Rex Zero, King of Nothing

by Tim Wynne-Jones

  But no one goes crazy like Donnie Dangerfield. He’s actually rolling on the floor. I love that. Meanwhile, Sami is circling his ear with his finger and his eyes are all googly, and Polly smiles back at me in a really nice way, as if I’ve done something wonderful. Even Zoltan seems to get the joke and is nodding his head.

  “Class! Class!! Class!!!”

  When Miss Garr says “Class” three times, we have reached Stage Three and we are all in imminent danger. We pipe down quickly.

  She walks over to the window aisle and stares hard at Donnie. He gets up off the floor and takes his seat. He’s still smiling, which is probably not such a good idea.

  “Do you think it is polite, Donald, to put on such a such a show of disrespect because of the stupidity of a fellow classmate?”

  Donnie looks surprised. “No, ma’am. I wasn’t laughing because what Rex said was stupid. I was laughing because it was funny.”

  “Have you no concern for his feelings?”

  Yikes!

  Donnie glances over at me across the room. He makes a face as if it had never occurred to him that my feelings would be hurt. I hold up my hands to apologize for getting him in trouble. The class is silent.

  Finally, Donnie sighs. But says nothing.

  “You will answer me, young man.”

  Donnie looks down at his desk and traces a pattern on the top of it with his finger. Then he looks up and his eyes are bright.

  “How about we put it to a vote?” he says. He immediately turns to Polly. “Can we vote on whether what Rex said was funny or stupid?”

  Before Miss Garr can catch a restorative breath, Polly jumps to her feet.

  “I think it would be the democratic thing to do,” she says.

  “Now wait one minute,” says Miss Garr. But everybody is turning towards Polly.

  “Those who think that what Rex said was stupid, raise their hands,” says Polly. Nobody raises his hand.

  “Children! This has gone too far.”

  “Those who think that what Rex said was funny, raise their hands.” Everybody raises their hands, including me. I glance at Miss Garr. She is leaning on the windowsill, her shoulders hunched like a vulture, staring out at the playground. I guess there just aren’t big enough rocks in the classroom and she’s looking for boulders!

  “So it’s carried,” says Polly. Her face is flushed. She turns to me. “Enter it in the minutes, please, Rex.”

  “Don’t you dare!” says Miss Garr.

  Her face is like something from Shock Theatre. Her eyes are huge and her skin has gone all splotchy with angry red blotches.

  There is dead silence. She tries to speak and can’t. She takes a deep breath and turns her attention to Donnie. We all turn our attention to Donnie. But I can’t help wondering: why is she looking at him and not Polly?“I don’t know what your parents let you get away with at home, Donald Dangerfield, but you will not run roughshod over my classroom. You will apologize to Mr. Norton-Norton immediately for being so rude and callous as to laugh at him. Do you understand?”

  Donnie doesn’t look up.

  “I said, do you understand? You know perfectly well what is going to happen if you do not do as I tell you.”

  Someone gasps. Probably Susan-Anne-Margaret, who is the most sensitive girl in the class.

  Donnie is still tracing a pattern on his desk with his finger. Then just before Miss Garr can say another word, he looks up. You can see in his face that he has come to some huge decision.

  “Miss Garr. No one in this class thought what Rex said was stupid except you.” Now everyone gasps. “Don’t you think you’re the one who should apologize?”

  Miss Garr has to lean on the windowsill for support. She is speechless. I write it in the minutes:

  Miss Garr speechless.

  This has never happened. I decide I am going to work on these minutes when I get home. They are going to be the best minutes ever.

  Suddenly, being the class secretary doesn’t seem like a dull job at all.

  When I look up again she is crossing the front of the classroom towards her desk. She opens the bottom drawer and draws from it a thick green strap.

  “No!” says Kathy, pretty loudly, but Miss Garr is beyond hearing. She stands and closes the bottom drawer with her foot.

  It’s the first time I’ve ever seen the strap, though she’s mentioned it a bunch of times. It’s all nobbly and looks like it is woven out of steel cable or something.

  We sit back in our chairs as far as we can. It’s as if she has taken a poisonous viper out of her desk.

  “Miss Garr,” says Polly.

  “Sit down, young lady.”

  Polly sits, reluctantly.

  “Miss Garr,” she says again urgently. “It was my fault.”

  “Silence!” says Miss Garr, aiming a death ray at the class president.

  Polly puts her hands together on her desktop and stares at the ink-bottle hole. There are tears in her eyes. I will write those tears into the minutes later. But now I am frozen watching Miss Garr.

  Everyone – everyone but Polly – is watching her. She has walked to the centre of the room, the thick green belt clenched in her right hand, draped over the palm of the other like a tame snake.

  “I could send you to the office, Donnie, and have Mr. Johnstone discipline you. But I think it just might make more of an impression if the punishment is meted out here before your classmates. Please come to the front of the room.”

  Donnie doesn’t hesitate. He marches to the front of the room and stands before her, as straight as a soldier. She takes his shoulder and firmly moves him over to the side so that they are in profile to the class.

  “I’m sorry it has come to this,” she says.

  I watch the first slap. She gives him three. I’m too busy writing to watch the last two. And too shaky to write anything you could actually read.

  7

  Kathy’s Dilemma

  “NOVEMBER THIRTY-THIRD? November thirty-third! Donnie’s wrong. I am stupid.”

  We’re walking up Lyon Street after school. Except Kathy’s not here. I don’t know where she went.

  “It wasn’t your fault,” says James.

  “No way,” says Buster. “Miss Cinnamon would never do something like that, would she?”

  “No way,” I say.

  “Mr. Gallup wouldn’t either,” says Buster. “He’d say, ‘What a good idea, Rex! Why should we remember all those months, eh? Why can’t it just be January all year long? Let’s have the class party on January the three-hundred-and-thirty-seventh.’”

  It’s good to laugh. But it doesn’t change the situation. If I hadn’t been so wrapped up thinking about my own problems, Donnie wouldn’t have gotten in trouble.

  James stops all of a sudden. He looks like he’s thinking hard; his eyes go all squinty. His hair is chocolate brown but he has this grey spot about the size of a quarter right above his forehead. Sometimes I think he is already partly a wise old man.

  “What now?” says Buster.

  James stares at him. “How did you do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “Figure out that the thirty-third of November – which is really the third of December – would be the three-hundred-and-thirty-fourth of January?”

  “Three-hundred-and-thirty-seventh,” says Buster. Then he scratches his head. “Would it?”

  James shrugs. “I think so – something like that. But I’d need a piece of paper and a pencil to figure it out. And you just said it like right out of your head.”

  “Maybe Buster is a genius,” I say. That makes us all laugh, including Buster. Then we start walking again.

  It’s gotten a lot cooler since yesterday. The sky is grey and as thick as a slab of concrete. It makes me think of that episode of Superman where he’s trapped in a room and the ceiling starts coming down to crush him.

  We head off up Lyon Street again, into the teeth of the wind. I bury my chin in my jacket.

  “Hey, guys!�
�

  We turn and there is Kathy. She runs to catch up.

  “Where were you?” says Buster.

  “I was talking to Polly. We were thinking up ways to kill Miss Garr.”

  “I’ll help,” says James.

  “Then maybe Miss Cinnamon would come back,” says Buster.

  “I wish,” says Kathy. “Why do people fall in love and ruin everything? It’s stupid, stupid, stupid.”

  The rest of us look at one another with surprise.

  “What’s all this about?” says James.

  Kathy pushes her hair out of her face.

  “Love,” she says, as if love is something you might poke at with a long stick if you saw it lying in a gutter. Then she walks right past us.

  We run to catch up to her. There is this huge scowl on her face. Her hair is flying around now like the wind is fighting over it. She gathers it in and tucks it under her scarf.

  Something is up – something more than what happened in class.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask her.

  She shrugs.

  “Come on,” says James. “Or we’ll have to torture it out of you.”

  She makes a face.

  “I’m beyond torture,” she says grumpily.

  We guys share a glance and then Buster says, “I know. You bet a thousand dollars on the Rough Riders and you’ve got to come up with the money by six tonight or the Mafia is going to send you on a deep-six holiday in the Ottawa River.”

  Kathy’s eyes warm up a little, but the flame isn’t there. Like when the kindling in the fireplace burns brightly but the logs just won’t catch.

  “If I had a thousand dollars, I wouldn’t waste it on some loser football team,” she says.

  And then I say, “Is something wrong with your mom?”

  She sniffs and nods.

  “How can there be anything wrong with your mom?” says Buster. “She’s a nurse.”

  “Well, she’s sick anyway,” says Kathy. “Sick of me.”

  We are so surprised that no one can think of anything funny to say.

  “Did you have a fight?” James asks.

  “How could we have a fight when she’s never around?” Kathy crosses her arms on her chest. “She’s seeing this man,” she blurts out. “A doctor.”

  “So she is sick?” says Buster.

  Kathy just glares at him.

  “Do you mean she’s dating someone?” says James.

  Kathy snorts like a horse trying to blow away flies. “It makes me so mad!”

  “Holy mackerel,” says Buster. “Your mother is dating? She must be like thirty-five or something.”

  “That’s exactly how old she is and it’s disgusting, if you ask me.”

  “Is he horrible?”

  She frowns again, shoves her hands into her pockets and finds a crumpled-up Kleenex. She blows her nose.

  “He hasn’t got horns and scales, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Does he have a bolt through his neck?”

  “No,” says Kathy. “But he brings flowers.”

  “Oh, gross!”

  “And chocolates. Black Magic chocolates.”

  “But I bet he never eats one,” I say. “I bet he has very pale skin and long teeth and says, ‘Not for me, my dar-link. But a nice glass full of your blood would be most appreciated.’”

  Kathy tries not to smile.

  “Is it serious?” asks James. “Is he going to pop the question?”

  Kathy glares at him. “Not if I can help it.” Her voice is low and determined. When she gets like this she’s pretty scary. “He’s got a kid of his own, a daughter in kindergarten. At our school. I’m supposed to say hello to her and be nice.”

  “So his wife died?”

  “No, she took off.”

  Took off? Like in a movie? Real people don’t take off.

  “It’s true,” says Kathy. “She just ran off with another man and left Dr. Arnold stranded with a baby girl.”

  “So did they get a divorce?” says Buster. “Because if they didn’t get a divorce and he marries your mom, it will be bigamy, which is against the law, unless you’re the Sheikh of Araby and you’ve got a harem.”

  Kathy frowns. “He got a divorce. Or he says he did.”

  I’m thinking back to something she said a few minutes ago.

  “You said your mom was sick of you. What do you mean?”

  She shakes her head. “We had a fight. Dr. Arnold was coming over and I was supposed to help clean up the apartment. And she wanted me to do something about the shrine.”

  Kathy built this shrine to her father who died in the Korean War. She has a little table with pictures of him and his medals for bravery and a flag. He died when she was a baby, but he wrote her all these letters while he was overseas.

  “She wants you to take down the shrine to your dad?”

  Kathy’s shoulders fall.

  “Not take it down, exactly. Just...well, clean it up a bit. It’s grown since you last saw it. I started putting up more pictures and old stuff of his. His pilot’s helmet and, you know, some other things. His air force uniform.” She pauses. “I guess the shrine got kind of large.”

  Kathy’s apartment isn’t very big. I’m trying to imagine how much of the room the shrine has taken over.

  “I don’t want Mom to forget about him,” she says. “So I put everything I could find right out in the open. She says there isn’t anywhere to sit. I just wanted Dr. Arnold to know.”

  There is a pause and then James says, “Is his name really Arnold?”

  She nods. “Dr. Arnold Schwartz. His daughter’s name is Missy. I’m supposed to be nice to Missy.” She says Missy as if it was Kissy.

  “Dr. Arnold,” says Buster. “I bet he’s not as brave as your father. I bet he didn’t get shot down or anything.”

  Nobody can think of anything else to say. I wonder if the other guys are thinking the same thing I’m thinking. I’m trying to imagine my mother going out on a date! It’s too ridiculous for words.

  It’s just about then that I realize we’ve walked right past Clemow Avenue, which is where Buster and James and I all live. We’ve reached the entranceway to Adams Park. It’s empty now. Desolate. There are puddles of water left over from the rain on Saturday and there are frozen clumps of dead leaves everywhere.

  Kathy sighs and we all look at her.

  “Do you want us to walk you home?” James asks.

  She shakes her head. Then she looks at him and smiles.

  “Thanks anyway,” she says. She turns to Buster and me. “Thanks, guys.” She still looks sad but not as sad. “See you later.”

  Then she turns north and heads off, as if she’s in a hurry. Maybe she’s going to go home and clean up the shrine, like her mom wants her to. But I don’t think so. There was a glint in her eye. Maybe she’s going to turn the whole apartment into a shrine. Maybe she’ll go to the air force and ask them to loan her an F-86 Sabre like the one her dad flew.

  That ought to make Dr. Arnold feel welcome.

  8

  The Woman in White

  BUSTER IS REALLY RICH and has lots of great toys and games, but the best thing about going to his house is that there’s no one there. Sometimes a maid answers the door but she always goes away and leaves you alone. Sometimes you can hear his mom somewhere laughing as if she’s having a party all by herself, but she hardly ever makes an appearance, and when she does she never remembers any of our names. Buster’s brother, Clem, is never at home. He’s on the football team and the basketball team and the swim team and the ski team and the hopscotch team, for all I know. As for Buster’s dad, he’s nearly always away on business trips.

  It’s great!

  We go to Buster’s after we leave Kathy. We make Nestlé’s Quik and put about three pounds of rainbow-coloured miniature marshmallows in it. Then we put chocolate sprinkles and nuts and sugar and caramel sauce on top of that. When Buster gets out the mustard, ketchup and corn relish, things get really crazy. We
never actually end up drinking the Quik, but by then we are warmed up from laughing so much. And anyway, we find something better to snack on.

  Buster’s mother threw a bridge party and there are lots of little sandwiches in the fridge. They are about the size of stamps. Some are rolled up and some are diamond shaped and some are round. There isn’t a crust in sight! James and I try everything while Buster makes himself a macaroni loaf and Velveeta sandwich on Wonder Bread.

  When Buster finally sits down, I tell him and James about the address book.

  James flips through the book.

  “Well, here’s what I think. This looks like a man’s address book.” I look at the book over his shoulder. “See how the writing leans forward?” he says. “A woman’s writing always leans backward or it’s straight up and down.”

  Boy oh boy, James is smart. If I do have a detective agency when I grow up I’ll need him on board.

  “Besides,” he adds, “women don’t own black things. If this book belonged to a woman it would be pink or powder blue.”

  “You’re right,” I say. “Or yellow with a kitten on the front.”

  “That’s not true,” says Buster, wiping Velveeta off his lips with the edge of the tablecloth. “Women do have black things.” He swallows his mouthful. “I found this magazine in my brother’s room and it was full of pictures of women wearing black underwear.”

  “Are you sure?” I ask. None of my sisters wear black underwear.

  Buster crosses his heart. Then he looks down at his sandwich with this glum look on his face. “I was sitting on his bed looking at the pictures when my mom came in. She sent me to bed with no supper.”

  “Just as well,” says James. “Who could eat after seeing a lot of pictures of women wearing nothing but underwear?”

  I nod. Sometimes my sisters walk around in their slips and they get all upset if I see them, and I have to tell Mum I’m the one who should be upset.

  Buster’s freckles start to flash like ambulance lights and he goes back to eating his sandwich.

  “Could we phone some of the people in the book?” says James.

  Buster nods, his cheeks fat with sandwich. He points at the phone on the wall.

  “There’s about a thousand names,” I say.