What Would Joey Do?
by Jack Gantos
crafted the voice of a troubled kid with a solid
center of goodness, Joey tells his own story,
and it reads like a ride in a car without
brakes."
-- Sue Corbett, Knight Ridder News Service
"Readers will cheer for Joey, and for the
champion in each of us."
-- School Library Journal
"Stepping into Joey Pigza's skin isn't easy . . .
But it's worth the discomforting fit."
-- Deirdre Donahue, USA Today
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By Jack Gantos
Published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux
September 2002; $16.00US/$26.95CAN; 0-374-39986-7
When his dad roars into town, the sparks fly between Joey Pigza's
long-separated parents. His ailing grandmother is certain that all the
feuding (and flirting) will unleash a series of terrible events on the Pigza
household. Fading fast, she wants Joey to find a life outside the family,
proving he will be all right once she is gone.
"You know, Joey," Grandma said, "you gotta make some friends."
"I have Pablo," I said.
"Pablo is a dog," she replied.
To put his grandmother at case, Joey tries to make a friend of Olivia Lapp
-- his blind, bratty homeschooling partner -- who only gets meaner the
more Joey tries to please her. But Joey's not the type to give up on
anyone in his life, even as his grandmother's predictions of Pigza family
disaster come true.
"I want to help everyone be nice. That's all I want to do. Just help. That's
my whole thing now. I'm Mr. Helpful."
In this final book of the Joey Pigza trilogy, Jack Gantos's acclaimed hero is
attempting a breathtaking balancing act, as he tries to keep a handle on
his wild, wired behavior without letting his hyperactively helpful ways spin
him out of control all over again.
The following is an excerpt from the book
What Would Joey Do?
by Jack Gantos
About three weeks ago Dad suddenly showed up in town and
started buzzing us on his motorcycle at all hours of the day and
night. At first I was afraid because I thought he had come to get me,
but I was wrong. He was much more interested in Mom. I lost track
of how many times he roared down our street and ran the corner
traffic light past Quips Pub, where Mom lounged in the leather
window seat sipping a mixed drink with her new boyfriend while
making plans for her future. Dad must have spotted her there during
one of his rounds. He didn't say anything, but he'd look at her in the
window like she was something he wanted. Then, he'd blast off. If it
was dark out, I could look through my back bedroom window and
between the lines of damp laundry catch his single jittery headlight
brightly striking the white marble tombstones lined up like crooked
teeth behind our yard as he cut through St. Mary's Cemetery and
raced out and around the neighborhood making a crazy eight before
he looped back down Plum Street and past our house again. He
must have been watching her closely because sometimes he'd
show up the minute she got home from work. Then, her face would
go red and I'd watch her run out to the front porch and yell at him as
he raced by, but the louder she yelled the louder he revved the
engine.
"I'm losing my patience with that man," Mom would say when she
came back inside, pacing wildly up the hall, swinging around and
down again, past the furniture and me and Pablo and Grandma, as
if she too were on a motorcycle that was darting past us.
"If you didn't yell at him I bet he'd get bored and go home," I said
once while trying to be helpful.
"He'd better return to the hole he lives in," she said, or I'll send him
into the next kingdom."
"Just ignore him," I advised. "It'll drive him nuts."
'And I'll go nuts if I don't yell at him," she replied.
I knew Dad. Yelling at him was only going to make him want to yell
back twice as loud. The only way Mom could be louder than him was
to be quiet. He couldn't stand to be ignored and Mom couldn't stand
to be quiet, so I knew something bad was on the way. I could feel it
coming, just as I could hear his motorcycle circling.
And then it finally happened. We were out on the front porch late one
afternoon. I was squatted down behind a wooden raging, holding my
dog Pablo and peeking out between the slats, while Mom was on
the top step hollering at Dad. The muffler on his motorcycle was
dragging across the asphalt and a steady stream of sparks trailed
behind him like the lighted fuse on a bomb that was headed right at
our house. He looked like a giant black bat in his studded leather
biker outfit with his hands raised up in the air on his chopper
handlebars and his shiny blue-eyed wrap-around sunglasses
clamped tight against his bony face. He had already circled our
block about ten times in a row and each time he got a little closer to
the house, as if he were zeroing in on a target. He was really flying
and when he reached our yard he jerked up on his handlebars and
lifted his front wheel over the stone curb. When his back wheel hit
the curb the rear of the chopper bounced up and almost catapulted
him forward. Still, he hung on and landed with a smack back in his
seat as he fishtailed across the sidewalk and headed straight for
the porch.
But Mom was waiting for him, and she was ready for a fight. As
soon as he jumped the curb she sprang forward and bolted down
the porch stairs with a broom held up over her head as if she would
swat him like a biker vampire who had come to suck our blood. But
when she reached the bottom stair and leaped forward he stuck out
his leg with a huge, nasty boot on the end of it and without flinching
knocked her back on her butt as he turned and roared across our
rutted dirt yard and toward the street. She bounced just once and
flattened out like something heavy dropped from the roof as he
laughed, or cursed, or announced his return-I couldn't tell which
because of the engine noise, and with Mom's yelling and Pablo's
yapping in my car, I couldn't hear anything clearly. Then, as he flew
off the yard, his muffler hit the curb and suddenly there was an
explosion of sparks like a comet smashing into the earth, only it was
his muffler flipping into the air and spinning like a pinwheel,
showering the street with sparks. Instantly the engine noise was a
hundred times louder and I had to drop Pablo to cover my cars as
Dad snarled down to the end of the block where he turned right and I
could hear him open the throttle along the straightaway and rattle the
windows across the neighborhood, across all of Lancaster, maybe
the whole state of Pennsylvania.
And then Mom scrambled to her feet and raised her fist in the air.
"So you want to play dirty?" she hollered. "I'll show you what dirty is!"
She charged up the porch stairs two at a time. "Outta my way, " she
panted, and rushed past me with her broom held forward like a
witch about to launch herself.
"Are you okay?" I asked. "Are you hurt?"
"This time I'm gonna kill that creep," she promised with a murderous
look on her face that made her words seem real to me. "I should've
done it years ago and put him out of my misery."
I followed her into the house.
"I don't think you should kill him," I said, and held on to the back end
of the broom. "He's just a nut."
'A dangerous pain-in-the-butt nut," she replied, and yanked the
broom away. "He can't scare me, but I'm gonna make him pay for
messing with you."
"Don't do it because of me," I said. "Just leave him alone and he'll
go away."
"No, this time he has to pay."
"But he doesn't owe me anything," I pleaded. "Just lock the door and
call the police."
"Hey, I'm doing this for you!" she replied, and gave me an
exasperated look as if I didn't appreciate her protection.
"But you don't have to," I said.
"Fine! Fine!" she snapped. "Fine!"
And because it looked like she might blow a gasket I stood up on
my tiptoes and imitated her by saying "Fine! Fine!" right back, just
like a mirror she might see herself in and calm down, and then we
would call the cops and they would scare Dad away and all of this
would be over with.
Copyright © 2002 Jack Gantos
(used with permission)