that I had already rubbed bald and a little bloody.

  Mom pulled my hand away and held it between hers. “Well, your grandmother can’t help but say things like, ‘You don’t know what you’re doing. You’re ruining everything. You never listen to me. I always said you were as dumb as dirt.’” Mom was right. Grandma would just get so excited about being mean that one thing would lead to another and another, and before long she didn’t know what she was saying but her lips were flapping a mile a minute. Then when she finally settled down she would feel bad.

  “I’m so sorry,” she’d begin. “I never knew anything I said upset anyone. You all shouldn’t listen to me. You know I’m just a nasty trash-talking old fool.”

  She’d say the same thing over and over again. She shou
ld have been on meds too. Big-time Grandma-sized meds. But because she was a grandma, people didn’t think she was sick. They just called her a batty old bird. But she was sick like me, only old, so her sickness was different.

  Now all that’s changed since Mom came back, and I couldn’t live without her because she’s really the one who understands how I am when I get worked up into a wild spell. Like yesterday before school when I was playing Stuntman in the early morning. I was diving from the top of the stepladder Mom had left up to change the burned-out ceiling lights. I belly flopped onto the couch, then bounced onto the floor. She woke up and in seconds pinned me down and pressed her face to mine and said, “So what’s up, Doc? You gonna be even or odd today?”

  “Can I get back to you on that?” I said, trying to squirm away. Then suddenly she held out both fists in front of me. “Pick one,” she said. I did, and my pill was in her hand. It is always in her hand, like she is some kind of magic Pez meds dispenser.

  “See,” she said calmly, and stroked my head. “You know how to choose what’s good for you. So, are you going to put the ladder away?”

  “Yeah,” I said, laughing, and got to my feet. I swallowed my pill without water and could feel it roll, then stumble, then roll a little more, then stumble all the way down my throat and vanish into my belly. Then I picked the ladder up and darted across the room, but my aim was off and I slammed into the doorjamb. That jarred me. Then I tried it again and again until I nearly had all the paint chipped off around the dented woodwork, and she just let me keep on trying until finally I got the ladder and the opening lined up just right and stumbled through and plowed into the kitchen table and knocked the plastic rooster salt and pepper shakers to the floor.