Granny Torrelli Makes Soup

  SHARON CREECH

  Granny Torrelli Makes Soup

  drawings by Chris Raschka

  Dedication

  For my granddaughter

  Pearl Bella Benjamin

  In memory of my grandmother

  Marianna Fiorelli Licursi

  and my mother

  Anna Maria Licursi Creech

  Contents

  Dedication

  I. SOUP

  That Bailey

  I’m Mad

  Granny Torrelli Says

  Why I Liked Bailey

  Granny Torrelli Makes Soup

  You Going to Tell Me?

  Pardo

  Bambini

  Just Like Bailey

  Put Your Feet Up

  Plays

  The Blind Woman

  Stubborn Streak

  Tutto Va Bene

  Pasta Party

  Tangled Head

  Lost

  The Prince

  The Rescuer

  Why, Why, Why?

  In My Head

  The Door Opens

  Tutto

  II. PASTA

  She’s Back

  Ciao

  My Warm and Cold Heart

  What’s New?

  Violetta

  Janine

  Haircut

  A Long Pause

  Snakes

  Sauce

  The Yellow House

  Meatballs

  Not So Fast

  The Baby

  The Pasta Party

  EXTRAS

  The Inspiration for Granny Torrelli Makes Soup

  Q&A with Sharon Creech

  Excerpt from The Great Unexpected

  Back Ad

  About the Author

  Other Books by Sharon Creech

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  THAT BAILEY . . .

  Bailey, that Bailey! He said to me, Rosie, get over yourself!

  It was not a compliment.

  I said, Bailey, you get over your own self.

  Which shows you just how mad I was, to say such a dumb thing.

  I’M MAD . . .

  Bailey, who is usually so nice, Bailey, my neighbor, my friend, my buddy, my pal for my whole life, knowing me better than anybody, that Bailey, that Bailey I am so mad at right now, that Bailey, I hate him today.

  GRANNY TORRELLI SAYS . . .

  My granny Torrelli says when you are angry with someone, so angry you are thinking hateful things, so angry maybe you want to punch them, then you should think of the good things about them, and the nice things they’ve said, and why you liked them in the first place.

  Granny Torrelli is always so reasonable, so calm, so patient, except maybe for the time a man tried to get into her house, pretending he was the meter reader, and she smashed the door on his foot and picked up a broom and opened the door again and beat him on the head with it and told him she had a gun (which she did not really have) and would use it if she had to.

  Then she told him he was a pitiful excuse for a human being, going around like that trying to take advantage of old ladies (even though she normally does not like anyone else to call her an old lady).

  WHY I LIKED BAILEY . . .

  Why I liked Bailey in the first place: Bailey was always there, born next door to me, one week after me, the two of us just two babies growing up side by side, our mothers together, and me and Bailey together, on the lawn, on the porch, on the floor, playing with pots and pans and mud and worms and snow and rain and puddles.

  Help Bailey was what our mothers said to me. Help him, will you, Rosie? And I did. I always helped Bailey. He was my buddy, my pal, my friend. Went to the zoo, went to the park, had birthdays together.

  What a smile that Bailey had! He was smiling mostly all the time, his hands waving out in front of him, sweeping the air. Freckles on his face, sticking-up hair very soft, very quiet Bailey boy, but not too quiet, and not pushy, not selfish, not mean, not usually.

  I pretended he was my brother, only he was better than a brother because I chose him and he chose me.

  So why does he go and be so spiteful? Why does he say Rosie, get over yourself! and why does he say that in that cold voice and slam the door in my face as if I am nobody?

  GRANNY TORRELLI MAKES SOUP . . .

  Granny Torrelli comes over, says she’s in charge of me tonight. She wants soup. Zuppa! she calls it. She says it like this: ZOO-puh!

  She starts rooting in the refrigerator, selecting celery (That’s your green, she says), carrots (That’s your orange, she says), onions and mushrooms (That’s our white, I say).

  She reaches in the freezer, snatches some chicken, flips it into the microwave, zaps it to defrost. Seizes the big red pot, fills it with water, tosses in salt and pepper and a dash of soy sauce.

  Hands me a knife. We chop, chop, chop, fling it all in the pot, such a good smell bubbling in the kitchen.

  And then she says it: Okay, Rosie, what’s going on with you?

  I say, Nothing’s going on with me.

  She says, You maybe can fool other people with that smart head of yours, but you can’t fool Granny Torrelli.

  I love Granny Torrelli, always making good things, always so calm, so patient, always telling me about my smart head.

  YOU GOING TO TELL ME?

  Granny Torrelli roots in the cupboard, snares the little pasta dots, adds more pepper and salt to the bubbling good things, tosses in the pasta, and says, You going to tell me what happened? You going to tell me what’s making your eyes so inside-looking?

  She reaches out and taps underneath each of my eyes. It tickles.

  Oh, it’s nothing, I say. It’s just that Bailey.

  That Bailey? she says. That Bailey? Your buddy, your pal—is there any other Bailey?

  I push my shoulders up, let them fall again.

  Rosie, why are you so sad, inside-looking about Bailey? He is sick?

  No, he is not sick, I say. Except in the head, maybe.

  Granny Torrelli smacks her lips. Rosie, that’s no way to talk about your buddy, your pal Bailey.

  She frowns, a big clown frown, and pretends to sob. Boo hoo hoo, she says. That Bailey has made me molto, molto sad. Boo hoo hoo.

  She makes me laugh, that Granny Torrelli.

  PARDO . . .

  Granny Torrelli hands me the wooden spoon. I stir the soup. It’s smelling so good: all the green and orange and white swirling in the chickeny broth.

  I am thinking maybe I will tell her about that Bailey, when Granny says, I ever tell you about that Pardo?

  Pardo, I say. Par-do.

  What? she says. What’s so funny?

  I never heard that funny name before.

  Granny Torrelli puts her face up close to mine. She has little brown spots all over her face, bigger than Bailey’s freckles. Pardo? she says. That sounds funny to you? She scrunches up her mouth, says the name again slowly. Par-do. Par-do. She grins. Yes, I guess it does sound funny.

  But I will tell you, she says, that Pardo was my buddy, my pal. We were like this, she says, squeezing her thumb and forefinger tightly together. We were inseparable, me and Pardo, Pardo and me. Skinny boy, black curly hair, enormous black eyes, and you know what? He had a smile, that Pardo, a smile just like Bailey’s, that Bailey who is your buddy, your pal.

  And I loved Pardo, my granny Torrelli says. I loved Pardo so much. I wanted to be with him every minute every day.

  Granny Torrelli sniffs the soup. Stir, she says. I stir.

  What kind of salad? she says.

  The one with oranges.

  Eccola! she says, already rummaging in the refrigerator, gathering two oranges, some parsle
y, searching in the cupboard for the olive oil. She hands me a knife. We slice.

  How come you didn’t marry that Pardo? I ask.

  Oh, you Rosie! she says.

  No, really, I say. Why didn’t you marry that Pardo? How come you married Grandpa instead?

  Oh, you Rosie girl! We were just little, Pardo and me. Just kids. Bambini.

  Like me and Bailey, I think. We are just kids. Twelve-year-old kids. Bambini.

  BAMBINI . . .

  We were little, me and Bailey, maybe three, maybe four, playing on the kitchen floor. Carmelita (his mother) and my mother were sitting at the table when Carmelita put her hands over her face and cried and cried.

  When they went home, I asked my mother why Carmelita was crying so hard, so long. My mother pulled me onto her lap and said, She is worried about Bailey.

  Why? I asked.

  Because Bailey cannot see very well. Not like you and me.

  She put a thin tissue over my face and turned me toward the light. Like that, she said. See how cloudy everything looks? That’s how Bailey sees.

  I could see blocks of white where the windows were and golden light from the lamps and the dark shadow of the stove. I turned my head this way and that.

  That’s why he falls, my mother said, and bumps into things.

  I fall! I said. I bump!

  She took the tissue from my face and kissed my nose. Yes, she said, you fall and you bump.

  I took the tissue and climbed down from her lap and stumbled around the house with the tissue taped to my face, sweeping the air in front of me with my hands.

  I must have taken that tissue to bed with me, because when I woke up the next morning, it was on my face. I felt it there before I opened my eyes, and in the dark behind my eyelids, I thought this: At night Bailey and I see the same way.

  JUST LIKE BAILEY . . .

  I wanted to be just like Bailey, and I wanted Bailey to be just like me. If he got green tennis shoes, I wanted green tennis shoes. If he could turn a somersault, I had to turn a somersault, too. If I had a cupcake, he had to have half. If I got new crayons, we had to get a second box for Bailey.

  I do not even want to say what happened when I was supposed to go off to school the first day.

  Un disastro! my mother said later.

  As soon as my mother opened the front door that morning, I dashed across the lawn to Bailey’s house. No, Rosie, my mother said. Bailey isn’t coming with us.

  I keep going. Up the steps, pounding on the door. Bailey, hurry up! Bailey, it’s time for school!

  My mother coming up behind me and the door opening in front of me. Carmelita standing there, her lips pressed tightly together.

  Get Bailey! I say. It’s time for school.

  Carmelita kneels in front of me. Rosie, honey, Bailey has to go to a different school.

  No, no, no, no, no! I squeeze past her, run up the stairs. Bailey, Bailey, Bailey! I see him sitting on the floor of his room, fumbling with his shoelaces. I’ll help you, Bailey. It’s time for school!

  Me, such a little girl acting like a mother.

  I kneel down. Bailey puts his face right up against mine, so close our noses are touching. He smells like toothpaste.

  Rosie, he says. Rosie, can I come with you?

  Yes! I say.

  Then my mother is there, lifting me up, and I am kicking and screaming, and she says, Rosie, come with me. You’ll see Bailey later.

  I still hear myself screaming for Bailey as my mother takes me outside and puts me in the car and fastens my seat belt and drives away, and I am screaming and crying and kicking the back of the seat, and then she pulls over by the park and gets out and takes me out of the car and carries me to the swings, where we sit for a long, long time.

  And when we finally did go to my school, I wouldn’t let go of her hand, and I wouldn’t say my name, and I wouldn’t sing the song, and I wouldn’t play with the blocks or the little house, and I wouldn’t drink the juice, and I wouldn’t, wouldn’t, wouldn’t do any single thing because Bailey was not there.

  Now I am twelve years old, and when I look back on that first day of school, I am sure the teacher thought I was a very, very disturbed child.

  PUT YOUR FEET UP . . .

  The soup is almost done. Granny Torrelli sits down, props her feet up on a chair. Come on, she says, sit yourself down. Put your feet up. She always does this before we eat. She says people rush too much. She likes to take a few minutes to smell the food and relax before we go rushing around gobbling it up.

  I wish your mom and pop were here to join us, she says.

  They work too much, I say.

  She lets a puffy sigh out of her mouth. Everybody works too much, I know it, she says. Work, work, work. Pay the bills. Work some more. You know why, don’t you?

  Why they work? I say. To pay the bills.

  Granny Torrelli crosses her arms over her chest. She is a roundish woman, soft and plump, but my mother—her daughter—is skinny. I am skinny, too. They want a nice roof over your head, they want good food in your stomach, they want to get you shoes before the ones you have pinch your feet.

  She looks down at my feet. Are those shoes pinching you? she asks.

  I wiggle my toes inside my shoes. I am tempted to say yes, but I don’t. No, I say. They’re not pinching me.

  Granny wiggles her own feet. Good. Now are you going to tell me about that Bailey?

  That’s Granny Torrelli for you. She distracts you, gets you talking about your shoes, and then she asks the question that is really on her mind. I think I should study exactly how she does this. It could come in handy, that skill.

  Oh, that Bailey! I say. That Bailey is so full of himself! Bailey? she says. You sure you mean Bailey, next-door Bailey, your buddy, your pal? Or are you talking about some other Bailey I don’t know?

  I am wanting to tell her, but I don’t know where to start. I want to tell it right, want her to be on my side, want her to agree with me.

  You know how he has all that special stuff? I say.

  Special stuff? What kind of special stuff?

  You know, recorded books and Braille ones and—

  Oh, she says, that special stuff. Wait a minute. I’ve got to take a little pause— And she gets up and goes to the bathroom.

  While she is gone, I am thinking way back, about the time I was showing Bailey the alphabet and he kept holding the tablet right up to his nose, but still he couldn’t see the letters, and I got the idea to use fat black markers to make the letters. I printed out BAILEY in tall fat black letters, and he held the tablet close to his face, and while he was saying B-A-I, his mother, Carmelita, came in the room and squeezed her hands on her worried cheeks and said, Oh! Rosie! What a great idea! and then Carmelita sat heavily on a chair and shook her head.

  I should have thought of that, she said. Why didn’t I think of that? And then she looked so sad that I felt as if maybe I’d done something wrong.

  And I thought at the time that I could teach Bailey everything I learned at school. But then, maybe it was the next year or the year after, Bailey got the Braille things. I couldn’t make any sense of those dots. He tried to show me, but I couldn’t do it, couldn’t get it. He could read with his fingers. It seemed like a miracle what he was doing with those raised bumps on the page.

  I told my mother we had to get the Braille things. I’ll check into it, she said, but she forgot about it, and when I reminded her, she said, Rosie, I’ll check into it, and time was going by, and Bailey was learning more and more, and I was feeling so left behind. And one day he was reading to me from the Braille book, his fingers moving so softly over the page, and I grabbed the book and ripped the page and then I told him it was an accident, that I hadn’t meant to rip it.

  But I had meant to rip it.

  PLAYS . . .

  We put on plays, Bailey and me, all the time, for as long as I can remember. When we were little, the plays were about a mother and a father and a baby (the baby was usually a stu
ffed animal), or a sister and a brother. We made up the stories as we went along. One day when we were doing one of the mother and father ones—maybe we were seven then—our lines went like this:

  MOTHER (Rosie):

  It’s such a good day. Let’s take the baby to the park.

  FATHER (Bailey):

  I don’t want to.

  MOTHER:

  Yes, you do.

  FATHER:

  Did you hear me? I said I don’t want to.

  MOTHER:

  Bailey, stop it, you’re ruining the play.

  FATHER:

  I’m not Bailey. I’m the father, and the father doesn’t want to go to the park.

  MOTHER:

  Why not?

  FATHER:

  Because I’m sick of all this responsibility!

  MOTHER:

  Bailey, cut it out.

  FATHER:

  I’m not Bailey. I’m the father.

  MOTHER:

  Well, cut it out, Father.

  FATHER: