The World's Greatest Underachiever and the Parent-Teacher Trouble

by Henry Winkler

  “So you guys are going to Philadelphia, after all?” I asked. I had to be sure. “On Cousin Ralphie’s tour?”

  They nodded.

  “Hank, your generosity has allowed me to realize a lifelong dream,” my dad said. “Imagine, my behind in Filbert Funk’s favourite chair. It’s pure joy, Hank. A three-letter word for happiness.”

  “Isn’t this all so wonderful, Hank?” my mum said.

  Oh, she had no idea how wonderful this was.

  Before we left the deli, Papa Pete gave me a plastic bag full of pickles to take home. That’s our favourite snack food. Sometimes we go out on the balcony of my apartment and munch on a good, crunchy gherkin while Papa Pete tells me funny stories about playing stickball when he was a boy growing up in New York. Those are the best times. A pickle and a laugh, you can’t beat that combo. That’s what Papa Pete always says, and I have to agree with him.

  As I unzipped the small compartment of my rucksack to put the pickles in, I noticed the pink permission sheet wadded up at the bottom. I smiled. I had no use for that any more. Nope, my parents didn’t need to set up a time to meet with crabby old grey-faced Ms Adolf. They’d be in Philadelphia on Friday.

  I made up a letter in my head. It was the best head letter I had ever composed.

  At noon on Thursday, a great thing happened. My parents, Stan and Randi Zipzer, went to Philadelphia. They left us a note that said where they were going to be every minute.

  At noon, they were picked up in a limo and driven to Philadelphia. At three o’clock, they’d take the tour of the Funk House. At six o’clock, they’d ride in the limo to the concert. At seven o’clock, they’d be in their front-row seats at the concert. At midnight, they’d be eating Philly cheesesteaks at Pat’s. On Friday morning, they’d be treated to a tour of Philadelphia, and if they wanted, a trip to the tattoo artist. And sometime late Friday, they’d drive back to New York on the fully stocked Stone Cold Rock personal bus.

  They left us their mobile number so we could reach them in case anything came up. But believe me, I was planning to make sure that nothing came up. I wanted them out of sight, out of touch and out of PS 87.

  Papa Pete stayed with us that night, which is always so much fun. He lets Emily and me eat Eskimo Pies in our pyjamas and play video games until we fall asleep. Well, he lets me play video games. Genius Girl Emily has no interest in video games. She’d rather stay up all night reading old issues of Reptile World. If you promise not to tell anyone, I’ll let you in on a little secret: sometimes she reads the articles aloud to Katherine, and when she does, it looks as if that leathery lizard is really listening. How weird is that?

  The night went off perfectly. My parents called after the tour of the Funk House, and I have never heard my dad sound happier. He was in crossword-puzzle-dictionary heaven. They called again before the concert, and my mum said they’d try to call afterwards.

  They didn’t, but I was glad. It meant they were having a great time. And so was I. I slept like a baby and dreamed about how great it would be to go on to fifth grade. Maybe I’d even get a nice teacher. I had heard that Ms Warner was cool and let you watch videos on the days before holidays. And Mr Mooser told funny jokes and didn’t mind if you had a snack from your lunchbox if you were hungry in class.

  In the morning, I woke up and hung around in my pyjamas. It was great having no school.

  “Don’t you just love parent-teacher day?” I said to Cheerio when I woke up. He flipped over on to his back so I could scratch his stomach.

  “Yeah, boy,” I said with a big yawn. “We have all day to hang out and do whatever we want to do.”

  That’s what I thought, anyway.

  It was about ten o’clock in the morning, and I was sitting in my room, playing a great game of toe basketball. I was beating my own world record of eighteen baskets without leaving my desk chair.

  Toe basketball is a game I invented way back in the second grade. You squash up pieces of lined loose-leaf paper and toss them all over your floor. Then you sit in your desk chair. It’s better if the chair has wheels. You hold on to the bottom of the seat with your hands and scoop up the balls of paper with your toes and fling them into your bin, which you can put anywhere you want.

  I was on a hot streak. Or should I say, my toes were. Twenty-two baskets and only four misses. Sweet!

  Suddenly, I heard this noise coming from out in the corridor. There was yelling, screaming and banging so loud I thought the roof was caving in.

  I admit it. I was scared. Our building is usually really quiet except when my friends and I are making noise. But the noise we make is regular kid noise – running back and forth to each other’s flats, using the back stairs, playing ball in the courtyard outside the basement laundry room. Stuff like that.

  This noise didn’t sound like it was being made by kids.

  I jumped up and ran out into the living room. Emily arrived at the same time, with Katherine the Ugly riding on her back as usual. Katherine was hissing and snapping her grey tongue around like it was a whip. Papa Pete was in the kitchen, baking brownies, but he came out holding his wooden spoon to see what all the commotion was.

  We opened the living-room door and looked into the corridor. I couldn’t believe my eyes. My jaw dropped so low, it nearly hit the floor.

  It was my parents, none other than Stan and Randi Zipzer. They were standing in the corridor of our apartment block – swaying, singing and tambourining, as if they were still in Philadelphia at the Stone Cold Rock concert.

  My mum was wearing a black T-shirt with the band’s faces on the front and the words “I’m Whacked Out Crazy for You” in hot pink on the back. She had sparkly glitter all mixed up in her hair. But it was my dad who was the most shocking.

  He was wearing black leather trousers, and let me just say this right now: they were tight black leather trousers. My dad doesn’t spend a lot of time at the gym, so those trousers were tight in places where trousers aren’t supposed to be tight – especially the tummy area. He was wearing a black leather hat that made him look like a cross between Britney Spears and the leader of a tough motorcycle gang. And he was singing at the top of his lungs, banging a tambourine on his hip.

  “Dad, where did you get those trousers?” I said without losing a second.

  “From Skeeter,” he answered, then slapped the tambourine hard on his other hip.

  The door to Mrs Fink’s flat flew open, and she stuck her head out. At first she looked scared, but when she saw it was just my parents, she stepped into the hall and started dancing with my dad. She was wearing her big pink dressing gown, and I guessed she hadn’t put her false teeth in, because when she smiled, she was all gums and no teeth. My dad twirled her round a few times. She looked like a big, pink polar bear I saw in a Disney cartoon once.

  “Oh, did you kids have fun?” she asked my dad.

  Of course we couldn’t hear her over the tambourine banging, but I could read her lips through the open door. My dad didn’t answer, he just grabbed on to her dressing gown and spun her round again. She laughed, and I noticed that her gums matched her gown. I wondered if she’d planned it that way.

  “We’re home, kids!” my dad shouted when the song ended.

  No kidding. We would have never known unless you’d told us.

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you, Hank,” my father kept saying over and over again.

  “Kids, you would not believe your father,” my mum said as she almost skipped into our flat. “At one point, the crowd picked him up and passed him around the audience … your dad!”

  “But, Dad … I thought you didn’t like rock music,” Emily said.

  “It’s different when you see it live,” my dad said, wiping some sweat off his forehead and arms. I guess those leather trousers don’t let a lot of cool air in. “I’m so glad you all convinced me to go. I really got my groove on.”

  He got his what on? Did he say “groove”? Please tell me he didn’t say that.

  “And
the band could not have been nicer on the bus ride home,” my mum said. “Turns out Skeeter, the drummer, is a crossword-puzzle whizz. And Stan the Man here challenged Skeeter – we call him Skeet – to a New York Times Triple Crossword contest.”

  “Who won?” Emily asked.

  “It was a tie,” my father answered as he rattled his new tambourine above his head and slammed it into his right hip again. “But I’m down with that!”

  “Dad,” I said, trying to clear my ears to make sure I was hearing correctly. “Did you just say you’re down with that?”

  “No, Hank,” he answered, drumming out a beat on the coffee table. “I said I’m down wid dat. Skeet says you don’t pronounce the th. I’m down wid dat.”

  “This is the same Skeet whose trousers you’re wearing?”

  “That’s right,” my dad said. “We were on the bus coming home, and I leaned over to help Skeet with a clue. I think it was thirty-nine down. Or maybe it was forty-two across. Unless it was six down. That was a tricky one.”

  “Dad, the trousers? Remember?”

  “Oh, right. Well, when I leaned over to help Skeet, wouldn’t you know, I ripped my trousers right up the middle.”

  “It was so funny, we all cracked up,” my mum said, cracking up again.

  “So Skeet says to me, take my extra trousers. And I did. They look pretty darn cool, don’t they, son?”

  Oh, boy. I have fallen into a dream where my dad has become a rock ’n’ roll freak and I can’t wake up. Someone hit the snooze button on my clock radio!

  My dad strutted over to Papa Pete and danced in a circle round him, shaking his butt as much as the tight leather trousers would allow him. Papa Pete laughed and shook his butt right back at him. You can’t out butt-shake Papa Pete.

  “Hey, Papa Pete.” My dad laughed. “Let me see you shake that thang.”

  Let me point out that he didn’t say thing. He said THANG.

  My father, Stanley L. Zipzer – computer buff, mechanical-pencil collector, crossword-puzzle nut – just said “shake that thang”.

  Grabbing my mum, he launched into a chorus of another Stone Cold Rock song, “Rockin’ All Night in the Meadow with You”, pounding the tambourine on his hip in time to the wild beat.

  “Ow, that hurts,” he said, rubbing his hip when he had finished the song. “I have to find a new part of my body to play this with.”

  Well, that did it. Emily and Papa Pete burst out laughing. And I did too.

  “Hey, next time, use your butt,” I offered.

  We all laughed. I think I even saw Katherine’s scaly lip pull back into a smile. I never knew my dad could be so much fun.

  “Well,” my mum said, “I hate to break up the party, but we have to hurry off now. We’ll see you kids later.”

  “Where are you going?” I asked, the smile still on my face from watching my dad’s performance.

  “To school, of course,” my mum said. “It’s parent-teacher day. We have a one o’clock meeting with Ms Adolf.”

  Did I just say I had a smile on my face?

  Correction.

  Suddenly, there was no smile on my face. It had disappeared faster than you could say, “Redo.”

  My mouth went dry, and my knees started to shake.

  “But, Mum,” I said, “how did you know it was parent-teacher day?”

  My mind raced. Maybe she had found the brown envelope that I had left stuffed in the bottom of my rucksack under all the half-eaten cereal bars. Maybe Frankie’s mum had reminded her of the teacher meetings while they were doing the Downward Facing Dog or one of their other crazy positions in yoga class. Or maybe Ms Adolf had implanted a communication device in my mum’s head during Back to School Night and was sending secret messages to her. That had to be it.

  “Ms Adolf called to set up an appointment,” my mum said.

  What, no implant device? What was wrong with me? Why hadn’t I thought of the telephone?

  “Apparently, there was a pink permission slip that a certain someone was supposed to bring home,” my mum said, ruffling my hair with her hand. “And when you didn’t return yours, Ms Adolf called us directly.”

  My face must have turned all colours of red, green and blue, because my mum reached out and gave me a little kiss on the cheek.

  “Don’t worry about it, honey. I know how things slip your mind.”

  “But I thought you’d be gone…”

  “We wouldn’t miss meeting your teacher, Hank,” my dad said. “Not even for Filbert Funk.”

  “Or Stone Cold Rock,” my mum added.

  “Your education is very important to us,” my dad added. Uh-oh. He was starting to sound like himself again.

  “But what about the band … and the fully stocked bus and everything?” was all I could manage to say.

  “Oh, when we told Skeet and the boys that we had an appointment with your teacher, they didn’t mind coming back to New York early,” my mum said. “They said they were down with that.”

  Oh no. Now she was doing it, too!

  “Ms Adolf mentioned that we should bring a large brown envelope she sent home with you,” my mum said. “I assume that’s stuffed in your rucksack with all the other papers you always forget.”

  The room was starting to spin. All my plans, going down the drain in front of my eyes. Before I could move, my mum was unzipping the large compartment of my rucksack and pulling out the hideous brown envelope.

  I hate you, brown envelope!

  “Come on, Stanley. We’d better hurry.”

  “Wait!” I said, desperate to stop them. “You can’t go!”

  “Why not, honey?”

  “Because … because … well, look at Dad. He’s wearing leather trousers.”

  “So? I think they look kind of cute on him.”

  Cute? Maybe she has temporarily lost the sight in both eyes.

  “So … um … my teacher will think you’re a rock star, Dad, and then all the other teachers will swarm around you to get your autograph, and, well, you know how you feel about crowds and all.”

  I looked over at Emily for help. She actually looked like she felt sorry for me.

  My mum picked up her handbag and headed for the door. “We’re looking forward to talking to your teacher, Hank. I’m sure she’ll have many lovely things to say about you.”

  My dad gave me a soul-brother handshake.

  “Keep it real, dude,” he said. “Later.”

  And with that, he bopped out the door after my mum. As they were waiting for the lift, I think I heard him say, “Ram dang diggety ram dang,” but I can’t be totally sure.

  I felt sick to my stomach. I ran to the phone and called Frankie.

  “Townsend here. Talk to me,” he said. Frankie never just says hello.

  “It’s me. Bad news. They came back early.”

  “What happened?” Frankie asked.

  “It’s a long story involving leather trousers and a telephone,” I said. “The point is, they’re on their way to school.”

  “I’ll get Ashley,” Frankie said. “We’ll meet you downstairs in the clubhouse in five minutes.”

  Our clubhouse is a storage room in the basement of our block of flats. It’s filled to the ceiling with boxes of winter clothes and Christmas dishes and silk cushions and other weird stuff the adults in our block have collected over the years. We have a sofa and a chair, and Frankie, Ashley and I have had some really fun times there.

  This definitely wasn’t one of those times.

  “I have to face it,” I said as I stood in front of Frankie and Ashley five minutes later, “my plan has failed. I’m doomed.”

  “You tried your best, Zip,” Frankie said.

  “Here, I made this for you,” Ashley said. She handed me a notebook with the word “HANK” written on the front in red rhinestones. “You can use it next year, no matter what grade you’re in.”

  “Thanks, Ashweena. I’m going to miss you guys. Who will I talk to in class?”

  “Yo
u can talk to me,” said a nasal voice from the corridor. “I’ll be in class with you.”

  I spun round and, sure enough, it was Robert Upchurch, my new classmate and best friend.

  “It won’t be so bad, Hank,” the little nerd said. “We’ll hang out together in the playground. I know you like to play ball and I don’t participate in physical games, but I’m sure we’ll enjoy good conversations about many topics, such as penguins, the internal-combustion engine and nanobots. I can’t believe how lucky I am.”

  No way. I can’t repeat fourth grade. Not with him. I just can’t.

  I’m not sure what was in my mind at that very second, but I knew that I had to get to school. I had to try to stop what was going to happen to me. I ran out of the clubhouse, down the hall, up the stairs to the ground floor and out of the door of our block of flats. I ran and ran and didn’t stop until I reached the door of Ms Adolf’s classroom.

  I stood there in the upstairs corridor of PS 87 panting like a cheetah that had just chased an antelope all the way across the jungle. The door to Ms Adolf’s room was closed. A sign written in her handwriting said: “Do not disturb. Meeting in progress.”

  I leaned up against the door and pressed my ear to it really hard. I could hear voices in there, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. I heard Dr Berger talking. At least she was there. Her voice sounded nice and calm. Then I heard Ms Adolf interrupt her. I could tell it was her voice, because it sounded mean like a crow or maybe a cockerel with an ingrown toenail. I didn’t have to hear her words to know that she wasn’t paying me a lot of compliments.

  Then I heard my dad’s voice. He was talking louder than the others, and I was pretty sure I could understand what he was saying.

  “All righty, then. I’m down with that,” I heard him say.

  Hey, Dad. Don’t be down with that. Don’t be down with anything.