My dad gave me a soul-brother handshake.
“Keep it real, dude,” he said. “Later.”
And with that, he bopped out the door after my mom. As they were waiting for the elevator, I think I heard him say, “Ram dang diggety ram dang,” but I can’t be totally sure.
I felt sick to my stomach. I ran to the phone and called Frankie.
“Townsend here. Talk to me,” he said. Frankie never just says hello.
“It’s me. Bad news. They came back early.”
“What happened?” Frankie asked.
“It’s a long story involving leather pants and a telephone,” I said. “The point is, they’re on their way to school.”
“I’ll get Ashley,” Frankie said. “We’ll meet you downstairs in the clubhouse in five minutes.”
Our clubhouse is a storage room in the basement of our building. It’s filled to the ceiling with boxes of winter clothes and Christmas dishes and silk pillows and other weird stuff the adults in our building have collected over the years. We have a couch and a chair, and Frankie, Ashley, and I have had some really fun times there.
This definitely wasn’t one of those times.
“I have to face it,” I said as I stood in front of Frankie and Ashley five minutes later. “My plan has failed. I’m doomed.”
“You tried your best, Zip,” Frankie said.
“Here, I made this for you,” Ashley said. She handed me a three-ring notebook with the word “HANK” written on the front in bright red rhinestones. “You can use it next year, no matter what grade you’re in.”
“Thanks, Ashweena. I’m going to miss you guys. Who will I talk to in class?”
“You can talk to me,” said a nasal voice from the hallway. “I’ll be in class with you.”
I spun around and, sure enough, it was Robert Upchurch, my new classmate and best friend.
“It won’t be so bad, Hank,” the little nerd said. “We’ll hang out together in the yard. I know you like to play ball, and I don’t participate in physical games, but I’m sure we’ll enjoy good conversations about many topics, such as penguins, the internal-combustion engine, and nanobots. I can’t believe how lucky I am.”
No way. I can’t repeat fourth grade. Not with him. I just can’t.
I’m not sure what was in my mind at that very second, but I knew that I had to get to school, had to try to stop what was going to happen to me. I ran out of the clubhouse, down the hall, up the stairs to the ground floor, and out the door of our apartment building. I ran and ran and didn’t stop until I reached the door of Ms. Adolf’s classroom.
CHAPTER 22
I STOOD THERE in the upstairs hall of PS 87 panting like a cheetah that had just chased an antelope all the way across the jungle. The door to Ms. Adolf’s room was closed. A sign written in her handwriting said: “Do not disturb. Conference in progress.”
I leaned up against the door and pressed my ear to it really hard. I could hear voices in there, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. I heard Dr. Berger talking. At least she was there. Her voice sounded nice and calm. Then I heard Ms. Adolf interrupt her. I could tell it was her voice, because it sounded mean like a crow or maybe a rooster with an ingrown toe-nail. I didn’t have to hear her words to know that she wasn’t paying me a lot of compliments.
Then I heard my dad’s voice. He was talking louder than the others, and I was pretty sure I could understand what he was saying.
“All righty, then. I’m down with that,” I heard him say.
Hey, Dad. Don’t be down with that. Don’t be down with anything.
I thought my ear was going to fly off my head and run into a cave and hide of embarrassment. My dad was still in his rock ’n’ roll mode. Or as he would say . . . and this is very hard for me to repeat . . . he still had his groove mojoing. The only thing worse than being left back is having your dad hear about it while he’s got his groove mojoing.
I hope this kind of thing never happens to you. But in case it does, I’m going to pause my story for a minute to give you a list of some things you should tell your dad never to say when he’s meeting with your teacher.
Actually, he should never say these things when he’s meeting with anyone.
Actually, he should never say them at all.
TEN THINGS YOU NEVER, EVER WANT TO HEAR YOUR DAD SAY WHEN HE’S TALKING WITH YOUR TEACHER (OR WITH ANYONE ELSE FOR THAT MATTER)
1. I’m down with that.
2. You rock my world.
3. Want to see me break-dance?
4. Shake that thang.
5. Let’s get funky.
6. Come on, come on, come on, babe.
7. Show me some love.
8. Who’s your daddy?
9. Rock on, dudes!
10. I got my mojo working.
Memorize this list and make your dad take a solemn oath that he will never say these things in your presence or around anyone you know or anyone you have ever met or may one day meet.
Okay, now we can go on with my story.
CHAPTER 23
I GUESS I WAS SO BUSY making up the list that I missed the sound of footsteps, because when the door suddenly opened next to my ear, I was taken totally by surprise. I lost my balance, fell headfirst into the classroom, tripped over the wastebasket, stumbled across the floor, and slid on my butt right into my dad’s feet.
“Who’s your daddy?” my father said.
“No, Dad,” I whispered. “That’s number eight on the list. You have to stop saying that! Now!”
“I’ll try,” he said, “but don’t count on it.”
I looked over to see who had opened the door to the hallway. It was Principal Leland Love, the head honcho at PS 87. Oh, boy, things must have been really bad to have the principal in my parent-teacher conference.
“Hello, Principal Love, sir,” I said, pulling myself to my feet.
“What are you doing lurking outside the door, young man?” he asked in his big, booming voice. Principal Love is a short man with a tall man’s voice.
“I was listening, sir,” I said.
“And were you invited to listen?” he asked. Principal Love has this mole on his face that’s shaped like the Statue of Liberty. When he’s upset, his face twitches and the Statue of Liberty mole looks like it’s doing the hula. She was dancing up a storm right then.
“No, sir,” I said.
“Then why were you listening?” he demanded to know.
“Because I wanted to,” I answered. “After all, they’re talking about me.”
I know this was a disrespectful thing to say, but I figured that as long as I was going to have to repeat fourth grade, I might as well go down in flames.
“There are some things children should know,” Principal Love said, “and some things they should not know. Do you understand what I’m saying, Mr. Zipzer?”
“Not really, sir.”
“Well then, I’ll say it again,” he said. “There are some things children should know and some things they should not know. Now do you understand?”
The truth was, I understood the words, but I really didn’t know what he meant. I think if someone knows something about me, then I should know it too.
Principal Love is known for saying everything twice, but sometimes on special days, he’s been known to say the same thing three times. In my state of mind, I didn’t think I could survive that. So instead of arguing with him, I just nodded and said that now I understood everything clear as glass.
He left. We all listened to his rubber-soled Velcro tennis shoes squeak down the linoleum hall until we couldn’t hear them anymore.
Well, there I was inside the classroom during a parent-teacher conference. Now what? I looked at the group sitting around Ms. Adolf’s desk. I searched my mom’s face to see any signs of bad news. She seemed tired. I looked at my dad, but he was busy looking over a stack of papers that looked like they were in my handwriting. I recognized my handwriting because it looked like it was written i
n Chinese except it was English.
Ms. Adolf was holding a report and making marks on it with a red pencil. She was probably correcting her own report. She can’t stop correcting papers, even when they’re her own. She loves that red pencil.
The only one who looked like she was interested in me was Dr. Berger. She was holding another one of her favorite coffee mugs. This one said: “Children are our future.” That made me smile. She noticed and smiled back.
“Hello, Hank,” she said. “Would you like to sit down?”
“Excuse me, Dr. Berger,” Ms. Adolf said, “but that’s against the rules. This is a parent-teacher conference, not a child-teacher conference.”
“If it’s all the same to you, Fanny, I think Hank made a very good point to Principal Love,” Dr. Berger said. “He has a right to know what we’re talking about. After all, it’s his future we’re discussing.”
Fanny?
I had completely forgotten that Fanny was Ms. Adolf’s first name. You never think of your teachers as having first names. I always just assumed that everyone calls her Ms. Adolf. Even her husband. I can hear him now:
Nighty-night, Ms. Adolf. Happy anniversary, Ms. Adolf. Give me a little kiss, Ms. Adolf.
Yuck, Hank! Stop your brain before you throw up!
Ordinarily, the “Fanny” word would have made me laugh my head off, but I was too scared to laugh. Not at a time like this. Not at a time when my whole fifth-grade life was at stake. I suddenly became aware of the fact that my heart was beating really fast, and I was starting to sweat.
Dr. Berger pulled up a chair for me, but I didn’t sit down. It looked like it was tilted. I looked at Ms. Adolf’s desk, and it seemed tilted too. As a matter of fact, the whole room looked like it was on an angle. I wondered how all the adults were sitting upright in their chairs and not sliding into the wall when the room was almost sideways.
“Sit down,” I heard Ms. Adolf say, but, boy, did her voice sound weird. It sounded like her words were trying to push through thick, gooey maple syrup to get to my ear. Like the way the mutant moth sounded in The Moth That Ate Toledo just after he swallowed the potion that made him turn into his baby larva state inside the furry cocoon. In case you haven’t seen The Moth That Ate Toledo, let me just tell you, that is the scariest part, and you may want to cover your eyes when it comes on.
Everyone was waiting for me to sit down and say something.
“If you don’t mind, I’ll stand,” I said. My voice sounded weird to me, too, like it was coming out of a loudspeaker at Shea Stadium, where the Mets play.
What’s going on with me? I was seeing funny, hearing funny, and my heart was beating a mile a minute like it does when I’m really scared on a roller coaster.
Wait a minute, Hank. That’s it. You’re scared. Scared of what they’re about to say to you.
My father got up, pushed the chair under me, and said, “Chill, little dude. Take a load off your soles.”
Maybe that’s not really my dad. Maybe my real father is still on tour with Stone Cold Rock, and this guy is from another dimension, a duplicate dad who looks like mine but isn’t.
Dr. Berger was looking at me over the top of her glasses. Her glasses have lavender lenses, so you’re not sure if they’re sunglasses or real glasses. She says she likes them because they smooth the rough edges from the world. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but it sure sounds great.
“Hank,” Dr. Berger said. Thank goodness her voice was starting to sound normal. I noticed I was holding my breath, waiting for the rest of her sentence to come out. I heard Frankie in my mind saying, “Breathe, Zip, breathe,” but I absolutely couldn’t. “Do you have something you’d like to ask us?” she said.
“Just one question,” I said. “And only one.”
Suddenly, it came blurting out of my mouth. I had to say it fast and get it over with.
“Am I going to be left back?” I asked.
CHAPTER 24
IT SEEMED LIKE FOREVER until somebody finally said something. Why wasn’t anybody answering me? It was obvious. They didn’t know how to break the bad news.
“Please,” I heard myself saying. “I’m begging you. Don’t do it. It would be horrible. I’d be so embarrassed, I couldn’t show up for school ever again. Everybody would be talking about me. Hank, the stupid loser. The moron. The kid who’ll never get out of fourth grade. I really do try. I did well on that test about the Hopi Indians. Doesn’t that count for anything? I’ll try harder. I promise. I’ll make my brain do what it doesn’t want to do. Honestly.”
Suddenly, I felt my mom’s arms around me. Normally, I don’t allow public displays of affection, but this felt awfully good.
“It’s okay, honey,” my mom said. “We haven’t decided to hold you back.”
“You haven’t?”
“Even though holding you back is not the worst idea in the world,” Ms. Adolf said, “we are thinking about recommending that you go to summer school instead.”
“Hank,” Dr. Berger said, taking off her glasses. “We believe that for you to be successful in fifth grade, you need to strengthen your basic skills in math and reading comprehension.”
She made some sense, I had to give her that. Math and reading are not exactly my strong points.
“Because of your learning challenges, if you are going to succeed in school, you are going to have to be willing to put in some extra time,” Dr. Berger went on.
“Are you down with that, Hank?” my dad asked.
If it meant I could go on to the fifth grade and be with Frankie and Ashley, I’d be down with anything!
“Sure, Dad! I am so down with that, it’s not even funny.”
“The summer-school class is small, so you’ll be able to get a lot of extra attention and individual instruction,” Dr. Berger said.
“You mean, all I have to do to go into the fifth grade is go to summer school?” I asked.
Dr. Berger nodded. I felt like jumping up and down and screaming at the top of my lungs.
“Cool,” I said instead. “Where do I sign up?”
Wait a minute. I’m agreeing to go to summer school?
I can’t believe I just heard myself say that.
Hank, shut up before you volunteer to write an extra-credit book report on why the Japanese people like blowfish.
“We want to give you every opportunity to succeed, Hank,” Dr. Berger said.
“I thought you were going to make me repeat fourth grade,” I said.
“I know that both you and your friend Bernice were worried about that,” Dr. Berger said. “But I want you to know that we’re on your side. We are here to help you.”
“But what about the brown envelope? The one that said I was going to be held back?”
“You mean this one?” my dad said, taking the brown envelope out from under all my papers he held on his lap. “It was full of samples of your tests and homework from this year.”
That’s all? Then I don’t hate you anymore, brown envelope!
“Your papers are full of spelling errors, Hank,” my dad said, shaking his head. “Looks like you gave Ms. Adolf’s red pencil a real work-out. Perhaps I should give her one of my mechanical ones.”
He reached into the pocket of his leather pants and pulled out a shiny silver mechanical pencil. Then he twisted it so a thin, smooth piece of lead popped up from the point. He handed it to Ms. Adolf.
“You can keep it,” my dad said. “I have a whole collection of them. Would you like it, Ms. Adolf?”
Hold on to your hats for this one. Ms. Adolf actually smiled—and not that little snarky thing she does in class, but a big wide grin.
Then she said, “I’m down with that.”
We all laughed.
I felt like a five-ton sack of smelly socks had been lifted off my back.
“I promise you guys that I’ll work hard in summer school,” I said. “I’ll do all my math, and I’ll read the dictionary, and I’ll learn lots of new vocabulary words. In fac
t, I’d like to start now. How about the word redo? I thought that meant ‘do over,’ but maybe I was wrong.”
“You were quite right,” Ms Adolf said. “I often use the word redo to indicate things that I need to correct. For example, Henry, I sometimes write it in my roll book to indicate a certain report card I need to rewrite because I did a messy job on it.”
“Really?” I asked. “That’s why you write redo?”
“Somehow, I feel you may have run across the use of that word recently,” Ms. Adolf said. “Didn’t you, Henry?”
“I have to confess,” I said, looking into her gray face. “I did recently run across the word.”
There it was. I knew she knew I looked in her roll book. What was she going to do with that little piece of information?
“That will be another conversation, Henry, that you and I will have in private. Let me just say that it appears that you will have the opportunity to improve your reading comprehension even before summer begins. Perhaps in some after-school sessions with me, shall we say?”
I may not be smart in a lot of things, but one thing I’ve gotten really good at is the ability to sniff out a punishment. And to me, that sounded like detention. I’ll bet you five dollars that I’m going to be getting to do that extra-credit book report on why the Japanese like blowfish way sooner that I had thought.
But, hey, at least I’m going to be in fifth grade next year.
Hank Zipzer, fifth-grader.
That sounds great.
Oh, yeah.
About the Authors
HENRY WINKLER is an actor, producer, and director and he speaks publicly all over the world. Holy mackerel! No wonder he needs a nap. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Stacey. They have three children named Jed, Zoe, and Max and two dogs named Monty and Charlotte. If you gave him one word to describe how he feels about this book, he would say, “Proud.”
If you gave him two words, he would say, “I am so happy that I got a chance to write this book with Lin and I really hope you enjoy it.” That’s twenty-two words, but hey, he’s got learning challenges.
Help! Somebody Get Me Out of Fourth Grade Page 8