The War with Grandpa Read Online Free

about him. His little white moustache that jumped up and down when he talked. The way he'd throw me up in the air and catch me, or spin around fast, holding me in his arms. Even his breath, which always smelled of peppermints.
    I liked the way he'd toss me a ball and I'd try to catch it. I was little then and could hardly hold on to the ball, but it was fun playing with him.
    I know Mom and Dad were concerned about Grandpa and the way he just seemed to be tired out and moping all the time. We went out to the movies a couple of times, and to a restaurant, but Grandpa always stayed home.“You go ahead,” he'd say, “I'll be okay back here by my lonesome.”
    “Come on,” Dad would say, “we'll have some fun.”
    “Have fun then,” Grandpa would say. “I'd only spoil it for you.”
    I saw the worried looks that passed between Mom and Dad. But when I asked Dad about it he just said, “Grandpa's a little tired, Peter, that's all. He'll snap out of it soon.”
    Sure, I thought, but how soon was soon?

A LITTLE HELP FROM MY FRIENDS
    “I don't care what you say,” my friend Steve Mayer said. “I think it stinks.”
    “Steve's right,” Billy Alston said. “Your grandfather is a room robber and it isn't fair.”
    “By the way,” Steve said, “I'm invading Quebec.”
    We were playing Risk, which is what we always played at Steve's house. Outside the living room window it was raining like crazy. Steve is a Risk fanatic, or expert, or both. Billy and I can never beat him. But today I was doing especially bad, maybe because I wasn't paying close attention.
    Steve and Billy have been my friends ever since we met in kindergarten. Steve is taller than me and thinner and he wears these horn-rimmed eyeglasses. Maybe because he reads so much. Billy is a little shorter than both of us and he has crinkly red hair and thousands of freckles on hisface. When Billy was six years old his dad hung a chinning bar in the doorway of his room. Whenever Billy goes in or out, he always chins himself a few times. Billy can do fifteen chin-ups. I know that because I once bet him he couldn't and lost a quarter. I can do three and a half chin-ups. Steve can hardly do one.
    “Throw the dice,” Steve said, and I did. I lost another army, of course, and Steve had one more territory of mine to control. Steve looked at me and shook his head.“You're such a dummy,” he said.
    “Look,” I said, “he's my grandfather. What can I do?”
    “Put up a fight,” Steve said. “Stick up for your rights.”
    “I already have,” I said.
    “I won't let nobody take my room,” Billy said. He made a fist and slammed it into his other palm. “Pow! Right in the nose!”
    “Right, Billy,” Steve said, winking at me. We both knew that Billy always talked tough like that, but the one time he had to face up to a kid in school called Phil Steinkraus he was as chicken as the rest of us.
    “I'm trapped, don't you see?” I said. “I can't let my grandpa know how mad I am at losing myroom. And if I can't even
talk
about it, what can I do?”
    “Wishy-washy,” Steve said. “What are you, a doormat?”
    “You can't let a room robber walk all over you,” Billy said.
    Steve put down his fourth set of matched Risk cards and collected ten more armies. On the board he already controlled half the world, which meant the game wasn't going to last too much longer. He looked at me funny and then a slow grin started to spread all over his face.“Just got an idea,” Steve said. “Yes, sir-ree, it just might work.”
    I waited while the wheels turned around in Steve's head.
    “Seventeen seventy-six,” Steve said.
    Billy said, “Huh?”
    “The Yankees against the power of the British army,” Steve went on. “Here come the Redcoats, marching across a field in close formation. That's the way the British always fought. And what do the Minutemen do? They hide behind trees and rocks, they shoot from behind cover, and keep moving.”
    “What does this have to do