by Janice Repka
“One more thing,” she said, looking at Phillip. “In the cafeteria, it was my leg you tripped over.”
“Objection,” Mr. Dinkle yelled. “Nobody even asked her a question.”
“Sustained. If there are no more questions for this witness,” the judge said, “she may step down. Name your next witness, Mr. Stanislaw.”
“Your Honor,” Phillip said, “I call me to the stand.”
In the circus world, “suicide” is a flying-trapeze trick where the performer falls face-first toward the net and doesn’t turn until right before hitting it. In the legal world, “suicide” is a term for what happens when a client decides to represent himself in court.
When he was seated on the witness stand, Phillip said, “Should I ask myself a question?”
“That won’t be necessary,” said Judge Monn. “Simply explain what you want the court to hear.”
“Well,” Phillip began, “it happened in gym class. B.B. hit me with the dodgeball and my glasses fell off and broke. It cost two hundred and forty-nine dollars to get new ones. The book I read said that the person who hit you should have to pay for the damages.”
“Is that it?” asked the judge.
“I guess.”
“Mr. Dinkle, you may cross-examine,” said the judge.
The lawyer eyed Phillip like a hawk watching a mouse dart across a field. “You’re not from around here, are you, Mr. Stanislaw?”
“I live with my Aunt Veola and Uncle Felix on Bowman’s Hill.”
“But you haven’t always lived there, have you?” Phillip knew what was coming. He was going to have to admit in front of the entire sixth grade that he was raised by a clown and a fat lady.
“Objection,” Sam cried, jumping to his feet.
“You can’t object,” Mr. Dinkle reminded him. “You aren’t his lawyer anymore.”
“I’m afraid he’s right,” said Judge Monn. “You’ll have to sit down.”
Phillip spoke hesitantly, “I’ve lived with my aunt and uncle since September.”
“With whom did you live before that?” asked Mr. Dinkle, smugly.
“My parents.”
“And what do your parents do for a living?”
“Objection,” yelled Aunt Veola from the back of the courtroom.
“Now, Veola,” said Judge Monn, “you’ve got no more right than Sam to be objecting.”
“Well, somebody’s got to say something,” Aunt Veola said. “You can lose a lot of hens letting a fox run wild in a henhouse.”
“I believe I’ve been insulted,” said Mr. Dinkle.
“Why can’t you leave the boy’s family out of this?” she asked Mr. Dinkle.
“He’s the one that chose to bring the lawsuit,” said Mr. Dinkle.
“Maybe so,” said Aunt Veola, “but only because he had to.”
Judge Monn slapped her gavel until they stopped. “Put a sock in it or I’ll give you both the boot,” she said.
“I can’t just sit here and say nothing,” said Aunt Veola.
“You can and you will,” warned the judge. “Or you will be escorted from this courtroom.” A woman sitting next to Aunt Veola tugged on her sleeve, and Aunt Veola reluctantly settled back into her seat.
“Let’s get back to business,” said the judge.
“Of course, Your Honor,” said Mr. Dinkle. “I believe the witness was about to explain what his parents do for a living.”
Phillip felt a wave of warmth rising to his ears and spreading across his cheeks. He gazed at the sea of schoolmates. They stared back with expectant faces. How could he tell them about his parents? Mr. Dinkle was wiggling with delight, anticipating the wave of laughter that was about to shake the courtroom.
“I don’t understand the question,” Phillip said. Brief disappointment swept across Mr. Dinkle.
“How are your parents employed?”
Phillip shrugged. Mr. Dinkle’s mouth twisted into a frustrated grimace. Judge Monn turned to Phillip and addressed him directly.
“What don’t you understand?” she asked.
“I don’t understand,” said Phillip, “why Mr. Dinkle is asking me questions about my parents’ jobs when it doesn’t have anything to do with this lawsuit. Isn’t that called ‘irrelevant’?”
“You’re right,” said Judge Monn. “Objection sustained.”
Mr. Dinkle whispered something to his assistants, who got up and left the courtroom.
“Wouldn’t you admit that the game of dodgeball has its good points?” he asked.
“I can’t think of any,” Phillip answered. Mr. Dinkle glanced back at the door and then continued.
“Isn’t it true that the game provides an excellent, whole-body workout and helps build muscle tone?”
“I don’t know,” said Phillip. “I’ve never been in the game long enough to build anything.”
The door opened, and Ms. Jones, one of Mr. Dinkle’s assistants, slipped in. She gave Mr. Dinkle a thumbs-up signal. He gave her a nod.
“I’d like to show you something that has been marked as Defendants’ Exhibit A,” said Mr. Dinkle.
He gave Ms. Jones another nod. She threw open the door. Two burly men in work uniforms wheeled in a large, flat dolly. A big cardboard box, nearly three feet wide and four feet high, was on the dolly. It was marked in large black letters with the words DEFENDANTS’ EXHIBIT A. The men wheeled it to the front of the courtroom. Mr. Dinkle picked up a portable tape player.
“I’d like you to identify the contents of this box,” he said. He clicked on the tape player and cheerful circus music began playing.
“Da, Da, Da, Da, Da, Da. Ta-Da!”
Suddenly, the top of the box flew open and out popped Phillip’s father, Leo Laugh-a-Lot, in a gust of cotton-candy–scented air. His bright clothing colored the courtroom like melted candles on a cake.
“Happy birthday to you,” Leo sang. “Happy birthday to—” He stopped. “Hey, this isn’t a birthday party. What am I doing in a courtroom?” His red-painted smile belied his downturned lips. “What’s going on here?”
The spectators burst into laughter. Judge Monn whacked her gavel. “Now see here,” she said to Mr. Dinkle. “What kind of mischief is this? What is this clown doing in my courtroom? You had better have a good explanation.”
“Maybe Mr. Stanislaw would like to explain who this clown is,” said Mr. Dinkle, pointing at Phillip. “How about it?”
Phillip’s jaw hung open like the lid on a broken trunk. Leo spotted him on the witness stand.
“Phillip?” Leo asked. “What are you doing here?” He heaved himself out and landed on his rump. His clown suit’s built-in rump protector made a loud toot.
Phillip felt his ears catch fire.
“Someone explain what’s going on,” Judge Monn demanded. “Tipstaff, remove this clown from the courtroom!”
The tipstaff helped Leo to his feet and began leading him out of the courtroom. Phillip didn’t know if he was taking him back to the lobby, back to the circus, or off to jail. He thought about his dad in the Hardingtown County lockup next to criminals with names like “Bruiser” and “Mad Dog.”
“Wait!” yelled Phillip. “Don’t.”
They froze: the reporters with their pencils posed over notebooks, the townspeople, his classmates—immobilized like a crowd watching a performer pry open the mouth of a lion. Waiting. Breathless. For what would happen next.
“That clown,” said Phillip, “is my dad.”
The news rolled across the crowd like a storm, growing from a murmur, to a rumble, to a full-pitched thunder that filled the room. Mouths went wild with excited jabbering. A frail woman in a pastel church dress gasped and pressed her hand to her heart. Her husband, in a silky button-down shirt and necktie, fell out of his seat. A rough-skinned man in a flannel shirt and suspenders nearly lost his dentures. Reporters scribbled frantically on bent pads as they tried to catch individual quotes amid the roar.
Leo bowed and curtsied like the featured act in a one-c
lown show. He pulled an endless stream of handkerchiefs from the tipstaff’s shirt pocket. He honked his rump protector and tossed colorful birthday streamers into the audience.
Kids in the back row whipped their heads from side to side in violent fits of laughter. Phillip wasn’t sure if they were laughing at his father or at him. Then he saw something that made him realize it didn’t matter. His friends—a girl whom he had helped with her reading, a boy whom he had shared his lunch with, another boy whose books he had helped pick up in the school hallway, and all the kids who were the easy dodgeball targets—they weren’t laughing. They were clapping. And smiling. At him.
Shawn put his index finger and thumb in his mouth and blew them like a whistle. Then he held a thumbs-up to Phillip.
Phillip leaned back in his chair and relaxed. No matter what happened next, he knew he wouldn’t have to hide who he was or where he came from ever again.
“You will come to order,” Judge Monn tried to yell above the ruckus. But even she could not calm the spectators.
Leo hit a button on his neck strap and his bow tie spun.
Judge Monn threw her useless gavel over her shoulder and stood up. “In my chambers!” she ordered the lawyers as she stomped off. “And bring that clown with you.”
Judges are a lot like circus balloons. As he stood before Judge Monn in her chambers, Phillip thought: You can fill them full of hot air, but if you go too far, they’ll explode.
“This man,” Leo said, grabbing Mr. Dinkle. “This man said he was hiring me to perform at a birthday party. He had me get into the box and told me not to jump out until I heard the Ta-Da!”
“Not a birthday party,” said Mr. Dinkle. “A surprise party.”
“I just wanted to earn a few bucks and get a free trip to Hardingtown to visit my boy,” said Leo.
“Surprise party, my foot!” Judge Monn said to Mr. Dinkle. “How dare you turn my courtroom into a three-ring circus.” Mr. Dinkle and his assistants looked more like guilty schoolchildren than lawyers.
“One ring.”
“What was that?” asked the Judge.
“It was me,” said Phillip, stepping to the front of the group and speaking more like a lawyer than a schoolboy. “A three-ring circus has three performances going on at the same time. The rings are—”
“Your Honor,” said Mr. Dinkle. “If I might be permitted to speak.”
Judge Monn shook her head and raised her hand.
“No. That’s enough. I’m putting my foot down. Mr. Dinkle, I ought to cite you for contempt of court for that stunt you pulled out there. Even if you win this case, what will it look like? A big factory with high-priced lawyers beating a little kid. And for what? For the price of a pair of eyeglasses. When I practiced law, we didn’t try cases like this. Why haven’t you settled?”
“Well,” said Mr. Dinkle, “it’s not only the money. The plaintiff has accused the factory of creating a dangerous product. To be fair, we have to defend ourselves.”
“Do you think what you did out there in my courtroom with Bozo the clown was being fair?” asked Judge Monn.
“Leo,” said Phillip. “His name is not Bozo. It’s Leo Laugh-a-Lot.”
Phillip’s father adjusted his buzzer and put his hand out to shake the judge’s hand. “Pleased to meet you, Your Highness,” he said. Phillip pushed his father’s hand down.
“The only reason I let this case go forward,” Judge Monn advised Phillip, “was because I wanted to teach you a lesson about filing frivolous lawsuits. I should have dismissed it from the start.”
“We agree entirely, Your Honor,” a gloating Mr. Dinkle said.
“Kick that smile off your face,” said Judge Monn. “The point is that this case should be settled.” She stood up, took off her robe, and hung it on a hook. “It’s a quarter past twelve now. We will adjourn for lunch and resume at one-thirty. When I return, I expect to hear that the parties have found a way to resolve their differences.”
“Shall we shake on it?” Leo asked.
Judge Monn pressed papers into her briefcase and headed for the door. “We should not be wasting valuable court time on this matter,” she said. As if to emphasize the conviction of her feelings, the door rattled behind her.
“What do we do now?” Phillip asked Sam.
“You heard the judge,” Sam said. “We settle the case.”
The dodgeball lawyers left and returned with Mr. Nerp and Coach. B.B. stood in the doorway waiting for her father. She slid off one of her high-heeled shoes and rubbed her foot. Leo went over and began pulling coins from behind her ears. Finally, the dodgeball lawyers broke from their huddle.
“Two hundred and forty-nine dollars. That’s the offer,” said Mr. Dinkle.
“Would I get the injunction to stop the school from forcing us to play dodgeball?” asked Phillip.
“No,” said Mr. Dinkle. “The offer is for two hundred and forty-nine dollars. Take it or leave it.”
Phillip felt like a kid with a piece of candy that had fallen on a dirty floor; he was unsure what to do. On the one hand, he wanted to get the money to pay back Aunt Veola. On the other hand, if he settled only for the money, there would be more dodgeball games and more broken glasses. It had taken Phillip a long time to get people to start thinking about whether dodgeball was an unsafe sport; if he took the money, they would all stop thinking.
“Look, kid,” said Ms. Jones. “You’re not going to win anyway. Two hundred and forty-nine dollars is better than nothing.”
“Yes,” agreed Mr. Terry, Mr. Dinkle’s other assistant. “Don’t get greedy. It’s better to have a piece of a donut than to have the whole donut hole.”
Phillip asked Coach, “Would we still have to play dodgeball every day in gym class?”
“Of course,” said Coach. “How else could we train for the dodgeball tournament?”
“Would you still try to cream me all the time?” he asked B.B.
She hesitated.
“Of course she would try to get you out,” said Coach. “She’s the best junior dodgeballer in Hardingtown.”
Phillip looked at Sam. He was as still as an acrobat waiting for his cue.
“Sam, what do you think I should do?”
“Why are you asking me?” Sam crossed his arms. “For that matter, why are you asking Mr. Dinkle or Mr. Tyson or B.B. what they think? Only you know what you’re willing to settle for.”
“You’re right,” Phillip said. “I do know.” He climbed onto a chair.
“Here is what I want,” Phillip said. “Mr. Nerp, I want you to have your factory make your dodgeballs softer so they won’t hurt kids when they get hit.”
“Don’t be absurd,” said Mr. Nerp.
“B.B., I want you to promise you won’t try to hurt anyone smaller than you, even when you’re really mad. And Coach, I want you to allow optional sports during gym class. Safe sports for kids who don’t want to spend their childhoods as human targets.”
“You’re way out of line, Stanislaw,” said Coach.
“Finally, Mr. Dinkle, I want you to apologize to my dad for tricking him into coming here.”
“Who do you think you are, making such demands?” asked Mr. Dinkle. He glared at Phillip with flaming dodgeball eyes.
“Who do I think I am?” Phillip asked himself out loud. He hesitated, wondering how he could make them understand.
“Nobody special,” he said finally. He smoothed down the tuft of red hair that stuck up on the back of his head and took a deep breath. “I am Phillip Edward Stanislaw. Son of Leo Laugh-a-Lot and Matilda the Fat Lady, nephew of Veola the security guard and Felix the cargo loader. I can scoop poop almost faster than an elephant can make it and can juggle four dodgeballs, maybe five, but I haven’t tried that yet. I’m just a regular kid. But even a regular kid knows it’s wrong to let big kids hurt little kids, and somebody’s got to do something about it.” His glasses slid down his nose, and he pushed them back up.
“You’re insane,” said Coach. He grabb
ed B.B. by the arm and stormed out of the room. Mr. Nerp nodded in agreement. “Nothing. That’s what you’ll be getting. Not a single penny. We are going to beat your pants off in court.”
“Pants?” said Leo. “What a great idea.” He searched the pockets of his baggy trousers, pulled out a unicycle horn, and chased Mr. Dinkle and the others out of the room with rude honking sounds.
When only he and Sam were left, Phillip realized his right hand was pointed in the air like the Statue of Liberty. He scampered down from the chair, thinking about the $249 he could have had if he had been willing to drop the lawsuit.
“Are you okay?” Sam asked.
“I’d rather be a loser than a quitter,” said Phillip.
“Keep your chin up,” Sam said. “You haven’t lost yet.”
A circus clown named Joseph was so successful that it became popular to call all clowns Joey. Phillip wondered, if he lost his lawsuit, would people start to call all losers Phillip?
“I’m going to the snack bar to get a bite,” said Sam. “Want to come?” When his lawsuit had begun, Phillip had hungered for justice. Now he would be happy with a ham sandwich.
“No. Thanks,” said Phillip, ignoring his grumbling stomach. He needed to use the time to think of a way to get the settlement he wanted. But how? After Sam left, Phillip went to the courtroom and sat in Judge Monn’s chair. He tried to look at things like a judge would. Then he went over and sat in Mr. Dinkle’s chair and then in Mr. Nerp’s chair.
“Your mom would take away my rubber chicken if she found out I let you skip a meal.”
Phillip swung around in the chair. His dad was holding a take-out box from the snack bar. In it was a dodgeballburger, a root beer, a bag of chips, and two packets of ketchup. Leo set it on the defendants’ table and scratched a spot on his huge red nose.
“Thanks, Dad.”
“Hold your horses,” said Leo. He strained his face, reached in his giant trouser pocket, and pulled out a bag of cotton candy.
“It got a little smashed when I sat on it while I was in the exhibit box.”