Copyright © 1994 Peggy Dymond Leavey

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior consent of the publisher.

      Cover illustration by Greg Ruhl

      Book design by Pamela Kinney

      Cover design by Pamela Kinney

      Published by Napoleon Publishing Inc.

      Toronto, Ontario, Canada

      05 04 03 02 01 00 99 98 5 4 3 2

      Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data

      Leavey, Peggy Dymond

      Help wanted : Wednesdays only

      ISBN 0-929141-23-7

      I. Title

      PS8573. E38H4 1994 jC813’ .54 C94-931073-5

      PZ7.L43He 1994

       Far Dad. H.G.P.D. 1906-1992

      CHAPTER 1

      “Whoa, Mark! Isn’t that your grandfather?” A black and white police cruiser was parked at the curb outside my building. Jason bent down for a closer look.

      At first, the glass in the window only reflected our two bewildered faces, pale and pinched from the bitter March wind. Then my heart sank. It was Grandpa. How could he do this to me? Again.

      “Mark Rogers?” One of the officers got out of the car onto the sidewalk.

      “Look, Mark,” gulped Jason, “I gotta go. Okay? I’ll call you later.” And he scurried away up the street.

      It wasn’t that Jason was a chicken or anything like that. He just knew how to stay out of unpleasant situations. I was glad it had only been Jason with me. He already knew about my grandfather. I was glad it hadn’t been Nicole or someone else I was trying to impress. Not that Nicole Somers would be walking home with a shrimpy kid like me anyway. But I sure didn’t want any of the kids at school to see my grandfather getting out of a police car. In his pyjamas.

      I could feel my face burning with shame as I led the officers up to our apartment.

      “Must’ve walked all the way over here from his place,” one of them said, waiting while I unlocked the door. “Found him wandering around about three blocks away.”

      “Have your mother call us,” the other officer directed, seeing us both safely inside.

      I closed the door and stood leaning against it, looking at my grandfather. I had never used to feel pity for this man who sat here now on the couch, his thin, brown hands resting on his knees. Once he had been my hero.

      I’ll look like that someday, I thought. Everyone said I took after Luigi Cecchini, except he had thick black hair and mine was red, like my father’s. Grandpa and I had the same wiry body, not very tall, but strong as an ox, they said. At least, he had been once. I’d seen him lift a crate of cabbages onto his shoulders as if they had been feathers.

      Mom had given him those pyjamas for Christmas. There was a little blue snowflake design on the white flannelette. Like a little kid’s.

      “How come you didn’t get dressed today, Grandpa?” I asked.

      “I get dressed, Frankie. I always get dressed.”

      “But where’s your coat? It’s freezing outside.”

      Frankie was my mother’s brother. He’d been killed in a motorcycle accident before I was even born.

      “Mom will be home at five,” I sighed. “You want to watch T.V.?”

      On the screen, some talk show host was raving at his studio audience, and Grandpa, although he never moved back from the edge of the couch, looked as though he might watch it for a few minutes. You could never be sure. He was pretty restless these days.

      I went into the kitchen to see what I could find to eat. I was 13 at the time, old enough to know what was happening to my grandfather, but I still didn’t really understand it.