The War with Grandpa by Robert Kimmel Smith

and the work began. Grandpa got these men who used to work for him in the old days to help. They mostly worked in the evenings. Moonlighting, Grandpa called it, though they kept the lights on all the time.
    And I helped a lot. Grandpa showed me how to bang in a nail, how to pull a wire through a wall, and how to watch out for electricity when you are putting up lights.“What you don't want,” he told me, “is a shocking experience.”
    It took a little more than six weeks to finish Grandpa's basement apartment. But when it was done it looked beautiful. He had a nice brown rug on the floor, a stove to make coffee and things, a new easy chair to just sit and relax in. Mom and Dad bought Grandpa a color TV of his own so he could watch his programs downstairs when we wanted to watch something else in the living room. And Grandpa's new little bathroom was so neat. One day he even let me use his brand-new shower stall. It was great.
    But the best day was when Grandpa and his friends finished moving all his furniture into the basement apartment. Because when they got everything in place, they went up to the top floor and moved all my things back into my old room.
    I helped them put all my stuff back in all the right places. I wanted my room to be exactly the way it was, not one thing different. I lined up the shoeboxes holding my baseball cards in the same spot they used to be. And I rehung my Hank Aaron poster right over the middle of my dresser.
    When everything was in place and Grandpa and his friends left, I lay down on my bed and thought for a while. I have to tell you I had a smile on my face I just couldn't take off. I was back where I belonged, in my room where I'd always lived. It was like I had put on my favorite pair of flannel pajamas that first cold night in the fall. My room was comfortable and it fit me. I belonged to it and it to me again.
    And then I started to think about some other things too. How you shouldn't always do what your friends tell you to do. They're not living your life, you are. And you have to decide what's right or wrong.
    While I was lying there, feeling the best I'd felt in a long while, I heard a loud banging noise on the outside of my door. I got up to look, when Grandpa swung the door open. He had a hammer in his hand and one more nail to put in.“It's a little present I made for you,” he said.

    He was hanging a wooden sign on my door that had letters kind of burned into the wood. PETE'S PLACE the sign said.
    I grabbed Grandpa and gave him a hug.“It's terrific,” I said. “Thanks.”
    He gave me his best smile.“You didn't lose your room, Pete,” he said, “and you've gained a grandpa.”

FOR MY TEACHER
    This last chapter is only for you, Mrs. Klein.
    I want to thank you for all the encouragement you gave me when I wanted to quit so many times. And for giving me so much extra time to finish—like the whole term.
    I think maybe when I grow up I might be a writer.
    I got used to slipping upstairs into my dad's office to type a chapter every night after dinner. Some of the longer chapters took a week, and one of them took even longer. Mostly it was fun, but some of it was hard work. I felt so dumb, sitting there, when the words wouldn't come. But if you wait long enough and think hard enough, and your little sister keeps out of your hair, then you can do it.
    I learned that starting is the hardest part. And it gets easier as you go along. But the ending is making me a little sad. I'm thinking, What willI do tomorrow night instead of coming up here to work on my story?
    Maybe I'll have to start thinking about another story.
    Anyway, this is the true and real story of Peter Stokes and the war with his grandpa. I hope you like it.
    And I sure hope you don't take too much off for bad spelling and grammar.

Published by Yearling, an imprint of Random House Children's Books a division of Random House, Inc., New York
    Text copyright © 1984 by Robert Kimmel Smith
    Illustrations copyright