The Unteachables

by Gordon Korman

The three football players turn tail and flee.

  I bray a laugh at their receding backs. “Gee, guys, can’t you run away any faster?”

  Kiana starts hustling the lot of us toward room 117. “Lucky for us there weren’t any teachers around.”

  “Lucky for us?” I crow. “Lucky for those jerks! Elaine was about to stomp them into hamburger.”

  “Me?” Elaine asks, confused.

  “We should have let you wipe up the floor with them,” I enthuse. “You know, like that kid you knocked unconscious and duct-taped to the flagpole.”

  Elaine looks totally bewildered.

  “Or when you tipped the steam table over onto the lunch ladies because you didn’t like crunchy peanut butter,” Rahim adds.

  “I love crunchy peanut butter,” Elaine rumbles.

  “What about the guy you head-butted down the stairs?” I demand. “You can’t say that never happened! Like twenty people wound up in the nurse’s office!”

  “He just dropped his phone,” she explains. “He bent to pick it up. I bent to help him. We bumped heads.” Elaine assumes a faraway expression as she relives the moment. “The kids on the steps didn’t stand a chance. He took them all out on his way down. It looked like a giant wave of people breaking over the staircase.”

  We end up standing there outside room 117, staring at each other in amazement.

  “It’s just rumors, you guys,” Kiana tells us. “You know how stories spread in a school.”

  “The uprooted tree?” Parker persists. “The bathroom stall door? The fire extinguisher? Come on, the fire extinguisher has to be true.”

  Elaine shakes her head. “Sorry.”

  “Okay, fine,” I say finally. “But it has to stay our secret. If word gets out that you aren’t a doomsday machine, the entire football team’s going to kick our butts.”

  Ribbit appears in the doorway. “What’s everybody doing out here? The science test starts in three minutes.”

  The science test! After all the craziness of the morning, I almost forgot about it. Who knows how many important facts already leaked out of my head?

  Ribbit distributes the test booklets as we take our seats.

  It’s game on.

  Twenty-Five

  Kiana Roubini

  The first time the Unteachables go to Sonic is the day of the state science assessment. We don’t know if we’ll be able to celebrate how we did, but we can definitely celebrate the fact that it’s over and we survived. Plus, Parker has his family’s pickup, so we can use the drive-thru.

  Of course, he’s not allowed to have passengers except his grandmother, so we have to walk and meet him there. But we can drink our slushes and sodas in the flatbed, lounging among the bushel baskets of potatoes and onions. It’s pretty fun, so we go back a couple of days later when the weather’s still nice.

  It’s a long walk home, though. So it’s pretty late in the afternoon when I come stumbling through the door, hyped up on sugar, to find Stepmonster in the front hall waiting for me.

  I’m instantly on my guard. I’ve been in Greenwich more than a month, and she’s never once waited for me. She’s always too busy chasing after Chauncey, trying to keep him from spontaneously combusting, or flushing himself down the toilet, or whatever.

  “What?” I ask her.

  “Your school called,” she tells me grimly. “Or maybe I should say a school called, since you don’t really go there.”

  My first instinct is to try to bluff through it. “Of course it’s my school. Where do you think I hang out every day?”

  “Save it, Kiana. It’s all out in the open now. That science exam you’ve been working so hard on—they graded your test, but couldn’t find a student to match it to. They called us because we’re the only Roubinis in Greenwich. You’re busted.”

  The science test! I should have known. Just because Mr. Kermit never checks his class list doesn’t mean nobody else checks theirs.

  I kick off my sneakers and stomp into the living room. Wouldn’t you know it—Chauncey is fast asleep in his playpen. The one time I need him awake and alert and ripping the curtains down, he fails me.

  “It’s not my fault,” I complain. “You left me alone on the first day of school, so I found a class and stayed there.”

  Believe it or not, Stepmonster actually looks a little bit ashamed. “I’m sorry. I should have been a little more on top of things. But your education isn’t a game, and a school is more than a drop-in center where you can come and go as you please. Why in a million years would you think you could get away with this?”

  “Because nobody cares about me!” I explode. “If you did, you wouldn’t have flaked off before making sure I got registered. And anyway, what difference does it make? My real school is in LA. Nobody’s going to sweat what happened during the few weeks I was here. This isn’t my home; it’s just a place to park me until Mom gets done in Utah!”

  For a split second, Stepmonster looks as if she’s about to cry. But she doesn’t. I’ll always appreciate her for that, because I definitely would have cried too.

  “Dad and I know you live with your mom,” she says at last. “But this is your home too—and we’re your family.”

  I peer over at her. She really thinks that? News to me. I mean, she’s always nice, when she isn’t too distracted by her kid—who, admittedly, is a full-time job. But family?

  “So what happens now?” I ask in a small voice.

  “I do what I should have done on day one,” she decides. “I’m going to the school to get you properly registered.”

  “No!” I howl. “They’ll put me in regular classes! They won’t let me stay in SCS-8!”

  “Why not?”

  “Because—because”—I blurt out the only thing I can think of—“because I’m not dumb enough!”

  She’s blown away. “Dumb enough?”

  I spill my guts—the Unteachables and Mr. Kermit, and how we started out a bad class, but we’re turning into an amazing one, and pretty good friends besides.

  Stepmonster listens to my sob story, and the longer I go on, the more stunned she seems. By the time I get to the end of it, Chauncey is awake. But instead of fussing, he’s watching me through the mesh of the playpen, listening intently, like he can’t wait to hear how it all turns out.

  Stepmonster looks me straight in the eye. “If that’s the class you want, that’s the class you’re going to be in, unteachable or not.”

  I jump up and wrap my arms around her. I don’t know if she expected it, but I definitely didn’t. It’s a weird moment, but not totally in a bad way.

  Chauncey isn’t a big fan of that. He screams his head off.

  I pull back. “You’d better go get him. In his mind, hugging privileges are his and his alone.”

  She laughs. “You’re probably right. And by the way, I don’t think you’re very unteachable. That science test? The school says you aced it.”

  Twenty-Six

  Mr. Kermit

  I never thought it could be like this again.

  Every morning, as I park the Coco Nerd—good as new; or at least good as twenty-seven years old—I can’t wait to get into the classroom. There’s a spring in my step; I’m practically jogging. At the coffeepot in the faculty lounge, I fill the Toilet Bowl only halfway. I don’t need coffee to stay awake. I’m firing on all cylinders, as Jumping Jake Terranova might say. Even that name doesn’t sour me the way it once did. I’ll never be able to forgive the cheating scandal, but there’s no denying the role Jake played in turning the class around.

  The class! Just the thought of them sends a jolt of electricity up my spine. Who could have guessed that the rejects of the whole district would turn out to be exactly what I needed? The Unteachables! Well, not anymore. Oh, sure, there are better students in this world—okay, there are better students in this hallway. But comparing what they’ve become to what they started out as, it’s clear that something very special is happening. And their teacher has to believe in somet
hing I haven’t believed in for a long time: myself.

  It was the state science assessment that did it for me. There was a moment at the beginning—Parker in his usual pose, hunched low over his exam booklet, staring as if trying to see inside the individual molecules of paper.

  “Hose hypnotists . . . ,” he was mumbling, struggling to make sense of the letters on the page. “Hose hypnotists . . .” Then all those hours of reading support kicked in. “Photosynthesis!” he exclaimed triumphantly.

  I had to hold myself back from cheering out loud.

  Jake actually took test day off so he could be with the class to provide “moral support.” In reality, he was more stressed out than the students and putting everybody on edge. Eventually, I had to coax him into the hall and tell him to go back to his dealership.

  He protested. “But what if . . . they . . . you . . .” Bereft of speech, he threw his arms around me. This was not something I ever wanted to happen.

  “Go,” I told him, wriggling free. “Sell cars. Jump through hoops.”

  “You’re the best teacher ever,” Jake declared emotionally. “I’m so sorry I did, you know, the thing.”

  “Goodbye, Jake.”

  More memories of that morning: looking out over my students and suddenly the whole room was blurry because my eyes were filled with tears. Just like they dove into the river because they thought I was drowning, they dove into this, and they did it for me. They had no way of knowing my job was on the line. That made it all the more impressive. I said this was important, and the kids took my word for it. They even studied! As I walked between the desks, peering over shoulders, the scratch of number 2 pencils filling in ovals made my heart swell to bursting.

  I knew it then, and the feeling has only gotten stronger since: I love these students. Parker, Aldo, Elaine, Barnstorm, Rahim, and Mateo. And Kiana, who, it turns out, isn’t even really in the class—or any class.

  That’s my fault. I’m the one who never bothered to glance at my own attendance list long enough to realize that my top student wasn’t on it. How blind I was! How burned-out and detached! On the other hand, who expects a kid to come to a school she isn’t signed up for?

  “Her stepmother straightened everything out,” Christina Vargas explains at our meeting the week after the test. “Kiana’s only here for a couple of months, and the registration process was too much red tape. So she blundered into your class and figured she’d be gone by the time anybody figured out she didn’t belong. It’s ridiculous, but almost understandable.”

  My cheeks get hot. “I suppose that doesn’t make me look very on top of things.”

  “We’re all at fault,” the principal says kindly. “I had her progress report right in my hand. I remember struggling to put a face to the name, but I never took it any further.”

  “Well, I’m not sorry it happened,” I go on. “She’s a fantastic kid and a brilliant student. Look at her score on the exam—ninety-six. She sets a positive example for the rest of the class . . .” My voice trails off. Christina’s face has turned ashen. I take a guess at the reason. “Are you moving her? Because her science score proves she doesn’t belong with my kids?”

  “I’m not moving her,” she replies grimly. “Her stepmother specifically asked that Kiana stay with you. Demanded, actually. But there’s something else.”

  I sit back, waiting.

  Christina takes a deep breath. “This is difficult, Zachary. I hate to be the person who has to give you the news. The truth is, you won’t be a teacher here much longer.”

  It comes so far out of left field that I’m shocked into silence at first. Then light dawns: “Thaddeus? The science test? But the scores were good! Kiana’s alone—”

  “That’s just it,” she tells me. “You know Dr. Thaddeus wants you gone. As soon as he realized what was happening with the Roubini girl, he had her result disallowed.”

  “Even without her,” I insist. “The others have made so much progress! Surely their grades are enough.”

  “Almost,” she says sadly. “Remember, Dr. Thaddeus has access to every test these kids have taken since preschool. He can cherry-pick exactly the numbers he needs to make sure you can’t win.”

  It reminds me of an old saying I heard somewhere: Figures don’t lie. But liars figure.

  Devastated, the principal removes an envelope from her desk drawer and hands it over. “Dr. Thaddeus dropped it off this morning. I pleaded with him, Zachary. I pointed out how close they came to making it, even though he stacked the odds against them. I raved about how absolute zero was expected of these kids, so any proficiency at all is a credit to a remarkable teacher. He couldn’t have cared less. He said even if they had fallen short by one-millionth of one percent, it wouldn’t have changed anything . . .”

  She’s still talking—weeping, practically—but I can’t make out any of it. It’s like I’m in a tunnel and the echoes are rattling around but not quite reaching me. Fingers numb, I fumble the letter out of the envelope.

  NOTICE OF TERMINATION

  ATT: Kermit, Zachary

  Please be advised that, pursuant to Article 12, Subsection 9 of the Greenwich Teachers Association contract, your services will no longer be required as of December 22 of the current school year. . . .

  My eyes skip down the page, bouncing off terms like “poor performance,” “unacceptable results,” and “ineffective educator.” I can’t bring myself to read it all, but the message is painfully clear. This magical semester—in which I turned my own life around as much as the students’—was nothing but a tease. It raised my hopes, only to dash them to pieces at my feet. It restored my faith in teaching and in myself purely so the taste would be all the more bitter now. I’m fired—sacked, kicked to the curb, canned, given the boot—as of December 22.

  Merry Christmas.

  Worst of all, my career is going to end six months too soon to qualify me for early retirement. Fade to black.

  I barely hear Christina’s tearful words of sympathy as I wander out of her office. Instead of heading to room 117, I stagger through the main doors and find the parking lot. I can’t face the kids—not now, when I’m still so stunned. What would I say to them? How could I explain it? I don’t blame them for the superintendent’s malice, but how could I ever convince them that this isn’t their fault? I’ll have to find those words eventually, but not today.

  The outside world sounds different than it usually does—subdued, muffled. Somehow, my feet carry me to the Coco Nerd, and I climb behind the wheel—the locks haven’t worked in more than a decade. The car starts in its customary cloud of burned oil. Outside, it begins to rain, and I activate the lone functioning wiper. Too bad it isn’t the one on the driver’s side. I squint through the water-spattered windshield. At least it’s forcing me to watch the road. Otherwise, I’d probably wrap the Coco Nerd around a telephone pole.

  At the entrance to the parking lot, I signal left and press the gas. There’s a loud pop, followed by a clatter, and everything goes quiet. I try the key a few more times. Nothing. Not even a feeble attempt to catch. The turn signal clicks once more, and then it dies too.

  I get out of the car and open the hood. To my amazement, nothing’s there. On closer inspection, I spy the motor lying on the pavement next to the battery, the radiator, the transmission, and a lot of other stuff that used to be attached to the car. Over a quarter century with the Coco Nerd, and I thought I’d seen it all. Wrong again.

  This is an ex–Coco Nerd.

  It’s raining harder and I’m getting soaked. There’s probably something I should be doing, but what? Call a tow truck? Why? This heap of scrap metal isn’t really a car anymore. Inform the school that their driveway is blocked? They’ll figure it out sooner or later.

  I flip up the collar of my jacket and start walking toward home.

  Twenty-Seven

  Kiana Roubini

  The first day I’m officially a student in Mr. Kermit’s class, Mr. Kermit doesn’t even show up.
>
  It doesn’t bother us at first. It reminds me of the beginning of the year, when Ribbit was late every day. It takes a long time to fill a coffee cup the size of a bathtub.

  I guess we get a little loud, but when Miss Fountain sticks her head into the room, we quiet down in a hurry.

  She’s frowning. “Where’s Mr. Kermit?”

  We stare back at her blankly. How should we know? We listen to her high heels clicking urgently down the hall.

  “Do you think we’re getting a sub?” asks Rahim.

  “Please don’t let it be Dawn of the Dead,” Barnstorm groans.

  Ten minutes later, we hear running footsteps in the corridor, and Jake Terranova bursts into room 117. “Hi, guys—sorry I’m late. Mr. Kermit can’t make it today.”

  “Are you our sub?” Parker asks.

  “Not exactly,” he tells us. “But since you’re coming to the dealership later anyway, Emma—Miss Fountain, I mean—well, why bring in a substitute for just a couple of hours?”

  “Is that legal?” Mateo inquires.

  “Technically, Miss Fountain is covering both classes. Think of me as an assistant. You know, a volunteer.”

  “Is Mr. Kermit sick?” Rahim asks.

  “Nah!” Jake shrugs this off. “I mean, not really. He might be upset a little—”

  I jump on that. “Upset about what?”

  Jake is flustered. There’s obviously something going on that we’re not supposed to know about, and Jake has the kind of face that can’t hide secrets. When you’re the boss of a giant car dealership, you don’t have to answer questions from your employees, because what you say goes. But that doesn’t work with a bunch of kids.

  “It’s the science test, isn’t it?” Aldo says belligerently. “I flunked and now Ribbit won’t come to school.”

  Barnstorm cackles. “If that’s how it went, you’d have been in an empty classroom your whole life.”

  “Is that it?” Elaine rumbles. “Did we fail the test?”

  The babble of agitated voices grows louder until Jake waves his arms for quiet. He perches on the edge of the teacher’s desk and motions us close. “Okay, I’ll tell you. But you have to promise not to say anything to her.” He motions over his shoulder in the direction of Miss Fountain’s room.