The Kindness Club

by Courtney Sheinmel

  “Hey, Harper,” another kid called. “Will you trade seats with me?”

  “Jesse, trade with me!”

  There was a flurry of activity, but then Mr. Dibble put two fingers in his mouth and whistled the loudest whistle ever, which stopped all of us in our tracks.

  “How’d you do that?” Huck asked.

  “Find me at lunchtime tomorrow, Mr. Fox, and I’ll teach you,” Mr. Dibble said. “As long as you promise not to use the skill inside a classroom—like I did just now.”

  “Deal,” Huck said.

  “And no trading seats, all right?”

  “All right.”

  “Excuse me, Mr. Dibble,” Monroe said.

  “Yes, Ms. Reeser?”

  “I heard that Dr. Garcia lets kids pick their own seats. Anjali and I were planning to have Chloe Silver sit with us. Remember, you’re the one who said I should show her around school.”

  “Oh, yes, Ms. Silver,” Mr. Dibble said, noticing me in the back for the first time. “I got a note from you this morning.”

  “At lunchtime,” I corrected. “You said to check in.”

  “That’s right. Well, it’s good to see you’ve made some friends already. And, Ms. Reeser, I appreciate that you have taken your job as tour guide so seriously. But it’ll be good for Ms. Silver to branch out and sit with some of her other classmates. Please, everyone, take your seats.”

  I sat back down, in the seat between Theo and Lucy, and stared at the back of Monroe’s head, hoping this didn’t count against me in my trial period. I would’ve switched seats if I could have, but I didn’t have any choice. She had to understand that.

  Then again, I didn’t have any choice about my name, and that didn’t matter to the A-Team.

  “So,” Mr. Dibble said, “I know you’re all wondering where Dr. Garcia is, and I’m sorry to report—”

  “He’s dead?” a girl named Isabelle guessed.

  “No, of course he’s not dead,” Mr. Dibble said. “He decided to retire. A bit earlier than we’d expected, but it’s not undeserved. Dr. Garcia was a teacher at this school for fifty-seven years.”

  A bunch of kids gasped when Mr. Dibble said that—fifty-seven years. I wondered why anyone thought his retirement was unexpected.

  “But I’m very happy to be here with you,” Mr. Dibble went on, and he sounded like a kid who’d just opened a bunch of presents on Christmas morning. “Science was my favorite subject in school. Any questions so far?”

  Theo raised his hand, and Mr. Dibble called on him. “Have you ever actually taught science before?” Theo asked.

  “The honest answer is, no I have not. I do have Dr. Garcia’s excellent notes to follow.” Mr. Dibble tapped a pile in front of him. “And I remember what I learned in fifth-grade science quite well. So let’s get started, shall we? Who can tell me the steps of the scientific method?”

  Theo was the only one who raised his hand, and when Mr. Dibble called on him, I opened up the green notebook I picked for science class—green because it seemed like a science kind of color. So far the pages inside were blank, which is how I like them best, before I’ve crossed things out, or doodled in the margins. It’s so clean and fresh, and when you look at them it feels like everything you write will turn out neat and perfect.

  Theo rattled off the steps, and I wrote them down in my best handwriting: (1) Ask a question, (2) Do background research, (3) State your hypothesis, (4) Conduct an experiment to test it, (5) Analyze the data and draw a conclusion, and (6) Write up your results.

  “Good job,” Mr. Dibble said. “Now, uh, who can tell me what a hypothesis is?”

  No one raised a hand except Theo—again. Mr. Dibble seemed to look around the room for someone else, anyone else, before he said, “Yes, Mr. Barnes?”

  “A hypothesis is a proposed explanation that may serve as the starting point for further exploration,” Theo said.

  “Huh?” Monroe asked, without raising her hand.

  “Okay, let’s unpack that,” Mr. Dibble said. “Let’s say for example you are wondering whether . . . whether people with different eye colors have different kinds of taste buds. In my family, my wife and I love broccoli, but our children do not. My wife and I both have brown eyes, and our kids have blue eyes. So my hypothesis would be that overall, people with brown eyes have more of a taste for green vegetables. Now how might I conduct that experiment?”

  A few more kids raised their hands. I half listened to the answer, and I half thought about my own taste buds, and how a turkey sandwich was not exactly my favorite lunch, but it seemed that eating what Monroe thought I should eat instead of eating ravioli would help me to become an It Girl. That was my own, private hypothesis. I’d conduct the experiment each day. I hoped the results would be what I wanted them to be. My stomach flip-flopped just thinking about it, and I repeated my affirmation in my head:

  I have the best friends in my new school. I have the best friends in my new school. I have the best friends in my new school.

  At the end of class, Mr. Dibble dismissed us without any homework. I said good-bye to Lucy and Theo, grabbed my books, and hurried toward the front of the room, to catch up to my new friends.

  CHAPTER 7

  “CHLOE! BREAKFAST!” Mom called the next morning.

  I grabbed my brush and a hair tie, and headed into the kitchen. As soon as I sat down at the table, Mom stood behind me to braid. “I think I’m getting better at eating while you’re braiding,” I told her. “I haven’t dripped any milk.”

  “We’re quite a team,” she said, as she yanked a clump of my hair tighter. I stifled the word ow in my throat because I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. “At least one of my jobs is going well.”

  “There’s something wrong at Regan Halliday’s office?” I asked.

  “I’m having trouble with the filing system,” Mom said. “I’m only about twenty percent on top of it. Maybe fifteen percent.”

  “But weren’t you in charge of the filing system at Dad’s office?” I said.

  “I designed that one,” Mom said. “I never thought I’d have to learn another. But then, I never thought things would turn out the way they did with your dad.”

  She said the word “dad” like she’d just tasted milk gone sour. Worse than that, actually. Like she didn’t want to say his name at all. It was like Dad was her version of Lord Voldemort in a Harry Potter book. I made a deal with myself right then: I wouldn’t mention Dad to Mom again, unless it was absolutely necessary.

  “Hey, you want to know what Lia told me last night,” I said, trying to change the subject. “The Thompson family got a dog.”

  “That’s nice,” Mom said “All good in Lia’s world?”

  “Mmm hmm,” I said. I didn’t tell her that Lia hadn’t been able to talk long, since she was meeting Trissa and Bianca (and Trissa’s new dog) at Magic Cone. She said they’d gone a bunch of times, and they shared three flavors between them. Of course I told her about being in the It Girls Club. I said it like I was already part of it, not to lie, but because that’s what Erin Lindstrom did: when she wanted something to happen, she said it like it already had.

  Mom reached out a hand. I handed her the hair tie, and she twisted it around the bottom. “There you go. All done. Now you better get a move on, and I should, too.”

  “I hope you have a good day,” I told her.

  “You too, sweetheart,” she said.

  I walked into Ms. Danos’s class just as she was closing the classroom door and starting the day’s first lesson. When I glanced to the back, I saw Monroe’s hair was hanging loose, down past her shoulders. Ms. Danos asked everyone to open their math books to page fourteen. Down the row, Anjali was flipping her book open. Her hair was loose, too, and the dark curtain of it obscured her face so I couldn’t meet her eye. Maybe french braids were only required on the first day of school and optional every other day. But at lunchtime Monroe set me straight: “It Girls only wear braids on previously agreed upon special occasions. A
random Tuesday is definitely not a french braid day.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I told her.

  “It’s okay because you didn’t know,” she said. “As long as you take it out now.”

  She barely had the sentence out of her mouth before I’d undone the elastic from the bottom of the braid and slipped it onto my wrist like a bracelet, and unraveled my hair quick as possible.

  The hot lunch that day was some sort of chicken dish, but we bypassed the line and went to the sandwich station. Rachael’s class had gotten out a couple minutes before ours. She was sitting at the same table in the back when we got there with our turkey sandwiches. Her hair was in a half ponytail.

  “This afternoon will be the first official It Girls meeting of fifth grade,” Monroe said, taking the seat next to Rachael. “I assume you’re free for this, Chloe?”

  “Of course I am,” I said.

  “Good.”

  “Will we meet at your house, like usual?” Rachael asked her.

  “My mom has to run lines, so . . .” Monroe shrugged instead of finishing the sentence.

  “Run lines?” I asked.

  “She’s rehearsing,” Monroe said.

  “Her mom’s an actress,” Anjali added.

  “That’s so cool! Would I have seen her movies?”

  “She’s not in movies,” Rachael said. “Or TV shows.”

  “Only because she’s a stage actress,” Monroe said. “Which is a much harder kind of actress to be. You’re in front of a live audience every night, and if you make a mistake, they can’t just tape the scene again.”

  “Wow,” I said.

  “She was in a vitamin commercial, too,” Anjali said. Her voice changed to a mock-announcer voice: “take two, and you won’t have to call your doctor in the morning.”

  “Wow,” I said again. “I know that commercial. I totally saw her. She looks a lot like you. Or you look a lot like her.”

  “Do you really think so?”

  “Totally.”

  “Thanks,” Monroe said. “Anyway, it’s really hard work, what my mom does. She has to be perfect. She doesn’t like to have people around when she’s trying to memorize a bunch of dialogue.”

  “If you want, we could have the meeting at my house,” I offered.

  “That’s great,” Monroe said. “You’re on.”

  If I’d known ahead of time that the It Girls would be coming to my house, I would’ve prepared for it. The breakfast dishes were still in the sink, and we didn’t have much to eat besides cornflakes, plus the veggies and pasta that Mom had most likely bought for dinner. But it turned out to be fine, because everyone wanted to order pizza anyway.

  I called Mom first, to let her know I was home. Then the other girls called their parents. Rachael was the last one to use the phone, and she hung up with her mother and dialed the pizza place. “What toppings does everyone want?” she asked, holding the ringing phone against her ear.

  “Mushrooms,” Monroe and I said at the same time.

  “Ew,” Anjali said. “Plain cheese.”

  “I know, I hate mushrooms,” Rachael said.

  “Fine,” Monroe told them. “Get half plain for you guys, and half mushroom for us.” She looked at me and grinned. “The better half,” she said.

  Rachael placed the order. With the soda and garlic knots everyone wanted, the total came to over thirty dollars. The other girls didn’t have much money on them, but luckily I had a bunch saved up from my grandma Barb.

  Grandma Barb is Dad’s mother. She gives me money at the end of every school year, five dollars for every good grade, even though Mom always says she shouldn’t, because Mom believes hard work is its own reward. If you get good grades, you can get into college—maybe even on scholarship. And if you work hard in college, you can get a good job when you graduate, and then you’ll make your own money to buy what you want.

  That seemed like an awfully long time to wait, but Grandma would always sneak me the money anyway. I supposed it would be a whole lot easier for her to do so now, since the split. So there was a bright side for you.

  I had a hundred and sixty-seven dollars stashed in my top drawer, from what Grandma Barb had given me, plus my allowance and various birthday gifts from other relatives. I’d been saving up for something special—or a few something specials. Having the It Girls at my house certainly qualified, if you asked me. “I have plenty of money,” I told them. “Pizza is my treat.”

  The food arrived and we ate it around the coffee table. Afterward we put on some music, like Lia and I used to do. Monroe choreographed a dance for us. We pushed the coffee table to the side of the room, and she told us to take our positions. Anjali was in front of me, but Monroe told her to step behind. “Mushroom lovers stage front!” she said.

  I jumped forward, toward the TV. Monroe took my hand and swung it up, then we stepped back, and she told Anjali and Rachael to dip under us. There were hand movements, and more footwork. It wouldn’t have worked with only three people, because some parts involved having partners, two and two. I felt like I belonged.

  We practiced until we knew the dance by heart, and by then it was almost time for Mom to be home.

  I stood at the front door as my new friends were leaving. “Thanks for coming,” I called. “I hope we do it again.”

  Monroe turned to back to grin at me. “Absolutely,” she said.

  CHAPTER 8

  “I have decided that this semester, you kids will help me with the lessons,” Mr. Dibble said.

  It was Wednesday afternoon, and we were back in science class. Theo was shaking his head. Other kids were shaking their heads, too. But I knew not for the same reason.

  “Don’t worry. You guys already know more than you think,” Mr. Dibble said. “For example, the steps of the scientific method. Who remembers them?”

  A few hands shot up. I flipped open my green notebook and raised my hand, too. “Ms. Silver,” Mr. Dibble said.

  I read out loud: “ask a question, do background research, make a hypothesis, perform an experiment, draw a conclusion, and write up your results.”

  “Excellent,” Mr. Dibble said. “That’s excellent.”

  Theo raised his hand, and Mr. Dibble called, “Yes, Mr. Barnes?”

  “I’m not trying to be rude,” Theo said. “But Chloe’s just reading from her notes. What about the other things we’re supposed to learn?”

  “I bet you already know the other things we’re supposed to learn,” Lucy said.

  Theo lowered his head. “I read. So sue me,” he muttered, and a few kids snickered.

  “Settle down,” Mr. Dibble said. “It’s a wonderful thing that Mr. Barnes reads as much as he does. And do you know why he does? Because he’s curious. I want you all to have that curiosity. You’re in fifth grade now, so you’re old enough to understand a lot about the world. And you’re also young enough to appreciate you still have a lot to figure out. I’ll tell you a secret, the adults in your life don’t have it all figured out, either. We just have a harder time admitting it.”

  “You just admitted it, though,” Jesse pointed out.

  “Yes, Mr. Freeman,” Mr. Dibble agreed. “And I’ll admit something else, too. Sometimes I don’t even know what questions I’m supposed to ask. Sometimes I don’t know what to be curious about. For example, until I started working here I didn’t know that bacon would taste even better dipped into syrup. Then on Brunch for Lunch Day, I saw a couple kids in the cafeteria eating that very combination. A hypothesis popped up in my head: I bet mixing savory and sweet ingredients tastes good. I conducted my own experiment the next morning, and drew the conclusion that my hypothesis was correct.”

  “That’s your second food example,” Anjali said. “So are we going to be doing food experiments in class?”

  “I’m glad you asked, Ms. Sheth. I’ll tell you my plan. Every week or so, a different table will get together and come up with a question. It doesn’t have to have anything to do with food. It does have to relate
to your curiosity.”

  “I’m curious whether the Capitals will win the Stanley Cup this year,” Huck called out.

  “I am, too, believe me,” Mr. Dibble said. “But that’s a different kind of curiosity. It involves a lot of variables I don’t control. I’m talking about the kind of question that when it occurs to you, you can get in there and research it for yourself, without sitting home and waiting by the television. Every law of science we have is because someone with a curious mind asked a question. Now you will do the same. Do the research, formulate a hypothesis, conduct an experiment, draw a conclusion, and report your findings to us. Doesn’t that sound great?”

  “You don’t expect us to invent new laws of science, do you?” Monroe asked, which was the exact same thing I was thinking.

  “People don’t invent laws of science,” Theo said. “They discover them.”

  “Know-it-all,” Monroe said.

  “Now, now,” Mr. Dibble said. “I understand what you’re getting at, Ms. Reeser. And the answer is, you don’t know what you’ll discover until you ask the questions.”

  “How do we know what the right questions are?” Harper asked.

  “A little thing called observation,” Mr. Dibble said. “Did you know gravity was discovered because Sir Isaac Newton observed an apple falling from a tree and became curious as to why? A single, solitary apple in his backyard sparked a question that led to the discovery of something that affects every person, in every town, in every country on our planet. Science is global. Isn’t that exciting?”

  We murmured that yes, it was.

  “Think about the things you see and experience in the world, the things that make you curious,” Mr. Dibble went on. “Ask a question and do the research. Conduct an experiment. You can be as creative as you’d like—there will be added points for creativity. I’m less concerned with the results than I am with the process. But who knows? You may just discover something that affects all our lives.”