Following Baxter

by Barbara Kerley

  My lousy day got worse because I remembered that it was Friday, and Megan was home with her grandparents. Plus, the bell was already ringing when I got there, so I had to run straight to class. I barely had time to tell Jasmine and Aisha about even half of the Baxter Slumber Party before Mrs. A. started blabbing—

  “Jordie.”

  —like how we’d all piled onto the big pile of sleeping bags—

  “Jordie . . .”

  —and Baxter had climbed into the middle so we could all give him pets and pats—

  “JORDIE.”

  —with Mrs. A. so impatient that I couldn’t even finish.

  And the lousiest thing of all was that it was my last Study Buddy session before the Good-bye–Hello Ceremony next week.

  Tyler and I walked up one hallway and down the other. “You did good yesterday—your bounce-pass keep-away game was really fun,” I said. “You did even better than me,” I added, because it was true.

  “What?”

  “Pretty soon you could show someone how to be a good Study Buddy.”

  “Wait.” He stopped walking and looked at me. “You think you’ve been helping me?”

  “Well, maybe just a little—”

  “Don’t you get it, Jordie? Why do you think Mrs. A. picked us to do this?”

  I didn’t know if I should say it out loud: that since he was the worst kid in the whole class, she needed me to balance him out. But then I remembered her “Jordie-Jordie-JORDIE.”

  Tyler shook his head. “She thinks we’re both losers.” He started walking again.

  I felt my face get hot, and it just got hotter and hotter as I hurried after him to Mrs. Wilson’s classroom.

  When we opened the door, Katie and Maya ran up and hugged Tyler, probably just because of bounce-pass keep-away—but still, they hugged him first.

  Tyler froze and turned bright red, and Mrs. Wilson grinned.

  I was sure that Katie and Maya were going to hug me next, only right then Mrs. Wilson motioned us over to an empty table. I thought, They just didn’t have time to hug me because of Mrs. Wilson.

  “Today we’re working on one of our Keys for the Classroom: helping others. Each group needs to create a poem or drawing about being helpful.”

  Katie and Maya said they wanted to do a drawing of someone who helped them. Mrs. Wilson got a big piece of construction paper. “Who do you want to draw?”

  Katie cupped her not-as-sticky-as-they-used-to-be hands around Maya’s ear, and whispered something, and Maya nodded. “It’s a surprise,” Katie said. They bent down low over the paper.

  Tyler and Chloe and Logan were huddled together, whispering. Then he looked up. “We’re doing a poem.”

  “Terrific!” Mrs. Wilson said, handing them a big piece of paper, too. “Please write it up to share with the class.”

  I sat down on one of the little chairs and watched Katie and Maya work. They drew a face with a big smile and started adding brown hair.

  I thought, My hair is brown. I ran my fingers through it because I wanted it to look good in case it was me they were drawing.

  They started working on the neck and arms.

  Mrs. Wilson came over to check on us. “How’s it going?”

  “Good.” I shrugged. “But they don’t really need any help today,” which made me feel a little weird because I was just sitting there like a bump.

  “Awesome!” She smiled.

  But it didn’t feel awesome. I was just sitting there, not helping them at all.

  As she walked over to see how things were going with Tyler, Katie and Maya added a blue shirt and blue pants to their drawing.

  I thought, I’m wearing a blue shirt, and I’m wearing jeans! They did choose me!

  I felt so good that I wanted to hug them. But they were hunched over busy, so instead I just said, “That looks great! Do you need help writing the name of the person at the bottom of the poster?”

  Katie shook her head. “We already know how to write it.” Which of course they would, since Jordie had been on the Study Buddy bulletin board for two weeks.

  Then Katie wrote Mrs.

  And that’s when I noticed that Mrs. Wilson was wearing a blue shirt and blue pants, and her hair was brown, too.

  Maya wrote Wilson, and she started so big that she had to curve the word around and run it down the side of the page, but it still fit. And then it was time to present to the class.

  Mrs. Wilson asked Tyler’s group to go first. Katie and Maya smooshed in with me on the rug, and I tried to feel good that they had done such a great job—drawing Mrs. Wilson.

  Tyler and his group went up to the front. Logan and Chloe held up their big sheet of paper and started to read their poem out to the class:

  “He’s really nice.” (And when they read that, Tyler smiled.)

  “Every day.” (And his smile got bigger, like he was waiting. . . .)

  “We Like him a lot.” (And Logan’s and Chloe’s eyes got big. . . .)

  He Plays ball with us.” (And they started to giggle. . . .)

  “HE’s our Buddy:” (“Not their Butt-y,” Tyler said—and stuck his butt out!)

  “TyleR!!!”

  “Tyler!” Mrs. Wilson said while the whole class laughed.

  And I expected him to say, “I didn’t do anything!” but instead, he just grinned at her. And she was still trying not to crack up as she called Katie and Maya to the front of the room.

  I didn’t want to go up with them. I wanted to sit in the back and watch because I knew I wouldn’t be making anybody laugh. I hadn’t done anything at all the whole time—I’d just sat there, so what did they need me for? But Maya grabbed my hand, so I was stuck.

  I stood up in front with Katie and Maya, feeling dumb, which was dumb because the only person who knew I had been thinking it would be me on the poster was me. So there wasn’t any reason to be embarrassed, but, for some reason, I was anyway.

  “This is Mrs. Wilson.” Katie held up the picture. “She helps us every day with our reading and math, and sometimes she lets us feed the fish.”

  I tried to remind myself that of course they would have chosen Mrs. Wilson because she had been their teacher since school started. I’d only been their Study Buddy two weeks, and I didn’t get to choose who fed the fish.

  I made my mouth into a big smile while Katie said, “Mrs. Wilson is really fun. And she’s really nice. And she reads us funny books.” But my smile kept wavering like it didn’t want to stay on my face anymore.

  What I really wanted was to just go smoosh myself back on the rug again and let everyone step on me. But I was still a Study Buddy for two more minutes, so I tried to think about how I could help Katie and Maya. I realized that Maya hadn’t said a word—how could she when she didn’t have me in the audience to look at and not get scared while she talked?

  So I leaned down and whispered in her ear, “Do you want to say something nice about Mrs. Wilson?”

  She nodded. She took a deep breath. I felt her squeeze onto my hand harder, so I squeezed back. Maya said in a nice loud voice, “Mrs. Wilson helps us a lot.”

  Then she and Katie ran over and handed the drawing to her.

  Mrs. Wilson said, “Thank you both so much!”

  She pinned the poem and drawing on her special bulletin board behind her desk. And then it was time to leave.

  Tyler made big burping noises the whole way back, but it didn’t even bug me because I was too busy thinking about how that was it. Study Buddies was over, and all I’d done was make Maya a little less shy and Katie a little less sticky.

  I felt sort of empty inside, and at lunch I wasn’t even hungry, which was weird because you’d think if you were empty inside, you’d be starving.

  When Mrs. A. dismissed the class for afternoon recess, she called me and Tyler up to her desk. “I just wanted to see how the Study Buddy program went.”

  “It was good,” Tyler said.

  I nodded. I wanted to say how much I’d loved helping Katie an
d Maya, but I couldn’t get the words out.

  “Mrs. Wilson told me you did an outstanding job being leaders in her class.” Mrs. A. patted us both on the shoulder. “And I’m confident the experience will help you lead by example in our class, too—staying focused and getting your work done without disturbing others. Great job! I’m really proud of you!”

  By the time she dismissed us for recess, my face felt so hot I thought it would melt my shirt.

  Tyler ran to the basketball courts to join a game. I knew Aisha and Jasmine would be by the bars, but I walked in the other direction, all the way out to the soccer field, walking farther and farther.

  Tyler was right: I hadn’t been chosen first for Study Buddies because of my excellent people skills. Mrs. A. had chosen me and Tyler because she thought we were both losers!

  I didn’t even hear the whistle blow that recess was over. I only realized it when I looked up and there were only four kids still out on the playground—one of which of course was Tyler, which just proved it even more!

  I had to run all the way back to class. Then I slumped down in my seat with Jasmine and Aisha staring at me with my face still all hot.

  Aisha whispered, “Where were you at recess? Did Mrs. A. make you stay inside?”

  But I just stared straight ahead at Mrs. A. like I hadn’t heard her.

  I didn’t look at anyone, wondering if the whole class knew—Jasmine and Aisha and maybe even Megan. Maybe they’d known I was a loser all along. They were probably only being nice to me because their parents said they had to be nice to everyone, even losers. They probably forgot all about the vet/beauty parlor/day care the minute they got home.

  I hated Study Buddies, and there was no way I was going to that stupid Good-bye–Hello Ceremony on Monday. I’d go hide in the stupid bathroom.

  As soon as the bell rang, I grabbed my backpack and hurried out of class.

  TJ yakked about his short the whole way home, but I didn’t say a word. I just ditched my backpack inside our front door and ran over to Professor Reese’s.

  I opened the door and ran into the living room. Baxter popped up in his bed.

  “I need to ask you something, OK?” I nodded.

  He nodded back.

  I didn’t know if Professor Reese was right—that it was just Baxter’s mirror neurons making him nod—or if TJ was right—that Baxter was just doing what I did. Or if Baxter really, truly did understand me. I just knew I had to ask: “You still love me even though I’m a loser.” And I couldn’t help myself—I nodded long and hard. “Don’t you?”

  I took a deep breath.

  And Baxter, he nodded back.

  I threw my arms around him and buried my face in his fuzzy neck. I hugged him so long that after a while everything else fell away (except the faint hum from the microchip). It was just me, nose deep in warm dog, which smells nice (even though wet dog smells bad, which is weird because why would plain old water make you smell worse? Only somehow it does if you’re a dog).

  And pretty soon, I was feeling a tiny bit better.

  I sat back on my heels and looked around. The late afternoon sun was coming in the living room windows, warming the old wood floors.

  The first time I’d ever come into Professor Reese’s house by myself, this room had felt museum empty, like nobody lived there. Now it felt empty again—because someone was missing.

  “Did Professor Reese come home during the day?” I asked Baxter. “Let’s see if she left a note.”

  Baxter followed me into the kitchen, but the counter was empty except for my note about the slumber party. “If she left a note, it’s probably in the lab,” I told him.

  We walked down the stairs, but there was nothing, just the computers and the cables running everywhere and the teleporter and the electronic console with the lights and buttons, the big red one glowing like someone had pushed it on—

  But never pushed it off.

  And that’s when I knew what had happened. Professor Reese had wanted to look at things from a different angle. She’d wanted to look at teleportation from the hat’s point of view—and there was only one way to do that.

  She’d teleported herself.

  20

  The Missing Professor

  I sat down in the spinny chair, my own head spinning a little bit. Professor Reese had actually done it: she’d climbed into the teleporter and vibrated herself into a million little pieces. The million pieces had been picked up by the T-waves and plopped down somewhere else. And hopefully, the instructions had arrived via radio waves so she could put herself back together.

  “But if she teleported herself,” I said to Baxter as I scritched his ribs and thought it all through, “why didn’t she just walk home afterward?”

  Unless. Unless . . . something had gone wrong.

  There were so many possibilities of what could go wrong. We’d teleported a hat. We’d teleported Spike (by accident). But even though Spike had survived, and even though he seemed fine, all we had to go on was how he acted.

  Crawling on a stick and eating apple slices seemed way easier than all the things Professor Reese would need to be able to do when she’d landed—wherever she’d landed. Because who knew after being vibrated into a million little pieces and POPped across town, if the reconfiguration instructions included reminding you that you were Professor Reese and you lived on Quimby Street and you should call Jordie and TJ and tell them you were OK.

  That seemed like a lot for one little beep-beep-boop to accomplish.

  I turned to Baxter. “We have to find her!”

  We ran upstairs, and I clipped on his leash. Then we went over and got TJ, and I explained everything to him.

  “Since she teleported herself, Baxter should be able to find her just like he always finds the hat,” I said as we started to walk.

  And walk.

  And walk.

  “C’mon, boy! Find Professor Reese!” I said. But Baxter wasn’t galloping on the end of his leash. He just trotted along with us, stopping to sniff or, sometimes, shake his head because his ears were still itchy and hurt.

  “Where are we going?” TJ finally asked. We’d been walking a long time.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I thought Baxter would have found her by now. But it doesn’t even seem like he is looking.” I wasn’t sure Baxter was even magical anymore, except maybe it was because he wasn’t feeling well.

  I leaned over to hug him, and when I did, I noticed the microchip humming louder than when we left the house. And by the second hug a few blocks later, it was even louder, which was weird and made me think I’d need to tell Professor Reese if we found her—when we found her—that maybe she should get it removed after all because it sounded completely broken.

  We walked and walked until our feet were sore.

  “Maybe she teleported herself to Disneyland for vacation,” TJ said. “That’s what I’d do.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think she’d be thinking about vacation for her first teleportation. She’d want to get back home and write up her notes.”

  We kept walking until I didn’t see any point to walking anymore. “Let’s go back to the lab—maybe we missed something.”

  So we trudged back to Professor Reese’s house. TJ grabbed a carrot for Spike and we went down into the lab.

  We poked in drawers but just found office supplies. We looked through files, but none of the papers said, “For my first experiment in human teleportation, I will send myself to . . .” though I was a teeny bit hoping.

  “The computers are still on,” TJ said. “Maybe we can look at the coordinates she used and find it on the map.”

  “Great idea!”

  But when he tried, we found the screen password protected, so we couldn’t see what she’d typed in. TJ tried to guess her password. He tried 654321, then 123456, and then even Baxter. But none of them worked.

  Finally, TJ slumped down in the spinny chair and spun it slowly. I slumped down on the floor and leaned against
a desk. Baxter slumped down next to me and put his head in my lap. And we all just slumped for a while, which didn’t help anything.

  Then the doorbell rang. Me and Baxter and TJ ran upstairs, and I think we were all half expecting to see Professor Reese standing there, even though I knew that was dumb because why would you ring the doorbell of your own house?

  But instead it was Detective John Jacobs of the Portland Police Department. He scowled. “You again. Figures.” He squinted at me. “What did you say your name was?”

  “Jordie Marie Wallace,” I said. “This is my brother, TJ. Did you find Professor Reese yet?”

  “No.” He scowled harder. “And guess whose butt’s in a sling now?”

  “Um, yours?” I said politely, because when a grown-up asks you a question you are supposed to answer it.

  He glared at me (even though I’d been totally polite and he had asked). Then he put his hands on his hips and asked the same two questions over and over—had the professor come home, had she called—and I said no the fourteenth time, too.

  He turned around and stomped down the porch steps, muttering, “. . . finally track down the daughter, and does she know anything? Of course not—”

  “Wait!” I hurried after him. “Professor Reese has a daughter?” And I wondered if maybe she was in fifth grade like me.

  He wheeled around. “Yes. A daughter. An expert in international banking who lives in Australia—”

  Which made me realize that she must be a grown-up.

  “Who is flying in on Sunday and expects results!” He put his hands on his hips again and glared at me and TJ and even at Baxter. “Are you sure there’s nothing you can tell me?”

  The situation was feeling more serious than when he’d asked me the day before. It made me even less sure of what I was supposed to do about the whole secret we weren’t supposed to tell, but I didn’t know if that meant even to the police.