“Tong schtuck,” I answered, shaking my head at Ashley.
“Hank, I can’t understand you.”
I pointed to my tongue, which was stuck to the half gallon of ice cream.
“Tong schtuck!” I said even louder this time. In case you’re laughing right now, let me just ask you to try talking clearly when you have a carton of ice cream hanging off your tongue. It’s not easy.
Frankie came to the freezer and picked up the Häagen-Dazs container with my tongue attached. He took us both to the sink, Mr. Häagen-Dazs and me. When we got there, he took a glass of water and poured it along the side of the container. I could feel my tongue peel off the container, little by little.
“Breathe, Zip,” said Frankie. “Your tongue needs oxygen.”
I took his advice and breathed deeply. Wow. Was my nose ever clear. It was so open that a 747 jet could have flown straight up into it and done back loops.
“Hank, you’ve got to try to calm down.” Ashley gave me a comforting pat on the shoulder. “You’ve gotten yourself into a total twist.”
“All I can think about is that parent-teacher conference,” I said. “I keep seeing Ms. Adolf sitting there telling my mom and dad that I have to repeat fourth grade.”
Just the thought of that scene made me feel like reaching for another fried wonton.
“Don’t go there, Zip,” Frankie said, putting his hand out to stop me. “Let’s be reasonable about this.”
“What’s the worst thing that could happen?” Ashley said. “Your parents go to the teacher conference and sit down with Ms. Adolf and hear a little bad news.”
“Yeah, that,” I answered. “That’s the worst thing that could happen.”
“You can’t stop it, Hank,” Ashley said with a deep sigh. “It’s a parent-teacher conference. Everyone has one.”
“I wish I could think of some way to stop them from meeting,” I said. “If my parents never meet with Ms. Adolf, they’ll never know there’s a problem. And then, before you know it, summer will be here, and then I’ll just slide into fifth grade with everyone else.”
“Zengawii,” Frankie said. “Just like magic.”
Frankie is a great magician, and zengawii is his special magic word. He uses it to make spongy rubber balls disappear or to pull scarves out of his sleeve. Boy, how I wished it would work to make my parent-teacher conference disappear.
Ashley twirled her ponytail around her finger, like she does when she’s thinking.
“I have an idea,” she said. “Why don’t you just say: Hey, Mom and Dad, would you mind skipping that meeting with my teacher? Just do it for me, would you?”
“I could ask them,” I said. “It could work.”
“Right, and my name is Bernice,” Frankie answered.
“Come on, Frankie,” Ashley said, popping a peanut butter and jelly sandwich into her mouth. “Let’s put our heads into this. The three of us can think of some way to keep Hank’s parents from meeting with Ms. Adolf.”
“We could spray Ms. Adolf with invisible ink,” I said. “Then she’d disappear, and when my parents go to the meeting, all they’d see is an empty chair.”
“Okay, dude,” Frankie said. “It’s finally happened. You’ve seen one too many action cartoons.”
Okay, I had to give him that. The invisible ink idea was lame. I shoved my brain into action. I stared at the window above the kitchen sink. A teapot sat on the windowsill. Ashley’s family always has tea with their dinner. I like that. It feels warm and comforting.
Man, it was quiet in there.
No, it wasn’t.
In the silence, I became aware that the radio was on. It had been on the whole time. We always listen to Cousin Ralphie’s Top Forty Hour on WFUN, ninety-nine point ten on your radio dial.
And believe it or not, it was Cousin Ralphie who had the idea that was going to save my life.
“Cousin Ralphie!” I shouted, springing up from Ashley’s bright red kitchen table. “I know you can’t hear me, but you’re the man, and I’m your biggest fan!”
CHAPTER 7
I DROPPED to the kitchen floor and started rolling around on Ashley’s pink-and-white speckled linoleum. It’s a good thing Grandma Wong had left the kitchen to watch the one show that she never misses during the day, SpongeBob SquarePants. I know it might seem weird for a seventy-six-year-old lady from Canton to love SpongeBob, but some things you just can’t explain. SpongeBob tickles her funny bone.
“Zip, are your pants on fire, or have you just totally lost your mind?” Frankie asked.
“My mind is on fire,” I answered. “Cousin Ralphie just delivered the answer to all my problems.”
“I don’t get it,” Ashley said. “All he said was the fifteenth caller who can name ten American cities with the word rock in them wins a trip to Philadelphia for the opening concert of Stone Cold Rock.”
“True, Ash, but you’re leaving out the most important point. The date.”
“May 24 and 25,” Frankie said. “What’s the big deal about that?”
“Frankie, my man,” I said, getting up from the floor. “When exactly are the fourth-grade parent-teacher conferences?”
“This Friday. Today is Tuesday. So what’s that make Friday? May . . .”
“How does the 25th sound?” I asked, grinning like a mouse that had just eaten a giant piece of Swiss cheese.
“Okay,” Ashley said. “So Stone Cold Rock is opening the same time as the parent-teacher conferences. How does that help you?”
“Guess who’s going to win the contest and send his parents to the opening?” I said.
“Where did Cousin Ralphie say the concert was?” Ashley asked.
“Philadelphia,” I said. “And even though I’m not a geography expert, let me point out one thing: People who are in Philadelphia cannot be in New York attending a parent-teacher conference. It’s a known fact.”
“Zip, this plan might actually have possibilities,” Frankie said. That was a big compliment coming from him, because Frankie is a plan-making genius.
“Philadelphia, City of Brotherly Love!” I hollered, drumming out a beat on Ashley’s kitchen table. “Roll out the welcome mat because here come Stan and Randi Zipzer.”
Ashley went into action as only she can do. When there’s something that has to get done, you want Ashley Wong to be in charge. She’s all business.
“What caller did Cousin Ralphie say would get a chance to win the contest?” she asked.
“I think he said the fifteenth.”
She turned the radio up loud.
“That was the third caller,” Cousin Ralphie announced. “Let’s take a break and hear from the good folks at Gristediano’s Market, where the shelves are full and that’s no bull.”
“We’ve got to move fast,” Ashley said. She grabbed a piece of paper from the counter and picked up a pencil.
“I need ten cities with the word rock in them,” she said. “Quick.”
“Little Rock, Arkansas,” Frankie said.
“That’s one,” Ashley said, writing it down at the top of the list.
“Come on, guys,” I said. “Only nine more to go.”
“What about Rockville Centre, Long Island?” Ashley said.
“Excellent,” I said. “Write it down. Only eight more.”
My friends know that when it comes to writing things down fast, they’d better not count on me to write it down accurately. I’m not exactly Mr. Accurate.
There was a pause. I noticed that we were all being silent. I wasn’t liking the silence. I looked over at Frankie.
“Name a couple more,” I coaxed him.
“I’m all out, man,” he said, shaking his head. “No ideas.”
“Me either,” Ashley said.
“There’s only person we know who can spit out eight cities with the word rock in them, and I think we all know who I’m talking about,” I announced.
I was thinking, of course, of Robert Upchurch, who hibernates in his apartment on th
e third floor of our building—that is, when he’s not hanging out with my nerdball sister. Even though he is only a third-grader, Robert is a walking encyclopedia. That kid has so much information crammed into his bony little skull, sometimes I think he has a computer for a brain.
Frankie, Ashley, and I try to keep our distance from Robert, because he wants to be our best friend. When you least expect it, he wakes up from hibernation and attaches himself to you like a garden snail. He’s that slimy, too. His nose produces more mucus than all the noses in the entire state of Louisiana. For his birthday, his mom buys him a crate of Kleenex, and he needs another crate by Christmas. He’s got slightly used, super-absorbent Kleenex wadded up in every pocket of his clothes, and don’t even ask what’s living in the little compartments of his backpack.
Robert’s best friend happens to be my sister, Emily, who doesn’t seem to mind his leaky nasal faucet. That’s because she is queen of the nerds herself. They both love her pet iguana, Katherine, and can spend hours discussing the different feel of lizard skin in all four seasons.
“Dude,” Frankie said. “This is a serious decision. We go get Robert, and he’s going to think we want to be best friends. We’ll never shake him.”
“Guys, do we have a choice?” Ashley asked. “No, we don’t. They’re probably on the fifth caller. Let’s get Robert now.”
“He’s in my apartment, hanging out with Emily,” I said. “I’ll call him.”
I dialed my number. It rang four times. Then I heard my sister’s voice on our answering machine.
“This is the Zipzer residence, home of Stan, Randi, Hank, Emily, and Katherine Zipzer. Please leave a message and the name of your favorite reptile at the beep.”
“Hank Zipzer,” I said into the phone. “And I don’t have a favorite reptile. I think they’re all scaly and creepy.”
I hung up.
“So they’re not home?” Ashley asked. “I thought you said Robert was there.”
“He is,” I answered. “My dad’s just not picking up the phone. He doesn’t even hear it sometimes when he’s in the middle of a really intense crossword puzzle.”
Ashley threw on her baseball cap and bolted for the door.
“Come on, guys,” she said. “No time for the elevator. We’re taking the back stairs.”
Ashley’s apartment is on the fourth floor, and I live on the tenth. We dashed out of her apartment and ran up the six flights to my floor. When we got to my floor, I pulled my key out of my pocket, but I was so nervous, I couldn’t get it in the keyhole.
“Here, give me that,” Frankie said, and he grabbed the key from me and stuck it in the lock. He tried to turn it, but the lock didn’t open.
“Are you sure this is the right key?” he asked.
“I’ll take it from here,” I said. Every lock has a little secret, and the thing about ours is that after you put the key in, you have to pull it out just a fraction of a smidge before you turn it. I did that, and the door opened.
My dad was sitting there at the dining room table. He’s a computer consultant, so he works at home a lot. He likes that because he can hang out in his boxers and do crossword puzzles whenever he gets bored. He’s kind of a crossword-puzzle genius, if there is such a thing.
“Hi, kids,” he said, barely looking up from his newspaper. “What’s the rush?” He was wearing the blue boxers with the sailboats that matched his favorite metallic blue mechanical pencil, which was stuck behind his ear.
“Hi, Dad,” I called back.
I knew I didn’t really have to answer his question, because he had that “I’m deep into finding a seven-letter name of a province in South Korea” expression on his face.
We whizzed down the hall and flew into my sister Emily’s room, where I knew the nerd and nerdette would be hanging out. When I came flying into the room, I never expected to see what I saw. Robert and Emily were hunched over Katherine, who was lying across them both, her scaly ugly head resting in Emily’s scaly, ugly lap. Robert was handing an eye-dropper filled with what looked and smelled like chicken soup to Emily, who was squirting the yellow liquid into Katherine’s mouth.
“Don’t you guys knock?” Emily said. “Katherine’s not feeling well.”
“Really? She doesn’t look any worse than usual,” I said.
“Hank, you have no sensitivity to the iguana world.”
“Emily, it really hurts me to hear you say that,” I said, clutching my heart like she was breaking it.
“Hank, this is no time for sarcasm,” Ashley said.
“You’re right,” I said. “Ash, turn on the radio and see what caller we’re up to. Robert, get your brain over here. We need it.”
Ashley switched the radio from Emily’s country music station (I told you she was weird) to WFUN. Cousin Ralphie was just saying that the twelfth caller had phoned.
“Great,” I said. “We still have four callers left.”
“Make that three, Zip,” Frankie whispered. “Fifteen minus twelve is three.”
Frankie knows that math and I don’t party together much, and he’s really nice about not embarrassing me in public. If Emily had noticed me make that mistake, I would have never heard the end of it. Emily doesn’t make math mistakes or any other kind of mistakes, either. She is a Super Brain.
“Robert,” I said. “We need eight cities that have the word rock in them, not counting Little Rock and Rockville Centre. Can you do it?”
Robert nodded.
“Of course,” he said. “I can also name forty countries that produce wheat.”
“This isn’t show-off time, little man,” Frankie said. “Stick to the basics.”
Ashley was already dialing the phone. I had forgotten to write down Cousin Ralphie’s number, but Ashley had it in her head. Thank goodness. It’s times like these that really frustrate me. Sometimes I just don’t like my brain.
“Robert,” I said as Ashley dialed the last number. “Are you sure you can do this?”
“Of course I can,” he said. “I can do it as sure as there are thirteen characters in the ancient Hawaiian alphabet.”
“How do you fit all those facts in that pinhead of yours?” Frankie asked.
“Shhhh . . . it’s ringing,” Ashley said, shoving the phone into my hand.
“Cousin Ralphie’s Top Forty Hour,” a voice said on the other end of the phone.
I couldn’t believe it. It was Cousin Ralphie in my actual ear. We got through!
“Congratulations, you’re the fifteenth caller!” he said. “Name ten cities with the word rock, and you’ll be the lucky winner. On your mark. Get set. Go!”
I opened my mouth to speak, but only a tiny squeak came out. Frankie saw the panic in my eyes.
“Breathe, Zip,” he said. “Oxygen is power.”
I took a deep breath and tried again. I still sounded like there was a chipmunk stuck in my throat, but at least a sound came out.
“Little Rock,” I yipped. “And Rockville Centre.”
“That’s two!” Cousin Ralphie hollered. “Eight more to go.”
Ashley tapped Robert on the back. “You’re on, genius,” she said.
“Rockford, Nebraska,” Robert whispered to me, and I repeated it into the phone.
“This kid’s good,” said Cousin Ralphie with a smile in his voice. “Lay on some more.”
“Keep going, Robert,” said Ashley.
“Blowing Rock, North Carolina. Rock Island, Illinois. Castle Rock, Colorado,” Robert said as I repeated each one to Cousin Ralphie. I put my hand over the phone and whispered to Frankie, “How many is that?”
“You’ve got six,” Cousin Ralphie answered.
We all stared at Robert. He just stared back at us.
“I’m thinking, I’m thinking,” he whined in his nasal, little voice.
“How about Rock City, Alabama,” Emily chimed in. “Remember, that’s where I threw up clam chowder in the motel pool when we were driving to Florida.”
I was pretty disgusted b
y the memory, but I was glad she came up with it. I repeated it to Cousin Ralphie.
“That’s seven,” he said. “But I hear you slowing down.”
“Not me, sir,” I said. “I have thousands more.”
Frankie looked at me like I was crazy. Robert was squeezing his nose and closing his eyes really tight.
“Rock Springs, Wyoming,” he spit out like his face was going to explode. “And there’s another Little Rock in Iowa.”
I repeated those two to Cousin Ralphie. Even he was pretty impressed.
“That’s nine, young man. I need one more, and you’re on your way to the Stone Cold Rock opening-night concert. And did I tell you you’re riding on the band’s personal tour bus?”
I looked over at Robert. He looked stuck.
“Dig deep, little man,” Frankie said to him. “We need you now.”
Robert’s whole body twisted from side to side. He looked like a baby chick hatching from an egg—you know, when they come out all wet and skinny and scraggly-looking. It felt like hours were going by.
“Time is running out,” Cousin Ralphie said on the other end of the phone. “Are you still there, caller?”
Suddenly, Robert’s face turned bright red. “Red Rock, Ontario,” he said.
Without waiting even half a second, I repeated what he said.
“Red Rock, Ontario!” I screamed into the phone.
There was a pause.
“I’m so sorry,” Cousin Ralphie began, “Red Rock, Ontario, is in Canada.”
“Which is just what I was going to point out,” I said, “that Red Rock, Ontario, is a lovely spot, but unfortunately it isn’t the one I was going to say because we all know that Canada is not a state in the United States. It’s its own Canada.”
Okay, I was stalling. Wouldn’t you if your whole educational future was riding on this one answer?
Robert shook his head. “I’m sorry, Hank. I’m rocked out.”
I looked desperately at Ashley. She shook her head, and Frankie did too. They had nothing. It was up to me. My mind ran over every city we had mentioned. We had all kinds of rocks—a blowing rock, a red rock, a little rock. Hey, why not? I took a chance.
“Big Rock!” I guessed.
Help! Somebody Get Me Out of Fourth Grade Page 3