Jake and Kojo went to the branch of the city’s public library that Jake had never realized was less than a block away from his apartment building.
“When’d they put this here?” he remarked, admiring the three-story structure with gracefully arched windows and a strongly detailed roofline. (Apparently, architecture appreciation had been in one of the jelly beans he’d gobbled down, too.)
“Oh, not too long ago,” said Kojo, pointing to the marble cornerstone. “I think it was back in 1912!”
Jake and Kojo found a work desk up on the second floor.
“Here you go,” said Kojo, setting down a stack of clothbound books. “Like Mr. Farooqi said, you should start with subjects you’re already pretty good at. We’ll wait for Spanish until after he finishes your new you-know-what. Okay—these are college math textbooks.”
Jake opened the first book and, like a high-powered copy machine that drank way too much coffee, flipped through the pages in a flash.
“Done,” he told Kojo. “Next book. Something meatier.”
“What? You didn’t read the whole book….”
“Yes, I did.”
“You were just skimming the pages. No way could you retain any knowledge.”
“Oh, really? Well, if x is greater than or equal to zero, then x to the fourth power minus six times x squared plus nine equals the absolute value of x squared minus three.”
Kojo nodded. Slowly. “Okay. If you say so.”
“Bump me up to grad school–level stuff. Something Einstein would have trouble understanding.”
For the next three hours, Kojo brought Jake books; Jake soaked them up into his jumbo-sized sponge of a brain.
A few library patrons started to watch. They were mesmerized by Jake McQuade, the human learning machine. Kojo wondered if he should charge admission. There had to be some way to cash in on Jake’s newfound gift.
“We need to put you on Jeopardy!, baby!” Kojo blurted.
“Or,” said a familiar voice, “you could just join me on the Quiz Bowl team.”
It was Grace. She was carrying a leather-bound journal sealed inside a plastic zip-top bag.
“I’m in,” said Kojo. “Sign me up.”
“Hey, Grace,” said Jake, feeling his sweat glands going into overdrive again. “Whatcha doin’?”
“Little research.”
“ ’Bout what?”
Jake’s massive vocabulary seemed to vanish whenever he talked to Grace.
“You ever heard of a pirate captain named Aliento de Perro?” Grace asked him.
Jake shook his head. Kojo, too.
“It’s Spanish,” explained Grace. “Means ‘Dog Breath.’ He was on a pirate ship that raided ports up and down the eastern seaboard back in the early seventeen hundreds. One of my mom’s ancestors was on his crew. A guy named Eduardo Leones.”
“Your ancestor worked for a guy named Dog Breath?” said Jake.
“Yep.”
“I take it this particular pirate forgot to pack his mouthwash?” said Kojo.
“Actually,” said Jake, “mouthwash wasn’t invented until the late eighteen hundreds….”
“How come you know that?” asked Grace.
Jake tapped one of the book heaps cluttering the work desk.
“Been studying.”
“That’s a math book,” said Grace.
“We did a little dental hygiene history work, too,” said Kojo.
“We did,” said Jake. “For instance, did you know that the ancient Romans used bottles of urine as a refreshing oral rinse? They thought the ammonia in urine would disinfect mouths and whiten teeth.”
Kojo scrunched up his face. “And I thought Listerine tasted bad….”
Grace’s deep brown eyes went wide. “You have to be on our team, Jake McQuade.”
“Why?” wondered Kojo. “Will we get a lot of questions about gargling with pee?”
“No,” said Grace. “But I’ve been watching you, Jake. You’ve changed. All of a sudden, you’re…smart.”
“Maybe,” said Jake.
“You know all sorts of obscure facts.”
“I guess. But it’s not like I was born smart like you and Kojo.”
“Excuse me?” chorused Grace and Kojo.
“You guys have been geniuses since kindergarten. You were born smart.”
“Not me, baby,” said Kojo.
“Me neither,” said Grace. “We just work really, really hard. So do a lot of other kids at school. Something, it seems, you don’t have to do.”
“You’re right,” said Kojo, who sounded like he was about to reveal Jake’s jelly bean secret to Grace. “That’s because he—”
“Had a growth spurt,” said Jake. “A brain growth spurt.”
That made Grace laugh. “Seriously?”
“Yeah. Typically, leaps in mental development only happen to infants—when they’re mastering major new cognitive and motor skills, like sitting or crawling. I think I had one of those. Just a little later than usual. I should probably see a doctor about it.”
“Nah,” said Grace. “You’re twelve. Growth spurts happen.”
“Yeah.”
“So, Jake, will you please join Kojo and me on the Quiz Bowl team? ¿Por favor?”
“I don’t know….”
“The school needs you! I need you.”
When Grace said that, Kojo wiggle-waggled his eyebrows knowingly at Jake.
And Jake’s face turned pink.
Patricia Malvolio was helping her uncle, Heath Huxley, set up a presentation in the boardroom of his midtown office building.
She propped the foam-board-mounted artist’s rendering of his next towering condominium project on an easel.
“It’s amazing, Uncle Heath!” she gushed. “Absolutely amazing.”
“I know. It’s huge!”
Mrs. Malvolio’s eyes watered. She wished her uncle wouldn’t use words with H in them. They sent out a lot of air. Foul air.
“Don’t you just love the name I came up with? Riverview Tower. Because it’s a tower. With a river view.”
“It’s brilliant, Uncle Heath. I mean, who wouldn’t want to live in a river-view tower? I know I’m looking forward to my free penthouse apartment. Care for a mint?”
“No thank you.” He rubbed his hands together. “Some big spenders with deep pockets are dropping by this afternoon to take a peek. We’re also opening up a showroom on East Eighty-Eighth Street with a model unit. I predict we’ll presell ninety percent of the condos before we even break ground.”
“Speaking of ground,” said Mrs. Malvolio, “you should have it soon enough. We’re still on track to be declared the district’s worst middle school building. There’re a few new leaks in the ceiling, and the health inspector finally wrote us up for those faulty refrigerators in the cafeteria. They’re going to tear us down for sure!”
“When will the wrecking ball show up?”
“Hopefully this summer.” She paused. A pained look crossed her face and crinkled her makeup.
“What’s wrong?” asked Mr. Huxley, seeing her frown. “Your lipstick is cracking.”
“Well, Uncle Heath, there’s this one girl, Grace Garcia….”
“What’s the problem?”
“She’s too smart. I tried to transfer her to Sunny Brook, but she refused. She could ruin all our plans. If that kind of brilliance can shine inside our shabby building, the city may refuse to tear the place down.”
“Get rid of her, Patricia!”
“I’m working on it! But the girl is stubborn. Just like her uncle, my so-called vice principal, Charley Lyons. I’ve tried to encourage him to leave Riverview, too. Even made a few calls to set him up with a higher-paying job at Chumley Prep. He said, ‘No thanks. Someone from my family has al
ways worked at this school because we honor and cherish its history.’ Blah, blah, blah.”
Panic swirled in Mr. Huxley’s eyes. “Do you think this Charley Lyons knows what we know?”
“I doubt it.”
“He’d better not,” said Mr. Huxley. “I paid good money for that information.”
“It was a wise investment, Uncle Heath.”
“Indeed it was, Patricia. Because I’m going to completely finance this tower with what we find in the caves underneath your ramshackle old school!”
Then he and Mrs. Malvolio laughed their sinister family laugh.
“Okay, Jake,” said Kojo. “Here’s your schedule for today.”
“My schedule?”
“Yeah. I organized it on a spreadsheet so, you know, it would look all official and you wouldn’t get confused like you did yesterday.”
“I wasn’t confused, Kojo. I was mad at you.”
“Which was a remarkably dumb emotion for someone as smart as you and your jelly bean brain.”
“I don’t want to do other people’s homework.”
“Of course you don’t. Not for free. That’s why I’ve set up a fee structure.”
“Fee structure?”
“Exactly. Let me run it down for you.”
It was early in the morning. Before homeroom. Kojo and Jake were in the cafeteria with the last two chocolate milks they could find in the cooler.
“Now,” said Kojo, “if some kid wants you to solve a math problem, that’s five bucks. Or something really good from their lunch. You know—Ho Hos, Ding Dongs, Twinkies, something like that. If they need you to write, say, a whole essay for them, well, now we’re talking ten, twenty dollars. I, of course, take my fifteen percent commission off the top….”
“Fifteen percent?”
“I’m your agent. It’s what we get.” Kojo swiped his finger across his smartphone. “As you’ll see, I’ve put together a pretty tight schedule for today. You have appointments at every class break.”
“Hey, guys!” Grace breezed into the cafeteria. Her smile was bright. So were her eyes. “I thought we should have our first team meeting today. Now, I know you guys usually have basketball practice after school, so I’m thinking we can practice during lunch.”
“Um, sorry,” said Kojo, scrolling down his phone’s screen. “Jake already has a lunch.”
“Oh,” said Grace. “Okay. How about fifth period? We all have specials. We could meet in the library.”
“Nope,” said Kojo. “No can do.” He turned to Jake. “You have a deep-dive social studies paper that’s due first thing tomorrow.”
“You do?” said Grace. “We’re in the same social studies class. I don’t remember Uncle Charley saying anything about a paper being due tomorrow.”
“Oh, it’s not Jake’s paper,” said Kojo. “It’s for Chase Farnsworth. He’s paying top dollar. Thirty bucks, on account of the fast turnaround.”
“You’re doing other kids’ homework?” said Grace, looking seriously disappointed. “And getting paid for it?”
“Hey,” said Kojo, “don’t get all jealous. Just because we thought of doing it before you did…”
“I would never charge someone who needed help,” said Grace defensively.
“Yeah,” said Kojo. “We need to talk about that. You keep taking on charity cases, you’re gonna drive down the fair market value of my man’s brain.”
Grace looked at Jake like she didn’t know who he was.
“Are you really going to do this? Charge people to help them study? ¡No puedo creerlo!”
“I’m sorry,” said Jake. “I don’t know what you just said.”
“Too bad. For a smart guy, you sure have a lot to learn.”
Jake stood up. “I’m not going to charge people or do their homework for them. This side hustle was Kojo’s idea.”
“You mean this genius move was my idea,” said Kojo. “And it’s not a side hustle. It’s our college tuition fund.”
Jake ignored him. “I just came in here for a cold chocolate milk, which, by the way, I suspect was stored at a temperature well above the safety limit of forty degrees Fahrenheit. That’s why it’s so thick and chunky, Kojo.”
“Huh,” said Kojo. “So it’s not a chocolate milkshake in a convenient cardboard carton?”
“No.”
“Good thing we didn’t drink any.”
Jake shook his head and walked away.
“Where are you going?” Kojo hollered.
“I don’t know,” said Jake. “I need to clear my brain! Get out of my head. Do something physical. Maybe I’ll go shoot some hoops or see if the janitor needs help sweeping the hallways.”
“Mr. Schroeder isn’t sweeping anything today,” Grace shouted after Jake. “Mrs. Malvolio just fired him.”
Jake slowly turned around.
“She fired Mr. Schroeder?” he said, sounding stunned, like his whole world was putrefying faster than the curdled chocolate milk he’d almost just drunk. “Why?”
“Our principal thinks we don’t need a janitor,” said Grace. “She told Uncle Charley that having Mr. Schroeder clean up after students is sending the wrong signal. She thinks we need to learn to clean up after ourselves.”
“I guess she has a point,” muttered Kojo.
“Uncle Charley is hasta el último pelo with Mrs. Malvolio.”
“Huh?” said Jake.
“He’s totally fed up with her. His father and grandfather were both custodians here. Someone from the Lyons family has always worked on this plot of land, ever since the seventeen hundreds.”
“This school’s that old?” said Kojo.
“There wasn’t always a school on this property,” said Jake. “First it was a farm. And then a warehouse for goods being shipped down the river. A school wasn’t built until the early nineteen hundreds.”
“That’s right,” said Grace.
“But the school’s had a custodian since day one. Am I right?” said Kojo.
“It’s traditional,” said Jake.
“And sanitary,” added Grace.
Jake smiled. He liked when Grace finished his thoughts for him.
“But now,” said Kojo, “they just up and fire the janitor because they want us to pick up our own trash?”
“That’s not the real reason,” said Grace. “It’s just another part of Mrs. Malvolio’s scheme. If the school looks disgusting, if the place is a mess, if garbage is piled up in the halls and the toilets are all clogged, the school board will shut Riverview down.”
Kojo nodded. “I read somewhere that they need to close one middle school this year. Tear down the building…”
“Well,” said Grace, “according to Uncle Charley, Mrs. Malvolio wants them to sell this property. To her uncle, who just happens to be Heath Huxley.”
“Oooh,” said Kojo. “That dapper and dashing dude is a real estate tycoon! I’ve seen his commercials on TV.”
“He’s also in Mrs. Malvolio’s office right now.”
“Then let’s roll,” said Kojo, sticking a Tootsie Pop in his mouth. “We need to do a little detective work.”
“I’ve got it!” said Mrs. Malvolio, springing up out of her rolling chair.
Its wheels wobbled. Like everything else at Riverview Middle, the chair probably should’ve been replaced decades ago.
Her uncle remained seated in the office’s sagging visitor’s chair. It was hard to stand once you’d sunk into its squishy foam rubber cushions.
The two of them had been brainstorming ways to speed up the demolition of Riverview Middle School.
“What’s the big idea?” asked Heath Huxley.
“We host the District Middle School Quiz Bowl!”
“And how does that help our humble cause?”
Mrs. M
alvolio nonchalantly fanned the air. Her uncle’s last sentence had three stinky Hs in it.
“It’s a great opportunity to showcase this building’s horrible condition. Especially now that I’ve fired the janitor. Representatives from all the other schools in the district would be here. So would most of the school board members. Garbage will be piled up in the hallways and the cafeteria. The toilets will be clogged with paper towels and worse. If we host the Quiz Bowl, the superintendent might close us down and bring in the wrecking ball before the school year is even over.”
Mr. Huxley worked his way out of the lumpy chair.
“I like where you’re going with this, Patricia,” he said.
“Thank you.” She touched her hand to her heart. “I was hoping you might.”
“Oh, it’s a terrific plan. It could really ramp up our timetable. Get us to our financing source sooner. I just have one concern. One qualm.”
“Go on.”
“This girl you told me about. The smart one.”
“Grace Garcia? Not a problem.”
“But if, by hosting this Quiz Bowl, you show the softheaded world that Riverview Middle isn’t a completely hopeless case, that children, like this Grace Garcia, can learn and thrive here, despite the wretched state of the building, they may not let us tear it down.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll find a way to limit Grace’s involvement on the big night.”
“And how do you plan to do that?”
“I’m not sure. I have a sneaking suspicion that she might not be feeling very well when it’s Riverview’s turn to play.”
Jake, Kojo, and Grace hurried up the halls, hoping to gather some intelligence about their foes: Mrs. Malvolio and her uncle, Heath Huxley.
Backpacks were piled on the floor because most of the lockers were busted. They might stay glued there, Jake thought. Without a janitor swishing a mop and swabbing the decks, the floor felt extremely gummy. Jake’s rubber-soled shoes were making sticky thwick sounds with every step.
He shook his head when he passed a poster taped to a wall:
The Smartest Kid in the Universe Page 6