I jumped up. “What…? Into the…You mean…eat this chicken?”
Margaret put the bowl of peas down and stared at me. “You sound just like your mother, Clementine! When she can’t finish her sentences.”
I ignored her. My heart had started pounding really hard, like a fist that was so angry it wanted to punch its way out of my chest. “You can’t eat this chicken!” I cried. I swept my arms out. “You can’t eat any of them. These chickens are…These chickens are people, you know!”
The Pilgrim lady looked at me as if I had told a joke, then she went back to her sewing.
“What do you think is in your sandwich today, Clementine?” Margaret asked. “You eat chickens all the time.”
I looked down at PreNata-Stretch. She was stalking away from me as if she knew what Margaret had said. I hurried after her and bent down to look her in her little red chicken eye. Then I moved to her other side so I could look her in her other little red chicken eye. I wanted her to know I was serious. “Not any- more I don’t,” I promised her. “Not. Any. More!”
PreNata-Stretch cocked her head to study me; then she strutted over to join her friends. Olive came up behind me.
“This is so terrible,” I said, without looking back at her, since I was trying not to cry. “Look at their faces. These chickens just want to play some chicken games and live in a nice chicken house with their families. I know it’s not the Pilgrim lady’s fault. She’s just an actor, and she’s not really going to eat them. But in real life, everyone else does. And lots of other kinds of animals, too.”
“Nolivot molivee,” said Olive.
I still didn’t want to look at Olive, but I turned around to give her a quick side-eye. “What do you mean, not you?”
“OlivI’m oliva volivegolivetolivarolivian.”
That one took me a minute. I wiped my face and turned around. “You are?”
Olive nodded. “OlivI dolivon’t oliveat olivanolivimolivals.”
“Oh,” I said. I looked back. The chickens had stopped pecking and were staring at us. Their faces looked really worried.
“Me, too,” I said to Olive. “I’m a vegetarian. I don’t eat animals.”
I turned back to the chickens. “I mean it,” I said, with my pledge hand over my heart. “Starting right now.”
The last place we visited was the Mayflower. It was my favorite part of the field trip, because it smelled the best on that ship—like tar and wood and salt—and there were lots of doing things. It also gave me the great idea of building my own boat when we went to visit my grandparents in Florida next winter. I was getting pretty good with my tools, so all I needed was some wood and some tar, and a sheet for a sail. One of the sailors told me, “Well, it’s a bit more complicated than that, but you’re on the right track.” Then he rolled up his sleeve to show me his tattoo.
But all the time I was having fun on the Mayflower, some of my Clementine sections were thinking about that chicken. And about the rest of the animals at Plimoth Plantation, and in the rest of the world.
When it was time to eat, we lined up with our partners to get our lunches from the buses, and brought them back to the picnic area. I opened my lunch box, but the sight of my chicken sandwich made we want to cry again. I snapped it shut.
Mrs. Rice caught my eye and patted the space beside her. I guess she thought I was still worried about the no-eating-sounds rules, and so she was offering to protect me from the fourth graders. Which was so nice! It made me wonder what Mrs. Rice had been like as a kid—before her feet grew up and wanted to be strapped into car seats all day. Had she had it with bossy kids and their rules too?
I started to get up to go over there, but then I realized something surprising: I didn’t care about the fourth graders and their stupid rule anymore. I had used up all my caring on my chicken, and there just wasn’t any left for them. So I waved at Mrs. Rice to thank her, but I shook my head no.
Beside me, Olive tapped my knee and held out her lunch box. “It’s vegetarian,” she said. “I’ll share with you.”
I saw hummus and pita chips, celery sticks, two apples, and a cookie. Even a person with cotton balls for teeth would make noise eating this lunch.
The fourth graders were going to go out of their minds when she took a bite.
Suddenly, even though my teacher was all the way on the other side of the picnic area, I imagined I heard his voice. I know I can count on you to make Olive feel comfortable on the field trip. I know I can count on you.
“Thanks,” I said to Olive. I took a pita chip and loaded it with hummus. Then I stood up. I looked over at the harbor and imagined for a minute what those Pilgrims must have thought when they were stepping onto the Mayflower: Finally, we’re getting away from those stupid rules in England!
I sure wished I could get on a boat and sail to a New World right now. I’d take Olive with me, and Margaret, and Principal Rice, and anybody else who thought the silent-eating rule didn’t suit them.
Instead, I raised the pita chip to my mouth and chomped down, as loudly as I could. “Cr-UNCH!” I yelled, in case anyone had missed it. Then I unstuck my tongue from the hummus on the roof of my mouth with a SNICK! so loud it probably sent tidal waves rocking the Mayflower at the dock.
The whole picnic area went silent.
All one hundred kids turned to gape at me.
The fourth graders looked shocked. The third graders looked worried. Margaret pulled her jacket over her head, as if she couldn’t bear to watch.
Only Olive didn’t seem interested. She snapped a celery stick in half and bit down.
I grabbed a celery stick and crunched so hard the sound echoed off the buildings. Olive took a drink from her juice box. I fake-glugged from mine. Everything Olive did, I did louder.
Waylon was the first person to join me. He stood up and growled like a lion as he gnawed off a piece of fruit leather, then smacked his lips around it.
Maria was next, and you never heard grapes pop so loudly.
Joe sloshed his soup like a cement mixer.
And then, one by one, all my friends came over and joined my team—the “Who Cares How Loud You Eat?” team.
Mrs. Rice stood up. At first I figured I was in trouble for committing the giant crime of Embarrassing Our School on the field trip. One good thing about getting in trouble in front of the principal, though—at least you can’t get sent to the principal.
But you will not believe what Principal Rice did next. She looked me right in the eye and raised her hands up over her head in a thumbs-up. I knew it was a private Good job! meant for me, but the other kids must have thought it was meant for them, too. More and more third graders joined in, snapping their jaws around their sandwiches, snicking and gulping and crunching as loudly as they could. Pretty soon some of the fourth graders got in on it too. And then, finally, even the mean ones who had started the whole stupid no-eating-noise problem in the first place.
In the end, Olive was the only one eating her lunch like a normal person. She was probably thinking, The kids in this new school sure are a bunch of loud eaters! But so what? The thing that mattered was that if my teacher looked over at her, he would know he had been right to count on me. His newest student looked really comfortable.
Olive nudged my elbow, then handed me her second apple. I was just about to take a nice loud bite when I remembered something. I got up and went over to Mrs. Rice. “May I go visit the Pilgrim lady?” I asked her.
Mrs. Rice looked down the road at the village and nodded. “Take your partner with you, and come right back.”
Olive and I found her, pulling weeds in her garden. She looked pretty tired, but she perked up when she saw us. “Did you find some beer after all?”
“Nope. But we brought you this.” Olive and I waved good-bye and left that Pilgrim lady gazing at her apple with a Wow! I must be dreaming face that could probably be seen back in England.
Back on the bus, The Cloud was thicker than ever. We sank into our seats, and
the kids around me began to talk about the field trip.
In Olive-talk. Which sounded even weirder because they were holding their noses against The Cloud. I slumped against the window and watched the scenery whiz by. I learned that if I kept my eyes locked in one position, I could make the trees look like they were in a blender. Which was fun, but not fun enough.
Olive elbowed me. “Tell them about the cholivickoliven, Clementine.”
I still didn’t have any caring left because of that chicken. “You do it. It will sound good in Olive talk. Which I can’t do,” I admitted.
Olive waved her hands like that was nothing. “Oh, me too. I had a hard time too,” she said. “When I was first inventing it, my mouth got all confused. I had to go one sound at a time.”
Suddenly I was reminded of what my dad had said when we were working on the Pentagon. “Say one word, really slowly, Olive. One sound at a time,” I asked.
Olive held out her hand. “Huh.”
“Huh,” I repeated. So far so good.
“Huh. Olive,” she said, stopping after each part.
“Huh. Olive,” I said slowly.
“Huh, Olive, and,” Olive said.
“Huh, Olive, and,” I repeated. “Huh-Olive-and! Holivand! I did it!” I shook Olive’s holivand. “Th-olive-anks,” I said. “Tholivanks!”
Amanda Lee’s head popped in between us. “Teach me, too?” she begged Olive.
I changed seats with Amanda Lee so Olive could talk with her and I could talk with Margaret without our necks twisting off.
Except for washing the peas, I knew Margaret hadn’t had a very good time on the field trip. “But hey!” I said to cheer her up. “No more eating-sounds rule!”
Margaret leaned over and picked some imaginary lint from her skirt. “I couldn’t do it,” she whispered. “I wanted to, but I just couldn’t.”
“Margaret, what makes you so afraid, anyway? What do the mean fourth graders do?”
Margaret dropped her head and whispered, “I don’t know. They never said.”
“What?” I yelped. Let me tell you, I wanted to say a whole lot more. I wanted to say how crazy it was. I wanted to say, You were so afraid all this time, and you didn’t even know what you were afraid of? It wasn’t some kind of actual torture? And you made me afraid of it too? But one look at Margaret’s face made me stop talking. It made me realize something: Margaret was just afraid of breaking rules. Margaret liked rules so much she even liked the ones she didn’t like.
I patted her shoulder, and Margaret let me, even though she is usually not so fond of people touching her. “Margaret,” I said instead of all I wanted to say, “I’m going to be in fourth grade soon.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Margaret, lift your head up. Look at me.”
Margaret didn’t lift her head, but she side-eyed me for a second. “What?”
“I’m going to be a fourth grader in September—that’s only about a hundred and fifty days away. I need to learn how to boss people,” I said.
“You’re so lucky,” she said. “Fourth grade for a whole year.”
“Except that I don’t know how to do it,” I said. “When I try to make Spinach do something, he falls over laughing and then he goes and does the opposite. I need to practice on someone. And you’re going to be a fifth grader, so you need to practice how to be bossed. Let’s try it now.”
Margaret groaned, but then she surprised me. “You’re right. Let’s do it.”
I dug around in my backpack for my dad’s bag of pecans. I took out a nut. “All right, ready? Margaret, I am ordering you to break the no- eating-sounds rule!”
“No way,” Margaret said, backing away and eyeing the pecan like it might be trying to bite her. “I want to, but you have to boss me better. You have to give me an or-else.”
“Okay, fine,” I said. “Margaret, crunch, or else!”
Margaret rolled her eyes. “Or else what? You can’t just say ‘or else’—you have to give me an or-else thing.”
“Okay. Um…or else I won’t give you any apples from my new tree.”
“No, no, no!” Margaret shook her head so hard a barrette flew off and clattered under Maria and Rasheed’s seat. “You have to make it a really bad or-else. Something that will make me do it.”
“Hmmm…” I looked around for inspiration. “How about…or else I won’t climb down there and get your barrette for you. I’ll make you go and get it yourself.”
Margaret pasted herself against the bus seat and shuddered at the horror of what might be under there. Then she screwed her face up and thought for a minute. “These are my favorite barrettes and now I only have one and I hate only having one because…what side will I wear it on? But it’s still not bad enough. It has to be something really, really bad.”
“Okay, then.” I revved up my bossiest face. “Margaret, I order you to break the rule and crunch that pecan, or else I will crawl under that seat and get your barrette and then I’ll clamp it back in your hair!”
“AAAAUUUURRRRGGGGHHHH!” Margaret screamed, and threw her arms over her face. “That’s horrible! That’s a good one, all right!”
Then she lifted a nut and brought it to her face. She opened her mouth. She inched the nut closer. Then she curled her lips over her teeth.
“Nope,” I said. “Bare teeth. Or else…” I jerked my thumb toward the bus floor.
Margaret took a deep breath and nodded. She opened her mouth so wide I could see all her braces. And then she bit down.
Now, compared to what I had done at lunch, Margaret’s bite sounded like a moth’s footstep. It sounded like a moth’s footstep if the moth was crossing a carpet. And wearing socks. But I had heard it, and Margaret had heard it, and it was enough for both of us.
We sat there quietly, having a proud time for a while and trying not to breathe The Cloud.
“Wow,” Margaret said after a minute. “You’re good at bossing people.”
Usually when someone says I’m good at something, I feel happy. But Margaret’s compliment made me feel a little sad. “Thanks,” I said anyway. “You were a good teacher.”
“Thanks,” Margaret said back. She looked a little sad about her compliment too.
Or maybe, I thought, maybe she was sad because after all that being-bossed, she still only had one barrette.
I looked down at the bus floor. Mrs. Rice was right—it did look as if it had just been cleaned.
“I’ll be right back, Margaret,” I said. Then I slid to the floor and twisted under the seat.
The smell from The Cloud was much worse under there. I held my breath and wriggled between Rasheed’s and Maria’s feet and then under the next seat, and there I found Margaret’s barrette. I rolled onto my back to tuck it into my jacket pocket.
Just as I was about to crawl back, I saw something weird. On the underside of Willy and Lilly’s seat, there was an arrow.
A real arrow, not a drawn one. A long, thin, black metal arrow, stuck to the bottom of the seat with a wad of chewing gum.
It looked familiar, but I couldn’t place it at first. And then I did. I saw an arrow just like it every day, on every clock inside our school!
I suddenly knew: this was the minute hand Baxter had stolen from Principal Rice’s clock.
It was pointing to a screw at the edge of the seat. And it was still telling the time: Baxter’s stolen minute hand was telling me it was time to unscrew the seat covering.
I’d have to be like Baxter to do it, though: I’d have to use any ways and means available to achieve my goal. And right there, in my pocket, I had a perfect ways-and-means: Margaret’s barrette. Its end was like a thin screwdriver blade.
I fitted it into the head of the screw. Just then, I felt a kick on the bottom of my sneaker. “What are you doing under there?” Maria’s voice asked.
“Being resourceful,” I answered.
Then I went to work. It was hard to see under there, and hard to work, because the screw was about an inch from my nos
e. It was hard to breathe, too, because the smell from The Cloud grew stronger every minute. My fingers kept slipping off the barrette, and the barrette kept slipping out of the slot, but I kept reminding myself, One tool, one hand, one step. And finally I got the screw out.
The seat covering flapped down a little and a strip of paper fluttered down. I picked it up. In fat-marker, loud, capital letters the note said, “I AM NOT A LIAR!”
I tugged on the seat cover, and heard something slide. I skidded away just as a sandwich bag filled with dark, slimy glop splatted to the floor.
I scrambled to my feet. “Charlie,” I hollered up the aisle, “I found your Egguna sandwich!”
Rasheed jumped up as if the seat was on fire and grabbed Maria’s hand. “I will rescue you!” According to Rasheed, rescuing each other is a big part of being in love with someone.
Next, Willy leaped out of his seat, and for the first time in her life, Lilly did exactly what Willy did, instead of the other way around. Pretty soon everyone on the bus knew that I had found The Cloud, and that Baxter had left it.
Mrs. Rice steamed down the aisle in her car-seat sandals, armed with a magazine and another plastic bag. She scraped up the sandwich with the magazine and knotted the plastic bag around it, and told us we could open the windows. Her face was like a billboard sign—one you could read a mile away. I must have been crazy to go on this trip, her face said. I must have been crazy to want to be a principal in the first place. Get me out of here!
Which was a lot for a face to say, even one as big as Principal Rice’s.
I flopped back down next to Margaret. I could tell she was wishing there was a bathroom on the bus so she could push me into a hot shower. Instead, she ripped open a bunch of wipes.
“We’ll start with the hands. One wipe for each finger.” Margaret said it with a deep frown. But somehow, I thought she looked pretty happy.
Clementine and the Spring Trip Page 5