“Where are we going?” I ask.
We stop.
There is no teacher to line us up. No one tells us to go back to class.
There are no recess rules for us.
As the playground empties, we freeze by the four-square grids. Most of our class gathers around us.
“What do we do now?” asks Danny.
“Shouldn’t we go inside?” asks Jasmine.
“Why?” asks Brian. He grabs a ball that’s rolled away from the finished kickball game. He picks it up and dribbles it twice. “Let’s have a ball out here,” he says, laughing, and then bounces the ball off Danny’s head.
He picks up the ball and gets ready to throw it again when Mrs. Crawford strolls up to our group, her lips pinched. Our group circle opens up to let her in. “Why aren’t you lining up?” she demands.
Her class waits by the school entrance in an orderly and noiseless row.
Mrs. Crawford is one of the other fifth-grade teachers. She’s not as old as Ms. Bryce, but she’s not too far behind.
I groan, but I don’t think she hears me. I’m still holding a rock, so I drop it.
No one says a word. Mrs. Crawford rests her hands on her hips, waiting for an answer. Her eyes twitch. “Where is Ms. Bryce?” she asks, scanning the playground.
She looks at me, and I meet her gaze. I feel like a deer in headlights. I open my mouth, but no words come out.
There’s a long silence.
“I asked, where is Ms. Bryce?” she repeats.
“She’s in the bathroom,” says Eric, who I didn’t notice standing next to me.
It’s easy not to notice Eric.
“Well, you should be lining up,” says Mrs. Crawford.
“Right,” says Eric. “Ms. Bryce, um, said she’d be back in a minute and told us to wait for her. Do you want us to, uh, line up anyway?”
Mrs. Crawford shakes her head. “No, that’s okay. Follow her instructions.”
“Because, um, we totally could,” Eric suggests.
“No, no. You’re fine,” says Mrs. Crawford, heading back to her class. Soon, she is escorting them inside the school building.
A crack of thunder rumbles from above. The clouds overhead us are black. All the classes are inside, except ours. We stand together, but then Brian throws his ball at Danny’s head again.
“Hey!” yelps Danny.
I laugh.
Yow. Yow. Yow.
Recess might just last forever!
Brian picks up the ball again, and everyone runs away. A game of ball tag quickly erupts between the boys.
I shove Gavin, even though I don’t have the ball, and laugh again.
No one is outside telling me not to shove anyone.
A squeak of laughter erupts from a group of girls near us, and Jasmine appears to be close to tears. Are the other girls being mean to her?
No one is outside telling us to act nice.
But then more thunder grumbles in the sky. Another roar of thunder booms, and a few drops of rain follow.
The few drops quickly turn into many drops. Soon, we’re all rushing inside the school as water soaks our clothes and hair.
So much for extended outside recess. I suppose we’ll just need to continue our permanent indoor recess now.
Goofing off continues in class today. I’d hoped that the longer pre-rain recess time today would tire some of my rowdier classmates, but I think it’s only made them rowdier.
I once read that there are more than one hundred million cells in the human brain. Most of my classmates are using about five.
For most of the morning, I searched diligently through Ms. Bryce’s work sheets. Now, I pick up where I left off. My plan takes shape, as surely as two negatives form a positive when multiplied together.
An eraser collides against my arm. “Sorry!” says Brian with a snicker. He’s not sorry, though, not in the least. Those Neanderthals are never sorry.
I’m sitting at the teacher’s desk. Why not? If I am going to whip this class into learning shape, where else would I sit? So when the phone rings, I pick it up before the first ring ends.
My desk. My phone. My class.
“May I help you?” I ask. No more mousy voice for me.
“Is this Ms. Bryce?” Principal Klein asks.
“Who else would it be?” I say, ducking the question.
“Is everything okay?”
I cough. I take a deep breath. I remind myself that I am Maggie Cranberry, and I have every right to answer this phone.
We need to keep our secret so I can take charge.
That single thought fires my millions of brain cells.
“Of course,” I say. “Why would you think everything wasn’t perfectly satisfactory?”
“No one has been sent to detention all day,” he says. “Or yesterday afternoon, for that matter. And, well, that’s not like your class. So you can see why I’m concerned.”
Right. Our class gets in trouble a lot.
I feel myself breaking out in a sweat. I bite my lip.
Breathe. I can handle this. Go!
“My students have been behaving today,” I reply. “Especially that Maggie Cranberry. Now that’s a girl who is going places.”
“Um. Are you feeling well? You don’t sound like yourself.”
“I’ve never been better!” Maybe I was laying it on too thick. After all, I’m supposed to be Ms. Bryce, and Ms. Bryce would never rave about her students. When criminals rob banks, they always get tripped up on small details. They leave a fingerprint. They brag to someone about what they did. They drop their wallets at the crime scene. Not that we’re robbing a bank, and not that we’re criminals. But the analogy feels appropriate.
“Funny that you called,” I say. “I was just sending someone to your office this very moment.”
“Good. I mean, not good. I’m sorry your class is misbehaving. But I’m glad everything is normal.”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t things be normal? Everything here is exemplary,” I say, with maybe too much energy. My voice cracks.
I hang up the phone, but my hand trembles. If I’m going to lead this class, I’ll need to be more careful. I need to remember that I’m not taking charge for me but for everyone in Class 507. This is for their educations, for their futures, and for their millions of unused brain cells.
And my getting into Harvard is just a little extra gravy on the mashed potatoes of excellence.
But we need to send someone to detention now.
Eyeing Brian, Kyle, and Seth hurling erasers, I know any one of those troublemakers would be the perfect candidate to march down the hall. But they wouldn’t listen. If I ordered one of them to the principal’s office, they would probably just throw an eraser at me.
No, I need everyone in class to agree with me. I need a consensus, a plurality, a democracy-voting-majority-true-blue American election.
I stand up and pound a stapler on the desk, like a judge slams a gavel. Everyone stops what they are doing and looks at me, as I intended. “We need to send someone to the principal’s office,” I announce. The class groans. “To keep up appearances. Principal Klein is getting suspicious since no one has gotten into any trouble today. Who wants to go?”
No one raises a hand, but that’s not surprising. Blockheads never like to face the consequences of their blockheaded-ness.
“Then I’ll just pick someone,” I say.
Trevor whispers to Gavin, “There goes Miss Bossy, again.” I glare at him, daring him to say something else about me, but he shrinks in his seat.
I am not bossy. I’m a leader. There’s a big difference.
“Why don’t we draw straws?” suggests Eric. “Maybe, um, who pulls the shortest straw goes to detention?”
Drawing straws. That’s actually a good idea. Maybe that small, quiet kid Eric is less of a blockhead than some of the others.
Ryan looks through the filing cabinet of supplies against the far wall, where it stands under the picture of the
most populous North American birds. (I have them memorized. They include blue jays, robins, cardinals, geese, and goldfinches.) There are pencils and markers and tape and tissue papers inside the cabinet but apparently “no straws,” she reports, and then does a ballet spin because, well, because Ryan always spins.
“We can use pencils,” Eric suggests.
That’s another good idea from him.
Ryan spins up to the desk, bringing two boxes of pencils with her. I count out twenty pencils, one for every student in class except me—as the self-appointed and decidedly non-bossy leader of this class, I can’t be sent to detention.
I break one pencil in half and put it, along with the nineteen unbroken pencils, in my fist. No one can see which is the shortened, broken one.
The kids in class walk up and grab a pencil, one at a time. Brian snags the very last one. I’m disappointed to see it isn’t the short pencil.
“Who has it?” I ask.
“Not me,” says Brian.
“Not me,” says Trevor.
“I’ve got it,” says Adam, holding up his stub for us all to see. He sinks his shoulders. “I better get going to the principal’s office, I guess.”
That figures. Adam always gets detention.
On Wednesday, breakfast waits for me on our dining room table, like it’s supposed to. As I take my usual chair, I’m excited about school today. I can’t remember being this excited about anything.
At least, I can’t remember being this excited about anything that doesn’t include shoes.
On the table, my utensils glisten. I smooth a bump from my hair, using the reflection from my spoon for guidance. I put a cloth napkin on my lap.
Everything is perfect.
Wait. It’s not.
Because when I look down at the plate in front of me, my stomach ties itself into a big knot. The yolk dribbles into the egg whites, and the egg whites run into the whole-wheat toast. The crusts on my toast have been sliced off, mostly. But on one edge, parts of the terrible-tasting, too-hard brown bread exterior remain.
Ugh.
I lift my fork, but I don’t eat. I stare.
“Eat up, Sam. Eggs are good for you,” says my aunt Karen. She came to stay with us for a few weeks when I was in kindergarten, and she never left. Fortunately. Because Aunt Karen is a fabulous chef most of the time and Mom does not cook, thank you very much. But today my aunt’s eggs over easy are making me uneasy.
She smiles, but I return her grin with an icy frown.
Daddy always tells me that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Not that I want to be greased! But constructive criticism is important. I learned that lesson from Ms. Bryce, too. She loved to criticize.
It may be the only thing I learned from her.
“The eggs are too runny,” I say.
“Oh, they’re fine,” says Aunt Karen. She stands over me. She’s a big woman, with wide shoulders and thick arms. She shakes her head at me, as if I’m at fault here, but I meet her stare.
Uncooked eggs can make you sick, and crusts are just sickening.
You know what? They should bake bread without crusts. I’ll talk to Daddy about that. He’ll be impressed by my business savvy. He could make a fortune, not that he needs another one.
“Oh, there you are, sweetheart.” Mom whirls into the kitchen like a tornado. She’s a blur of motion, her arms waving, and my napkin flutters off my lap from the breeze that blows behind her. She’s wearing a short white tennis skirt. The bracelets on her gesturing arms clang together, gold against gold against silver.
She’s like a tornado-whirling wind chime.
A tennis racket sticks out of the gym bag strapped across her shoulder.
“Eggs?” asks Aunt Karen, stepping back to the stove and lifting the runny goop from the frying pan.
Aunt Karen starts to slide the eggs to a shiny clean plate, but Mom waves her off. “Aren’t you a dear? But I can’t, I’m late! I’m meeting the girls for our Wednesday morning tennis match, and then I’m off to the spa. Busy, busy!” She bends down and kisses the air next to my cheek, and I kiss her cheek air back. With a jingling wave, the tornado hurries into the living room and presses the button for the elevator.
We have our own elevator, of course. Last year it broke for a whole week, and I had to ride the service elevator. They call it that because service people use it, like maintenance people and garbage collectors, and the elevator smells awful. Mom always keeps an air freshener in ours. It was a simply terrible week.
“What about your breakfast?” Aunt Karen asks as I bring my plate to the sink, but I’m already turning around and following Mom’s path.
“No time, I gotta go! See you later!” I call behind me. I grab my fur-collared jacket and my backpack, and I hop into the elevator right before it closes.
Mom puts on lipstick, staring into her small cosmetics mirror. I slide my arms into my jacket sleeves. We ride down in silence until Mom twists her lipstick back into the tube. She asks, “So. How’s school?”
I know I shouldn’t say anything about, well, you know. We all promised. But I’m excited to tell someone. The secret has been building for two days. I feel like I’m about to burst. I almost told Aunt Karen yesterday. I really wanted to when she was kissing me good-night (no air kisses from her!) but caught myself at the last moment.
“You’ll never guess what happened on Monday,” I blurt out to Mom. “The most amazing, fantastic, and surprising thing. Our teacher, Ms.—”
The elevator door opens and Mom rushes out. “I’m sorry, darling. I must run. Have a great day!” The tornado leaves me behind in its wake.
“But—” I stand in the elevator by myself, feeling sort of foolish with my mouth open in the middle of an unfinished sentence. I take a breath and step into the building lobby.
The doors close behind me with a melodic TING!
As I walk across the floor, my dark green glossy leather boots clip-clop on the marble.
Up ahead, George holds the heavy glass door open for me. As I walk by, he tips his doorman’s cap and tilts his head in a semi-bow. “Have a wonderful day, Miss Samantha,” he says.
“You too,” I call back.
I smile. I love it when adults call me Miss.
I turn left at the sidewalk to head to school. Right next to our building is an old folks’ home. Daddy calls it a “retirement community,” but that’s just a longer name for a home for old folks.
Sitting in a lawn chair on the grass, near the edge of the sidewalk of the Old Buzzards’ Building (there! I called it something else!), sits Mr. Wolcott. He’s wearing a brown three-piece suit that was probably fashionable in 1940-something and a striped tie that’s as wide as his neck. I think it’s called an ascot. He wears the same suit and sits on the same chair every day, rain or shine, although if it rains he holds an umbrella.
“How are you on this most sunny of days, Franny?” he booms to me, with a theatrical wave of his hand. He is so loud that two or three people walking near us turn to look, thinking something is wrong.
But it’s just Mr. Wolcott.
“My name is Samantha, Mr. Wolcott.” I’ve told him this, oh, five thousand times.
“Of course, of course. But you look like my Franny—Franny Bree, siren of the stage. The beauty of Broadway. Have I told you that before?”
“Every day,” I say with a sigh.
“She was just about your age when she first appeared in the theater. I remember the day well. She was resplendent. A nightingale of nimbleness! Oh, I was just an understudy then—a piece of lint on her lace gown hem. I was in love with Franny even then. Who was not? A vision, she was! But summer’s lease hath all too short a date.”
“I really need to get to school,” I say, hurrying off before he can start quoting more things to me. He’s harmless, but if you linger too long, he’ll just talk and talk and quote stuff and make you late for wherever you’re going.
And I don’t want to be late for school. Not today. Anything could hap
pen today.
And I bet anything will happen.
As I dash off, I’m weighted down by my backpack. It’s extra heavy because I stuffed a bunch of my fashion magazines inside it last night. I plan to share some with Giovanna.
I’m carrying the emerald-green backpack today. It exactly matches the shade of my boots. No one else matches their backpacks with their shoes, which, if you ask me, is a big mistake.
I spin and fluff my hair. I could be the star of the stage, just like Franny What’s-Her-Name that Mr. Wolcott is always talking about. Why not? I could star in my own fashion magazine, too.
Maybe I’ll ask Daddy to buy one for me.
Not a fashion magazine issue, but the entire corporate headquarters.
As I turn the corner, I think about breakfast and sort of feel bad for complaining about it. Maybe I should have tried the eggs.
But then again, if I’m hungry, I can always just eat some of my lunch in class. I know Ms. Bryce had rules about that sort of thing.
But not anymore.
Before school, I ignore my breakfast bagel while I scan through the thick book that’s open on my kitchen table. The book details the long history of Harvard University. I had requested it at our library, so the other week when I received the email informing me the book was finally available, I made Mom drive me to pick it up immediately.
I’m reading the book start to finish, of course. Harvard was founded in 1636, so there is a lot to read.
But getting into Harvard is not easy, even with a history of parents and relatives graduating from it. I still need to earn my spot. Sure, my friends are always telling me that I shouldn’t worry about college yet.
But if not now, when?
My father won a national science contest when he was only twelve years old. I’ll turn twelve soon enough. Okay, maybe not that soon. But really, now is the time to worry about my future.
Teaching a fifth-grade class after my teacher quits will look very impressive. No one else in my family ever did that. It’s crucial to have life experiences that make your college application stand out from the other ten thousand rolling across the desk.
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