by Lisa Yee
Everyone held their frozen smiles as the photographer squinted. “You there, and you and you and you,” she said, pointing at several boys. “Your shirts are on backward and inside out. I can see the tags in the front!”
Bobby and the others shifted nervously.
Mrs. Carlson surveyed her class. “Boys,” she said, shaking her head. “You have exactly two minutes to step outside and fix your shirts.”
Even though Jillian Zarr was in the back row, Bobby knew she had a smug smile on her face.
The boys began to stomp down the risers and make their way out of the auditorium, when Chess suddenly stopped and declared, “Freedom of speech!”
Everyone looked surprised.
“Freedom of speech,” he repeated. “Mrs. Carlson, you’re teaching us about freedom of speech and expression, and this is one way we’re making a statement.”
Mrs. Carlson asked, “Chess, exactly what statement are you boys trying to make?”
“I don’t know,” Chess said, pointing to Bobby. “Ask him. He started it.”
The rest of the boys nodded and pointed to Bobby.
Bobby wanted to pull his shirt up over his head and hide. Finally, he stammered, “Um, the freedom to, um, to wear clothes however?”
Could he go to prison for this? Bobby wondered. He imagined himself behind bars with nothing to eat but stale bread crusts and brown water.
Chess jumped in. “See, it’s our right as American citizens to express ourselves by what we wear.”
Mrs. Carlson laughed. “Well, you do have a point. And your clothes aren’t offensive. I’ll tell you what…. If you think your parents will be okay with it, then I will be too. Now then, back into position, everyone!”
“Are you sure?” the photographer asked.
Mrs. Carlson nodded. As Bobby exhaled, the boys grinned at each other and the girls frowned.
“Don’t forget, we’re still doing what we promised to do,” St. James whispered.
Bobby was game for anything now. So when the photographer counted “One … two … three!” he made the silliest, goofiest face he could.
As they gathered around for dinner, the Ellis-Chan family all talked at once. Sometimes it was hard to get a word in, but Bobby was used to that.
“I want to get some clean dirt for Wormy Worm Worm,” Casey was telling her mother. “The dirt he has now is all dirty.”
“Then what did your coach say?” Mr. Ellis-Chan asked Annie. He could get very focused when talking football.
“Coach says that I have a great throwing arm, but that I need to practice more.” Annie stopped talking just long enough to poke her father’s double crusted mac ’n’ cheese ’n’ cabbage ’n’ carrots.
“I’m going to be Annie’s dog,” Bobby volunteered. When no one paid attention, he repeated himself louder. “I’m going to be Annie’s dog!”
His big sister frowned. “I don’t want you to be my dog.”
“No, I’m going to be in the musical about Little Orphan Annie and play Sandy, the dog.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful,” his mother said. “Bobby, you’ll make a great dog. I just know it.”
Bobby felt warm inside. It was true, he thought. He’d make the greatest dog, not just in the entire world, but in the entire solar system. Bobby loved dogs and even considered himself an expert on all things dog. If he didn’t have asthma and wasn’t allergic to fur, he would have five dogs, maybe ten or even twenty.
“Dad, did you hear? I’m going to be a dog!” Bobby took a bite of his father’s latest creation and then quickly drank some milk.
“What if we had a more regimented series of backyard drills?” Mr. Ellis-Chan asked Annie. “I can even show you some we used to do when I played for the Earthquakes.”
“Cool!” Annie said. “Can we do it right after we finish eating?”
“Of course,” her father replied. “I love it that you’re living your dream. Wow, my daughter is quarterback of the high school football team! Have I told you how proud I am?”
“Yeah.” Annie laughed. “Like about a million times!”
“Dad?” Bobby said meekly. “I’m going to be a dog.”
But his father was too busy talking to Annie to hear him. Why would he even care that his son was going to be a dog when his daughter was a football star?
Later, as Mr. Ellis-Chan guided Annie through her football drills, Bobby watched them from his bedroom window. “He’s not like me,” Bobby recalled his father telling Annie. What exactly did that mean? That Bobby wasn’t as brave as his father? That he wasn’t as athletic as his father? That he wasn’t as popular as his father? That he wasn’t as big and strong as his father?
Bobby’s shoulders slumped. It probably meant all those things and more. The two of them couldn’t be more different.
Over in the garden, Bobby could also see his mom tending to her zinnias and Casey talking to Wormy Worm Worm.
“Look, I brought you a present,” his little sister was saying. She loved giving presents and just yesterday had insisted that Bobby keep the butterfly barrette she gave him. He smiled as Casey tried to coax her worm into sitting up straight in a doll-house chair.
“Great job!” Mr. Ellis-Chan yelled to Annie when she mowed down all the empty cans on the brick wall with her throws. “Oh man, you were right on target every time. Let’s see that again; I know you can do it!”
Bobby closed the window and then retrieved his wooden cigar box from his bookshelf. It housed some of his most valuable possessions: Gramps’s gold cuff links; an odd-shaped piece of metal, possibly from an alien spacecraft; a photo of Mr. Ellis-Chan holding the two-year-old Bobby in a football jersey with the entire LA Earthquakes team surrounding them. Bobby found what he was looking for under a broken stopwatch.
Gingerly, he took out the tiny soccer ball and cradled it in the palm of his hand. It was about the size of a marble and had belonged to Rover. Rover had been Bobby’s beloved goldfish, but he had died in a tragic bubble-bath accident. It still pained Bobby to think about it.
As Bobby dropped the soccer ball in the aquarium, Koloff and Beatrice swam away from it. “Come on, you two, try to push the ball!” Bobby coached. “Rover loved playing with his soccer ball. He could push it all around the tank and even get it into the soccer net. Give it a try. Come on, I know you can do it!”
Koloff and Beatrice did not seem interested. Not even Diver Dave, the plastic diver who swam up and down, up and down, wanted anything to do with the ball.
“Okay then, how about this?” Bobby said, giving them hand signals. Rover had been able to follow Bobby’s commands to swim though hoops and in circles. When Koloff and Beatrice didn’t respond, Bobby gave up.
“That’s okay,” he assured the fish. “Sometimes these things take time.”
“Mmmmmmmmm …”
The morning started off great. At the urging of his family, Mr. Ellis-Chan served his delicious homemade cinnamon rolls for breakfast. It was the one thing he made that the entire family loved. “Mmmmmmm,” Bobby said again as he took another bite. “Dad, you should make your cinnamon rolls for every meal!”
“Thanks, son,” his father said, beaming.
At school, Mrs. Carlson taught the class the songs from Annie. Bobby was glad he didn’t have a solo; pretending to sing along was hard enough. Jillian Zarr’s singing sounded just like her talking, except louder. St. James was a terrible singer, but he didn’t seem to notice. Holly was great as Miss Hannigan and had everyone laughing, especially because Miss Hannigan was mean and Holly was always nice. But the big surprise was Swoozie. Bobby had hardly noticed her before. She was just one of the girls in Jillian Zarr’s wolf pack. Yet when Swoozie sang, it was like she was someone else entirely. She was a star.
Bobby wondered what that would be like — to be a star. His dad was a famous ex-football player, and Annie was the star of her high school football team. His mom was a star at her company, Go Girly Girl, and had been named employee of the month twice. Even Cas
ey had people fawning over her wherever she went because she was so cute. But Bobby, well, he was just plain Bobby.
Later, during lunch, St. James asked, “If you could have one superpower, what would it be? I’d like to fly.” To prove this, he jumped up and, with his arms extended, ran around the lunch tables until a lunch lady made him stop.
“I’d read minds,” Chess said as St. James was getting lectured.
“I would be invisible,” Jackson said, nodding. “Yep. Invisible, so I could spy on people. Either that or be a diabolical super genius. What about you, Bobby?”
“Superhuman strength,” Bobby answered. He imagined himself making the winning Super Bowl touchdown as his father cheered, “That’s my boy — I am so proud of him!”
“Superhuman strength?” St. James repeated when he was allowed to sit back down. “That’ll come in handy in PE. Did you hear? We got a new PE teacher. And get a load of this, his name is … Mr. Wiener House!”
“Wiener House?” Jackson said, laughing so hard that milk almost came out his nose.
“Yeah, Wiener House!” St. James said as the boys cracked up.
“Wiener House! Wiener House! Wiener House!” they chanted as the bell rang.
As the students of Room 15 stood in straight rows on the playground, their new PE teacher looked them over and frowned. Bobby thought Mr. Wiener House looked mean, like that man in the bathtub cleaner commercial who scrubbed away stubborn dirt and soap scum.
“When I call your name, say ‘here,’” the PE teacher ordered.
“Amy Aoki?”
“Here.”
“Jackson Chavez?”
“Here.”
“Robert Ellis-Chan?”
Bobby gulped. “Um, excuse me, Mr. Wiener House? Can you call me Bobby instead of Robert?”
Bobby watched as the new PE teacher’s face went from pale to pink to a deep dark red. “What did you say?”
Bobby felt himself shrink. “Bobby. If you could call me —”
“What did you just call me?” the teacher boomed.
“Mr. Wiener House?”
All the kids were snickering, especially St. James.
“It’s Rainerhaus. My name is Mr. Rainerhaus. It’s pronounced Rain-er-house. And you, Robert, can sit on that bench for the rest of PE. I will not tolerate smart alecks!”
Bobby glared at St. James as he made his way to the bench. St. James was famous for stirring up trouble, and usually Bobby thought it was funny — except when he was at the center of it.
Sitting alone, Bobby watched his class play soccer. They looked like they were having fun. His dad would never have let himself get tricked like that. Bobby was glad his father wasn’t there to see him sitting on the sidelines.
That afternoon when Bobby got home, Casey was outside explaining leprechauns and rainbows to Wormy Worm Worm. Bobby waved hello to her and went on into the kitchen, where he found his father.
“Hi, Bobby!” Mr. Ellis-Chan said as he rinsed the mixing bowl. “How would you like to be the first to try my blueberry-tomato cookies?”
Bobby looked at the lumps on the plate and shook his head. “No thanks, Dad. Maybe later.”
For a split second his father looked disappointed. But he quickly composed himself and asked, “Everything okay, son?”
“Everything’s just fine,” Bobby said as he rushed to his room. He couldn’t bear to tell his father about what had happened in PE.
Koloff and Beatrice were swimming back and forth. Diver Dave was swimming up and down. Bobby watched them for a while before releasing a huge sigh. “I got in trouble at school today and had to sit on a bench during PE,” he confessed to them. “You probably have no idea what it’s like to be stuck in one spot for a whole hour.”
Beatrice stopped swimming and then began to circle the tank. She was a pretty white fish with orange spots. Koloff, who was all orange, was skimming the rocks on the bottom of the aquarium.
Bobby leapt up. “Oh my gosh, you do know. You’re stuck in this aquarium all day and night.” He paced his room. “Wait,” he said as he ran his hands through his hair. “Just because I was benched doesn’t mean you have to be too!”
“What are you doing with that spoon?”
Casey looked up at Bobby. She had dirt on her face and all over her gown. “Digging a lake for Wormy Worm Worm. Want to help?”
“No thanks,” Bobby said. “Hey, can I borrow your Princess Becky wagon?”
“What for?” she asked as she emptied a cup of water into the hole.
“I want to take the goldfish for a walk,” Bobby explained. “They don’t get out much.”
“Fishy Fish Fish and Fish Fishy Fish?” Casey said.
“They have names, you know,” Bobby grumbled. It bugged him that she was always making up dumb names. “It’s Koloff and Beatrice.” Those were great names. Koloff was named after the amazingly sticky and stinky Koloff tree at the Huntington Gardens. Bobby knew that tree really well, having been stuck to it on a class field trip. Beatrice was the name Holly had given the other fish. Technically, Beatrice belonged to Holly, but really she was both of theirs.
“Okeydokey, Koloff and Beatrice. Don’t be mad, Bobby.”
Instantly, Bobby felt guilty that he had snapped at Casey.
“Bobby, can Wormy Worm Worm go for a walk too? He doesn’t get out much.”
Bobby nodded. If that was the price of borrowing her wagon, then it would be worth it. He had considered balancing the fishbowl on his skateboard and pulling it with a rope, but that seemed too risky. Yes, the wagon was the best form of transportation. After all, didn’t the settlers cross the plains in covered wagons? Bobby imagined his fish were the pioneers and he was the horse.
There was lots of preparation for Koloff and Beatrice’s big adventure. First, Bobby cleaned out the wagon and put all of Casey’s dolls and plastic Smiley Meal Princess Becky toys in a pile. Then he lined the wagon with a bath towel for maximum comfort. Back in his room, it took a while to transfer Beatrice and Koloff into the glass bowl with a fish net.
Bobby carried the bowl with both hands, taking small steps so the water wouldn’t spill. Along the way he said in a soothing voice, “Don’t worry, guys. I’ll take care of you. You’re going to have a great time.”
Casey filled her empty water cup with dirt and dropped her worm into it as Bobby carefully placed the fishbowl in the wagon. “We’ll have to go slow so the water doesn’t slosh,” he explained to her. “Also, I’ll need someone to look out for bumps in the sidewalk so no one gets hurt. Do you know anyone who could do that?”
Casey raised her hand. “I can do that! Bumps,” she called out to show him how serious she was. “Bumpitty, bump, bump bump, bump.”
Slowly, Bobby pulled the wagon down the block as Casey raced ahead. Every now and then she would shriek, “BUMP!” and he was careful to go around it.
As they made their way through the neighborhood, Bobby pointed out fascinating sights to his passengers. He felt like the guide on the red double-decker bus his family rode when they had taken a tour of Washington, DC.
“And to our left is Holly Harper’s house. Beatrice, she’s the one who chose you…. See that wall over there? That’s where I had a huge wipeout when I was first learning to skateboard … and that over there is —”
Suddenly Bobby stopped so fast the water in the fishbowl sploshed.
“What?” Casey asked. She was holding a fistful of flowers and a lawn gnome. “What’s the matter, Bobby? Did you see a bump?”
Bobby couldn’t speak. He couldn’t even move. There, planted in front of him on the sidewalk, was the scary cat … the one with twenty-seven toes. It was rumored that the cat was so vicious that it had once destroyed a minivan.
Bobby tried not to look directly at the scary cat for fear that it would lock its eyes on him and then pounce. Instead, he looked up at the sky to show that he wasn’t afraid. One could never tell what the scary cat was thinking. That was the problem with sinister beings. They ha
rdly ever told you what they were up to.
“Bobby?” Casey said, peering out from behind him. “He’s not going to hurt any of us, is he?”
Bobby had been so afraid the cat was going to attack him that he had forgotten about everyone else. His adrenaline started pumping. He had to get Casey, Beatrice, Koloff, and Wormy Worm Worm out of there. But how? The cat stood firm in the dead center of the sidewalk, as if daring them to pass.
“We’ll just have to turn around slowly and go back home,” Bobby whispered to Casey. He could see her trembling. “Come on. It’s okay. I’ll protect you.”
As Bobby turned the wagon around, he kept his eyes on the cat, who kept his eyes on him. Every now and then the cat would release an evil meow, sending shivers through Bobby.
Slow and steady, slow and steady. Bobby continued down the sidewalk — slow and steady so the water in the fishbowl wouldn’t splash.
“Bobby!” Casey gasped. “The cat is following us!”
Sure enough, the scary cat was stalking them. Only now he wasn’t looking at Bobby. He was looking at the goldfish.
“Casey,” Bobby said, trying to sound braver than he felt. “You pull the wagon with Wormy Worm Worm in it. I’m going to carry Koloff and Beatrice.” Casey looked like she was on the verge of tears. “Don’t worry,” he whispered. “I’m here.”
Suddenly, Casey screamed. The cat was now in front of them. “Bobby, do something,” she shouted. “He’s going to eat us. Do something!”
But what? What could he do? If he could fly, he could whisk them all into the air. If he were invisible, he could push the cat away. If he had superhuman strength, he could pull up the sidewalk. But he was just Bobby.
“Shoo,” he said.
The scary cat refused to budge. He just licked his lips and stared at Beatrice and Koloff. Bobby held the fishbowl tighter to his chest. “Shoo!” he said again, trying to sound mean and menacing, only it came out more like a squeak. “Shoo?”