by Adam Selzer
But, anyway, I’m getting off track, aren’t I? I’m supposed to be telling you about my dad, and what he had to do with what happened at the spelling bee. Don’t worry. I’m getting to it.
That night, at dinner, my mother took a break from annoying me while Dad asked me to spell words like “myxomatosis” and “obdused.”
“Did she tell you what that Marianne Cleaver girl is doing, Mitchell?” my mother asked him. “She’s memorizing the dictionary.” She rolled her eyes, as though she had just said Marianne was roller-skating to Japan.
“Oh she is, is she?” my father grumbled. “I’ll just bet she is.”
“She told Jennifer she has a photographic memory,” Mom said.
“Yeah, right!” said Dad. “She’s just covering up. I’ll bet I know what’s really going on here.”
“What?” asked Mom.
“She’s probably just memorizing the school’s master word list, that’s what.”
“Cheating!” my mother exclaimed.
“She can’t have the word list,” I said. “They keep it locked up in a filing cabinet in the office.”
“That’s what they want you to think,” said my father, in that horrible, patient voice people use to explain things to little kids. “Her dad probably bribed the secretary. She’s probably at home memorizing that list now, and saying she’s going to memorize the entire dictionary so no one suspects. Ha!”
“No!” I said. “She’s really trying to memorize the dictionary.”
“I doubt that very much,” said Dad. “And I’ll bet that brat Jason Keyes found a way to get ahead, too. And probably Harlan Sturr. Those kids are no good. But don’t worry—we’ll get you a copy of that list, too!”
“No, Dad!” I said. “You’d have to break into the school or something. It wouldn’t be legal!”
“Jennifer,” said my father, “if this were a perfect world, I’d agree with you. It’s wrong. But Marianne and Jason probably both have the word list, and it’s wrong for them to have it, too. When you grow up and start to get ahead in the corporate world, you’ll learn that sometimes the only way to beat the cheaters is to do what they’re doing, only better.”
Now, don’t get the wrong idea. My dad is not a criminal, normally. But there’s something about the all-school bee that really gets into some people’s heads around here. It does things to them. Crazy things.
I know you’re supposed to have pride in your town, but I really, really don’t like Preston. I can’t wait till next year, when we’ll all be at the middle school in Cornersville Trace. I think that if Preston had its own high school, this would be one of those towns where everything revolves around the high school football team. As it is, the all-school spelling bee at Gordon Liddy Community School is about as big an event as Preston ever has of its own. And some people in town—a lot of people—seem like they live for it.
And, though I always thought people took it too seriously, I never could have imagined that it could make them go quite as nuts as it did this year.
2
MUTUAL
pachyderm—noun. Any of various nonruminant quadruped hoofed mammals having very thick skin: elephant; rhinoceros; hippopotamus. When you call 911 to tell them a large pachyderm is charging into your house, they will ask you if you mean an elephant, a rhinoceros, or a hippopotamus.
My parents did not wish for me to talk to you at first. But once I told them your goal was to get school officials in trouble, they changed their minds. They have believed for years that the officials were corrupt. That is why they never let me attend school until the bee began.
And I have a secret to tell you, to begin with. I knew all along that homeschooled children were allowed to enter the district bee. I had seen a page about it in the official rules of national spelling bees. But I tore the page out so my parents would not see it. They believed I had to be enrolled at the school to enter the bee. And I wanted to be enrolled. It was the most corrupt thing I had ever done. Please do not tell them about it.
I suppose you could say that before the spelling bee, and before I came to Gordon Liddy Community School, I was a very naive person. My parents did not let me out of the house very often. Even going to visit other homeschooled children was out of the question, because most of them were “no better than the public school kids.” They were corrupt, immoral, and full of germs. So you can imagine that my parents were very nervous about letting me go to school in Preston, which they referred to as a “big city,” even though it is actually a small town.
On my first day, the day I was to sign up for the spelling bee, they drove me to the school very early in the morning, and then made me sit in the car with them, staring up at the front door, for a very long time.
“Are you sure this is wise, Norman?” my mother asked my father. “Letting him in there?”
“He can take care of himself, Norma. We raised him right.”
Mother turned back to look at me. “You be very careful in there, Mutual,” she said. “I know what goes on in places like this, and we do not want you to be hurt. And do not let the other children give you a hard time. They will surely try. I know their tricks and manners.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said.
“When you’re in the classroom, you just sit quietly and don’t talk to anybody,” Mother continued. “There are bad kids in there. And they are all just going to be dying to turn you into a bad kid, too, Mutual. At recess, just sit on the steps and read from your dictionary. That playground equipment might look tempting, but it is dangerous!”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said again. These were probably the two words I said most often in the days before I came to school: “yes” and “ma’am.” Now they are probably “oh” and “crap.” I had never even heard the word “crap” before I came to Gordon Liddy. As I said, I was very naive in the days before the spelling bee.
“Now, listen to the teacher, but do not listen too carefully. She will probably be just as bad as the kids are, and she will probably just be teaching the things we taught you when you were six. I do not care how you do on any tests, and I do not care what sort of grades you get. We know you are smart. Just sit there and think about spelling. And do not let anyone breathe on you, or you might catch a virus. Understand?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good. We can go inside now.”
We stepped out of the car, and my father made sure that my tie was not crooked, and that I did not have any wrinkles in my blazer, which, of course, I did not.
My parents had never allowed me even to join an activity that might expose me to violence, corruption, or germs. Or other children, for that matter. We did not have a television set or a radio, except for a radio in the car that we never used. They spent a lot of time telling me that the “outside world” was a dangerous, immoral place. But when they found out that I was a good speller, they became determined that I should become a spelling bee champion. They had been talking to me about it since I was six.
My life had been mapped out ever since then—I was to become one of history’s greatest spellers, joining the ranks of such famous spellers as Paul “Gerund” Malone and Janet “Diphthong” Kowalski. I was rather surprised to find that most people in the “outside world” had never heard of these people.
Because they believed that a student has to be registered in a school to participate in a spelling bee, and to qualify for the district bee, my parents decided to register me at Gordon Liddy Community School, at least until after the district bee was over.
Gordon Liddy Community School was a very long way from our house. My parents picked it because it had only one class per grade, which they say is more like things were in the “good old days.” I am not sure when those days were, exactly. Sometimes I thought they meant the 1970s, other times I thought they meant biblical days.
When we opened the doors to the school, I expected that the inside of the school would be filthy, with drug dealers standing in the hall, and kids waiting around the corne
r, ready to jump out and beat me up for my milk money. Maybe there would be policemen pounding some ne’er-do-wells with billy clubs in the hall.
I was surprised to find that it was well lit and clean inside, and that all the kids I saw walking by outside the office looked just like ordinary, happy children, not like hooligans, and none of them seemed too ignorant to tie their own shoes. I thought I saw some graffiti, but it turned out to be a poster for the bee.
This was not what I had expected at all. Where were all the gang members?
Within five seconds of stepping into the school, I began to wonder, just a little, about how honest my parents had been with me when they told me what the “outside world” was like. Or if they even knew what they were talking about.
Once inside the office, we waited silently in front of an empty desk until a woman came over to talk to us. She was a little wrinkly, and her hair was a bit of a mess, but she did not look scary or corrupt to me.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
“We are the Scriveners, Norm and Norma,” said Mother. “This is our son, Mutual.”
The woman smiled. “Well, hello, Mutual!” she said. “Welcome to Gordon Liddy. I’m Mrs. Rosemary, Principal Floren’s secretary. You’ll be in sixth grade, right?”
I was still too afraid to say anything at that point.
“He is eleven,” said Mother.
“Yes.” Mrs. Rosemary nodded. “Sixth grade. Now, you must be his father?”
She offered her hand to Father, who nodded, but did not shake it.
“That is Norman, his father,” said Mother. She does most of the talking. “Now, before we leave our son in your care, we have a few requests.”
“Of course.”
“Mutual will also not be participating in physical education, science, or politics classes. We will continue his education in those fields at home.”
“We don’t really teach politics,” said Mrs. Rosemary, “but we can arrange for him to go to the library during science and gym.”
Mrs. Rosemary probably assumed that Mother was a religious type who had something against science. In reality, however, Mother was afraid that they might talk about blood, guts, or poisonous spiders and snakes, and that I would get scared. She and my father are not really religious at all, unless believing in the “good old days” is a religion, and I do not think it is. I could be wrong, though.
Five minutes later, after some questions about the nutritional value of the school lunch, which I would not be eating anyway, and a few questions about the number of violent crimes which had occurred in the halls that year (none), my parents were back in the parking lot, probably sitting in the car, staring at the school as though they were expecting it to catch fire at any minute, and Mrs. Rosemary was escorting me to Mrs. Boffin’s class. She seemed very friendly. Lots of children stared at me, but not one of them appeared to be mean, and most of them appeared to be fairly well groomed.
Having wondered all my life what school would be like, and having heard lectures about the “tricks and manners” of public school students day in and day out for weeks, I must admit that I was terribly disappointed.
3
CHRISSIE
Excerpt from notebook #43: Tony Ostanek thinks people believe he’s only scratching his nose when he picks it.
They say that everyone, everywhere, has secrets that make them a mystery to everyone else. That isn’t quite true, though. They aren’t always that much of a mystery. Most of them are just waiting for someone who knows how to find them out. Like I do.
Most kids in school have no idea just how much I know about them. I know when they’re going to act up, even before they do, probably. You school board types don’t spend much time in the hallways, but you’ll have to take my word for it that the halls were an awful lot safer when I was the hall monitor. I was the best one the school ever had. Everyone knows it.
By the end of second grade, I had filled nearly thirty notebooks with information about the school and my classmates—everything from “the peeled paint on the radiator looks like a hot-air balloon” to things like “Gunther has his name written on his underwear in block letters.”
I know that Jennifer Van Den Berg hates going to after-school clubs. I know Tony Ostanek’s favorite video games. I even know what sort of stretching exercises Mrs. Rosemary does at her desk every morning. I know things that people probably think are total secrets. By fourth grade, I was more than a hall monitor. I was like the school’s official detective. They even sent me interoffice memos now and then with assignments.
Which is how I found out exactly how bad things are messed up around here.
See, usually the office memos look something like this:
INTEROFFICE MEMO
FROM: Principal Floren
TO: Chrissie Woodward
Rumor has it that Harlan Sturr was seen purchasing spray paint at the hardware store. See if you can find out what he’s up to.
But a few months ago, they sent me the wrong one.
It was just a couple of days after Harlan started the Rubber Band War to End All Rubber Band Wars. The school was starting to crack down on the combatants, and I had sent a detailed list of everyone involved—and where they had gotten their rubber bands—to the office.
That afternoon, I found a memo that they left on my desk by accident.
It said:
INTEROFFICE MEMO
FROM: Principal Floren
TO: Mrs. Boffin
Send Jake Wells to the office at once. He is not only the main supplier of weaponry to both armies of the rubber band war, he almost certainly has a rubber band in his lunch bag today—a flagrant violation of the new addition to our zero-tolerance weapons policy. Let’s see those punks at the school board say I’m “soft on troublemaking” now!
Jake was in trouble. And it was all my fault.
All I had told them was that Jake Wells usually had a rubber band in his lunch to hold the plastic wrap over his broccoli crowns, and that some of them probably ended up getting fired in the war, so they could tell him not to bring them anymore. I never said he was the “main supplier”! In fact, he hadn’t even been involved in the rubber band war! Floren was just punishing him to impress the school board!
I felt terrible about it. I’d gotten Jake in trouble over nothing. I kept the memo instead of passing it to Mrs. Boffin, but they just sent another one later. Jake had to miss recess for a week.
When I looked into the window during recess and saw Jake sitting at his desk, all alone, I started to realize that I’d been investigating the wrong side all these years.
After all, everyone knows that no matter how bad kids get, adults are the REAL criminals in the world, right? No offense, guys, but it’s true. You don’t see kids going around starting wars, do you? Well, rubber band wars, maybe, but not the kind with missiles. I’d been protecting the school from the students for years, but I should have been protecting the students from the school! I had believed that the school had our best interests in mind and that justice would prevail. Looking back, I can’t believe how stupid I was.
How many other kids had I gotten in real trouble over something small that I’d reported just so I’d have something to report that day? Lots, probably.
The more I thought, the more I remembered. I sent a memo saying Marianne was reading a study guide during SSR, when we were supposed to be reading regular books, and they set up a time with her to meet with the librarian to find books she’d like. But when I sent a memo saying Tony was reading a video game magazine, he got detention.
Looking back over my notes, I saw this sort of thing happen over and over again, and I noticed a pattern. Kids who were good at spelling, like Marianne and Harlan, almost never got in trouble. Kids who weren’t likely to have a shot at nationals, like Jake, got in trouble all the time.
I felt sick to my stomach. I don’t think I’ll ever be the same. Like in those cop movies where a guy’s partner gets killed, and then he finds out t
hat the sheriff let the killer get away because they’re related. After that, he has to go out on his own. The previews for them usually start with some guy going, “In a world where he couldn’t believe in anything…he believed in himself.” Or sometimes it’s “he believed in revenge,” if it’s a really violent one.
That’s what the school was to me in the aftermath of Jake getting in trouble over the rubber band war. A world where I couldn’t believe in anything. Except myself. And revenge.
I know that you people on the school board have no idea what REALLY goes on in here, so let me explain how the spelling bees work, exactly.
Every class has a class bee every year. They’re really just for fun. And for grade grubbers like Marianne Cleaver to show off all of their spelling skills.
The bee that matters is the all-school bee on the first Friday in February—February 1 this year. To qualify for it, students have to pass a written test in January. Most sixth graders who take the written test can pass it, and about half of the fifth graders can. Only a handful of third and fourth graders ever qualify, and I’ve never seen a first or second grader make it.
At the all-school bee, the last five people left get to go on to the district bee in March, where they compete against kids from Shaker Heights and Cornersville Trace and other towns for the chance to move up to the nationals in Washington, D.C.
Now, the fact that you get to miss a day of school for the district bee is enough to get most kids to want to enter all by itself. But since the bee is such a big deal in town, they even put it on local TV. Even the kids who couldn’t care less about spelling want to get on TV. Plus the bee is a huge deal here. Everyone has been looking forward to sixth grade—the year they’re most likely to make it—all their lives. And some of them will stop at nothing to go to districts—cheating, sabotage, you name it. Bee season is my busy season as a hall monitor.