Dear Opl (6 page)

After reading for a few more minutes, I came across the best piece of info. He does
not
cook in the nude. Apparently, only his grub is garmentless. As in, not smothered with stuff that hides its real look and taste.
How
hard
is
that?
I thought. Any goon can lay an apple on your lunch tray and shout “Ta-da!” But this guy gets paid big bucks to do it.

Reading his biography left my eyes crooked. He'd done a whole bunch of things with his life and almost all of them had to do with food. When you looked at it that way, he was my kind of guy. Except he squelched the most important food group. Fast food. Did he not realize how necessary this was to our culture? America cannot survive without our double arches. We would fail at success, because we'd arrive late to everything. Fast food means Want it, Get it, Eat it, Go. This explains our country's superpower attitude. We don't have to waste time waiting for the water to boil.

My chest grew tight reading about his seizure of English lunchrooms and attempts to overhaul their menus of fish and chips. I read that in one school, after the Lunch Grinch took charge, a group of parents started delivering junk food to kids through the school's playground fence as a revolt against his dishes.

And that's when I came across his poisonous Meal Madness plan…for America. He planned to do the same to American children that he'd done to the English. Forcing buckets of naked food down our gullets without any ketchup to accompany it!

I tried unclenching my fists as I stared at Alfie Adam's face. It smiled at me from the screen. A more truthful picture would be him standing in front of a crowd of skinny, sad children, sticking his tongue out at them. Why were perfect people always telling you how to live your life so you could be perfect just like them?

I clicked on the link to his website and watched his YouTube video about the evils of junk food and how it didn't belong in kids' diets. I was ready for a shouting match. I watched. I listened.

The man was a little pudgy.

He stuttered a bit.

His hair was a mess.

They didn't show anything below his knees, but I bet if they had, I'd have seen he had two left feet. This man was a celebrity and
not
perfect
.

I smiled and bit down on a giggle. He came across different than I thought he would. Maybe he wasn't so bad.

“Aaahhhh!” I shouted and jumped from my bed. “Consorting with the enemy. That's what they want!” If he could sucker me in with just a funny accent and a goofy face, then I was no better than the rest of them.

Except I love funny accents and goofy faces.

Well, I'd just have to stay strong. My Nutter Butters had been there for me, and I would not let the people working for Nabisco suffer any boycott. Maybe I would even eat extras to help make up for those kids in England. I thought we'd all suffered enough.

The next day after school, I congratulated myself for making it to Diggerman's without tripping in front of the soup kitchen guy. In fact, I was so busy thinking about how I wouldn't let Alfie Adam make me feel guilty for eating
un-
naked food that I waltzed right passed him. Never even saw him. But I knew he was there.

What I did see when I came home were two brown paper grocery bags on the kitchen counter. I loved grocery day. It had been a hard day at school with the dreadful morning blood test on an empty stomach, two quizzes, and a lunch that included plain milk and Snow White's apple again. I'd left mine for the busy, nut-gathering squirrels. They liked tree food. I'm more Mickey D food. But right now, I wanted the prizes that came from those grocery bags. The supermarket offered flashy-colored boxes with pictures of crunchy, salty, syrupy sweet food plastered on them. I opened the bag and rifled through the goods. What was this? This wasn't our regular stuff.

I pulled out a bunch of vegetables. Green ones, brown ones, some red guys, and something either brown or purple or both. It was brurple. And on the bottom, I spotted a bag I'm guessing the school sent home. Apples. Probably the ones I threw out. Couldn't have that, could we? We must make all students suffer equally.

“G-pa?” I called out into the living room. “What's all this stuff in here?”

“A good start,” he growled back.

I walked over to his chair. “I don't get it. What's a good start?”

He put the flap down over his laptop and turned to look at me. “Broccoli, red peppers, eggplant, onions. It's a good start to better health.”

I felt my insides scrunch up. “Better health looks like all the fun got sucked out of it.”

“Better health gives you a better shot at having fun.” He swung his slippered feet off Mr. Muttonchops, who didn't mind being an ottoman. “Let's get going.” He pulled himself out of his chair and waited for a few joints to crack into place, then pointed toward the bags on the counter. “Dinner isn't going to make itself.”

I looked back toward the kitchen. “No. It waits for Mom.”

“Not tonight, sweetheart. Tonight, you will learn all about the mysteries of the Orient.”

“Are you talking about that shiny blob on the counter? The Orient doesn't look edible.”

G-pa grunted and shuffled past me. “That's an eggplant. And you'll soon change your mind about its taste—no matter what it looks like. It's a guest star in our stir-fry tonight. I don't often throw them in, but it begged to join the others in my grocery cart, so I gave in.”

“I would have resisted.”

“Well, after supper you may be singing a different tune.”

“I like the one I have been singing. Where's the pizza? Tonight's supposed to be pizza night. Monday and Thursday are the fat-free hot dogs and Tater Tots. Tuesday and Friday are low-fat chicken nuggets and canned peaches. Wednesday and Saturday are pizza night and non-fat cottage cheese. And Sunday we drive-thru at McDonald's as my reward for eating all the diet stuff. This is Wednesday. Where's the pizza?”

“That garbage isn't pizza. Pizza doesn't taste or look like the gunk your mother brings home and stores in the freezer. I'm cooking tonight. Scratch that.
We're
cooking tonight. Now go grab an apron and wash your hands.”

My lower jaw fell to my belly button and would have stayed there had G-pa not pointed with an extra pointy finger toward the pantry where the aprons hung. I turned around and went to choose one. They looked brand-new. Not a spot of food on any of them. Except for the one Dad used to use.

I plucked his off the hook and smoothed it down the front of me. It said,
Dijon
Vu—The feeling you've had mustard before
. I washed my hands and heard G-pa make swashbuckling sword sounds with a long knife and something that looked like a silver stick. “What are you doing?” The sound was dangerous, but I wanted to hear more of it.

“Sharpening our tools.”

“Aren't they safer if they're dull?”

“Nope. In fact, the dull ones are the most dangerous kind. They slip off your food and onto your hands.”

I nodded. “That's why I say we wait and let Mom make dinner. She knows just how to open the plastic on the freezer pizza so she won't get cut. I don't mind waiting.”

G-pa shook his head. “Sorry, girlie. Now get me the kitchen stool and come over to the cutting board. Pay attention. Knife skills are important.”

After twenty minutes of sleeping with my eyes open, I glanced at the pile of colorful vegetables he had scooped into a giant dish. Evenly cubed, they waited beside a plastic bowl of onions that had made both of us tear up as he'd diced them. He grabbed a big frying pan from a cupboard below the cutting board and filled it with a few spoonfuls of oil. Twisting a knob on the stove lit a blue flame beneath the pan. Within thirty seconds, the scent of something dark and smoky came to my nose. “What do I smell?” I asked.

“Toasted sesame oil,” G-pa answered. “Addictive once you develop the taste for it.” He threw the onions into the pan and had me mix. Then bit by bit he added the other vegetables and told me to keep stirring so nothing would burn.

I saw him head back into the pantry and come out with a bag of rice. The rice grains reminded me of the insects you'd find under a dead log. “We're not going to eat those, are we?”

G-pa poured a cup of the dead white bugs into a pot with some water and threw in some salt. “You will if you know what's good for you.”

“Well, it's a good thing I know better than to eat something that looks like a bunch of dead bugs.”

He gave me one of his scrunched up faces. “This is rice, Opal. You should know that by now. Haven't you ever had rice?”

“It's in the boxes Ollie and I always throw away after Mom's ordered from the Kung Pao Palace.”

G-pa tsked. “What a waste. Rice is good for you. I've been blathering on to your mom about this for the last year. She's been too soft on you guys and too busy, buying all those freezer box foods and takeout muck. You kids need a change of food.”

Ollie skipped into the kitchen wearing my Hermione witch costume from last Halloween. “We're having a change of food? You mean it's not pizza night?”

I looked at him a little glumly, even though the gunk in the pan smelled good. “We're having rice. It's come all the way from China.”
Although
it
looks
like
it
died
trying
to
get
here
.

Ollie twirled to make the cape float around him. “I love Chinese people. They get to eat with sticks.”

G-pa nodded. “Chopsticks. But I don't have any tonight, so you'll have to make do with a fork.”

“How 'bout I go get some from outside?” Ollie asked, but G-pa shook his head with a smile.

“When did you learn how to cook?” I asked G-pa. He searched a shelf by the stove and pulled out little jars, tipping bits of dried leaves into my vegetable pan as I stirred.

“I was stationed in Yokosuka during my service in the military. Army food stinks, so I started searching elsewhere for grub. The Japanese knew how to handle food. I paid attention.”

The red peppers sizzled in the oil as I poked at them. “The Japanese taught you?”

“Well, I watched how the men and women cooked.”

Ollie tilted his head and his witch's cap slid to point at the floor. “I thought only girls cooked. That's my costume for tomorrow—a big flowery apron.”

G-pa wagged a finger. “Some of the greatest chefs in the world are men. Even your dad cooked, remember?” He sighed at Ollie's shaking head. “All men should know how to cook.”

I thought about Alfie Adam and his scruffy hairdo. “All men should know how to comb their hair too.”

G-pa gave me a crooked look. “You two set the table while I finish up the rice.”

Ollie danced with the dishes and hummed a song about how wonderful everything smelled. I put out the forks and glasses and then set the big jug of chocolate milk on the table.

“None of that junk tonight. We're drinking water. Chocolate milk will ruin the flavor of the food,” G-pa barked.

“Water?” I said. “Water is for washing dishes.”

“Soy sauce will make you thirsty. And since you're way too young for sake, water is the next best thing.”

I grumbled under my breath but filled the glasses at the sink and then sat down just as G-pa came over with two plates. The rice looked white and fluffy and made a bowl for the vegetables to sit in. The onions, eggplant, and peppers were mixed in with bright green broccoli and covered in a glossy, brown sauce.

“What's this?” Ollie asked, holding up one of the miniature trees.

“Broccoli,” G-pa said as he put his plate down across from mine. “I'm guessing that also got tossed along with the rice?” He clucked his tongue again and pulled a bottle of dark brown liquid from his shirt pocket and slid it in front of my plate. “Try this. You'll like it. Just sprinkle it over the stir-fry.”

“The what?” Ollie said with a mouthful of food.

“Stir-fry. It's what we made. We stirred a batch of frying vegetables and spooned them over white rice. It's a classic.”

I put a drop onto my spoon and dipped a finger into the liquid. Salty. Bright. Tangy.

“What do you taste?” G-pa asked.

“It's brackish,” I said. We were “Exploring Earth's Oceans” in our science unit.

“Good word.” He winked at me.

“What's brackish?” Ollie asked, spooning another heap-f into his mouth.

“Like the sea. Marine-like,” I explained.

“That's my costume for Friday. Ariel, the mermaid. She's marine life.”

“I said marine-
like
.”

“That's wrong,” he said, licking his plate clean of the soy sauce. “It's the navy who like the sea.”

G-pa tapped Ollie's plate. “Want some more?”

Ollie put his plate down and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Can girls be army people?”

G-pa sat back. “Yep. But there weren't too many of them around when I worked in the service. Things have changed quite a bit since then though. Why?”

Ollie closed his eyes. “Shoot. I don't think I have anything to wear that's army looking for a girl.”

I groaned. “Ollie, why don't you try wearing a few things meant for boys? It might help you.”

He shook his head and took his plate to the sink. “I don't need any help. It's Mom who needs the help.”

G-pa shrugged and made a face that said,
don't bother
, but just then Mom came through the front door and whooped out loud. “Dad, you are the best! This is perfect.”

“Go scoop your mother up some supper, kiddo,” he said to me.

When she sat down after dumping her things on her desk, she looked exhausted but grateful. She turned to G-pa. “Did you tell her?”

“Tell me what?” I asked, eyeing both of them.

G-pa shook his head and rose from the table. “I'll deliver good food, not bad news.”

“Thanks a lot,” Mom said as he went into the kitchen to start cleaning up.

The white rice churned in my stomach. Even though dinner tasted great going down, I knew from experience it wouldn't be as good coming back the other way. “What bad news? Is something wrong?”

Mom bit her lip and put a hand across mine on the table. “We have to make some changes. Specifically,
you
have to make some changes, but we're all going to help. And the changes will help all of us too.”

I hated double-talk. She wasn't making any sense. “You're getting me super worried. I've had to deal with enough changes in the last couple of years and none of them have helped any of us. What's the bad news?”

“Dr. Friedman called. She said you're prediabetic.”

“
Prediabetic?
What does this mean?” I knocked back my chair trying to stand. “Am I going to die?”

Mom shook her head hard and then grabbed my hand again. “No,” she said firmly. “No. Nothing like that. But we can't dismiss diabetes.”

I pulled my hand out of hers. “I disagree. Our teacher talked about it in health class; it's not welcome here. I say we shove it out.”

Mom sighed and sat back in her chair. She closed her eyes which were puffy and a bit smeared with mascara. “Opal, you're not making this easy for me. Please just be quiet and listen.” Her eyes opened and I could tell she was at that glistening, watery stage right before your tears spilled over your bottom eyelids. And I could tell she fought to keep them inside. She tilted her head toward the ceiling to look up there while talking. “People develop diabetes when their body can't use sugar normally.”

“I use sugar just fine. I've had loads of practice.”