by Ali Benjamin
In real life, you just have to suffer through every excruciating moment.
Two more weeks pass. All I want is to fast-forward to Mira’s sleepover on October 27. I wish I could edit down the endless hours between now and then, compress them all into a single, fast-paced thirty-second montage:
Clip 1: The sun falls on that bizarre statue of Paulie Fink. By the time it rises again, the green leaves in the woods behind the statue have given way to shocks of rust and crimson, the start of a Vermont autumn.
Clip 2: a high-speed of the class moving the portable-goat-pen fence. We do it again, then again… a few feet every few days, the soccer field growing a little bigger each time.
Clip 3: Mr. Farabi cheers from the sidelines of the soccer field as we practice for the big Devlinshire game. Then the camera might pan to me, barely trying. What’s the point, when I won’t even be there for the game?
Not that I’ve told anyone that yet.
Other clips might show my mom and me watching Megastar as we eat dinner. Me marching past the Good Day Bell, refusing again and again to ring it. The class listening to Mr. Farabi rattle on about ecosystems. Mags reaching into Paulie’s hat, pulling out an index card, then connecting whatever’s written to the ancient world.
Mags keeps her promise about that. By mid-September, Diego’s card about the Devlinshire rivalry has inspired a discussion of the first-ever Olympic games. Fiona’s cards about strong women and powerful women have led to lessons about Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom; Artemis, the goddess of the hunt; and the Amazons, a mythical tribe of women warriors. Cards like zombie vs. werewolf and Creatures of the Underlair have prompted lectures about gorgons (who have snakes instead of hair), three-headed dogs, and lots of other mythical creatures that people used to fear.
When Mags pulls out Fiona’s card about favorite Paulie memories, she starts talking about some guy named Herodotus, who is one of the first true historians. She tells us that Herodotus traveled all over the ancient world, collecting stories from different people about their lives and about their understanding of what led up to a war. He wove all these tales into a book called The Histories.
“Herodotus showed that our understanding of history is never objective truth,” Mags explains. “It always depends on who does the telling. To get the fullest understanding of history, you need to listen to as many different voices as possible.” She tells us that we’ll talk more about Herodotus soon, because we’re going to have to do some sort of oral-history project using his techniques. Naturally, that makes everyone groan.
Mags’s stories might not make Mira’s party get here any faster, but they do give me something to talk about with Fuzzy. Actually, I guess that should be a part of my time-passing montage, too: me opening up milk carton after milk carton, a new one each day, and leaning in to tell Fuzzy a story.
“What happens next?” Fuzzy’s whisper is so soft I can barely hear her over the cafeteria noise. It’s been nearly three weeks since I told her the first story of Paulie vs. the Gleeb. She’s wanted one every day since.
“Take a bite of your sandwich first,” I tell her. Then I continue my story. “And when the wooden horse was safely inside the Land of Blah, Paulie leaped out of the horse. ‘Surprise!’ he shouted at the Gleeb. Wow, was she shocked!”
This is a kindergarten-friendly version of a story that Mags told this morning.
Today’s index card said Paulie’s desk drawer prank. Mags said that Paulie’s best pranks demonstrated the power of surprise. “But one of history’s most famous examples of the element of surprise was something called the Trojan horse.” The Greeks, she explained, wanted to invade an enemy city surrounded by a high wall. So they built a giant statue of a horse out of wood, then hid a bunch of soldiers inside. They presented the statue as a gift to their enemy, and as soon as it was behind the city walls, the soldiers jumped out, destroying everything in sight.
But I can’t tell war stories to a kindergartner, so I modify it. “Paulie wasn’t the only one who had been hiding in the statue,” I say. “His entire army of naughty, chaotic chickens leaped out, too. Those birds went squawking all over the Land of Blah. They scared the goats, and they knocked things over, and they… pooped everywhere! All the Gleeb could do was shake her bony fist, shouting, ‘I’ll get you, Paulie Fink, you and all your feathered friends!’”
Fuzzy covers her mouth and looks at me like I’m naughty and amazing. But really I’m just passing along a story that someone else told me, changing it a little as I go.
“Last bite,” I say when I’m done. “Hurry, lunch is almost over.”
As Fuzzy finishes her sandwich, Glebus walks into the cafeteria. She steps up onto a chair and calls out, “Excuse me! Students of the Mitchell School! I have an announcement! It’s my pleasure… to hereby declare that on this day, September 18…”
The room gets very quiet, and I glance over toward Gabby. She’s crossing her fingers, eyes closed. She’s mouthing, Please please please.
Glebus continues, “…all usual afternoon activities are canceled. Because today is… Zucchini Day!”
The place goes crazy.
The Opposite of Zukeball
“Let the sorting begin!” Mr. Farabi shouts.
There’s a pickup truck parked behind the school, near the statues. It’s filled with piles and piles of zucchini. Some are pretty crazy-looking: They’re twisted into curlicues, or squat and fat like tomatoes. Others are as long as my whole arm and nearly as thick as a loaf of bread.
“Grab yourself an armful of vegetables and sort them into piles!” Mr. Farabi directs us. “Place the zucchini for cooking over by the statue of Zeus.
See this ugly one right here? All gnarled? A little bruised? This is what we call a launcher. Launch pile’s over there next to Athena, she’s the one with the shield. Whoa, Timothy, look at the size of that one; that’s a zukeballer for sure! Put it next to that headless statue, the dude with the harp. Mags, who is that? That’s right, Apollo! Zukeballers near Apollo!”
As Ms. Glebus fills my arms with vegetables, Gabby tells me that Zucchini Day is an annual tradition. “There are always a couple of weeks in September when all the farmers have way more zucchini than anyone knows what to do with,” she says. “Plus, nobody wants to buy ugly zucchini, or bruised ones, and the overgrown ones never taste very good. So Glebus drives around to all the local farms to collect surplus zucchini.”
I drop a monster zucchini into the zukeballer pile, whatever that is. “Yeah, but why? What are we supposed to do with them?”
“Well, if they’re good for eating, kids can take them home to their families. But the rest of them… well, you’ll see.”
Once we get the zucchini sorted, the younger grades head off to make zucchini muffins with their teachers. My class follows Mags and Mr. Farabi out to the soccer field. There are some handmade catapults set up, miniature versions of weapons the ancients used.
For the next half hour, we use the catapults to fling zucchini across the soccer field. As Mags talks about ancient battles, Mr. Farabi asks us to predict where each might land depending on its size and shape.
I add this to the list of things I’ll tell my friends when I see them. Yes, we launched zucchini with a catapult. I imagine them gathered around me, rapt as I describe life here. I keep telling you, I’ll say. It’s, like, so bizarre.
Diego places a gnarled zucchini in the catapult. Before releasing it, he looks over at the Paulie statue. “Come on, Paulie,” he murmurs. “Make this one fly.”
It sails clear across the field in a perfect arc.
After that, everyone else starts talking to the Paulie statue before launching their own. They all want theirs to go the farthest, or the fastest.
“In the name of Paulie Fink!” shouts Fiona, just before lobbing hers. It releases too early and lands with a splat, but I guess it doesn’t matter, because everyone just keeps calling on that headless statue for help.
“Come on, Paulie. Send this baby t
oward the trees.”
“Gimme some distance, Paulie!”
Even Henry does it. After one especially nice launch, he gives the statue a little salute. “Thank you, Paulie,” he says.
When the “launcher” pile is empty, we play zukeball. It turns out to be just like baseball, except we use oversize zucchini as bats, and the smallest, most misshapen ones as balls.
When it’s my turn at bat, I thwack a zucchini so hard that it explodes in midair, splattering green chunks all over my face.
At the end of the day, the field is covered with smashed vegetables. Naturally, it’s our job to clean them up and feed them to the goats.
“See, this is what I mean,” I say to Gabby. “Real schools don’t drop everything to play zukeball.” I’ve been trying to explain that Mitchell’s just different from other places. I’ve tried to explain that most seventh graders aren’t in the same building as kindergartners, and even if they are, they definitely don’t sit with them at lunch. Most schools don’t have fireplaces in their classrooms, or statues on the lawn. Heck, lots of schools don’t even have trees.
Ahead of me, Fiona, arms loaded with zucchini, spins around. “You know what, Caitlyn? I’m getting pretty sick and tired of you complaining about everything here.”
“Fiona.” Diego shakes his head. “Come on, it’s not worth it.”
Fiona throws her zucchini onto the grass and places her hands on her hips. “No, I’m serious.” Then she imitates me, the same voice I’ve heard her use to imitate Glebus. “Real schools don’t have goats. Real schools have desks and lockers, real schools are blah blah blah.”
“I never said other schools were better,” I say.
“You might not have said it out loud,” says Yumi quietly. “But you said it.”
“You talk about real schools as if Mitchell isn’t one,” says Fiona. “But hello: You’re at school, and this is real life. So apparently this is what a real school looks like. And if you don’t like it, go home. Or better yet, go to Devlinshire! You’ll fit right in there.”
Everyone’s eyes get really wide.
“Okay, Fiona,” says Diego. “Shut it.”
“It’s rude!” Fiona shouts. “She’s rude!”
Stare at something, I tell myself.
Take a breath.
Turn to stone.
I do the first two, but for the life of me, I can’t find that stone behind my ribs.
“How about instead of talking about what’s wrong with Mitchell,” Gabby suggests, like she’s the peacemaker, “you tell us about some of the things you liked most at your old school.”
I liked that the rules told me how to fit in. I liked that as long as I followed the rules, I knew I’d always have a cluster.
“I liked that it was normal,” I say. “We did normal things.”
Fiona looks like she’s about to start swinging at me, but Diego puts his hand on her shoulder.
“Normal…,” says Diego. Like he’s trying to figure out what I mean.
“Normal, like… whatever the opposite of zukeball is!”
“What’s the opposite of zukeball?” Timothy asks Thomas, who only shrugs.
Everyone’s watching me now. I remember standing in gym class last year, freezing up as that red ball rolled toward me.
“Kickball!” I finally shout. “We played kickball, okay?”
For a few seconds, no one says anything. Then, in an instant, they burst out laughing.
“Oh, you played kickball,” says Fiona. Just like that, she doesn’t seem mad anymore. “Of course. Kickball.”
“Because here in Vermont, we’ve never even heard of kickball,” adds Diego.
As they head toward the goat pen, still laughing, Timothy starts shouting, “Caitlyn likes kickball! Caitlyn likes kickball!”
Next thing I know, they’re all chanting it. They chant it while they toss zucchini to the goats. They chant it at the Paulie statue, a few of them stopping to pretend to give the branch a high five, like that stupid T-shirt-on-a-branch is actually the great and powerful Paulie Fink. Then they chant it all the way to the school building.
I walk to the goat pen only when the others have left. Then I hurl my zucchini in as hard as I can.
Mean Old Goat watches me, and I swear I see a smirk on his face. Like he knows I’m a coin without a cluster. Like he knows that I’ll never find my place.
Some Grand Drama
“In an ecosystem, everything is connected,” Mr. Farabi declares the next morning. For today’s science class, he’s taken us into the woods, not far from where they found the branch for that stupid Paulie statue. He’s spent the last ten minutes explaining how trees and moss and bugs and birds are all connected. “Each species fits into its habitat like a piece in an elaborate jigsaw puzzle,” he tells us. “Disrupt one part, you ruin the whole picture.”
He starts telling us about things that are happening all around us, things we can’t see. He says that beneath our feet, the roots of some trees are tangled up into a web, and they’re sharing water and nutrients back and forth. Other plants aren’t cooperating with one another, they’re competing, even going so far as to release poisons into the soil.
As he talks, I look at the other kids. After yesterday’s fight, I was certain I’d walk into Mags’s classroom this morning and find them all glaring at me… or worse, laughing at me. But instead, everything was just like it was the day before, and the day before that. Almost as if someone had pushed a reset button—like the way Yumi yelling at Timothy and Thomas gets them to restart their dumb zombie-werewolf game.
Maybe that’s how it works in a school this small. Maybe when there aren’t enough people to sort into clusters, you have to just keep starting over.
Gabby leans toward me. “It’s just like Megastar,” she whispers. It takes me a second to realize she’s referring to what Mr. Farabi is talking about—the way different parts of an ecosystem cooperate or compete. “There are heroes and villains and competitions and alliances.”
I smile, partly because she’s right, and partly because her whispering to me is proof: I did get some sort of do-over.
As I stand there watching the sunlight filter through the leaves, I can almost feel what Mr. Farabi is describing. It’s like I’m surrounded by some grand drama, something that’s bigger than me, but also invisible. Something most people never even imagine is going on.
Mr. Farabi is so obsessed with ecosystems, he even finds a way to work them into soccer practice. “A great team is like the ultimate ecosystem,” he tells us that afternoon. “Everyone matters! Everyone contributes to something bigger than themselves! If we’re going to beat Devlinshire, we’re going to need each of you!”
But as far as I can tell, there’s no delicate balance with this team, no working together. Which I guess is why it only takes a few minutes before Mr. Farabi’s pep talk about ecosystems gets replaced by more frustrated shouts:
“Stop hogging the ball, Diego! Pass to some others, will you?”
“Timothy! Thomas! What are you doing, some kind of robot battle on the field? Get your heads in the game!”
“Fiona, you cannot pick up the ball and hurl it at your teammates every time you feel frustrated!”
Not exactly the ultimate ecosystem. I guess it’s a good thing they’ve got that dumb Paulie statue for good luck. No matter where this game gets played, Mitchell’s going to need all the help it can get.
During the third week of September, we come outside at recess and see Mr. Farabi with an unfamiliar woman. She’s got bleached hair slicked back in a tight ponytail, and she’s wearing a bright blue tracksuit embroidered with a large D. Everyone stops dead in their tracks.
Gabby sucks in her breath. “The Devlinshire coach,” she murmurs.
Sam nods. “They’re deciding where the game will be played.”
Fiona makes a low noise, like a growl. Then everyone’s silent for a few minutes, watching as the two coaches pace out distances, pull out a tape measure, discus
s their measurements.
“Come on, Paulie…,” Diego urges. “Work that magic. I don’t want to play on that stupid rich-kid field again this year.”
“In the name of Paulie Fink,” says Timothy.
“In the name of Paulie Fink,” Thomas agrees.
The coaches shake hands. As they walk toward the school building, I hear the Devlinshire coach say, “…regulation… non-standard… my players have been training hard…”
Mr. Farabi’s face is dead serious. He doesn’t so much as glance our way.
It’s only when the coaches are a few yards beyond us that Mr. Farabi turns around. Without saying a word, he flashes us two huge thumbs-up. I’ve never seen him grin this big. Almost immediately, he turns back around, and he continues nodding along seriously with whatever the Devlinshire coach is saying, as if he hasn’t revealed a thing.
But by now the Originals are cheering and pumping their fists in the air. Timothy and Thomas chest bump so hard they both stumble backward, then move straight into a wrestling match.
This doesn’t affect me, I think. I won’t even be here. While they’re playing Devlinshire on this field, I’ll be back home at Mira’s party instead.
Behind Gabby, Diego hollers, “Victory lap!” He starts zooming all over the field, arms high over his head.
“No!” shouts Fiona. She points at the Paulie statue. “Take your lap around Paulie!” Diego nods, then sprints toward it.
Next thing I know, they’re all on their way over, hollering things like Vic-tor-y! See, I told you he’s good luck!
As they begin chanting his name again, Paulie stands mute, that PICK A WINNER shirt flapping in the breeze like the flag of some ridiculous new nation.