by Bill Harley
“You’re just doing a trick,” Trevor said.
Dad turned toward him. “A treeck? You want a treeck? I show you treeck. Treeck anyone can do. We will mooltiply any noomber by nine. What is nine times forty-three?
No one answered.
The professor placed his fingers on his head and closed his eyes. “Three hoondred and eighty-seven.”
“Right,” said Mrs. Burke, looking up from her calculator.
“Another noomber?” Dad looked over at Mrs. Burke. “Ees okay to not raise hand?”
She nodded.
“Nine times sixty-four!” someone yelled.
“Five seventy-six,” Dad said without hesitating.
“Right!” Mrs. Burke said, a big smile on her face.
Kids kept calling out numbers and Dad kept multiplying by nine, and no matter how big the number, he kept getting the answer right away. Then he showed us how he did it.
“First mooltiply noomber by ten, which ees just adding a zero. For example, ten times sixty-four ees six hoondred and forty. Then you subtract the original noomber—six hoondred forty minus sixty-four ees five seventy-six.”
Dad spent the next ten minutes doing one kind of trick after another. Everyone knew he was my dad, but they kept calling him “Professor Zed” like he was a real person.
“Now, any questions?” he asked.
Trevor asked him how he knew all the things he’d showed them.
Before Dad answered, he took off the wig and the fake glasses and the lab coat.
Now it was just my dad.
“I knew all along it was Charlie’s dad,” Samantha announced.
“Duh,” Robby said, “everyone knew it was Charlie’s dad.”
“Hey, Mr. Bumpers? How’d you get so smart?” Taleeah Dawson asked.
“I love numbers,” Dad said in his normal voice, “and the ways they make sense. I’ve always loved working with them.”
“No wonder you’re president of your company with all the things you can do,” Trevor said.
“I heard you had a plane!” Sam crowed.
Uh-oh.
Mrs. Burke stood up, ready to take charge. But my dad looked over at her and held his hand up, as if to say it was okay. Mrs. Burke nodded, then went to the back of the class and sat at an empty desk. Dad turned to face everyone.
I held my breath, afraid of what he might say.
“Well,” he said, “I heard some of you thought I might be the president of a company and fly all around the world on my private jet.”
A couple of kids nodded.
“And hand out calculators to everyone,” Alex said, still hoping it was true.
“Well,” Dad said, “the truth is, right now I don’t have a job.”
Everybody fell quiet. Half the class turned to look at me, and I looked down at my desk.
“Why not?” Manny asked.
I gulped.
“Because,” Dad said, “the company I worked for made some changes and let some people go. I was one of them. Sometimes things like that happen.”
“But Charlie said you were president,” Sam said.
Now everyone was staring at me. I had never really said that, but I still was really embarrassed.
Then Hector spoke up. “No, he didn’t,” he said. “Everybody else said that, but not Charlie. Nobody listened to him when he tried to explain.”
Then everyone started talking all at once.
“Hold it, hold it,” my dad said, raising his hand. He sounded just like he did when Matt and I started arguing at the kitchen table. Everybody settled down and looked at my dad. With Mrs. Burke sitting at a desk in the back, it was like Dad was teaching the class.
“Everybody exaggerates, and sometimes we go a little overboard. I’m not the president. I don’t have a jet. Right now, I don’t have a job. But I’m still Charlie’s dad. And I still love numbers.”
Carmen Torres held up her hand. My dad nodded at her. “Yes. Do you have a question?”
“I have a connection, Mr. Bumpers.”
“Okay, go ahead,” Dad said.
“My dad didn’t have a job when I was in second grade,” she said.
“My mom had to leave her job last year,” Sarah Ornett volunteered. “When my grandma got sick, my mom stayed home to take care of her.”
Dad called on three or four other kids, and each one had a story about someone in their family or neighborhood who had lost their job.
We all blinked in surprise when Mrs. Burke raised her hand. In her own Empire!
“Yes, Mrs. Burke?” Dad asked, like he had conquered the world and was the new Emperor.
“The truth is,” Mrs. Burke said, “my husband lost his job a few years ago, and it took him a long time to find a new one. But now, he’s very happy with his new career.”
Wow. This was unbelievable. Even Mrs. Burke’s husband!
“Mr. Bumpers,” Alex said, “I think you should be president of a company. You’re really smart.”
My dad broke into a huge smile. “Thank you, Alex. Before I go, Professor Zed has one more thing to show you.” Everybody leaned forward, waiting to hear what he had to say. He put the wig back on, along with the glasses and the big nose, then turned to Mrs. Burke. “Meez Burke,” he said in his funny accent, “you have very smart class. I know they want calculators.”
A few kids started applauding.
Had my dad actually found some to give out?
“But after I show you theese leetle treecks, you know the best calculator ees brain. So I have calculators to make brains grow beeger.”
What was he talking about?
Dad walked to the door, stepped out into the hallway, and pushed a handcart into our room. On the top shelf was a box that looked a lot like the one Maria’s mom had brought in from her bakery. He wheeled the cart to the front of the class.
“So,” Professor Zed went on, “I brought in calculators. But! They are not calculators to put noombers in, since already noombers are in your head. I ordered calculators from bakery. They are calculators to eat and feed the beeg calculator brain you already have.”
He reached in the box and pulled out a rectangular object about the size of a cell phone. When he held it up, you could see it was a cookie. But the icing on it made it look just like a calculator.
“Calculator cookies!” he said. He took a big bite. His eyes grew wide. “Already I am smarter!”
Everybody cheered and clapped. Dad pushed the cart up and down the aisles, handing a cookie to each kid. And one to Mrs. Burke.
“Charlie!” Alex crowed. “Your dad’s a genius.”
Kids lined up to give me high fives.
Even Samantha Grunsky!
“I like your dad,” she said. “No wonder you’re not horrible at math. He probably checks your homework.”
I didn’t say anything. He did check my homework.
I was lucky he did, and I knew it.
There was only half an hour left before school was over, but Dad said he needed to go. Everybody thanked him and I followed him out into the hallway.
He smiled at me. He was holding the wig and glasses and lab coat in his arms.
“How’d we do?” he asked.
“Great, Dad,” I said. “Thanks.”
“Are we okay?”
I nodded. “Can I go home with you now?”
He shook his head. “No, you go home on the bus. I’ve got some errands to run.”
Then he grabbed me and lifted me up in a giant bear hug.
“Ah! My guts!” I said.
He put me down again. “See you at home later, Charlie.”
“Bye, Dad,” I went back inside the classroom, where kids were still eating cookies and talking about Professor Zed.
22
A Little Happy Dance
When the Squid and I walked in, Matt was already home, sitting at the kitchen table reading Komodo Man, a comic book about a guy who can turn into a giant killer lizard. Ginger barked and jumped up on me, which she is
not supposed to do. She was dying to go for a walk.
“Where’s Dad?” I asked.
“Dunno,” Matt said, not looking up from the comic book. “You’re supposed to walk Ginger.”
“I know.”
Matt looked up. “How was Dad?” he asked.
“Dad didn’t come,” I said.
“What? I thought he was—”
“Professor Zed showed up instead.”
“Who’s that?” asked the Squid.
“Some friend of his.”
“I didn’t know Dad had a friend named that,” the Squid said.
“Neither did I.”
I thought I’d keep it a secret between Dad and me. Before they could ask me any more questions, I put Ginger on the leash and took her outside to walk around the block. I ran most of the way, hoping that Dad would be back by the time I got home.
He wasn’t. But Mom was in the driveway, getting out of the car.
She handed me a bag of groceries to carry. “Where’s your father?” she asked as we went into the kitchen.
“We don’t know,” the Squid said. “Charlie told us he didn’t even come to talk to Charlie’s class. He’s disappeared.”
“Dad didn’t come?” Mom said with a concerned look on her face.
“No,” I said. “Someone else came in his place.”
“Who was it?” the Squid asked. “Mom, make Charlie tell us.”
Just then the back door opened. Dad came in with his Professor Zed costume under his arm and a big envelope in one of his hands.
“Daddy!” she squealed, wrapping her arms around his waist. “Where were you?”
“Oh, just checking up on something.” He had a smile on his face, like he was keeping a secret. Maybe a bigger secret than Professor Zed.
“Who came to Charlie’s class?” Matt asked. Now even he was interested.
“Old friend of mine,” Dad said, putting on the nose and glasses. “A professor I know.”
The Squid shrieked with laughter. “Did you wear that?” she asked.
“Yep,” Dad said. “And this,” he added, putting on the wig. The Squid laughed even more.
“I’m just glad you didn’t come to my class wearing that,” Matt said.
“Funny you should say that.” Dad paused, grinning at Matt.
“I don’t like the sound of this,” Matt said. “I don’t need you to visit any of my classes.”
“After I left Charlie’s class,” Dad said, “I got to thinking about how much I loved math, and how much I enjoyed talking with kids.”
“Everyone really liked you,” I said. “Even Mrs. Burke.”
“So,” Dad continued, “I went down to the school office and talked to Mrs. Rotelli. I told her I thought I might be interested in teaching.”
“Teaching? Where?” The Squid got up from the table and started doing a little happy dance around the kitchen.
“I don’t know yet,” Dad said. “There’s a bunch of things to take care of. I drove over to the school offices and talked to people there. I’d have to take some classes and get a teaching certificate. It will take a while. But it looks as if I would probably qualify to be a substitute teacher for the rest of the school year.”
“You could substitute if Mrs. Diaz was sick!” the Squid shrieked. “Sometimes Mrs. Diaz gets sick! Once she told us she even threw up! And you could be my teacher!”
“Or Mrs. Burke!” I said. The kids would love having Professor Zed come in again.
“Well, I actually talked to them about teaching middle school math,” Dad said, turning to smile at Matt.
“What?” Matt squeaked.
“You wouldn’t mind, would you?” Dad asked.
Now Mom was smiling. “Perfect!” she said.
Matt’s eyes opened wide. “My father teaching at my middle school?” he whispered. “This is a nightmare!”
Mom and Dad started laughing, and so did I. The Squid was still skipping around doing her happy dance and Ginger was barking like she thought it was funny, too.
Matt was shaking his head, but I could tell he was trying not to smile.
“I’m going to tell everybody,” the Squid said.
“I’m not telling anybody,” I said. “Not yet.”
Who knows what might happen when you open your big, blabby mouth?
About the Authors
BILL HARLEY is the author of the award-winning middle reader novels The Amazing Flight of Darius Frobisher and Night of the Spadefoot Toads. He is also a storyteller, musician, and writer who has been writing and performing for kids and families for more than twenty years. Harley is the recipient of Parents’ Choice and ALA awards, as well as two Grammy Awards. He lives in Massachusetts.
www.billharley.com
ADAM GUSTAVSON has illustrated many books for children, including Lost and Found; The Blue House Dog; Mind Your Manners, Alice Roosevelt!; and Snow Day! He lives in New Jersey.
www.adamgustavson.com