by Joel Ross
Principal Kugelmeyer’s eyes drill holes in space and time.
I open my mouth to explain—again—that I was saving those kindergarteners’ lives. Then I close my mouth—again. Every time I try to explain, I just make things worse.
“I’m giving you one final final chance,” she says.
“Yes!” I leap from my chair. “Thanks! Good talk!”
“Sit down!” she booms.
I unleap from my chair.
“Your parents,” she says, “want to send you to Steggles Academy immediately.”
I moan in horror.
“However,” Principal Kugelmeyer says, “I asked them to hold off.”
I peer at her. “You did?”
“Yes. I’m not convinced that Steggles is a good fit for you.”
“It’s not! Mostly because I’m an earth-based life-form.”
“It’s an excellent school, Alley. I used to teach there. Principal Voss is a friend. But he and I have different approaches. I support student individuality, while he…”
“Assembles droids?” I ask.
“… provides a more structured environment.” Principal Kugelmeyer pins me with her gaze. “If you want to stay at Blueberry Hill, you need to prove that you’re serious.”
I nod. “Will do.”
“By getting an A on your science test next week.”
“What happened to being serious? I can’t get an A! Science isn’t my subject.”
“What is your subject?”
Now I’m on firmer ground. “Recess. I also excel at bathroom breaks.”
“You can do this,” she says. “I believe in you.”
“Why?” I ask.
She peers at me blankly. There are some questions that even principals can’t answer.
“How about I get a C plus?” I ask. “And we round up?”
“An A!”
“I’ve never gotten an A in science!”
“You’ll have help this time. I signed you up for a HOST.”
“Oh, great! Thanks! Perfect!” I’m hugely relieved and have only one question: “What’s a host?”
“A HOST is a member of our peer mentoring program.”
Except for “peer” and “mentoring,” I understand every word she just said.
“Sure,” I say. “That.”
“Helping Other Students Thrive?” She eyes me. “HOST. We put posters in every classroom, Alley! How can you not know?”
“Knowing isn’t my specialty,” I say, because I don’t want her to feel bad. “Like, how can six times three be eighteen? It just doesn’t make any sense.”
Principal Kugelmeyer rumbles. “HOST is a program that assigns advanced students to help ones who are struggling. Your HOST will keep you on track.”
“On track,” I say, with a nod of understanding.
“Alley?” the principal says.
“Hello! Good morning! Still here!”
“Just get the A,” she says, “or you’ll end up at Steggles.”
6
So that’s how I find myself in the multipurpose room, waiting to meet my HOST. The student volunteers are usually eighth graders, which is cool. I like hanging with older kids and they mostly like me, too.
I’m even happier when an eighth-grade girl named Swati comes in. She’s awesome. She wears eye makeup and motorcycle boots.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hey,” she says.
This is going super well so far, so I say, “Hey, hey.”
She laughs. “Are you waiting for your mentee?”
My vocabulary isn’t great, but I know exactly what a “mentee” is:
“Sure!” I say. “Who doesn’t want to meet a sea cow?”
She laughs again. “Your mentee, Alley. The kid who you’re helping.”
“Oh! No, I’m the manatee! I need help with a test.”
“The science test? That’s you?” She squeezes my arm. “Well, your HOST will be here in a sec. He’s new, but he’s great.”
Then she leaves and Cube comes in. “Cube” is short for QB, which is short for quarterback, but Cube isn’t short for anything. He’s huge, a star athlete and super-nice guy.
“Alley!” he bellows in greeting.
“Cube-y!” I reply, and we do the handshake he taught me last year.
“You’re going to ace this test!” he roars.
“One hundred percent! Well, with your help.”
“Oh, I’m not your HOST.” Cube gives me a friendly slap on the back. “Your HOST is even better than me.”
My vision flickers, because that’s what happens when Cube thumps you. He says he’ll catch me later and I grab the edge of a table, waiting for my bones to stop rattling.
“I am pleased to make your formal acquaintance,” a voice says from around my kneecaps. “My name is Rexinald Wrigley, but you may call me Rex.”
When my vision clears, there is a bunny standing in front of me. Carrying a briefcase.
7
It’s that kid! That fourth grader wearing the bunny onesie! His ears are long and velvety but his eyes are sharp.
I blink at him. “Er, what?”
“I am pleased to make your formal acquaintance. My name is Rexinald Wrigley, but you may call—”
“No, I heard you! And, uh, it’s good to meet you, too, li’l buddy, but I’m waiting for my HOST right now.”
“I regret to say that I must disagree,” the kid tells me.
“Huh?”
“You are no longer waiting for your HOST.” He climbs onto the chair beside me. “For I am he.”
“Hee? I thought you were Rex.”
“I am your HOST.” He pops open his briefcase. “Now, then. Our goal is to secure you an A on your science project.”
“You’re my HOST?”
“I am.”
“You?” I squint at him. “Are my HOST?”
“Indeed.”
“In other words,” I say, “my HOST is you?”
“That is correct.”
“But you’re, like, seven!”
“I am, admittedly, younger than the average HOST. However, my assistance will ensure that you are not compelled to reestablish your residency in a new school district.”
For a second, I almost understand what he’s talking about… no. It’s gone.
“Settle down, Captain Vocabulary,” I say. “You’ll what?”
“I shall guarantee your continued attendance at this educational establishment.”
I blink. “Once more, with little words?”
“I’ll help you stay at Blueberry Hill,” he explains. “By getting you an A on your science presentation.”
“My science test.”
“Ah.” He pulls a page from his briefcase. “If you consult the lesson assignment, you’ll discover that the student in question—”
“What question?”
His bunny ears seem to droop. “I mean you, Alley.”
“I’m the student in question?”
“Indeed.”
“Neat! What’s the question?”
“Several questions begin to occur to me,” he says, in a funny sort of voice. “However, my point is that you may choose between taking a test and giving a presentation.”
“I can?”
“Yes. And your vivacious personality is clearly better suited to giving a presentation than taking a test. That is the key to my approach.”
I don’t know what “vivacious” means, and I don’t care. Because an explosion just went off in my brain. A good explosion. A happy, toasted-marshmallow explosion.
Because when Rex said “the key,” I remembered.…
When teachers grade tests, they use a “key,” which is a sheet of paper with all the correct answers—almost like they don’t know this stuff themselves.
Ever since I got to Blueberry Hill, there’s been a rumor about the Golden Keys, a bunch of binders with the answers to every test in every class in every grade.
The ultimate cheat codes.
It’s only a rumor, though. Or so I’d thought, until one day last year when I stayed after school to improve some signs, like turning Cafeteria into Cafarteria.
I almost got caught by a couple of teachers. So I hid in a locker while they walked past.
“… wall chart… special colors,” one said, her voice muffled.
“Sounds good,” the other said, his voice loud as a leaf blower.
“Where do we keep the Golden… Keys?” the muffled one asked.
“The teachers’ lounge,” the loud one said.
“Eeeeee!” I said.
“Did you hear that?” the muffled one asked.
“Squeaky doors,” the loud one said.
“Where in the lounge?” the muffled one asked.
“In the cabinet. It has one of those awful locks, but the combination is written on a poster on the wall.”
“Eeeeee!” I said.
“Did you hear that?” the muffled one asked.
“A third grader’s losing a tooth,” the loud one said.
I waited until they left, then discovered I was jammed inside the locker like a crayon in a preschooler’s nostril. No matter how I squirmed, I couldn’t get out.
That’s a different story, though.
Back to this story: I never bothered looking for the Golden Keys, because I don’t like cheating. However, I like school uniforms, zombie squirrels, and plucking Grannie Blatt’s chin hairs even less.
So now I need to:
1) sneak into the teachers’ lounge
2) unlock the cabinet
3) find the Golden Keys
4) memorize the answers to the science test, and
5) GET AN A!
8
“Forget presentations,” I tell Rex in the multipurpose room. “I’m taking the test.”
“I cannot endorse that approach,” he says.
“Huh?”
His bunny ears point forward. “Giving a verbal report is your wisest course. A presentation will highlight your strengths.”
“Fah!” I say. “My strengths are exactly what a presentation won’t highlight.”
“Why is that?”
“Oh, you want to know why, do you?”
“I do.”
“Then I’ll tell you. Come warm your paws by the fire, young bunny, while Uncle Alley relates a story so terrifying it would give a goose people pimples. Are you ready?”
“I am.”
“Cast your mind back to the Time Before. To a long-ago era, now lost in the mists of history. I was in fifth grade, and—”
“You’re talking about last year?”
“Well, yeah. Last year. We had a group project in science class. My subject was the three kinds of rocks. There’s, um, sedentary and ignoramus, and what’s the other one?”
“Sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic.”
“Easy for you to say.” I gaze across the multipurpose room. “Anyway, I was in charge of bringing in a bunch of rocks, but I forgot and we got a C.”
Rex waits for me to continue, but I don’t. I just keep gazing.
“Is that… the whole story?” he asks.
“Pretty much,” I say, and don’t tell him that I tried to improvise.
Everyone thought I was kidding…
Except for my partners.
Who got Cs.
Because of me.
“So I’m definitely taking the test,” I tell Rex. “I’ll ace it for sure.”
“Have you ever ‘aced’ a science test in the past?”
“Well, not exactly.”
“Why is this test different from all other tests?” Rex asks.
I answer in a flash, trained by years of Passover seders, “Because on all other tests we don’t dip our vegetables even once, but on this test we dip twice!”
“I fail to see the relevance of vegetables, dipped or otherwise,” Rex says.
“Oh, right!” This isn’t a Passover seder. “Er, because I know this topic cold.”
“What is the topic?”
My mind blanks. “Well, science. The science of scientific… science.”
“The water cycle,” Rex prompts.
“Right! Of course! I knew that.”
“Did you?” he says.
“Yes! I am an expert on the water cycle. You probably think it’s an ocean-based motorbike!”
“I beg your pardon?” he says.
“Water,” I say. “Cycle. Listen up, young bunny, as I drop seventeen pounds of wisdom on your cottontail. You cannot ride a water cycle!”
“I am aware,” Rex says, “that the water cycle is not a vehicle.”
“I learned that the hard way,” I admit. “After I drew a picture of a TideStomper Aquacycle and got a zero.”
“What is a TideStomper Aquacycle?” Rex asks.
“Imagine a Jet Ski with water cannons—and in the background a Killclass Seven spaceship is battling a gigantic frombie.”
He blinks at me. “Pardon?”
“A frombie. A frog-zombie. But gigantic.”
Rex gazes at me, awed by my genius.
“And now you want to take the test?” he finally asks.
“I’m going to crush it,” I tell him. “Like a wrecking ball in an eggshell museum.”
Despite the seventeen pounds of knowledge, Rex still thinks I should do a presentation. You just can’t reason with rabbits. He’s a sweet little dude, but he doesn’t know my golden secret. So I keep refusing to work with him until he says goodbye.
Except instead of saying “goodbye,” he says, “Then I shall bid you adieu.”
“I shall raise you a dew!” I tell him, and leave without a HOST.
That’s okay. I don’t need his help.
I do need someone’s help, though. Someone to act as a lookout when I break into the teachers’ lounge.
* * *
After my next class, I tug Maya down the hallway. “Come on!”
“Where to?” she asks.
“Teachers’ lounge. I need to sneak in. You’re my lookout.”
Maya frowns. “Why would I do that?”
“It’ll be like a mission in your game.”
“Ooh. You’re raiding the teachers’ lounge!”
“Yeah.”
She stands a little taller. “You’re invading enemy territory!”
“Well, I wouldn’t call them ‘enemies’…”
“Are you trying to steal something?”
“No!” I’m only trying to memorize a few answers. “I just need to find the Golden—”
“Gold!” Maya’s eyes blaze. “That’s awesome! I love a raid. Dodging ogre sentries, climbing castle walls! On my raids, I always use snake soldiers and cast a Spell of Befuddlement.”
“Uh, Maya? This is happening in the real world.”
She sighs. “So no snake soldiers.”
“Or fuddlement.”
“Befuddlement.”
“I don’t care what grade it got!” I drag her around the corner. “I just need a lookout!”
“Right now? We can’t! We have PE in five minutes. And also—”
“We’ll cut class.”
“And also,” she repeats, “look!”
I peer past her, expecting the hallway will be (a) quiet, (b) empty, and (c) safe. Instead, it is (d) none of the above. Teachers are bumbling around like fruit flies on rotten bananas… because someone brought cupcakes.
And Rule One is, never get between a teacher and a chocolate treat.
9
Maya drags me to gym class, and I spend the rest of the day waiting for another chance to raid the teachers’ lounge. School keeps interrupting, though. Honestly, I’d get way more done without all these classes.
When the final bell rings, I head outside and pretend to wait for a bus. I’ll sneak away in a minute and have the lounge to myself. I mean, not even teachers will stay after school for stale cupcakes. Will they?
“Alexander!” a dread voice calls.
The breeze stops blo
wing.
The sun stops shining.
The water stops cycling.
“Alexander!” Grannie Blatt repeats, from outside my dad’s car. “I hope you’re wearing deodorant!”
What happens next is, a fiery chasm doesn’t appear in the sidewalk and swallow me whole. Because sometimes wishes don’t come true.
“Hi, Grannie,” I say, trudging closer.
“Because you’re at the age when boys start to stink,” Grannie explains, so loudly that a flock of crows scatters in the next town.
My father gives me a sympathetic look from the driver’s seat. I slip into the car before Grannie Blatt starts yelling about how she potty trained me.
“Why don’t you spend the night with your grandmother?” my father asks me. “As a sort of test?”
Except he’s not really asking me, he’s telling me. Grannie Blatt must’ve bullied him into agreeing.
“As a special treat,” Grannie Blatt says, squeezing into the back seat beside me, “I even have your favorite.”
Now that is a surprise. “Really? You got Premeditated Vehicular Assault 3?”
“What? What are you saying? What is that?”
“It’s a video game.”
“Feh! Such a waste of time! No, I made calf’s-foot jelly. Your favorite.”
Why would she think that? I’d rather eat a dozen glue sticks than one spoonful of calf’s-foot jelly.
Still, I politely say, “Gee, thanks.”
“Anything for my third-favorite grandson.” She licks her thumb, then scrubs at my cheek. “It would kill you to splash water on your face? Look at all these children!”
“Dressed like ragamuffins,” Grannie Blatt scoffs. “At Steggles, the children are always clean and tidy.”
“And mechanical,” I say.
“Don’t mumble!” She blows her nose into a handkerchief with a HONK. “And your grades are worse than those rags you’re wearing. Well, a few hours of homework every night will fix that.”
Enough with being polite! I open my mouth to demand what, exactly, is wrong with the rags I’m wearing… and she wipes my cheek with her snotty handkerchief.
I close my mouth. The car flickers around me. A grandmother capable of doing that is a grandmother capable of doing anything.