Pennybaker School Is Headed for Disaster

by Jennifer Brown

  It was really starting to freak me out.

  I pushed through a side door to the small, rusted playground that was used for the elementary kids.

  There, I finally found Wesley, Flea, Owen, and two other boys I recognized from our Facts After the Fact class. They were sitting in a loose circle, Wesley’s back propped against the brick wall, his hands draped between his knees.

  “Oh. Hey, Thomas,” Wesley said. Only he said it in a normal Wesley voice. No British accent. No Western twang. No mobster act or cartoon voice or reenactment from a movie. He didn’t have a scarf tied around his neck or his hair slicked back or any leftover stage makeup on. It was sort of startling to see him that way.

  “Hey,” I said, letting the door shut behind me. “I thought we were going to practice this morning.” I pulled my straw out of my pocket and held it up.

  Flea made a snorting noise. If Erma were here, she’d have told him that if he did that enough times, he’d suck his brain down his throat. But the look on his face told me now was not a good time to quote Erma.

  “Not today, Captain,” Wesley said, but his voice got kind of caught up on the word “Captain.”

  I slipped the straw back into my pocket. “Okay,” I said. “Another time, then, I guess?”

  Flea stood, brushing off the back of his pants. He made the snorting sound again.

  “My sister says if you keep making that sound …,” I started, but trailed off when I noticed the other two boys stand and brush off their backsides as well. They all looked at me with dead eyes that made words wither up like decade-old petrified raisins in my throat. “I mean. Yeah. Maybe another time.” I turned my attention to the toe of my shoe, which was making the world’s most interesting design on nothing at all.

  “Maybe never,” one of the boys said. I couldn’t remember for sure, but I thought his name was Buckley and his unique gift was smashing people until they could fit into a Dixie cup. Or martial arts. Something like that.

  “Maybe,” the other boy said. I was pretty sure his name was Colton and his gift was memorization, a pretty normal gift for a place like Pennybaker School. Too normal. He had probably memorized the entire dictionary or the periodic table. In French. “Maybe who thinks about spitwad wars at a time like this?”

  I blinked. “Huh?”

  Owen stood, too, and straightened the bowl on his head. Now Wesley was the only one sitting. “It’s just that today of all days, nobody is really going to be thinking about much of anything except … you know.”

  “I do?”

  “The head,” Wesley said. “Mrs. Heirmauser’s head.” Out of habit, all five of them placed their hands over their hearts and gazed toward the door. Then a look of extreme sadness swept over each face. “We just can’t really think about trivial things while it’s missing.”

  “Trivial?” I said, surprising even myself by how passionate I suddenly felt about the spitwad war. It wasn’t so much the war as it was … well, it kind of was about the war. It was about it being the only thing at this school that made me feel like I fit in. The only thing I could totally relate to. The only thing I wanted to be part of here. Plus, the idea of being responsible for lodging saliva-covered things in girls’ hair sounded pretty great. I took a deep breath, certain that they wouldn’t understand any of this. They all loved it here. They fit right in here. “I mean, of course it’s not as … important … as the head of horr—as the missing artwork. But wouldn’t Mrs. Heirmauser want us to move on? Wouldn’t she want us to buck the system, to go forward with our childlike hijinks, to have fun in the way only the youth of today can? Wouldn’t she have wanted us to forget all about her and do something to enrich ourselves, something that could better our, um … our aim, and our … our teamwork? Wouldn’t she have been all about teamwork? Wouldn’t she want the show to go on?”

  When I stopped talking, they were all staring at me as if squirrels had just flown out of my nose. I quickly checked my bow tie. I’d improved my tying skills, but not by that much, and there was still always a possibility that it looked like a medical issue. They eventually turned their stares to each other, transmitting some unspoken communication.

  “No,” Flea said. “She wouldn’t.”

  “Definitely not,” Owen added.

  Finally, Wesley stood. “Listen, Thomas. You’re new and all; I understand. But the thing is, Mrs. Heirmauser was not someone who supported childlike hijinks. Some people say she was never a child herself. That she was born a math teacher.” He held out a hand as if to stop me, although I wasn’t saying anything. “I know, it sounds far-fetched. Unless you actually knew her. If you knew her, you could see it, I swear.” The other boys continued nodding. “And Mrs. Heirmauser was a lot of things,” he continued.

  “Revered,” Flea supplied.

  “Loved by everyone in the town,” Owen agreed.

  “A genius,” Colton said.

  “And really smart, too,” Buckley added.

  Now Wesley turned his hand toward them. “She was a lot of things, but she was definitely not a champion of teamwork. She was about doing your own work, always. You probably never looked at the little plaque attached to the base of the statue, but it says, ‘Eyes on your own paper, students.’ A direct quote.”

  “Her favorite one,” Owen said.

  “Okay, okay,” I said. “I get it. So we don’t have the practice here. We move our practices to Pettigrew Park. You know, the one over on Nineteenth Street? There’s a great climbing wall there that we can use for target practice. Surely Mrs. Heirmauser didn’t have anything against parks.”

  “I don’t think—” Wesley began, but this time I held out my hand.

  “As captain, I insist. The war will go on. Practice will be at Pettigrew Park. Tomorrow, high noon. Be there.” I waved my duct-taped straw in the air to show them that I meant it, and then vanished it into thin air.

  Colton, Buckley, Owen, and Flea shook their heads and went back inside, leaving me alone with Wesley.

  “What about … you know,” I said.

  “What?”

  I whispered. “Following Reap. We’re still going to do that today, right?”

  Wesley opened his mouth to say something, but before he could get any words out, the bell rang, and we raced for class through the silent, morose halls.

  TRICK #11

  THE SHADOW TRICK

  For the rest of the day, Pennybaker School seemed like a totally normal school. The most depressed, heavy-sighing, tearful normal school in the world. Everyone seemed to leave their unique talents at home. Nobody was designing wearable microwave ovens or telling knock-knock jokes in ten languages or walking on their hands. Even Mr. Faboo left his Napoleon costume at home.

  You would think I would have liked it, but I kind of hated it.

  It was unsettling. Like I was sitting in a classroom full of aliens. I didn’t know what to do with these people. I didn’t know what to expect. I only knew that nobody dared say anything that might remind everyone of Mrs. Heirmauser, because the natural tendency to turn with hand over heart kept resulting in tears. I had no idea how often someone referenced the great math teacher until everyone stopped doing it. It was like nobody had anything to talk about anymore.

  I tried at least a hundred times to catch Wesley’s eye during Claymaking. He had acted so weird this morning, and we still hadn’t devised a plan for following and catching Reap. If I didn’t know better, I would almost think Wesley was avoiding me. I coughed, I hummed his favorite song from Annie, I even bumped into his desk when I walked past to get a hunk of clay.

  Nothing.

  Meanwhile, Reap seemed plenty nervous, looking over his shoulder every few seconds. Licking his lips a lot. Jumping whenever anyone made a noise. His project was all wadded up into a shaky lump. Although, to be fair, all our projects were wadded-up lumps. There were no gifted artists in my Claymaking class—which was probably why Miss Pancake sat with a bag of frozen peas on her head all the time.

  I made su
re I had my work station cleaned up and all my things put away before the bell rang so I could meet up with Wesley and get into snooping position. But the second the bell rang, Wesley shot out of his chair like a rocket and practically ran out of the classroom.

  What was going on?

  I followed him out into the hall, hissing his name, doing that fast-walk thing you do when you want to run but don’t want teachers to catch you doing it and make you stop so they can yell at you about safety. Even so, he was still faster. He never turned around. The gap between us lengthened, until he darted around a corner and out of sight. Clearly, he didn’t want to follow Reap anymore.

  I turned back just in time to see Reap scurry out of the classroom and head straight for the cafeteria. Which was weird, because we had already had Meat and Greet.

  I stood in place for a minute, unsure what to do, my vest inching up and pushing my bow tie into a beard. I took a breath and yanked it down. Fine. Wesley didn’t want to help anymore. I would just have to be the hero all by myself. Wesley would be sorry he ditched me when I was getting all the glory.

  I went back into the classroom and gathered my things. Miss Pancake had removed the frozen peas from her head and now rested with her face pressed directly onto her desk. More kids began to file in for sixth-period Claymaking. I should have been heading to Futuristic Arts, but I had other plans.

  Like Reap, I headed for the cafeteria. Only instead of going all the way in, I hid behind the door and tried to pretend I didn’t see the dead cricket on its back in the corner. I guessed the cricket had eaten the meat loaf. Poor guy. He should have been warned.

  I tried to be as silent as possible, although it felt like my heart was beating loud enough to hear it outside of my body.

  The tardy bell finally rang, and the hallways slowly got quiet. It wouldn’t be long before someone noticed I was missing and started doing things like checking the bathroom stalls and calling my parents. I hoped Reap did something soon.

  Just when I had convinced myself I had missed him, there were soft footsteps. I peeked through the crack of the door and saw Reap creeping out of the cafeteria with his hands stuffed deep in his pockets. I held my breath as he passed through the doorway, waited for him to get a few steps ahead, and then followed, walking on my tiptoes, shimmying behind a trophy case and ducking behind a book cart, praying the last button wouldn’t pop off my vest and smack him in the back of the head.

  Reap moved surprisingly quickly. I could barely keep up as he crossed the foyer, opened the front door, and slipped out. I counted to ten and then followed, pressing my back against the door. I could feel a lion head pressing into the top of my skull. It made me shiver.

  I scooted to the left. No Reap. I scooted to the right. No Reap. I sprang off the door, rubbing the top of my head, and went down the stairs. No Reap, no Reap, no Reap.

  Where in the world had he gone?

  I paced the sidewalk a few times, and was just about to give up and go back inside when I saw a bush in front of the school jiggle just the tiniest bit. I froze and squinted. Maybe it was just my imagination. Maybe one of the lions had come alive and was waiting for me in the bushes. Maybe the meat-loaf cricket was actually undead and had followed me outside. Maybe the bush was coming alive … and was hungry. The bush jiggled again, a little more forcefully.

  Or, maybe, the cause of the jiggle was Reap.

  I tiptoed to the hedgerow and squatted, trying to see through the foliage. I couldn’t see anything but leaves.

  The bush jiggled again, and I jumped up so fast I nearly fell over. Wesley had the right idea. He was happily studying Futuristic Arts while I was out here about to get sucked into a bush. But then I heard a voice. A very Reap-like voice. Murmuring behind the jiggling bush.

  It was now or never.

  “Aha!” I shouted, pushing through the bushes and landing in a little clearing on the other side.

  “Aaah!” Reap shouted, falling back into the brick wall behind him.

  “I’ve caught you red-handed,” I said, spitting out a leaf. “I knew it was you all along. Thief! Dirty, rotten, sneaky thief! Coming out here to hide your … bread?”

  Sure enough, there was a large bag of bread on the ground where Reap had just been crouching moments before. It was open, and a slice had fallen out onto the ground.

  “Please don’t tell,” Reap said.

  “But where’s the head?” I asked, still not understanding what I was seeing.

  “The what?”

  “Huh?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He gestured toward the bag. “The bread. If you tell, I’ll get in trouble, and so will Mr. Tony.”

  “Who’s Mr. Tony?”

  “The one who’s been giving me the bread.” He pulled himself back up into a crouch and stuffed the spilled slice back inside the bag. “From the cafeteria.” When I still didn’t comprehend, he said, “Mr. Tony? The guy who works in the kitchen? He makes the bread.”

  I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Just to be clear. You’re saying ‘bread,’ not ‘head.’ Right?”

  “Why would I be talking about a head?” And then it seemed to dawn on him. “Oh, you mean the Heirmauser bust. You think I stole it? Like, put it in my shirt and carried it out here into the bushes? So I could, what? Talk to it when I was lonely?” He laughed.

  “Well, the thought had crossed my mind, maybe, a little,” I said. He laughed harder. I scowled. “Well, it’s not like stealing bread makes any more sense.”

  “Sure it does. Watch.” He motioned for me to crouch next to him, then tugged a hunk of bread off and started making a strange clicking sound with his mouth.

  “What are you—”

  He waved his hand at me to cut me off.

  “You know, I’m getting pretty tired of people shush …” But I trailed off when I saw a pair of eyes. And then another. And another.

  Reap kept making his clicking noise, and slowly, slowly, a prickly bunch of quills emerged from within the bushes.

  “Is that a—?”

  Reap nodded. “Hedgehog. I’ve named her Harriett.” He offered Harriett the bread, which she quickly snapped up. “And those are her babies. I haven’t named them yet. I’m still learning how to tell them apart.” He scattered more lumps of bread, and a line of smaller hedgehogs crept out. One bypassed the bread and immediately went for Reap. He scooped it up and held it. “Usually I try to give them vegetables, because that’s what they really like, but this week all Mr. Tony had was bread. They don’t seem to mind it.”

  He kept talking, but all I heard was the buzzing of unholy cuteness blotting all the smart out of my brain. I felt like I had stepped into a fog of happiness and candy and hugs. I had completely forgotten about the Heirmauser head or Wesley ditching me or catching Reap doing something illegal. I lowered myself to the ground and sat cross-legged. Reap did the same.

  I reached into the bag and grabbed a hunk of bread, then held it out until Harriett came over. She sniffed it, then began nibbling. I smiled so hard my ears hurt.

  “So, you’re not going to tell?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “No. But I don’t get it. Why hide?”

  Reap cast his eyes downward, looking very ashamed. “It’s my unique gift,” he said. “Making friends with animals. They follow me everywhere I go. I can sort of … talk to them … in their language.” He made a couple of clicks and a squeak with his mouth and Harriett paused, squeaked in response, and went back to eating. “She thinks you’re scary.”

  He was clicking at animals, and I was the scary one?

  I scratched Harriett’s head with my finger so she would see I wasn’t dangerous. “So? Isn’t that why you’re here? To show off your unique gift? We all have one.” Sort of. I, of course, only had a Grandpa Rudy.

  Another baby hedgehog abandoned the bread and scampered to Reap, quickly burrowing into his pant leg, then turning around and staring out at me happily
from inside. “That’s the thing.” He pulled the baby out of his pant leg and put it in his lap with the other. “My dad went here. My uncles went here. My grandfather went here. All with the same unique gift.”

  “Animals?”

  His face went white. “Sort of.” He covered the ears of the babies in his lap and whispered, “Taxidermy. My grandfather specialized in eyeball reconstruction.”

  “Gross!” I yelled, causing Harriett and three babies to duck under the bush again. I lowered my voice. “Like, actual eyeballs? On actual animals?”

  Reap nodded grimly. “They expect me to follow in their footsteps. I don’t want to disappoint them. I’m pretending I don’t have a unique gift at all, and hoping they’ll let me go to Boone Public instead.” My heart squeezed at the mention of my old school. Why hadn’t I ever thought of just pretending I couldn’t do magic? Sometimes I could make easy things really complicated.

  “So you hide your gift and steal the bread and take care of your animals in private. And you had nothing to do with the missing head.”

  “Nothing at all. Please don’t rat me out.”

  I sighed. “I’m not going to tell anyone.”

  He beamed. “Thanks, Thomas. I don’t care what everyone else is saying about you. You’re pretty all right.”

  “Thanks. I think you’re pretty all r—” I blinked. “Wait. What do you mean, what everyone else is saying about me?”

  “Here, you want to hold one?” He offered me one of the babies. An obvious avoidance tactic. And one that worked. Because, seriously, it was so cute I almost needed to lie down for a while. I took the baby, and Reap made a few squeaking noises at her. She sniffed at me, staring intently with her beady little eyes. I raised her up and touched my nose to hers. She didn’t smell the best, but what can you expect with wild animals? She probably thought I didn’t smell the best, either. “She’s my favorite,” Reap said. “She so nice and friendly.”