Zack Delacruz

by Jeff Anderson

  When sixth graders turned in their money, a few of them called me Zack—not Shrimp or Loser or That Short Kid. I thought about asking Dad to measure me because I felt like I had grown. If not inches, I was starting to feel less afraid of everything. Not needing to avoid everything or worry about everything. Now I was in things.

  “All we need is Janie and two other sixth graders to turn in their money tomorrow”—my numbers man, Marquis, slid a mechanical pencil behind his ear—“and we’ll be set, boss.”

  At that point, even I was sure we’d have the whole thing wrapped up by Friday. Even Mr. Numbers backed me up.

  “I reminded Mr. Akins to make the announcement that tomorrow is the last day to turn in the fund-raiser money,” Marquis said.

  I smiled at him and patted him on the back. “You da man, Marquis.”

  “You know that’s right,” Marquis said, collecting his papers.

  “Seriously.”

  He stopped and looked at me. “Thanks. You da man too.”

  The bell rang and we rushed to math, Marquis’s favorite class.

  Later that day, we walked into English, but for some reason everyone stopped at the door before they entered.

  “Hey, Miss.” Sophia looked suspicious. “Why are you wearing a dress?”

  I did a double take when I saw Mrs. Harrington. That day, instead of her untucked faculty polo shirt and a khaki skirt, she wore a red dress with a black collar. It even looked like she had brushed her hair.

  “Why are you so dolled up, Miss Harrington?” Cliché raised her eyebrows.

  “Today is …”—Mrs. Harrington couldn’t contain herself—“National Punctuation Day! Ladies and gentlemen, grab a pen and pick a punctuation station.”

  The class looked different too. The rows were gone.

  Punctuation stations were everywhere. Four desks were pushed together with big laminated punctuation marks hanging over them: question marks, colons, periods, semicolons, dashes, quotation marks, and exclamation marks. Everything.

  “This way, Zack.” Marquis grabbed my arm and led me to the empty station by the window: the colon.

  “It takes guts to start with the colon, boys,” Mrs. Harrington snorted.

  Sophia and Cliché waved their hands from the exclamation point station.

  “Miss, we used explanation thingies in our sentence,” Cliché said.

  “Exclamation points!” Mrs. Harrington yelled. Punctuation must’ve been the Rapstar Energy Drink of language arts because Mrs. Harrington was hyper.

  “Whatever.” Sophia tossed back her hair behind her shoulders, cleared her throat, and shouted: “I can’t wait to go to the dance!”

  “Fantastic, Sophia!” screamed Mrs. Harrington, jolting the class again. “Exclamation points are for extreme excitement or YELLING!”

  “Yeah!” Cliché screamed a little too loudly, jumping up from her chair. “Sophia will dance cheek to cheek with RAYMOND!”

  “Can I yell something out, Miss?” Chewy asked, squinting.

  “Well, you’re at the question mark station; can you?”

  “Mrs. Harrington, can I go to the restroom?!” he shouted, then broke down giggling and wiping his runny nose. “Can I say anything that’s not a question?”

  “Will you?” jumped in Mrs. Harrington. When she moved her hands, I noticed her fingernails were painted red. It was like she wanted to date punctuation.

  Chewy’s legs were folded. “No, seriously, Miss, can I go to the restroom?”

  She nodded, and Chewy sprinted to the door.

  Janie Bustamante was at the comma station—alone. What did kids hate more: Janie or the comma? It was a toss-up.

  “No one else wants to pause for a comma today?” Mrs. Harrington joked, smoothing her red dress. “This is a group activity, Janie. Why don’t you join Marquis and Zack at the colon station?”

  “I want to be alone,” Janie mumbled.

  Something was different about Janie today. She seemed off. More than usual.

  “The boys are glad to have you.” Mrs. Harrington looked to us.

  “Yeah, I know Zack is,” José taunted, his eyes burning a hole in me.

  Janie stomped over.

  Like Ima Goodfriend, Mrs. Harrington didn’t get middle school students. She was all peace, love, and understanding. Middle school wasn’t any of those things. Did she think everything was good because we’d gone to a forty-five-minute Goodfriend Express assembly on Monday?

  Frowning, Janie slammed herself down in the chair next to me.

  “Zack and Janie, sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g …,” Sophia cheered with pencil pom-poms.

  “Explanation point!” Cliché yelled.

  Mrs. Harrington desperately searched her notes for something to distract us. Hurry, Mrs. H., hurry! I thought. I ran my hand over my spiky hair.

  El Pollo Loco sprang up from the period station. “The branch broke off. Zack was crushed. Then came a medic in an am-bu-lance.”

  I slumped down in my chair so much I almost slid under the desk.

  “I’m glad you’re at the period station, José,” Mrs. Harrington said as she crossed her arms, “because you. Need. To. Stop.”

  For the first time, the class honestly laughed at one of her lame English teacher jokes. But all the laughter, all the wild behavior had spoiled her super-special English teacher day for good.

  She slipped off her black high heels and shook the heel of one of them at us. “And you all need to stop, class,” she warned through gritted teeth. “Or we can take a punctuation quiz. Period.”

  She parked herself behind her desk and started reading her e-mail, not looking back at us. That was how a teacher let you know she was done with you.

  Even though Janie had sold the most boxes of Nation’s Best chocolate bars on her own, this whole thing about Janie being my girlfriend was destroying me. All I could think about was how on one hand, she was saving my reputation by selling candy, but on the other hand, she destroyed it by making everybody think we were a couple.

  Just then, Janie slid another note to me.

  Great.

  I prayed no one had seen it.

  I shoved it in my pocket and stared out the window at the cars in the teachers’ parking lot.

  The rest of the class was an ellipsis …

  CHAPTER 11

  DEATH OF A SALESMAN

  As the bell blasted, Marquis and I dashed into the hall and made a beeline for the bathroom. Since we were lucky enough to be the first ones in, Marquis held the door closed with his foot. I wanted to open the note in private. I’d already been embarrassed enough today for a lifetime. Period.

  After I skimmed Janie’s note, I froze. All I could do was gaze ahead. The strong smell of dried urine punctuated my last moment as the kid who got the sixth grade into the dance. I handed the note to Marquis. “Read it. And please tell me my eyes aren’t working. Please tell me I didn’t just read what I think I did.”

  Keeping his foot turned sideways against the door, Marquis twisted and took the crumpled note. He grimaced as he looked at it and then read it aloud:

  “New ones?” Marquis’s face scrunched up.

  I didn’t have time to answer. The door shoved open and twisted Marquis’s foot, knocking him to the green-and-white tile floor.

  Chewy Johnson jumped over Marquis like a hurdle in gym class and headed for the long metal trough.

  I kneeled. “Are you okay, Marquis?”

  In the background, it sounded like Chewy was cleaning the metal urinal with a power washer.

  “I think I twisted my ankle,” Marquis grunted. “Bad.”

  “What?”

  “My ankle.” Marquis winced. “Help me, Zack!”

  I could feel the exclamation point.

  I could feel my whole world coming to an end.

  Period.

  El Pollo Loco ran into the bathroom and stepped over Marquis. He looked down from the other side. “Urine trouble.” He held his stomach. “Get it?”


  After I lifted him off the floor, Marquis used my shoulder like a crutch to limp to the nurse’s office. Each step, Marquis flinched, gasped, or grunted.

  Mrs. Harrington spotted us hobbling down the hall. “Here, take my rolling chair!” That’s like a teacher giving up her firstborn child. They don’t do that for anything other than a real emergency.

  And it was Janie’s stupid note that had caused the whole emergency in the first place. In fact, I would never have been put in charge of the dance if it weren’t for her. This was all Janie’s fault. And to think, I was about to forgive her, believing she’d saved the dance singlehandedly. But I knew the truth: she was ruining it, just like she wrecked everything. Even Marquis’s ankle. My mind fumed all the way to the clinic by the main office.

  When I opened the clinic door, Sophia stood at the sink rubbing ice over her lips, staring at herself in the mirror. She was the last person I wanted to see. I take that back; Janie was the last person I wanted to see. I wanted to Hulk out on her.

  “What have we here?” Nurse Patty said.

  “Hey, Shrimps, what happened? Did your girlfriend step on Marquis’s foot or something?” Sophia giggled.

  “You. Off to lunch.” Nurse Patty waved her hand at Sophia, like she was a gnat buzzing around her clinic. “Now.”

  “Why, Miss?” she whined. “I wanna stay. I barely got here.”

  “Because I have to find out what put …”

  “Marquis,” I said.

  “Marquis in this makeshift wheelchair.” Nurse Patty squeezed Marquis’s hand.

  Marquis winced.

  “Oh, dear.” Nurse Patty looked at Sophia. “Out!”

  Sophia disappeared.

  Nurse Patty and I moved Marquis out of the chair to the clinic bed. I explained how Chewy had shoved the bathroom door open and twisted Marquis’s ankle.

  Janie burst in. “I need my Pepto-Bismol!”

  “You will have to wait over there, Janie. I’m busy.”

  “Nobody puts Baby in a corner!”

  “I do.” Nurse Patty headed out the door to the file cabinets in the front office.

  Janie stood in the corner and whispered to herself, “Dirty Dancing, nineteen eighty-seven, starring Mr. Patrick Swayze.”

  Oh, man, I thought. Get this girl out of my face. I was about to run her over with the Goodfriend Express. Chuggah, chuggah. To think, I stood up for her.

  “Zack, I’ve been looking for you. Did you read my note?” Janie rocked on her feet in the corner.

  “I’ve got bigger fish to fry now.” I pointed to Marquis. “Look what you did, Janie!”

  Janie stepped back. “But I …”

  “What happened to all the boxes, Janie?” Marquis grunted.

  “There was an accident,” Janie said, turning away.

  My stomach dropped. “Tell me everything, Janie!”

  She pulled her hair behind her ear.

  “JANIE!”

  She breathed in and swallowed hard.

  “What kind of accident?” I lowered my voice.

  “An accident accident. That’s why it’s called an accident, Zack.” She ran her fingers along the clinic’s white counter. “I didn’t do it on purpose.”

  “What do you mean, Janie?”

  “What I said, Zack.” She faced me. “I need to replace my boxes of Nation’s Best chocolate bars.”

  “But what happened to all the ones you signed out?”

  “They’re gone.” Janie stared forward, rubbing her arms. She flopped down on the end of the mint green vinyl bench next to Marquis.

  “Did you lose them?” Marquis tried to lift his head. “We can help find them.” He collapsed and closed his eyes.

  “I know where they are,” Janie said as she stood, “but they’re gone.”

  “Where’s the money?”

  “Well …” Janie played with the glass jar of tongue depressors on the counter.

  “Janie?” My voice got louder each time I spoke.

  “I accidentally … ate them.”

  “You ate all eight boxes?”

  Janie gripped the counter edge. “I only ate them one chocolate bar at a time.” She gasped.

  And like that, the lights went out on the sixth-grade dance.

  CHAPTER 12

  NURSING OUR WOUNDS

  “Put this ice on his ankle, and I’ll be back in a minute,” Nurse Patty said. The clinic door clicked shut.

  I held the blue ice pack on Marquis’s ankle.

  Lying face up on the clinic bed, Marquis cracked open an eye to operate his mental calculator. “I figure eight boxes, with twelve chocolate bars in each box, at two dollars per bar,” Marquis shifted his ankle, “brings you to one hundred ninety-two dollars.”

  Thank goodness for Marquis, my personal calculator of doom.

  “You don’t have to go all mathematic on me, Marquis!” Janie sprayed. “In the movies when kids tell the truth, everything works out.”

  “Oh, you’re right, Janie.” I rolled my eyes. “This is a movie.” I grabbed a handful of the tongue depressors from the counter.

  “It’s called ‘The Creature That Ate the Sixth-Grade Dance’!” I threw tongue depressors at the floor, one after the other, punctuating my words: “One. Chocolate. Bar. At. A. Time.”

  I dumped the rest of the jar on the clinic floor. “Look, I accidentally dropped all these tongue … these tongue …” I was so mad I couldn’t even say the word.

  “Depressors,” Marquis added, eyes still closed.

  Janie kneeled and collected the tongue depressors off the floor, returning them to the jar.

  “You know, Janie. You have to pay for all the boxes of candy you ate,” I said.

  Janie slumped. “I don’t have …”

  “One hundred ninety-two dollars,” Marquis grunted.

  “One hundred ninety-two anything. Well, I might have that many unicorn stickers, but I already stuck them on my dresser and they aren’t coming off anytime soon. Trust me.”

  I paced.

  “I think we might have a hundred ninety-two cans and even more bottles,” she said hopefully. “My dad doesn’t recycle.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “What about your dad? Maybe you could ask him for the money.” But I already knew her dad wouldn’t help us. Mr. Bustamante was one scary dude. I remembered him picking up Janie in third grade. When the classroom door opened, Mr. Bustamante looked like he had just broken out of prison. His coveralls were tied at the waist and he wore a tank top, so everyone could see all his tattoos.

  Janie stuck her head between her legs, muffling her voice. “Lately, Dad hasn’t been getting any jobs. He’ll just get mad and say I’m eating him out of house and home.”

  What could you say to that?

  Seriously.

  “Can I do some work?” Janie sniffed.

  “What are you talking about Janie?” I turned. “That’s what got us into trouble in the first place. You were supposed to be working by selling cases of Nation’s Best chocolate bars. Not eating them.”

  “But you’re in charge, Zack. With El Pollo Loco. Mrs. Darling said you were a leader.” She placed the jar of tongue depressors back on the counter. “You have to help me, Zack.” I didn’t like it, but I knew she was right. But I couldn’t see any way sixth grade was going to be part of the dance anymore.

  I rolled Marquis out into the warm afternoon sun.

  “We’ll figure something out, Zack,” Marquis said, squinting.

  His grandmother was already waiting in front of the school, her black Lincoln still running. She shook her head at us.

  I opened the door and helped Marquis from the chair to the front seat. I watched them drive down the street. Away. I waved good-bye, thinking about the disaster I was in. No Marquis. No Nation’s Best chocolate bars. No money. No dance. No ideas.

  And Dad thought I had the whole thing under control. He hadn’t been the same since Mom made him leave. Last night at Chris Madrid’s he was like BD Dad instead of AD Dad. I cou
ldn’t disappoint him.

  I sat in Mrs. Harrington’s rolling chair on the sidewalk in front of the school.

  An ant was crossing the cement sidewalk to the asphalt parking lot with half a Cheeto on its back. It looked huge in comparison. Instead of a Cheeto, I carried the fund-raiser for the dance, which was too big to hold up. I leaned over the front of the chair and watched the ant cross over the curb.

  I rolled myself slowly into the building, moving the chair with my feet like I was paddling upstream. I rolled to the clinic door. I couldn’t face seeing the other sixth graders yet, knowing what I knew. Nurse Patty didn’t even look up from the forms she was filling out as I rolled into the clinic.

  “Are you waiting for me to stamp your frequent visitor card, Mr. Delacruz, or did you sustain an injury loading Marquis into his car?”

  I rolled the chair around in a circle.

  Nurse Patty twisted her head over her shoulder. “Okay, five more minutes”—she pushed her glasses up her nose—“but then it’s back to class, sir.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Manners will get you far in this world, Mr. Delacruz.”

  Well, there was that, I guessed.

  I searched the clinic for something to take my mind off this candy-tastrophe. I scanned the pamphlets to the left of Nurse Patty’s door. Arranged in a little clear plastic rack, it was like a huge colorful quilt of sicknesses.

  I spotted a pamphlet that said TOO MUCH on it. That sounded about right. This was too much. I rolled to the rack and grabbed it. I looked at the cover. Wait. This pamphlet was for addiction. We learned about this in health. The more I thought about it, the more eating eight boxes of Nation’s Best chocolate bars in a week sounded like addiction.

  “Gathering some reading material, Mr. Delacruz?”

  “I think I found one for somebody I know. Can I take it?”

  “That’s what they’re there for.” She scratched her signature on a form and put it in a file.

  I started reading through the glossy pamphlet. After reading some of it, I fist pumped the air. “Yes!”

  I had always known something was wrong with Janie. This was proof.