Inflating a Dog (The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy) by Eric Kraft (e manga reader TXT) 📕

“In fact — it was quite an adventure — for a boy, a very young boy, which is what I was when I did that.”

“That radio you built that never worked?”

“Well, actually my grandfather built it. I just helped.”

“Helped make it not work?”

“Well, in a sense.”

Hilarity reigned.

“The science project that you still haven’t finished?”

“I’m working on it.”

“The flying motorcycle that never got off the ground?”

“Oh, now, come on. I flew that thing all the way to New Mexico.”

That claim brought groans and, of course, more laughter.

“Let me ask you this,” I said. “Did she ever tell you about the Lunch Launch?”

“No — ”

“She didn’t?”

“She didn’t tell us about that.”

“She told you all those stories about me, and she never told you about Arcinella?”

Heads were shaken. Blank looks were displayed.

“How she bought a clam boat, painted it in tropical colors, and plied the bay selling sandwiches?”

“No.”

“How I kept the boat afloat all summer even though it was sinking?”

“Nothing like that.”

“The mishaps, the merriment, the close shaves?”

“No.”

“Her success? Her fame? She didn’t tell you any of that?”

“Nothing at all.”

“Well,” I said, “let me tell you,” and I told them a briefer, simpler version of the story I have just told you, and while I was telling it, my mother, Ella, who for one unforgettable summer ran Ella’s Lunch Launch, died.

Afterword

The Story Behind the Story of Ella’s Lunch Launch

I know what temptations the devil has to offer, one of the greatest of which consists in putting it into a man’s head that he can write a book and have it printed and thereby achieve as much fame as he does money and acquire as much money as he does fame; in confirmation of which I would have you, in your own witty and charming manner, tell him this tale.

There was in Seville a certain madman whose madness assumed one of the drollest forms that ever was seen in this world. Taking a hollow reed sharpened at one end, he would catch a dog in the street or somewhere else; and, holding one of the animal’s legs with his foot and raising the other with his hand, he would fix his reed as best he could in a certain part, after which he would blow the dog up, round as a ball. When he had it in this condition he would give it a couple of slaps on the belly and let it go, remarking to the bystanders, of whom there were always plenty, “Do your Worships think, then, that it is so easy a thing to inflate a dog?”

So you might ask, “Does your Grace think that it is so easy a thing to write a book?”

Miguel de Cervantes

The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote de la Mancha,

Part Two, Prologue, “To the Reader”

(translated by Samuel Putnam)

I know what temptations the devil has to offer, one of the greatest of which consists in putting it into a [boy’s] head that he can [help his mother make her dreams come true] and thereby [win the affection of the girl for whom he yearns, or, to put it more accurately if less delicately, win sexual favors from the girl for whom he lusts]; in confirmation of which I would have you, in your own witty and charming manner, tell him this tale.

There was in Seville a certain madman whose madness assumed one of the drollest forms that ever was seen in this world. Taking a hollow reed sharpened at one end, he would catch a dog in the street or somewhere else; and, holding one of the animal’s legs with his foot and raising the other with his hand, he would fix his reed as best he could in a certain part, after which he would blow the dog up, round as a ball. When he had it in this condition he would give it a couple of slaps on the belly and let it go, remarking to the bystanders, of whom there were always plenty, “Do your Worships think, then, that it is so easy a thing to inflate a dog?”

So you might ask, “Does your Grace think that it is so easy a thing to [make a mother’s dreams come true]?”

Miguel de Cervantes

The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote de la Mancha,

Part Two, Prologue, “To the Reader”

(translated by Samuel Putnam, adapted by Peter Leroy)

WHEN PEOPLE ASK what my mother was like, I tell them the story of her lunch launch, because in that story so many of her best attributes show to good advantage — particularly her enthusiasm — and also because the lunch launch — Ella’s Lunch Launch — was a success, her only successful entrepreneurial venture, coming after a long string of failures, of which I will mention here only Ella’s TV Colorizer, Ella’s Cards for Forgotten Holidays, Ella’s High-Heel-Low-Heel Convertible Shoes, Ella’s Peanut Butter on a Stick, and the final failure, Ella’s Lacy Licks, an enterprise that was for a while known as Ella’s Ribbons of Dee-Lite.

Throughout my childhood and adolescence my mother dreamed of going into business for herself. This desire first began to manifest itself when I was very young, too young to understand that there was a motive for her yearning beyond wanting to make some money, but by the time I was thirteen or so I did understand. I understood that she wanted recognition more than she wanted money. She wanted to make people — in particular, my father — see that she could accomplish something, build a business from nothing and become a woman who was defined by a business rather than a woman who was defined by a husband who ran a garage, a son who salivated at the sight of a girl in a tight skirt, and a suburban tract house with a partially finished attic. She wanted to make the world — or at least my father — think of her as Ella Piper Leroy, hairdresser, for example, rather than Ella Piper