Shine!

by J. J. Grabenstein

  “That is all,” says Dr. Throckmorton. “Have a pleasant and productive day.”

  “We’ll talk more about the public service project tomorrow,” says Ms. Oliverio as everybody packs up their books to change classes.

  “Tough break,” Siraj tells me when we’re in the hall. “I did not see that coming. Unfortunately, sporting events have champions and clear winners. After next Monday, you may no longer be in the lead for the Excelsior.”

  WHO DO I WANT TO BE?

  Well, Mr. Van Deusen, given the new wrinkle in the Excelsior Award competition, I wouldn’t mind being a superstar athlete. But I’d need to become one by next Monday. I’ve never really played any organized sports. Except soccer. When I was six. And we weren’t very organized. But I did make some good friends-something that keeps getting harder and harder the more I focus on the Excelsior. Tim is upset because I don’t have time to even think about magic. I also don’t have time to hang with my old friends like Hannah. It makes me wonder: Is there any way to be a person who wins without losing all your friends? Probably not. I wonder if Nellie DuMont Frissé has any friends.

  The week flies by.

  All the athletes are practicing for the intramural games.

  Come next Monday, I won’t be the only student with a clear-cut victory.

  I fear my chance at winning the Excelsior Award might be slipping out of my grip. It’s like I’m on a spacewalk and somebody is sawing through the tether connecting me to the mother ship. One more cut and I’ll drift off into the vast nothingness surrounding the constellation Loserus Major.

  In English on Friday, Mr. Van Deusen gives us his pitch for the after-school highway litter removal project.

  “I’m like Shakespeare,” he says. “I find ‘tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.’ ”

  Kwame has a squeamish look on his face. “You found a tongue in a tree?”

  “It’s a metaphor, Kwame. Work with me.”

  Mr. Van Deusen holds up a clipboard with a sign-up sheet.

  It’s empty.

  “Okay, my merry pranksters, as you know, we have a lot of competition on Monday. Intramural athletics at three. Mathletes are meeting at four-thirty. The Bathletes are probably hosting their bubble bath competition on Monday, too.”

  We all laugh.

  “So if you’re not an athlete, a Mathlete, or a Bathlete, we need you!”

  Tim raises his hand. “I’ll do it,” he says.

  “Excellent! Who else? We leave at three, we pick up trash for an hour, you’re back here by four-thirty. So you could, technically, go to the Mathletes meeting.”

  I raise my hand. “I’ll sign up.”

  I’m hoping I can do both. The trash pickup because it’s a good thing to do (plus I really like Mr. Van Deusen and Ms. Oliverio). And Tim will be there. Our friendship could use a little tidying up, too.

  I’ll join Emily at the Mathletes meeting because making that team might help my Excelsior chances.

  “Anybody else?” asks Mr. Van Deusen.

  No hands go up.

  “ ‘I burn, I pine, I perish’ awaiting your response.”

  Still nothing. Even though, I think, he was quoting Shakespeare again.

  “Okay,” he says, “did Ms. Oliverio talk to you guys about Rachel Carson?”

  A bunch of us nod.

  “Who knows why Ms. Carson gave her book the title Silent Spring?”

  “Because she had spring allergies and got laryngitis?” cracks Kwame.

  “Good guess, Mr. Walker, but, alas, I am afraid you are incorrect. Thanks for playing. No, my faithful friends, she called it Silent Spring because she imagined a world so polluted that there weren’t any more birds. No merry chirping in the trees. No robins bobbing for worms. ‘What, gone without a word?’ If we don’t clean up and protect our earth, spring may grow as quiet as Juliet’s tomb.”

  Still no volunteers.

  Mr. Van Deusen slurp-sips from a paper cup filled with what, at the end of the period, has to be very cold coffee.

  “One other thing. Participation in the highway cleanup counts as public service, which always looks good on a college application.”

  Six more hands shoot up.

  “Huzzah!” says Mr. Van Deusen, which, I think, is how Shakespeare would say “Yay!”

  I spend the weekend walking Mister Pugsly and reaching out to Tim with texts.

  I even put a “piff-piff” in one.

  He does not respond.

  On Monday the whole school is decorated with banners and bunting and pom-poms. Imagine a homecoming football game taking place on the same day as the lacrosse, soccer, baseball, tennis, and cross-country championships. There’s even a fourth-period pep rally.

  Ainsley Braden-Hammerschmidt is, of course, captain of the girls’ lacrosse team. I figure she probably likes whacking people with that net-on-a-stick thing.

  I see Tim during our independent study time in the media center.

  He pretends he doesn’t see me.

  At 3 p.m., those of us who signed up for the Rachel Carson Day trash removal project line up to board the bus that will take us to the cleanup site.

  I see Siraj.

  “Hey!” I say, and give him a wave.

  He’s with Kwame and Emily.

  Tim’s there, too.

  I muster my courage and try, one more time.

  “Hey,” I say to Tim.

  “Hey,” Tim says back.

  “Got any new tricks?”

  “A few.”

  “Cool. I’ve got your robot in my locker. So you can do that trick, too.”

  “Thank you. I appreciate that.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t give it back right away.”

  Tim looks down at his shoes.

  “Piper?” he mumbles.

  “Yeah?”

  “There’s really no such thing as a magic trick with a marble-shooting robot.”

  “Really? Because I was totally looking forward to seeing it.”

  Tim looks up. I notice a faint smile tugging at his lips.

  Phew. I think we can be friends again.

  * * *

  —

  The bus drops us off along the side of a pretty busy highway.

  The shoulder of the road is ground zero for a meteor shower of bottles, cans, tires, hubcaps, French fry holders, and discarded shopping bags. And shoes. Somebody tossed out a pair of high heels.

  Cars and eighteen-wheelers zoom past. Some toss out crushed fast-food bags and half-filled drink cups just to give us a little more litter to pick up. We’re decked out in bright orange vests with even brighter reflective strips.

  A lot of the garbage is gross. And slimy. I am sooooo glad Ms. Oliverio thought to pack a box of rubber gloves.

  “How long do we have to do this for it to count?” whines a girl named Gabrielle.

  “I need you guys to spend at least an hour out here,” says Ms. Oliverio.

  “Fine.” Gabrielle activates the timer on her phone. “That’s, like, fifty minutes from now.”

  “We’ll have to leave then, too,” Emily reminds me. “The Mathletes meeting is at four-thirty.”

  I drag my big plastic bag over to where Tim is plucking trash.

  “Want to share?” I ask, opening up the bag.

  “Sure.”

  We toss trash into the black sack.

  All of a sudden, I hear something cooing.

  “Is that a bird?” I say, looking around.

  “Yes,” says Tim. “I think it’s coming from your bag, Piper.”

  “No way,” I tell him. “We put everything in this bag. We did not drop a bird inside it.”

  Tim puts his ear to the bag. I hear more cooing. “Sure sounds
like we did.”

  Siraj, Kwame, and Emily come over.

  “Um, Tim?” says Kwame. “Why are you listening to a trash bag?”

  “Shhh!” says Tim. “I think it might be…”

  He takes a dramatic pause.

  “A-liiiiiive!”

  He reaches into the bag and pulls out a rainbow-colored toy bird. It flaps its wings and takes flight.

  The rest of us laugh.

  “See?” says Tim. “I told you. There’s always time for magic. By the way—no birds were hurt in the performance of that trick.”

  “But I heard the bird,” I say.

  “Because I’ve been studying ventriloquism.”

  “Wow! Cool.”

  We keep picking up trash and stuffing it into bulging black bags. When we hit the half-mile mark, I hear Gabrielle’s phone blare what sounds like a fire alarm.

  “That’s an hour!” she proclaims.

  She taps an app on her phone. Pretty soon other kids start doing the same thing. Five minutes later, all sorts of black town cars and SUVs are pulling over on the side of the road. Everybody called an Uber or their family driver.

  “Come on, Piper,” says Emily, waiting for me at her car. “The Mathletes meeting is in fifteen minutes. You need to be there.”

  “If you merry minstrels want to knock off, you can,” says Mr. Van Deusen. “You put in your hour. It counts. You’ve done your duty. You may go in peace.”

  I turn around and look back at the half mile we cleaned up.

  “But it looks so much better behind us,” I say.

  “True,” says Kwame.

  “So let’s keep going. Emily? Mathletes is your thing. You don’t need me.”

  “But you need Mathletes. For the Excelsior!”

  “I guess. But right now, I think this highway needs me more.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “Okay. See you guys tomorrow.” Emily climbs into her car and heads back to school.

  Me? I head back to the trash.

  “Hey, Tim?” says Kwame. “You know any magic tricks to make garbage disappear? Can’t you just wave a wand or something?”

  “Sorry,” says Tim. “I left my wand at home….”

  We all start picking up litter again.

  As I’m grabbing soggy junk out of the weeds, I come up with an idea.

  “Okay, guys,” I say. “Whoever picks up the most trash in the next fifteen minutes doesn’t have to do any work for the fifteen minutes after that.”

  “Good idea,” says Ms. Oliverio. “And I’ll sweeten the prize. Whoever finds the most interesting piece of garbage will receive one Get Out of a Pop Quiz Free card for science class.”

  “I’ll throw in a Shakespeare action figure,” says Mr. Van Deusen.

  “Woo-hoo!” shouts Kwame. “Game on.”

  We each grab our own bags and start snagging litter so fast you’d think we’d just guzzled a gallon of coffee.

  Siraj’s trash bag is the heaviest, so he wins the fifteen minutes free (but he pitches in during the next burst of cleaning anyhow). Kwame wins the Skip a Pop Quiz card.

  He found a giant stuffed purple panda.

  Fifteen minutes later, with one more pop quiz freebie on the line and everybody snagging trash as fast as they can, we’re done. Tim’s our final winner. He found a dented trombone.

  “Um, I’m not in your class this term,” he tells Ms. Oliverio.

  “Well, I’ll hold it over until next term,” she says. “You guys did such a great job!”

  “Kudos to you all,” adds Mr. Van Deusen.

  “Props to Piper,” says Kwame. “She came up with the master plan.”

  “She should be president of the Chumley Prep Social Awareness Club,” adds Siraj.

  “Do we have one of those?” asks Kwame.

  “We can start one!” says Tim. “Right, Ms. Oliverio?”

  “It’s fine by me,” she says. “Mr. Van Deusen and I will even be your faculty advisors. Right, Schaack?”

  “Will there be coffee?”

  “Definitely,” says Ms. Oliverio.

  “Then I’m in.”

  All of a sudden, my mind starts whirring with ideas. I’m kind of excited.

  “We could pick other causes, too,” I say. “We could volunteer at homeless shelters and food banks. Or teach kids math. Or play board games at Mrs. Gilbert’s senior citizen complex and walk rescue dogs at the animal shelter…”

  “I nominate Piper for president,” says Tim.

  “I second that nomination,” says Kwame. “All in favor, say ‘Aye, matey.’ ”

  “Huh?”

  “It’s more fun than plain old ‘aye.’ ”

  Everyone says “Aye, matey,” and just like that, I’m president of a brand-new club.

  And to tell you the truth, I don’t really care if it impresses the Excelsior judges.

  Doing good just feels good.

  So I want to do more of it.

  WHO DO I WANT TO BE?

  Someone who always finds a way to do good. Nellie DuMont Frissé says, “Leave this planet better than you found it.” But that’s not going to happen unless people chip in and help. And I want to be one of those people.

  As we drive to school the next morning, Dad is beaming with pride.

  “President of the Social Awareness Club?” he says with a smile.

  “Yeah. We’re going to have a meeting. First thing this morning.”

  “Social activism is the kind of thing your mother used to do.”

  “Really?”

  “Yep. When we were in college at Michigan.”

  “But everybody always talks about what a great cello player she was.”

  “She was. But, honey, nobody is just one thing. We’re like those constellations you’re always telling me about. You need to connect all the dots to see the whole picture.”

  Wow. Interesting. I let that sink in.

  “Hey,” says Dad, “guess who called me?”

  “Who?”

  “Mr. Breckenridge.”

  “Brooke’s dad?”

  “Yep. Remember how he came up to me at the science fair reception and we talked about my music? Turns out, he’s seriously considering talking to those New York City investors he advises. He’s going to recommend that a group of them finance a workshop production of Dream Time.”

  “Wow,” I say, wondering if maybe Dad was right: Chumley Prep could turn out to be the best thing to ever happen to both of us. “That’s amazing!”

  “I know!”

  We park in our spot (it now has Dad’s name painted over Mr. Glass’s). Dad’s phone buzzes. He glances at the screen.

  “I have to run,” he says. “Dr. Throckmorton wants to discuss an ‘extremely urgent matter.’ ”

  “See you later!” I shout as he sprints across the parking lot.

  I dash up the front steps and head for the media center. I want to organize my “social awareness” thoughts before the rest of the gang shows up for a quick fifteen-minute “next steps” meeting. We need to pick our next activity. Figure out what we should do first.

  Knowing how much Mister Pugsly means to Mrs. Gilbert, I’m pumped about a project called Seniors for Seniors. The idea is to match people over sixty with dogs over seven—the hardest ones to find homes for.

  I’ve already sent an email to PAWS, a group in Washington State that runs a similar program. I’m hoping they’ll help us kick-start our own Seniors for Seniors adoption program. I also talked to Mrs. Gilbert. She set up a meeting for me with the activities director at her senior citizen complex. Hopefully, I can convince them to work with us. Maybe I should take Mister Pugsly with me.

  “Hello, Piper Milly.”

  Ain
sley strolls into the media center. She sees the three-ring binder I made last night. It has a big CHUMLEY PREP SOCIAL AWARENESS CLUB sign tucked into the clear plastic sleeve on its cover.

  “So it’s true,” Ainsley sneers.

  “What’s true?”

  “You and those other dorky nerds had so much fun picking up trash along the side of the road, you decided to start your own club.”

  “Yes. We did. We have faculty sponsors, too.”

  “So do I.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Didn’t you hear the news? I was elected president of the Chumley Prep Philosophy Club. My friends and I started it a few minutes ago.”

  “Is that really a thing?”

  “It’s as much of a thing as your ‘social awareness society’ or whatever you call it. I’m sure Mrs. Zamick will be our faculty advisor. Oh, by the way: if you think a fake presidency of a fake club is going to help you win the Excelsior Award…”

  “What? That’s not why we started the club.”

  Ainsley smirks. “You’re wasting your time. Ten days from now, I will be the one taking home the Excelsior and you’ll just be nobody. In case you didn’t hear, I excelled at lacrosse yesterday. I was the MVP. They gave me a trophy and everything. Tomorrow I’ll ace the forensics competition. Mrs. Zamick is the faculty advisor for that club, too. She wants us to do persuasive arguments.”

  “Sounds interesting…”

  “It is. It’s also for club members only. And guess what? Membership is closed!”

  I smile and nod and scratch “Forensics Club” off the mental list of activities I might try to excel at to impress the Excelsior judges.

  Because it’s hard to excel at something when you can’t even join the club.

  After Ainsley makes her grand, strutting exit from the media center, my friends show up.

  We have our fifteen-minute meeting and everybody agrees the Seniors for Seniors idea would be a great next project. They also like my official-looking binder.

  “Let’s find a local animal shelter to work with,” suggests Emily.

  I nod. “One with older dogs they’re having trouble finding homes for.”