“Relax, Sarah, I’m just making conversation,” he said. “You should learn how to do that one of these years.”
Sarah rolled her eyes. “Just eat your tomato, Sydney.” She started crumpling up her lunch wrappers and looked at me. “Are you almost ready to go?”
I looked at the rest of what was left of that day’s lunch (cashew chicken). It wasn’t exactly tempting.
“Okay,” I said. “We can go.”
Sarah didn’t look at Nick and the other crab-apple-tree boy, Sydney, as we walked past them on our way out. Even when Sydney yelled, “It’s been a pleasure dining with you ladies!”
“You know that kid Sydney?” I asked her once we were back in the hallway.
“Ugh, yes,” she answered. “And apparently now he wants to be called Syd, but he was always Sydney when we were at Minter.”
“I wonder how he knows Nick,” I said. “He went to Starling with me.”
“Is Nick into music?” Sarah asked.
“Yeah.”
“Then that’s probably how they know each other. Sydney thinks he’s a rock star because he has some lame band that plays in his garage on weekends. Maybe Nick is in it.”
“Why don’t you like him?” I asked Sarah.
“Who? Sydney?” She shrugged. “He’s not the worst—I mean, last year I always ate lunch in the art room, and he was usually there too, helping clean brushes and stuff.”
“You were allowed to do that?” I asked.
Sarah nodded. “Yeah, we could work on extra art projects while we ate. It was more fun than the cafeteria.”
So now I had some idea of what Sarah’s lunches were like last year. Maybe she just wasn’t a cafeteria kid. Which was fine with me.
“But Syd…I don’t know,” she said. “It’s like he’s weird on purpose, saying things like ‘It’s been a pleasure’ and eating tomatoes like they’re fruit.”
“Tomatoes are fruit,” I said.
Sarah gave me a little sock in the arm. “You know what I mean.”
I changed the subject.
“Do you think I look okay without my glasses?” I asked, and I took them off and looked at her.
“Oh yeah!” she said. “You should get contacts!”
I thought for a second. “Can I tell you a secret?” I asked her.
Sarah nodded, and I told her about That Day. The day of the appointment with Dr. Sherman, the day of the divorce announcement, the day of no contacts. Have you told anyone about that day yet, Lou? Until then, I hadn’t.
And then Sarah surprised me.
“Yeah, when my parents got divorced, they worried about money all the time too,” she said.
“Your parents are divorced?” I asked her.
“Yeah,” she said. “For a while now. Anyway, you need to be proactive.”
“What do you mean, ‘proactive’?”
“Take charge. Tell them you’ll help pay for the contacts.”
“I don’t have any money.”
“Well, then,” Sarah said as I put my glasses back on, “you need to find a way to make some.”
By the time you and Mom got home after work and school that day, I had folded laundry, unloaded the dishwasher, walked Iris, cleaned up Iris’s poop in the backyard, made a salad, warmed up leftover lasagna, and set the table for dinner.
Mom was wearing her scrubs with Sesame Street characters on them, which meant she had worked in the pediatric ward that day. It also meant she was probably in a good mood, because the maternity and pediatric wards are her favorites. On the days she has to work in the emergency room, she is much more tired when she gets home.
So I liked my odds for having a good conversation about contacts. Mom was fresh off a day with cute little kids, and I had done a ton of chores. What could go wrong?
“Well, your sister has lice,” Mom said, dropping her keys on the hall table and kicking off her special white nurse sneakers. (Lou, you may remember that you started running upstairs, and Mom yelled, “Uh-uh! Straight to the laundry room! Strip down and then get in the shower!”)
“Ugh!” I was grossed out, as anyone is when finding out about a lice infestation, but I tried to stay positive. “Well, on the bright side, I folded laundry, and cleaned up Iris’s poop, and made a salad!”
Mom looked doubly grossed out. “Did you wash your hands between picking up the poop and making the salad?”
“Yes, of course!” I said. “I warmed up the lasagna too. Are you ready to eat?”
“First I have to check your head,” Mom said. “Sit down and lean over.”
Mom put on her reading glasses and started poking through my hair with a pencil. It felt like she was drawing on my head. But I knew better than to complain.
“I guess you’re clear,” Mom said, although she seemed uncertain. “Can you check me now?” She pulled her hair out of its bun, sat on a kitchen stool, and flopped her head down onto the counter.
This was kind of weird. Last time we’d had a lice scare, I was in fourth grade. Dad had checked Mom’s hair that time. It definitely seemed like the kind of thing an adult should do for her, like zipping up her dresses or fastening her bracelets. But there was no other adult here. It was on me.
“You know what you’re looking for, right, Gus? Not just bugs, but also little eggs clinging to the hair. Nits.” Mom’s voice was muffled since her head was resting on her arms. It was probably good she couldn’t see me, because I was grimacing as I raked through her hair, afraid that bugs would pop out from behind every strand.
“Okay, I think you’re clear,” I told Mom.
She sat up and sighed. “Thanks, Gus. You’re a good egg. No pun intended.” She reached up and tousled my hair (and I could tell she was giving it another quick once-over to see if anything was crawling in it). “Now I have to go deal with your sister.”
Mom had exhaled a little since she walked through the door. I felt like this was my chance.
“Hey, Mom, before you go upstairs, I wanted to ask you something.”
She seemed to tense up again. Not a great sign. “Okay, but can it be quick?” she said. “I have to make sure Louie’s using the lice shampoo.”
I said the next sentence all in one breath. “Well, I know my appointment with Dr. Sherman is probably coming up soon; and I wonder if this year I can get contacts like we talked about and before you say no what if I help pay for them?”
Mom sighed. “Really, Gus, this is what you want to talk about right this second when I have to get bugs out of your sister’s hair and wash all the clothes and bedding in the house?”
“Okay,” I said, “but maybe we can talk more later? Did you hear the part where I said I’d help pay for them?”
“With what money?” she asked.
“I was hoping we could figure that out together?” I said. “Like maybe I can find a way to make some money by helping around the house and then pay you back after we buy the contacts?”
“Gus, you are supposed to help around the house anyway,” she said. “You are a member of this family and that’s what family members do. God knows I don’t get paid for helping around the house.”
“Okay…maybe something else, then?”
Just then you called from upstairs. “Mom! I need help and I’m itchy all over!”
“Gus, I really can’t discuss this right now,” Mom said, grabbing her hair tie off the table and throwing it in the trash can. (Clearly she wasn’t convinced that her head was bug-free.)
So. We both know that “I can’t discuss this right now” just means that Mom hopes we will drop the subject, and that if we don’t, she’ll find a way to say no later. I could see I was going to have to find a way to start making money without her help.
Here’s something that happens in middle school that never happened in elementary school: the t
eachers leave you on your own to work independently a lot more often. For most of the teachers, this means they quietly grade papers while they give you a good chunk of time to read or write or solve math problems.
But with Mr. Smeed, this means he actually leaves the room. I don’t know where he goes; he always just says, “I need to step outside for a moment. Get organized for your day.” Maybe he makes phone calls? Maybe he chats with another teacher? Maybe he has a bladder condition? I’m not sure.
Is Mr. Smeed supposed to leave us alone in the classroom? I don’t think so. But let’s be honest: homeroom is way more enjoyable when Mr. Smeed isn’t in it, so none of us are going to say anything to get him in trouble.
One day Mr. Smeed was gone for even longer than usual.
“Where do you think he goes all the time?” Nick asked me.
“I have no idea. But at least when he’s gone he isn’t handing me a bunch of papers to file.”
“Maybe he’s going out to buy more Bianca.” Gabe Garrett leaned across the aisle and offered this theory. With his face that close to me, I couldn’t help but think that he could stand to use some breath spray himself. “Have you ever noticed he’s addicted to that Bianca stuff? He sprays it in his mouth all the time.”
“It’s Binaca, not Bianca,” Nick corrected him. “Bianca is a girl’s name.”
“Whatever,” Gabe said. “I bet he has a drawer full of it.”
“If he has a drawer full of it,” Nick said, “then why would he be going out to buy it?”
Gabe had to think about that. “Maybe he just can’t get enough. Maybe he goes through a couple of bottles of it a day. I think that stuff has alcohol in it. What if it’s like his secret way of getting drunk at school?”
“It doesn’t have alcohol in it,” Nick said. “My grandma uses it.”
“So?”
Now it was Nick’s turn to think. I don’t know why, but I felt like I had to stick up for his grandma.
“Even if it does have alcohol in it,” I said, “it’s got to be a tiny amount. Not enough to get you drunk even if you used it all day long.”
“It does kind of have a burning taste, though,” Nick said, and I could tell he was starting to wonder if Gabe was right. “One time my brother and I had a contest to see who could spray the most Binaca on their tongue before it burned too much.”
“Who won?” Gabe asked.
“I did,” Nick said. “My brother gave up after five sprays but I made it to seven.”
Gabe snorted. “That’s nothing. I bet I could do at least ten.”
“What do you want to bet?” Nick asked.
“Twenty bucks,” Gabe answered.
“That’s stupid.” Nick rolled his eyes.
“I’ll do it,” I said.
Nick looked at me like I was crazy.
“For twenty dollars?” I said. “Sure, for twenty dollars I bet Gabe can’t handle ten sprays of the Binaca.” This was perfect. Twenty dollars would put a good chunk of change into my contact-lens account.
“Nah, that’s not enough,” Gabe said. “You have to really earn it. It’s a contest. Whoever can handle the most Binaca squirts wins.”
“What are you guys talking about?” Quincy asked.
Nick told her about the Binaca bet.
“I want in,” Quincy said.
“Me too,” said Mekhai, who’d overheard Nick’s explanation.
I saw a chance to minimize the amount of money I’d be losing if Gabe got more sprays than I did.
“How about this?” I said. “We’ll make it like a pool.”
“What, like a swimming pool?” Gabe asked. “Full of Binaca?”
“No, a gambling pool. The hospital staff where my mom works do it every year during March Madness for college basketball. Everyone puts ten dollars in a jar and picks which team they think will win. Whoever picks the winning team gets all the money in the jar.”
“I’m not paying ten dollars to do this,” Quincy said.
“No, you don’t have to,” I explained. “There are twenty-two of us in here. If everyone puts in one dollar, the winner gets twenty-two dollars at the end.”
“That’s even more than we first said!” Gabe practically had dollar signs in his eyes.
“Right,” I said. “Assuming everyone does it.”
“Sounds like a good plan to me,” Quincy said. “I’m in.” Knowing that Quincy approved of my idea gave me a boost somehow; I knew more kids would get behind something she supported. I should have also known that Quincy’s involvement might also increase our odds of getting in trouble, but I wasn’t thinking about that just then. I guess I had dollar signs in my eyes too.
“I’m not doing it,” Heidi said. “You aren’t allowed to gamble at school.”
Tyler Peterson didn’t look up, but whispered to the robot he was doodling. “Me neither,” he said.
“Anyone else out?” Gabe asked. The rest of the class was quiet.
“Okay, then,” he said. “Let’s see what’s in Smeed’s secret drawer.”
“Wait,” Quincy said. “Someone has to be the lookout and make sure he’s not coming back.”
“I’ll do it,” Nick said. “But I also want a turn with the Binaca stuff.”
“I’ll be the lookout when it’s your turn,” I said.
“All right.” Nick started toward the door. “If I see him coming, I’ll turn around and say ‘necktie.’ ”
“Why ‘necktie’?” I asked.
“Because he always wears neckties.”
“Why not just ‘Smeed’s coming’?”
“Because if he hears me say that, he’ll know something’s up.”
“Oh, and randomly saying ‘necktie’ isn’t at all suspicious?”
“You guys are wasting time,” Gabe barked at us. “Just pick one and let’s get going!”
“Okay, ‘necktie’ it is!” Nick said before I could protest; then he bolted toward the classroom door.
Gabe was opening and closing Mr. Smeed’s desk drawers and announcing their contents as we all started to crowd around.
“Pens and Post-its.”
“Paper clips, stapler, and the comic book he confiscated from Quincy.” He tossed the comic to Quincy, who gave a little whoop.
Gabe opened the big bottom drawer and whistled. “The mother lode!” he announced.
I looked over his shoulder. A small plastic basket held four loose bottles of Binaca, and under that were two big unopened boxes with a picture of a smiling blond lady and the words Binaca! Are you ready? emblazoned across the top. Printed in the bottom corner of each box was Quantity: 30 bottles.
“I was right! He has like a million bottles in here!” Gabe was clearly proud of himself.
“More like sixty-four,” I said.
“Whatever,” Gabe said again. “There’s still plenty for us to do our bet, and Smeed won’t even notice any are missing.”
I wasn’t so sure about that. Mr. Smeed was the most organized person on the planet; he probably had his Binaca inventory recorded on a spreadsheet somewhere. But for some reason, I didn’t care. I was too excited about the idea of winning twenty dollars toward my contact-lens fund. And Gabe was being seriously cocky; beating him would be a nice side benefit.
“Okay,” Gabe said, pulling a baseball cap out of his backpack and setting it upside down on a table, “if you want to play, put a dollar in here.” Kids started rummaging through their own backpacks looking for dollar bills and loose change.
“Also, someone has to be the scorekeeper,” he said. “Heidi, since you aren’t playing, what about you?”
“I’m not playing because you’re gambling,” Heidi said. “So I won’t keep score either.”
Gabe rolled his eyes.
“Fine,” he said. “I’ll keep score
until it’s my turn, then someone else has to count how many sprays I get.”
“Okay,” I said; then I took a deep breath. “Who wants to go first?”
Four different kids said “Me!” at the same time. I handed a Binaca bottle to Quincy, since she was standing closest to the desk, and said, “Here, you go. And put a dollar in the pool first.” Quincy dropped four quarters into the baseball cap.
She sprayed her tongue. “Ooh, it’s minty!”
She sprayed a couple more times. “Woo!” she said with a sharp inhale. “Definitely getting spicier.”
After two more sprays, her eyes started looking watery, and she waved her hand in front of her face. “Okay, I’m out. It’s starting to burn.”
“Five sprays,” said Gabe as he added a final tally mark beside Quincy’s name. “The number to beat is FIVE.”
Quincy went back to her seat beside Heidi, who looked at her with narrowed eyes. “Did it make you drunk?” she asked.
“I don’t think so,” Quincy answered. “I just can’t feel my tongue.”
Heidi gave Quincy a long, suspicious look before leaning back in her seat and returning to her book, Anne of Green Gables.
I handed the tube of Binaca to Mekhai. He also got five sprays before his nose started running and he gave up. The spray bottle continued down the line for a while; most kids stopped at three or four sprays, but Eric made it to seven.
By the time it was Gabe’s turn, seven was still the number to beat. We had gone through all four loose bottles in the basket, so he took one of the unopened boxes out of the drawer.
“Time for the Binaca lady!” he said. “Hey, maybe her name’s Bianca!” Gabe laughed at his own stupid joke.
“Okay,” he said. “Here goes nothing.” Gabe made it easily through the first five sprays, but after six he started to slow down. After seven he wiped his eyes and said, “Whew!” But he kept going, past eight…nine…ten. By then his eyes were really watering and he was starting to sweat. He eked out one more spray, dropped the bottle on Mr. Smeed’s desk like he was dropping a mic, then pumped his fist in the air. “Eleven!” he yelled, and some of the boys cheered.
The 47 People You'll Meet in Middle School Page 6