The Class

by Frances O’Roark Dowell

  She looked up at the clock. She had five minutes before Mrs. Herrera was supposed to return from her meeting. It would only take her thirty seconds to grab the kitten, but then what would she do? Run away, like Lila and Rosie? But why? And besides, wouldn’t Mrs. Herrera expect her to be there when she got back?

  You are becoming overexcited, Aadita told herself. Just take the kitten and put it in your backpack. When everything is over—when Lila returns the photograph and the danger is past—you will return the kitten to its home. Very simple.

  She walked over to the shelf as though she were only mildly interested in examining its contents. Should anyone come in, they wouldn’t give her a second thought. She considered humming or whistling, but that would be overdoing it. No, she was just stretching a bit to wake up, taking a look at these half-interesting objects.

  She glanced behind her, then snatched the little kitten, which she quickly deposited in her pocket. That was all she intended to take, but then the other two kittens looked up at her with such longing.…

  She took a tissue from the box on Mrs. Herrera’s desk and wrapped the three kittens in it before depositing them into the front pocket of her backpack. “Be safe,” she whispered as she zipped up the pocket. “I will return you to your home soon.”

  Taking a deep breath, Aadita turned to go to her desk, only to find herself facing Sam Hawkins, who was staring at her from the doorway. Then, like a flash, he was gone, and Aadita wasn’t sure whether she’d really seen him or just imagined it. If it really had been Sam, what was he doing back at school? More importantly, would he tell Mrs. Herrera that Aadita was a thief?

  Moments later the others started trickling in—Cammi and Carson, Ben, Bart and Stefan, Henry—and Aadita felt her face flush. She’d never been guilty of a crime before! Did it show? Fortunately, no one looked at her at all except for Stefan, who smiled. Aadita smiled back and quickly opened her notebook so she wouldn’t have to make eye contact with anyone else.

  When Mrs. Herrera reported to the class that some of her things had been taken, Aadita tried to look as surprised as possible, doing her best not to glance in Lila’s direction. Of course she was genuinely surprised when she learned that one of the items was Hatchet. And, oddly, she was relieved. Now she knew she’d made the right decision in rescuing the kittens. Clearly there were thieves all around her.

  That afternoon she’d hidden the kittens away in her desk drawer. If her mother found them, Aadita would say they were a gift from Ariana.

  By Wednesday, Aadita had begun to feel horribly guilty. Every day since Monday, Mrs. Herrera had locked her classroom during lunch and recess. She didn’t trust the class anymore, and this made Aadita feel not only like she’d done something truly terrible, but like she’d done something harmful to others.

  She was standing outside the classroom door after recess, looking through the window and wondering whether Mrs. Herrera would let the class back in if she brought the kittens back, when Henry came up and tapped her on the shoulder.

  Henry was always tapping her on the shoulder. Or bumping into her. Or lifting up a piece of her hair when he walked past her desk and saying, “Smooth!” or “Shiny!” Aadita tried not to mind. She thought it must be hard to be Henry, jumping around all the time, unable to keep himself under control.

  “The classroom is locked,” she said when he tapped her again.

  “I don’t want to go in,” Henry replied. “I want to stay out. I wish we went to an outside school. We could put up tents when it started to rain.”

  Aadita giggled. Pokey-punchy Henry irritated her, but the Henry with the wild imagination didn’t. She liked that Henry.

  “So…” Henry took a step so he was standing beside her and they were both peering into Mrs. Herrera’s dark classroom.

  “Yes?” Aadita said.

  “The dance? The Fall Ball? Would you do me the honor?”

  Aadita looked at Henry, who was still looking through the window, but now his face was blushing a furious red. Henry wanted to go to the dance with her? How did that happen? Was it a joke?

  “Are you pulling a prank on me, Henry?”

  Henry shook his head. “This is not a prank or a joke or a trick. It is a question about whether or not you want to go to the Fall Ball. Very straightforward. Very no strings attached.”

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t,” Aadita said. She wanted to explain more, but somehow the words wouldn’t come. It was always this way at school. At home she could talk and talk, but at school the words got swallowed up before she could say them.

  “Henry,” she tried, but still—nothing.

  “Don’t explain, don’t explain!” Henry turned and exploded down the hall. “Stop talking! You can stop talking now.”

  Aadita opened her mouth to call after him. And still—nothing.

  She had wanted to tell him she wasn’t allowed to go to dances. Her mother had been very clear at the beginning of sixth grade. No dances, no boy-girl parties, no boyfriends. “I remember your sister’s sixth-grade year very clearly,” she’d said. “It all begins in sixth grade. All the romantic nonsense that you are far too young for.”

  Maybe she should write him a note. Dear Henry, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings…

  But she had hurt his feelings! She’d hurt them very badly.

  Aadita looked through the window into Mrs. Herrera’s locked-up classroom and started to cry. It was unbearable to her that she had hurt Henry. That he thought she didn’t like him. That he had been brave and asked her to the dance and she had had to say no.

  The girls’ room was just down the hall. When Aadita got there, she splashed water on her face. The bell was going to ring in five minutes, and she didn’t want to go to math all red-eyed and weepy. But every time she thought of Henry’s hurt expression and the fact that she would never be able to explain to him why she’d had to say no because every time she tried he would run away, the tears came back.

  The door slammed open, and Lila—her fellow thief—stormed in. She looked like she was crying or was about to cry. But why? Was everyone crying today?

  “Get out of here!” Lila yelled, and Aadita took a step back from the sink, not sure what to do. She couldn’t go into the hallway looking like this, her face full of tears. Besides, who was Lila the thief to tell her to do anything?

  Lila leaned in, making her face even meaner than before. “I said, get out of here, you jerk!”

  Aadita flinched, but the only move she made was to pull a paper towel from the paper towel dispenser and dry her hands. Should she tell Lila she knew about the photograph? Should she confess her own crime as well?

  Lila grabbed Aadita by the arm and dragged her to the doorway. “Go cry somewhere else, crybaby! Why won’t you leave?”

  Aadita pulled back her arm. What was wrong with everyone lately? Was the whole world going crazy? She felt sorry for Lila, she really did. Such a stupid choice to become friends with Rosie and Petra! She should say something to help Lila. She should reach out the hand of friendship, offer to go with Lila to Mrs. Herrera, where they could both admit to the terrible things they’d done. Then maybe all the tears would stop. Well, Aadita still had Henry to cry over.…

  Her eyes filled with tears yet again. Perhaps she should go to the office and pretend to be ill.

  Lila opened her mouth, like she had more yelling to do, but then she sighed loudly and said, “Just go, okay? Please?”

  Aadita nodded. She walked toward the door. But before she opened it, she turned to Lila and said, “I think you are nicer than you behave. I think you should find nicer friends.”

  Lila stared at her. She opened her mouth and then closed it again. She looked sad.

  Aadita decided it was just a very sad Wednesday, and there was nothing to be done about it except get through it. And try to avoid Henry, which was easy, because Henry was clearly trying to avoid her.

  * * *

  Her father was still standing in the doorway, looking at Aadita with a co
ncerned expression. She wished she could tell him everything. She wished she could hand over all her problems to him like a basket of math equations for him to solve. Her father was very good at solving math equations.

  But her father could not solve the problem of Henry’s hurt feelings or do anything about the fact that Henry would never speak to her again or look at her or lift up a strand of her hair and say, “A bird’s wing!” He couldn’t solve the problem of when to return the three little kittens. He couldn’t make Mrs. Herrera unlock her door during lunch and recess. He couldn’t keep Mrs. Herrera from being in trouble with the vice principal for doing—well, whatever it was that Mrs. Herrera had done. Aadita didn’t believe any of the rumors that she’d heard, but she worried nonetheless that one day she would arrive to school to find another teacher in Mrs. Herrera’s place.

  Aadita wasn’t sure if she liked sixth grade, not if sixth grade was a place where her father could no longer sit on the edge of her bed and tell her how to solve her problems the way he’d always been able to before.

  “Don’t look so sad, Papa!” Aadita said, trying not to feel so sad herself. She crossed the room to give her father a hug. “My project is almost done and everything is good!”

  Her father rubbed the top of her head. “If you are sure…”

  “I’m sure, Papa,” Aadita insisted, although she was only sure of one thing, and that was that somehow, some way, she had to give the kittens back.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Matt

  Thursday, October 12

  Teachers thought after-school detention was the worst thing they could do to you, and, okay, yeah, Matt had to admit as he stood in the doorway and looked around Mr. Woodcroft’s room, it was pretty boring. But the worst thing was going home and having to deal with Parker, who was back from rehab and making everybody miserable. He acted like he was king of the universe, the way he ordered them all around—“Matt, go get me a Coke! Hey, Mom, I need a snack!”—and he made you feel like if you didn’t do what he said, he’d start doing all that stuff again that got him into rehab in the first place.

  So, yeah, compared to spending the rest of his day being treated like somebody’s servant, after-school detention wasn’t that bad. It was kind of entertaining, if you looked at it the right way. Who would join him today? Would it be the regulars, or would someone new pop in who you never expected to see? And what kind of mood would Mr. Woodcroft be in? Some days he was total Mr. Laid-Back, all Do what you want, just keep it to a dull roar, and other days he was Mr. Dictator, walking up and down the aisles and checking to make sure you were doing homework, or at the very least reading a magazine.

  Today appeared to be a Mr. Laid-Back day. When Matt walked into the room, Mr. Woodcroft was at his desk, feet up, reading this week’s Sports Illustrated. Good. That meant if things got really boring, Matt could yell out, “Hey, Mr. W, did you know the Bengals suck?” and they could spend the whole time talking about football.

  He eyeballed the rows of desks to see who was here. Kurt Wells, one of the regulars, along with Russ Meacham and Cody Milne. Jenna Figge was in her usual seat (last row, far left desk), and Stasia Lowe was hunkered over a magazine three desks up and one desk over. Looked like it was the usual crew today.

  But wait! Whoa ho! Who was that in the desk by the back window? Could it be Milton Falls Middle School’s newest basket case, Becca Hobbes? Oh, this was too good, Matt thought. This would make after-school detention fly by.

  “Becca, Becca, Becca,” he whispered to everybody’s favorite former good girl as he sat down in the desk behind her. “What are you in for? Murder? Theft? A little shoplifting from the school store, maybe?”

  Becca didn’t turn around. For a minute Matt thought she wasn’t going to respond at all, but then she said, “I’m a volunteer.”

  “You’re a what?”

  “A volunteer,” Becca repeated, still looking straight ahead. “I thought I’d see what it was like here.”

  Matt laughed. Man, this girl was strange. “So you’re saying you didn’t actually do anything wrong, you just decided to spend your afternoon in detention?”

  “Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.”

  “Wow, you’re even nuttier than I thought.”

  Becca’s shoulders stiffened, but she didn’t reply.

  “Mr. Collins, I’d like to see some homework on your desk,” Mr. Woodcroft said in a tone of voice that Matt interpreted as meaning If you don’t bother me, I won’t bother you. Let’s just make this look legit.

  “Sure, Mr. Woodcroft,” Matt replied cheerfully. “Getting it out right now.”

  He reached into his backpack and pulled out a pencil and a notebook. Since he had no intention of doing homework (he’d very politely ask Bart if he could copy his on the bus in the morning—Bart never said no), it didn’t matter which notebook he got out. In this case, it turned out to be history. Oh, man, the stupid history project on democracy in ancient Greece—when was that due? Tomorrow? Monday?

  He poked Becca with his pencil. “When’s that history project due?”

  “Monday,” Becca whispered. “But Mrs. Hulka wants a bibliography of all your sources by tomorrow.”

  “Sources? What?”

  Becca finally turned around. “A list of the books you read and any Internet sites you got information from? It’s all on the sheet she gave us.”

  Matt looked in his notebook. No sheets, no nothing. “I think I lost it. Can I see yours?”

  “Have you even started on this project?” Becca sounded annoyed. “Checked out one book from the library?”

  “Uh, no?” Matt said with a shrug and a smile. “It’s not due until Monday, right?”

  “It’s thirty percent of your grade for this quarter!”

  “So what? I’ll do it over the weekend.”

  Becca turned back around. What was up with this girl? Matt wondered. For years she’d been the world’s biggest goody-goody, and now she’d decided she was some juvenile delinquent, but she still cared about history projects? Matt had seen her eating by herself in the cafeteria when she used to eat with Cammi all the time (Cammi, Carson’s new best buddy—how bizarre was that?) and was in everybody’s business. Now she was this dark loner or something. Pretty soon she’d be like Parker’s old girlfriend, the one who wore a dog collar and shaved her head.

  He poked Becca with his pencil again. “Listen, I could use your help,” he said, although he really didn’t care about the history project. He could pull some stuff off the Internet and turn it in on Monday, complete with pictures. He did it all the time. But he was interested in this new Becca. What was her deal?

  “Leave me alone,” Becca whispered, even though nobody else was whispering. See, Matt wanted to tell someone, once a goody-goody, always a goody-goody.

  “You’re smart, everybody knows that. You’re probably the second-smartest person in Mrs. Herrera’s homeroom, after Ben.”

  “And Stefan,” Becca pointed out. She turned around and looked at Matt again. “Although I actually got a better grade on the last science quiz.”

  “So you’re still studying and everything?” Matt asked. “Even though you’ve kind of—kind of gone bad? I mean, what happened in the art room with you and Petra anyway? How’d you end up cutting off your hair and everything?”

  Becca’s face went red. “It was stupid. She tricked me into thinking we were friends.”

  Then she started to cry, and Matt wished he’d never started this conversation. He was so over people crying. His mom had spent the last year and a half crying about Parker and all his problems. At first Matt had tried being nice to her and telling her she shouldn’t worry so much, but she’d just wave him off, like he didn’t know what he was talking about. Which was when he had figured out that the only kid who mattered at his house was Parker. Forget Matt, forget his sister, Holly. It was Parker 24/7.

  “Stop, okay?” Matt said, trying to shake Becca out of feeling sorry for herself. “You’re acting lik
e you’re the first one Petra ever used. But really the joke’s on her, right? She’s the one who came out looking like a loser.”

  “Yeah, but she wanted to look like a loser,” Becca said, sniffling. “You know what she said to me?”

  Matt couldn’t wait to hear this. “What?”

  “That she was bored to death of being Petra Wilde and was ready to be somebody else for a change.”

  “Okay, so that’s different,” Matt said. Why wouldn’t anybody want to be Petra? She ruled their grade. She could make anybody do anything she wanted to. She’d made Becca, the girl who never broke a rule in her life, cut off her hair and trash the art room. Who would give up that kind of power voluntarily?

  “So how’d she talk you into it anyway?” Matt asked. “I mean, the haircut and all.”

  Becca gave him a strange look and shrugged. “She didn’t really have to talk me into it. I just wanted to do something—different, I guess. I was tired of the old Becca Hobbes.” Her eyes welled with tears again. “Except now I sort of miss her!”

  “Who?” Matt asked, confused. “Petra?”

  “No!” Becca practically shouted, but she turned the volume back down to a whisper before Mr. Woodcroft could say anything. “The old me. But it’s too late to turn back now. Besides, what’s the use? Cammi’s not my friend anymore, and I’m never going to be Mrs. Herrera’s favorite, so why try?”

  Matt was definitely having a hard time keeping up. “Why try what?”

  “Do you know how hard I worked to make Mrs. Herrera like me?” Becca practically hissed. “I did everything I could!”

  Okay, now Matt was totally lost. “What does that have to do with cutting off your hair?”

  Becca shook her head. “Forget it. You wouldn’t understand. I mean I just wanted her to like me.”