by Lisa Doan
“I’m afraid of pop quizzes. They put too much pressure on a person, and then the person goes totally blank, like their brain got put in a freezer, and then their math teacher says, ‘Rory, it’s like you’re hearing about numbers for the first time.’”
“Cripes, really?” Mr. Samson said. “You two are pathetic. Terry?”
“Mr. Samson,” Terry said, “I’m afraid I won’t be able to do as much for my dad as I’d like to. I used to think we would go into business together and be the biggest mechanics in Pennsylvania, but that dream got crushed.”
Mr. Samson held his face in his hands. He looked up and said, “That’s what dreams are for, Terry. To get crushed.”
The bell rang. Mr. Samson looked up at the ceiling and whispered, “Yes, God, you have just witnessed a snapshot of my life. Thanks for all your help.”
After group, Jana shoved a piece of paper in my hand. I unfolded it. It was titled “OFFICIAL DANCE COMMITTEE NOTIFICATION.” It said: “You are hereby informed that you are SO fired from the dance committee for committing voter fraud and bullying, which is SO disgusting. Regards, Chairman Sedgewick.”
So that was that. I had thought that Jana would have noticed that I had stopped going to the meetings. I supposed she wanted to make sure I didn’t suddenly reappear.
As she charged down the hall, I called after her, “Just because you have red hair and are popular doesn’t mean everyone is in love with you. My therapist helped me see that.”
It felt good to get that off my chest.
* * *
I had to have another meeting with Principal Grimeldi. She reviewed my new apology letter.
I’m sorry I got in trouble and got suspended. I hope I never get suspended again.
Chadwick.
Principal Grimeldi sighed. “Just barely adequate.”
Good enough!
“I tried to reach out to Dr. Silverstein,” she continued, “to consult on your progress. I’m having trouble finding contact information for him. I Googled and found a dentist, but I cannot locate any listing at all for a children’s therapist.”
I wouldn’t have thrown out Dr. Silverstein’s name if I had known she would want to talk to him. If Principal Grimeldi talked to my dentist, all she’d find out was that I never floss and I’ll pay for it later. “Oh…” I said, playing for time. “Well, Dr. Silverstein is very private and hates the internet and has an unlisted phone number and is retired.”
“I see,” Principal Grimeldi said, leaning back in her chair. “Then how did your parents find him?”
“Uh … he’s my mom’s cousin.”
“Hm. Well, I would have liked to discuss my plans with him.”
Plans? Why did she have plans for me? I already had my own plan—hand in my apology letter and disappear from view.
“Chadwick, you’ve come a long way, but it’s critical for you to understand the effects of your actions. Once you have had the opportunity to stand in your victim’s shoes, you will really internalize the consequences of bullying. Terry has graciously agreed to attend our session.”
This couldn’t be real. Vance was going to graciously come in and tell me what effect my actions had on him?
“Are you ready to face him, Chadwick?”
Principal Grimeldi peered at me like the answer to that question would tell her a lot. If I said no, I would probably be in these meetings for the rest of the year. “Uh, I guess,” I said.
Terry walked in and sneered at me while Principal Grimeldi wasn’t looking. I sneered back, but by then she was looking.
Principal Grimeldi frowned. “Not a very promising start, Chadwick.” Then she instructed us that neither one of us was to speak in anger. She turned to Terry and said, “Why don’t we begin by you telling Chadwick how his aggression made you feel.”
Terry tried to look sad, but I knew he was taunting me. “Absolutely,” he said. “I felt scared and have had trouble sleeping. I believe I may be psychologically scarred.”
“Well said, Terry,” Principal Grimeldi said. “Chadwick? How do you respond to Terry?”
Terry was psychologically scarred? My brains should have exploded out of my ears by now. Despite my plan to make Terry think I was the same old Chadwick, I couldn’t resist. This was too much. “I’m not going along with this,” I said. “That guy is the axis of evil. He’s the Nile crocodile. He pretended he flunked and he framed me for voter fraud and he beat himself up on my locker and, trust me, he has no trouble sleeping.” I turned to face Terry. “Well, I’m not putting up with it anymore, crocodile. You’ll see. I’m turning the tables.”
Terry flinched. He flinched just enough that I was sure he got my message. I was serious and he knew it.
He recovered himself and said, “Principal Grimeldi, now I am even more scarred.”
Principal Grimeldi stood. “I’m disappointed in you, Chadwick. I’m so sorry, Terry. Clearly this is too soon.” Then she muttered under her breath, “Exactly why I wanted to consult with the elusive Dr. Silverstein.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Rory’s mom had finally decided her elbow wasn’t sore anymore and scheduled a tennis lesson. Mission Save Ourselves was ready to launch. Rory’s dad paced the kitchen. He looked like he was about to faint. Mr. Richardson didn’t handle pressure any better than Rory did.
“I’m off,” Rory’s mom called from the front hall. “There’s seaweed crackers in the cabinet if you get hungry.”
“Great!” Rory’s dad said in a high, squeaky voice. “I love me some seaweed!”
I glanced at Rory. We would be lucky if we didn’t have to call 911 and ask them to bring over some oxygen because Mr. Richardson was having a panic attack.
Rory’s mom called, “Very funny.” The front door banged shut.
Rory and I raced to the front windows and watched her car pull out of the driveway and head down the street.
“Is she gone?” Mr. Richardson asked, tiptoeing up behind us. “Totally gone?”
“Gone,” I said. “She just turned the corner.”
Mr. Richardson grabbed his car keys. “The mission is on!”
We unloaded the trunk of Mr. Richardson’s car. I was pretty impressed with his selection. There were boxes and bags of Oreos, Doritos, Bugles, Twix, Chips Ahoy!, Cheetos, Ring Dings, Fritos, Funyuns, and Three Musketeers—a nice balance of salty and sweet.
We carried everything into the house. Rory and Mr. Richardson stood surveying their treasure, spread out on the hall floor.
“We’ll never go hungry again, son.”
Rory high-fived his dad. Then he said, “Wait a minute, where are the Cheetos? You got Cheetos, right?”
“I’d never forget the Cheetos,” his dad said. “Cheetos are in the Richardson blood.”
“They’re probably still in the car,” I said. “I’ll go get them and shut the trunk.”
I jogged out to the driveway and grabbed the family-sized bag of Cheetos. As I turned around, I noticed a car coming down the street. A car that looked suspiciously like Mrs. Richardson’s. “Oh no,” I said.
I slammed the trunk shut and ran into the house.
“She’s coming back,” I said, tossing the bag of Cheetos to Rory.
“Who? Who is coming back?” Mr. Richardson asked.
“Her,” I said. “Mrs. Richardson.”
“Her?” Mr. Richardson shrieked. “Why? Why would she come back?”
“She knows!” Rory said.
“Don’t freak out,” I said. “She probably just forgot something.”
“No,” Mr. Richardson said. “She never forgets anything. We do that.” Mr. Richardson balled up his fists. “I knew that sore elbow was a ruse! How did she figure it out?”
“Save yourself!” Rory cried. He dropped the bag of Cheetos and ran out the back door. Mr. Richardson ran after him.
“No, you don’t,” I called after them. “You’re not leaving me here to take the rap!” I ran out the back door after Rory and his dad.
I found
them hiding in the woods behind the house. It was where Rory walked the dog to have a quiet snack before bed. He preferred sitting on the low branch of an old pine while the dog ran around, the giveaway being the candy wrappers everywhere. Apparently, Butterfingers were the new favorite. “How long are you going to stay here?” I asked.
Mr. Richardson paced between two spindly pines. “Until we dream up something plausible.” He ran his hand through his hair. “Think! Why would Oreos and Cheetos suddenly appear in the house? Who brought them? A gift from a neighbor?”
“Yes!” Rory said. “And then we tried to give them back because we hate processed food but they said no, you have to take them,” he added.
“That’s good, Rory, keep talking,” Mr. Richardson said.
“And then we were going to destroy it all and write a letter to the Cheetos company about how they’re poisoning America,” Rory said.
“That could work—your mom has written a couple of those letters herself.”
“Well, I’m going home for lunch,” I said. “Good luck!” As I walked home I noticed I was a little cheered up that somebody besides me had a problem. I knew it was wrong, but there it was.
* * *
That night, I waited until everybody went to bed and called Rory. “Are you still in the woods?”
“No,” he whispered. “After an hour, we got cold. When we went inside the house, all our stuff was lined up on the kitchen counter and my mom was sitting at the table drumming her fingers. She said to my dad, ‘I knew something was up. You’ve never built anything in your entire life. I found the secret cabinet in the basement, which I assume was part of the plan to ruin your health.’ It was every man for himself, so I told her I had fallen under my dad’s bad influence.”
“Did she buy that?” I asked.
“Yup. I think he’s grounded.”
“I guess it could have been worse.”
“Not really,” Rory said. “After my mom gave us a lecture about junk food, my dad cracked under the pressure and confessed to leaving me candy bars in the back seat of the car, so that routine is totally shut down. It’s not even safe to bring home the baggies of snacks I get from your house—I used to bring some of it into the house. Like if I took ham or cheese, I’d hide it in the very back of the refrigerator. Now I’ll have to leave everything in the woods. I’m going to buy mints and keep them with me so I’m always prepared in case she wants to check my breath for Cheetos. She said she’s going to be watching us like a hawk.”
* * *
It was finally the night of the dance and I was jittery with the anticipation of my bloody-fingers prank. I was doing my best to act normal in front of my mom, but her X-ray vision saw right through my act. Fortunately, she assumed I was nervous because I had asked a girl to hang out with me. She kept saying things like, “Remember, honey, girls are people too.”
I had already been standing on the stairs for ten minutes while my mom went back and forth getting close-ups and long shots and trying to make me pose so we could have memories forever.
For the hour before I’d even made it to the stairs, Mark had paced my room, giving me advice on how to act at a dance. Some of what he said sounded right, like offer to get the girl some punch and don’t stand in a corner with a bunch of guys pretending you don’t know her. Other advice seemed wrong, like his demonstration on how to slow dance. It felt like we were two old people shuffling around a home for the aged. I had to go along with it since I couldn’t exactly tell him that I was not going to be dancing. I would be too busy being epic to have time to dance.
My mom made me sit on the stairs and prop my chin on my hands. I would have to get ahold of her phone and delete all of the embarrassing evidence later.
“You can’t take pictures at Suvi’s house,” I said. It was already on the list I’d given my mom that morning. It was a whole page of detailed instructions on what not to do or say in front of Suvi, but I wasn’t sure she had really read it. She had barely glanced at it and thrown it into her purse. Now I was thinking of even more things to add.
I finally lured her away from the stairs and out to the car. Before we could get out of the driveway, Mark ran out and banged on my window. I put it down and he said, “And don’t be the last one to leave. Very uncool.”
I suppose he should have directed that to our mom, since I wasn’t actually driving. “Thanks,” I said. “I won’t.”
He stood at the end of the driveway and waved us off until we finally turned a corner.
“Did you use deodorant soap?” my mom asked, driving at her usual careful speed. “Not the Ivory soap—that won’t control odor at all.”
“Uh, I think so,” I said.
“Well, if you didn’t, I guess there’s nothing we can do about it now,” she said.
I lifted my arm and smelled. I couldn’t tell.
For the rest of the ride, my mom took herself on a walk down memory lane. The first time she’d danced with my dad she’d had to make a serious decision about whether she could have a relationship with a man who couldn’t dance. What she should have really considered was whether she could deal with a man who would never learn how to dance. He had sworn he would take lessons before their wedding, but based on the bruises on her feet after the bride-and-groom dance, he hadn’t. She only hoped, for my sake, it wasn’t genetic.
We finally rolled to a stop in front of Suvi’s house. I tried to get my mom to stay in the car. I told her I was pretty sure that only Suvi would be there, as the Doctors Singh spent their whole lives in surgery, sewing up the injured. She swung her door open and said, “Don’t be ridiculous, I can’t wait to meet her parents.”
I could only hope she didn’t ask the doctors if they had used deodorant soap. With any luck, they really were in surgery.
We had barely knocked on the door when it swung open.
Mrs. Dr. Singh was tall, like Suvi. She and my mom looked at each other and then they started talking rapid-fire. I’d seen this before with my mom. When we were in the grocery store, if she saw another lady looking at the same product, they could talk about it for twenty minutes. I was pretty sure that area mothers communicated using a secret Facebook group so when they finally ran into each other it was like they were best friends already.
“My husband got called in for an emergency surgery,” Dr. Singh said, “so I promised him lots of pictures.”
Pictures? Of the both of us? Together? Did Suvi forget to give her mom a list of dos and don’ts?
“Well, look at you,” Dr. Singh said to me. “You look very smart in that outfit.”
“Chadwick has been so excited about the dance,” my mom said.
I never said that! Do not invent things you wish I said!
“That is such an interesting name,” Dr. Singh said. “I don’t think I’ve ever met a Chadwick before.”
“Oh, I’ll tell you the story behind it,” my mom said.
Don’t tell that story! It’s on the list! Right at the top!
“My husband wanted to name him after his grandfather, Wick. I wanted to name him after my father, Chad. We argued about it for a whole day while our nameless baby boy lay in a bassinet. That night, my husband showed up with a bunch of tulips and said, ‘How about we name him Chadwick?’”
Dr. Singh was smiling at my mom, but I knew what she was thinking—one bunch of tulips saddled that kid with the name Chadwick?
Suvi appeared at the top of the stairs. She looked pretty magnificent. She wore a blue dress with a silver belt and her hair was up in a ponytail. It kind of gave me a queasy feeling. I knew we were going on a mission, not a date, but it looked so much like we were going to the dance together that it was a little nerve-racking.
Then I noticed the beach bag over her shoulder. It was massive. Even I could see that it didn’t look right with her outfit.
“There she is!” Dr. Singh said. “Now you two, stand on the stairs together and we’ll get some pictures.”
I had not factored in the whole
parent moment when I had laid out my plan. I trudged up the stairs while Suvi trudged down the stairs. We met halfway and looked past each other. Then I went up an extra step to try to even out our heights.
“Suvi, honey,” her mom said, “I’m sure you don’t need a bag that big. It looks like you’ve packed for a weekend.”
“I have a lot of stuff,” Suvi said in a really impressive preteen “question me further at your peril” voice.
“Kids,” Dr. Singh said to my mom, shaking her head and laughing.
As my mom and Dr. Singh got out their phones, Suvi whispered, “Bloody fingers, giant slingshot, and walkie-talkie are a go.”
“Video is a go,” I whispered back, patting the flash drive in my pocket. “Rory has the other walkie-talkie.”
“Okay, smile,” Dr. Singh called.
“This is too cute!” my mom said.
“Parents,” Suvi muttered. “Unbelievable.”
“Totally unbelievable,” I said, the mutual disdain for our parents driving some of the queasiness out of my stomach.
“My baby’s first dance,” Dr. Singh said.
My mom leaned over to Dr. Singh and said, “They look so grown-up!”
“I know,” Dr. Singh said. “It seems like only yesterday they were drooling in their high chairs.”
“Tell me about it,” my mom said, “if there’s one thing I don’t miss about babies, it’s the cleanup. You get one end cleaned just in time to start cleaning the other end.”
Maybe I should have recruited my mom into my army. She’s one of the most frightening people I know.
We finally got out of the house. Dr. Singh stood at the door, watching us head to the car. She waved and then snapped a few photos of us getting inside. I sank in my seat as my mom waved back at her out the car window. Then they kept waving like one of them was boarding a ship for an ocean crossing and it would be many years before they saw each other again.
Moments after we pulled away, I had a revelation. Trying to imagine how a particular scenario will play out is pointless, because no matter how much you think about it you can’t factor in everything. I had prepared a whole review of the steps of the prank for Suvi, but I’d totally forgotten about the pair of ears attached to the individual driving the car.