Electric Boogerloo

by Mark Maciejewski

  I shake my head but don’t answer.

  “You see, Mr. Trzebiatowski, I have a passion.” Another word you never want to hear an adult use. “More of an obsession, really.”

  Ugly, overpriced drinking vessels? I think to myself, but what I say is, “Wahoolie?”

  The corner of her eye twitches. “I’m obsessed with discipline and order. And I think you and your little . . . cabal are a threat to that order.”

  She leans back in her chair and steeples her fingers in front of her mouth.

  Now seems like the perfect time to tell her I’m not planning on threatening her precious order at all, but after she threatened my friends like that, I don’t want to give her the satisfaction. Instead I steeple my own fingers and return her gaze.

  “I’m sure you’ve heard by now about my reputation,” she says.

  Every instinct tells me to keep my mouth shut, but I can’t stop myself. “I’ve heard you like to expel kids to make sure everyone else stays in line.”

  She holds the mug up to the light. “Do you know what makes a Wahoolie a masterpiece? When he discovers an imperfection, he applies tremendous heat.” Her eyes leave the mug and lock on me. “Then reshapes it until it’s just the way he wants it.”

  I need to get out of here before she tries to melt me into a saucer to match her cup. “I don’t think you need to fire up the blast furnace, Mizz Lockhart.”

  She sets down her cup and gives me a dubious look. “I shouldn’t keep you. I’m sure there’s something that needs starching or pressing somewhere, and as you can see, I have some . . . work to do as well.”

  I reach down to pick up my book bag, and when I look up, she’s on my side of the desk.

  She offers her hand and before I can stop myself, I shake it.

  I try to pull my hand out of her icy grip, but she doesn’t let go. We lock eyes. “Shelly Mayer is long gone. Alanmoore is my world now,” she says, her voice halfway to a whisper.

  “Okay,” I say, wrenching my hand free.

  She pivots and goes back to her chair. She flips open a file on her desk and examines it.

  Now I understand how Moby feels right before he pulls one of his famous disappearing acts. I want to be anywhere but here.

  She glances up from the file and looks surprised I’m still there.

  “That is all . . . for today.”

  I don’t make her tell me twice. Mrs. Osborne gives me a look of pity as I walk out of the office and through the school’s back door. Moby is waiting by the Dumpsters.

  “What took you so long?” he says.

  I hustle him off the school grounds before I answer. “She got me.”

  He looks me over like he expects a piece to be missing. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” I say, even though my stomach is knotted up.

  “What happened?”

  I tell him the whole story, minus the part about his and Shelby’s files, as he walks me to my parents’ shop.

  “Wait!” he says, putting his hand on my shoulder. “Mr. Mayer’s name is Shelly?”

  I was too nervous to laugh when she said it, but now we look at each other for a moment, then bust out laughing.

  Moby laughs so hard he has to readjust his pants when he’s finished. “Too bad you didn’t know that last year. You could’ve gotten away with anything.”

  “Probably,” I say. As she said, though, I’m in her world now, not Shelly Mayer’s. The last thing on my mind is getting away with anything. In Mizz Lockhart’s world, it’s about basic survival.

  “Wanna hang out later?” I say as we walk up to the shop. I partly want to hang with Moby, but I also want to run this whole situation by the Colonel.

  “My parents are going to some appointment, but Grandpa and I will be home.” This not only means very little supervision, but also something fried and delicious for dinner.

  I say good-bye with a promise to come over as soon as I’m done helping my folks, then I go inside to see what awaits me.

  My mother is all smiles when she sees me. “How was school, rodzynek?”

  “School-y,” I say, flinging my bag under the counter.

  Thankfully, she doesn’t have any annoying follow-up questions. “Papa is waiting in the back,” she kisses me on the cheek as I pass.

  My dad is working the single-buck press, sweating like a snowman in July. He stops when he sees me and wipes his face.

  “How is school?” he asks.

  I consider giving him the same answer I gave my mom, but I don’t want to do anything to mess up my plans with Moby later.

  “Pretty good.” I rub my hands together to show him that’s all I have to say and I’m ready to get to work.

  He points at a rack of freshly dry-cleaned shirts. “Light day today, not many shirts.”

  I can be done pressing all of them in less than an hour. He must sense my relief at the small amount of work, because he quickly adds, “More time for homework.”

  Good old Dad. In a weird way, it’s comforting to know that not everything is going to be different this year.

  It takes me forty minutes to press and bag the shirts. I don’t want to finish too quickly and risk getting a fresh assignment, so I grab my tai chi outfit and do a quick touch-up to take some of the stink out of it, then press it, put it on a hanger, and slip a plastic bag over it. Who knows how long it will be before I see my class again?

  With all the work done, my parents don’t give me any hassle about going to Moby’s when I use the magic word “study.”

  • • •

  When I arrive, Mr. Dick yanks the front door open, smiling like he’s in some sort of pageant.

  “Jetski!”

  “Mr. Di—I mean, Jason,” I say.

  “Get your butt in here, man. We made a treat for you guys.”

  I pray that the smell assaulting my nose in the entryway is not the treat.

  The Colonel nods to me as I walk into the kitchen. I nod back just as Mrs. Dick wraps me in one of her hugs.

  “How was your first day of seventh grade?” she asks.

  I shrug, tired of coming up with different ways to answer the same question. What do parents expect kids to say when they ask that?

  She opens the oven, releasing a cloud of the rancid smell I caught in the hallway.

  “Did you meet the new principal?”

  I shoot a look at Moby, who shakes his head. “Um, no.”

  “Probably better that you didn’t,” Jason says. He chucks my shoulder and laughs.

  The Colonel says, “Well, you guys don’t want to be late. How much longer on the mouse caca?”

  “It’s moussaka, and it’ll be done in ten minutes,” Mrs. Dick says. “But let it cool; you don’t want to burn your tongue on a piece of eggplant.”

  The Colonel shakes his head. “I guarantee that won’t happen.”

  Moby and I follow his parents to the front door and then watch as they pull out of the driveway. When the car disappears around the corner, Moby calls, “They’re gone!”

  The Colonel pokes his head in the family room. “You know what to do.” He whips his index finger around like a twister.

  Twenty minutes later, the moussaka is in the disposal and the pizza the Colonel ordered earlier arrives. I take a couple of slices, but the Colonel stacks extras on my plate like a delicious Jenga tower. “Can’t have any evidence. Leave no man behind.” We go to the table and dig in. “New CO, huh?” the Colonel says around a mouthful of half-chewed pizza.

  “What’s a CO?” I ask.

  Moby chokes down a bite. “Commanding officer. He means Ms. Lockhart.”

  “Oh yeah. We got a new principal.”

  “I heard something about that. Old guy got fired. They brought in some hotshot lady to whip that place into shape.”

  Am I the only one who didn’t know about this? “How’d you hear about it, sir?”

  “I don’t remember, some website. Pass the hot pepper flakes.”

  Moby rolls his eyes. “He
checks up on the school board sometimes to make sure they aren’t changing the history curriculum.”

  The Colonel shakes half the flakes in the little plastic cup onto a slice. “Last I checked America is eight and oh, with one tie. I just want to make sure they don’t mess with our record.”

  Moby and I trade looks.

  “I wouldn’t worry about the new principal,” he says. “She might come out of the gate like a rabid dog, but once she finds her cull, she’ll settle down.”

  I don’t know what that word means, but the sound of it makes me lose my appetite.

  “What’s a cull?” Moby asks.

  The Colonel sets down his pizza, takes a deep breath, and wipes sweat off his forehead. “It’s the oldest trick in the book. When you become the new boss, the best way to make sure nobody steps out of line is to make an example of somebody right away. You cull out the troublemaker.” He wipes his hands together. “No more trouble.”

  My scalp is sweating, even though I haven’t touched the peppers.

  “What if there isn’t a troublemaker?” I ask.

  “Oh, someone always stands out,” he says with a chuckle.

  My plan to lie low is looking smarter by the minute. If I don’t give her a reason, she’ll have to find someone else to be her cull. My appetite makes a little comeback and I pick up a slice of Hawaiian.

  “And if nobody volunteers, you just pick the guy with the reputation.”

  CHAPTER 4

  A cull sounds like a type of fish to me, which is probably why I have nightmares about hanging upside down while Mizz Lockhart poses next to me like a she’s just landed a prize marlin.

  The next morning, I trudge to class feeling the way I had last year, when a single misstep could’ve gotten me sentenced to a summer on my Uncle Stan’s potato farm in Poland. Today Moby’s jeans aren’t just too small; this pair has studs on them too. His butt sounds like the world’s biggest pepper grinder as he slides in to the desk next to me. Everyone turns and looks, but I hardly notice. When you’re bald in seventh grade, people turn and look at you a lot. Besides, people are always turning to see what sound Moby’s butt is making now.

  Moby rocks back and forth, clacking his beaded pockets on the chair until I put a hand on his arm and make him stop.

  “What?” He looks hurt. “If you move like this, the big beads kinda give you a massage.” He stares at me like he just saw a vampire. “You okay, Chub?”

  “I didn’t sleep well last night.” I let go of his arm and put my head on my desk.

  “That pizza tore me up too.”

  I consider telling him about the files yesterday in Lockhart’s office, but I decide to leave him in ignorant bliss as long as possible. There’s no reason for both of us to be completely stressed out, especially since I’m the one she really wants.

  Shelby glides into the room with Sizzler and they take the desks we saved for them. I nod hello, then put my head back on the desk.

  “Did she getcha?” Shelby grabs my shoulder to startle me and it works. I go from almost asleep to completely awake in less than a second.

  “Oh, she got him all right.” Moby shakes his head.

  Shelby suddenly looks concerned. “What the heck did she say to . . .”

  But I don’t hear the rest of her question because someone behind her catches my eye.

  Ronin Girl scurries into the room clutching her books to her chest. She sits at the desk closest to the radiator in the back corner of the classroom.

  My head swims. Does she have it with her? I crane my neck to examine her stack of books. I don’t see it. She’s probably keeping it in her locker so nobody bumps into it in the hall and damages one of the corners.

  Smart.

  Shelby snaps her fingers in front of my face, bringing me out of my trance. “What is your deal?”

  “Huh?”

  She traces my gaze across the room and finds Ronin Girl at the other end of it. Shelby makes sure I see her eyes roll before she folds her arms and slumps back in her chair.

  I put on my most wrongly accused face. “What?”

  “Never mind.” It’s the second time she’s caught me staring, but if she’s willing to let it drop, so am I.

  “Why are you staring at that new girl?” Moby spins in his seat to look at Ronin Girl too.

  “I wasn’t staring at her. I was just . . . checking for something.”

  Shelby lets out a snort and then refolds her arms hard enough to crack her pointy collarbone.

  Thankfully, the bell rings and Shelby stops her chicken-wing-origami demonstration.

  Our homeroom teacher this year, Mrs. Badalucco, waddles in just as the bell stops. It’s hard to tell if her dress is tie-dyed or just ringed with stains from years of dried sweat. She makes it to the desk huffing and puffing and flops into the chair. Everyone likes Mrs. B, so we wait quietly as she pulls a roll of paper towels out of her bag and mops the sweat off her forehead. She’s tearing off her third sheet to do her neck when the intercom squelches.

  “This is Principal Lockhart.” Lockhart’s frostbit voice comes over the speaker.

  Several students wince like someone’s dragging a fork across a plate.

  “There will be a mandatory assembly today during second period. The subjects will be discipline and school spirit. That is all.” The speaker clicks and dies.

  “So . . . you have that to look forward to.” Mrs. B winks. She feels our pain.

  I wrestle with a case of the sleepy head bobs and somehow live through homeroom. The bell wakes me with a start and I instinctively scan the room for Ronin Girl, but she apparently has ninja speed and used it to slip out.

  “She left.” Moby stuffs his books in his pack and shoulders it. He claps his hands and rubs them together Mr. Miyagi style. “Assembly time!”

  We make our way to the gym and take our usual spot in the back row, hidden in the shadows of the rafters. I used to sit up here to avoid running into the Arch, but now it’s just a good vantage point.

  Mr. Mayer’s podium is gone. Instead there’s a small table in the middle of the basketball court. Something sits on the table covered in a purple sheet.

  I point at the mystery object. “What’s that?”

  Moby shrugs.

  I try to make out the shape under the sheet, but no matter how hard I stare it doesn’t make any sense. Then the gym goes silent except for the sound of a pair of heels clacking across the basketball court. Lockhart looks like what a pair of scissors would resemble if it could walk. She makes a line for the table and puts a hand on it.

  She doesn’t have a mic; how are we supposed to hear her?

  “For those of you who have not met me yet, I am Mizzzzzzz Lockhart, and I am the new principal.” Never mind. Her voice is as loud and clear as if it’s coming through headphones in my ears.

  Moby nods, impressed by Lockhart’s unamplified volume.

  “As noted in the announcements this morning, I called this assembly for two reasons. First: discipline.”

  A wave of grumbling rolls through the bleachers.

  “Some of you have no doubt heard that I am quite strict.” She pauses for another wave of grumbling that confirms what she just said. “I can assure you, most of what you’ve heard . . . is true.”

  Out of the corner of my eye I see a face. I glance over and the Arch is looking straight up at me. He raises his eyebrows, then turns back around.

  “What was that about?” Moby says.

  “I have no idea.” I keep an eye on him in case he turns around again, but he doesn’t.

  “Disciplinary transgressions will NOT be tolerated.” The word “not” makes everyone jump. “And at the end of this school year, my reputation will be intact.”

  Someone to my left oooohs, and a couple of kids giggle. Lockhart’s head snaps toward the sound like a velociraptor and a hungry smirk splits her lips.

  “Which brings us to part two of this assembly.” Without taking her fingers off the table she walks around to
the other side of it.

  “A well-disciplined school is something to be proud of. With that in mind, I present a very special gift from the studio of a local genius artist, Wahoolie.” She pinches the top of the sheet and carefully lifts it off the object on the table.

  When the thing is exposed, I’m no closer to identifying what the heck it’s supposed to be. It looks like a three-foot-tall stack of purple snot.

  Someone snorts and someone else giggles, but mostly people just chuckle quietly and look around to see if anyone else gets it. Nobody does.

  I nudge Moby. “It looks like a deformed eggplant.”

  “It looks like a kangaroo,” Moby says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

  I rotate my head, but I don’t see it. “Nope, eggplant.”

  Then Lockhart touches the base of the thing and a light comes on inside of it. It gives off a weak purple glow. “I give you an original hand-blown glass masterpiece, Electric Kangaroo!” She stands back and admires the glowing blob.

  I still don’t see a kangaroo, I see snot. I look at Moby, stunned.

  “What?” he shrugs. “It is what it is.”

  I poke Moby with my elbow. “More like Electric Boogerloo if you ask me.”

  Moby chuckles.

  A kid in the row closest to us must’ve heard me. “Ha! Boogerloo.” He points at the thing and laughs, then someone farther down says it.

  The comment spreads faster than pee in a swimming pool, because a few seconds later someone in the lower section calls out, “Electric Boogerloooooooo!” and the gym ripples with nervous laughter.

  Lockhart takes her eyes off the Boogerloo and trains them on the heckler.

  “Mr. Moles, please come see me in my office before you return to class.”

  I look down where the comment came from. All the kids surrounding Danny Moles lean away from him as Danny hangs his head.

  “Where were we?” Lockhart continues. “Right. School spirit. When you pass this piece of art in the hall, let it fill you with pride at being an Alanmoore Kangaroo.”

  She pauses like she’s waiting for applause, but it doesn’t come.