The War with Grandpa Read Online Free Page A

with his grandpa?” Billy asked.
    Steve sailed on. “Do you know that the British complained that the Minutemen didn't fight fair?
Fair?”
    “Steve—” I began.
    “The legend of Zorro,” Steve went on, “a rich and powerful man who fought the power of the king. He had to conceal his identity, because to fight against the king meant pertain death. So what did he do to help the peasants against tyranny? He hid his face behind a mask.”
    “Like Batman and Robin,” Billy said.
    “Close,” Steve said.
    “What am I supposed to do?” I asked. “Get a sword and fight a duel? With Grandpa?”
    “Gorilla warfare,” Steve said, almost to himself. “When you're trapped and there's no other way. You fight from behind rocks. You conceal your identity.”
    “You're crazy,” I said.
    “It's the only way,” Steve said. “Think about it.”

ALIGHT IN THE ATTIC
    Gorilla warfare.
    Hiding behind rocks and trees. Wearing a mask.
    I was lying up in my bed and thinking about what Steve had said. It seemed crazy to me, and yet it made sense too. I was certainly trapped. My family had taken my room away and hadn't given me a chance to fight back.
    Then I began to think about the people who fought in the Revolutionary days. Who were they fighting? The king. And the king was kind of a father to them, or maybe even a grandfather. He was certainly the biggest bigshot of 1776, that's for sure. And yet they fought for their rights. They took a chance and stood their ground at Lexington and Concord and fired the shot heard round the world.
    But you don't shoot at your grandfather. Not in my family anyway.
    It was hopeless.
    But then I got a funny thought, and still another one. And the whole idea of what I could do became clear to me.

WAR IS DECLARED!!!
    I scouted around and when nobody was looking sneaked down to my dad's office in the basement. It was a mess. There were three lights in the ceiling, but only one of them worked. Dad had put down the floor himself and some of the tiles were loose. There was a sink in the corner near the bathroom, but it didn't work and nobody knew how to fix it. Lucky for me, all I wanted was to use Dad's typewriter, and that was working.
    When you start a war you have to send the enemy a note, or something like that, telling them what you want and why you want it. I had to let Grandpa know why I was about to go to war with him. And I really didn't want to sign my name to the note or even have it in my handwriting. Because if my parents got ahold of it, that would be the end of the war. And the end of me, probably.

    I stuck a piece of my dad's scrap paper in his typewriter and began. Here's what I typed:
    DECLARATION OF WARÜ!
    YOU HAVE STOLEN SOMETHING THAT BELONGS TO ME. YOU HAVE TAKEN MY ROOM AND I WANT IT BACK. THIS IS A WARNING. YOU HAVE 24 HOURS TO GIVE ME BACK WHAT IS MINE. OR ELSE WAR WILL BEGIN.
    I signed it this way: THE SECRET WARRIOR
    I thought that was pretty good. The note sounded hard and tough. Like I really meant business. To tell the truth, I was so nervous, my hands were shaking. And then I thought Grandpa would certainly show it to Mom and Dad. So I put in a P.S. at the bottom.
    P.S. THIS WAR IS BETWEEN YOU AND ME. DON'T TELL MY PARENTS OR I'LL NEVER TALK TO YOU AGAIN.
    Well, I thought, if you are going to start a war, this note was a good way to begin. Now the question was, what should I do with it?
    I thought about that for a long time. Aboutten minutes anyway. I wanted to put it someplace where Grandpa could find it when he was alone. I sure didn't want anyone else in the family to see it. That meant I had to put it in Grandpa's room—
my
room, really, until he stole it. And I had to sneak it in there sometime when my mom wasn't coming up there to clean.
    I waited until after dinner. All the time I had that note folded up and tucked into my pants pocket, which was practically the whole day, I was like a shivery rabbit. Just feeling that piece of paper crinkling in my pocket