Just My Luck

by Cammie McGovern

  He turns around on the floor to do a new joke I started at home where I brush my teeth with my finger. To be honest, it’s not that funny, but this week it’s really cracking George up. George is the only one in my family who still laughs at stupid little jokes like this.

  He rubs his finger over his teeth to get me to do it.

  “No, George,” I whisper. “We have to pay attention.”

  I point to the stage where Ms. Crocker is trying to get her microphone to work. “Can you hear me?” she says. Or at least that’s what it sounds like she says. We can’t really hear her.

  “Turn around!” I tell George. “You’ll get in trouble.”

  He laughs and rocks back and forth, holding his knees. He won’t turn around until I brush my teeth with my finger, so I do it quickly.

  He laughs so hard he falls over and the girl sitting next to him has to help him up. “You shouldn’t laugh so hard, George,” she says. “You’ll hurt yourself.”

  George doesn’t really have any friends. Instead he has a few girls who act like his mother and tie his shoelaces for him, even though he’s in sixth grade. I don’t think he likes them that much, but I’ve never really been sure.

  Finally Ms. Crocker gets the microphone to work when Mr. Wilson shows her how to turn it on. She tells us this assembly is about an exciting new program called C.A.R.E. She points to a poster that has a period between each letter, which usually means it stands for something else. I’m right, it does: Cooperation. Accountability. Respect. Empathy.

  Ms. Crocker tells us that deep down in our hearts, each of us has these qualities, but sometimes we forget to show them in everyday ways like bending over to pick up litter or lending someone a pen. “Here’s the idea,” she says. “For two months teachers and staff will be watching you and whenever they see you doing nice things that show your empathy and compassion, they’ll write it down on little paper footprints. One step at a time, we’ll post these random acts of kindness so everyone can see what a caring community looks like. And because this is all about working together, the class with the most footprints at the end of two months will win a pizza party!”

  It’s hard to tell, but it seems like maybe this is an idea Ms. Crocker really wanted to do and Mr. Wilson, our principal, didn’t. She keeps looking at him nervously while she talks. I know how she feels. Mr. Wilson scares all of us, even though he has a hard time remembering our names and usually calls you “son” if he yells at you in the hall.

  Ms. Crocker remembers our names and which buses we ride on, which means everyone likes her almost as much as I do and everyone claps for her C.A.R.E. idea. Ms. Crocker’s other problem (besides duct tape and Mr. Wilson) is that sometimes she tries a little too hard, like she does at the end of the assembly when she has us all sing a song with the words on a screen under a bouncing ball.

  We show compassion and empathy!

  Deep down in our hearts!

  We show kindness and cooperation!

  Deep down in our hearts!

  I said DEEP, DEEP!

  I said DOWN, DOWN!

  I said deep down in our hearts!

  It’s not a very good song and it goes on for way too long. Even Ms. Crocker realizes this about halfway through because she laughs and says into the microphone, “All right, people, let’s just get through this.”

  By the end, I’m pretty sure everyone loves Ms. Crocker as much as I do.

  Which means we can’t help it, we all want to earn footprints and we all want to win the pizza party.

  THREE

  AFTER THE C.A.R.E. ASSEMBLY, WE GO outside for recess, where Jeremy says he’s sorry he can’t spend recess with me because a bunch of guys asked him to play soccer. A bunch of guys have definitely not asked me to play soccer. If I go over to the field, they’d probably ask me to stand on the side and chase the ball when it goes out. I said yes to that once and learned my lesson when the ball kept going into the pricker bushes that no one else would go near.

  I walk over to the swings that are wet and then to the girls who are sitting near the benches playing jacks. Last year it was still okay to play chase games and hide-and-seek with the girls. This year when I asked Amelia and some of the other girls if they wanted to play Outlaw & Posse, Jeremy told me that I should be careful about playing too much with girls. “You start to look like one if you do that,” he said.

  Today all the boys are playing soccer and not looking over here so I don’t care what I look like except I guess jacks takes too much concentration for anyone to answer when I say hi. I don’t know what’s happening with some of the girls this year. It seems like they’ve broken into groups. One group is trying to look older and wears fingernail polish and is being mean to the other group, which I don’t understand.

  Then I notice the sixth graders are outside playing doctor dodgeball, which is like regular dodgeball except after you get hit and die, a “doctor” is allowed to go onto the field and heal you. It’s supposed to be like dodgeball only “nicer,” but I think kids lying on the ground, lifting their heads and calling, “Doctor! Doctor!” is even scarier than reaching for soccer balls in pricker bushes. I go over to the little kids’ playground, where a bunch of big tires are planted sideways for kids to climb on. George has one tire he spends most of his recess in. For a while, the teachers tried to make George play a game with other kids before they let him sit inside his tire and dribble wood chips for half an hour. Then they decided that school was hard enough for George and he should be able to do what he wants at recess.

  “Hi, George,” I say, standing next to his tire. He laughs and rocks and throws a wood chip at my feet.

  Out of everyone in our family I’m usually the best one at getting George to laugh. It’s not that hard because he always laughs at the same things. Like finger-brushing my teeth. Or singing “skidamarinky-dinky-dink, skidamarinky-doo.”

  I climb inside his tire and sit down across from him. I ask what he thinks about Ms. Crocker’s C.A.R.E. footprints idea. He doesn’t say anything, but he giggles and rocks because he likes having someone in his tire with him. I’m not sure why. I think he likes the echo of voices inside the rubber, which gives me an idea. I lean inside the empty rubber part and sing “skidamarinky-dinky-dink, skidamarinky-doo” so it travels in a half-circle vibration around to George’s side.

  He laughs and sits up so his ears are inside the sound. When I do it again, he laughs more and claps, so I keep doing it for a while. I say, “No more water, silly boy,” into the rubbery echo chamber.

  George falls over laughing.

  One thing about autism that people might not realize: on the surface it looks like you’re bad at everything—like playing games, eating neatly, tying your shoes—but secretly, some autistic kids can be very good at certain things. Like math maybe, except not George. George is terrible at math. Worse than me, even. Martin will ask George a question like “Hey, George, what’s two plus two?” because it’s funny to see him scrunch up his face, trying hard to think of an answer. Usually after about thirty seconds, Martin will pat him on the shoulder and say, “It’s okay, bud. Don’t hurt yourself. I’ll ask someone else.” We don’t play very many tricks on George because that would be mean. But sometimes if we’re alone in the room, it’s a little funny.

  No one knows why autistic kids are bad at certain things and good at other things. George can repeat a whole scene word for word from Pirates of the Caribbean, but if you ask him a question like “What do you think of C.A.R.E. footprints?” he’ll almost never answer. Even if it’s an easy question, like “Did you have music today?” or “Did you earn all your stars?” he’ll have no idea how to answer. His brain just doesn’t understand certain things.

  One thing George is really good at is singing. Once our music teacher, Ms. Dunbar, told me he was one of only a handful of students she’s had with perfect pitch. Like if she named a note, he could sing it perfectly, no piano needed. “Not very many people can do that, Benny,” she said. That made me fe
el proud.

  But here’s the weirdest thing that George can do really well: ride a bike.

  The rest of the family might not even realize how good George is because they didn’t see what I saw last year. It happened the day Martin and his friends constructed a bunch of ramps to do skateboard tricks on. Mostly, Martin’s friends are terrible skateboarders and fell off the ramps on every try. In fact, in two hours no one landed a single jump. Eventually they gave up and all went inside to play video games.

  That’s when George came out, riding his bike. I don’t think he knew I was watching because he was staring so hard at those ramps. He must have been in the garage where he goes sometimes to sit on the lawn mower, which is his second favorite machine after the floor waxer at school. Usually he just stares at the lawn mower, but this time he must have been watching them because he knew exactly what he wanted to do. I almost screamed No, George! Don’t! when I saw him lining his bike up twenty feet away from the ramp.

  And then I watched him take off.

  I already knew George was a better bike rider than me. He’s so good he can ride off the street and up onto lawns. I’d even seen him drop off curbs without falling. But I’d never seen him do anything like this: he started pedaling fast and got himself low, his face right over his handlebars. When he got to the jump he pulled everything up—his head, his handlebars, everything. And for three seconds—maybe more—he flew. I could see the sky beneath him, both wheels off the ground.

  He had enough time to turn the front wheel one way and then the other, before he landed about ten feet away, without falling.

  He looked really surprised and a little scared when I ran over and hugged him. “That was great, George! That was great!” I kept saying. “Do it again!”

  But he wouldn’t.

  He just shook his head and walked his bike back to the garage. By the time we went inside, he didn’t want to talk about it. I tried to tell Martin and his friends, but they were playing a video game and not really listening. When I looked over at George, he had his fingers in his ears, which is his way of saying he doesn’t want to hear whatever you’re saying. I couldn’t believe it. I tried a few more times to tell the story, but whenever I did, George started humming or covering his ears.

  Maybe it scared him. Maybe he didn’t want people to know because he didn’t want to have to do it again. In the end, I never told anyone and I started to wonder if maybe I imagined the whole thing—George up in the sky, twisting his front wheel like he was aiming for one cloud and then another. George flying for a second, then landing perfectly.

  FOUR

  BEFORE THE END OF THE SCHOOL day, I’m surprised: there are already two footprints taped on the wall outside the main office. They’re the size of a real kid’s foot, with handwritten notes on them.

  Tanisha helped put away chairs after music class without being asked, one says.

  I liked the way Eric helped a friend who fell down at recess, says another.

  That afternoon I go home and tell Mom about the footprints.

  “That sounds like a nice idea,” Mom says. “You’ll probably get more footprints than anyone.” Sometimes Mom says things like this that are completely untrue. Last week, for instance, she said my spelling was fine, better than hers even. Now she says I’m her child who understands “kindness” best, but that’s because one of her children is George, who doesn’t really understand “kindness” at all, and her other child is Martin, who’s standing in the pantry, shaking the last of a box of Cheese Nips into his mouth.

  “You want to know how to get a few footprints fast?” Martin says, walking out of the pantry with his face covered in orange crumbs. This year Martin has gotten so tall he can change the lightbulb in his room without standing on anything. Sometimes I see him and I can’t believe it—I expect him to be short again like he used to be and he’s not. I’m surprised he was listening when I told our mom about the footprints. These days he’s usually on his phone or texting and doesn’t hear much of what anyone says around him.

  “Yes,” I say, because I could use all the help I can get. I’m already nervous that Jeremy will get more footprints than me. Jeremy always knows when teachers are watching him. He’ll plan his nice things and do them then.

  “After lunch, go around picking up trash and then, before you throw it away, say ‘This wasn’t mine,’ really loud so someone hears you.”

  It’s not a bad idea.

  “Ms. Champoux hates litterers,” he says. Ms. Champoux is the school secretary, who we all love because her name sounds like “shampoo” even though, when you look at the name plate on her desk, none of the letters are the same. She monitors lunch three times a week and Martin’s right: she hates when people don’t pick up their trash.

  I try it the next day but realize too late about six other people have beaten me to it. “What’s this—is everyone suddenly on a clean kick?” Ms. Champoux says, shaking her head. I can’t bring myself to say, I don’t really care about trash. I’m just hoping for a footprint.

  It turns out I’m not the only person who feels this way. At math time in the afternoon, Rayshawn raises his hand and asks if Mr. Norris needs any help sharpening pencils.

  “No,” Mr. Norris says. “Thank you, though, Rayshawn. I like how everyone is trying to be a helper.” This morning Mr. Norris was on time to school, but he looks like he’s wearing a shirt with food stains on it. I want to point this out to Jeremy, but he’s too busy looking for ways to earn a footprint.

  Jeremy spends most of lunch talking about everything he’s done. He’s held a door for Ms. Dunbar, who had her hands full. At recess he brought in a girl’s jacket and put it in the lost and found. “The hard part is getting someone to see you doing this stuff,” he says. “I was standing there forever, holding this pink jacket by the lost and found. Finally I just had to put it in even though no one was looking.”

  I’ll admit this: last spring, when I found out my old best friend, Kenneth, would be moving, I tried to plan ahead and get someone besides Jeremy to be my best friend. I wanted to find a person who likes playing Legos as much as I do. Kenneth and I had a lot of great Lego battles. Sometimes they went on for hours. My mom said it would be okay after he moved, that we could still keep in touch over Skype, but I knew it would feel stupid—both of us staring at the computer, holding up new minifigs we’d gotten.

  So last spring I invited Rayshawn over to my house after school. Rayshawn is funny and nice and has a great smile. I knew he would be a long shot as a best friend because he’s better at every single sport than me, including nonsports like tabletop football, which you play by flicking a folded-up triangle of paper with your fingers. Still, I invited him because sometimes he laughed pretty hard at my jokes.

  I thought maybe that would be enough to start a friendship, but once he got to my house, I couldn’t think of anything funny to say. He spent the first ten minutes looking through the cupboards for something to eat. “This all you have?” he said, holding up a loaf of wheat bread.

  “Pretty much,” I said, thinking, This might be the shortest friendship in history.

  Then he shrugged, found butter, and said, “I make great toast. Wait’ll you taste my toast.”

  By great toast, I think he meant a lot of butter with a small layer of bread.

  Which was great, I have to admit.

  After we finished our food, though, it was hard to think of anything else to do. Fifteen minutes of looking at my Lego collection was enough for Rayshawn. After that, we went outside and played basketball in my driveway. He killed me twice in knockout and horse and finally he said, “Maybe we should just do free throws,” which was nice of him actually. I guess it’s not that much fun always winning.

  “Sure,” I said, “let’s just do free throws.”

  And then a funny thing happened. After twenty tries, I started getting the ball in. Once, twice, three times in a row. We played that if you made it, you kept shooting, so I had the ball for five minutes st
raight. Finally I missed on purpose because I was so nervous about how much longer I could keep up my shooting streak.

  In the end, we didn’t have a bad time, but it didn’t feel like anything either one of us wanted to repeat. It’s tiring to pretend you like something like basketball. It feels a little like smiling the whole time you’re watching a play that your grandmother bought tickets for because you’re old enough now to “appreciate Shakespeare.”

  You wish you could say, No, I’m really not.

  You wish you could ask your grandmother, Are you old enough to understand all that?

  But instead, you just smile and feel tired afterward. That’s what hanging out with Rayshawn felt like.

  If I was friends with Rayshawn, I would climb about twelve rungs up the cool ladder, I’m pretty sure. This year it seems like maybe Rayshawn wouldn’t mind being my friend. He still laughs pretty hard at my jokes, and sometimes he laughs when I’m not really joking. Like when I pointed out to Mr. Norris that a three-day weekend was too long for our meat-eating plant to go without meat, Rayshawn shook his head and said, “You’re a funny guy, you know that?”

  I laughed like maybe I was joking about the plant, which I wasn’t. It is a long time. Supposedly those plants are meant to eat every forty-eight hours. Then I smiled to show Rayshawn I’m not that weird and I don’t plan my life around the classroom Venus flytrap.

  The only problem with moving up the cool ranks is that it can be a big mistake if you’re not really a cool person. It can mean sitting at a lunch table and laughing at stories when you have no idea at all what’s funny about them.

  It can also make you nervous all the time about being found out.

  Last spring, I also tried inviting Keith over once. Keith is shy and never talks much at school, so I thought maybe he’d be fun, but it turned out, no, he was pretty shy away from school, too. When I asked what he liked to do in his free time, he said, “Nothing much, except making paper flowers is okay.”