by Ali Benjamin
Mr. Farabi shrugged, and Paulie called the Minis in for a huddle. Then they all ran off to hide while the rest of us counted.
Let me tell you: Minis are officially the worst hiders on earth. Some were peeking out from behind trees whose trunks were narrower than they were. Others were just curled up on the ground covering their eyes. A few Minis were hiding behind those Minis. These kids were never going to make it to base.
We Originals had only taken a few steps when we heard something strange. Almost like a siren: “Whoop-whoop-whoop-WEEE! Whoop-whoop-whoop-WEEE!” Paulie was standing there with his hands cupped around his mouth. The second he made the noise, they all came running. Tons of Minis. They ran toward base at exactly the same time, far too many for us to catch.
I remember Yumi was like, “What’s happening?” as eight gajillion Minis barreled past her, each of them touching base safely.
Meanwhile Fiona was laughing her head off, shouting, “This is a complete and total Mini-geddon!”
And like pretty much everything interesting that happened here, it was all because of Paulie Fink. Like the banana-peel fiasco… Ask Mr. Farabi to tell you about that!
Interview: Mr. Farabi
Okay, I fully admit that Paulie’s banana-peel fiasco was my fault.
Last year, the sixth-grade students had to do a research project. They got to pick whatever topic they wanted, as long as they showed an understanding of how scientific research works.
For the most part, they came up with good proposals. Diego did a report on the giant squid, and Gabby did a project on flesh-eating bacteria. Yumi decided to study the effect that different types of music have on her classmates’ ability to play a memory game.
But Paulie? He had trouble coming up with a project. He had no trouble brainstorming, mind you—that kid was an idea machine. They just weren’t exactly what you’d call practical.
Paulie’s first idea was clever, but also incredibly creepy and quite literally impossible. Apparently there’s a jar in a museum holding three of Galileo’s fingers and one of his teeth. And Einstein’s eyes are sitting in a safety deposit box in New York City. And it’s possible Mozart’s skull is held by a foundation in Austria. Paulie proposed collecting all these body parts and then inventing a supergenius.
Terrific idea for a story. But not the greatest science project. First of all, even if he could build a genius Franken-monster from scraps of dead guys all over the world, it was highly unlikely he could get it done in four weeks.
“Just give me an idea you can execute, okay?” I said. “Something simple.”
A week later, Paulie handed me a piece of paper with a new project idea. Hold on, I’ve got it around here somewhere…
…Okay, here it is: The effect of decomposition on the exocarp of Musa acuminata, a tropical herbaceous flowering plant, and the implications for human peregrination.
Listen to this summary he wrote for me:
Musa acuminata is a tropical herbaceous flowering plant which has a long history of uses in human societies. It’s been cultivated since at least 5000 BCE. Today, many societies derive nutrition from it, and its outer casing, which is usually discarded, can be used to feed livestock and aid in composting efforts. My project will involve observing the decomposition of these casings and how easily the casings can be integrated into the human environment at different points in the decomposition process.
I’ll be honest, Caitlyn: I was kind of skimming. Half the kids in school were planning projects, and I was also doing my regular teaching, and coaching. So when I read Paulie’s abstract, I assumed Paulie’s parents had a dead houseplant or something, and he was trying to figure out how to turn it into an experiment.
Listen, if I could go back in time, I’d do it differently.
I’d look up Musa acuminata. And I’d discover that this happens to be the Latin name for banana. Then I’d pay more attention to that word exocarp, which means the outer layer of a plant’s fruit. Another way of saying this: peel.
And peregrination: walking.
Which means you can interpret his proposal like this:
The effect of rotting on the peel of the banana… on humans walking.
Or, put even more simply:
I’m going to put rotting banana peel on the floor, and see if I can make people slip.
Did Paulie put one over on me? Yeah. He sure did. Like I say, the kid was an evil genius.
Interview: Diego and Fiona
DIEGO:
Paulie ate bananas every day for weeks. Before long, he had dozens of peels, each individually sealed in a plastic bag. And let me tell you something, Caitlyn: Banana peels get nasty after a few weeks.
FIONA:
They turn black, and then get liquidy, and then they start to bubble.
DIEGO:
He hid the banana bags in various spots all over school. It didn’t take long before the fruit flies showed up. At first there were just a few. Annoying, you know? But within a week, it was an infestation.
FIONA:
Fruit flies were everywhere. All over the hallways, in every classroom… Teachers had to keep interrupting their lessons to swat at them.
DIEGO:
You’d step in the building and you’d just be swarmed.
FIONA:
And no one knew why! No one but Paulie!
DIEGO:
Finally Glebus made us clean everything out. Closets. Gym bags. The whole school. That’s when she figured out what was going on.
FIONA:
They had to— [Cannot continue, because she’s laughing so hard]
DIEGO:
They had to— [Also cannot continue, also because he’s laughing so hard]
FIONA:
Fumigate! They had to fumigate the whole school!
[Indistinct laughter, goes on for about three full minutes before recording ends]
Interview: Gabby and Yumi
GABBY:
Oh boy, was Glebus ever furious about the fruit flies. Mags, on the other hand, just laughed. She told Paulie that he was a Shakespearean Fool.
YUMI:
Actually, Gabby, I believe what she said was, “You are a character out of literature, Paulie Fink. You are an archetype. You are a Shakespearean Fool.”
GABBY:
Right, but most of us only cared about the fool part. Because it’s not every day that you hear a teacher call a kid a fool.
YUMI:
Then she explained to everyone—everyone else, that is, because I already knew it—that Shakespearean Fools aren’t fools at all: They’re actually some of the wisest people around. They misbehave as a way of poking fun at powerful people. I remember Mags said, “To mock the arrogant, to outwit the vain.” I remember her exact phrasing, because I wrote a song by this title. I could play it now if you want to hear—
GABBY:
And I was like, “Oooh, a Shakespearean Fool is just another way of saying Disruptor!” I was thinking about what Shakespeare would have thought about Jadelicious, but Mags started talking all about how Shakespearean Fools are really there to drop truth bombs about society. She started getting really excited about the fact that she was connecting him with this long tradition, and after she’d gone on forever, Paulie looked up at her. I remember he blinked a couple of times, and was like, “Wait. Are you talking to me?”
YUMI:
None of us could tell if he was playing the fool in the middle of the conversation about playing the fool, or if he just honestly wasn’t paying any attention.
GABBY:
The next week? Paulie showed up and spent the whole day talking like a character from Shakespeare. I swear, he must have spent the whole weekend reading Shakespeare, because he was all, “Good greetings, my lady, pray tell how dost thou fare on this glorious morn!” And, “How, now, good sir! Methinks ’tis a morning of good cheer.” Which were both just fancy ways of saying hello.
YUMI:
I remember him saying to one teacher something like, “I
do beseech that thou wilt forgo the accursed work of the pencil to be done by the hearth,” which was his way of asking for us not to get any homework.
GABBY:
And then when Glebus yelled at him for running too fast in the hallway, he turned around, lifted one finger in the air, and declared, “I desire that we be better strangers.”
And she was all, “Huh?”
YUMI:
The next morning Paulie was back to his normal self, talking like any other kid, like the whole Shakespeare episode never even happened.
Say It Like You Mean It
I spend the final week of September collecting Paulie stories. Each recess, I interview someone about Paulie and record their answers for the official record. I tell the Originals that interviews will help me design the right challenges. But it doesn’t take long to discover that I actually kind of like interviewing. As soon as I press record, I’m in charge. I get to ask the questions, steer the conversation however I want. Whatever I ask, they answer. The stories are funny, too… and they’re great material for entertaining Fuzzy. Best of all, the interviewing has distracted me from obsessing about Mira’s sleepover.
What the interviews don’t do, though, is give me any clear ideas for the competition.
At night, I double up on Megastar episodes, but Gabby’s right: All those challenges are about performing. They don’t relate at all to the legend of Paulie Fink.
After a few days, the Originals grow impatient with me.
“We could do a giant game of zombie vs. werewolf,” suggests Timothy as we head down to feed the goats.
“Or you could make us run around or something,” Diego offers. “Like the Olympics.”
Fiona throws up her hands, exasperated. “What do zombies or running around have to do with Paulie, you blockheads?”
“Just think about the Paulie stories you’ve heard,” Gabby whispers to me.
“Don’t worry,” I tell them, hoping I’ll sound in control. “We’ll start the competition soon enough. Just a few more interviews, okay?”
“But when?” asks Fiona. “When can we start? I want to start now!”
“Friday,” I finally snap. “I’ll announce your first challenge on Friday afternoon, okay? September 29. Soccer practice.”
But by soccer practice on Friday afternoon, I still don’t have any great ideas. I mean, it’s not like there’s some manual I can get: The Beginners’ Guide to Running Your Own Reality Show in Order to Replace a Middle School Kid You’ve Never Met!
They surround me after practice, waiting to hear their challenge. I stare out toward the mountains, now blazing with autumn colors, my mind racing. I could make it a sandwich-eating competition, I guess, but that seems dumb. Didn’t Paulie do something with glitter? But what’s a competition I could do with glitter? There was that whole “I come from the stars” thing… and the chicken suit, and that time he talked like…
“Shakespeare!” I burst out. “Your first challenge is a Shakespearean one.”
“What is this challenge?” asks Diego. “We have to read Shakespeare?”
“I declare Monday Talk Like Shakespeare Day,” I say.
The twins shake their heads, kick at the dirt. Fiona wrinkles her nose like she smells something terrible.
Yumi clears her throat. “Caitlyn,” she says. “I know all about Shakespeare. But I’m not sure everyone here is… uh, quite so familiar with the work of the Bard.”
Fiona makes a face and imitates Yumi. “I’m not sure everyone’s quite so familiar with the work of the Bard.”
“What Yumi’s trying to say,” says Diego, “is that we thought we were going to do real challenges. Like running and stuff. Like in the Olympics or whatever.”
“That’s not actually what I was trying to say, Diego,” Yumi says.
“This challenge stinks!” shouts Timothy, and then they all join in.
“This challenge stinks! This challenge stinks! This challenge stinks!”
Look, it’s not like I think it’s a good idea. It just happens to be my only idea.
“Shakespeare,” I say, like I mean it.
Swallowed by the Night
That night, Mom and I are watching Megastar when my phone buzzes. It’s a video call from Mira. “She probably wants me to help her plan the sleepover,” I say. I rush into my bedroom and close the door.
When I answer, I’m surprised to see not just Mira’s face, but a whole bunch of my old friends, too. “Hey!” they all say at the same time.
“Oh… hi!” I hate how eager I sound.
All my friends from last year are there. There are also a couple of girls I recognize but haven’t really hung out with. “Wow,” I say. “What’s going on?”
Mira draws the screen closer. “It’s my party,” she says. “We had to move the date forward because Gigi’s going to be out of town on the twenty-seventh. If we didn’t do it this weekend, we weren’t going to get another chance until almost Thanksgiving!”
Wait. This can’t be the party. I’m supposed to be at the party.
It’s happening without me, because somebody named Gigi’s going to be out of town.
“But who’s Gigi?”
“She’s new this year, from Ohio,” Mira says. “I can’t believe you don’t know each other. That’s so weird.” She moves the camera, so now I see an unfamiliar dark-haired girl. She waves, so I do, too.
Then Mira’s back, but only for a moment. “Hold on,” Mira says, turning away. Now I’m looking at a close-up of her hairline and ear. “You told Jeremy we’d be here?” she asks someone.
Then to me: “OMG, Jeremy Newby and his buddies want to crash the party.”
I laugh, but nothing feels funny.
“Here, say hi to everyone,” says Mira. The screen moves from one kid to another. Mostly what I see is a fuzzy swirl of movement. I can make out familiar details—a pair of denim-covered knees, Mira’s family portrait, framed and matted in white, on the wall. A different friend’s eyebrows. Another’s lips, half-open in laughter. The images are pixelated. They freeze and unfreeze.
Everyone says pretty much the same thing. How are you? How’s Vermont? Is it pretty there? Between questions, they turn to each other and say things like, No, not that one. I hate that movie. Wait, pause that! Then they return to me. Wait, so how’s school? My mom says Vermont is really pretty. You meet any cute lumberjacks yet?
I don’t know how to describe how I am, or how Vermont is. I don’t know how to describe what it feels like to look up and be surrounded by mountains that don’t seem to offer you any way out, or in. Or how those first days at school made me feel like I’d dived all the way to the bottom of a swimming pool: panicky and squeezed too tight. And I definitely wouldn’t be able to describe how much I’ve been thinking about Anna lately, let alone why.
I smile and say things like, I think this state has more cows than people. I’m pretty sure that’s not true—it’s one of those things that people treat like a fact, but it isn’t.
Yeah, it’s gorgeous here. The views are, like, incredible.
There’s a rock star who lives near me. I’m blanking on his name but he’s, like, really famous.
I got picked to run a competition. It’s hard to describe, but the other kids voted for me, so that’s cool.
But nobody seems especially impressed or interested, and before long, Mira’s back. “Hey, again,” she says.
“So… uh… oh, how’s Anna Spang?” I ask. I’m trying to make my voice sound casual, the way it always did when we talked about her.
“Wait, don’t text him yet!” Mira says, not to me. Then she turns back to me. “Who? Oh, Anna? Pathetic, as usual, I guess. I don’t really see her this year.” Then there’s another blurry swirl, as she shouts, “What did he write? Hold on, I’m coming!”
When I say I have to go, she doesn’t object. I end the call while she’s still waving good-bye, mostly because I want to be the one to hang up first.
Then I’m alone, and every
thing seems even quieter than it did before.
When I walk out to the kitchen, Mom smiles. “How’s Mira? Getting excited?”
I tell my mom that the party had to be moved up, that it’s happening now. I say it like it’s no big deal, but Mom winces.
“It’s fine,” I say. “Turns out there’s a soccer game I’m supposed to play in that day anyway, so I probably wouldn’t have been able to go.”
I walk outside, onto the tiny porch that overlooks our backyard. It’s a moonless night, and the dark is so thick it’s almost like a monster that could swallow you. Maybe that’s what happened to Paulie Fink, I think. Maybe he just got swallowed up by the night.
After a while, Mom comes out. She wraps a blanket around me and rubs my shoulders. When I look up, the sky is filled with a million or so stars.
Until now, I’ve been telling myself that Vermont’s just the place where I’m living. For now. I’ve believed that my home, my real one, was somewhere else.
But now I know for sure: The place I’d been thinking of as home isn’t. Not anymore.
When I show up to school on Monday, the twins are standing outside Mags’s classroom, with big dopey grins on their faces. They look like they’re up to something.
“Uh… hey guys,” I say.
Both open their sweatshirts at the same time. Beneath, they’ve got matching green T-shirts, with letters drawn on them in thick black marker.
I look a little closer. Thomas’s says, NOT 2B. Timothy’s says 2B. I can tell they’re waiting for a reaction.
I don’t get it, though. NOT 2B? 2B? What does that even…?
“Wait,” says Timothy. Then they switch places. Now 2B comes first.
“To be or not to be,” I say, finally understanding. That’s one of William Shakespeare’s most famous lines of all time—To be or not to be. That is the question.