Do Bananas Chew Gum?

by Jamie Gilson

  “Would I ever!” I told him, feeling much better. “My folks took me once to this place hunting for Herkimer diamonds—they’re just quartz, really, but they sparkle like diamonds, so that’s what they call them. Anyway, I found three big ones. Everybody was coming around looking at them and all. It was neat.”

  “Come at eight-thirty. It’s a couple hours’ drive.”

  “Where do you live?”

  “Over on Forest. I’ll write it down for you. What did Alicia want you so bad for yesterday anyway?”

  “She … she’s …” I started, but I couldn’t tell him what Alicia knew about me. And what the other girls probably knew. And Mrs. Bird. And then I just blinked and knew that Wally wasn’t going to be my real friend either. Not when he found out. Who wants a dope for a friend? “Oh,” I told him, “she just wanted to tell me Mrs. Bird was looking for me after school.”

  “Yeah, she was. I heard her shouting after you down the hall. But you were sailing out of here like an electric Frisbee.”

  The last bell rang and everybody shuffled around to their seats. After attendance, cafeteria count, and current events, Mrs. Bird announced, “People, today is Friday the thirteenth. And to dispel the superstition that this is an unlucky day, I thought we might do something special, just for fun. Instead of the spelling test scheduled for this morning—which might have been unlucky for some of you—we’ll have …” and she paused and laughed a little at how clever she was. (A morning of recess? I wondered. Cartoons and pizza? No more school ever?) “A spelling bee, an old-fashioned spelling bee,” she said.

  Nobody whooped for sheer joy. “Well,” she went on, “perhaps you’d prefer the test.”

  “Spelling bee,” a kid in the back called out.

  “Neither,” I said, louder than I meant to. I kicked Alicia’s chair in rhythm (dum-dum-dum-dum).

  “Each team will choose the words for their opposites,” the Bird went on. “And, well, now, let’s pick the captains.” Alicia waved her hand in the air like she wanted to set it in orbit. “All right, Alicia, you may be one, and … and we’ll let our other new pupil, Sammy Mott, be the other.”

  Alicia leaned back and smiled at me. I didn’t smile back. We chose sides. Alicia picked Wally first off. “No fair,” he groaned, and everybody laughed.

  “People, if you’re not going to settle down we’ll just cancel the fun,” Mrs. Bird announced.

  So Alicia and me kept going till everybody was on a team. The Bird lined us up, Alicia’s fifteen kids by the windows and mine by the bulletin board.

  “Captains last,” Alicia ruled, and started shooting off big words at our team. We were dropping like flies with “Mercurochrome” and “noxious” and “pneumonia.” I mean, a lot of people were messing up.

  Our words for them weren’t so bad either. We gave them “ludicrous,” which my mom uses a lot, and “antidisestablishmentarianism,” which the kid got right, if Mrs. Bird can be trusted. Really, even when people lost it wasn’t awful because the words sounded so hard you had to be a genius, practically, to get them right. It was almost fun.

  I thought hard about what to give Alicia. But I didn’t know what words were hard to spell. Almost everything big is hard for me. Kids were saying that “antidisestablishmentarianism” wasn’t really hard, and if that wasn’t, what was? Finally, as she was standing there, waiting, I hit on the right word for Alicia. “Malocclusion,” I said, thinking of the famous severe malocclusion of the upper mandibular palate.

  “Malocclusion,” Alicia said, remembering to say the word first.

  “M-A-L …” She bit her lip and stared at the floor. “M-A-L-I-C-C-L-U-S-I-O-N.” She looked at me. “Is that right?”

  I didn’t know if it was right or not.

  “No, Alicia,” Mrs. Bird said. “I’m afraid today is unlucky for you. The word begins M-A-L-O, not M-A-L-I.”

  “Sammy pronounced it wrong,” Alicia said, her voice high and wavering. She wasn’t used to losing. “He gave it to me wrong.”

  Mrs. Bird shook her head no. “We must be good sports,” she said.

  “So now he has to spell it,” Alicia went on. “When one person gets a word wrong, the next one has to spell it.”

  She was really mad at me. And I hadn’t even meant anything bad by it. I didn’t know it was all that hard. For all I knew there weren’t any words she couldn’t spell.

  “Malocclusion, Sammy,” Alicia said, her voice still raised.

  “No, no, I’ve already let the cat out of the bag on that one,” Mrs. Bird insisted. “You’ll just have to think of another. I’m sure you’ll think of something.”

  “What’s the score?” Alicia asked.

  “It’s tied,” Mrs. Bird said. “There are five left on each team, but we don’t care about the score. And there are no grades. This is just for fun.”

  Fun, like those roller coasters that shoot backward and make you throw up. “I’m sorry,” I said to Alicia.

  She looked at me, startled. “Sorry?” she asked. “You’re not supposed to be sorry. You’re supposed to be glad. That’s cute.” She turned to the girl next to her, and whispered in her ear.

  “A-lish-a,” the girl said, giggling. “That’s silly.”

  “All right,” Alicia said to me, “I have it.”

  I stood there, my heart beating like the guns in war movies—bam-bam-pow-bam-boom. Alicia waited until everyone was listening.

  “Sammy,” she said, “your word is … ‘cute.’”

  Half her team groaned. The other half laughed. “Geez, Alicia,” a kid complained.

  My team cheered. “She gave it to us,” somebody yelled.

  I froze between the ears. She did it to prove how smart she is, I thought. I tried to trace the word on my jeans with my fingernail. Sometimes it helps to scratch it out and feel how it looks. But I had already waited too long. Everybody but the gigglers were quiet.

  I couldn’t remember seeing the word anywhere, so I tried to sound it out. “Cute,” I said, and got some more laughs. “Q,” I started. “Q-T, cute.” I felt like a mouse caught in a spring trap.

  Alicia shook her head slightly. Then she started whispering something, mouthing the letters, but all I could make out was “U.”

  “Q-U-T,” I tried fast.

  Her eyes got a queer, scared look, and she shook her head again.

  “No,” I corrected myself, “Q-T-U.” Maybe that’s what she meant.

  “You cutie, you,” the girl next to me shouted, breaking up.

  Alicia’s team cheered. Then everybody started going like a laugh track on prime-time TV. Except for Alicia they were all giggling, howling, and snickering.

  I’d gotten myself out of stuff like that before. “Oh, isn’t that crazy! How could I have said that? I didn’t mean it.” I laughed like a master of ceremonies. “She pronounced it wrong.” But it was no-win this time. I didn’t have the energy to be a clown any longer so I just sagged down at my desk.

  “Well, then,” Mrs. Bird broke in over the noise, “now both captains are eliminated. And that leaves five on Alicia’s side and four on Sammy’s. You certainly have been choosing challenging words.” And they roared even louder. “People! People!” she commanded.

  I didn’t really know what had happened. But it was making me sick. I just got up and left the room.

  “Bye, bye, cutie,” I heard somebody say.

  I went to the bathroom and threw up my breakfast, got my red jacket off the floor of my locker, and walked down the steps and out the side door. I didn’t know where I was going, but the minute I opened the door I felt better.

  I headed uptown past the travel agency and Dr. Reynolds’ office. My braces still weren’t wired and I could imagine my teeth easing themselves back to where they’d started out a month ago. Severely maloccluded. With an O somewhere in the middle.

  Alicia missed, too, I thought. But it didn’t do much good thinking that. “Malocclusion” was like high-school hard, but “cute” was nothing. Less than noth
ing. How bad had I spelled it?

  In my pocket I had a Susan B. Anthony dollar my mom had given me, so I went into Baskin-Robbins. One of the flavors looked just like I felt but I couldn’t read what kind of ice cream it was.

  “What’s that?” I asked, pointing.

  “Licorice,” the guy said. “Want a taste?”

  “No, thanks,” I told him. “I’ll have a dip of vanilla.”

  “You not in school today?” he asked.

  “No, I’m home sick,” I told him and left, jingling the change in my pocket.

  I should just light out, I thought, and hitchhike across the country. For a while I even held my thumb out to see what would happen, but nobody stopped. Then I remembered hearing Mom say that nobody would ever hire me. So how would I live? I couldn’t even read the name of the street I was standing on.

  The way those kids had laughed, I thought maybe I could make a bundle on TV just spelling words wrong. I’d be a riot. Even Wally had been laughing.

  I reached in my pocket to get his address so I could throw it away. I wouldn’t be needing it. But it wasn’t there. It wasn’t there. I decided I must have lost it when I got the money out for the ice cream.

  And then it hit me—what was really happening. I’m not even a finder anymore, I thought. I’m a loser. I lost my storm paper. I lost Wally’s address. I lost the game, the fun, fun game. Maybe the whole game.

  I ducked in the drugstore, stared at the caramels, and just generally hacked around until I was afraid maybe the lady who was stacking shampoo would call the police or something on me. The library was just down the street and they don’t hassle you there, so I went in and headed for the Children’s Room. Stacked down at the end where my mom had showed me were the Easy Books. Easy for second graders, hard for dumbheads. I saw this book I’d read in California about a bear. I could read all the words and used to like the way this baby bear wandered off and sat on a …

  Suddenly I laughed out loud, and a lady and her kid dragging a stuffed rabbit looked at me funny. I was remembering how I had a book report due next week, my first one at this school. I just knew there’d be some kid who’d write one about a huge book on the French (Fresh) Revolution or something. And then I’d get a big whammo Sammo laugh handing mine in on Baby Bear and the Ant Hill.

  I asked the librarian and he showed me where the archeology books were, but even looking at the titles made me feel so bad I didn’t take one off the shelf. I just headed for the front door. The library has a warning system, two tall columns you walk between. If you’re stealing a book, sirens go off. I was sure it would go off for me. Not for stealing books. That’s the last thing I’d want to steal. It’s just that I was me and I wasn’t in school.

  When I dashed through fast the siren didn’t even whine. At least it wasn’t going to tell.

  The flashing lights of the bank clock down the street said 1:13 and 63° F., 17° C. And it was raining, a steady downpour from a light gray sky. Up ahead I saw the silver canopy at my orthodontist’s. Mrs. Glass had called it the Professional Building. I stood in front in the rain until I figured out that’s what it said. But I wasn’t sure if I knew it said Professional Building because that’s how I’d sounded it out or because that’s what Mrs. Glass had said it said.

  I ducked under the canopy and, just by habit, climbed the steps to Dr. Reynolds’ office.

  “Sam Mott,” I told the receptionist. “I’m here for my one o’clock appointment.”

  She ran her finger down her appointment calendar. “I don’t have you down for one o’clock,” she said. “In fact, I don’t have you down for today at all.”

  “Can’t I just wait?” I asked her. “I got out of school and all.”

  “I don’t know where your mother got the idea you had an appointment today.”

  I just stood there. It was her move. “Oh, all right,” she said. “We’ll squeeze you in. But you’ll have to wait.”

  I don’t know why I wanted to get my teeth pulled together. Somehow I thought it might help. I wondered what Dr. Reynolds would say if I asked him to tighten the screws in my head.

  But when he finally sat me down and laced me up, Dr. Reynolds did most of the talking. He told me all about how he’d come in from the hall on tornado day to find his window broken and the smile mobile blown all the way over in the sink, how he’d gotten a flat tire on the way home, and how it had been a crazy, crazy day, hadn’t it?

  “Og,” I said.

  At three o’clock I headed back to school to pick up the kids at the kindergarten door. The rain had stopped and the sky was clearing. What would have happened to them if somebody had given me a ride to Denver or New York City or someplace and I hadn’t been there like I’d said? Probably nothing. They were smart kids.

  I ran fast so I wouldn’t have to talk to anybody I met. When I did pass a guy from my class, he yelled, “Hey, Cutes, where were you?” and tried to stop me. But I dodged past. Alicia spotted me, too, and she turned to run in my direction.

  “Are you ever in trouble!” she said. “They were looking all over for you. I told the girls you probably were mad at me for giving you such a silly word and that’s why you didn’t spell it. I just thought it would be funny, Sam. I honestly didn’t know you couldn’t handle it. I thought it was easy enough. Sammy”—she grabbed my arm and we ran along together with her tugging at my sleeve—“you’ve really got a problem. Would you like me to be your tutor? I’d be very good. I expect I could work miracles.”

  That’s all I needed. I shoved her off so she landed in the grass.

  “That’s all right, Sammy,” she called after me as I ran. Like she understood me. I don’t know why, but that made me even madder.

  The boys were rolling in the dandelions. I herded them up and we lost Miss Priss running home. Maybe she wasn’t even following.

  There was a package of bran muffins and a bowl of green grapes on the kitchen table. And a printed note.

  I sent the kids to let Rooster out of his basement prison and sat down with the note. It was pretty easy. It took me awhile but I could read it. Mrs. G. was learning how to write for dumbheads. She knew. Strike three, I thought. No more baby-sitting these funny kids.

  “Sam,” it read. “Walk the dog. Feed the kids. I want to talk to you. Mrs. Glass. P.S. Brenda left this book for you.” It was a book for kids about archeology. I knew it even though I couldn’t read the word on the cover. There were pictures in it like you wouldn’t believe of gold masks and big stones with writing on them and a half dug-up statue. As I looked through it I saw one chapter called “Fakes.” More than anything, more than anything I wanted to read that book all the way through like I was a brain.

  “Forget the book. Let’s take Rooster out,” Alex said. And Chuck pushed open the door and disappeared with the dog into the backyard. I flung the book on the table and followed him.

  In the backyard power saws were buzzing. On the front porch two men were fitting in new windowpanes. The place was screaming with action.

  After running around the block and cleaning up after Rooster, we hurried into the backyard to watch the tree men slice branches off the maple tree and feed them into a fierce wood-grinding truck. We hung around until they told us to “get outta here or you’ll get splinters in your eyes.” We watched the window guys, too. “Stay back,” they said. “Wouldn’t want to slice you up,” and then they laughed like ha-ha-ha they would, too.

  I got the kids in, finally, by telling them we’d play hide and seek. They’d seek and I’d hide. While they counted to a hundred in the kitchen—skipping numbers, I could hear them—I grabbed an NFL comforter from the unmade bottom bunk. The pillow fell off the bed and in its place sat a stale marshmallow. I flung the pillow back on top of it, wondering which kid it was who was trying to hatch a petrified dinosaur egg.

  Pulling the comforter over me and settling down flat next to the bed, I felt the cat step carefully over my humps and curl on top of me. It was warm and dark in my hiding place. I cl
osed my eyes and pretended to be in a tight cocoon, like one I once saw in a movie at school. When I finally broke free, I thought, I would fly away.

  I could hear them turning the place upside down looking for me. In the living room, the shower stall, closets, dresser drawers. Once when Rooster came over and started sniffing the comforter, they yanked him back.

  “Rooster, you leave Al alone. He’s a sleeping cat.”

  Before long I heard the front door open and Mrs. Glass’s voice say, “I got a ride home from the office, dear hearts. Where are you?”

  “Alley, alley, in come free,” Chuck bellowed.

  “Game’s over!” Alex yelled.

  “What on earth?” Mrs. Glass said.

  “We can’t find Sam,” Alex told her.

  “Can’t find Sam?” she asked, sounding alarmed.

  I flung off the cat, got to my feet, and staggered into the front hall, the comforter draped over my shoulders. “We were playing hide and seek,” I told her. “That’s why they couldn’t find me. I was under the cat.”

  “Under Al?” she asked. “That cat’s going to have to go on a good diet.” She handed Alex a grocery bag. “Alex, you and Chuckie put these groceries away and set the table—fork on the left, knife and spoon on the right—and don’t eat any of the cookies. Sam and I have something to talk about.”

  9

  Some Butterfly

  “SOMETHING’S WRONG, isn’t it, Sam?” Mrs. Glass asked, peering at me like she could see behind my eyes.

  “Wrong?” I asked, and waited.

  “Oh, come on! Look, my kids think you’re the greatest baby-sitter this side of Santa Claus. I think you’re nifty, too, but I’m not sure I understand you. Maybe I should call your parents. But I think you should level with me.”

  “Level with you?” I asked. I flung the comforter onto the floor and, rubbing Rooster’s ears, thought how funny it was my cocoon hadn’t turned me into something better. Some butterfly I’d turned out to be.