Joshua T. Bates Takes Charge

by Susan Shreve

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  OTHER YEARLING BOOKS YOU WILL ENJOY

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  TROUT AND ME, Susan Shreve

  UNDER THE WATSONS’ PORCH, Susan Shreve

  DOGS DON’T TELL JOKES, Louis Sachar

  THERE’S A BOY IN THE GIRLS’ BATHROOM, Louis Sachar

  DONUTHEAD, Sue Stauffacher

  THE TROUBLE WITH TUCK, Theodore Taylor

  FLYING SOLO, Ralph Fletcher

  Published by Yearling, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books a division of Random House, Inc., New York

  Text copyright © 1993 by Susan Shreve

  Illustrations copyright © 1993 by Dan Andreasen

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

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  eISBN: 978-0-307-78903-7

  Reprinted by arrangement with Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers

  v3.1

  TO

  Abbai B., Adam F., Adam M., Adam W., Alex C., Andrew F., Caleb S., Chris B., Chris M., Chris Z., Colin M., David D., Francis F., Hamet W., Jim S., Kwame V., Liam G., Neal T., Paul T., Ryan G., and Sheeraz H.

  AND TO

  Kate McKay, whom they will always love

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  chapter one

  JOSHUA T. BATES was just beginning to recover from the worst year of his life. Even now, whenever he walked down the corridor to the library or up the steps to the gym or out to the playground, he was certain at least some of the children at Mirch Elementary were whispering, “That’s Joshua Bates. Remember? He’s the one who flunked third grade.”

  “Children forget what happened last year, darling,” his mother had told him. “And besides, you were promoted.”

  “You’re wrong about children,” Joshua said. “They always remember the bad things about you.”

  The bad thing that happened to Joshua was that at the end of third grade his parents were told by his teacher that he would have to repeat third grade. Which is exactly what happened that September when he should have been in the fourth grade. All that fall of his second year in third grade Joshua worked harder than he had ever worked in his life, and in November, after Thanksgiving, he was promoted to the fourth grade.

  Now Joshua had trouble sleeping. He worried about Miss Lacey’s fifth-grade math class, in which he was getting a D. He worried about baseball and whether he’d get to play pitcher this spring. He worried about the five dollars that he’d gotten from his grandmother for his birthday and lost when he was wearing his blue jeans with the hole in the pocket. But mostly he worried about being left out.

  In the fifth grade at Mirch Elementary the only possible way to be included as a regular boy was for Tommy Wilhelm to like you. The fact was, Tommy Wilhelm and Joshua not only were not friends, they were true enemies, and had been ever since Tommy pushed Joshua down the school steps in first grade and no one told the teacher, not even Joshua.

  Joshua was not exactly afraid of Tommy, but he was careful.

  It was the first day of school after holiday vacation, and already things had started badly for Joshua. He arrived at school bad-tempered. First off, for Christmas he got chickenpox, which meant that he couldn’t go skiing. Instead he had to stay at home with his mother and two-year-old sister Georgianna while his father had taken Amanda, his brainy older sister, skiing. As far as Joshua could tell, Amanda didn’t even know how to do anything except read books and talk on the telephone.

  And then this morning Georgianna spilled her applesauce on the new ski sweater Joshua had gotten for Christmas but hadn’t yet been able to wear because he couldn’t go skiing and had to spend most of his time in bed or on the couch watching TV, and as a result of having to wash off the applesauce he arrived at school late. Running up the steps of Mirch Elementary and right in front of Tommy Wilhelm and Billy Nickel, he fell, ripping one knee of his blue jeans and cutting his shin so that blood trickled down his leg.

  “Smooth move, Princess,” Billy said. He and Tommy laughed.

  “Yeah, Josh,” Tommy chipped in, “you okay? Do you need a nurse?”

  “Maybe he needs his mommy!” Billy said.

  “Yeah!” Tommy agreed.

  “Joshua needs his mommy! Joshua needs his mommy!” Tommy and Billy chanted. They burst out laughing.

  Billy walked up to Joshua.

  “What’s happened to your face, Joshua?” Billy asked. “You got zits like my sister and you’re only eleven.”

  “Chickenpox, lamebrain,” Joshua said. “Ever hear of chickenpox?”

  “Yeah, I heard of chickenpox.” Billy smirked. “But I had them in third grade, which means you must have had them twice!”

  “Good one, Billy!” Tommy roared. Billy grinned, and they exchanged high-fives.

  Joshua felt like punching them both right on the nose. Instead he climbed the rest of the stairs, passed through the big double doors of Mirch Elementary, limped down the hall, and took his regular seat in Mrs. Wooden’s fifth-grade class.

  TOMMY WILHELM was the chief commander of the fifth grade. He had short black curly hair and was built like a dump truck. He had a square face and bright pink cheeks. He was, hands down, the most powerful boy in the fifth grade, maybe in all of Mirch Elementary, as far as Joshua could tell. And he always had been, ever since first grade, when he arrived from Dallas, Texas, and immediately began beating up the smaller boys behind the equipment shed and pulling down the girls’ pants on the lower game field. Worst of all, Tommy hardly ever got in trouble. Even, for example, when he rubbed spit into Sally Loehr’s hair or pushed Adam Speth’s head into the toilet after gym class, no one told. All the students were afraid of him.

  Billy Nickel was his sidekick. What Tommy Wilhelm wanted done, Billy Nickel would do.

  When Joshua flunked third grade, Tommy teased him practically every day and even threatened to beat up any fourth grader who talked to Joshua or played with him, including Andrew Porter, Joshua’s best friend.

  Tommy and Joshua got into a fight.

  “You killed him!” Billy Nickel had shouted.

  “Not yet,” Joshua had said.

  Tommy Wilhelm had cried, and had even promised to stop teasing Joshua.

  “Okay,” Joshua had said.

 
But it wasn’t okay. In fact, it wasn’t okay at all.

  “GOOD MORNING, CLASS,” said Mrs. Wooden cheerfully. “And happy New Year.”

  “Good morning and happy New Year,” the children mumbled. Joshua rubbed his shin, which hurt, but the bleeding seemed to have stopped.

  “Children, we have a new student with us today. His name is Sean O’Malley, and he’s just arrived in Washington, D.C., from New Jersey.”

  Joshua had to crane his neck to see the new boy.

  “Looks more like he arrived from midget land,” someone whispered. Probably Tommy Wilhelm, Joshua thought. The class laughed, and Mrs. Wooden had to clap her hands for silence.

  She told the new boy to take the empty seat in the back.

  “Right next to Joshua Bates,” she said. The new boy walked quietly to his seat. He smiled at Joshua, but Joshua turned away before he had to smile back. Tommy Wilhelm made a fake kissing noise.

  “Joshua,” Mrs. Wooden announced, “seeing as Sean is new to Mirch Elementary, I think it would be nice if you showed him around.”

  Joshua groaned.

  “What did you say, Joshua?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Wooden.”

  “That’s better.”

  The truth was, the very last thing in the world Joshua wanted was to be linked up with Sean O’Malley from New Jersey. Joshua had enough problems already. And now he had practically been forced to promise Mrs. Wooden he would be friends with the new boy, who was hardly more than three feet tall, as far as Joshua could tell, and, according to Tommy, who was an authority, a creep besides.

  Soon after Mrs. Wooden began the lesson, Joshua was passed a note.

  DEAR JOSHUA, it read, YOU HAVE THE CUTEST SMILE! It was signed, LOVE, SEAN. Across the bottom of the note someone had drawn a series of red hearts.

  WHEN THE BELL RANG, Joshua waited impatiently while the red-haired midget slipped his Yankees jacket off the back of his chair, took his empty book bag from under the desk, and picked up his Mickey Mouse lunchbox.

  “I guess you just moved here,” Joshua said. Sean O’Malley was so short that the top of his head came just to Joshua’s shoulder.

  “Yesterday,” Sean said. “We used to live in Short Hills in a house with a swimming pool, but then my father got a new job.”

  Sean was bragging, Joshua thought, and he understood exactly how Sean felt. After all, Joshua had spent almost the whole of last year feeling just as small inside as Sean O’Malley in fact was.

  “Not one of my old friends could possibly like me now that I’ve flunked,” Joshua had told his mother.

  “Pretend it doesn’t matter, darling,” his mother had said.

  “But it does,” Joshua complained. “It matters a lot.”

  He and Sean walked down the hall past the library, past the principal’s office, past the other fifth graders on their way to math class. Joshua was certain the other children in the hall were laughing at the sight of him with this new boy and his Mickey Mouse lunchbox.

  “My dad hasn’t found a house with a swimming pool here,” Sean said.

  “We don’t have a lot of swimming pools in D.C.,” Joshua said. “Mostly in the summer we play baseball at the playground.”

  “I love baseball,” Sean said. “I was a pitcher for my Little League team. I was actually the best pitcher in Short Hills. For my age, that is.”

  Tommy and Billy fell in step with Joshua and Sean.

  “So you pitched for your Little League team?” Tommy asked.

  Billy looked Sean up and down. “Are you sure it wasn’t for the peewee league?”

  “Leave him alone,” Joshua warned, shouldering his way ahead, but Billy cut him off.

  “What’s your rush, Joshua?” Billy asked. His voice dropped to a whisper. “You and your girlfriend late for a date?” Joshua felt his face go very red and his fists tighten.

  “Yeah, relax, Joshua,” Tommy jumped in. “We just wanted to know if the new kid wanted to try out for our baseball team.” Tommy turned to Sean. “How ’bout it, kid? You want to try out?”

  “Sure,” Sean said.

  “Great,” Tommy said. “We’ll try you out at recess.”

  “Okay,” Sean said.

  Tommy and Billy walked off.

  At that moment Joshua T. Bates knew in his heart the red-haired midget was finished as a fifth grader at Mirch Elementary.

  MATH CLASS, as always, began right on time. But just as Miss Lacey, pencil thin with a high fluty voice, clapped her hands to say that class would begin, Tommy Wilhelm called out, loud enough for the whole class to hear, “Awesome lunchbox, Sean. Where in the world did you get it?”

  The class rumbled with laughter. Even Joshua laughed.

  Miss Lacey clapped her hands again. “That’s quite enough, class. Now let’s begin.”

  Sean leaned over while Miss Lacey was writing fractions on the board for a math quiz.

  “I hope we’ll be good friends,” he whispered to Joshua.

  “Sure,” Joshua said.

  “My best friend in Short Hills was named Joshua, too,” Sean said. “Maybe we’ll get to be best friends.”

  Joshua felt doomed. He couldn’t concentrate on the subtraction of fractions—or anything else for that matter. All he could think about were the plans the red-haired midget was making to be his best friend.

  The fact was, Joshua already had a best friend. Andrew Porter. But that wasn’t the real problem either. The real problem was Tommy Wilhelm. And the NOs. Nerds Out. It was a secret club Tommy had started after Joshua was promoted back into the fourth grade. “So we don’t have to waste our time with nerds,” Tommy had said.

  Nerds like me, Joshua thought. And Joey Taggart, who had left Mirch Elementary, and Sammy Fox, who now went to a private school. Some nerds stayed, like Peter Sears, and simply made friends with other nerds or with kids in lower grades, which was practically the same thing. All because of Tommy Wilhelm and the NOs.

  Joshua sighed. It just isn’t fair.

  Not surprisingly, when Miss Lacey handed back the quiz, Joshua had missed six out of ten problems and flunked.

  “I don’t believe you were thinking, Joshua Bates,” Miss Lacey announced practically to the whole class.

  Of course he wasn’t thinking, Joshua thought miserably. His life was in peril, and this was only the beginning. Today he flunked a math quiz. Soon he would be flunking everything, even composition. Before he knew it, he’d be stuck in fifth grade. Probably forever. It was going to be just like last year. And all on account of the new kid.

  THE BELL RANG for art before Miss Lacey could think of any more insults. Art was the one period of the day besides gym that made going to school tolerable. All the boys leaped out of their chairs and barreled out of math class down the back steps to art, except Joshua, who had to wait for Sean O’Malley. By the time he got to art class all the tables were taken, except, of course, the table in the back next to the window, where the nerds sat.

  Joshua had to pass Tommy on the way to his seat.

  “Hey, Bates,” Tommy said, “I saved you a seat in the back with the nerds.” A couple of the boys at Tommy’s table laughed. “Or maybe you and your new girlfriend would rather sit with the other girls.”

  “Yeah, Sean,” Billy Nickel said, “you and Joshua want to sit with your girlfriends?”

  Before Joshua had a chance to do what he wanted to do, which was to knock Tommy Wilhelm on the head and Billy Nickel too while he was at it, Mr. Webb told him to quit talking and take his seat.

  “But I didn’t say anything,” Joshua complained.

  “Joshua,” Mr. Webb said, “I don’t want to have to tell you twice.” He pointed his finger at the table in the back.

  Tommy grinned. “Sucker.”

  Joshua, with Sean stuck to him like glue, walked to the table at the back of the room. On the way he passed Andrew Porter.

  “I tried to save you a seat,” Andrew whispered.

  Joshua shrugged. He put his books down next to Brian
Feller.

  “Welcome to nerdville,” Brian said, and quickly added, “that’s a joke.”

  Joshua looked at him without smiling.

  “TODAY,” MR. WEBB SAID, “we will begin making bird feeders.” Some children groaned. A few kids, girls probably, clapped. “And for this project,” Mr. Webb went on, “we’ll be using partners.”

  Joshua threw his hand into the air.

  “Yes, Joshua,” Mr. Webb said a little wearily. “What is it now?”

  “I want Andrew Porter as a partner.”

  “Sorry, Joshua,” Mr. Webb said. “Partners have already been assigned.”

  Darn, Joshua thought. Mr. Webb began to read off the partners from a list. With each name Joshua felt more and more sick. He knew his name would be called last.

  Finally Mr. Webb put down the list and said, “Is there anyone whose name I haven’t called?”

  Reluctantly Joshua raised his hand.

  “Joshua,” Mr. Webb said. “Anyone else?”

  The red-haired midget raised his hand. Mr. Webb looked out over the class, smiled, looked back down at his list, and looked up again.

  “Sean O’Malley,” Mr. Webb said. “The new boy.”

  “The new boy from New Girly,” Tommy blurted.

  “Joshua,” Mr. Webb said, “I guess you and Sean are partners.”

  It was only the first Monday morning of the first week after vacation, and already the winter was looking long and dark for Joshua T. Bates.

  chapter two

  IT WAS WARM for January, damp but not raining, although the baseball field was wet and slippery. When the bell for recess rang, Joshua reluctantly followed Sean O’Malley to his locker, number 39—two down from Joshua’s—and put on his own ski jacket and wool cap.

  “I don’t even have my baseball glove,” Sean said to Joshua.

  “Who does?” Joshua said. “It’s a dumb idea to play baseball in the winter.”

  Andrew Porter walked up. “What’s going on?” he asked Joshua.

  “Tommy wants to see how Sean is as a pitcher,” Joshua said.

  “Sure,” Andrew said. “I bet that’s just what he has in mind.” Andrew did not like Tommy Wilhelm either. He never had, but he steered clear of trouble. Because Andrew was so smart and got all A’s, Tommy Wilhelm pretty much left him alone.