The Unteachables

by Gordon Korman

  I almost ask if the others are there with him, but I keep my mouth shut. On the off chance that it’s true, she might send them back.

  “He’s already got crutches, but that seems to be unrelated,” the nurse goes on. “I’ve iced the foot, but Bernard refuses to let me call his parents. He says he doesn’t want to miss anything.”

  “Spirit Week,” I mutter. Even students who are deliberately excluded still find something irresistible about this three-ring circus. Into the intercom, I add, “Well, thanks for letting me know. Please don’t feel you have to send him back to class anytime soon. Take your time. We don’t want to risk reinjury.”

  I break the connection. One mystery solved; six to go. Except is it really a mystery if you don’t care? Just the fact that they’re absent is enough for me.

  At that moment, the PA system crackles to life. “Your attention, please. It’s Principal Vargas.” Her voice seems higher-pitched than usual, and a little shrill, like she’s under stress. “Seven large cartons are missing from the loading bay. That’s all the vuvuzelas for Spirit Week. Perhaps somebody thinks this is a joke. I assure you that it isn’t. This is stealing, pure and simple. If the school doesn’t get its property back immediately, we’ll turn the matter over to the police.”

  I sit down at my desk and open the paper to the crossword puzzle. Who would have believed that Spirit Week could start out on such a hopeful note? First, no students. Next, no vuvuzelas. How could it be better—Superintendent Thaddeus being abducted by aliens?

  I frown. Missing students . . . missing vuvuzelas . . .

  Miss Fountain bursts in from next door. At the sight of the empty desks, she exclaims, “Mr. Kermit—where are your students?”

  I shoot her a coy look. “Shhh. You’ll jinx it.”

  “But—but—” Totally flustered, she rushes across the room and yanks up the Venetian blinds.

  An appalling sight meets my eyes. A pickup truck is jouncing across the schoolyard—not just any truck; Parker’s truck. The payload is piled high with boxes. Parker is at the wheel, his face and shoulder crowded up against the driver’s-side window by the rest of the missing Unteachables. Three more jog alongside the pickup.

  “They hate me!” I exclaim.

  “Of course they don’t hate you,” Miss Fountain shoots back. “Why would you say such a thing?”

  “They know how much I can’t stand vuvuzelas. They’re cornering the market so they can torture me forever.”

  “Come on!” She grabs my arm and literally drags me to the nearest exit. “We’ve got to stop them before this becomes a police matter and the children end up in trouble!”

  Out on the lawn, she runs after them, so I run too. I haven’t run in fifteen years, and I’m not good at it. Six steps in, I’m out of breath. Gasping and wheezing, struggling to keep up, I reflect once again how much Emma Fountain is like her mother. In the middle of a crisis, her number one concern is that the “children” shouldn’t get in trouble. Why not? Trouble was invented for juvenile delinquents who do things like this! Fiona was the same way. And her onetime fiancé used to be just as naïve—until a certain seventh grader named Jake Terranova showed me how the real world worked.

  A glance over my shoulder reveals that Emma and I aren’t the only ones chasing the runaway Unteachables. It looks like half the faculty is racing across the grass, running full tilt. Christina Vargas is in the lead. But wait—who’s that inching ahead of her? Oh no, it’s Dr. Thaddeus! The superintendent’s face is bright red, and he’s sweating all over his hand-tailored silk suit. Not far behind the leaders is Barnstorm, thump-swinging skillfully on his crutches. The kid really is a great athlete. He’s having no problem keeping ahead of Nurse Fox and the custodial staff. Even a couple of the lunch ladies have joined the stampede.

  Up ahead, the pickup stops in a spray of dirt and grass. The Unteachables set about unloading the big boxes, yanking them out of the payload.

  “What’s that noise?” Emma tosses over her shoulder.

  I hear it too—a low, hissing rumble. The Greenwich River. The students have the boxes ripped open and lined up along the riverbank, as if they’re planning to—

  The truth hits me like a cannonball to the stomach, knocking the wind out of me. Or maybe it just feels that way because I have so little wind left.

  They’re not stealing the vuvuzelas; they’re going to dump them!

  I resolved long ago never again to waste any brain activity wondering what makes a bunch of rotten kids do what they do. But this is something that can’t be ignored. Hijack a shipment of vuvuzelas only to throw them away? Why?

  Aldo’s voice reaches me from the riverbank. “It’s Ribbit!”

  What happens next might be the strangest part of an already bizarre episode. The Unteachables—caught red-handed in the middle of a ridiculous crime—all start cheering.

  What choice do I have but to try to get to the bottom of this?

  I charge up to the group. “Has everybody gone crazy?” I demand, panting from the long sprint. “What could possibly be the point of—” That’s all the breath I have left. I double over, clutching my thighs, gasping.

  “We did it, Mr. K!” Parker crows. “We got the vuvuzelas! All one thousand of them!”

  “One thousand and eight!” Mateo corrects.

  At this point it’s just babble.

  “I saw the shipment in the loading bay—”

  “Elaine created a distraction on Barnstorm’s foot—”

  “We got the idea from the Grinch—”

  I throw my arms around a carton and pick it up, nearly rupturing a disc in the process. Who knew that a box of light plastic horns could be so heavy? It’s a titanic struggle to get it up onto my shoulder. “We’re taking these back to school right now!” I exclaim, voice strained. “Honestly, what were you kids thinking?”

  Kiana regards me earnestly. “We know how you feel about Spirit Week, Mr. Kermit. We took the vuvu-zelas because you hate them so much.”

  The bulky carton freezes on its unsteady perch on my shoulder. The thought knifes through my oxygen-starved brain. They’re doing this—for me!

  “Kermit!” roars an enraged Dr. Thaddeus. “Control your students!”

  I barely hear him. The flood of emotions brings me back decades—to a time before Jake Terranova and the cheating scandal. Back when I was Emma’s age, and I’d step into the classroom every morning with high hopes of shaping young minds.

  The mere memory of the teacher I used to be causes my posture to straighten—and that might explain why the giant box of vuvuzelas overbalances. I cry in alarm as the carton tips over, taking me with it. As I fall, a hundred and forty-four Go, Go, Golden Eagles vuvuzelas drop out of the container into the water. I’m only a split second behind them, plunging headfirst into the river in a not-too-graceful reverse swan dive.

  The cold water delivers a shock to my central nervous system, starting my heart beating triple time. Shivering, I break the surface just in time to see my students scrambling, tumbling, jumping, and belly flopping to my rescue. Even Barnstorm joins the mission, flinging aside his crutches and hurling himself into the drink. In the process, the kids manage to overturn the other boxes and kick most of the remainder of the shipment into the river with them.

  It’s a moment that’s definitely not covered in teacher’s college—standing with your entire class in chest-high water while a thousand and eight bobbing vuvuzelas drift off downstream. Elaine has Mateo by the collar to keep him from sailing away with the noisemakers.

  Of all the miserable things that have happened to me during Spirit Week over the years, this ranks about sixth.

  Fourteen

  Dr. Thaddeus

  HIJACKED HORNS SCUTTLE SPIRIT CELEBRATION

  The Greenwich Telegraph, Local News

  By Martin Landsman, Staff Reporter

  Greenwich Middle School’s annual Spirit Week was a disappointment this year after a prank gone awry dropped a shipment of the traditional
vuvuzelas into the river. Although more than half the noisemakers were eventually recovered, there was little enthusiasm at the school for blowing them. “I’m not putting my mouth on those things,” one student commented. “You know, fish go to the bathroom in that water.”

  District officials are not revealing the names of the perpetrators of the prank, saying only that they have been “appropriately reprimanded,” and that their teacher is a “veteran educator.” But the Telegraph has learned that the teacher in question is Mr. Zachary Kermit, who is still remembered for his involvement in a 1992 cheating scandal that remains a serious black eye for the Greenwich schools. . . .

  Christina Vargas finishes reading the article and slides it back across my desk. “Surely you’re not still angry at Zachary Kermit for what happened twenty-seven years ago.”

  “Why shouldn’t I be?” I ask irritably. “The whole town remembers the scandal. The fact that it came up in this story proves that.”

  The principal shrugs. “You know as well as I do that the real culprit was Jake Terranova. He’s the one who got his hands on a stolen exam and went into business selling it to his classmates. He may have been only twelve at the time, but he was the same wheeler-dealer that he is today with his car business. All Zachary was guilty of was being fooled like everybody else. Like me, for one. And you.”

  I grimace. Superintendent is a powerful job, but a lonely one as well. When big decisions have to be made, there’s no higher authority to appeal to. You are the law. Christina’s right that in 1992, Zachary Kermit knew nothing about what the Terranova kid was up to. But when you’re the big boss, you don’t have the luxury of considering things like that. All that matters is optics. How does it look?

  In 1992, it looked very bad. And if the mere mention of Zachary Kermit’s name reopens that old wound in a newspaper article written by a reporter who probably wasn’t even born in 1992, then the optics haven’t gotten any better. An elephant never forgets; the people of Greenwich have memories that are longer still.

  “The district wasn’t exactly supportive when the cheating scandal was going on,” the principal adds. “You can’t fault Zachary for feeling abandoned. No wonder he got so burned-out.”

  “And what about this latest incident?” I probe.

  “That wasn’t Zachary’s fault either,” she offers. “We gave him the Unteachables. What did you expect?”

  “I expect him to control seven kids. Is that so unreasonable? I knew he wasn’t going to turn them into future presidents, or even into solid citizens. But to keep them from Grand Theft Vuvuzela—is that too much to ask?”

  I have her there. Not even the most sympathetic principal can condone the kind of stealing, disruption, and destruction of property that transpired on Monday.

  “And look what happened when he tried to stop them,” I go on, pressing my advantage. “They all ended up in the river. I just got off the phone with our insurance company. They had a few choice words to say about that, let me assure you.”

  She sighs wanly. “I like Zachary. We started out in teaching together. He was brilliant and dedicated. What happened in 1992 destroyed his confidence. We should have stepped up to make sure he didn’t blame himself. Instead, all we cared about was making sure we were covered when the newspapers got hold of the story. It ruined Zachary’s career.”

  Another difference between principals and superintendents: principals can be nice. “He ruined his own career. He might have been a good teacher once, but he isn’t anymore. I agree—we gave him the most difficult kids in the district. And he made them worse.”

  “He’ll be out of our hair soon enough,” she offers. “We both know he’s planning to take early retirement.”

  I wince. In the education business, you don’t reach the level of superintendent without knowing how to do a little homework. The health and longevity in the Kermit family are appalling. Zachary Senior celebrated his eightieth birthday by going skydiving. The grandfather just turned 106. If the youngest Mr. Kermit has the same genes, he’ll be collecting a pension from the school district for more than fifty years!

  “The taxpayers of Greenwich shouldn’t be on the hook for a bad teacher,” I tell her. “If he’s fired for cause, he’ll get no pension at all.”

  She doesn’t like that. “You have no cause. Not for a few lost noisemakers and something that happened twenty-seven years ago.”

  “Not yet,” I concede. “But I’ll find cause. Zachary Kermit is untrustworthy and incompetent. I know he’s your friend, but as his boss, can you really defend him?”

  She doesn’t answer. A principal always knows when there’s deadwood on staff that needs to be cleared away.

  I don’t gloat. That would be unbecoming of a superintendent. But privately, I enjoy watching her squirm as she struggles to come up with an answer to that.

  “I wonder,” she muses finally. “When Zachary fell in the river—”

  “No defense of a teacher should include a sentence that ends with ‘fell in the river,’” I cut her off.

  “The students didn’t fall,” she persists. “They jumped in because they thought they had to rescue Zachary. Remember the kids we’re talking about—some of the most difficult and antisocial we’ve ever seen. But they’re loyal to him. Why?”

  Twelve hours later, as I lie in bed, trying to sleep, that why? is still reverberating inside my skull.

  Fifteen

  Mateo Hendrickson

  The whole class gets suspended for the rest of Spirit Week. If that doesn’t sound like a bad punishment, remember that your parents need to rearrange their work schedules so you’re not left completely alone. I can’t speak for the others, but my folks are pretty mad.

  “It’s no big deal,” I tell my father. “Syfy is running a Battlestar Galactica marathon this week. That should keep me busy until at least Thursday.”

  Dad is like Zeus from Percy Jackson. No thunderbolts, but when he’s in a bad mood you definitely want to stay clear of Olympus. “If you think this is a vacation, mister, you’re sadly mistaken. You’re going to sit in your room and reflect on how it’s wrong to steal.”

  “It wasn’t stealing,” I insist. “Stealing is The Great Train Robbery. This is the Grinch. Better than the Grinch. The Grinch tried to steal Christmas, but he couldn’t. We really did steal Spirit Week.”

  “You stole it from yourselves,” he retorts. “Everyone else gets to enjoy it.”

  “We were already banned before we were suspended. Besides, Mr. Kermit’s right. It’s dumb to have spirit because it’s on the calendar, or because people are blowing horns in your ear.”

  He frowns. “Mr. Kermit. I don’t like what I’m hearing about that guy.”

  “Mr. Kermit’s a good teacher,” I argue. At least, he could be if he ever teaches anything. Look at Yoda. He may be a puppet with bad grammar, but he’s also the greatest teacher in the galaxy. In fact, I might have to switch Mr. Kermit from the Grinch to Yoda, just like I’m going to have to switch Barnstorm from the Flash to Aquaman, because he’s an amazing swimmer, even with a bad knee and a foot that’s been stomped on by Elaine.

  Come to think of it, if we’re all suspended, does Mr. Kermit still have to go to school? There’s nobody there for him to teach. Actually, I think he might like that. But it’s possible that he’s suspended too. Dr. Thaddeus seems really mad at him.

  “Nah, Ribbit’s not suspended,” Parker tells me when I run into him on a delivery to the farmers’ market. “His car’s been in the parking lot all week.”

  “How would you know that?” I ask.

  “Whenever I’m near the school on business, I look around a little.”

  “Business?” I echo.

  “Farm business. I’ve got potatoes for Foodland, cantaloupes for the truck stop, and rutabagas for Local Table—Dad says they pay the most because they can’t bring in produce from more than twenty miles away.”

  By the time we get back to school the next Monday, Spirit Week is over, and there i
sn’t a vuvuzela in sight. Otherwise everything is the same—except for room 117. In fact, the place looks so different that, when I walk in, I actually step back into the hall to check the number on the door. No—it’s 117 all right, and the other SCS-8 kids are taking their seats as usual. But we’re all looking around in wonder.

  There’s a huge map of the world on the back wall, next to star charts from the northern and southern hemispheres. At the front, there are bulletin boards for math, science, English, and social studies. There’s a rolling cart of laptop computers. There are books on the bookshelves. The empty supply closet isn’t empty anymore. Through the open door we can see stacks of paper, pencils, scissors, and art supplies.

  Another thing that’s different: Mr. Kermit is already here. He’s at the science board, pinning up a large periodic table of elements. It throws some of us because when the teacher makes his usual entrance ten minutes after the bell, that’s our signal to start ribbiting. Sure, there are a few ribbits, but they seem random and halfhearted.

  Kiana speaks up. “Mr. Kermit?”

  “Oh!” He turns away from the board, as if noticing us for the first time. “Good. Everybody’s here. Before we get started, I want to say something about last Monday down at the river. I know you were only trying to help, so let’s chalk it up to temporary insanity. And—uh—thanks. But next time—not that there will be a next time—well, please find somebody else to help.”

  “But, Mr. K—” Parker interjects, waving his arms to take in the transformed classroom. “What gives?”

  Mr. Kermit looks uncomfortable. “Well, last week I had some spare time since all my students were—uh—absent. So I did some redecorating.”

  An uneasy murmur buzzes through room 117. It’s hard to put my finger on it, but it comes from the fact that this “redecoration” smells an awful lot like school. It isn’t a big problem for me. I’m okay with the school side of things. But I don’t like change. And for sure, this isn’t the Ribbit we’re used to. Where did all this come from?