Read Online The War with Grandpa by Robert Kimmel Smith - Free Book Online

person can't be forced against his will. So I'll just put the game away.”
    I didn't expect Jenny to jerk the box away, but she did. And then she opened it.“I'll play with Grandpa then, if you're going to be so mean,” ” she said.
    I looked at Grandpa and he looked at me. We both knew what was coming next.
    “Hey, where are all the pieces and cards and stuff?” Jenny asked. “There's just a Monopoly board and nothing else in the box.”
    There was a very long and very embarrassing silence. Jenny stared at me and at Grandpa. I couldn't think of what to say. Grandpa began to whistle.
    And then Jenny found the note I'd stupidly left in the box.
    “ ‘Two can play at this game,’“ she read aloud, ” ‘but you can't play this game now.’ Signed, ‘The Old Man’?” She looked mystified.“Who is The Old Man?” she asked. “And why are the pieces missing?”
    “Well,” I said, “there's a perfectly simple explanation.”
    Jenny waited. I waited, too, because I couldn't think of a perfectly simple explanation.
    “Something fishy is going on here,” Jenny said.
    Grandpa cleared his throat.
    “You both know about this and I don't,” Jenny said. “Are you The Old Man in the note, Grandpa? Are you playing a trick on Peter?”
    “Me?” Grandpa said.
“Me?
Don't be silly. Why would I play a trick on Peter?”
    Jenny thought about that for no more than a second. “It
is
you, Grandpa. That's why you look so guilty. I wish you'd tell me. You know I can keep a secret.”
    “Stuff and nonsense,” Grandpa said in a huffyway, like he was being insulted. “One of Pete's friends did this, I'll bet. Isn't that right, Pete?”
    “Huh?” I said. “Yeah…right.”
    “Who?” asked Jenny.
    “The older one,” Grandpa said.
    “That's right,” I said. “Steve did it. He's a lot older than me. And sometimes he calls himself the old man.”
    “Steve isn't a lot older than you,” Jenny said. She would make a great detective, I was thinking.
    “Sure he is,” I said. “Months and months.”
    “So where did Steve hide all the Monopoly pieces?” Jenny asked. “Why don't you get them, Peter, so we can play, okay?”
    “Well …” I said.
    “You go upstairs and get them, Pete,” said Grandpa, who stood up from the couch. “And I'll just step up to my room and get me a sweater. It's kinda chilly in here.”
    Now I understood what was happening. So I ran up to my room like I was getting the Monopoly stuff while Grandpa retrieved it from wherever he had hidden it. I met him outside my old room.“A narrow escape there,” he said. He handed me a plastic bag with all the Monopoly stuff in it.
    And I handed him back his watch.
    “Thanks,” he said, and slipped the watch onto his wrist.
    “This doesn't mean I'm giving up,” I told him.
    “Course not,” Grandpa said. “And I still owe you one, I believe. I'm going to drop the other shoe on you any day now.”
    Then we went back downstairs and played Monopoly with Jenny until dinnertime.

THE SHOE DROPS… KERPLUNK!
    When it happened, I wasn't ready for it, of course. It was an ordinary Wednesday in the middle of the week. A school day. The first thing I noticed was that my clock-radio alarm hadn't gone off at the right time. I always get up at seven o'clock. But it was already seven fifteen!
    I leaped out of bed, tangling my feet in the blanket and falling onto the floor. Next thing I noticed was that my slippers were gone. I always leave them right alongside my bed when I go to sleep. Why weren't they there?
    I wasted a minute or two looking for them under the bed and in my closet. That's when it hit me.
This was Grandpa's revenge!
Now. This morning. That's why the clock was late and my slippers were gone.
    I rushed off to the bathroom in my bare feet to wash my face and brush my teeth. No toothbrush! It simply wasn't there. In the plastic waterglass on the sink was a note. “Use your finger,” it said.
    What a
furrzy
trick!
    I stood there like a dummy,