Please give me time to study and retake the math part and stay in the ALC. I know I can do it. Yours very sincerely, Vee Nguyen.
Folding the note, she slipped it under the door.
Back in her seat in the ALC—oh, how she wanted it to continue to be her seat—Vee fished out the math book. Time to catch up. Where to start? Oh. The board. Each teacher placed their homework and any other notes on a white board that hung to the right of the big main board.
Ms. Smith: Review fractions. Chapter 1: Number Theory.
Complete divisibility exercise #1, Rational numbers #2.
Fractions. Vee hated fractions. They were stupid. Rational numbers? If there were rational numbers, were there irrational numbers? Irrational, like Dad said her dislike of the math tutor, Math Man, was? Inside, a super math zizzle zoomed around her stomach.
A hand was on her shoulder. Mr. Tuttle. This hand-on-the-shoulder bit was getting old. “Guidance counselor. In the hall.” Another glance at the math book and Vee wasn’t sure her note mattered. How could she understand seventh-grade math if last year’s review zizzled her insides?
Regular sixth grade would be okay because:
1. I would never have homework.
2. I can read while everyone else is finishing.
3. I might learn to understand math.
4. I’ll be the smartest kid in the class.
The guidance counselor held up the note. “I have your plan.” She smiled. “Shall we talk?”
Should she go for the Plan? Vee hesitated.
What’s WRONG with regular sixth grade:
1. I lose my spot in the ALC, and then I don’t have ANYTHING.
2. Kids in the regular class will think I wasn’t smart enough to stay in the ALC.
3. I’ll be bored.
4. I’ll still have to do math.
5. C. P. will be in the ALC and I won’t.
The thought of the Squadders feeling sorry for her (except for maybe Esther, who secretly might be glad) rushed in. Bill and Mom. Spot. Dad and Heather. Spot. The Twin Terrors. Spot. Her. SPOT-LESS.
It did matter. She wanted—needed—her spot. It was the only place where she mattered. She so wanted to matter. Somewhere.
“Yes.” This time her voice was firm. “My plan.”
The guidance counselor gazed down the hall where two fifth-grade girls that Vee had seen at lunch were pushing an AV cart and taking turns jumping on the cart and riding it. She started to say something in that direction, shook her head, and turned back to Vee. “You are one of our most determined students, Vee,” she said.
Vee’s eyes filled quickly. Two tears spilled from her left eye and one from the right. “It’s my spot,” she whispered.
“Pretty much the first month is review, which just might give you the boost to push you over on the retake.” The counselor appeared to be thinking out loud. “I’ve asked Ms. Smith. It’s okay with her. Since that’s the day the Helpful City Festival begins, there’s no school. The festival won’t open until noon, so you can take the retest in the morning. The charities looking for volunteers and vendors will be setting up their booths then. You can set up your service-learning project after the retest.”
Sure. Whatever her service-learning project ended up being. Vee counted quickly. Just over a month. She could do this, pass the retest, and get back to the business of being one of the smart kids in the ALC.
Another hand on the shoulder. Did teachers learn this in teacher school? “Just don’t put too much pressure on yourself, Vee. There’s more to your sixth-grade year than being in the accelerated center. Lots of great kids are in the other sixth-grade class.”
But Vee, while hearing, was not listening. Giddy with relief, she pushed open the door to the ALC, ignoring the doubt that popped up deep within her. She had a chance. She would win her spot.
Chapter 6
Good-bye, S.A.V.E. Squad
What do you mean he’s not home?” It was after seven.
Her stepmom Heather’s voice flowed over the phone as warm as ever with a tiny hint of Southern twang. “Oh, baby, he’s out of town for work.”
“No, he can’t be!” Vee’s voice climbed to a shriek. She swallowed hard. “Can’t I call his cell?”
“You could try to call, but it’s one of those business retreats where everyone has to turn in their cell phone so they can truly engage, honey.”
In the background Vee heard a crash and then two high-pitched voices shouting. She could never tell Joshua from Jacob and didn’t really care to. They looked the same. They smelled the same. Like dirty feet and sweaty hair. Heather’s voice turned away from the phone and said something muffled to the twins. Then she was back. “He’ll be home for your weekend. He wants to see you.”
Dad got to turn off his world? That was so beetling unfair.
“Can I help with anything, honey?” Her voice sounded hesitant.
Vee felt her face warm. She hadn’t been too nice to Heather since her dad married her and her two kids. Mom had told her to be polite and she had, but—
“No … I guess … well, I want—need—to have Dad pay for math tutoring three times a week until the festival opens so I can pass the math readiness retake, otherwise I won’t be able to stay in the accelerated but C. P. can and—”
“Whoa, whoa, that sounds like something your dad needs to do. Or your mom?”
Vee fell silent. Dad paid for math tutoring because Mom and Bill couldn’t. Things had changed a lot since Mom and Dad divorced. Like Dad living in a really big house in the next town, and Mom and Vee in Bill’s small house where the garage was bigger than the house.
“As long as I have you on the phone, Vee,”—her voice brightened—“how about you and me and the boys get together at Burger Mania so you three can have some bonding time?”
Bonding time. Burger Mania. The Twin Terrors. That would be mania. No thanks. As she moved to punch off the phone, she heard another crash in the background. She headed toward the stairs and the ATP that had her dad’s number on speed dial. She knew him better than Heather did. He would never give up his cell phone. “I can do this! I just have to keep my want-to ramped up!” Her lips quivered, however, and the want-to was wanting to burst into ramped-up sobs.
The doorbell rang. She wanted to scream. Would the world just leave her alone? What else could go wrong? The tears she’d tried to swallow were falling. She’d just ignore the door. Bill breezed in from his garage. “Hey, Vee. I’ll get the door. Your mom’s working late again tonight. Leftovers okay?”
“Fine.” She kept on going up the stairs. At the sound of a babble of familiar voices, she turned.
Bill stood with the front door open. Aneta, Sunny, and Esther surged through it, waving at Vee. She should tell them she was really busy. She didn’t have time for friends right now. She needed to call her dad and get this day saved. Somehow. The idea of staring at that math book by herself until the retest spilled a couple more tears.
“We’re here.” Sunny grinned at her and then looked around the small living room. “Cool tree,” she said of the floor-to-ceiling real potted palm Bill had gotten when he’d been flown to Hawaii to fix some special diesel engine before Vee’s mom knew him.
“We are here,” Aneta said quietly, her blue eyes shining. “We missed you on the library steps today.”
Oh. The steps. They had made plans at the end of summer, during one of Aneta’s Pool Plashes, that they would meet every day after school and walk home together. When they first met, they’d discovered they all lived within a street of each other, but since they all went to different schools, and Sunny homeschooled, they’d never met. Today she’d shot out of school like her backpack was on fire, sprinting to the community center parking lot.
The curious kitten had been on top of the Dumpster. As soon as Vee approached, all the cats vanished, including the curious one. She’d opened the little can, tucked it where the kitten seemed to like to peer at her, hoped for the best, and jetted home. A quick glanc
e over her shoulder showed the curious kitten had found it. Their eyes met. Vee smiled.
“Sorry,” she said to the girls, not knowing what else to say. Every second she stood there, her dad might be walking toward some stupid pile of stupid cell phones. Don’t do it, Dad!
“Are you okay?” Esther cocked her head. “Your face looks funny. Have you been crying?”
A pause lay heavily between them until Bill shifted his feet and muttered, “Food. I’ll get food,” and disappeared into the kitchen. Cupboard doors banged. Esther placed her hands on her hips and said, “We agreed we’re not leaving until you tell us what’s going on.” She smiled a quick smile. “So there.”
Fresh tears leaked as Vee regarded her three friends. The girls stepped forward and pulled her into the living room. Aneta knelt in front of Vee while Sunny and Esther flanked Vee on the sagging blue-green couch held up by old copies of National Diesel Mechanics.
Sunny patted her hand yet said nothing. Vee turned to her and found her red-haired friend’s eyes sparkling, holding back the Sunny smile. Then it broke out.
“Vee,” she said, flopping back against the couch and causing a couple of months of the magazines to slide, tipping her toward Vee. “What’s wrong? You ditched us yesterday and today, and don’t say you didn’t.” She grinned. “I’ll just keep patting your hand like a grandma ’cause I don’t know what’s wrong.”
Vee smiled a watery smile. Nobody could avoid smiling when Sunny did. Even Esther, who could get really crabby when other people were noticed, smiled when Sunny smiled.
“My mom said do not leave until you spill your … guts,” Aneta said, slowly.
Unless Vee did, she’d never get to call her dad. She checked her thoughts. The girls cared. Remember that. Taking a deep breath, Vee sat up, squared her shoulders, and poured out the words: “There’s the curious kitten. And my math score isn’t high enough to stay in the Accelerated Learning Center, but C. P. can. If I pass a retest on the Friday morning when the Helpful City Festival starts, I can stay. This little curious one keeps looking at me—” She choked.
Her mother often said that “ventilating” made her feel better. Vee didn’t feel better. In fact, she was perplexed. When had the welfare of the curious kitten risen to the same importance as staying in the ALC? “I’ve got to call Dad on his cell phone before he puts it in the pile with the others—”
“Curious kitten in your ALC with C. P.?” Esther sounded confused. “Does your class have a class pet?”
“Food,” Bill announced, coming through the kitchen doorway with a tray and three paper plates. Jagged chunks of yellow cheese and quartered apples lay on the plates. “Brain food. For whatever you need to figure out.”
Esther dove in. “Wow, thank you, Mr.—” She paused and looked up at Bill, a piece of cheese in one hand and an apple quarter in the other. “Um, what’s your name?”
“Bill.” He departed.
“What I get is you need to retest in math?” Esther’s voice sounded like she was puzzling out a mystery. Vee nodded.
“So you can stay in the ALC?” That was Aneta joining in.
Another nod.
“And it bugs you that C. P. doesn’t have to retest to stay in the ALC,” Sunny finished.
Vee hunched her shoulders and nodded.
“And the curious kitten comes in…?” Esther’s voice rose in question. “I don’t get that part.”
Vee explained how she’d met the curious kitten and how she kept wondering about those Dumpster cats.
“They’re wild cats,” Sunny said. “The Cat Woman feeds them. What can we do?”
There had to be something to make Hermann not send the Animal Control officer to get rid of them. Whatever get rid of meant. It didn’t sound good for the cats.
“I’m smart in math but not smarter than sixth grade,” Esther said, folding her arms across her oversized T-shirt that read WHY NOT? “Regular sixth grade isn’t so bad, Vee. I’m having fun.”
“My place is in the ALC. It has to be. My dad is out of town, and ole Heather won’t tell the tutor to go ahead without Dad’s permission.”
For a few moments no one said anything.
Sunny stood up and began to pace in front of the coffee table. “Not to change the subject …” She pumped her arms like a windmill until her breath came in gasps. “But—to—change—whew!—the subject,”—she gestured to Esther and Aneta—“I guess all the teachers went to some conference this summer and heard service-learning projects were cool. My parents decided to have me do one with our homeschooling, too. We all chose projects that are at the senior center. Can you do yours there, too?”
There it was again. That beetling service-learning project. Their eager faces nearly undid her want-to to get to the phone.
“I—I …” Visions of leaving the ALC and reentering normal sixth grade danced in her head. “I can’t think about a dumb service-learning project until I know I can stay in the ALC.” She leaped to her feet. And figure out what to do about the curious kitten. “I have to keep my want-to ramped. It’s me and the math book for the next month. Sorry.”
She ushered the girls out the front door, hopping up and down on her toes, trying to bounce up some excitement, bouncing herself breathless instead. As the door closed behind the girls, she heard Aneta say, “Esther, I do not like a want-to ramp. It makes Vee not be with the Squad.”
Oh, math. I hate you, you big beetle-y thing.
Twenty minutes later, she knew things were looking up. Dad had kept his phone. He had to whisper because he was hiding behind some tree so no one would see he still had his. Yes, he said, he’d call Math Man and authorize three times a week until the day before the retest.
“Dad, I know I can pass this test. I’ve got my want-to ramped up to the sky. I do!”
Her dad was quiet, and for a moment she thought someone had gotten to him and relieved him of his cell. “Okay,” he said, finally. “When I get back, we need to talk about the want-to. Heather’s been talking to me about that and I—”
Yes, yes, yes. He’d said yes. She’d show him. A Dad Weekend was coming up, and even though she’d probably have to shout above the Twin Terrors yelling and breaking things, she’d explain how important it was to stay in the ALC. He could give her some ideas on how to help the curious kitten. “Sure, Dad. See you this weekend. Bye!”
Chapter 7
Beetle-y Math Man
Vee sighed, wrenching her gaze away from the sliding glass door and her dad and the Twin Terrors playing soccer in the backyard. She was supposed to have Dad all to herself on Dad Weekends. Already it was late Saturday afternoon, and she’d still not gotten her father alone.
“Focus, Vee,” came the voice she despised. Math Man looked rather like a beetle with his short neck and eyebrows that winged out like antennas. She bent her head over her paper and pencil again, wondering if beetles had bad breath.
“Sorry,” she muttered. She stared at the word problem.
During a winter’s night, the lowest temperature was recorded at 19 degrees Fahrenheit. The wind-chill factor that same night was -7 degrees Fahrenheit. What was the difference between the wind-chill temperature and the low temperature?
It wasn’t winter, first off. Vee hated word problems that didn’t have anything to do with real life. She penciled in 12 and moved on.
What is the common difference of the arithmetic pattern shown here: -5, -1, 3, 7, …
Vee’s pencil began to doodle a stick figure of a kitten in the margins of the page. Twenty-six days from today until the retest. She would be stuck with Math Man forever. Sighing, she snuck another look at the yard. The Twin Terrors had just tackled Dad around the knees, and he was struggling to walk. And laughing.
Math Man checked his watch. “Our hour is up. You’ve got all the tools to get this math down. I don’t know why it’s not clicking for you. I haven’t had this trouble with other students.” His tone wondered as though maybe Vee was the first idiot he’d ever tutored. Her
ears burned.
What to do after passing retest:
Have a party
Math Man left to talk to her father while Vee packed up her backpack. She slanted a glance out of the corner of her eyes to see if she could tell what was going on. Math Man was gesturing with his long, skinny arms, his ever-present black coat flapping a little. Dad sent the Twin Terrors into the house. That ended any kind of spying.
“Hi, Vee the B!” said Twin Terror number one or TT1. He was an exact copy of his little brother and couldn’t have looked less like Vee. They were blond, their thick hair longish and always in their eyes. Vee wanted to get rubber bands and tie their hair up like a Yorkie terrier. It would be safer to see their not-so-innocent eyes. With big brown eyes, they looked sort of like those cherubs on the Victorian Christmas cards her grandmother sent. Any resemblance ended there. They were loud and smelled like boys who hated baths.
TT2 flopped into a chair next to her. “Vee the B. That creepy guy told Papa you won’t pass the test even if you stand on your head.” Flailing his arms, he fell off the chair and rolled up against the wall where he tried to stand on his head, banging his feet on the wall as he flung them up time after time.
“Get your feet off the wall,” Vee said, putting her backpack by the stairs to take up to her room. Thanks a lot, Math Man.
Heather breezed into the kitchen, her signature perfume of something citrusy wafting over to Vee. Vee sniffed. It was a vital antidote to O’dor de Boys.
“Boys, leave Vee alone. You’re not to torment.” Her Southern twang took on flecks of ice when she was stern. “Joshua, get your feet off the wall.”
Behind her back, Vee made a “ha-ha” face. So that one was Joshua. How did their mother tell? Vee had to give her stepmother credit, however grudgingly. She didn’t let the Twin Terrors get away with much. Dad did though. Like he was trying to be their friend or something.
The Great Cat Caper Page 3